So hello and welcome to episode 14 of the James Smith podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about supplements.

Now before we get into this, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a supplement guy, I'm just a personal trainer with some opinions on supplements and I'm going to be sharing them with you today.

I have compiled a list of probably a rather large handful of topics and I'm going to be referencing some stuff from some certain websites.

So you know, this isn't well rehearsed. I've actually just put that list together in the Uber on the way here. It's Friday night and I'm pretty jet lagged and the people in the office where the podcast studio is making a bit of fucking noise on it's Friday night.

So if you're only giggling in the background, you know, who it is.

So let's start off with what I deem a supplement to be, which again, I'm not going to get the fucking dictionary out. But when looking at our diet, we need to identify that there's going to be strengths, there's going to be weaknesses.

These are going to be different with whatever person it is, whether it's yourself, whether it's a client, whatever it is. Now when identifying weaknesses in that given diet, it makes sense to maybe supplement the weaknesses.

So we want to identify certain things, whether it could be the type of diet that you are following, it could be your preferences to certain food types or eating patterns. And we may need to in some cases supplement it to create an optimal environment.

That's what we're looking to do people. We're not looking to step on fucking stage and when Mr. Olympia, we're just trying to make so many things in our life, kind of optimal.

The optimal does not always mean perfect. It means the best possible. So you know, identify them. That's it. Now any of you that don't know, maybe didn't listen to the podcast that he previously where I was fucking narcissists and just chat about myself, I used to work in the corporate world.

And when I did, you know that fucking dickhead in the office that thinks they know everything about fitness and as a draw full of supplements, without me, a whole bottom draw is to open it. I have fucking I could rattle if you shake to me back in the day with the amount of supplements I had.

Now I'm going to be hugely honest about a lot of components of my life in this podcast as I always am and feel free to criticize and feel free to fucking complain about it. You know, I don't care.

Now, if I go back to probably what I'd consider my peak when I was probably about 23, which is a year before I became a personal trainer, I was a bit like the majority of my life, very unhappy with my body and I became very health conscious, but then I became very fitness conscious.

And I kind of went too far. I went so far in the, you know, aspiring to be in the best shape possible. I even not only did I become very heavily invested in supplementation, I started then what you could call supplementing things that are illegal and probably not smart to do. And I'm going to start with those. So in a bid, this is how stupid I was. And again, I'm going to absolutely fucking crucify myself here in a bid to lose fat. I took human growth hormone.

Now, human growth hormone is an injectable substance that you have to take something called subcue where you inject it into a belly, which is a bit like where you inject insulin. It's got to be kept in the fridge. If I'm really going to go full disclosure, I used to hide it in a tub of creating and I put the tub of creating in the fridge.

Now, in a bid, you know, I'd seen the studies where, you know, someone had gone, oh, if you, you know, give someone a certain amount of growth hormone that will lose fat and gain muscle without changing anything in their life was like, you know, well, that sounds pretty good.

Now, point I want to make clear, I took human growth hormone for maybe about four months. I wasn't even logging my fucking calories, not even a protein target.

Now, you there, probably think just after James, that's pretty fucking stupid. I know, I know. There was doubling in anabolic steroids, which I spoke about before in a previous podcast where I went straight to it and I was like, yeah, you know what, I'm going to inject tests in my fucking ass twice a week.

Again, spoken about the implications of that tangent a bit off of supplements, but again, it was whilst driving to, you know, get in shape and all of these things.

And it's only now when I look back where I look at the, I like steroids to human growth hormone, the fucking stimulants I used to take.

And I can't honestly get this across. You don't need them. The honesty don't need them. And if you're looking to get jacked and fucking massive, unless you're already an accomplished bodybuilder, probably move your jumpers that you have his gold post because they're better things to achieve in life with happiness.

I've been there. I've done it. I got to the point I could barely fucking run. And even my rugby coaches will like Smith's way to do it mate.

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