Do we want the FDA over the Supplement Industry?

So I have kept pretty quiet since the reaming of Dr. Oz a few weeks ago. If you have been living under a rock here is a quick overview of what has happened. Dr. Oz as you may know, often promotes weight supplements on his show as the "magic pill" this then promotes a massive amount of purchases to different supplement companies and a ton of different sites tend to pop up advertising "as seen on Dr. Oz Show". Most of the sites do a "free" trial, but you pay for shipping and then are enrolled in an auto-ship program (Read the fine print people). Well Oz gets angry because these sites state that he talked about the product, so he tells his viewers that he doesn't endorse any products. But really he does the moment he talks about them. Anyway, his loyal fans by the supplement be it Green Coffee Bean Extract, Raspberry Keytones, Garcinia Cambogia, etc, and then it doesn't work "magically". So congress called him to session about his claims. Now, I don't want to defend him in any way, but all the "magic" pills he talks about have been around for decades. Many have actually had several studies that prove their affect, that is, if taken with a proper diet. And that is the problem, Dr. Oz promotes these items and states you don't need to change your life.

But I digress. The point is, Oz got reamed because he is contributing to the public being "Scammed" when you do have to partially blame the consumer for not researching prior to purchase. But then again, they are listening to a "Dr". Ok, he is a Doctor, but he is a heart surgeon, that is his specialty. He is not a nutritionist or dietitian, yet here he is on national TV giving this advise. Which by the way is technically not allowed by many state laws, that's just an FYI for you readers. So what does congress want to do know? Well the supplement industry is not overseen by the FDA. Sure they have some rules that need to be followed, but it is rare that the FDA gets involved. In fact, supplements come with a warning stating the the claims on the bottles have not been approved by the FDA.

But would it be so bad if the FDA was involved. In my opinion, yes. Why? Well, you would start seeing a massive ban on many proven products out there. They have already banned food products for claiming they have healthy fats that lower chances of health risks. Oh yes, in fact, here is the link against Blue Diamond Walnuts Directly from the FDA. The FDA has also banned steroids, which by the way there has been no proven case of steroids causing any deaths, in fact they are safer than Tylenol. Steroids are also proven to effectively treat HIV. But that doesn't matter to the government. Now the media is talking about caffeine because these kids are supposedly overdosing on it. Well there goes the pre workout supplements. Fish Oil? It's been heavily studied to show that it helps with joints, nails, hair and heart health, Fish oil is also an anti-inflammatory. If the FDA was involved, it wouldn't be allowed on the market.

If the government were to get involved in the supplement industry, all supplements would end up being required as prescriptions. The days of going to a local Complete Nutrition or GNC would be gone. Heck they would probably even ban protein powder. Granted, this would open up an amazing black market like it has for steroids, but it would also open things up for crap product, like it has for steroids. We need to keep the FDA out of our supplement industry.    

Energy Drinks Killing Teens? Not really.

It's something that we here about from time to time. A teenager/young adult dies from cardiac arrest and the family or doctors want to blame energy drinks. Let's face it, energy drinks are the easy way out. But how much caffeine is really in these energy drinks that are supposedly killing our youth?

You would actually be surprised to find out that most of these energy drinks have less caffeine that a cup of coffee, but does coffee get blamed? Of course not, because why would we blame something as wholesome as Folders or Starbucks. Sure, we can blame Starbucks for making us fat, but not cardiac arrest.

The main energy drink that is called into question today is Red Bull. Why is it being called into question you ask? Well by now, you may have heard about a 16 year old girl that recently passed away in Mexico while away with friends. Well they have ruled her death due to cardiac arrest and the culprit is those darn energy drinks. But Red Bull only has 80 mg's of caffeine per serving. Coffee on the other hand has 85 mg's of caffeine per cup. Now, lets look at this. Let's say she had several cans through out the day, could this still contribute? Well, if she had 20 cans, then sure. But let's look at some facts, caffeine is a natural vitamin. Yes, it occurs in nature. Caffeine is also a diuretic, which means that it can dehydrate you.

