The Best Supplements For Fat Loss and Muscle Growth

#1 Calories, #2 Macros, #3 Micros, #4 Nutrient Timing, #5 Supplements

This is the fifth and final part of our Nutrition Setup Guide. Join 100,000 people and download the full PDF version here.

Here are the sections of this chapter:

1. Why Supplements Are Not Very Important
2. Why We Have an Endless Supplement Hype Cycle
3. The Best Supplements for Muscle Growth and Performance
4. Supplements Worth Considering for Health

Summary: I recommend whey protein, creatine, caffeine, and a daily multivitamin. Four more supplements are conditionally beneficial and worth consideration.

Why Supplements Are Not Very Important

Supplements can benefit a good nutrition plan but cannot make up for a poor one.

Supplements are not needed to transform your physique and, in many cases, constitute an unnecessary expense.

Few supplements have a robust base of evidence showing benefits to physique and performance. Those that do have a modest effect.

If I had a magic wand and could erase the effects that supplements have had on top-level, drug-free physique competitors, I doubt there would be much of a visible difference.

That may seem like a strong statement, but let it sink in if you’re coming to this chapter hoping for a cure to your physique and strength woes.

Sure, marketing messages (and even friends) will tell you endlessly how supplement X, Y, or Z is amazing, but this is just market forces + exaggeration + the placebo effect.

Even so, it is important to understand that a good part of the reason we’re bombarded with marketing messages about supplements with bold claims is an issue with the interpretation of scientific research. It explains why cold baths, antioxidant megadosing (usually via Vit. C), and all kinds of supplements have hit the scene hard and died a slow death. So bear with me a moment while I explain that.

Why We Have An Endless Supplement Hype Cycle

When a new supplement is studied, it is usually for the acute (short-term) effects. A supplement may increase the performance of a training session directly, or we may think it beneficial indirectly via mechanisms impacting fat loss, muscle growth, or performance.

If acute research is consistently promising, then longer-term studies will be conducted.

But just because something has an acute effect does not necessarily mean it will improve long-term training outcomes.

This is the case, more often than not.

People desperately want supplements to work, and supplement makers want any shred of evidence they can get to support their marketing messages. So new supplements hit the scene quickly, with spectacular hype, far before sufficient evidence supports them.

This leads to myths that are tremendously difficult to erase when subsequent studies show them not to have any real-world beneficial effects. And because supplement makers will always cherry-pick the research as it suits them, it is often a long time before demand drops and these supplements are removed from shelves.

Even high-end performance coaches are not immune to the pressure of the hype cycle if they want to claim to be “cutting-edge.”

But anyone who has been in the game long enough should know better by witnessing so many promising supplements come and go over the years.

Some Recent Examples of Supplements (or Recovery modalities) that Rode the Hype-Die Cycle

In 2009, D-aspartic acid was shown to acutely increase testosterone levels to an impressive degree. It was quickly touted as a muscle builder, libido enhancer, and performance enhancer, and the fitness community lapped it up. But subsequent studies from other labs found it to actually have a negative effect.

Antioxidants (usually vitamin C doses) have been shown to increase recovery by decreasing oxidative stress. However, while this means weekly training volume can be pushed higher, it decreases anabolic signaling, which impacts muscle growth.

Ice and cold baths are a similar story, improving recovery between training sessions but at the cost of training adaptations. Same again with NSAIDs like ibuprofen and aspirin.

So, I would suggest you hold off on taking anything before there is long-term research from multiple different research labs showing benefits.

With this in mind, I’ll make recommendations of supplements that may be worth considering (and those that aren’t) in both the physique/performance and health benefit categories.

The Best Supplements For Muscle Growth and Performance

I will rate the supplements as A, C, or S.

• ‘A’ means always advisable.
• ‘C’ means conditionally relevant, less evidence to support it, or both.
• ‘S’ means a waste of money.

PROTEIN POWDER (A)

I don’t think of protein powders as supplements, more powdered food. They are convenient, macro-friendly, and offer a low cost per gram when bought in bulk.

I recommend whey protein, as it has the highest quality amino acid profile. (If you are vegan or you don’t like whey, a 70:30 mix of pea and rice protein closely mimics the amino acid profile.)

There is a scam in the protein powder industry called “amino spiking.” This is where manufacturers dump cheap ingredients into their powders so that they can pass tests to claim a higher protein content than they truly have.

To check the quality of your powder, look for the following:

• 11% of whey protein content should be leucine. So you should see ~2.75 g per 25 g of protein.
• 25% of whey protein should be BCAAs. So we should see ~6.25 g per 25 g of protein.

If these things are not listed, I would choose another brand. More in my article: How to Avoid Protein Powder Scams

CREATINE MONOHYDRATE (A)

Creatine is a non-essential nutrient we produce in our body from the amino acids glycine, methionine, and arginine. We store it in our muscles.

Creatine is a popular supplement, and with good reason. Supplementation reliably results in increased strength, power, and muscle mass.

Despite what your aunt says, creatine is not a drug; it won’t wreck your kidneys or liver, and it’s not going to make you go bald (see video below). However, creatine supplements should not be used in people with chronic renal disease or using potentially nephrotoxic medications.

