Health Supplements 101

 So .. Health Supplements..How important is that? Is it absolutely necessary?
A bit about myself as this is my first blog ever..

My name is Pravin and I have a 9 hour job (which gets to 12-13 hours sometimes :( ). I am finishing my degree at the moment, and much frankly, if there was one regret in my life, is that I wished I was a sports person. I try to be active as much as I can, even though its quite difficult when you have a desk job. I try though.. And I have quite an interest on supplements on what are they for and what can they do.
  I am very much interested in sports and two of the most interesting sports (at least to me..:p. are martial arts and bodybuilding)
   Now now...I know both these sports don't really work hand in hand, but take a look at Jean Claude Van Damme for instance. The man is a top notch martial artist, but has been widely involved in bodybuilding during his younger days. Yet, he's still flexible like a cat!

   So coming to my point. What are the supplements that you need, especially for those of you who stay active at the gym at least 3-4 times a week.
   The most important of all, as you might already know, is protein. Now, this is divided into three types: whey concentrate, Isolate, and Hydrolysate. Without getting into too much detail, as long as you are not a hardcore bodybuilder, a.k.a Ronnie Coleman type :p, this wouldn't really matter. Just go out and get a cheap and good tub of it. For me, I use the Gold Standard Chocolate flavor by Optimum Nutrition. Now now, I am not getting paid for promoting this, but have tried at least 6 different brands, and this one by ON, tastes awesome. The strawberry tastes quite good as well. You don't even need to add skim milk, it mixes really well with just plain cold water. I got this for RM184, at GNC IOI Mall. Its 5 LBS and it has been 2 months already, there's still plenty inside.
   My normal daily routine is to have about 1 to 2 glasses of water after waking up (just to wake up the inner organs), then have about 2 slices of peanut butter sandwich. I'll wait for about half an hour after that and then have a pre-workout shake (I'll talk more on that below). I then spend about an hour and a half at a gym near my place. After that, I'll immediately take 1 scoop of Gold Standard with cold water using a shaker. Then, a proper lunch about an hour later.
     

So, the above is the one I use. A very basic whey protein, which does what it's required to. Heal, and build. But, never ever forget that a good diet should follow that. Be safe and follow the 40/40/20 scale. 40% being protein, 40% being carbs and 20% being fats. It's that simple. Whats difficult is the discipline. I think most of you guys might agree with me there. You look at the mirror, you see a flabby belly and man boobs staring back at you. So what do you do? You hit the gym, start running again, and watch your diet like your life depended on it. And after 2 weeks, you get bored. I should stop using the word 'you' here, cos I am the exact copy to that. We just get lazy sometimes! So what I did was, I got myself a pre-workout. That brings me to my next supplement : Muscletech Neurocore. I got it for RM100, from an online seller.

 This product will wake your senses up on those days when you feel just too lazy to go out and push some iron. Even if its plain old running, this would do you much good as one of its main ingredient is caffeine. Do you absolutely need it? Probably no, but it would do some good if you had issues with disciplining yourself, much like me :( .. Once you drink it (which is about 1 to 2 scoops-never exceeding that!), you will feel your body heat up in just about 20-30 minutes. And you would just want to jump out from your couch and go workout. To me, I feel I'm able to get about 3-5 extra reps from each set that I do. Not much, but it does give you a crazy burn!

  A few other supplements that you might need, are (just to name a few): Multivitamin, Fish Oil and some calcium tablets.

Good LUCK!!!! Both to you and me! Lets see hows the response from this and I'll definitely start blogging more on health and some other issues that may interest you people out there :)