Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1227: The 5 Most Important Supplements to Take

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the five kinds of supplements many people need to take if nutrients are lacking in their whole food diet.  What are supplements? (4:24) Why do certain segments of the population NEED supplements? (6:43) The importance of testing to track the changing of your nutrient demands. (15:15) Why whole foods are the ideal source. (18:40) The 5 Most Important Supplements to Take.  (24:00) Vitamins and minerals to fill nutrient deficiencies. (26:41) Protein. (41:19) Creatine. (47:11) Caffeine. (53:15) Adaptogens. (1:00:46) Related Links/Products Mentioned February Promotion: MAPS Split ½ off! **Code “SPLIT50” at checkout** Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Folate deficiency Health effects of vegan diets Visit Everly Well for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Visit Joovv for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump 1125: Dr. Jolene Brighten- What You Need to Know About the Menstrual Cycle Low Vitamin D Levels Associated with Colds and Flu Visit Organifi for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Mind Pump 1220: The 4 Best Sources of Protein Your Brain on Creatine | Psychology Today The Benefits Of Caffeine Cycling A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Study Examining the Hormonal and Vitality Effects of Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) in Aging, Overweight Males A preliminary review of studies on adaptogens: comparison of their bioactivity in TCM with that of ginseng-like herbs used worldwide Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Dr. Jolene Brighten (@drjolenebrighten)  Instagram Jessica Di Stefano (@thetraininghour)  Instagram    

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we tackle a topic that a lot of people approach us on a regular basis. People want to know what are the best supplements, what should I know, what are the best supplements? What should I take? What is worth investing in? And what is a total waste of money?

So what we did is we made it easy for you. We actually listed the top five most important supplements to take. We broke them all down for you. We broke them down into vitamins and minerals, common deficiencies, filling vitamin and mineral deficiencies, easily the most important thing you could possibly do with supplements with profound effects on your health,

performance, fat loss, and muscle building. We talk about protein and protein supplements, creatine and its effects. Talk about caffeine, and then we mentioned adaptogens. Now, adaptogens is a category of compounds that help the body deal with stress. Cortiseps, for example, is an adaptogenic mushroom that helps the body deal with stress.

What does that mean? It means you burn more body fat, build more muscle, you improve your performance because your body adapts better to the stress of exercise and of course to the stresses of everyday life. Now one of our favorite companies that covers lots of adaptogenic compounds. In fact, they have adaptogenic mixes with multiple adaptogenic compounds is four, sigmatic. Now, four somatic specializes in mushroom based supplements in particular adaptogens, like I just mentioned,

and they are having a massive, massive winter sale. Literally everything on their store is between 20 to 50% off. Here's the best part. If you use the code, mind pump, or you click on the link in the show notes So if you're listening to us on your phone, scroll down, click on the four-sigmatic link

You'll get an additional 15% off on top of that. Now the website is four-sigmatic.com four-sash mind pump code mind pump or click on that special link. Also, this month, all month long, Maps Split is 50% off. Now, Maps Split is our workout program designed by bodybuilders, physique competitors, and bikini competitors. If your goal is to shape and sculpt your body, if there's specific areas of your body that you want to focus on in the gym, if you love working out, this is a six-day-a-week routine. It is advanced, but it's extremely effective. Mapsplit is for you. It's half off.

Here's how you for the discount. I'm really excited to get into this topic. I think God, it was probably a couple of years ago when I shared with you guys a guide that I wanted to make. And we never got around to doing it. Of course, it just didn't hit the top. This will be better though. Yeah, the title of this episode, things we wanted to do with it.

Yeah, you know, it's, we're gonna make up for it here. That is not, the title is gonna be the five most important supplements to take. Oh yeah. But really the theme of the guide, what I wanted to do because this is what I found the most valuable later on, right?

I think we've shared openly on the podcast many times that we probably took every supplement under the sun as young teenage guys in early 20s trying to reach our goals faster. And later on, the more that I learned about nutrient deficiencies and performance supplements and what really moved the needle for not only me, but all the hundreds of clients

that I train, I realized that I was wasting a lot of my money. And I probably, if I was going to spend it on supplements, I probably should have geared it in another direction. So, you know, I'm really excited to talk about this subject. And I think the first thing that we always address when we talk about supplementation and no matter who are sponsored by, we will always recommend Whole Foods first. That's where supplements come from. So what are supplements? Right? Supplements are products that you take that are designed to supplement your current diet. And they typically come in the form of pills,

tablets, capsules, powders. Sometimes they come in liquid form. You can make them into teas. There's a lot of different ways to take supplements, but the idea is to supplement. You can actually supplement that way. Not the way you do it though, Justin. It doesn't work that way. I'm advanced. But that's what supplements are. Now, we've been, humans have been taking supplements for a very, very long time. They exist in Chinese medicine, which is thousands of years old. And even in Western medicine, in the early days of Western medicine, people have taken lots of different supplements. In fact, some of the very first fat loss supplements, you can actually look these up on Google,

you can actually Google these pictures of some of the first advertisements for fat loss supplements. Some of the most popular ones in the early days were tapeworm eggs. You could actually buy tapeworm eggs in capsule form. What was the idea of that again? Take morons. Wait a little. Oh, wow.

So it's all your food. Take this parasite. Yeah, put a little friend in your body, help you eat your, yeah. And people would take them and actually lose weight. What bad could happen? So supplements have been around for a very long period of time. And you're right, Adam.

Food is always best. All supplements initially got discovered in food and in food products. There it is right there. Look at that fat-bannished tapeworms. Oh, that's so great. That's funny. So they all came from things that we discovered that were in food. And once we discovered what they did, we saw,

oh, you should supplement with this because it could give you those benefits. That's not really how a lot of supplements work. So I want to kind of get into that. Before that, we talk about what supplements and what they do and the ones that we think are best. There are certain populations, certain segments of the population

who tend to need supplements more than other people. And the reason for this is because there are certain segments of the population that either A, the risk of a deficiency, or the risk of having a deficiency is high, or B, you don't want to take a chance of having a deficiency if you're in a particular population. So for example, for that one, people who are women who are trying to conceive or are pregnant, this is a great example of that, right?

Are pregnant women or women who are trying to conceive, are there a greater percentage of them with deficiencies versus the average person? Probably not, but their stakes are a little bit higher. For example, if your folate intake is a little low and you're not having a baby, not that big of a deal, if you are having a baby, not having it a folate can result in some serious issues. In fact, I can't remember off the top of the head

with the number one, maybe Doug can look that up, one of the number one issues are related to a folate deficiency in pregnant women, but I know that it has declined significantly since pregnant women and women who are trying to can see if they've been have advice to take full it right I think that come I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly that was one of the supplements in like Katrina's You know pregnant they make pregnant multi vitamins. Oh prenatal. Excuse me. Yes, prenatal, right?

So I know that that had I know it had full eight in it for sure. Yes neural tube defects And they've gone down significantly since pregnant women and women who are trying to conceive have been told to take folate or prenatal vitamins have been, because that's a staple now in Western medicine. If you're trying to conceive or you're pregnant, your doctor's like, here's, in fact, it's prenatal vitamins oftentimes are prescription, which you don't need to have a prescription to get them, but oftentimes they will prescribe these vitamins because of that.