It’s cheap and easy to take. If there’s one supplement you should consider, it’s creatine.

How Creatine Works

Creatine increases strength and power by improving adenosine triphosphate (ATP) turnover and recycling.

ATP is an organic compound that provides energy to drive and support many processes in living cells. High-intensity exercise (like lifting heavy things) requires a large amount of ATP. When access to ATP drops, we can’t sustain performance. Creatine provides a sort of limited reservoir for the rapid replenishment of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and can thus help us get a few more reps from our sets. 

Hundreds of studies show that creatine increases strength and power output during short-duration, high-intensity exercise. And while there is no doubt that this performance improvement can help us get more jacked, this may not be the main reason that creatine makes us bigger. — Other supplements have a similar effect on acute performance (caffeine, beta-alanine, and citrulline malate) but not muscle growth.

So why does creatine promote muscle growth beyond the performance improvements alone? It is likely by directly affecting myostatin, myogenic regulatory factors, insulin-like growth factor 1, reactive oxygen species, and satellite cell activation.

You don’t need to know how that all works. However, if we were to take one of these mechanisms as a fun example, the reason that Belgian Blue cows are so gloriously jacked is because of the inactivation of the myostatin gene.

Some people “respond” to creatine supplementation better than others. This is likely because some people’s creatine stores are more topped up through diet than others before supplementation.

On average, a recent meta-analysis suggests that creatine can help us build muscle about 1/3rd faster.

How Much Creatine To Take

0.03 g/kg (0.014 g/lb) of body weight should be sufficient to maximize and maintain muscle creatine concentrations, which means a little over half a teaspoon (~3 g) daily will be plenty for most people.

Take this any time of day, dissolved in a drink.

You do not need to cycle on and off creatine. And though you can do a loading phase (20 g per day for a week) if you are in a rush, this may lead to gastrointestinal discomfort.

What Creatine Is Best?

Creatine monohydrate is the most tested, affordable, and effective of all the variants. It is also the cheapest. I wouldn’t bother with others. They are usually more expensive and lack research on efficacy and safety.

Creatine Side Effects

Some people experience gastrointestinal discomfort when taking creatine. If you experience this, avoid taking more than necessary, avoid drinking it with caffeine, and make sure it’s fully dissolved before you drink it. (Micronized creatine monohydrate is more soluble, but you can simply mix regular creatine into a warm drink.) Alternatively, split the dose across the day. (For example, half a teaspoon at lunch and half at dinner.)

Creatine often causes water retention; 2–4 lbs (1–2 kg) over several weeks is not uncommon. Most is water pulled into muscles and isn’t something to worry about. However, if you are using scale weight to track your progress (which you should), it is something to be aware of.

Pay close attention to your stomach measurement changes. And remember, if you were consistently losing (or gaining) weight before you started taking creatine, and your diet and energy expenditure haven’t changed, the underlying rate of weight change won’t have altered.

Creatine does not cause hair loss. One ​2009 paper on rugby players​ studied creatine’s effects on DHT levels. The changes weren’t impressive; even if they had been, this is mechanistic speculation, not an outcome showing hair loss. There is no human research showing creatine causes hair loss.

CAFFEINE (A-)

There is a ton of research on caffeine’s effectiveness in improving acute resistance-training performance, including strength and muscular endurance. However, there is still a lack of long-term research on whether this is beneficial, which is why I give it an A-minus.

I think long-term studies will show this to be beneficial because, in contrast to the research on NSAIDs, antioxidants, cold baths, and D-aspartic acid, caffeine directly affects performance because it works by reducing perceptions of fatigue (among other things).

Caffeine is cheap, and I don’t see any downsides as long as you do not take it in a way that impacts your sleep. (Avoiding the late afternoon and evening is the best bet for the majority of people; a minority metabolize it more slowly and may need to reduce their dosing or avoid intake even earlier than this.)

I buy it in 200 mg tabs. Take 1.8–2.7 mg/lb (4-6 mg/kg) approximately 60 minutes before training.

Note that pre-workout supplements are popular, but caffeine drives most of the acuteeffects. Most use low doses of lesser proven supplements piggybacked with caffeine, so it’s better to just purchase caffeine on its own, in my opinion.

Citrulline-Malate (A-)

Citrulline, a non-essential amino acid, aids performance by increasing blood flow to working muscles through an increase in nitric oxide (a vasodilator) and by helping to clear ammonia (a marker of muscle fatigue). It is commonly paired with malate, a Krebs cycle intermediate, which means it could increase energy production during exercise.

In combination, citrulline-malate could assist with both energy production and waste removal during training. Therefore, you would expect a positive effect on muscular endurance, inter-set recovery, and thus, the ability to perform volume in a training bout and over time.

In the 2019 (second edition) of our Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid book, we pointed out that the evidence was split between slightly favorable and neutral, and the evidence wasn’t sufficient for us to recommend it at the time. However, a recent meta-analysis looked at all the studies assessing the acute impact of citrulline malate supplementation on strength endurance — meaning repetitions to failure.

