The power of supplementation, dietary edition

Supplements are a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States.  Every day various supplements are taken by Americans looking to improve their health, vitality, and performance.  For this post, I want to discuss with you how supplements can impact your overall health, from a dietary standpoint. 

Dietary supplements are food-based products that are intended to supplement the diet, not replace it.  The way I look at it, supplements either help you regarding your nutrition or regarding your performance.  In my next post, I'll be talking about the performance aspect of supplements. 

Look at your own nutrition.  Let's take a start by wandering off to your fridge and peering inside.  What do you see in your own refrigerator?  Is it mostly styrofoam containers leftover from takeout restaurants?  Is it mostly fresh fruit and vegetables?  Are there matching containers filled with matching foods?  Which is it? Any of those or none of those? 

Regardless of how you answered, odds are your nutrition sucks.  If it's fruits & vegetables & lean proteins (which it should be), you are probably struggling to get all of your calories in.  I know for me, I'm aiming for around 1600 Kcal per day and that's only for weight loss.  To get a healthy 1600 kcal in, it's pretty challenging without supplementation. 

The majority of my own supplementation comes in the form of protein, of which I get around 60g per day from supplements.  Largely because of speed, convenience, and prep time protein supplementation is my go-to so that I may hit my goal of 200g/day of protein.  Plus, imagine how many eggs and chicken you need to eat pretty frequently to get there. 

Additionally, I do two 24 hour fasts per week.  That's dinner to dinner fasting.  Now, it's not ultra strict fasting, because I consume Arbonne Greens Balance and BCAA's with the intent on maintaining as much muscle mass ad I can with losing as much fat mass as I can.  Plus, I'm heavily caffeinated on those days that I fast.  The greens provide fiber, vitamins & minerals, and keep me balanced, while the BCAA's provide the amino acids for my muscles to stay intact without compromise. 

So supplementation is built to improve and add-to your diet.  It's not a replacement, but a boost.  If you exercise regularly, you'll need to have more calories, more protein, and likely more carbs and fats in your diet.  Post what you do supplement in the comments! And, for more information check out my supplement consulting site, http://MartinHubner.arbonne.com/

I heart food

Food, it's what unites us.  It's what we all share and enjoy in company.  It's what keeps us alive.  And it's what we don't understand. 

Nutritionally, food is made up of a combination of protein (pro), fat, and carbohydrate (carb).  However we don't eat nutrition, we eat food.  Food is made up of all nutrients, from vitamins & minerals to macro-nutrients like pro, fat, & carbs. When we eat, we absorb all of these things to put to work in our bodies. 

Eating foods is pretty simple, and finding nutritious foods is also simple.  For example, I'm writing this on Sunday night and what we had for dinner is one of my favorites...grilled turkey breast (over charcoal), sweet potato, broccoli, and we tried these broccoli & cheese tots.  From all of this we get our pro (turkey), fats (butter if added, or from the tots), and carbs from sweet potato and broccoli.  Overall the meal, if you count out the tots, was around 300-500 cal if you account for portion size. 

I love eating like that.  It's healthy, it's tasty, and you don't make yourself feel guilty over any of it.  Plus my kids love it, which is challenging by itself.  They don't care about vitamins and minerals or macros, they care about how it tastes. 

Taste is more important than virtually anything else when it comes to nutrition.  Just because something is healthy, doesn't mean it tastes good.  Just because something tastes good doesn't mean it's healthy.  You need taste and satiety to enjoy the food, without it it's just food. 

Honestly, and the most important part I need to make note of, is that often you need to eat much more than you think you do.  Like what I ate for dinner, I was full pretty quick and only tapped into a small percentage of my total calorie estimation.  Often to fill the void, we supplement. 

Next week, my view on supplementation.