SUPPLEMENTATION 101
by Victor Cabot

Let me state right here that I am not a nutritionist. I like to work on my body's look and strength through gym workouts, and I use supplements to further that goal. What I know, I learned by trial and error, by reading and sifting information, by trying products, and by talking to many people who have done the same. From all that, I've come to some conclusions about what basics I think will work for just about anybody..

If you are new to using nutritional supplements, I hope you don't mind if I think of you as a "newbie" here. Everyone is a newbie the first they do anything in life. What a newbie needs to know about nutritional supplementation doesn't need to be particularly complicated. If you are an old hand, read on anyway. Maybe you will tell me some ideas I should add to this article.

At first, supplement choices seem pretty overwhelming. Your intelligent understanding can get very clouded by all the marketing hype, research claims, testimonials and success stories, product comparisons, and complex and arcane studies and facts. Some of the information is valid or at least valuable, some clearly is a waste of ink or electrons.

I believe that whether you want to gain or lose, everything revolves around diet, i.e., how, what and when you eat, followed by appropriate physical activity or training, supplementation and rest/recuperation. I say diet, not dieting. Dieting seems to imply a temporary change in eating habits. It would be better to think of how you will eat to reach a goal and stay there as a permanent modification, not a event. After all, the way you presently are eating is a learned behavior. I won't go much into diet and timing meals here. However, suffice it to say that you need to eat properly - not starve - to diet and that several small meals throughout the day are better for you than the traditional "3 square" ones. Moreover, by controlling what kinds carbs you eat (low glycemic and high glycemic) and when you eat them, you will make eating really work for you, rather than just feed you. If you are really interested in the subject, look into the Atkins Diet or similar eating plans. Bear in mind that you don't have to be a slave to a diet plan for it to work, but dedication and commitment to proper eating can work near miracles for your heath and fitness.

Here are my simple supplementation guidelines.

To begin with, supplementation doesn't mean substitution. Of course you can substitute a 300 calorie meal replacement powder (MRP) for a cooked meal, but I mean you don't want to just take some vitamins and not eat. MRP's are a great way to add in the extra meals you should have.

I consider the foundation supplements for growth, for leaning out, or even for maintenance to be protein, flax seed oil, alpha lipoic acid, conjugated linoleic acid and L-glutamine. I am not ignoring carbohydrates, because everyone get plenty of them. Of course, most people tend toward the tasty and readily available high glycemic carbs (breads, pastas, sugary foods) rather than low glycemic ones (whole grains, like oatmeal for example) which are much healthier on the whole, but carbs is a topic of its own and outside the focus of this article.

Assuming you get some protein in your diet, I mean extra protein. A good amount for an average person is around 20 to 40 grams of protein per meal. You can see this may lead to a moderately high protein diet, especially if you are cutting carbs in relation to the protein. You need the protein to maintain muscle, of course, but if you are cutting carbs, it can become a beneficial source of energy along with fats. Because your body must work harder to convert the protein, it high protein diets can contribute to leanness.

I believe L-glutamine to be one of the most important supplements, especially if you are trying to gain mass. L-glutamine provides numerous health benefits, some of which are detailed on the glutamine page on this site. For supplementation purposes, it promotes a positive nitrogen balance in the body, thereby improving the utilization of protein for building muscle.

Flax seed oil is a wonderful product. You need "good" fats in your diet to stay healthy. Flax seed oil gives you essential fatty acids, including alpha lipoic acid (which you can take on its own and helps bring nutrients into your cells), and is greatsource of energy (calories) in place of carbohydrates. Olive oil and other monosaturated fats are good for you, too.

My last choice for basic supplementation is conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). It is especially beneficial for maintaining lean body mass by keeping fat cells small and by sending nutritients into lean tissue instead of fat cells (known as nutrient partitioning).

Beyond these basics, what supplements you take depends on what effects you want to promote. There are prohormones for anabolic action, fat burners and blockers for accelerated weightloss, neurotransmitter agents, and a variety of vitamins, minerals, and herbs which can be effective tools.

I certainly would consider adding GABA to a second-tier list. As stated on the GABA page, taking this supplement at bedtime helps stimulate the release of growth hormone (good for mass and for leanness) and promotes a more restful sleep. As we age, our natural growth hormone secretion declines, and with it, many of our functions - immune, regeneration, vitality, mood, bone density, skin density and texture, etc. - also change for the worse. GABA's effect on GH release is an important step in the other direction.

Finally, I want to make a point about training in relation to supplemention. Don't overtrain and leave yourself plenty of time to recuperate between working your various muscle groups. That way, your improved eating and supplementation will be much more effective.