So that's one category, right? Well, another example would be people on specialty diets. You know, when we, and that's one of the reasons why I don't care for diets that much is because when we tend to follow, and the more strict diet is, the more limiting it is nutrient-wise. If you follow a carnivore, ketogenic, a vegan type of diet, and you eliminate food groups completely out of your diet, maybe for fat loss,

it is great for you, but what ends up happening a lot of times with those people is because they don't do the homework and research of, okay, now that I've completely eliminated this category of foods, what nutrients was I getting previously from that, and these things don't tend to like show themselves right away. You tend to see this after months or even years sometimes of consistently eating a certain way or eliminating certain foods in the day. And sometimes the symptoms are general.

They're not like extreme, like, oh my God, I'm dying. It can get to that point. And oftentimes people go to the doctor and then they'll test and be like, whoa, your vitamin B, you know, 12 is super low or whatever. But sometimes people are just like, I'm tired. My skin is rashi or dry. I have cracks at the corners of my mouth.

My hair is brittle. Hair is brittle. Nails are weak. Constant bloat. Yeah, like these kind of subtle symptoms that can come from these nutrient deficiencies. I'm glad you said what you said at them because it's 100% true and the number one category of, you know, specialty diets that tends to result in deficiencies. Not always, but it's a higher percentage or vegans.

This is, by the way, this is not an anti-vegan thing to say. This is a statistic, this is an objective fact. This is true. You can look it up yourself. But vegans are at higher risk of nutrient deficiencies in particular iron and B12. And if you are a vegan and you go to a doctor, the odds are that they will recommend that you take supplements to supplement your diet because meat does provide certain essential nutrients that are very difficult and sometimes even impossible to get from plant sources. Another one are people who have food intolerances. The reason why this can cause nutrient deficiencies, well I'll give you a great example.

I'm one of these people, right? I have a bad food intolerance to dairy. I don't have a food allergy, but I do have an intolerance to dairy. I don't have a food allergy, but I do have an intolerance to dairy. Dairy just so happens to be one of the best sources, or the greatest sources of calcium. So someone like myself would have run a higher risk of having a calcium deficiency because I'm not eating any dairy. You may be one of these people.

You may have an intolerance to a food category. Let's say you're allergic to fish. The odds that you may have an intolerance to a food category. Let's say you're allergic to fish. The odds that you may have a deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids are just higher because one of the richest sources of omega-3 fatty acids happens to be fish. So if you're a person who's like, has to avoid entire categories of food because of intolerances,

then supplementing may be very, very valuable to you. Another category, autoimmune, people with autoimmune issues. People with certain autoimmune issues, in particular the digestive ones that Crohn's disease, they just don't absorb as much nutrients from the food as they do in comparison to other people. Now, is it more common that they have an autoimmune like that and then that's caused or that they were lacking the nutrients

therefore it caused these autoimmune issues? What's more? Chicken or egg, right? So like your example, for example, you have psoriasis you've had for a while. Right. We know that vitamin D, low vitamin D, is connected to psoriasis and you've said this yourself when you supplement with vitamin D or connected to psoriasis. And you've said this yourself.

When you supplement with vitamin D, you get lots of sunlight. Yeah. Psoriasis goes down. Now, was your vitamin D, are your vitamin D levels hard to keep up because you have malabsorption? And then of course it's psoriasis worse because you have low vitamin D.

It's hard to say. Sometimes it's one versus it's one or the other. Sometimes it doesn't matter. For example, if you have Crohn's disease and you're having nutrient deficiencies and you're trying to eat good foods and it's one or the other. Sometimes it doesn't matter. For example, if you have Crohn's disease and you're having nutrient deficiencies and you're trying to eat good foods and it's not working, that person may benefit from supplementing with a high dose,

vitamin or mineral that they're lacking. My theory for myself personally and after understanding psoriasis as an autoimmune, understanding how much the vitamin D is help me, it makes a lot of sense to me. And this is a great example of what we were talking about, how it takes a long time to reveal itself. Sarisis didn't pop up on me until I was about 25.

It was somewhere between 24 and 26. I'm gonna guess 25 is when it first revealed itself. And when I found out later on after we met cell that there's a good chance that I had a vitamin D deficiency. And when I started supplementing, I saw a drastic difference in how bad my psoriasis was. What makes the most sense for me, because vitamin, vitamin, sunlight is one of the great sources of vitamin D for us, is I was a kid who grew up in the sun. Like literally seven days a week, hours on every single day,

all of my life until I hit 19. At 19 years old, I moved to San Jose, got a job inside of a gym, and then fell in love with it, and began working underneath fluorescent lights from literally 5 a.m. till 10 p.m. at night, religiously, and very rarely got sun. Now, I didn't see anything.

No psoriasis came out, no problems, but years of consistently not getting the sunlight like I, like I believe my body had adapted to in taking that much over my childhood, that also and I go cold turkey almost and cut it off, and then my body's resilient, didn't show anything, didn't show anything. Yeah, because you store vitamin D in your system. So I'm sure you had a nice store of vitamin D.

And you still get it from some foods, like mushrooms and things like that. So I'm sure that I was still getting some, but what I was used to getting, it took a while for it to reveal itself. All of a sudden at 25, it pops up but what I feel like is out of nowhere, and years I go on to battling that.

And then years later, it wasn't until I connected that until we met with Vitamin D. So I think what happens a lot of times, and that's why this is difficult. This is also why I love companies like Everly Well that help us kind of test and peer into this a little bit. Yeah, because you were able to test your Vitamin D and you were supplementing and it bumped in a little bit

but not much. So you know I need to take away more. Right, I was taking 5,000 I use and I was still testing low. It wasn't, I have to be about 10,000 I use a day for me to hit that range. And again, I just think that my body adapted to getting so much vitamin D for the first half of my life now the back half.

And you know, of course, just like we say, go whole foods even before I want to try and supplement with vitamin D my goal is always to get in front of my jubelight or get outside and get the real sunlight like that number one real sunlight second option red light third option take my vitamin D or I'm using both and here's another part to consider is as your circumstances change so do potentially your nutrient demands.

So here's a circumstance right away. Now we talked about diets. So we said, oh, if you're vegan or if you're keto or whatever and you're cutting out a whole segment of food, what about if you just cut your calories? Here's something to consider. The vast majority of the nutrients that you get come from your food. What if you cut your calories, you're eating 1200 calories a day? You didn't just lower your calories, you also lowered your nutrient intake.

