Supplements, supplements, supplements!

I had never been a believer in supplements; I thought that whatever your body needs for vitamins and nutrients it will derive from the foods that we eat and not from some pill or powder; powders and pills seemed so unnatural! I thought that if people back in the day lived only off of the food that they grew and ate then why should we do things any differently? Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that these days we simply do not have the time to get the nutrients that our bodies need. Instead of home grown food, we have turned to fast, processed foods which are great in convenience but lacking in nutrition. For these reasons, supplements have become a necessity to our health, especially if you're an active individual.

There seems to be a supplement out there for everything! So how do we know which ones we should be taking and which ones we could live without? We want to make sure we take the ones that are going to fill our nutritional gaps and maximize our fitness gain. To help you in your decisions I have discussed the core supplements needed for our day to day health while maximizing our fitness gain.

Vitamins and minerals are essential to our diet. When we work out, our body is under stress and damage occurs. Without a proper diet your body does not receive the nutrients it needs to recover which is why vitmins and minerals play such an important role.

Vitamins
* Play critical roles in post-exercise soreness and recovery
* Resist infections
* Maintain integrity of white and red blood cells
* Antioxidants found in vitamins and minerals - play important role in supporting immune function
- repair oxidative damage caused from exercising
* So many benefits that I'll have you here for days! Check out the chart for more benefits!

Beachbody offers ActiVit which provides a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals along with crotonate to assist in cellular recovery.

Omega-3 is another necessity for our core nutrition, especially when active. Omega-3 is great for blood circulation and also is a great anti-inflammatory when doing intense workout programs such as Beachbody's P90X.


Calcium and Magnesium go hand in hand which is why Beachbody offers the Cal-Mag supplement. As most of us have heard while growing up, we needed to drink our milk (calcium) to get our bones big and strong! Even as we get older, our calcium intake is essential to our health. Although our bones have stopped growing, they continue to change and are in need of calcium on a daily basis to stay strong. While calcium helps maintain the strength of our bones, magnesium is necessary to aid in the absorption of calcium into our bones. Magnesium also has many other benefitting factors:

* Helps stabilize the rhythm of our heart while helping prevent blood clotting
* Helps maintain proper muscle function
* Assists in brain and nerve function

Beachbody offers a Core Nutrtion Pack which includes ActiVit, Omega-3 and Cal-Mag for optimum nutrition. Take a look at the website for more information.

Protein is extremely important to the health of our muscles. Protein:

* Supplies building blocks for tissue repair, growth and maintenance.
* Allows you to burn fat, rather than muscle when on a low calorie diet.

When on a regular workout program, our bodies go through a good amount of stress and damage. In order to repair this damage, we need protein. While active, we should be consuming 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day to continue muscle growth and fat loss. In order to meet this nutritional requirement, Beachbody has created a Whey Protein Powder made from concentrate.

Beachbody Whey Protein is:

* Sweetened with fructose to keep our blood sugar levels stable
* Made from concentrate rather than isolate to keep the immune factors in
* Needed for your body to produce the best results possible

The supplements mentioned in the above are for our Core Nutrition. Meaning that this is what our bodies need on a daily basis to burn fat and perform optimally while consuming a well balanced diet. Your Core Nutrition is the building blocks of all nutrition. Keep this in mind and make sure your body is receiving the daily nutrients it needs to perform. Take a look at Beachbody's products for more information: www.beachbodycoach.com/jessle830