Overthinking Nutrition and Supplements?

Posted by Mark Hamilton on

So Nutrition what’s it all about?

I have been around nutrition and supplements for the last 30 plus years, most of that in a professional capacity. I have had the pleasure and opportunity to work with some incredible people within the sports and natural health industry.

The information now available to us at the touch of a button is phenomenal and research is so advanced on many things now. So where do I see mistakes being made? After all, with all this information available to us, we should all be walking around looking like Spartan or Amazonian warriors, shouldn’t we?

I think too many people overthink it, sometimes we can have too much information out there at our disposal. I was speaking to a lovely chap recently, a customer, and he was telling me about a diet his personal trainer had given him. He wasn’t allowed eggs as there was too much fat in them.

All the fat in an egg is found in the yolk. Not only does the egg yolk contain healthy fats, it contains a ton of important fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins A, D, and E, and the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin. The healthy fats in the egg yolk actually help our bodies to absorb these nutrients in the yolk too.

Whooooh their Mark, wait a minute though, they are full of cholesterol and therefore will kill you? Well that is half correct, eggs are abundant in good Cholesterol HDL, about 200mg per egg, which is very beneficial for cardiovascular health.

I actually heard one person say, “It’s healthier to eat a Big Mac than an egg as there is less cholesterol in a Big Mac!”

Another common one I hear is – “I don’t eat fruit, it’s full of sugar.” – OMG there are small amounts of energy giving fructose along with fibre, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and all round goodness. I could go on and on but I think I’ve made my point.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The other thing I see more and more people using these days are Apps. Some are great and others, like social media, seem to be taking over people's lives.

A few months ago I spoke to someone who had being living their life according to a food app to get them ripped and defined. I asked the person, how long had he been using the app?

He said it was brilliant and had been using it for about 8 months. I asked how much weight he had lost in that time. He told ne 4 pounds.

I did a diet for him, based on his body type, lifestyle etc and he lost a stone in 7 weeks.

So let's just go back to the basics maybe. Rather than overthinking and getting stressed about our nutrition and supplements, let’s take things back to basics.

• Exercise regularly

• Sleep 7-8 hours a night

• Drink 2-3 liters of water every day

• Take a Good Quality multivitamin and fish oil every day.

• Try not to get stressed

• Cook from scratch and eat your vegetables

If it’s on TV it’s usually a lie!

Marketing people are artists at bullshit. TV adverts, social media adverts, these people are masters of their craft and they make things look too good to be true. Often they are.

I often do supplement reviews for people where they bring their supplements in and we go through them to see if they really need them.

9 times out of 10 they are taking something they don’t need.

If you want proper impartial advice, visit your local Independent Health Food Store, not the high street chains and they will talk to you in depth about your needs. Its often the same with weight loss challenges, there is no quick fix believe me, I have been doing this for over 30 years and seen it all.

My advice is be patient, don’t over think, follow the simple rules I’ve outlined here and you will do amazing.

Don’t be a cheap skate!

Don’t get me wrong, everyone loves a deal and likes to save money. But when it comes to supplements don’t cut corners, buy the best you can afford.

Four years supply for £4.99 are £4.99 for a reason, they are usually terrible, unabsorbable cheap and nasty rubbish.

It’s like going into a Gym that sells my protein or other bulk supply cheap formulations, I would immediately question that gym.

If its happy to sell its clients that stuff, does it care about its clients?

Yet if I went into a gym that had some top end brands like viridian, Terranova, Nvrenuf Nutrition etc then I would know this place knows what its doing.

Have a cheat now and again it’s all about balance.

I had a lovely gent come into the shop the other day asking what he could eat that Friday as was out with his wife for an anniversary.

My colleague Jordan had done him a diet and to be fair he looks fantastic at around 2 stone trimmer. My reply to him was simply – “whatever you want, it’s an anniversary with your wife!” one cheap isn’t going to ruin everything.

Unfortunately, people start getting results and become obsessed and sometimes forget how to have fun.

If you can get that balance right its so much more fun, and at the end of the day isn’t that what life’s about.

 

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