Hi all,
I know many of you are aware of my love for ConsumerLab, a research and third-party product testing company that puts out TONS of amazing information.
The supplement industry is NOT well regulated. Basically there are a handful of legislations that apply to dietary supplements. First off, a dietary supplement is a substance that is taken by mouth with contains one or more dietary ingredient. Dietary ingredients are basically things found in foods: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs or botanicals, and some other chemicals here and there that aren't drugs because they aren't used to treat a disease. Supplements often make claims like "supports heart health," which is legal, whereas saying "prevents atherosclerosis" or "lowers LDL cholesterol" is NOT acceptable and the FDA will fuck a manufacturer up fo' dat shiit. Usually you will also see supplements say “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” This is to let the consumer know the FDA has not reviewed the claims on the bottle about this substance. In some ways, this means they can basically say whatever the hell they want as long as it isn't claiming to treat an illness.
As far as manufacturing, the FDA basically just requires things be manufactured to current "Good Manufacturing Processes." This is a set of regulations is supposed to help to ensure quality of supplements such as safe handling, purity, that the label is accurate, etc. However, even officials at the FDA estimate that 70% of supplement companies have breached cGMP practices over the last 5 year (that was in 2013, but it goes to show you how little oversight there actually is). Tthe FDA simply doesn't have the bandwidth to truly monitor all of these different companies and products. Often times nobody will know a company is in breach of GMP until it's too late and people have had bad reactions or something has happened to force an investigation.
I've had personal experience with this, for a long time I was taking NutriGold Ashwagandha Extract. I helped with anxiety and stress, depression, and supposedly increased test by lowering cortisol though I never tested that. I thought it was a good brand, that I was getting the some of the best. It came in really nice packaging and a nice glass bottle. At some point I remember getting a bottle and opening it, and the capsules had this funky cheesy smell to them...almost like a parmesan cheese or something. It didn't smell right, but I couldn't remember if it always smelled that way? It is an obscure plant extract from India/Asia...I don't really know how it is supposed to smell. So I kept taking it and it did work/have the stress-lowering effects, but then I immediately had a massive heart attack and a stroke and a brain aneurysm, AND one of my testicles actually swelled to the size of a baseball and proceeded to slowly implode upon itself, becoming a small black hole that sucked away my other ball and dick with it. Now I am a unich, which is why I'm on TRT fo' lyfe. Thanks NutriGold!
Okay, maybe that fiasco didn't actually happen at all. But what did happen was, I continued taking it for a little while, but then stopped as it was giving me gross cheesy smelling burps. Maybe a year or so later after the cheese smell started, I got a letter about a recall for the NutriGold Ashwagandha extract product--that it had contaminants or something and should be discarded and not consumed. Wonderful! So the supp I took for like 2 years was low quality, had contaminants, and may not even have been the correct dose--since, if the company can't keep contaminants how, can they really measure their dosing properly? Thankfully it didn't have heavy metals or some other chemicals in it that could've caused negative health impacts or side effects.
That is just one example, but this happens ALL THE TIME to ALL different companies for any and every supplement you can think of, from simple vitamins to obscure herbs and plants. You might guess that the obscure herbs and plants are more frequent offenders, and you are correct. Sourcing obscure herbs and things for supplement manufacturing is HARD. The sources have essentially ZERO oversight at all as they are usually operating out of third-world countries with near-slave laborers and really no care for what the end consumer is consuming. Often times it is groups of people foraging/harvesting materials from the rainforest/jungle. Often times it's people scavenging in fields looking for specific plants of fungi. Or it could be people farming, again with little-to-no oversight, and often these farms damage the planet by using horrible/unethical agriculture practices such as slash and burn agriculture, and not to mention they also hurt consumer of the end product by spraying INSANE amounts of pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers/other chemicals that leech into the plants and wind up in the end products that we consume as we try to "optimize our health." ...*sighhhh*...How ironic!
In my opinion, some of the supplements I always avoid because I have serious concerns with the sourcing and quality of the substances are:
- I avoid or am VERY careful with the vast majority of the "ayurvedic supplements" such as shilajit, tongkat ali, tribulus terrestris, shatavaril, gokhru, and some others. My main concern here is sourcing: often times these products are sourced and then the raw materials extracted in ways that are NOT up to standards. This can cause contaminants to be let behind, such as everything from solvents and other chemicals to heavy metals.
