Supplements That Should Never Be Taken Together

Next question is from Colton Marshall. What supplements should not be taken together? Oh, I figured salad. No, this D ball and Sessanon. Those are probably a little much together. Like what magical pharma? You know what? Okay. So I know the question is like, basically, do they negate like what supplements negate each other's effects? Well, okay, I'll start with that. If you're taking an amino acid specifically to let's say increase nitric oxide, right? Then you probably don't want to take it with protein or with a lot of amino acids because now it kind of loses its effects. Like if I take citrulline, for example, by itself, pre-workout to boost nitric oxide, but I take it citrulline and protein powder. Now I've got all these amino acids. A lot of them are competing and it's not going to produce, uh, you know, those kinds of effects. Wouldn't you say the same thing goes for if you're taking a protein powder and then a branch chain amino acid? Waste of time unless your protein intake is low. In which case, spiking branch chain amino acids makes sense. But yeah, I think generally speaking, branch chain amino acids are a waste of money. Again, unless your protein intake is below that high amount. Uh, now here's what you really should pay attention to. And this is what I, this is the lesson that I've learned, uh, probably a handful of times. What you don't want to do is combine supplements that augment each other because sometimes one plus one equals five. And what I mean by that is like if I combine caffeine and caffeine, like if I take a hundred milligrams caffeine, a hundred milligrams of caffeine, then the effect I'm going to get is 200 milligrams of caffeine. That doesn't always work with stimulants. Sometimes you take a hundred milligrams of caffeine and a little bit of a Fedra or Yohimbe or Siniferin. And it's not like that. They amplify each other and you get this kind of dangerous runaway, you know, stimulant effect. So that would be the big thing. I would say, pay attention to don't combine stimulants unless you really know what you're doing because the additive effects can be kind of nasty and a bit dangerous. What about some of these supplements that are labeled as a fat burner and then a muscle builder? Oh, I hear what you're saying. I imagine that's more fat burner on a calorie surplus, right? I just, I imagine that that's where this question is probably coming from. I doubt it's down to the individual chemical level where you're going and it's probably more generic. Like could I take a muscle builder supplement and a fat loss supplement at the same time? That seems like a more common question that you would hear. Yeah. What's funny about that is that they're muscle builder, fat loss supplements. Do they compete with each other? Not really. But your diet and your training are what make the biggest difference. You take all the fat burners you want, you're in a calorie surplus. It's a complete waste of time. You know, the thing that's really interesting, the same thing goes for a muscle builder. You could be taking all the muscle builder supplements you want, but if you're in a caloric deficit, you're going to have a hell of a time. Totally. It can happen. You know what, you know what, what this makes me think of is, and this is the supplement industry is really good at this is and they still do this. There'll be like a supplement that's like for the pump or for muscle building or for libido or for sleep. And you'll turn around the label and it has everything you've ever read about that's supposed to help for that particular thing. And you'll look at it and be like, Oh, this is for sleep. And then you'd be like tryptophan, melatonin, theanine, GABA. And you're like, Oh, this has everything. That means it must be more effective. What typically what's typically happening there is that none of those things have efficacious doses. They just have a tiny bit of everything in there to get, or they'll have efficacious dose of one thing, like three milligrams of melatonin and everything else is like this tiny amount. Yeah. So, you know, what you want to do is you want to look at efficacious doses, uh, the right form. And then that's the thing you pay attention to. Not just whether or not it's listed. Like I remember in the nineties, there was a supplement called hot stuff and it was popular because niacin probably loaded in it. So that made you sweat your balls off. So you thought it was working. It's set on it and had everything in it. I remember that. That was like super, that was like one of those hacks, right? They would, they would load it up with niacin and then everything else was pixie dust. And, but you thought it worked cause you're like, Oh my God, my skin's right. I'm just sitting here and my armpits are sweating right now. I haven't even done anything. This stuff is really working. Yeah. Well, the kicker was supplements pre-workout, uh, the pre-workout space figured this out. If we could put something in there, the person can feel, even if it doesn't do anything for the goal, as long as they could feel it, we're going to sell a lot. So beta-alanine, although there's some benefit, it makes your skin tingle. So that kind of makes you feel like it's more itchy. Something's working. By the way, you know, they, I, I wouldn't be surprised if they borrowed that from other markets, like toothpaste and shampoo. Oh, definitely shampoo. I mean, all those like dandruff commercials, like the tingle, you know, it's working. Yeah. Or, you know, the fact that, you know, what's crazy is I'm aware of that and it still works on me. Of course. Like I still, I want my toothpaste to foam up. I want my head to feel tingly where I used to want my head to feel tingly. Wash my hair. Not so much anymore. But I, it's, even though I know that, I know the science behind it, that that's all, that is all for them to make, just to make you feel like it's working and it's more effective. But how crazy the psychology of that it's, I know it. And yet I still want it. I still want it. The lesson still works for me. Oh my gosh. Would you want to use soap that didn't lather? Like what if it just like was, right. And then you rinse your hands. Right. And that's a, that's another example of which, by the way, when you do some of this like organic all natural soap, you'll notice it doesn't lather up the same. And so you feel like you're like, God, I've been scrubbing my arm for like three minutes now. It's not lathering up. You know, what's a good, I'll tell you what a good, good interesting combinations. Uh, here's a good classic example. Theanine is an amino acid that's been shown to cause a calming effect in the body, right? Caffeine is a stimulant. I love that together when you introduced us. Well now you think to yourself, well, that would be counteracting. But what happens is the theanine actually reduces the negative effects of caffeine, but doesn't take away the energy producing effects. So what you get from it is this really smooth, you know, focus that just feels like the high without less jittery. Yeah. Yes. You could do this with ashwagandha does that really well with caffeine where you get this nice, smooth energy. Some supplement companies seem to be jumping on this kind of figuring this out. But yeah, you don't want to, again, when you stack supplements that all do the same thing, sometimes you get more of the negative and not more of the positive. So that's what I'd say. And I think the biggest takeaway is the nutrition piece, right? Like as most people that are probably asking this question, I think go back to the fat loss muscle building thing. And the thing that's going to make the biggest difference on whether the it's the supplement is effective is actually where you're at calorically, because if you're taking a supplement to build muscle, but you're constantly in a caloric deficit, you're not going to build any muscle. The same thing goes for what Justin was saying about the fat burning. If your goal is to take fat burner supplements, but you're eating in a 500 to a thousand calorie surplus every day, that supplement is going to burn any fat or anything. You like the information in this clip. You guys are going to love the information in this full episode. Make sure you subscribe and check it out.