Supplements for weight loss and muscle growth I Walk & Talk With E 009
In this informal "walk and talk" video, Eric Roberts—who spent over two years working at GNC—shares his practical supplement recommendations for people aiming to lose fat or gain muscle. He stresses that supplements should support, not replace, solid nutrition and training, and he advises getting personalized blood work to identify deficiencies. Roberts prioritizes four core supplements: vitamin D (2,000‑5,000 IU daily with dietary fat, taken earlier in the day), magnesium citrate (200‑400 mg 30‑90 minutes before bed to improve sleep, hydration, and muscle function), protein powder (20‑25 g protein per serving, any low‑calorie brand), and creatine monohydrate (5 g daily to boost ATP, strength, and muscle size). He downplays the value of popular market‑driven products such as pre‑workouts, fat burners, and BCAAs, labeling them largely ineffective beyond caffeine or flavoring. Throughout, Roberts emphasizes that consistent training, diet adherence, and adequate sleep are far more critical than any supplement, and he encourages viewers to focus 95 % of effort on those fundamentals.
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What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another walk and talk with E. Hope you're doing well. Hope you're getting out and walking yourself. Finally got some pretty nice weather. Sun's out. It's better than cloudy and cold and rainy. I don't like that. So either way, in this walk and talk today, we're gonna be talking about what supplements you should be taking on your fitness journey, whether muscle gain, losing weight. We'll kind of COVID everything here. So I want to say first and foremost, I'm probably not gonna say the things you think I'm going to say. And number 2, I wanna remind you, this is coming from a guy who worked at the supplement store GNC for almost, I think it was 2 and a half years. So pretty well-versed in that world. I was— this car was gonna hit me if I had to stop. I worked there for about 2 and a half years and I was like just a regular employee and then I was an assistant manager for about A year or a year and a half, somewhere around there. So, you know, kind of know how this stuff works. I know all like the ingredients and like what's the best and so on and so forth. And so what I want to say is most people put way too much emphasis and, um, interest and, you know, just overall, I guess, emphasis— emphasis is the word I'm looking for— on The things that like get the most clicks, like pre-workouts and you know obviously fat burners, which listen fat burners do absolutely nothing. Again, coming from somebody who worked at GNC, fat burners do nothing. Pre-workouts, BCAAs, fat burners—all those things that are like very marketable—and they they overemphasize those and they underemphasize the things. That are actually going to help you in your journey. I wanna cover first and foremost the ones that I'm going to suggest that you take. Number 1 is going to be what— where's the sun? What the sun— it's like up there somewhere, I think. What the sun is providing to us, and that is vitamin D, which is another reason, another great reason to get outside and get your damn walks in. I would venture to say the large majority— I don't know the exact percentage, but the large majority of people are under or low in vitamin D. And it's hard because like the, um, the range of like what a healthy vitamin D level is, it's a stupid range, but it's like 30 to 100 is like the, the normal range. But listen, if you're like— this is why going to the doctor and getting your blood work, which by the way I should have started with this, but actually I can intertwine this. Going to the doctor and getting your blood work done is, in my opinion, one of the best things you can do because all these things I'm going to talk about— vitamin D, all the other stuff I'm going to mention here in this video— all of this is centered around like, what do you need? What do you need? You might not need vitamin D. I don't go outside very much other than these walks, so I take vitamin D. I work from home in my house. I go to the gym. I try to do these walks, but I don't get much sunlight, right? And you can't really get vitamin D other than like fortified— like if you get vitamin D fortified cereal or shit like that. Like there's not vitamin D in many foods, so it's hard to get vitamin D unless you're outside 24/7. Like if you live in Las Vegas and you're always outside, awesome, sweet, like you're crushing vitamin D. But I'd venture to say most people are not, right? Most people work either at home or at a desk job or things like that, right? So vitamin D is one of the most beneficial things you can be taking for your overall health because vitamin D helps so many things. It's actually almost like a hormone to an extent. Vitamin D is actually almost like a hormone to an extent. It helps with Your energy, it helps with your recovery, it helps massively with your sleep, it helps with your stress levels. And again, all these things, they're not like sexy. Like, it's not like I'm saying, oh, they're going to, you know, increase your bench press by 20%, or it's going to burn 5 pounds of fat. Like, but it's going to make you adhere to your diet better. It's going to make you have more energy, which is going to help you Push better in workouts, have more energy, to have more