Supplements

Supplement Protocols & Recommendations

This page contains a list of supplement protocols to address specific issues, including the science behind them. It will be updated frequently as I do more research. Before you proceed, I need to do a few important announcements.

1. I am not a medical professional. All the recommendations I do are based on my personal research. None of this is medical advice, and you are always responsible for your own health.
2. It is always best to get your nutrients from real food and in a natural way. I will try to limit my supplement recommendations to things that are very difficult or impossible to get through food.
3. This page may include affiliate links. This means that when you use that link to buy a product, I can receive a small commission. This will not increase the price you pay. I will only link to products I have used or would personally use myself.

Last Updated: 14-04-2022

 

Food & Lifestyle > Supplements

Supplements, it is in the name. They are supposed to be an addition to your general way of living, either to correct deficiencies, address certain issues, or optimize certain aspects of your physiology. Ideally, you take the minimum amount of supplements, and get everything you need through food and lifestyle. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. Supplements generally provide an isolated nutrient. In nature and in your body, nutrients are not found in isolation, but part of a larger thing, such as vitamin C being just one of many compounds found in oranges. As it turns out, vitamin C only works when it has access to other enzymes and molecules that are also found in oranges. As a result, vitamin C from oranges is far more effective than vitamin C from a supplement, which doesn’t contain these enzymes and molecules.

2. Supplements contain chemicals or can be tainted. Supplements are made in factories. Some factories use chemicals to increase their margins or improve their production process. Even though these chemicals are often not directly damaging to your health, do you really want to ingest chemicals you don’t need? Furthermore, many studies that checked the quality of supplements found that some supplements are rancid when they were sold, or contain much higher or much lower doses than advertised. In that case, taking the supplement can be a danger to your health, rather than a benefit.

3. Supplements are expensive. It’s simply better for your health, your wallet, and the environment if you get your vitamins and minerals from food and nature, rather than pills and powders that have been made in factories and laboratories, packaged in plastic, and shipped all over the world.

Now let me be clear. I do believe in the use of supplements. But, they should be used only when necessary, after one has done everything to optimize health through food and lifestyle. Next, if one takes supplements, it is key to know exactly what to take, when to take it, for how long, and to make sure it comes from a high quality source.

General Health

Let’s start with the basics, your general health. The pillars of your physical health are the following:
1. Nutrition
2. Sleep
3. Movement
 
This blog post will not go in-depth on movement and sleep, but the general minimum recommendation for health is 30 minutes of dedicated movement every day, and 7-9 hours of sleep every day. Of course, there are many ways to optimize these aspects of your life, but those will be addressed in different blogs.
 

Let’s focus on nutrition for a moment. Many nutritional supplements are aimed at addressing nutrient deficiencies that are caused by a poor diet. This includes all vitamins and minerals, protein supplements, and omega-3/6/9 supplements. Ideally, your diet is constructed in such a way that you don’t need any of these supplements. Now you might ask me, how do I know which nutrients I get through my diet, and which one I’m deficient in?

Indeed, this is the key question. If you know this, you know which supplements are useless to take, and which could be helpful. Perhaps, there is even a way to fix all your deficiencies through diet alone, such that you won’t need any supplements at all. Luckily, there is a relatively easy, and completely free way to find out. For a couple of days, take the time to track your diet on this website: https://cronometer.com/.
 
This website will track not only your calories, fat, protein, and carbohydrates, but also the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) as well as omega fatty acids. Once you tracked your diet for a few days, check the dashboard. Which nutrients are you deficient in?
The next step is to check whether you can address these deficiencies by adjusting your diet. A great website that can help with this is https://www.myfooddata.com/. Go to the Food Lists menu at the top, and select the nutrient you are deficient in. It will give you a list of the foods with the highest content of the selected nutrient. See whether you can implement some of these foods in your diet, and whether this can correct your deficiencies.
 
How to spot deficiencies?
– Blood tests
– Common symptoms
 

Common deficiencies & Important insights
– PUFA’s and the Omega 6/3 ratio
– Magnesium
– Vitamin K – K1 & K2
– Vitamin E

 

Overview

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  • Supplements for Testosterone
  • Supplements for Bone Health
  • Supplements for Stress
  • Supplements for Bone Health

Supplements for Testosterone

If you want to increase your testosterone naturally, there are many things you should look at before trying supplements. The majority of improvements in testosterone will come from lifestyle improvements and changing your nutrition. The best resource I know of that will explain everything you need to know about increasing testosterone naturally are the e-books and courses from Dobrynja (@Primalthrive on Instagram), who naturally raised his testosterone levels above 1000 ng/dl.

<links to his e-books>

Supplements will always be the cherry on the top. Testosterone boosters have a pretty bad reputation. The supplements that are marketed as testosterone boosters are mostly hype, and usually their effects are unimpressive or the science behind them is weak. This blog post <link> will include all the relevant science behind the supplements I recommend, in case you want to do your own research or make sure that my recommendations are solid.

To begin, the best all-inclusive test-booster there is in my opinion is Sigma by Gorilla Mind. Derek (More Plates More Dates) goes out of his way to explain his entire formulation, backed up by science, in a video that takes over 2 hours. You can find the product HERE, and the video HERE.

The issue with test-booster formulas like this one is that there might be some ingredients, such as Ashwagandha, which you don’t want to take daily for long periods of time. Formulas are like multi-vitamins, you’re getting some of the vitamins you need, but also a lot of vitamins you don’t want. I would therefore recommend most people to look at individual supplements and see what is right for them.

Supplements I recommend:
– Shilajit
– Boron