- MOST of the CBD and kratom products on the market are either just low quality, or often tainted with pesticides/chemicals. I only get the high quality, expensive shit (if I get any at all). To be honest I am less concerned about CBD than I am about Kratom. As long as you get raw, bulk kratom, you are pretty much good to go--none of that gas station shit and none of the extracts (you don't wanna fuck with extracts anyway, that is a fast road to addiction).
- Personally, I won't touch any kind of blend/supplement stack marketed for "sexual enhancement" or "weight loss" or "bodybuilding." These are the most commonly tainted supplements out there. I also don't fuck with preworkout blends (I just take 7g of Citrulline Malate 1 hour pre workout--that's all I need). Often times these stacks are tainted with eveything from amphetamine analogues, cathinones, phenylethlamines, and other designer drugs like SARMs, etc. For example, several years ago the workout supplement "Craze" was found to have a methamphetamine analogue in it, N,N-diethyl-phenylethylamine (N,N-DEPEA). Now, some of you might be into meth, but I am not. That is one drug I have never tried (other than once I got some meth-y rolls and took them anyway, it was stupid). The last thing I want is the extreme vasoconstriction and side effects of stimulants while trying to lift weights and get a good pump going!
- Berberine used to be extremely commonly underdosed and tainted, however I don't know if this is still the case. It wouldn't surprise me if it is. I still avoid it as it's just not necessary, if I want to enhance my insulin sensitivity and glucose levels, I will take a Ceylon Cinnamon that has been tested by a third party.
- Even supplements like ceylon cinnamon you have to be careful with, as a lot of companies just use regular cassia cinnamon which actually has several negative effects in the body!
So yeah, those are the things I personally avoid UNLESS I can find trustworthy third-party test results to prove that the supplement is safe, dose properly, free of contaminants, etc. Honestly, that is what I do for ALL my supplements, but I would put extra scrutiny on the list of things immediately above simply because there is more risk with those products.
The point is, we are fighting a battle for our health here. These supplement companies are in it for one thing: profits. Many of them, especially the smaller ones that are more obscure, cut a lot of corners in order to increase those profits--just like a lot of businesses in this capitalist world we inhabit. It is really important that we, as the consumers, make EDUCATED and INFORMED decisions about what companies we give our hard-earned money to and also what we put in our body.
Plain old vitamins and minerals can often have manufacturing issues too! First off, don't ever take a multi-vitamin because they are bullshit, unnecessary, and often counterproductive to health. I am a huge proponent of targeted supplementation--in my opinion it is really the ONLY way to supplement! This means you research the substance you are interested in, learn it's effects, and side effects and interactions it could have with other substances you take, research the brands and find a high quality, preferably third-party verified brand. Then you purchase it and take it. If we were hanging out together and I looked in your drug/supplement cabinet, you should be able to tell me EXACTLY what each and every supplement you're taking is for. I can do this, I take them at different times of day, I now exactly why I am taking them, whether to take them with food or without food, etc. If I can do it, you can do it
The only reason I have several bottles of multi-vitamins around is for the apocalypse, if we are running short on food then we can supplement with muti-vites in order to stay alive/healthy/not deficient in anything! But I digress...
The FDA maintains a list of tainted products marketed as dietary supplements, which can be found HERE. It is not the easiest to navigate, honestly. I am really not a fan of it, but I would be remiss if I didn't include it.
Here is a Scientific American article about supplements: Hundreds of supplements tainted with prescription drugs, less than half ended up being recalled. "During this period, 776 dietary supplements were found to contain drugs. Of these, most (86 percent) were marketed for sexual enhancement or weight loss, and 12 percent were marked for muscle building. About 1 in 5 products (20 percent) were found to contain more than one hidden drug ingredient, the study found."
So yeah, even if a supplement IS tainted, it might not even ever get recalled, or it might take years. Often times these things aren't really found until a high-profile athlete tests positive for something, then they narrow it down to a supp they took and THEN the product gets recalled because of all the eyes on it.
So what can we do? How can consumers know that we're buying a product that is quality, contains what is claims, and doesn't contain extra bullshit on top of that?