So it's probably maybe more important for people who are dieting to supplement. The people are eating tons and tons of food because that 1200 calories, it consists of nutrients, micro nutrients as well. And here's the thing, people have a tough enough time looking at macro nutrients, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and tracking calories. Nobody's talking about micro nutrients. Nobody is. So when you look at your food and you enter it into your my fitness pal or fat secret or macro tracker, and you're like, cool, I'm eating enough calories to get my body to burn body fat. You don't know if you're hitting the right amount of nutrients that your body,

in your specific body needs. And in different circumstances, also change the demands, exercise changes the demands of certain nutrients. How much you sweat changes the demands. If you're a female in your menstruating, that can also change your nutrient demands. There are certain nutrients that are more important for women to take when they're menstruating than when they're not. Dr. Jolene Brighton talked quite a bit about the value of supplementing with like B vitamins

for women who are menstruating. That's something else you want to look at and consider. Also talked about sunlight. If you're not in the sun very, very often. And fire mentally. Yes, you know, look at that. Look at, okay, I'm never out in the sun. You might need to supplement with something like vitamin D or vitamin, you know, but I was immediately thinking of, I don't know that, that Viking documentary where they're talking about having to get cod liver oil because they just didn't see enough of the sun. And it started to generations would go and you'd see that in the next generation,

like all these deficiencies, like what they would lead to in terms of like their height or like their bone structure and all these things. Oh yeah, I was one of the, some historians think that's one of the advantages they have, why they were so strong and able to defeat so many people as they were cruising around and people were deficient in week and they were eating cod liver oil,

which very high in D, there was no sunlight because it was winter in the northern hemisphere and they were doing quite well. Now, why is food best? Because I think some people are like, okay, I've had people ask me this, what's the difference? Whether I get my vitamin B6 from food

or I get it from a vitamin, what's the difference? Chemically, you look at them under a microscope, they're the exact same thing. In fact, oftentimes, vitamins and nutrients and whatever are taken from food. So what's the difference? Why is food best? There's a couple of reasons.

One, it's much harder to overdose on nutrients and vitamins and minerals from food than it is from supplements. It's very easy, for example, to overdose on vitamin A with vitamin A supplements. And that can be very, very toxic. Very difficult to do through food. You have to eat a ton, ton of organ meats,

like I mean way more than anybody would ever eat in order to have problems like that happen. Also, whole foods tend to come with co-factors that improve absorption, things like vitamin K2 for vitamin D3 or bioflavinoids with vitamin C or other nutrients that help with the absorption of the main nutrients that the food provides. Food is the ideal source.

And these are the perfect shuttles. Like nature's already figured it out. Like, you know, it's funny to see all these like slow absorption rate. Like it's like in the marketing of like certain pills and things where, you know, you could get that from real food and just like the fiber and everything else like involved with the food.

It helps with the whole digest the process. And this is what we know. The thing that annoys me about these types of conversations, especially with like scientist friends of ours that like to your point cell, like you could look under a microscope and this has this much B12, so does this food, therefore their equivalent.

Well, that's what we know so far. You've thrown out some other co-factors, but there's still things that we're learning about the gut and what, and the digestive system that is still, we're unsure about. So you can't tell me that we know everything about the difference of getting it the way. And it's really crazy how, when it's found in nature, I mean, I love to give the example with sugar. Like, you know, you talk about overdosing on supplements, well, you know, it's because it's a concentrated form of whatever is from a food.

Well, same thing goes for something like sugar. Like, if we took sugar and it's raw form, you would never overeat it. It would be impossible. You would, to get like what's in a soda can, you'd have to eat eight feet of sugar cane. Which, it just, unless you've got, you know, jaws like a frickin' gorilla or like a panda bear,

you're not gonna be able to get through that. So, I mean, the same thing goes for, sugar is obviously demonized, but it's the same concept. The way it's found in nature, and it was intended to be consumed that way. The same thing goes for when we talk about vitamins and supplements, always ideally, you always ideally targeting through whole foods. So when I coach and teach clients,

when they find out, oh, I have this deficiency, instead of us just automatically going, oh, okay, let's just start supplementing for vitamin D or A or K or whatever it is. Let's educate them on what foods that's rich in that. And then let's try and target that and This is even how so vitamin D is is a common one in mine omega-3s or common in my cupboard and though I try and pay attention like if I had a week where which is rare now But it still happens occasionally where I go up to like the lake and I'm spending a week on the lake and in the sun

Like I'm not also stressing about supplementing with my vitamin D that week. If there's a week I'm gonna not supplement it, that's the week. If I had a great week of eating fish, maybe we just went fishing and we caught tons of fish so the whole week we're in, we do this when we go down to Cabo,

we fish at the beginning of the week, we live off of the fish for an entire week. I probably don't need to be supplementing with my Omega three during that week. So learning to try and target the whole foods first, supplement it when you need it. Well, I'll give you a great example. Okay.

You guys have all heard of the mercury content in fish, right? Mercury builds up in the system. If you have too much of it, it can totally become toxic. Okay. Fish contains mercury. Does that mean I gotta be careful? If I eat too much fish, and for the most part, no. And here's why. Because fish, most fish, fish contains mercury. Does that mean I gotta be careful if I eat too much fish? And for the most part, no, and here's why. Because fish, most fish, also contains a high amount of selenium

and selenium binds to mercury. So eating most fish, even though they may have mercury, the natural selenium that's found the fish offsets it and makes it okay. Now, there are a few fish that this, where the mercury outweighs the selenium, a good example would be like swordfish, way more mercury than selenium. But most fish that you would eat, that you, that's not like the, the, the few that are, where there's mercury so high, selenium, selenium is high enough to where you can eat it and you're okay. And

you, you see this, you see this in cultures around the world that have a high consumption of fish, yet mercury poisoning is very, very low. Even though paradoxically, they have a high intake of mercury, it's the natural selenium. And this is important to consider too, like I said earlier with supplements. Taking too much is just as bad as not having enough. So having a deficiencies bad, having too much

of certain nutrients can cause problems as well. So food naturally makes this, it makes it much harder to overdose and it tends to improve the absorption of certain things. Food is always best, but that being said, if you have a deficiency, supplements can have a huge impact. Well, we took the time to list with the top 10 most common deficiencies like nutrient deficiencies found and I'm this is why we're starting here in this supplement conversation

because the most common thing that I see as far as misusing supplements is I get clients and they you know somebody sold them on some muscle building stack or some fat burning stack, you know, they've got all these bottles and jugs and shakes that they're taking. Meanwhile, they've got all these deficiencies because their diet is all whack. Yeah, you could break this supplement category into, there's really two ways that I would recommend supplements to someone and it's either to fill a deficiency, which trumps anything else. Right. So that's number one. that I would recommend supplements to someone, and it's either to fill a deficiency, which trumps anything else.

So that's number one. If you have an actual, actual micronutrient deficiency, filling that deficiency will have a massive impact. Yeah, a massive, profound beneficial impact. And not having, not filling that deficiency can cause you lots of problems. The other half is improving performance, building muscle and burning body fat, which is far less important than making sure you don't have a deficiency.

