Places like GNC make millions of dollars selling people supplements. The supplement business, as a whole, is a 60 billion dollar industry in America. So if so many people are buying supplements, shouldn’t we be the healthiest country in the world? Unfortunately, we are not! The countries that are in the Top 10 of healthiest countries, probably do not take near as many supplements as Americans do. If you go to a supplement store, they will fill your shopping bag with fat burners, vitamins, some magic berry pills, and a host of other crap that is going to do absolutely nothing if your lifestyle and diet are bad. You have to start with a healthy diet rich in nutrition and clean up your lifestyle before even thinking of ADDING anything to it. Until you have accomplished a balance of food, lifestyle and exercise into your life, you should not try and fill in the holes with supplements. The holes will become too big, and the supplements will fall right through into your toilet.
Eating healthy is simple, you just have to shop for healthy whole foods. I always talk about the importance of shopping at Trader Joe’s and Lassen’s. These stores offer a higher quality of whole foods. If you eat out on a regular basis you are more than likely starving for real nutrients. Please do yourself a favor and only eat out 20% of your week. Your shopping list should include quality proteins like free range chicken, free range eggs and high quality beef and pork. You should have plenty of organic fruits and veggies and high fiber carbohydrates. So you ask: Where is the fish? Well, I could tell you all day to eat wild salmon and fresh fish, but you probably will not listen to that advice. If you shop for all of the items that I just mentioned above and you leave out fish, then there is going to be a hole in your diet. This is where Fish Oil comes in.
Fish Oil is not a supplement. It is essential to the human body. Calling it a supplement would be like calling water a supplement. You need water to live. You need Omega 3 Fatty Acids to live healthy. I look at fish oil as filling that gap and delivering something that every cell in your body will use. I learned of the importance of fish oil about 7 years ago. I started telling all my boot campers and clients to start taking it. The problem back then was that it was not mainstream enough for people to really listen to me. They kind of thought I was crazy. Well, fast forward to now and you see fish oil sold in almost every supermarket. When I learned about fish oil I was taught to only take high quality oil that is free of pcbs. I personally take Carlson’s Brand Fish Oil and that is why I sell it at the gym. The amount that adults should take is around 5 grams. If you purchase capsules you should know that each capsule is only 1 gram. If you take the oil, you just need to take one teaspoon and that equals 5 grams. I do reccomend you stay away from cheap fish oil. There is a major lawsuit against several companies that sell fish oil with pcbs. Below is a paragraph written about the lawsuit. If you have any of these products, throw them away.
SAN FRANCISCO—Mateel Justice Foundation, in conjunction with two individual plaintiffs, brought a lawsuit against six fish oil manufacturers and two retailers for labeling violations of the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, also known as Proposition 65. Filed March 2 in Superior Court of San Francisco, the suit alleges several fish oil products sold in California failed to include label warnings for levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl compounds) found in the products by testing initiated by the plaintiffs, which include Chris Manthey and Benson Chiles, both consultants with the environmentalist Blue Line Network. Named as defendants in the suit were two retailers—CVS Pharmacy Inc. and Rite Aid Corp.—and six manufacturers—General Nutrition Corp. (GNC); NOW Health Group Inc.; Omega Protein Inc.; Pharmavite LLC (Nature Made brand); Solgar Inc.; and Twinlab Corp.