Enter services such as:
- ConsumerLab (this is by far my personal favorite, I am a subscriber of theirs for the last 3 years, but have no affiliation with the company at all other than using their incredible services). I love CL because there is no conflicts of interest here. The funding for the testing comes from subscribers membership fees. As far as I have read, CL will send off two separate batches of a given supplement to two different third-party testing companies and have the analysis done twice. This ensures higher accuracy and reduces risk of anomalies during testing. You can read more about how they test products here. On every article, there is a link "learn more about our testing practices" where you can learn exactly how they tested that specific supplement.
Another huge bonus for ConsumerLab is that they aggregate research for supplements, foods, and even recently things like water filters and face masks for COVID. They scour pubmed and these other databases in order to make massive, amazingly rich articles full of every detail you could imagine about the substance you're researching. This, combined with their testing of products, makes it my go-to one stop shop for supplement research.
- There is also We Test You Trust who will provide certifications and a stamp of approval for supplements. This is done in coordination with the supplement company, so theoretically there could be more room for bias here than with a service like ConsumerLab.
Think about this: whenever there is money passing from the company to the tester, the tester doesn't want to say "Hey your product is shit, it's full of lead and arsenic and it only have 20% of the active ingredient you claim!" because what will happen is the company will just stop using their services. They will find another lab that will do the testing for them, send them a different sample (another problem here is that the supplement company picks the sample to send them, so again, they could pick their "best" sample from their "private reserve" and have that tested rather than the normal stock for the peasants).
I'm not saying these things happen a lot or that there is this much blatant corruption going on, but the way the money moves does present conflicts of interest and risks. I do think that it is not uncommon for third party testers to want to provide good results to the company so that the company comes back and gives them more business, though.
- LabDoor - they also do third party testing, but their service is much more limited than ConsumerLab. Like ConsumerLab, they buy products off the shelf, so the supplement company doesn't get the chance to send them a specific batch. They do publish the COAs for the product, which is really nice. You can see this by clicking on the "see report" link of a given product. Example (note I DO NOT TAKE BCAAs beacuse they are trash and serve no purpose in anyone's supplement cabinet. Either buy protein or buy an EAA blend)
I like the ones listed above specifically because they provide direct-to-consumer test results. However, there are also other companies and organizations which will provide certifications that the supplement company can then put in their bottle. It is a benefit to them as then consumers can see it's tested right there, which is good for marketing. A few of the big ones that provide certifications are ConsumerLab, US Pharmacopeia (USP), UL Supplement Testing, NSF International, TGA Health Safety Regulation (which appears to be part of the AU government).
In the end, as you may guess, I prefer to take my health and most aspects of my life into my own hands. I want to do the research and learn about what I'm taking and I want to ensure that the brands and products I'm buying are safe and pure.
So, in case you're sitting there thinking, "Hey, this guy really gets into this shit, I wonder what supplements he takes?" I am going to share this info with you!
As far as brands, I am generally a fan of the following supplement manufacturers:
1. BulkSupplements - they have been shown to be high quality in all the tests I have seen and they are inexpensive and have options as far as whether you want to buy a capsules, 100 grams, 500 grams, a kilo, etc. You can really save money with BulkSupplements. Plus even Greg and Eric at StrongerByScience endorse them and let them be a sponsor for their podcast, so you know they're good I HIGHLY recommend the SBS Podcast, by the way. It is incredible.
2. NOW Supplements consistently rank highly in third-party testing
3. Swanson Supplements consistently rank highly in third-party testing
4. Kirkland generally has good quality products. Everything from their foods, cooking oils, to supplements.
So, what supplements do I take?
I went ahead and made y'all a nice table of all the supps I take! This doesn't include things like coffee or tea, which are the only stimulants I consume. I don't take any pre-workout blends and I don't take caffeine before my workouts (although usually I lift in the morning, so my coffee is still in me). I find the large doses of caffeine in PWO blends to really be detrimental overall, as caffeine significantly decreases deep sleep even 8-12 hours after ingestion--for me with my bad insomnia I can't afford to take anything that makes my sleep worse.
So yeah, those are my supps. All except maybe one or two are third-party tested, usually by ConsumerLab, so I can be confident I am getting a quality product! Hopefully y'all find it interesting!