I'm glad you said that though, because this is what I see is your deficient in all these areas, yet you're taking the performance supplements to build muscle. It's like having a little sports car, drag racing car, and you're throwing a spoiler on it, meanwhile you have two front flat tires. It's, you're getting a little bit of edge by throwing the spoiler on there to help with

wind resistance. But you're moving. But you're moving really slow because you've got two flat tires. Like, fix the flat tires, the obvious thing that's going to make the machine operate and run faster before throwing a fucking spoiler or an exhaust system on it. And that's the same concept when we look at supplementation is the stuff that's over-glamorized with all the sexy bodies

and the burning the fat and everybody gravitates to that. Meanwhile, their diets all fucking whack and they're spending two, three hundred dollars in someone's. That was really what, when we first started the podcast, it was a lot of our messaging was around that, meanwhile their diets all fucking whack and they're spending two, three hundred dollars and so on. So that was really what, when we first started the podcast, there was a lot of our messaging was around that was trying to help people save hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month, you know, falling into these gimmicks

that they need to buy these supplements to get to their results when if they actually just started to hone in on their programming and their diet, they would see more results than they've ever seen in their lives. Totally. Now, you can test, you can get yourself tested programming and their diet, they would see more results than they've ever seen in their lives. Totally. Now, you can test, you can get yourself tested to identify deficiencies. If you ask your doctor, they could probably run a test for you.

They're at home tests. I know Everly Well does one as well. So I'm going to go through them. I think we should go through them more common, right? Like you said, Adam, the more common deficiencies that we find in modern Western societies. These are ones that are just more often than not, or just more common than others in terms of

when we test people, here's where we start to see the deficiencies. Well, then after you do that, also give what foods that you would find. Totally, 100%. Yes, so the first one's vitamin B6. B6 is a of the nutrient deficiencies. It's kind of up there and you start to see this.

And this one's an important one for women. I know Dr. Jolene Brighton says that a lot of women are more women are deficient in B6 than men. It may have to do with, with the changing hormones and menstruation. Places you could get vitamin B6, then men may have to do with, with the changing hormones and menstruation. Places you can get vitamin B6, poultry, meat, and if you want a non-animal source chickpeas, chickpeas are actually high in B6.

Here's something you're gonna notice as a theme as we go through these, okay? The nutrients typically are more readily absorbed through animal sources than they are through vegan sources, not always, but generally speaking. Again, this is not an anti-vegan thing that we're trying to do here. This is just a fact that when they do tests on people,

they find that, oh, you're low in B6, it tends to get raised up higher when they consume more poultry, for example, than eating more. Well, and this is to the point that you've made multiple times about talking about the vegan diet is it's not that it's not possible. It just takes a lot more planning.

So if you're automatically gonna cut me, which infuriates me this trend that we see because of the Netflix documentaries, is I've got my teenage nieces that see it and they go like, oh, they're just stop eating meat. Now they're just eating fucking salads all day long. It's like, okay, if you're going to cut poultry out of your diet, are you eating chickpeas? You know, how often are you doing that? Like, you need to do your homework if you're going to do a diet like that because as soon

as you cut meat out, you cut out one of the most nutrient dense food groups that you, like you said, there's gonna be a theme. Oh, you'll see. Yeah. You'll see as we go through. Alright, so the next one, iron, iron deficiencies, these, this one again, more common in women. And you know, symptoms of this are just feeling weak,

malaise, low energy, of course meat, very high in iron. That's the best source of iron. It's extremely absorbable. We'll raise your iron levels faster than anything else. Eggs are another source. Spinach. You can get iron from spinach, but you have to eat a lot of it to raise your iron levels. If you have an iron deficiency, as identified by a doctor, you can try raising it with your vegan sources, but they may recommend you have to take supplements or eat meat. I've had a few clients that this happened to where their iron levels are low.

They were vegan and at some point the doctors like you need to either eat meat or you need to take this pill of iron. Iron supplements can cause constipation in some people but iron containing foods do not, again, another example of why foods are the best sources of nutrients. Vitamin D. This one's becoming more calm in nowadays, just because nobody's outside, any more raw inside. Some people, I've actually read articles where they've said that vitamin Ds,

we're like at an epidemic of low D levels. Vitamin D is extremely important for the immune system. It's a, some scientists would consider vitamin D a hormone just by the way it acts in the body. Low D levels can affect your hormones for sure and manic lower testosterone. That's a big one. I talked about the immune system. One, it is believed that one of the reasons

why there's a flu season is because of low vitamin D levels. If you, in fact, look at the peak levels of infection, of flu and the rhino virus, which is the cold, you'll notice that happens in February, which is a good three months after we're starting to get less sunlight. So it's like D levels decline, decline, decline, boom, we get this explosion of infections.

And they think this may be one of the main reasons why we get these, you know, we get more ill in the winter. So D, a very common one. Of course, the best way to raise vitamin D sunlight. There's nothing that'll raise vitamin D more effectively than sunlight. But there are foods that are high in vitamin D. We talked about cod liver oil, that's more of a supplement.

Although it is one of the supplements, I think is more like a food because it literally is an oil from, you could eat cod livers. Exactly. And that's gonna be just the same. Exactly. And it contains a decent amount of vitamin A2, which is complimentary, but A yolks,

and then for vegans, or if you're looking for an animal source, mushrooms. But mushrooms contain a form of vitamin D called D2. D2 does not raise vitamin D levels in the blood nearly as effectively as D3. So if you're a vegan and your D levels are low, get lots of sunlight. If that's not working, I suggest supplementing with a D3 supplement that you can find at your health food store or whatever. Iodine, you guys know iodine was such a problem

for a long time that it became mandatory to infuse salt with iodine. You guys ever use more salt? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You ever notice that? I know. They put that on there. Yes, it also, they, it became like, I believe it was government

and forced at one point to add iodine to salt because we were noticing all these effects of iodine deficiencies, especially in children. And it worked for a while. Is kale a main source of that too? Cause I saw like from people eating too much of say, kale or was seaweed. Seaweed.

The might've been seaweed. Seaweed's very high in iodine fish. Fish is also high in iodine. And of course, table salt. It's infused with iodine, but believe it or not, that's where most people will get their iodine. Vitamin C is another one. Now vitamin C tends to be infused in everything.

I don't know about you guys, but anytime you buy a food, that's in a wrapper or a box. It always like, you know, added vitamin C or whatever, which is kind of funny. But if you need more vitamin C, citrus foods are a very, very good source. B12 is another good. Now B12 is one that vegans pretty much can't get from vegetable sources unless they're fortified. So if you're a vegan and you eat like fortified cereals, for example. Oh, great source. Yeah, then you'll get your B12,

but the best natural source. That's a curious thing. Exactly. The best source of B12 naturally is meat. There is no natural, really natural, you know, vegan source of B12 that you can find. So you'll have to supplement that. Calcium tends to be low also. Dairy, leafy greens and tofu will have that. Magnesium is another one. You can find that in beef and then avocados and nuts are pretty high.

Here's a big one. Omega-3 fatty acids. This one's really important. Low omega-3 fatty acids intake has been connected to heart issues, heart disease, certain cancers, inflammatory issues, low cognitive function, and brain impaired brain development among children. The best form hands down of omega-3 fatty acids are fish. You cannot get Omega-3 fatty acids from vegan sources. You can get a type of fatty acid from flax seeds that your body has to convert to Omega-3. So you could take flax seed oil or eat flax seeds and you could raise your Omega-3 blood levels, but it's a lot harder.

