What you put into your body goes a long way to maintaining your health.
By Jay Campbell and Jim Brown
In today’s world of Internet gurus and Google doctors, it’s incredibly important to make rational decisions when choosing what goes into your body. Doing so can be the difference between building muscle, enhancing longevity and sabotaging your body’s regeneration process. With that in mind, we tackle three issues that often come into play when trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle: Injectable nutrients, optimal omega fatty acid ratios and post-diet consumption.
Injectable Nutrients
From our bodybuilding perspective, the use of some injectable nutrients are effective and seemingly worth the money. Injectable L-carnitine is one such example. In our empirical experiments, it took roughly three times the amount of orally supplemented L-carnitine to equate the same amount of injected L-carnitine. However, to be effective you’re looking at 200mg a day necessary to be injected. That adds a significant volume to your injection schedule. Even though it’s water based and dissipates fast, 3ccs of anything daily is still a pain in the butt, literally.
Tri Amino, for instance, is a combination made up of three amino acids: Arginine, ornithine and citrulline all in 100mg amounts per 1ml of solution. The typical recommendation is 1.5 to 3mls of solution. This may be the answer if the oral bioavailability of these amino acids were low or otherwise compromised. That isn’t the case.
Many take citrulline and arginine orally in their intra-workout drink. Based on the pump and the flush on their faces, it could be argued that it’s an effective dose and ultimately more cost effective. Not to mention it’s one less injection. It definitely seems to match up more closely, mg to mg, than say L-carnitine.
B12 and glutathione are worth the money and effort, as the bioavailability of oral preparations can be compromised. Many respond very positively to B12 injections and don’t mind taking that shot daily, as it is water based and dosages are often only 1ml.
We don’t use L-carnitine except for a few instances like trying to maintain a very low bodyfat percentage and conditioning between competitions. With the Tri Amino preparation, you’re looking at 3mls a day either through injection or orally (just throwing them in your workout mix). Going the oral route, the cost is much less and just as effective.
We do recommend B12 and glutathione as injectable and believe the costs are in line with what you gain from going injectable over oral. The total ml volume injected is low in both instances, so compliance with recommended amounts and frequencies are easily doable.
Optimal Omega Ratio
Balancing your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio will offer major improvements in your vascular health. Today’s typical American diet is rich in omega-6 fatty acids, while it is lacking in omega-3.
Omega-3 is at the top of the list of must-take supplements, but how much should you take? Technically, that depends on how much omega-6 you ingest. Typical sources of omega-6 are vegetable oils like corn, soybean and sunflower. Each of these is a staple product found in many processed foods.
Today’s average American diet has produced imbalanced fatty acid ratios ranging from 15:1 to as much as 30:1 with omega-6 being in the lead position. That’s an incredible quantity of cytokines causing inflammation. A 3:1 ratio would be healthy and optimal.
A high omega-6 imbalance will lead to a pro-inflammatory response, which is the genesis of many disease pathways. Combined with foods high in sugar (usually accompanying the intake of most processed food high in omega-6), this delivers a one-two punch to your vascular system.
By supplementing omega-3s and choosing more intelligent sources of fat (such as olive oil, butter from grass fed cows and avocado oil), while avoiding oils high in omega-6 at all costs, you’ll start to balance out this ratio and begin to improve vascular health.
Understanding this, it’s imperative you purchase purified omega-3 fatty acid capsules –paying very close attention to the amount of omega-3 per tablet – and that you dose accordingly. If you’re not able to find purified deep-sea preparations and have to purchase fish oil, get capsules having the most omega-3 fatty acid per tablet and, obviously, the least amount of omega-6. Your goal must always be to minimize consumption of omega-6 and maximize your omega-3 fatty acid intake. Don’t assume the amount of omega-3 fatty acids per capsule coincides with the big flashy number in the name of the product. It likely only has 300mg. That’s why it’s so critical to read your labels very carefully.
In order to optimize the omega ratio, we recommend taking a minimum of 3 grams, or 3,000mg, of this supplement daily in divided doses. Many take 10 to 15 grams every day without adverse effects.
Post-Diet Consumption
One of the most commonly asked questions by those who are dieting is: “When I get to my desired bodyfat level and or body weight how do I eat after that?” The answer is a simple one, which you’re not going to like unless you’ve already come to the state of mind that you should have formulated at the onset of said diet plan.
If you drop 20 pounds of fat and go back to the type of diet you were eating before losing the fat, you’ll just put it back on. Changing your diet must always be looked at as a lifestyle change. That’s it. That’s the secret.
Now, of course, we can get a little more detailed. You’ll most likely move from a calorie deficit to a neutral or maintenance caloric intake. That will stop you from losing more weight/bodyfat and keep you right where you are.
It’s important to be cognizant of the simple fact that a calorie isn’t just a calorie either. Insulin sensitivity and body type will always dictate how much carbohydrate you consume and the type of carbs you require to lose fat, build muscle and or make further changes in your health.
Jay Campbell is the author of the #1 5 Star Rated Book ever written on Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT), The Definitive TRT MANual, the founder of TRTRevolution.com and the creator of the TRT Revolution Podcast. Jim Brown was an NPC super heavyweight bodybuilder for over a dozen years, the creator of Forged Training and a performance improvement specialist who has coached thousands. Together they work tirelessly to help aging fitness enthusiasts realize their health and fitness goals. Read much more at TRTRevolution.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login