instance, can be lost through sweat and urine. Magnesium, sodium and iron may also be severely
affected in the athlete who trains for prolonged periods of time in hot weather.^11
Our environment can also contain pollutants or otherwise fail to provide for our needs. Poor
agricultural practices, industrial waste dumping, and indiscriminate disposal of urban wastes
can have a great effect on the quality of food you get in your diet. Soil erosion can also impact
the nutrients received in the food you eat. In a high fat diet, where you’re eating plenty of meat,
the quality of grazing conditions for cattle can also influence the nutrients you’ll receive.
By using vitamin and mineral compounds, we hope to clear up any deficiencies that may
arise in this area. As such, they serve as a kind of nutritional insurance policy. If you do have
deficiencies, supplements will clear these up. If you don’t, the compounds you’ll be
supplementing won’t hurt you, and they’ll give you the security of knowing you’ll have no
nutritional problems that will affect growth and overall health.
Another area important in the decision to use supplements is that of preventive nutrition.
Many of the compounds we’ll talk about below are provided to minimize the kinds of serious
illnesses that affect North Americans.
You’ll also want to protect yourself from some of the nutritional pitfalls that can come from
heavy training. Potassium is one of the essential dietary minerals, and it can be lost in sweat.
This can be especially important to the bodybuilder, because even mild potassium deficiency
can lead to fatigue and decreased performance.^12
Similarly, chromium has also been shown to be essential in carbohydrate and fat metabolism.
Since the need for chromium increases with exercise, and modern refined diets provide little
chromium, there may be a big need for it in a number of cases. Whether chromium also provides
for other anabolic effects has yet to be proven, but I prescribe it in the Anabolic Diet as a
precaution against any possible deficiency.
THE MULTI-VITAMIN
You should start your supplement program with a daily multiple vitamin. We’re not talking
about the kind named after some cartoon character, either. We’re looking for serious nutritional
supplementation to maximize general health and bodybuilding capabilities. Some of these will
be 10–15 times the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance but, then, that should tell you
something about the RDA’s. They’re simply not applicable to an increasingly diversified general
public, and certainly not to bodybuilders and other athletes.
The vitamin should include:
20,000 international units beta-carotene
50 milligrams of vitamin B-1 (thiamine)
50 milligrams of vitamin B-2 (riboflavin)
50 milligrams of vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine)
50 milligrams of vitamin B-12 (cyanocobalamin)52 CHAPTER 4