The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Are health and lifestyle supplements worth the money? Part 1; Protein, Creatine, vitamins and Bladder supplements
In a 2 part episode I am discussing some of the supplements that you might have seen promoted online.
Next week I'll cover NMN, NAD, CBD etc but this week I'm focusing on supplements much more common in the health and fitness world;
Protein, Creatine, Vitamins and some bladder supplements (like Jude).
Are they safe, even pre and postpartum?
Are they useful?
Are the more expensive ones really better than cheaper version?
Are there alternatives?
IOW, should YOU be taking them or are you better off saving your money.
As always; HPNB still only has 5 billing cycles.
So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!
BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
Though I'm not terribly active on Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!
And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)
Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.
Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic
Playing us out; "Fallout" by CJ Oliver
Hey, welcome the H the Postnatal Buddy Podcast with your postnatal expert, pieter Laap. That, as always, will be me. Today we are talking supplements. This is part one of two Kind of like a thing about health and lifestyle supplements. Are they worth the money, that type of thing? Today, I am covering the following bits and pieces what is it? Protein creatine. Talk a bit about vitamins and bladder supplements, which are really popular right now. Think things like you might have seen, like Jude and all that type of stuff. So I'm discussing are they safe? You know, are they safe to take pre and postpartum? Are they useful? Are the more expensive ones really better than the cheaper versions and are there any alternatives? In other words, should you be taking them? Are you better off saving your money? So, without further ado, here we go.
Peter:Hey, and welcome to the Alfi Postnatal Body Podcast. This is the podcast for the 8th of December 2024. And I am surrounded by everybody I pay a mortgage for. You know all the fluffies I pay a mortgage for. So if you hear any snoring in the background, that's what that is. I hope you are all well. I hope you're crushing it.
Peter:To be honest again. Once again I am under a little bit of time pressure, but I promised you, I promised you I do uh my two-parter on on supplements this week. Um, to make it myself a bit easier for myself, instead of doing the nmn one this week and the nad one this week, I've decided to do the protein, the creatine, uh the vitamin one this week, because that is a lot more straightforward. It's also, to be honest, probably the one you're most interested in, because you know, within certain circles, uh, nmn is discussed a lot, and nad plus and all that type of stuff is discussed a lot, but for most of the people that uh, most of the things I get emails about tend to be focused around protein supplementation and creatine and all that type of stuff. So that's what we're starting with.
Peter:Let's start with protein. One of the questions I get asked quite a lot is should I be taking a protein supplement? I am concerned I'm not getting enough protein. Should I be buying protein shakes? Should I eat more protein? Should I get more protein in my diet, like everybody tells me to? And if I want a supplement, what should I do? Now, most of the conversations tend to go along those lines.
Peter:Now, protein is, as you well know, because we've mentioned it before. You have your three macronutrients your proteins, your fats and your carbohydrates and so it's just one of those. Right, you can get it from you. You get it from food. Um, most people in in.
Peter:There's a large trend now I've spoken about this before. I might link to that episode, if I can find it, the a lot of people in the health and fitness industry are now talking about taking one gram of protein per pound of body weight on a daily basis. Um, there is, in my opinion, this has always been the case that is very much for, as in this has always been the case that this has been my opinion, not that this has always been the case that you need to take that much. I think for most people who are not professional athletes and who don't train like bodybuilders for hypertrophy, bigger muscles and all that sort of stuff, if you're not that active, I don't see any reason why you would need to hit one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So a hundred pound person doesn't need to take in a hundred grams of protein, doesn't need to take in 100 grams of protein. There is and again, last time I touched on this, I touched on the study that showed that 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight was actually beneficial. That has just been rounded up to the one gram per pound, and I think that's a terrible way of doing business because all of a sudden you've increased that margin by 25%. Right, even if you needed 0.8 grams per pound of body weight, now you're at a gram. That is 25% more. We wouldn't do that with anything else. As far as that I know of. If you have any idea of another supplement, you say yeah, just take 25% more, it's all the same, the benefits will still be the same. Send me an email, peter, at healthypostnatalbodycom, or send us a text on that text link that you can now do. So you don't need that much. But if you decide that you have.
