stronglifts said:
The only supplements I used in the last 10 years are:
-whey
-fish oil
-vitamins
-anti-oxidants
Currently I'm only using fish oil. The rest I get from my diet. Progress is steady (weekly PRs) & I look great.
A lot can be achieved without all the supplements that are available. If you want proof, check the athletes that lived before all the supplements became available (anyone before 1940-1950). They were strong, healthy & looked great.
Supplements seldomly help you achieve what they promess. I believe creatine works (but never used it). I've also seen many athletes counting on supplements (including steroids) and forgetting about the basics.
Supplements should only be used by athletes close to their genetics. Those are at the advanced/elite level. I'm not at that level (yet). Few people are. Probably 1% reach the elite level.
You've asked about outcome, here's what's needed for success;
* Solid training program (involving heavy training & recovery)
* Solid nutrition (proteins, fats, carbs, veggies, fruit, fiber, hydratation,...)
* Healthy lifestyle (sleep, stress, general health)
Many think about supplements before fixing the above.
Generally I agree with what you say, but I can't agree with only 1% of people need additional supplementation. I'd say 1% don't and 99% do - you can't compare today with half a century ago because food processing methods have became such that much of the nutritional value of food is destroyed before it even hits the shelves.
Ask your grandparents to compare the fruit and veg of today with what they used to eat; I'm sure their sources were farms, markets and the like. In supermarkets today the produce available has most likely been flown halfway across the world (EU regulations for Europe - I'm sure the supermarkets in Belgium show the source of foodstuffs) and processed heavily. The methods used to bulk produce tasty (marketable) foods robs them of their antioxidant content. Like blueberries - they're supposed to be small and fairly sour, but we get big, fat, juicy sweet ones. Great tasting so people buy them, but with a fraction of the antioxidants found if you were picking blueberries from the wild. Remember also that pollution and pesticide levels were way lower way back when; this will also destroy nutrients.
Unless you're growing your own produce, or buy organic all the time (and even that's no guarantee of quality), you need the additional micronutrients that you most likely won't be getting from food. And then on top of that, you're weight training and trying to make your body grow/improve/lose fat/whatever. This requires additional micronutrients for optimum efficiency.
Yeah, it'd be ideal if you can get the right micronutrients from food. But like I said, unless you can buy organic or have access to homegrown produce, you won't get it from a supermarket.
There's no need to down a hundred pills a day. What supplements you take will depend on your goals (obviously a strength trainer will need more of the b-vitamins, zinc, iron etc) whereas an endurance athlete won't. But you cannot rely on your diet alone - sad but true.
Great example I know of: I grew up in Cyprus and at the fruit and veg markets there we'd buy vegetables which still had dirt on them 'cause they were picked just a few minutes before being sold. If I wanted to buy the same vegetables here in England, I'd get them out of a plastic packet having being bulk produced, and flown in from New Zealand or South Africa. How can you say you're getting just as much goodness out of both types?
By the way - Hockey Playa, you have a minimal supplementation scheme which is nothing to worry about. You don't need CLA if you're taking fish oil though, and you should be eating your veggies instead of getting them in powdered form.
. I never considered using it before. The hot clerk at the nutrition store suckered me into buying it lol. She said it burns fat around the midsection(which im trying to do, for my abs to show). But ya ill probably drop that too