I know many of you are aware of my love for ConsumerLab, a research and third-party product testing company that puts out TONS of amazing information.
The supplement industry is NOT well regulated. Basically there are a handful of legislations that apply to dietary supplements. First off, a dietary supplement is a substance that is taken by mouth with contains one or more dietary ingredient. Dietary ingredients are basically things found in foods: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs or botanicals, and some other chemicals here and there that aren't drugs because they aren't used to treat a disease. Supplements often make claims like "supports heart health," which is legal, whereas saying "prevents atherosclerosis" or "lowers LDL cholesterol" is NOT acceptable and the FDA will fuck a manufacturer up fo' dat shiit. Usually you will also see supplements say “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” This is to let the consumer know the FDA has not reviewed the claims on the bottle about this substance. In some ways, this means they can basically say whatever the hell they want as long as it isn't claiming to treat an illness.
As far as manufacturing, the FDA basically just requires things be manufactured to current "Good Manufacturing Processes." This is a set of regulations is supposed to help to ensure quality of supplements such as safe handling, purity, that the label is accurate, etc. However, even officials at the FDA estimate that 70% of supplement companies have breached cGMP practices over the last 5 year (that was in 2013, but it goes to show you how little oversight there actually is). Tthe FDA simply doesn't have the bandwidth to truly monitor all of these different companies and products. Often times nobody will know a company is in breach of GMP until it's too late and people have had bad reactions or something has happened to force an investigation.
I've had personal experience with this, for a long time I was taking NutriGold Ashwagandha Extract. I helped with anxiety and stress, depression, and supposedly increased test by lowering cortisol though I never tested that. I thought it was a good brand, that I was getting the some of the best. It came in really nice packaging and a nice glass bottle. At some point I remember getting a bottle and opening it, and the capsules had this funky cheesy smell to them...almost like a parmesan cheese or something. It didn't smell right, but I couldn't remember if it always smelled that way? It is an obscure plant extract from India/Asia...I don't really know how it is supposed to smell. So I kept taking it and it did work/have the stress-lowering effects, but then I immediately had a massive heart attack and a stroke and a brain aneurysm, AND one of my testicles actually swelled to the size of a baseball and proceeded to slowly implode upon itself, becoming a small black hole that sucked away my other ball and dick with it. Now I am a unich, which is why I'm on TRT fo' lyfe. Thanks NutriGold!
Okay, maybe that fiasco didn't actually happen at all. But what did happen was, I continued taking it for a little while, but then stopped as it was giving me gross cheesy smelling burps. Maybe a year or so later after the cheese smell started, I got a letter about a recall for the NutriGold Ashwagandha extract product--that it had contaminants or something and should be discarded and not consumed. Wonderful! So the supp I took for like 2 years was low quality, had contaminants, and may not even have been the correct dose--since, if the company can't keep contaminants how, can they really measure their dosing properly? Thankfully it didn't have heavy metals or some other chemicals in it that could've caused negative health impacts or side effects.
That is just one example, but this happens ALL THE TIME to ALL different companies for any and every supplement you can think of, from simple vitamins to obscure herbs and plants. You might guess that the obscure herbs and plants are more frequent offenders, and you are correct. Sourcing obscure herbs and things for supplement manufacturing is HARD. The sources have essentially ZERO oversight at all as they are usually operating out of third-world countries with near-slave laborers and really no care for what the end consumer is consuming. Often times it is groups of people foraging/harvesting materials from the rainforest/jungle. Often times it's people scavenging in fields looking for specific plants of fungi. Or it could be people farming, again with little-to-no oversight, and often these farms damage the planet by using horrible/unethical agriculture practices such as slash and burn agriculture, and not to mention they also hurt consumer of the end product by spraying INSANE amounts of pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers/other chemicals that leech into the plants and wind up in the end products that we consume as we try to "optimize our health." ...*sighhhh*...How ironic!
In my opinion, some of the supplements I always avoid because I have serious concerns with the sourcing and quality of the substances are:
- I avoid or am VERY careful with the vast majority of the "ayurvedic supplements" such as shilajit, tongkat ali, tribulus terrestris, shatavaril, gokhru, and some others. My main concern here is sourcing: often times these products are sourced and then the raw materials extracted in ways that are NOT up to standards. This can cause contaminants to be let behind, such as everything from solvents and other chemicals to heavy metals.