Peter:If you set yourself a certain target of protein and I'm not going to tell you what to take, it's different for everybody but say you set yourself the target of, I don't know, take it in 100 grams of protein per day, right, and you find that you can't get that from food. You struggle with getting that from food. Now I could say there's always a way, obviously there's always a way to get it from food, but say you're struggling with that. Should you then take a protein supplement? Is it safe to do, et cetera, et cetera. Now, there's a ton of different.
Peter:And what kind of protein supplements should you then take? Right, because it is one of the most popular supplements on the market and you can get it from loads of sources. Right, you can get the most common one will be whey protein, um, and then but soy protein, pea protein, all that type of stuff. You can get a billion different flavors and you know, as protein, as far as protein goes, they're basically all fine. They're all safe, right, assuming you go to something that's been created by a normal brand. Right, so you're not buying some dodgy stuff from a back alley protein dealer or something like that. Most protein is completely fine. Fine to take, safe to take. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with that. If you struggle to hit your protein target, any protein supplement will basically be okay.
Peter:Some are more expensive than others, but you know, that is usually where things get a little bit funny. Then, if I look around the supermarket, for instance, you know, if I shop at Tesco, you see these big buckets and they all have big alarm tags on them. Now they can cost like £35 per kilo and all that sort of stuff. If you look at a site like MyProtein, for instance, which is like one of the biggest suppliers of protein online retailers of supplementation but especially of protein there's an absolute, absolute ton of them On their website. Now I'll take the they have like a discount thing on so that skews the prices a little bit.
Peter:But you know you have things like impact whey protein powder, impact whey isolate powder, vegan protein, essential whey protein. Is one better. You have clear whey protein, clear whey isolate, all that type of stuff. It is all just protein. One isn't necessarily better than the other. Obviously, if you're vegan, I have seen no reason whatsoever for buying expensive whey protein. So they do this thing called Impact Whey Isolate, which is basically 86% protein, which is really high. Compare that to their impact whey protein, their normal whey protein, which is 80%. So you know that is marginally better. But you pay significantly more. You pay about 40-50% more.
Peter:The essential, the essential protein, is a little bit less. That comes in at like 75% 75% protein per serving. Because all these things come with scoops and they all have sugar and all that type of stuff in it. The carbohydrates in it, the sugars in it, the flavoring in it makes it palatable. As anybody will tell you, unflavored protein if you add it to something is not a particularly nice thing to have in a shake or anything like that. But if you look at the pricings, for instance on the what they call their impact weight protein that is, a kilo is 23 pounds. So that's the 80 80 percent one. The essential one is 1.3 kilos for 15.
Peter:I would always go for the essential one, unless you have specific macros you need to hit. So, unless you find that your protein supplement would skew your carb, fat and protein split too much and it really shouldn't, because it's a supplement, right, so it's all marginal um, then I don't see any reason to go for what they call the most purest form. Um, just means there's a little bit more sugar in a little bit more flavoring in the other one. So it's, it's there. There's very little for me. There's very little for me. There's very little benefit.
Peter:If you just look at the gain a bit of muscle, hit your protein macro for the day and all that sort of stuff. Just buy the essential whey protein. It's completely fine. Again, whey is the byproduct of milk, by the way, right, so it's not vegan. They do a vegan protein as well, which, know, is from just plant-based. It is usually soy or anything like that. You know it's all fine. In their case it's pea and fava bean protein. That's why I got so distracted. So it's, yeah, it's all fine. All protein supplements are basically fine, if you see.
