bodybuilding diet no supplements

what's up, guys? jeff cavaliere, athlean-x.com. today i'm going to help you to determine whetheror not supplements are a right fit for you. supplements are not the right fit for everybody,but you can ask yourself a series of questions and determine whether or not you are a candidate. it starts right here in our "yes" or "no"with where you are at in terms of your program. are you just starting out? are you a beginner?are you a really skinny guy who's never really lifted a weight before in your life? guesswho knows somebody that's like that? i do! that's exactly what i was. as a matter offact, this is my actual, very first dumbbell that i ever used. you can see it right there;that's my five pounder. this five pounder

went on to allow me to start lifting a lotheavier weight, but i started with that. as a matter of fact, my brother told me growingup "you have to earn the right, earn the privilege, to be able to start taking supplements." becauseif you're just starting out with really light weights and you're not really that sophisticatedwith your training yet, supplementation is overkill. you'd be much better off figuring out thebasics and understanding how to start building your body from the ground up. learning theproper movements, the right way to train, and how to put it all together before youstart finessing it with supplements. on the other end of the spectrum, and on thesame note, if you're a guy who's allowed yourself

to get incredibly out of shape – 40% bodyfat or above because of your absolutely poor nutrition habits – trying to fix them withsupplementation is not the right way to go about it either. so you want to make sure that you're in thatzone where you've dedicated yourself to getting in shape, you've been on that path for a while,and you're looking to take it to the next level. then you would be a "yes". otherwise,if you're starting with either one of those extremes you're going to wind up over hereas a "no". here's a scenario that i know a lot of youcan probably relate to, but i'm actually living it and breathing it every single day rightnow. that is high levels of stress. it doesn't

have to be bad stress. it could be good stress.in my case it is good stress. we've had twin boys. they came a little bit early. that's stressful, but we're trying to getthem to grow and develop and catch up to where they need to be. that's provided a lot ofstress for my life, but guess what? i'm still going to train, i'm still going to try toeat as good as i can, but as i covered in my nutrition video the other day where i showedyou some fast ways that i can create lots of meals at once – i'll actually link thathere if you haven't seen that already – stress is present in my life right now even more. supplementation can help you to overcome stressbecause it can do two things. number one:

we know how nutrition can be a large componentof providing your body with the fuel it needs to stay healthy even in the face of stress,and we also know that we don’t necessarily have the time to prepare it in stressful times. so supplementation would be extremely easyto prepare and allow you to be consistent with your nutrition. so for me, i've neverbeen more reliant on my supplements than i am right now because i'm not always in a placewhere i can get good nutrition. the cafeteria at the hospital isn't the bestplace for me to get proper nutrition, but if i can mix up a shake, take it with me,and now that i'm going to have optimum nutrition at my fingertips whenever i need it; it becomesthat much more imperative.

i will say, if you're in a high stress job,or find yourself in a high stress situation and you don’t want to sacrifice on yournutrition and you still want to be able to train and you're applying a lot of stressto your body, make sure at that point that you absolutely incorporate some form of supplementationto allow your body to recover that much faster and allow you to bounce back even better. okay, the next one is actually a person questionthat i'm going to bring it down, bring it in here and get man to man with you and askyou to be honest with yourself. are you the type of person who takes your supplementsand then finds yourself eating crappy food because you figured you already did what youwere supposed to do? if that's you then supplements

are not for you, okay? they're not for you. but there's a key point to be learned fromall of this. that is that sometimes supplements will make that person much more accountablefor the rest of their actions throughout the day. you go and spend all your hard earnedmoney on your supplements and you take them religiously, you take them regularly, youhave that opportunity to then screw off and do what you know you shouldn't be doing tobe in line with what you're trying to achieve with your physique. you become much more aware knowing how muchmoney you spend on your supplements, knowing the hard work that you've spent in the gym,and the time and effort you've put in the

gym to do what you knew you were supposedto do. you become less likely to fall off the beaten path where you know you shouldn't.that's where supplementation can become incredibly important and can make you accountable forall your actions beyond the time you're taking your supplements. anybody can take a supplement. that's theeasiest damn thing you could ever do. that's why so many people love to take them. we allknow how simple it is to mix something up and drink it, but it's what goes on in allthe other hours and minutes surrounding the time that you take your supplements that counts.if it makes you more accountable then i absolutely think they should be part of your plan. especiallyif you're that type of person.