It's not nearly as effective. So if you're really deficient in your vegan, you may have to supplement with an animal source. And these aren't in order because I believe that Omega-3 is like one of the top. Omega-3 is in vitamin D, you're probably the biggest. Yeah, probably top two, one and two, right there. I remember there was a time where like doctor is just automatically just prescribed that to everybody.

Yeah. If you come in to doctor, oh, get on Omega three, so Omega three's almost all my clients in the last decade of training, I remember. There's a big boom for that for a while. I remember they would sit down with them, they're like, well, I take my Omega three, so that was a big message for a few decades there

because of how deficient everybody was. Right, right. Folate is another big one. Folate is found in egg yolks, and a vegan source would be asparagus, although again, it's far, it doesn't raise blood levels as well as egg yolks do. That's one of the best sources of folate.

If you're trying to conceive or you're pregnant, this is a very important nutrient, but you're probably supplementing with it at that point. Like we talked about earlier, potassium. Sometimes we see deficiencies there, beef, salmon, and then of course bananas. We know about bananas, everybody. That's like all the credit bananas get, is that they're high in potassium? Yeah, yeah.

They're loaded with 40 grams of sugar. Yeah. Uh, glucose. Vitamin A, organ meats are some of with 40 grams of sugar. Wow, absolutely. Yeah. Bluecoast. Vitamin A, organ meats are some of the highest sources of vitamin A, fish, and then the vegan sources, sweet potato carrots, or orange foods that are orange, vegan foods that are orange. It typically means it's got vitamin A or beta carotene, which raises vitamin A levels. So those are the more common ones, but here's the thing, we just went through this list,

that doesn't mean you go to the store, buy all these and take them, just because you heard on Mind Pump that they're common, because some of these are not water soluble, many of them are right. Water soluble vitamins, you can, I can take 10,000 milligrams of vitamin C and I might get some indigestion,

but I'll excrete what I don't use. If I over-did it on a fat soluble vitamin, like vitamin A, vitamin D, or on a mineral, like calcium, I can cause myself a lot of problems. In fact, with calcium, they were finding artery deposits in people because they thought, oh, calcium strengthens bones, I'm just gonna take a ton of calcium.

Yeah. And it was causing, it can cause some serious problems. Go get tested. I mean, go to your doctor, get blood work done. You know, what you're gonna find is that most people are pretty caught, or that you have their basic diet, or basic foods they eat, and when you go get it, it'll tell you a lot.

It'll tell you a lot of probably what you lack in. And when you get, when you find out, it'll probably be kind of obvious to you too. Like, oh wow, I need omega-3, so I never eat fish. Like, okay, or oh, vitamin D, I work inside all the fucking time and I don't ever have mushrooms or I don't ever have egg yolks. Okay, that makes sense.

Like, you know, do the test, do the work, at least one time, I think it's that, I mean, I would tell all my clients before things like Everly Well and At Home Test came around because even with Everly Well, you have to do a lot of these individually. That could get really expensive too going through each one individually. I like what I prefer and what I recommend is

get the blood work, find out all the places you may be deficient and then I follow up with Everly Well. So for example, if I go to my blood work find out that I am I'm deficient in vitamin D Now I don't need to go in and spend the $200 something dollars every single time I want to get my blood work done with my doctor I just do my 50 or a hundred dollar at home test Just to kind of check up on it to make sure that when I make the adjustments in my diet that I'm keeping it up Where it needs to be put to me before you go invest in spending hundreds of dollars on performance supplements,

this is the place that you start. You start here and figure out if you have a flat tire or your timing belt is off, fix and address that before you even think about investing in other supplements. Totally. And then you keep track. Here's the thing thing you wanna consider. There are levels of nutrients that, when they do your testing, that they have a threshold. And you don't wanna go below threshold

because you run the risk of having nutrient deficient related disorders and diseases. But that doesn't mean that just because you're above the threshold, you're in the optimal range. There are optimal ranges and then there's minimums, okay? So do your research. So if you do get a vitamin D test and you find like, oh, I'm within range, look up optimal vitamin D levels,

optimal vitamin A levels. Look up these things, functional medicine doctors, and there are some sites that we'll talk about these, because optimal is typically higher, a little bit higher, than the minimum amount that will prevent nutrient-deficient related diseases. So those are all the ones that are common, but that doesn't mean that you don't have

a potential deficiency to other nutrients. Also, it doesn't mean that you have one a deficiency related to ones I just talked about. The key here is to get tested, and if you find a deficiency supplement for it, that is 100% most important way to supplement. And there are a lot cheaper. It's a lot cheaper to put some air in your tires

than it is to buy a brand new spoiler. Brand new spoiler, way more expensive, breaks all the time. You pull up your tires, you're good to go. Like literally just invest in that, and then taking a vitamin D, vitamin K, see all the ones that we went through. Those aren't that expensive. You get them for relatively cheap. Yeah. And it's not, it's not that big of a deal. And then again, it should last you

a long time. If you try and use it the way I was explaining where you're targeting whole foods, you know your deficient there. So you know it's an area that you, you want to have it at your disposal inside your cupboard. But then my goal always is to try and, you know it's an area that you you want to have it at your disposal inside your cupboard But then my goal always is to try and you know up my fish intake But hey, there's weeks where a lot of beef and chicken was eight But very little fish was eating. Okay, so this is a day that I'm gonna make sure that I get my omega-3 Yeah, I don't want one of those pill cases where you got Monday Tuesday wins And you have all these huge horse pills you got to like ingest all day long, okay? I don't want to end up like, I'm always looking for whole food sources

and incorporating that more, whatever I am deficient in. Yeah, and it's funny, Jessica's really good at this, right? So we're in the process of, we just got married, we're in the process of trying to get pregnant. And so she's looking at all the important nutrients. So I see her now, I see her eating three to four egg yolks every morning to make sure she gets the full

I also saw her before when she would you know get on it when she would have her period She would we would be eating way more red meat and I asked her well how come she's like well I need more of these B Vitamin and it works phenomenally so the whole food sources are the best but again if you find a deficiency you don't want to change your diet Go with the supplement. Okay, so now we're out of the supplements to fill deficiencies category. Now we can head into the one that everybody loves and get excited about, which are supplements to improve performance, help you build muscle and burn body fat. The fun stuff.

Number one has to be of that category has to be protein. It has to be the, probably the most beneficial performance enhancing muscle building supplement that there is, just based off of the clients that we've worked with. Well, and the irony of this is that it's because of what we just talked about, is because it's one of the most common deficiencies. Right. You know, if you get enough protein through diet and whole foods,

it's not necessary anymore, but because this is an area that most people, unless we're talking to the bodybuilding community, because we know they eat six chicken breast a day, besides that community, the average American really struggles to get enough protein for optimal performance. You go back to your optimal thing, right? Most people-

They're not deficient in protein. Yes, but they're not eating enough to maximize the muscle building effects that protein could provide or to maximize the satiety effects of protein or the thermogenic fat burning potential of protein. They're just not eating enough. I, you know, you talk about this all time, Adam.