So lets go back to this girl. It's close to summer, she's on the beach, she's in Mexico. Now it is probably also very warm, she has probably, even though she is only 16, had some alcohol, and hasn't really been hydrating with water. Now we are leading to an actual cause. But of course the media wants to blame energy drinks, there have been claims that I have seen that she only had four Red Bulls, some state more. Now I want you to think about this. Most athletes/fitness minded people drink Pre-workout supplements. These supplements on average contain 250 mg's of caffeine. Most people take 2 scoops of these supplements, but we keep ourselves hydrated, and in all honesty, if we drop dead because we took the supplement which is way more caffeinated than a Red Bull, we would know it was our fault. You know what you are putting in your body. If you aren't handling it responsible, that's on you.

Oh, and if you have read the posts from people that sell Verve from Vemma, Verve also has 80 mg's of caffeine, it's no different than Red Bull, they are just using this as an opportunity to push their product.

It doesn't get easier

I know, that isn't really a reassuring title for a post that should be motivating. But this isn't really a motivating post. This is about the cold hard facts of being on your journey to being healthy. This is about the obstacles that are out there when coming from the side of food addiction. If you are trying to lose weight, then you likely have a relationship with food other than just to live.

Just think about other addictions out there be it alcohol or nicotine. When you decide to quit, you can actually separate yourself from those temptations. Sure, you are still going to crave those things for a while, but you don't actually have to be around them. Well that is unless you like to torture yourself. But when it comes to food addiction, you can't not be around food. You have to have food to survive. Over the years you have probably used food for many purposes. I completely understand that too. Food can be used for comfort, celebration or just pure enjoyment. Somewhere in our history, we linked other things to food besides survival.

Sure, we still eat to survive, we don't have a choice there. But do we really need chocolate cake or cookies? What about pizza or gourmet hamburgers? Now I am not saying that you have to leave all those things behind. Heck, I like to enjoy some oreos, ice cream, pizza and burgers every single week. But those cheats make it very easy to fall off the wagon and re-link food to enjoyment and not survival. The link will never go away. We can't separate ourselves from it, and it's a constant struggle.

I really wish I could tell you that it gets easier as you go, but it doesn't. All I can recommend is for you not to completely deprive yourself of these foods, but limit them to just one time a week or every other week. Like stated above, even one cheat meal can throw you back into a downward spiral. Remember to eat to fuel your body. Plus, eating to fuel your body doesn't have to be gross bland food, you can make it taste good, and something that you might enjoy. You don't have to have chicken and rice everyday, change it up, use spices and seasoning. Don't be afraid of salt either. Often times when you remove all salt, your body starts to crave things, and then you will binge on different unhealthy items just to try and satisfy that craving. Keep you diet balanced and keep positive.

Thoughts on Biggest Loser Finale

Review: 6PackBags Innovator 500

If you are reading this, you are probably familiar in part of 6PackBags. These are the bags that you see being carried around by fitness competitors from the big bodybuilders to the bikini competitors. While on the outside these bags look just like coolers, the inside they pack much more punch. I've been a user of the 6packbag since early 2013 when the Durus series was on it's way out to make room for the 2013 line that includes the Innovator 300 and 500.

To start, there are two different models of the Innovator. There is the 300 and the 500. The difference really is the amount of food that each of these bags can hold. Today I will be making reference to the 500 model.

If you are not familiar with 6packbags, let me tell you a little about them. 6packbags is a meal management system for really everyone, but the majority of the market is the fitness industry where meal prep and timing is crucial to success. We refer to it as a meal management system because these bags are able to hold multiple meals. In the case of the Innovator 500, 5 meals to be exact. The bag is designed to keep your meals cool throughout the day and have plenty of storage for other items that you may need being it shaker bottles, fruit, supplements etc.

With the Innovator series, 6packbags made huge improvements from the Durus series. The insulator lining is much thicker making it more tear resistant. Also compared to the Durus, the bag seems much lighter. This is likely due to the removal of the "storage block" which was part of the Durus. The Durus line including a plastic block that held the meal containers and had a built in compartment for supplements and snack items. With the removal of the "storage block", this had made room for a more easily removable shelf system that snaps inside of the bag it self. They have also changed the way you can store your pills. This is now a separate container like a tray from a tackle box that can be removed and thrown in your gym bag if you would like. It also has removable parts so you can make more room for bars or utensils.  The Innovator line also switched from more traditional ice packs to gel packs. These new packs seem to stay frozen much longer than the old ice packs.