- MOST of the CBD and kratom products on the market are either just low quality, or often tainted with pesticides/chemicals. I only get the high quality, expensive shit (if I get any at all). To be honest I am less concerned about CBD than I am about Kratom. As long as you get raw, bulk kratom, you are pretty much good to go--none of that gas station shit and none of the extracts (you don't wanna fuck with extracts anyway, that is a fast road to addiction).
- Personally, I won't touch any kind of blend/supplement stack marketed for "sexual enhancement" or "weight loss" or "bodybuilding." These are the most commonly tainted supplements out there. I also don't fuck with preworkout blends (I just take 7g of Citrulline Malate 1 hour pre workout--that's all I need). Often times these stacks are tainted with eveything from amphetamine analogues, cathinones, phenylethlamines, and other designer drugs like SARMs, etc. For example, several years ago the workout supplement "Craze" was found to have a methamphetamine analogue in it, N,N-diethyl-phenylethylamine (N,N-DEPEA). Now, some of you might be into meth, but I am not. That is one drug I have never tried (other than once I got some meth-y rolls and took them anyway, it was stupid). The last thing I want is the extreme vasoconstriction and side effects of stimulants while trying to lift weights and get a good pump going!
- Berberine used to be extremely commonly underdosed and tainted, however I don't know if this is still the case. It wouldn't surprise me if it is. I still avoid it as it's just not necessary, if I want to enhance my insulin sensitivity and glucose levels, I will take a Ceylon Cinnamon that has been tested by a third party.
- Even supplements like ceylon cinnamon you have to be careful with, as a lot of companies just use regular cassia cinnamon which actually has several negative effects in the body!
So yeah, those are the things I personally avoid UNLESS I can find trustworthy third-party test results to prove that the supplement is safe, dose properly, free of contaminants, etc. Honestly, that is what I do for ALL my supplements, but I would put extra scrutiny on the list of things immediately above simply because there is more risk with those products.
The point is, we are fighting a battle for our health here. These supplement companies are in it for one thing: profits. Many of them, especially the smaller ones that are more obscure, cut a lot of corners in order to increase those profits--just like a lot of businesses in this capitalist world we inhabit. It is really important that we, as the consumers, make EDUCATED and INFORMED decisions about what companies we give our hard-earned money to and also what we put in our body.
Plain old vitamins and minerals can often have manufacturing issues too! First off, don't ever take a multi-vitamin because they are bullshit, unnecessary, and often counterproductive to health. I am a huge proponent of targeted supplementation--in my opinion it is really the ONLY way to supplement! This means you research the substance you are interested in, learn it's effects, and side effects and interactions it could have with other substances you take, research the brands and find a high quality, preferably third-party verified brand. Then you purchase it and take it. If we were hanging out together and I looked in your drug/supplement cabinet, you should be able to tell me EXACTLY what each and every supplement you're taking is for. I can do this, I take them at different times of day, I now exactly why I am taking them, whether to take them with food or without food, etc. If I can do it, you can do it
The only reason I have several bottles of multi-vitamins around is for the apocalypse, if we are running short on food then we can supplement with muti-vites in order to stay alive/healthy/not deficient in anything! But I digress...The FDA maintains a list of tainted products marketed as dietary supplements, which can be found HERE. It is not the easiest to navigate, honestly. I am really not a fan of it, but I would be remiss if I didn't include it.
Here is a Scientific American article about supplements: Hundreds of supplements tainted with prescription drugs, less than half ended up being recalled. "During this period, 776 dietary supplements were found to contain drugs. Of these, most (86 percent) were marketed for sexual enhancement or weight loss, and 12 percent were marked for muscle building. About 1 in 5 products (20 percent) were found to contain more than one hidden drug ingredient, the study found."
So yeah, even if a supplement IS tainted, it might not even ever get recalled, or it might take years. Often times these things aren't really found until a high-profile athlete tests positive for something, then they narrow it down to a supp they took and THEN the product gets recalled because of all the eyes on it.