I almost, unless I had a client who, like you said, was in that bodybuilding space, I almost never had a client give me their food tracking when they first started. I almost never saw it and said, oh, wow, you're in the optimal range of protein intake. It was always like, I'd say for women, I would see protein intakes of It was always like, you know, I'd say for women, I would see protein intakes of 30, 50 grams a day, 70 maybe, you know, when most of them would have benefited from 100 grams or 120 grams of protein. Protein intake has been shown in studies quite conclusively

at high levels and high is about 0.6 to 1 gram per pound of body weight and relatively lean individuals. If you're obese, you want to use your lean body mass. But protein in that range has been shown to build more muscle, add more strength, and to regulate appetite and also hold on to muscle when people are dieting. What people are reducing their food and take to lose weight when their protein intake is higher, they lose less muscle, which is a great thing because one of the problems of dieting is a slower metabolism from muscle loss.

So protein becomes extremely important. Now here's the problem with protein. When I had a 130 pound female client and I'm telling her to eat 110 grams of protein a day, how many, you know, how many six ounce chicken breasts is that? Right. You know, they're eating a lot of meat throughout the day and it's just hard.

It's inconvenient. And so protein powders became extremely valuable to that population. And again, we're using this the same way that we were using. The last supplements we just talked about. I see tremendous value. I've always got a vegan protein and away protein in my house.

They're all, I've always got them in my cars, but they last me quite a while. Because again, I'm not trying to take the protein powder. I'm trying to get all my protein and take through whole foods, but the reality is that a lot of times that doesn't happen, that's where I utilize that supplement. It's not a supplement like, it's not used the way

I think the bodybuilding community tries to use it. They're taking it every day. Right, every day at post workout, it's like this ritual to do that. Like, no, you don't need to do that. In fact, you don't wanna do that if you can get it through whole foods. Again, you wanna try and get it through whole foods,

but the reality is a majority of the population including ourselves, miss those targets. That's why you use a sub-align like this. For sure, hands down of all the ones that are gonna benefit you for overall fat loss or building muscle, I would definitely rate this is the number one after you've handled the dishes. And it's just, protein powders are convenient.

I can take them with me anywhere. Typically protein powders don't contain lots of carbs or fats, so I'm minimizing the calorie intake. You know, 40 gram shake of protein, you know, might have 180 calories, but getting 40 grams from a meat source might be twice as many calories because there's added fat and whatnot. So if you're dieting and you're noticing,

you're not if you're trying to cut down and you're noticing that, oh, I need more protein, but I only have so many calories to work with. Protein shakes can help quite a bit. And there's a lot of good quality ones out there. But this one, I definitely think it's the most benefit. I feel like we have the address that a little bit, though, too, because it don't get caught up in the looking for the cheapest source. I get DMs quite often about, you know, I looked at, organify and legion and they tend to be more expensive protein powders. Now, because this is probably the number one supplement that you should take for building muscle or burning

body fat as far as, you know, getting what your body needs to and perform optimally. Because of that, it's also marketed to, and there's a slew of people making all kinds of money in this space, and because the supplement industry is not regulated through like the FDA, there's a lot of leeway in what people are utilizing to make these supplements. So, you know, you pay for what you get. Oh, totally.

Protein is not cheap. Protein is not cheap. Real protein is not cheap. It's relatively expensive. So don't skimp out on when you're taking a protein powder supplement, but of course food, again, is totally ideal. It's funny, I was just reading other studies on protein to take. As people get older, they're showing studies now that

they need the increase their protein intake. As people get older, they're showing studies now that they need to increase their protein intake as they get older to help prevent the muscle wasting that comes from getting older. They seem to benefit even more from a higher protein and take then the younger people do. Now you don't need to eat like the body builder amounts of protein, but most people listening don't get that one gram of protein per pound of body weight

or the .7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. The next supplement, creatine. Creatine is, it's not protein, it's not an essential nutrient. If you're getting adequate amounts of protein in your diet, your body will synthesize creatine from three amino acids. However, supplementing with creatine has been shown across the board in thousands of studies. It's actually one of the most studied supplements known to man, has been shown in many, many, many studies to have tremendous muscle-building benefits, the side effect of which also is fat loss, and lots of studies now showing health benefits

from supplementing with creatine. The population that could benefit the most from supplementing with creatine, vegans, mainly because creatine can only be found in animal sources, red meat being one of the highest concentrations. Studies actually show that vegans who supplement with creatine get a tremendous health benefit, one of which being cognitive boosts, actually show IQ boosting from supplementing. Which I wonder about that, especially with true vegans who don't ingest anything animal related, if that's a problem, you know, just supplementing. Which I wonder about that, especially with true vegans who don't ingest anything animal related, if that's a problem, just supplementing. You can get creating that's-

Is that something that's made in a lab, like a version, okay. Correct, and it's a vegan form of creating. Highly recommended, here's a supplement that I recommend to most people after, of course, diet is good and all that stuff, but I don't if your goal is fat't, if your goal is fat loss, if your goal is muscle building,

if you just want to be healthier, if you just want to feel less stiff, if you just want cognitive boosting, I'm typically going to say, hey, diet looks good, workout looks good. Let's try supplementing with some high quality creatine and see what happens. The amount that people supplement with,

anywhere between two to five grams, five grams being high, two grams probably be more appropriate. Right, I say five grams for somebody who doesn't eat a lot of meat and somebody who does eat adequate meat, I'm saying two to three grams is plenty. They're showing brain health benefits, heart health benefits, anti-aging benefits.

They're showing now with creatine supplementation. It could increase the amount of modicundria in the body, which are the energy powerhouses. It's got antioxidant properties for the heart even. Creatines of phenomenal supplement, and it's funny because it started in the muscle building space. In fact, at one point, it was like people were freaked out about it because it was like in the 90s in particular, when it first came out, it's like steroids. No, no, none of that.

It's a natural compound, does not have hormonal effects, although in men with low testosterone, it may actually boost testosterone through fueling the testosterone process in the testes, but creating a great simple form. It's simple forms, simple form, it just replenishes energy out of much faster rate. So just think of all the people and situations that benefits. As a matter of your cross-fitter, a marathon runner, a powerlifter, an average gym goer, knowing that whatever, because you're taking creating your energy replenishes at a faster rate.

That's it. I mean, and the carryover to that is in all pursuits of fitness is at the highest. And it's the only one. Like, there's supplements out there like in pre workouts that make you feel like you get more energy because it stimulates your central nervous system.

And so then you feel like you're wired. And so, oh, you're getting, that's like artificial energy. Like, creatine actually replenishes energy at a faster rate, and it's been proven to be that great of a performance supplement for years now. Now, the effects of taking creatine, if you start supplementing it, here's what you may notice. And by the way, I want to say this,

some people don't do well supplementing with creatine. Okay, so I know we're selling it real hard and what I don't want is somebody to take it, have gastro distress or diarrhea, and be like, well, I'm going to keep taking it because they said, you know, it's such a great supplement. They ate that good. Some people, some people get a stomach upset and gastro distressed from creatine. If you take it and that's you, not for you, but the vast majority of you should not have a problem.

