What's wrong with supplements? (Part II)
I’m pretty sure I had just left you guys with Barry, our puffed up meatball without a crumb of space in his GNC polo. Anyway, after questioning whether or not I would ever go back to a GNC and now reconfiguring my own priorities, I went home and used the internet to find out that whey protein was ubiquitously accepted and creatine still had a bad rap but lots of information supporting its usefulness. I decided a few things:
1. That I didn’t JUST want to be big anymore, but I wanted to be a more explosive basketball player that could dominate intramural sports.
2. That whey protein and creatine could be worth a “go” for my newly-found goal.
So I ordered a case of each and started to notice some gains after a few weeks of using them. I was super pumped (full pun intended) but after a few months the progress seemed to plateau, as did the workouts. I was playing basketball four times a week, doing plyometrics, lifting legs and doing my normal aesthetic workouts, but despite this I couldn’t quite reach the level of athlete I wanted to be.
One day, mid-workout, one of my buddies pulled out a shiny container full of powder that he said could “make me feel like I could move the earth”. I tried some and felt more awake, but definitely a little jittery. I decided that I need to explore some of the workout supplements my friends were taking. Things like C4, N.O.-Xplode and Jack3d (what I took that day) were the most popular, so I looked them up and researched what was in them. Each website was littered with its very own Barry. “GET RIPPED WITH N.O.-XPLODE!!!” might not be a direct quote, but may as well have been.
So I had a brilliant idea. Find out if a supplement exists for ATHLETES and not just bodybuilders. Athletes of all types – swimmers, runners, bikers, rowers, ball players, etc. - even would be effective for bodybuilders, too.
So I actually called a local supplement shop (different than GNC, but I am pretty sure that I spoke to Barry’s cousin) to find out if anything like these supplements existed for athletes training a sport and not necessarily just bodybuilding. He told me what I intrinsically already knew - these supplements didn’t exist. Well what should I take if I want to improve athletically and not just get juiced up on caffeine? …Crickets (as in silence, not consuming insects). I was overwhelmed with disappointment. I looked back at what my friend had given me earlier that week and thought to myself, “how could anybody trust any of this,” only to find out later about the slew of lawsuits for ingredient-fraud against many of these companies. But, who am I to judge when I was guilty of the whole well-vodka-out-of-the-fancy-bottle scheme, right? (Which I’m not impressed with myself for having done, to say the least), so I ignored the metallic décor and pictures of giant men flexing and took a closer look at these supplements. I scoured the nutrition facts only to be more certain in my skepticism. They never spelled out how much of each ingredient was provided in each supplement! Each powder contained these ‘proprietary blends’ in addition to an amount of caffeine that might take down even the most dedicated of Starbucks’ customers.
So I hit the books again. A little bit for class and a bunch to quench my curiosity about these supps. What was the story with these amino acids? How much is the appropriate dosage on a daily basis for any kinds of results? The findings were astounding. These companies weren’t putting nearly enough of anything valuable into these supplements, just loading it up with stimulants and hoping you’ll head-buzz your way into improved workouts and a repeat purchase. So they don’t really tell you what’s in these things and it doesn’t appear to be healthy even if the supp facts are honest. It begged the question - Why the f*ck would anybody take any of these things? I decided to avoid any type of ‘pre-workout’ supplement for the foreseeable future and train for basketball with a good ol’ fashioned water bottle and granola bar.
Now I know what you’re all thinking. This seems like a nice set-up for TrustFuel™. “Oh, workout supplements suck, but TrustFuel is good and different!” But the truth, which supplement companies are not giving you guys your fair share of, is that TrustFuel™ was 100% inspired to address the issue of transparency and completeness in the athletic supplement industry. TrustFuel™’s primary objective is counter-intuitive from a business owner’s perspective – profits are secondary to helping you improve BOTH athletically and physically towards whatever your goals may be.
So, Why TrustFuel™?
Now (brace yourself) here comes the official sales pitch: When I was that skinny college freshman, there wasn’t anything like this. Now, late 2016 rolled around and there still wasn’t anything like this (and a lot has changed… I am now fully committed to helping people just as I had hoped to be helped many moons ago - and I’ve passed all three Chartered Financial Analyst exams!). There were not supplements with full breakdowns of ingredients, opportunities to learn more about the ingredients and view studies done on them. There wasn’t a workout supplement good for both men and women of all ages, tailored specifically to health and achieving athletic goals. That was how TrustFuel™ was born. It was developed to fill this void and to advance the level of athletic nutrition available to the masses. We are confident that TrustFuel™ can benefit the skinny college freshman, the star running back, the triathlon participant, the weekend warrior, or the injured Crossfitter rehabilitating her shoulder.
Supplements, particularly athletic supplements, have been dragged through the mud over the past few years - and for good reason. The unethical practices of the few big players and the guys like Barry screaming saliva onto your neck about the ‘next-gen blender bottles’ are a big part of it. There is also a lack of understanding by the general public about some of the wonderful things that a well-engineered supplement can provide. It’s now up to you to try one and find out for yourself.