Natural supplements to improve your diet
While embarking on a new training routine or adopting a healthier lifestyle, maintaining discipline and willpower is crucial. However, it never hurts to seek a bit of assistance, and incorporating natural supplements can provide that extra support.
Fortunately, there are many food supplements – natural and processed – that can improve your training performance, make a healthier body and even boost your organism for very specific goals, such as making your skin firmer and smoother, and your hair more silky and shinier.
In this article, you’ll discover supplements that are present in any healthy diet and supplements that you can easily find in any specialty store.
But before implementing big changes in your diet and introducing those supplements in your routine, always talk with a nutritionist. Our bodies respond a little bit differently from each other to substances such as these, and a professional will help you find the products and doses that are just right for your organism.
Iron
Most adults need a regular supplementation of iron in their diets. That’s because this mineral is responsible for many essential body functions. When we are iron deficient, we feel more tired, lack concentration, pale, and our hair becomes weak.
Luckily, iron can be found in many foods that are already part of your diet, such as dark vegetables (like broccoli and spinach), beans (specially when fresh), cocoa, fish, brazilian nuts and beet.
Calcium
This mineral is the main responsible for your bones’ structuring and resistance and it’s also an important component of muscle contraction. A regular consumption of calcium is especially important for women, who have a greater propensity to osteoporosis.
You can supplement your daily doses of calcium in milk, soy, linseed and chickpea. The body’s absorption of calcium works better when accompanied by iron and caffeine.
Melatonin
On this blog, we’ve already talked about how regular sleep is essential to training performance and health. Well, melatonin is one of the hormones released by the body during the early hours of the night. Known as “the sleep hormone”, it’s responsible for… well, take a guess. If you suffer from insomnia, you can find extra doses of melatonin in pineapple, cherries, milk, oat, kiwi and chickpea.
Creatine
This marvelous and essential substance for anyone who’s looking for a boost in their workout is part of the two categories of this list. It can be found (in smaller doses) in regular food and, concentrated, in processed products aimed for sport practitioners.
Creatine is an important component of every athlete’s diet. It improves muscle strength, performance and after-training growth and recovery. This substance also reduces fatigue and, in recent studies, it has been linked to cognitive improvements. In smaller doses, it can be found in fish, red and white meat, eggs and milk. You can also buy it from specialty stores in its concentrated pounder form.
Collagen
Beyond the health part of training and workout, we all love the esthetic results of all this work turn up, right? If you’re going through a process of weight loss or just aiming for a firmer skin and healthier hair, a collagen supplementation may be in order.
You can find this substance in many processed products, in pharmacys and specialty stores and even in jelly. But foods like chicken, eggwhite – or albumin, for that matter -, dark vegetables, linseed, many kinds of nuts, quinoa and… garlic, are also either rich in collagen or in substances that improve the body’s production of this protein.
Whey Protein
Even if you’re a beginner in the ways of the gym, you’ve already heard of, seen or even tried the famous whey protein. This little protein powder is made with dry and concentrated cow or goat milk. It’s responsible for improving muscle strength and performance during training and for helping the muscle fibers regrowth afterward.
There are many types of whey protein, varying from protein concentration and levels of carbs and fat in its formula. If you’re dubious about processed supplements, you can find pretty much the same results by increasing your daily consumption of cottage cheese, for instance. And there are many homemade recipes that will achieve just that.
BCAA
This mysterious name stands for “Branched Chain Amino Acids”, which means that it contains essential amino acids (such as leucine and valine) that are – quite literally – indispensable for body function and extremely important for training performance.
The components of BCAA are present in every protein of our bodies, specially in our muscles – where they are metabolized, providing it with energy. If you’re looking to improve your performance at training and prevent the loss of muscle mass, you can find the concentrated form of BCAA in any specialty store. But, in smaller doses, the amino acids that compose the “Branched Chain” are present in many foods, such as red and white meats, eggs and fish.
Casein
You’re probably not familiar with this precious substance, but it’s likely that you have consumed it many times. That is, if you’ve ever eaten any milk product in your life. That’s because casein is present – in large doses – in cow and goat milk, besides being found concentrated in many processed training supplements.
This kind of protein works greatly aiding muscle growth and recovery, and if losing weight is your goal, there’s no better supplement. Its consumption by the body is slower than of most other proteins, making you satiated for longer periods.
It also boosts your organism in balancing hunger hormones. And it reduces the body’s absorption of glucose and enhances the production of insulin, helping prevent diabetes. If that was not enough, casein also works for preventing high blood pressure.
However, in this particular case, rather than increasing your daily consumption of milk products to get bigger doses of casein, it’s better to invest in its processed and concentrated form, which can be easily found in pharmacies or specialty stores and have lower doses of fat.
What about acai?
Acai is typical from Brazil, and consumed to improve the workout, lose weight, and be satiated. This little purple can be served as a meal or a dessert, and it is healthier than you think. It is rich in minerals, like calcium, manganese, potassium, iron and magnesium, besides being a great source of energy and fibers. Get to know more about the benefits of acai.
Besides that, acai bowls are delicious, especially with different toppings like granola, local honey and fruits. There’s no reason for your healthy diet to be boring, right?
Come to visit Vida Boa Acai, in Lake Jackson (TX) and have a new experience with our Brazilian menu.