Here's what you'll notice when you supplement the creatine. After about five to seven days of supplementing it, you're stronger. It's pronounced. You'll notice you're going to lift between five to ten pounds more on every lift. You'll notice that your muscles feel fuller and rounder, and you'll also notice maybe between one to five pounds extra on the scale depending on how much muscle you have. The more muscle mass, the more weight you'll gain on the scale, the less muscle mass, the less weight you gain on the scale. Now, I know there's some people listening, probably in particular females who are thinking,

I don't want to gain any weight, that's so I'm not going to take a great team. It's not making you gain body fat. It's literally adding more hydration, intracellular hydration. So you're just, you're holding more water, but it's not bloat. It doesn't add water to the outside of your body, like your smooth. It's water inside the muscle.

So if anything, it actually improves the appearance of more tone or more sculpt. Because you more, a little more definition. Right. Best source of creatine, creatine monohydrate. Don't mess with the other types of creatine. The cray alkaline and the creatine citrate and all that crap. Well, to the same point that I made with the protein but it's become so popular that everybody is in the space and now to make it competitive, they're adding things to it or making cases

why their absorption is faster, all that shit is. You know, it's so funny. Cray alkaline came out and their big thing was absorbs better, absorbs faster, less bloat, which is so stupid because it doesn't cause bloat, but whatever. You wanna know what's funny? They tested it head to head against monohydrate,

and actually your body absorbs less. Your body absorbs, create team monohydrates superior across the board, so whatever supplement company you're looking at, if they're trying to sell you on why their type of crateine is better, there's no studies to support it. All the studies show that creatine monohydrate is the best.

Legion makes a good creatine monohydrate if you're looking for a brand. All right, next supplement. This one is, your guy's his favorite. You guys fuck with this one all day long. Especially Justin. Yeah, that's my brand. I don't think it says that.

I don't think it says that. I think it's probably 99% of the listeners. Yeah, it's the most used drug in the world. For overall production and for just like, you know, a nice, like clear state of mind, like I can get things done, like I just, it works. Man, there's nothing else that even competes with it or compares with it other than, you know,

that other one that they band, right? So, Crystal meth. Yeah, I like that, like Fadre. Well, we're talking about caffeine. Caffeine is very, very widely studied. It's been used by humans for thousands of years. It's a wakefulness agent. You do build up a very fast tolerance to it.

So it's addictive. So you can take caffeine. For anybody who's ever tried to go off coffee and knows what I'm talking about. You feel like miserable for a week or two because your body has to reactimate. So best use of caffeine, in my opinion, is to take it on an every other day basis or save it for the days you need that extra zip. The individual variance with tolerance and caffeine is wide, super wide.

Your liver gets helps your body get rid of caffeine. And there is a genetic variant in some people where it doesn't work as fast. I think I have one of those. Like, if I do more than 300 milligrams of caffeine in a day, I don't feel good. You guys do more than 300 milligrams of caffeine in one sitting. Well, it goes, it comes in waves. And I think too, I don't want to be dependent on anything either.

And we try and stress that point a lot. If there's something that's reoccurring constantly and you haven't ever stepped away from it for a while, or it's like something like you're scared to stop doing, like that's something I'm gonna wanna address and make sure that I'm cycling it in and out. So there's, it's scheduled in there. So I am at least like lowering the amount of intake

or completely off of it for a bit and then reintroducing. Well, look, caffeine has got antidepressive effects. These are documented. So it's a mild antidepressant. Obviously improves productivity. It's a wakefulness agent. It can help with fat mobilization.

That doesn't mean it's a very powerful fat burner. Well, you move a lot more. But that being said to that point, Sal, what won't make this list as we're going through are fat burners. And any fat burners that carry any weight whatsoever, the piece of it that carries the most weight is the caffeine that's put in it.

So keep that in mind. And let me tell you, you can get a cup of coffee or caffeine pills for next to nothing. And fat burners are extremely expensive. The most valuable piece of a fat burner, 99.9% of the time will be the caffeine that's inside of it. And you can get caffeine in a pill form, super, super cheap for high doses of caffeine,

or just from black coffee. Yep, from black coffee teas. Black coffee is a best. Yeah, teas. Caffeine has got brain health benefits. It's got anti-cancer benefits in particular for the liver. It has a lot of benefits. Now, that doesn't mean it doesn't have potential negative side effects.

If you consume too much caffeine, it will contribute to the physiological perceptions of stress. It can't cause stress hormones to go up, and it is probably hands down the worst culprit for people's sleep issues. Insomnia. Yes, yeah. 100%. 100%. Like, when I work with clients and they don't have good sleep, I would say seven or eight at a 10 times when I'd reduced their caffeine and take their sleep issues became went away. Well, too, with the thyroid,

I know it's not advantageous to have caffeine in the diet as well. That tends to not pair well with any kind of thyroid issue. Yeah, you got to figure out your tolerance. So figure this out, don't gauge it off other people. I gave you mine, two to three hundred milligrams every other day is about as much as I can do, which is significantly lower than Adam or Justin who have a wonderful tolerance for caffeine.

I wish I had that. It is wonderful. I can't do it. If I have too much, I feel I just feel good. Well, all that really means is that we can get away with more before we have to come back down the other direction, but it's inevitable we have to come the other way too because that's they just don't feel the effects as much. Well, and that I always my selling point to people to get them to cycle there because it's

hard. You get a client or you get somebody who loves their coffee. Oh my gosh, that's the hardest thing. And they drink three, four cups a day or they have two cups of coffee plus an energy drink or two and you and a pre-workout or something, and you try and tell them you want to bring them all the way down. They look at you like you're crazy, but what I always, you know,

remind them and sell them on is that, listen, you love caffeine, right? You'll love it even more when you've cycled off for a little bit, and then you reintroduce it. You forget how amazing that feels when you've cycled off, and then you've reintroduced it. You know what's funny? That's true for all supplements.

Not the cycling off, but more generally, or using them appropriately. If you use supplements appropriately, especially the ones we're talking about, you can get great benefits. Use them inappropriately. Not only will you get not as great a benefit, you may actually get detrimental effects, like caffeine. Like, use too much caffeine for your body.

You're not going to get athletic performance boost. For example, for me, if I have too much caffeine, I'm not lifting more weight, I'm not able to do more reps. I do less, I get out of breath, I feel terrible. I don't get mental sharpness, I get mental confusion, if I have too much caffeine, it gives me anxiety, I don't feel good, I get worse sleep, right? If I have too much.

So use the right amount for your body and you get some amazing benefits. Now one thing, one thing I want to say about caffeine, caffeine pairs exceptionally well to one other supplement, which isn't on the list, but I'm going to say it because it's great with caffeine. The amino acid, the amino acid, the anine. If you take caffeine or you drink lots of coffee, try 200 milligrams of Theonine for every 100 milligrams of caffeine. Doesn't Mike put that in his?