Peter:By the way, this is an interesting bit about most of the air quotes special proteins that a lot of fitness coaches sell. Let me put it this way I get about six or seven emails each year asking me if I want my own supplement range, right? Most personal trainers that have a supplement range of protein have nothing to do. Or supplement range of creatine and protein all that type of stuff have nothing to do with the production of this stuff. It just gets done by a central company. You slap a label on it, right? So, like I said, I get five or six emails at least a year from supplement companies saying hey, do you want your own HPMB supplement range and we can make pretty labels on it and you can sell it for a lot of money. It's all the same stuff and quite often it is exactly the same makeup as the stuff that is cheaper on sites like my protein and all that sort of stuff. And you know I'm not selling anything, right, I'm not going to give you an affiliate link to my protein or anything like that. But that's why I buy my stuff, because they're cheaper, right?
Peter:Um, I I would not buy things like protein powder at the supermarket, just paying through the nose. Just get it from one of the larger sites. I wouldn't buy it from necessarily a small supplier either, unless I knew that that supplier makes their own. Unless they make their own, then you can say, oh, I'm supporting a small business, but most of the time you're not really supporting a small business. They're just a label stuck on it. And I think I can't remember what the offer was. I think the last one, I think, was offering me 25% or something like that. But I could make like 25% margin on everything I sold and I had nothing to do with it. I would have had nothing to do. I just throw the website up or throw these things up on the website and you could then buy it and I make 25% or something like that. So most of the small, lots of the small special ones I know there's this, I'm not going to name any names, but there's a lot of popular personal trainers that have a protein line, a supplement line, that they actually have nothing to do with. That is the same stuff as that you can buy somewhere else for less. Speaking of somewhere else for less, creatine Now, this we've heard a lot of, and creatine is a funny one. Now, this we've heard a lot of, and creatine is a funny one. I am a huge fan of creatine supplementation for the people that feel the benefits from it. Now, let me start by saying this. So, first of all, creatine is just a natural source of energy, right. It basically helps your muscles contract is just a natural source of energy, right? It basically helps your muscles contract, right? It's a steady supply of energy, so your muscles keep going. Especially, you know, when you're doing intense exercise, you can keep going a bit longer, you lift a bit heavier and all that type of stuff. Now, most of your body's creatine comes from diet, right? So we're talking and most of that comes from animal products. This is why a lot of vegan people can be low on this type of stuff like creatine, and this is why I'm quite a big fan of supplementing. But the benefits of supplementing are actually quite widely found for most people, right? So half of it comes from outside sources animal products and the other half gets produced in your liver and your kidneys and all that type of stuff. Now, most of that goes to your skeletal muscle, so it goes to your muscles when you exercise, and the other goes to your heartal muscle. So it goes to your muscles when you exercise and the other goes to your heart, your brain and other tissues. And that's quite important because it goes to your heart, your brain and other bits, right? So the benefits of creatine are only really just starting to come to the fore. So it's A lot of people are now finding studies. We always knew it worked for weightlifting and all that sort of stuff, but for 50, 60% of people had no sort of issues with it and they really saw a nice benefit from it. Let me put it that way Most people take it when they lift heavy bodybuilding or normal sports, tennis, that type of stuff. Obviously, always make sure that whatever you're taking, if you're a professional athlete, you make sure it complies with your doping. Body like WADA and all those sort of guys. Body like wada and all those sort of guys, right? Um, but whether it's safe to take protein is, uh, if the protein sorry we're on creating, whether it's safe to take creatine is, is a slightly trickier one when you're like pregnant and breastfeeding and all that type of stuff. When you have, you have some illnesses. I'm just going to talk about it as if you are no longer breastfeeding and you're not pregnant. There is, as far as I can tell, there aren't anywhere near enough studies to say, yeah, it's completely fine to take when you're pregnant or you're breastfeeding. That doesn't mean there is an issue