Supplements and Resources

For years there have been supplement companies in the news for adding fillers to their product or engaging in other practices that render them less than dependable. Sometimes it’s all you can do to find the right company to buy from and rest assured you’re getting what you pay for. I’m going to post about some of the products and resources I use on a regular basis. I’ll start with the supplements area.

 

Activated Charcoal 

Brand (Nature’s Way) – Because it’s reasonably priced and activated charcoal is roughly the same across every manufacturer.

Purpose: Absorption of gut toxins. If you are eating out and have food of questionable quality, this might be the best stuff around I’ve found to prevent indigestion and gas. Added benefit of preventing some or most of the toxins in the “cheat day” food from actually getting absorbed into your body. Take 2 hours outside of any quality supplement or food that you want benefit from because it will absorb that too.

Creatine Monohydrate

Brand: Thorne Research – It has Crea-Pure (only made in Germany) in it and is one of the purest forms or creatine out there. It’s also reasonable in price.

Purpose: Your body takes this and builds muscle. It has also been one of the most studied and safe supplements in history. 5g a day without question and if you are looking to build up take 20g a day for about 2 weeks.

Zinc Picolinate

Brand (Now Foods) – Reasonably priced and a reputable brand in my opinion.

Purpose: If you look Zinc up on www.examine.com you’ll find that it is instrumental in immune system health and testosterone production (if you are low – which I was). The immune system benefits are present for anyone and Picolinate form is a highly absorbable form of Zinc.

Boron (3mg pills)

Brand (Now Foods) – Same reason as above

Purpose: This is a trace element that has been shown to keep testosterone levels in check in most studies. Again, www.examine.com has a lot of information on this. Humans used to get this cosmic element from the rich soil but now that soil is mostly depleted you have to get it through supplementation to get enough.

Vitamin D3 (Liquid drops)

Brand (Now Foods) – Same reason as above

Purpose: You won’t need to go far to find out why everyone needs this. It’s actually a steroid and not a vitamin. In the winter months I take 4,000 IU (International Units) a day and because I live through Michigan winters 🙂

Fish Oil (Omega 3)

Brand (Nordic Naturals) – They have a great filtration process that has been verified by a person that I trust and follow on these matters (Dr. Rhonda Patrick of www.foundmyfitness.com). They take extra care to make sure that their product is free of heavy metals and toxins.

Purpose: Everyone needs Omega 3’s and they have been proven to improve mood and boost your brain to keep you sharp. Good for your heart as well.

Organic Apple Cider Vinegar

Brand (Bragg’s) – Only brand I know and trust – There might be others but it’s also the most available that I’ve found.

Purpose: Many uses. This stuff is like organic bleach for you body. I think it will kill off any illness you might get by killing it in your gut. It works for upset stomach and replenishes your gut with some good bacteria. It’s considered a fermented food. I take a shot glass of this straight almost every morning but it can be diluted with water as well…it can burn a little.

Chlorella Powder- Broken Cell Wall Algae

Brand: Now Foods – Only brand I’ve tried thus far because of the good experience I’ve had with their other products.

Purpose: Detoxing your body of heavy metals and other undesirable blood contaminants. Chlorella’s natural ability to bind to left over pesticides and toxic materials in your body make it one of the most potent tools for a detox protocol. A warning here that it will make everything green…and I mean everything…your teeth, clothes (if you get it all over), and yes…your poop. So don’t be alarmed about the color of things because that means that it’s doing what its supposed to be doing. After a few days of adding a table spoon of this to your smoothie or however you take it, you might be surprised at how invigorated you feel. In my opinion this is mostly due to your body getting back to normal and adjusting to toxins being eliminated. As a result of this some of your hormone levels might return to baseline if they have been down due to toxins in your system.

I’ll need to update my links section with this information due to these being my go to sites for the most up to date information.

Websites:

www.examine.com – This site has everything you never wanted to know about a supplement as well as studies behind it and the possible cross reactions with any drugs you might be taking.
www.suppversity.blogspot.com – This one is a favorite of Ben Greenfield and he visits it often. Lot’s of commentary on nutrition research and physiology.
http://www.stonehearthnewsletters.com/ – There are just a bunch of interesting articles here. Health, fitness, and longevity related.
https://www.anabolicmen.com/ – Brain Scientist turned fitness guru that suffered from T-levels in the double digits and raised it to over 1000 by natural means. Lot’s of good stuff on this site. This is where I got the idea of Boron and Zinc supplementation. Check out their YouTube channel as well.
https://www.foundmyfitness.com/ – Dr.Rhonda knows her stuff. Listen to her podcast as well and you’ll find out real quick why she’s respected. She’s on the cutting edge or research and supplementation.

 

I hope this helps and comments are always welcome.