Yes. So his pre-workout contains. As I was saying, contains stuff with caffeine, right? It does. It's one of the things I know that you fell in love with about his. Yes. Theonine with caffeine smooths out the energy and it keeps it there longer and it seems to lower the tolerance building effect. Smooths out the energy and it keeps it there longer and it seems to

Lower the tolerance building effect so taking the anine may allow you to have caffeine a little bit more regularly I remember when you first started getting because we used to do this way before any the sub with supplements We would keep the anine on our cold brew and cold anyone's on the tap Yeah, and then anyone's that cold nitro brew knows that like that's it's stronger right it hits you a lot It's a lot higher in caffeine And salg started to get us to to take the theine after I'd ever been using the cold brew for quite some time What the way I explain it or what I notice is you know Sometimes you could take enough coffee to where you feel a little antsy or anxious or jittery It totally takes that edge off and it doesn't make you and another thing You don't lose the boost.

And another side effect that you get from caffeine is a really hard spike, and then a crash a few hours later. It just, it doesn't seem to spike as hard, no jitteryness, and then it's an even high that you kind of get from it. So that was what I noticed when you introduced theonine to... Every client that I ever worked with,

I don't say ever, but the back half of my career would say that had coffee or would take caffeine, I would have them supplement with thinning and they all became converts. After that, they always thinning with my coffee and they got great results. So you don't have to, but try it out and see for yourself, thinning's super cheap.

Especially if you're somebody who, that part of why you don't have coffee lies because you get ants here at Jittery, try it with thinning and see if you notice a difference. Totally. The last category, this one, somebody who that part of why you don't have coffee lies because you get answer your jittery try it with the Indian see if you notice a difference. Totally. The last category, this one, a more general category like we did with the first one, it's, these are adaptogens, these are a class of compounds that help the body deal with stress.

So why is that important? A body that's more resilient to stress is going to be healthier, feel better. It's, you're gonna get away with a lot more. Now there's a lot, there's a, adaptogen category is massive. So I'm gonna list some of my favorite ones. My absolute favorite, adaptogenic supplement, which also has lots of Western scientific backing

is ashwaganda. Absolutely love ashwaganda for its adaptogenic properties. It's also one of the most consistent testosterone boosting adaptogens in man with low testosterone. And when you take ashwaganda, if it's appropriate for you, you'll notice you just feel more energy and you just feel generally better. Your muscles adapt better to exercise.

They show that people with high stress, when they take ashwaganda, they build more muscle, gain more strength, and have better fat loss. How did you explain pathogens when comparing it to like, you know, supplement, like performance supplements or ergogenic or, you know, vitamin supplements, how would you explain adaptions? Like it's a regulator, like how would you? Yeah, literally, it literally strengthens your body's ability to handle stress. So if you have like a high stress life, you're not getting a sleep, here's how I like to use adaptogens. I like to use adaptogens when I'm pushing the limit with my training. If I'm really pushing the limit,

then I'll start throwing adaptogens into my arsenal and I'll start to feel like, okay, I feel good. I'm not overtraining quite as easily, or if I'm losing sleep, or if I'm in a stressful situation. I use a lot of ashwaganda when I was getting divorced, very stressful situation, so I used it on a regular basis. It makes a big difference.

Now, the adaptogens are not supplement, just like all the other performance supplements, you don't need to take these by the way, but if you like to take supplements, this is a decent category. Now, are they all considered anti-inflammatory or some of them anti-inflammatory? They are all, so here's how they're anti-inflammatory.

They're not anti-inflammatory by just lowering inflammation in everybody how they're anti-inflammatory. They're not anti-inflammatory by just lowering inflammation in everybody. They're anti-inflammatory by regulating the inflammatory process to keep it so that it's supposed, it's where it's supposed to be. So it doesn't hammer inflammation like, if I took ibuprofen, it's gonna lower inflammation no matter what.

Taking an adaptogen will get my body to use its inflammatory process in a more appropriate way. So if you have high inflammation, it will lower inflammation. If your inflammation's low, you're not gonna go any lower by taking an adaptogen because your body doesn't need to. And what are some of the ca...

Like, tumeric falls into that category. Tumeric is good. Cortiseps, one of my absolute favorites. Cortiseps is a great performance enhancer because of it. I also notice with cordiceps, my heat and cold tolerance go through the roof. So if I use the sauna or I'm gonna go outside and cold weather, in fact, that's a supplement that I recommended a while ago

to construction workers who work outside and harsh weather, got tons of messages from people who were using cordiceps and notice a benefit from that. Rodeola, rodeola is a stimulating adaptogen, meaning it does give you energy. I've recommended it as a replacement for caffeine, so if you're trying to wean yourself off caffeine, you can take rodeola.

Not everybody does great with rodeola though. I'm one of those people. If I take rodeola, I just don't feel, I don't feel good. I know Adam, you too, right? I don't like it either. Yeah, it makes you feel kind of like, it makes me feel down.

Yes, totally puts me in it. Does not give me energy. I don't feel fueled from it. What's going on? Now, most people will get energy from it. Most people take Rodeola and lots of Soviet studies on Rodeola from back in the day, that the Soviets were huge fans of Rodeola.

So it's got lots of scientific backing. And again, here's the thing. We may be saying, oh, these are awesome. There's great studies. If you take it and you feel like shit, stop taking it. Because there's such a huge individual variance. Again, Rodeola, I tried Rodeola at least three times because all the studies show it works really well.

Each time I took it after about the studies show, it works really well. Each time I took it, after about the third day, didn't feel good, and I just, okay, Rodeola doesn't work for me. And we made this fifth and last, because it probably will make the biggest difference. It's at least important of the, all the other categories that we covered, although there's lots of benefit, lots of value,

I know Sal probably uses adaptogens probably more, although you had me using some of them when I was trying to raise my testosterone levels, I was using Oshogonda. So there are benefits that I have utilized it, but of all the things that we talked about today, the reason why it was last is because, I think there's the least amount of benefits

in comparison to everything else. Yeah, I think we did them in the right order, right? The vitamins and minerals that can replace deficiencies, most important protein, second, creatine, third, caffeine, fourth, and adaptogens, fifth. Now, this doesn't mean that there aren't supplements out there that we're gonna talk about that may benefit you, but we listed the top five,

generally speaking, from all the people we've ever worked with, and the majority of you listening, if you had to we've ever worked with, and the majority of you listening, if you had to take a supplement, this would be the category. And we left off all the T2 for fat burners, BCA, BCA. So we intentionally left those out, because when you start to get to all that other, glutamine, like you start separating all these things and making these great claims, knock these out first before you waste your money on spending on all these other supplements that are over-high.

Now if you have a great diet, great training regime, you get good sleep, you're fine, you're totally fine. You may benefit from taking some little bit of extra crating, you can throw in some caffeine every once in a while, maybe some adaptogens if you're pushing your butt, but honestly, nothing, nothing that we talked about here will replace what a diet, training, routine, good lifestyle can do.

They don't even come, they're not even the same universe. So it's not even a comparison. And with that, go to minepumpfree.com and download all of our guides and resources. They're all free. They cost nothing. You can also find the three of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Salon at Mind Pump Adam.

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps for performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and an adjustment as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus

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