willpower to make better choices on your diet. It's going to help you sleep better. If you sleep better, that's going to help you again have more willpower, have more energy to stick to your diet, not be so fatigued. Like, all these things are directly slash indirectly going to help you on your journey, whether losing fat, building muscle, whatever. So number 1 would be vitamin D. All of these things I'm going to say here, number one, I am not a doctor, so I am not prescribing you anything. This is just what I've seen with myself and my clients. I'd say a healthy range of like wanting to take vitamin D would be anywhere from like 2,000 to 5,000 IUs per day, anywhere in between there. Whoa, is that a bee or a cicada? I don't know. I don't like bugs. 2,000 to 5,000 IUs per day. Um, so that's vitamin D, and I would take that every single day. Also remember, vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, and what that means is take it with dietary fat. That's how you're going to actually absorb it and your body is actually going to use it. So for example, if you have eggs in the morning, I would take vitamin D with your whole eggs, not egg whites, because egg whites don't have fat. I'd take it with your whole eggs and be good to go. Or if you're having, you know, um, cottage cheese or Greek yogurt with fat in it, take it with that. Or if you're having a steak, take it with that. Or if you're having peanut butter, take it with that. Take it with some sort of fat. It's gonna help you, um, actually absorb it and digest it and dissolve it. So also, last point on vitamin D. Vitamin D is really important. But last point on vitamin D, I would try to not take it after 4 PM. Why? 'Cause again, it will help with energy levels and those kind of things, so I would take it earlier in the morning. So number 1 is vitamin D. Number 2 is magnesium. And again, not anything super sexy, not like you're gonna, you know, lose 10 pounds of body fat in 2 days after you start taking it, none of that nonsense. But magnesium is helpful for a few things. Number 1, muscle— Strength. Muscle performance, muscle activation, muscle contractions. That's the word I was looking for, contractions. Which if you can have better contract, better muscle contractions during your workouts, normally gonna lead to lifting more weight, doing more reps, so on and so forth, more endurance. Magnesium can also help with hydration levels because that's one of the big things for hydration is Sodium, potassium, magnesium, water. But sodium, potassium, magnesium, those are the 3 main things for your hydration. So if you take magnesium, help with your hydration, which can help with workout performance, which can help with, you know, if you're more hydrated, probably have less hunger cravings, easier to stick to your diet. So can help with that as well. Also can help you get into a parasympathetic nervous system state. Whereas like right now I'm doing this walk and talk, like, and just living throughout the day. We're normally not in a parasympathetic nervous system state where like, that's the rest and digest. You normally have rest and digest when you sleep, right? So magnesium can help kick on this rest and digest. So if you take it 30 to 90 minutes before bed, It can actually help you sleep better. And in specific, magnesium citrate, that's the form that I've seen help myself and my clients kind of calm down, wind down before bed, and have better sleep because it kicks on that parasympathetic nervous system that your brain and body don't do during the day because it has to keep you alive. So you're always going to be in the sympathetic nervous system because You have to stay alive, right? Like that fucking bee or bug that just attacked me. Like, I gotta keep myself alive, man. So magnesium citrate, 200 to 400 milligrams before bed. Again, I'm not a doctor, not prescribing you this, but what I've seen work for myself and my clients. So, um, yeah, so that's what I have to say on magnesium. Oh, magnesium as well. Um, again, like I said, it's not like you're gonna, you know, lose 20 pounds of fat and do X, Y, and Z. But again, if you have— if you sleep— like, for example, if you take it before you go to bed and you sleep better, better sleep normally equals sticking to your diet better, more energy for your workouts, more better workout performance, less cravings. All those things, like, directly slash indirectly add up over a period of time, which is going to help you stick to your diet and workout routine better. Which, if you stick to your diet and workout routine better, well, guess what? You're gonna see better results. That's number 2. Number 3, um, you know, when it comes to supplements, the next one I'm gonna say is protein powder. I'm not gonna go too in-depth because like I don't really consider protein powder a supplement. It's just kind of like protein powder is just like eating protein. That's really all protein powder is. So it's just like eating a chicken breast, but I guess technically it is labeled a supplement. So, um, definitely protein powder for sure. Um, You're gonna ask me what the best one is. There is no best one. Try to get one that has 20 to 25 grams of protein per serving and around 100 to 150 calories per serving. Any— like that right there. There's so many brands, there's so many this, some of that. Find some, see what you like. Um, you know, I like Isopure, Legion, Legion Athletics. And