necessarily, but there's a big issue between there's a big difference, sorry, between things being probably okay and things being proven to be okay, right, a lot of this stuff. You know it's difficult to use pregnant women as test subjects. There are very few pregnant women line up to do trials on things like creatine and supplementation when there might be a risk to the baby. So you can imagine that this is a tricky one and therefore it's really whether we reach the threshold of knowing for sure that it's safe if you're breastfeeding or pregnant or anything like that. That will probably be a long time to be met. I also think, like with most supplements, you have to ask yourself do you need to take it? And most women who are pregnant or breastfeeding don't need to take it. So then you just don't take it. No-transcript. So it makes sense that supplementing would help with brain health and there are quite a few studies that are coming out now that show that regular supplementation with creatine will help with brain health, including neuroprotection and all that sort of stuff. They're looking into studies with regards to dementia and all that sort of stuff. That is miles off from what I know. Now, like I said, many people take creatine supplementation. It's basic. As far as I know, nothing is creatine is completely legal for most sports, in most sports. I know the IOC is fine with it and all that sort of stuff. Just make sure you know good quality and nice and clean stuff. So most people find that there is a benefit to their athletic ability. For sure, when they take creatine, basically you perform better in the gym, right, it'll make your recovery a bit easier. After, especially after, intense exercise, you get a bit more muscle mass. Now, whether that's water retention or not, it's a different matter or not, but you know it. What causes it doesn't matter. If you have more tone, so to speak, if you have more muscle, then you know there you go some benefits. With regards to um, I've really careful with how I phrase this, which I stumble through this a little bit. Something to be said for almost everybody needing wanting to take a creatine supplement, and I find that the best way, assuming you have no health conditions right, always, you have no health conditions. Don't come to me and say Pete told me to take this even though I have a condition. I know that doesn't work. That doesn't work with creatine. Now, creatine is cheap. This is one of the reasons I like creatine. Creatine is also one of those things that I see a lot advertised now as saying our creatine is better than my protein. My protein is the biggest and I don't want this to sound like an ad for them, but these are the guys that I use. A lot of ads are saying that their creatine is better than my protein creatine because they call it washed or whatever. Listen, creatine is creatine. Creatine monohydrate is creatine monohydrate. There is nothing else to it. Everybody who says that their version of it is better than the cheaper version is out of their mind and just lying to you. That is all it is Like. I said, creating is cheap. A hundred grams is like five pounds or something like that. Let's see what the price for a kilo is. Yeah, so a kilo which is a lot is 32 pounds, so it is about 40 bucks or something like that, so that is not expensive. You take um. Now bodybuilders will sometimes cycle creatine and all that, but that I mean they'll build up the creatine intake and then drop it back down. Normal people really don't need to do it. How much you take kind of depends on how big you are. Of course, dosage matters, but I always used to take five grams of creatine every day, just every day. It's a powder. I buy the powder form. I don't buy gummies because I'm not a child, right? You add it to your. If you take a protein supplement or you have porridge in the morning, you just add it to that. It's a tiny scoop. Five grams is like a teaspoon, right? And, like I said, five grams a day. So in a kilo you have 200 days worth for 30 pounds, right? So you can imagine you have half a year and a creatine supplement over the course of half a year will cost you 20 quid or 30 pounds, sorry. So that is 60 quid a year, which is pennies per day for a supplement that has been shown to have quite a few benefits other than just being able to perform a bit better in the gym and all that sort of stuff. Um, it's cheap. You don't need to buy gummies or anything like that. If you look at, if you look on the on the my protein website, here you have impact creatine, which is uh, the, the 30, 30 pounds per, uh, per kilo one. And then you have gummies which are 18, 18 pounds of gummies for, for, for gummies, which are 90 gummies. And you know, yeah, okay, that that last year, last year, three months, how does it take you? It says just a juice, six gummies daily. There you go, so you take six of the bloody things, so, and you have 