So what can we do? How can consumers know that we're buying a product that is quality, contains what is claims, and doesn't contain extra bullshit on top of that?
Enter services such as:
- ConsumerLab (this is by far my personal favorite, I am a subscriber of theirs for the last 3 years, but have no affiliation with the company at all other than using their incredible services). I love CL because there is no conflicts of interest here. The funding for the testing comes from subscribers membership fees. As far as I have read, CL will send off two separate batches of a given supplement to two different third-party testing companies and have the analysis done twice. This ensures higher accuracy and reduces risk of anomalies during testing. You can read more about how they test products here. On every article, there is a link "learn more about our testing practices" where you can learn exactly how they tested that specific supplement.
Another huge bonus for ConsumerLab is that they aggregate research for supplements, foods, and even recently things like water filters and face masks for COVID. They scour pubmed and these other databases in order to make massive, amazingly rich articles full of every detail you could imagine about the substance you're researching. This, combined with their testing of products, makes it my go-to one stop shop for supplement research.
- There is also We Test You Trust who will provide certifications and a stamp of approval for supplements. This is done in coordination with the supplement company, so theoretically there could be more room for bias here than with a service like ConsumerLab.
Think about this: whenever there is money passing from the company to the tester, the tester doesn't want to say "Hey your product is shit, it's full of lead and arsenic and it only have 20% of the active ingredient you claim!" because what will happen is the company will just stop using their services. They will find another lab that will do the testing for them, send them a different sample (another problem here is that the supplement company picks the sample to send them, so again, they could pick their "best" sample from their "private reserve" and have that tested rather than the normal stock for the peasants).
I'm not saying these things happen a lot or that there is this much blatant corruption going on, but the way the money moves does present conflicts of interest and risks. I do think that it is not uncommon for third party testers to want to provide good results to the company so that the company comes back and gives them more business, though.
- LabDoor - they also do third party testing, but their service is much more limited than ConsumerLab. Like ConsumerLab, they buy products off the shelf, so the supplement company doesn't get the chance to send them a specific batch. They do publish the COAs for the product, which is really nice. You can see this by clicking on the "see report" link of a given product. Example (note I DO NOT TAKE BCAAs beacuse they are trash and serve no purpose in anyone's supplement cabinet. Either buy protein or buy an EAA blend)
I like the ones listed above specifically because they provide direct-to-consumer test results. However, there are also other companies and organizations which will provide certifications that the supplement company can then put in their bottle. It is a benefit to them as then consumers can see it's tested right there, which is good for marketing. A few of the big ones that provide certifications are ConsumerLab, US Pharmacopeia (USP), UL Supplement Testing, NSF International, TGA Health Safety Regulation (which appears to be part of the AU government).
In the end, as you may guess, I prefer to take my health and most aspects of my life into my own hands. I want to do the research and learn about what I'm taking and I want to ensure that the brands and products I'm buying are safe and pure.
So, in case you're sitting there thinking, "Hey, this guy really gets into this shit, I wonder what supplements he takes?" I am going to share this info with you!
As far as brands, I am generally a fan of the following supplement manufacturers:
1. BulkSupplements - they have been shown to be high quality in all the tests I have seen and they are inexpensive and have options as far as whether you want to buy a capsules, 100 grams, 500 grams, a kilo, etc. You can really save money with BulkSupplements. Plus even Greg and Eric at StrongerByScience endorse them and let them be a sponsor for their podcast, so you know they're good
I HIGHLY recommend the SBS Podcast, by the way. It is incredible.2. NOW Supplements consistently rank highly in third-party testing
3. Swanson Supplements consistently rank highly in third-party testing
4. Kirkland generally has good quality products. Everything from their foods, cooking oils, to supplements.
So, what supplements do I take?