Premier Protein shakes because those are so easy. My clients love them. So those are my top 3. Um, maybe Gold Standard Whey as well. But listen, there's so many ones you can pick from that I really wouldn't put too much emphasis on it because just try it and see what you like and go from there. So those are the top 3 supplements right there I'd recommend. Number 4 is going to be creatine. And for all the supplements out there when it comes to like gaining, you know, gaining muscle or burning fat or whatever it is, creatine is actually the only one that has like real scientific-backed research studies, which most of these do not, like BCAAs or pre-workouts and stuff like that. So creatine can absolutely help you increase strength, increase workout performance, increase muscle size, muscle definition, because basically what it does is it increases your ATP production, which just fancy saying for like your muscle production, right? So you're going to be able to do more work when you go and do your workouts, which if like do and do more work means, you know, do more reps, lift more weight, work out longer, whatever the case may be. You'll be able to push a bit harder. So if you push a bit harder, this lighting is not good. Sorry. If you push a bit harder, well, you're probably going to see better results in your physique, right? So you absolutely can take creatine. How much should you take? I would take 5 grams of a creatine monohydrate per day. That's what all the studies have shown. There's different forms. I think there's like creatine hydrochloride and all these other things. Just get creatine monohydrate. Very— it should be very cheap, very simple. Again, like so many brands have it, so I would literally just Google creatine monohydrate and Pick the cheapest one because it's not that big of a deal, and take that every day. And again, you might— people are gonna ask me this— you might retain some water because creatine pulls water into the muscle cells, and that's normal. That's, you know, again, that's what kind of has to happen for you to have better workout performance. So you might retain some water, but normally it is not anything egregious, so I really wouldn't worry about it. But if, you know, if you take it and you see something egregious, then You know, go for it. But again, if you're already, you know, if you feel like right now you're crushing workouts, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on it. Just keep doing what you're doing. But creatine definitely can help. And if you wanna dabble into it, for sure, just take 5 grams per day. That's pretty much all you need to know. So those are my top 4 right there, guys. Vitamin D, magnesium, creatine, protein powder. Besides that, I really wouldn't spend too much time on anything else. I wouldn't spend, like pre-workout, for example. If you wanna take pre-workout, Awesome. Go take pre-workout. It's honestly just caffeine. So I mean, if you enjoy coffee, just fucking drink coffee. Um, there's really, there's really not too much besides that in there because it's just caffeine. So if you want some caffeine, like, sure, take pre-workout. Um, BCAAs, I wouldn't unless you're using it to flavor your water, which almost like sounds like I'm mocking it, but I'm not because some people don't like drinking water. So if you're using BCAAs to flavor your water, then I'd say it's worth it. But if you're using it from like a muscle growth, muscle recovery standpoint, not worth it. Because number one, it's just not gonna be that big of a deal. But also number two, what's way more important is you hitting your protein goal for the day. So this car is gonna hit me. Thank you so much. So what I would do is make sure you hit your protein goal for the day first, and that's gonna give you a better return on your investment. It's very windy, sorry. Apologize. That's gonna give you a better return on your investment. Yeah. So, hit your protein goal. I wouldn't worry about BCAAs. And yeah, things like fat burners and shit like that, you know, they're just not gonna do anything. So, I really wouldn't spend much time on those. So, that's what I would say, guys, you know. And again, remember, supplements are meant to supplement a nutrition program and a strength training program. That's why all the supplements I said, vitamin D, Magnesium, creatine, protein powder. Those will help you stick to your training program and your nutrition program better, and that's what's going to give you results. Not like if you just take those things and don't have a strength training program and don't have a nutrition plan, you're not going to see any results. So that's what's the most important, and that's why I'd focus 95% of your effort on— like, most people spend 95% wondering what's supplements to take, or what's the best protein powder, or the best brand, when in reality they should be spending all that time on how can I stick to my training program and how can I stick to my, my nutrition program. So that's what I would say, guys. Hope you enjoyed the walk and talk. If you have any questions on anything, feel free to drop below. I think I do have a video on here on the best supplements, I think. So if you want to check that out, just head to my channel. Definitely can check that out. Other than that, thank you for watching. About to return home from the walk and talk now. Hope you get out for a walk and we will chat soon. Okay.