okay, the next question you want to ask yourselfis whether or not you're an athlete. when i say "athlete" i don’t necessarily meanprofessional athlete. as a matter of fact, we have a lot of guys that train here withthis channel to look more athletic. but if you're an athlete you'd better start takingyour supplementation seriously. if you don’t, i can tell you right now, you're going tobe left behind. having just come back from the winter meetingslast month in nashville, tennessee the major focus of the strength and conditioning coachesat the major league level is supplementation. let's face it, the game of baseball has undergonesome serious changes in the last few years to eliminate drugs from the game. there wasa large portion of how players prepared themselves

every year, but that's gone. that's out ofthe game now. they need to be able to replace that withsome real, solid research, evidence backed supplements to allow them to take their gamesto the next level. those that aren't doing it are going to fall behind. the same thingcould be said here. again, for those that want to take, not just their performance,but their physique to the next level. you've already dedicated, you're already onthat path and you want to take it to the next level; those are the guys that need to startlooking into the benefits of supplementation. last but no least we're going to play a littletrue or false here. i'm going to ask you a question and i want you to answer which sideyou think. do you think that you can get all

your benefits of your supplementation throughfood alone? that you don’t need supplements to achieve the benefits of the things thatyou're trying to supplement with. i'll give you a second here. okay, i couldend the suspense now because the answer is a resounding "false". i'm going to give youtwo examples of this. when people try to take a supplement – let's say they're takingglucosamine, the joint formula, and they're taking glucosamine; people would argue thatthey could get the glucosamine that they'd get in our athlean mechanics. where are yougetting that from? are you out there at a restaurant orderingsurf and turf and telling them to hold the lobster meat and just give you the shell becauseit tastes so damn good? what are you eating

to get the glucosamine that you need to gainthe benefits of the supplement? now, does everybody have to take a joint formula? no.but if you're going to tell me that you're going to take a joint formula, or you wantthe benefits of glucosamine from a joint formula but you don’t need the joint formula you'rekidding yourself. you're playing the unnatural game and it doesn'treally add up. the same thing could be said about creatine, one of the well-researchedsupplements out there. there's no doubt that creatine has plenty of research behind itbacking its efficacy for anyone that trains. we have creating in our rx2 post workout supplementand i can ask you again: where are you getting your creatine from?

i hear all the time "jeff, you can get creatinefrom meat. jeff, you can get creatine from tuna." let's take tuna as a perfect example.tuna actually has 4.5 grams of creatine per – get ready – 16 ounces of tuna. that'sa pound of tuna, okay? 4.5 grams of creatine is great. that's a good dosage for you, butguess what? you know – if you know anything about creatine – that in order to gain thebenefits here you're going to have to take it daily. that means you're going to have to take 16ounces of tuna daily. that means your budget is going to have to provide you with the opportunityto buy tuna at 16 ounces – which is 1lb – at around $17-$25 per pound, dependingon sushi grade or not, every single day. when

we start thinking about what your monthlybill is going to be – maybe around $500 – to get your creatine, does that make sense?not to mention you'll probably end up with mercury poisoning along the way. that doesn't sound like a really efficientway for you to get creatine. does everybody need creatine? no! i'm not saying they alldo, but don’t come to me and say "jeff, i want to get the benefits of creatine andi'm going to do it through my regular diet and through the foods that i eat." it ain'tgoing to happen. again, a big "false". if you want the benefits of specific ingredientsto get the ergogenic benefits then you'd better start realizing that most likely, you're goingto have to supplement here, too.

if you're not looking for those benefits thenyou don’t necessarily need it. as i said at the very beginning, if you're the typewho's going to take your supplements and think "that's it", that you're all set, all thehard work goes out and you think supplements are a replacement for hard ass work; guesswhat – do me a favor, don’t take my supplements because it's a slap in my face. i don’t believe that supplements are theanswer for everybody, but i think the majority of the people that follow this channel andfollow the advice i give here are a little e more serious about their training. in thosecases, and a lot of the examples i just gave you here, you might be fitting one of those;supplements might be something you should

probably look into if you want to start takingyour results to the next level. we have our supplements, guys. i'll standbehind them every single day, every time i do a video here. we've got them over at athleanrx.com.in the meantime, if you've found this video helpful, or at the very least refreshinglyhonest, then please do me a favor and leave

bodybuilding diet no supplements,your comments and your thumbs up below. letme know. tell me what else it is that you want me tocover here on this channel. maybe something regarding supplements, but i'll do my bestto do that here in the coming weeks. all right, guys. i'll talk to you again realsoon.