Originally Posted by Andrew.cook

I did this for years. The whole whey protein timed exactly right with the stars and the moons and my wife's ovulation cycles... I can tell you that having given up on the supplement industry, I'm no worse off now that I just eat normally. I don't weigh less, if I wanted to gain weight I could.

No worse off, and getting optimal nutrition are very different things.

Here is my theory on why this is. The supplement industry is an industry of minutia. All those amazing clinical studies where a supplement causes a person to develop twice as much muscle? Well, if the placebo group gains 1/1000th of an inch on their bicep and the clinical group gains 2/1000th of an inch... guess what, it is double. Significant? Nope... but double none the less. Is 2/1000th worth $50 a month? Not to me.

completely agree with you there, I have no love for the bullshit that goes on in the suppliment industry.

Secondly, of all the potential for growth and strength that you have, 98% of that is going to be gained through proper execution of diet/rest/stimulus (in this case weight training). When I say diet, I mean the actual consumption of food products. Do you eat good fats vice crap fats, good protein vice crap protein, and so on. A hot dog is not equal to a chicken breast, is not equal to an egg, is not equal to milk. Olive oil or flax seed oil is not equal to the mess they fry your McNuggets in. You get the picture. So if a trainee wanted to make the largest impact in the least amount of time, they would be FAR better off addressing their training, their diet or their rest/recovery.

Agree again.

Someone reaching 70% of their current potential could make a 15-20% jump in potential by cleaning up diet, getting on a better exercise program and so on. I'm not even talking about perfecting their diet/rest/training... just improving. Vice living the way they currently do and gobbling up every powder and pill the supplement industry can chuck at them. Even if they play the supplement game perfectly, they still probably only have that 2% gain in performance. So in my mind it is folly to work so hard on making a 2% gain when you could spend less money and probably less time learning to clean up what you currently do so that you could see a 20% gain. Even better, you could REALLY dial in your training, diet, and recovery and see a good 35% gain.

Agree again.

While I would certainly buy into the argument that whey is food... it is expensive food that has pretty restricted use. Imagine that for every jug of whey you buy (the $50 sort), you could probably buy 24 gallons of milk. Not buying the whey also equates to a crap ton of meat, or so many eggs that you could throw them at your neighbor for fun and still get stuffed on the buggers. And in the end all of that protein is FAR more useful if you are concerned about building muscle and recovery.