Thanks,

J

Fighting Inflammation with Tumeric

The Problem:

High intensity sports like jujitsu really take a toll on the body’s joints. Especially in older men and women joint pain seems like it one of the top reasons that people get taken out of the game before their time. Sports like Brazilian Jujitsu are especially rigorous on the joints due to the grappling, pulling, rolling and flipping. I was taking classes at a local gym last spring and could really tell how the sport taxed my fingers, shoulders, and everything else. I asked my instructor what he suggested for recovery and one of the things he suggested were magnesium (epsom salt baths) and a ZMA supplement. Both of these were great suggestions and I took his advice immediately. However, I was finding that even though I was doing once a week sessions, I wasn’t able to get nearly what I thought was enough recovery for the next session a week later….so I did some digging.

After hearing Dr. Rhonda Patrick sing the praises of Tumeric on the Joe Rogan podcast, I decided to look into it a little further. For as long as I have been taking supplements and trying different things, I know that some are better than others and I know for a fact that some absorb better in your gut than others. Supplement makers combine supplements with other additives to preserve them through digestion so you actually get what you pay for (at least the manufacturers that make good products do). Other manufacturers seem to not care as much and just add the standard things to preserve the product in the bottle and nothing else. Knowing this I was looking for the most for my money and wanted a Tumeric supplement that would actually absorb into my body so I could reap the benefits of the anti-inflammation properties of the herb.

The Product:

Enter Source Naturals Tumeric with Meriva. According to an article I read on examine.com Tumeric has to be coupled with one of a few other substances to make it worth taking. One of these choices is Meriva (or BCM-95). According to the article on examine.com: “Complexing curcumin with phospholipids (a phosphatidylcholine-curcumin complex known as Meriva) can increase its incorporation into lipophilic membranes, increasing Cmax and AUC five-fold in rats[17] and making 450mg Meriva as effective as 4g curcumin in humans (unpublished trial).[18] Other trials suggest a factor of 29-fold higher absorption in humans, although said enhanced absorption favors demethoxycurcumin rather than curcumin.” You can find that link here: https://examine.com/supplements/curcumin/. Pepperine (black pepper extract) is another option they list in the article. Simplifying the terms here means that if you take a Tumeric supplement without one of the ingredients included in the examine.com article you’re not getting any of the desired effects.

How it Helped Me:

So back to jujitsu ?. My fingers and hands were taking the brunt of the abuse from the rolling every Wednesday night for 2 hours. As the pain got worse I needed to take something for it besides the ice baths, epsom salt baths and the magnesium. I refuse to take Ibuprofen due to it basically being a poison for your gut. I found a product by the company Source Naturals (http://www.sourcenaturals.com/products/GP2369) and tried a bottle. To date this is the highest quality source that has the best absorption because of the Meriva. I also find it to be the most reasonably priced as well. Taking one of these a day for a week was better than acetaminophen or Ibuprofen. While it didn’t work right away, it did kick in after about a week worth of dosing one pill a day. I noticed a decrease in pain while at work and the morning after a mat session. Besides the many other benefits of Tumeric that you may already know about due to it being used in Eastern Medicine for likely the last 4 thousand years, I didn’t know that it had to be “piggybacked” on something to actually get it through your gut and into your body. When taking supplements I always try to remember one important principal: Anything in your gut it still outside of your body.

Conclusion:

This Source Naturals brand is the best I have found so far for this supplement. I mix and match the companies that I buy from because they don’t all make the same products equal and if they do, there is usually enough difference in price to look at other companies for certain ones.

My jujitsu joint healing protocol was:

  • Ice Bath for 15 minutes immediately after a roll session (up to waist with elbows and hands in water)
  • Epsom salt bath the next night
  • Tumeric with Meriva pill every morning (including weekends while enrolled in classes.

Stay strong and limber!

J

Sources for this article:

Source Naturals: http://www.sourcenaturals.com/products/GP2369
Pub Med: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23526055/
Examine.com article: https://examine.com/supplements/curcumin/
Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/news/s/aqotbz/people_taking_2_grams_of_a_curcumin_lecithin_formulation_experienced_pain_relief_greater_than_that_associated_with_taking_500_mg_of_acetaminophen

Intermittent Fasting and Carbohydrates

Throughout my experiences one of the mistakes I had made early on was restricting carbs too much.  Little did I know that carbohydrates can be instrumental in maintaining post workout gains and helping testosterone levels stay where they should be.

You can run into some big problems maintaining muscle mass by restricting carbohydrates. Post workout you should consider eating some sweet potatoes and some other healthy carbohydrates. There is a shake here that I have tried myself over at https://draxe.com.

The shake is a variation of what Tim Ferris used in his book “The 4-Hour Body” in order to boost recovery and nearly double free testosterone levels. 2 times a day for about 3-4 months and this is a meal itself. I would recommend using a high quality whey protein.  As for the taste, I think it’s excellent if you follow the specific ingredients on the Dr. Axe site but I’ll be trying hemp protein in it as well to see how that works.  Good luck.

J