The changes made by 6packbags to the Innovator line have all been great improvements. The new rack for the containers is nice and light weight, however it does make it more difficult if you want to use larger containers, unless you pull the whole thing out. They also replaced the old meal containers that would securely lock, with a more traditional Tupperware style container. This I imagine was mostly done for costs as the overall construction of the bag is much more durable than previous bags. As always, these bags are backed by a 1 years limited warranty, and the company does very well at honoring this warranty. I use my bag pretty much daily during the week, and it holds up great.

When it comes to pricing, these bags can tend to be a bit pricey. You have to remember that you are paying for quality though. But it would be nice to see these bags come down a bit in pricing. The Innovator 300 is $69.99 and the Innovator 500 is $99.99 .

Overall, I would say if your meal prep and timing it important to you, you should invest in this bag. If you are a person that goes on road trips quite often, this bag is going to save you money in the long run. You can eat right, and as 6packbags would say, Travel Fit.

Modify for your Benefit

Sometimes you run into a workout that you just can't do. Maybe it's because of range of motion limitations or pain restrictions, but that doesn't mean you have to completely skip that body part or exercise. You can in fact still get the same benefits doing something completely different.

Modifications of an exercise/workout can help you do build muscles or lose weight with a lesser stress than the original exercise. Take my issues for example. I have a bad back, this makes it very difficult to squat and deadlift. With modifications of my leg and back workouts, I can still work my legs and low back. When it comes to leg day, while I still try and squat, I go very light weight with it. I modify by doing leg presses at a higher weight and higher volume. While on squats I'm lucky to hit 205 LBS, my average leg press is 748 LBS. That is a pretty substantial difference. By doing a Leg Press, I am able to put much less stress on my back, and also have the support on my back from the bench. I am also able to do more strength days of pushing over 1000 LBS every couple of months.

So many exercises can be modified, look at classic push ups. If you can't do them from your toes, you are taught to modify by doing them from your knees. This is taught to us all the way back in elementary school. Many modifiers like the push up from the knees are also used to assist in building that strength to be able to do them from the toes. If you are doing assisted pull -ups, you are building to do unassisted pull-ups. But just because you are modifying, doesn't mean to not make attempts at the classic movements you are building towards. Like I said, I still do squats and deadlifts, but a majority of this work is done with modifications.

Review: Ripped Cream Coffee Creamer

There are often times when you find a product that can completely change your life. Coffee creamer for many is that product. Personally I love coffee, but I can't drink it without creamer. Well coffee creamer obviously doesn't play well with the diet. That is, until now.

 

Recently I was introduced to Ripped Cream Coffee Creamer. I was browsing through Instagram and found a post from NPC Competitor Wendy Lee Govoni. In this post she had received Ripped Cream, and I was intrigued. After reading up on the product, I immediately knew that I had to get my hands on it. After a few failed attempts at trying to locate it at some stores in Kansas City, I went to their site and placed my order. I mean, honestly, what person that is into health and fitness and drinks coffee wouldn't want to try this stuff!

So right from the get go, the service with the order was great. There was an issue with Paypal attaching my shipping address and I got a personal email from Robin, the president of Ripped Cream. She actually looked up this very website because of my email address and read my story. How awesome is that? Shipping took place very quickly, and if it hadn't been for the holiday, I would have gotten my package a little earlier. But again, great customer service.

There are two flavors currently of Ripped Cream, Lean Vanilla Bean and Chizzled Chocolate. Some of you might be thinking that chocolate is a bit odd to add to coffee, but I actually know people that mix hot chocolate mix to their coffee. Think of it as a poor mans cappuccino. The first one I tried was the Chizzled Chocolate with 6g of protein. It provided a nice round flavor, and the coffee, like in cooking, really enhanced the chocolate flavor. If it had a little hazelnut flavor to it, I swear it would have tasted like a coffee Nutella!

Next up was the Lean Vanilla Bean. This was an excellent flavor. It didn't offer anything shocking, other than the fact that it tastes just like any regular vanilla coffee creamer. But the 5g of protein provided is a huge change.

With both flavors, I still had to add sweetener. This didn't surprise me much, as most creamers don't actually sweeten the coffee. I also like my coffee a bit sweet. Overall, I would say that these creamers are definite buys. I don't see myself using any other creamer in the near future, unless I run out of this and didn't reorder in time.

You can order your Ripped Cream Coffee Creamer from their website or their Indiegogo Campaign.