Nutrition for Fitness Leaders

Commercial Diets and Supplements

Tracey Kobayashi

50 Phelan Ave, NGYM
San Francisco, CA 94112
(415)452-7311
tkobayas@ccsf.edu

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[ Intro ] [ Nutrients ] [ Energy ]
[ Apps ] [ Commercial Diets ]

You will, at some point or another, be offered the opportunity to promote a commercial diet or supplementation system, for which you will receive a commission. Before associating your name with any product, analyze its claims versus not just efficacy, but also safety.

Supplements

• FDA Rules for Claims on Dietary Supplements.
  Supplements may make structure/function claims without having to prove them via FDA review. They may not make any disease claim without FDA approval, at which point they are classified as drugs.
• Examine labels for claims and ingredients.

Thermogenic Supplements
Thermo = heat, Genesis = create, creation of
Supplements which contain some sort of sympathetic stimulant, therefore raising heart rate and blood pressure, along with metabolic rate. Thermogenic is just a new way to say a stimulant, but since it sounds like it burns fat, it sells more product.

Stimulants constantly stimulate the sympathetic system while they are circulating, so with continued use, the system's threshold for the substance increases, resulting in increased amounts needed to achieve the same effect. Caveats: stimulants are contraindicated for those with histories of hypertension, heart disease, or at risk for heart disease; stimulants should not be taken for more than six weeks.

Diets

As a personal trainer who is NOT a Registered Dietitician or Nutritionist, it's best to limit your dietary recommendations to caloric and macronutrient intake. If you start making other supplementary recommendations, you can tread a thin line between what you're actually qualified to deal with and what you really shouldn't touch.

As a point of comparison, start with the USDA's Daily Reference Intakes -- general recommendations based on a 2,000 Cal/day diet for moderately active adult women, teenage girls, and sedentary males. Individual requirements may vary. Nutritional analysis software packages also provide recommendations. Most use the DRIs or RDAs, but some can accommodate different diet systems.

Before you tout any single diet plan as the magic bullet for everyone, keep in mind that different people respond differently to different triggers. If you take a bunch of people on an island that's never seen a cow and start feeding them cows, you're going to end up with a serious heart disease problem. Those same cows may not have as drastic an effect on a population that evolved on blubber, because the people who survived were the ones with larger arteries. They may have atrocious blood lipid profiles, too, but it takes longer for their arteries to clog.

Here are some guidelines for the safer side of some eating systems and supplements:

• Low carb/high fat or protein: not recommended for those with a history of diabetes, heart disease, blood lipid problems, high blood pressure. Some people take these diets to the extreme and assume they can eat as much meat as they want. These people need to be monitored to make sure they don't go overboard on saturated fat.
• Carb depletion and loading: only useful for endurance athletes.
• Stimulants: be EXTREMELY careful about recommending these. Even a mild stimulant can be too much for someone with blood lipid problems, heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes.
• High carb: only realistic for those with heart disease problems.

[ Intro ] [ Nutrients ] [ Energy ]
[ Apps ] [ Commercial Diets ]