90. So that's two weeks, right, that's 15 days of creatine for 18 pounds. That's outrageous, Two weeks for 18 pounds, that's outrageous, two weeks for 18 pounds. But you could just buy the powder 30 quid for half a year, right? And then they're talking about, you know there's also CreaPure and all that type of stuff Micronized creatine capsules or purest creatine, minor hybrid capsules 24, 245 capsules, so a big box. And again, suggested use uh four a day. So you know, I, I, I don't know what to tell you right. Just buy the powder. It's so much cheaper, it's so easy to take. There is just no need for you to spend a lot of money on creatine. And you do find this with a lot of supplements right. A lot of supplements are just completely fine in their base form and in their powdered form and they're fine and they're easy to take, and they're a doddle and they're cheap. And then, as soon as you start messing with it, it becomes much more of an issue. You find the same with with vitamins, which is the next thing I'll come to and I'll rattle through this a little bit, because vitamin is one of those things. But it works for you're not. Every dietician, every single one I've had on says to just take a multivit every day. Every single one of them, not a single one of them, has said you do not need vitamins Now. Don't need to take a multivitamin Now. The studies about this are still very much along the lines of some say it's beneficial, others say it's just expensive pee that you're making. Very much along the line of some say it's beneficial, others say it's just expensive pee that you're making, right. So there are a lot of people are split into two camps. They don't do anything, they're not required or they're amazing. Most of the people I've spoken to, all of the dieticians that I've spoken to, and they're all registered dieticians and with good qualifications. I've done interviews with all of them. They're available on the if you go to the podcasty archivey sort of thing through the list. All of them say to just take one, because if you just take one and you don't overdo it, you're completely safe to take them and you're just topping up what you're missing. It's not a big deal. Taking a multivitamin but you don't doesn't mean you need to buy the expensive gummies, right, they sell the, what they said, the bassets, the, the vitamin company, sells multivitamins that are gummies that have raspberry flavored sort of thing. Now, because apparently we don't take pills, uh, we don't take the normal vitamin, boring vitamin pills anymore, but they are significantly more expensive than the boring, normal ones. Do you need to buy an expensive vitamin? No, they're vitamins, they're completely fine. They're fake vitamins that are expensive and they're fake vitamins that are cheaper. Just buy right. If they're not coming from real food, then they're synthetic. When I say fake, that means synthetic, right, and it's completely fine, they're completely safe to do. Take the cheaper ones, you're completely fine. Anybody who tries to sell you the really expensive ones and again, I've had loads of supplement companies ask me if I want to sell some of the really expensive ones. They're the same thing, guys. They do the same stuff, right? Unless they're selling apples, which, again, are cheaper than most of the vitamin pills. Again, with vitamins, you don't have to take them, but it's not going to hurt if you take one a day and there might be some benefit to it. That's what most of the registered diitians have been telling me about this. Lastly, I did want to touch on this one Bladder supplement. Right, I have seen an awful lot of ads recently for overactive bladder, the Jude ads and I'm not crapping on Jude, I'm just seeing a lot of ads for them because they've been on dragons then and you know if a certain dragon air quote dragon invests in these things. You see it all over Instagram because that's where they sell all their horse shit. Pardon my French now, fundamentally right. Do you need to buy jute? No, absolutely not. Start taking pumpkin seeds, you'll be fine. Nine out of ten times. A lot of these supplements that are like lifestyle supplements, right, like lifestyle supplements, right, they will say that this particular ingredient has benefits and we will build a supplement around that particular thing, right? And therefore then they come to you and say, hey, this supplement helps with peeing In the case of jute, it's very much pumpkin seeds and I'm not saying this stuff doesn't work, by the way, right, in this particular case, bladder supplements, and especially like this particular one, just buy the pumpkin seeds. They're so much cheaper. You're out of your mind. Are they safe? Yeah, I don't. Pumpkin seeds are. Yes, I don't see anything, anything that says that pumpkin seeds are not right for you to take when you're pregnant or postpartum or breastfeeding or anything like that. Right, by the way, it's soy germ and pumpkin seed is what they do. But basically, yeah, just eat pumpkin seed. You can't buy the expensive supplements. And again, let's have a look at the shop 60 capsules. They also sell pants, by the way. That already shows you just how shit it is. Sorry, I hate that. One-time purchase, see, see, it's already bad when it says 129 per day, right? 