I went ahead and made y'all a nice table of all the supps I take! This doesn't include things like coffee or tea, which are the only stimulants I consume. I don't take any pre-workout blends and I don't take caffeine before my workouts (although usually I lift in the morning, so my coffee is still in me). I find the large doses of caffeine in PWO blends to really be detrimental overall, as caffeine significantly decreases deep sleep even 8-12 hours after ingestion--for me with my bad insomnia I can't afford to take anything that makes my sleep worse.
| Supplements List | ||||
| Brand | Supplement | Dose | Dosing Schedule | Effect |
| BulkSupplemenst | L-Citrulline Malate | 7 grams | 1H pre-workout or pre-sex | Increases Nitric Oxide production for better muscle pumps and better/longer lasting erections |
| BulkSupplements | Creatine HCL | 750 mg | Whenever | Lifting |
| BulkSupplements | Essential Amino Acid Powder (EAA) | 15 grams | As needed, pre or post workout | Contains all the essential amino acids for building muscle. Take pre-workout to help prevent muscle breakdown or post workout as an additional boost to your protein intake on top of whatever other protein source you're consuming. Fast and easily digestible. Fuck BCAAs!!! |
| Finest Nutrition | DHEA | 25 mg | Before Bed | I have super low DHEA-s, so I take it |
| Healthy Origins | Vitamin K2 (MK-7) | 100 mcg | With Breakfast | NEVER take vitamin D3 without Vitamin K2!!! |
| HPF Cholestene | Red Yeast Rice Extract | 2 Capsules | Before Bed | Lower cholesterol on cycle (contains levostatins) |
| Jarrow Formulas | Ubiquinol QH Absorb | 100 mg | Nightly with RYR Extract | Statins reduce levels of CoQ10 in the heart, Ubiquinol prevents that from happening |
| KAL | Magnesium Glycinate | 400 mg | Before Bed | Relaxation for sleep, magnesium level support due to frequent ejaculation |
| Kirkland | Fish Oil | 2 Grams | With Breakfast | HDL support, although recently large studies have shown fish oil/increased HDL levels to have no effect on all-cause mortality, so it really probably doesn't do shit. I don’t take it very regularly anymore. |
| MyProtein Impact | Whey Protein Isolate | 25-40 grams | As needed | Will add to shake post workout, will often cook with it, will add to oatmeal, wil sometimes just mix with some milk and a dash of honey to have a quick bolus of protein. |
| Natures Bounty | Vitamin D3 | 2000 IU | With Breakfast | Blood vitamin D level support, bone support when combined with K2, immune support against COVID |
| NOW Supplements | Asaxanthin | 8 mg | With Breakfast | Antioxidant, protection against UV light, skin health, exercise benefits, heart health, and even helps joint pain! This shit is pretty magical. |
| NOW Supplements | Glycine | 1000 mg | Nightly | Relaxation for sleep |
| NOW Supplements | L-Arginine | 1000 mg | With Breakfast | With pycnogenol, improves erections (just experimenting with it for fun) |
| NOW Supplements | L-Theanine with Inositol | 200-400 mg | Before Bed | Relaxation for sleep |
| NOW Supplements | Pycnogenol | 60 mg | With Breakfast | With L-Arginine, improves erections (just experimenting with it for fun) |
| NOW Supplements | Sunflower Lecithin | 1200 mg | With Breakfast | Increases semen quantity and orgasm intensity - just started as an experiment |
| NOW Supplements | Taurine | 5 grams | 3 G in AM and 2 G in PM between meals | Helps to prevent cellular damage from Nandrolone!! No data out there about tren, but will also take it with tren. |
| NOW Supplements | Zinc Picolinate | 50 mg | With Breakfast | Immune boost and testicle/semen boost. Zinc Picolinate is the only form of zing that's actually proven to get into your cells. Zinc level support due to frequent ejaculation. |
| Sundown | Melatonin | 600 mcg | Before bed | Helps to fall asleep faster, I will also take it in the middle of the night if I wake up and can't fall back asleep (helps with my insomnia) |
| Swanson | Cinnulin PF Cinnamone Extract | 150 mg | 3x per day with meals | Insulin sensitivity/blood glucose levels when bulking/taking RYR Extract |
| Swanson | Pygeum | 500 mg | With Breakfast | Increases semen quantity and orgasm intensity - just started as an experiment |
| Thorne Research | Meriva 500-SF Curcumin | 1 gram | As needed | Alternative to advil, sometimes I will take it before a bath or sauna session to reduce inflammation and help support recovery. |
So yeah, those are my supps. All except maybe one or two are third-party tested, usually by ConsumerLab, so I can be confident I am getting a quality product! Hopefully y'all find it interesting!