Compared to a placebo, it appears that supplementing with 6-8 g of citrulline malate, preferably in a 2:1 ratio, about an hour before exercise, delays fatigue and enhances strength performance. As a bonus, it’s cheap too.

There is still nowhere near the level of research as with creatine and caffeine, which is why I give it an A-minus.

Beta-Alanine (C)

Beta-alanine can be thought of as the muscular endurance version of creatine monohydrate. If you think of creatine for power, strength, and hypertrophy, think of beta-alanine for longer anaerobic performances of 30 seconds ~ 10 minutes.

This sounds great, but it only has a small performance-enhancing effect. Some of your training sets may be over 30 seconds long, but whether this will make a meaningful difference is hard to say. Those who do longer activity bursts (like CrossFit athletes, perhaps) might consider it if it’s in their budget.

Take 3–4 g/day if you’re interested. For what it’s worth, I don’t bother.

BCAAS AND EAAS (C-)

If your daily protein intake is already high enough, BCAAs are unlikely to benefit you. If your daily protein intake isn’t high enough, the answer is to take more protein, not just EAAs or BCAAs. A whey shake prior to training fasted is more effective than either EAAs or BCAAs, in my opinion.

Verdict: A waste of money.

Glutamine (S)

Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body. It is non-essential, which means the body can produce it, and we do not need to get it from our diet. It has been a popular supplement in the bodybuilding and fitness community, but there is no evidence that supplementary glutamine improves body composition or performance.

At best, there is a theoretical argument that glutamine could possibly aid in gastrointestinal health among physique competitors during contest preparation, although this is speculative.

Verdict: A waste of money.

HMB — (S)

A metabolite of leucine, β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB), has been investigated for over two decades for improving resistance training performance and increasing lean body mass via a reduction in muscle protein breakdown.

The only research showing benefits to HMB supplementation was funded by a company that sells it, and the data have been called into serious question in three separate letters to the editor — for transparency, my co-author Eric was among the 17 authors of one of these letters.

Verdict: A waste of money.

Avoid Proprietary Blends

Make sure you never choose a supplement that hides the exact amount of individual ingredients listed by calling it a “proprietary blend.” This is a common trick used to make people believe a product is special, where it just allows them to under-dose the expensive ingredients (which usually means the beneficial ones) to boost profits.

Supplements Worth Considering for Health

As “general health” is outside the scope of my professional capacity, I will purposefully limit myself to three specific supplements that have an abundance of evidence that I think are worth considering.

Before taking anything, I would recommend getting blood work done to ensure you aren’t potentially providing micronutrients in excess or neglecting an unknown deficiency.

For anything you are interested in that is not listed, check out Examine.com, which is an excellent and unbiased resource on supplements. Beware the bullshit on the internet when you search for things elsewhere!

A Daily Multivitamin & Mineral (A)

Multivitamin use appears safe and may give a small protective health benefit to long-term users.

If taking one corrects a deficiency, it could have a significant impact:

• Zinc deficiencies can negatively impact your metabolism
• Iron deficiencies can negatively impact strength
• Calcium deficiencies can negatively impact bone health

A regular one-a-day multivitamin is worth considering, but avoid the types of multivitamins that come in giant bags. If you’re having to swallow down multiple pills, it’s probably overdosed, which could have negative consequences.

Essential Fatty Acids (EPA and DHA), Commonly Found In Fish Oil (C)

A daily intake of 1–2 g of combined EPA and DHA will be sufficient to achieve the vast majority of health benefits shown in research (reducing symptoms of depression, decreasing the risk of cardiac death, decreasing blood pressure, and decreasing waist circumference).

If you don’t eat fish or don’t like taking fish oil, you can also get EPA and DHA from an algae supplement. (This is what fish eat that gives them the EPA and DHA that we are looking for.) Just be careful when choosing your supplement, as some are much lower quality than others. Just as 100 g of protein powder is not 100% protein, 1 g of fish oil is not 1 g of combined EPA and DHA, and the quantities vary wildly.

Vitamin D3 (C)

If sun exposure is lacking, dietary sources of Vitamin D become increasingly important for health (and performance). 

Severe deficiency can cause osteoporosis and can be a contributing risk factor for cancer, hypertension, and a number of autoimmune diseases. Correcting a deficiency may improve immune function and reduce your chance of illness, but it’s unclear as to whether vitamin D directly benefits resistance training.

Vitamin D3 is the form best absorbed by the body, and recommendations for insufficient athletes are between 20-80 IU/kg taken daily.

You could also get some more sun. Unfortunately, sunlight through a window doesn’t provide vitamin D, as glass blocks UVB, and depending on your climate, vitamin D dosing strategies may need to change during the winter.

Summary of Supplement Guidelines

New supplements come along all the time, and as you can see, exceptionally few have stood the test of time.

If there’s something you have heard of for performance that isn’t mentioned here, consider my exclusion of it as a silent hat tip to it not being effective.

Table of Performance and Health Supplements And Their Doses

Supplement Q&A

Thank you for reading. Questions are welcomed in the comments.

– Andy