Healthy Weightloss Program

Weightloss and Supplements

Supplements can help you achieve your weightloss goals. But you have to be careful. Popular supplements include multivitamins, minerals, MRPs (meal replacement powders), protein powders, fat burners, thermogenic aids, and essential fatty acids. But there are thousands more.

Here is a list of the foundational supplements you should be considering in any weightloss program:

Multivitamin
A recent Harvard Medical School study that appeared in the journal of the AMA confirms what many trainers have known for some time now: you should supplement your diet with a high quality multivitamin. A full spectrum multivitamin helps prevent free radical buildup after exercising and ensures adequate vitamin intake -- something we can no longer rely on whole foods for it seems.

A quality multivitamin can also help control the insulin/glucogen balance -- a key factor to successful weightloss promoted by many low carb diets.

Essential Fatty Acid
No fat and low fat diets simply do not work. An essential fatty acid (EFA) supplement contains needed Omega-3, Omega-6, and Omega-9 fatty acids for the diet. Eating cold water fish like salmon is a great all natural source of Omega fatty acids, but an EFA supplement is often more convenient. Also, supplementing with EFAs allow you to eat a wide variety of largely low and non-fat food and then control the fat that you add to your overall nutrition.

Meal Replacement Powder (MRP)
Many successful healthy weightloss programs advocate eating five or six meals a day and consuming a gram of protein for every pound of lean body mass. That's a lot of chicken breasts per day! 

Meal replacement powders are the perfect solution to eating small, healthy meals throughout the day. MRPs are usually shake mixes that you add water or milk to. Each meal contains a predefined blend of protein, carbs, and fats. Meal replacement powder is convenient for people who travel, work throughout the day, and just find it difficult to get adequate protein through eating whole foods.

Protein Powder
Protein powder is just what the name suggests. Unlike meal replacement powders, protein powders do not contain carbs or fat (or only small quantities). They are perfect for making sure you are getting adequate protein in your diet, for people on "low carb" eating plans, and for before bedtime snacks.

Taking a protein powder drink (mix it with water) before bedtime is a great way to supply your body with amino acids throughout your sleep, and to keep your metabolism working as you sleep. This will help your weightloss, fat loss, and muscle gaining goals.

What about fat burners?
There are two popular form of fat burners -- lipotropics and thermogenics. 

Thermogenics act to provide a temporary boost of your metabolism. Before the public outcry against ephedra, many people took an "E-C-A stack" of ephedra, caffeine, and aspirin before aerobic exercise. The E-C-A stack has been proven to be an effective fat loss supplement. But the dangers and risk of ephedra are well known.

Recently a new class of thermogenic supplement has come to market. These new supplements use caffeine, synthetic aspirin, and a host of herbs to boost the metabolism. There have recently been medical tests to prove the benefits of these new fat burning supplements.

Lipotropics actually help you process fat better. Lipotropic supplements combine vitamins and amino acids into a supplement that helps process fat in foods and attack fat stores in the body.