Everyday Fitness

This one is easy: none. Our culture has an obsession with taking some pill that will turn us into Superman with no effort at all. Supplements will not do the work for you. In some cases, supplements provide a marginal benefit at best. In other cases, they do nothing what-so-ever aside from making your wallet lighter. Here are a few popular supplements and whether or not they actually do anything:

• Multivitamins/Antioxidants: The supposed benefit is overall health. Every time I hear these come up in science literature, it's to say how supplementing them provides no measurable benefits at all. A better solution; eat fruits and vegetables. Eating actual vegetation does show a significant improvement versus multivitamin or antioxidant pills. Fruits and veggies have added fiber you won't get with pills too, and it's also thought there might be other beneficial substances in greens that we just don't know about yet.
  
• Fish/Flax Oil: Omega-3 fatty acids are supposed to improve your brain (fish) and heart (flax). These claims actually hold true. It's not a bad idea to get these in your diet through actual fish like salmon, and sprinkling ground flax seed over whatever you please.
  
• Weight Loss Formulas: These are the primarily made up of energy boosters like ephedrine, caffeine, green teen extract, and guarana. While they do give your heart rate a jump-start, it's not going to magically make you lose 5 lbs a week. You get an energy boost and that's it. Some people mistakenly "see" themselves getting leaner because caffeine/ephedrine strongly dehydrate your body. While dropping water makes you appear leaner temporarily, it's not the same as real results. A better alternative to weight loss pills are coffee or tea, as these will give you many other health benefits on top of the energy boost.
  
• Glutamine/BCAAs: These weight lifting supplements are supposed to improve your muscle recovery. They're simply individual amino acids; the stuff that makes up protein. Glutamine has been shown to do absolutely nothing, making it one of the worst perpetuated fitness myths. BCAAs have been shown to help with muscle recovery, but the effects are marginal. A better alternative is to rely on food; anyone eating a well rounded diet should get enough of these amino acids from the protein they normally eat.
  
• Creatine: Creatine is sort of a backup store of energy in your muscles. Supplementing creatine provides a boost in your anaerobic performance. That is, if you were lifting weights you can get an extra one or two reps before giving up. If there's any tried and true supplement out there, it's creatine. You can get creatine from red meat and certain types of fish, but the supplement is actually going to be cheaper. There are different kinds; monohydrate, ethyl-ester, citrate, magnesium-phosphate, kre-alkalyn.. All claim to be "better" in some way, but that's all garbage; creatine is creatine. Go with monohydrate as it's the cheapest.
  
• Nitric Oxide (NO): This is a vasodilator, which means your blood vessels open up to bring oxygen and nutrients to your muscles quicker. This stuff does what it says, increasing blood flow to muscle, and will increase performance in ways similar to creatine. However, NO is relatively new on the supplement scene and not surprisingly, more expensive. I don't know of any foods that give significant increases in NO production.
  

Always keep in mind though, that you should talk to a professional if you think these supplements might agitate some pre-existing condition of yours. And, supplements are just that; meant to supplement a well rounded diet and solid exercise. While some provide a little benefit, they won't do the work for you. In short, we can summarize and say:

Just as well eat your money:

• Multivitamins
  
• Antioxidant pills
  
• Glutamine
  

Marginal effects/you can get through diet:

• Ephedrine
  
• Caffeine
  
• BCAAs
  

Worth the cheese:

• Creatine
  
• Nitric Oxide