12-week plan I don't know why you need to put b on a plan, right? This is that whole subscription model. Um, 180 pills. You take more than one pill a day, all right, okay, 60 pills. Yeah, so you take two pills a day. It's 75 pounds For the four weeks supply. For a month it's about 36 pounds. They also sell pants that absorb leaks. They sell bamboo all-day liners and pants and all that sort of stuff. If your supplement works, you don't need special pants. You know what I mean. It immediately makes me question these things. But they also sell pants because they want to make some more money, more than one income stream type thing. So that is a prime example of there being a supplement out there that is so easily replaced just by taking the actual food item. You can take two capsules a day or add some pumpkin seeds to your porridge or God knows what. It is not difficult. This stuff, most of the time, a lot of the time, a lot of the time supplementation you can get it from your diet, unlike creatine and folate and all that sort of stuff. Creatine is to up the levels of creatine that high you need to eat a lot of meat and that's expensive. So Creatine is to up the levels of creatine that high you need to eat a lot of meat and that's expensive. So creatine is cheaper to buy. Folate folic acid is really difficult to get in high numbers. If you need to supplement with that Iron is kind of the same, and all that so that you can supplement that. You can supplement cheaper than you can get it through natural sources. But pumpkin seeds, come on now. You wouldn't spend £36 a month on pumpkins. How much are pumpkin seeds? Pumpkin seeds? Let's have a look. And I'm on Ecosia £4.50 for 500 grams. That is from Nature's Best. So that's not even cheap pumpkin seeds, right, nature's Best. That's like the new Holland and Barrett or something like that. So that's the health and vitamin supplement crunchy shop. Those guys sell 500 grams for £4.50. So what is that? Does that last 2, 3, 4, 4 weeks, 5 maybe? Let's say that lasts 4 weeks? You just save yourself £32 just by buying the actual thing which is so easy to consume. You don't need to supplement that 32 pounds just by buying the actual thing which is so easy to consume. You don't need to supplement that. And a lot of supplement companies, like I said, they are kind of in that business of making you think you need to buy something that you can actually very comfortably get from food, right, or they'll just have you sell. They just sell you stuff that you don't actually need. With regards to pumpkin seeds and all that type of stuff, do they work? Yes, they do. Again, there are some studies out there that show that they're beneficial, and a lot of people have found them to be beneficial, which is why that particular supplement works, but so does the original ingredient. So I'm not crapping on whether it works or not. I'm just saying that is an expensive way of not going to the toilet at night, and you know it works for everybody. I'm just saying I'm 50 years old. Right, it's nice to be able to sleep for the night. Every old white guy I'm assuming black guys as well every old black guy will know this. Every old man will know this. Getting up in the middle of the night, ah, jesus, right, if you have an overactive bladder, eat some pumpkin seeds. That's all I'm saying. Anyways, that is part one done. Next week, like I said, we'll do NMN, we'll do NAD+, we'll do what else? What else do you have? Cbd? Do you know the cannabis stuff? Does it help inflammation? And all that type of thing? We'll do all that type of stuff. But for now, this is it done. Russpeter at HealthyPostnatalBodycom, if you have any questions or comments, just give me a shout. Right, that's what I'm here for. Here's a new bit of music. You take care of yourself. Bye now. Thank you, taking over need to confess. Was it closing in around us and the tension rising all over my skin Like I'm falling now? Was it worth the faith? Was it worth it? Chance to walk away. Try to give you all I have, give you all I got, just for the sake. Ooh, I can feel it. Now I can feel us holding on. Wanna hold on to this moment, feeling everything around me and I swear the way Is just too much to bear. Was it worth the faith? Was it worth it just to walk away? Try to give you all I had. Give you all I got, just to walk away. Try to give you all I had. Give you all I got. Just to fall asleep. Ooh, I can feel it coming. Ooh, I can feel us holding on, thank you. How do you feel? This whole world alone, thank you.