By now it’s a safe assumption to make that everyone especially body builders and athletes know the importance of eating right. Body builders are required to be on a high protein diet as well as adequate amounts of carbohydrates and fats.

Nutrition supplements go a long way in helping them achieve their dietary goals. With the market producing hundreds of supplements, one can only wonder whether they do what the marketers claim. Nutritional supplement bars are increasingly becoming popular because their affordable, easily available in even grocery stores and are much tastier than some herbal concoction.

The recent and best selling bars are the high protein, low carb bars. Are they really what they claim to be? Scientifically speaking it is close to impossible to create a nutrition bar with high quality protein and negligible amounts of carbohydrates. This is partly because glycerin, which makes it a chewy bar and not a tooth breaking protein brick, provides backbone for fatty acids to attach onto, thus creating fat. Hence the bar will contain some pretty good amount of fat or high potential for generating it. You’ll be surprised to know that some nutritional bars contain the amount of fat as your average candy bar.

As if this isn’t enough, there is the issue of the sweetness which no one can complain about. What the label won’t tell you is that you’re chewing on up to 9 grams of sweet tasting fat! Fructose is sweeter than sucrose, cheaper and more readily available. It almost makes perfect sense as to why most bars will contain some form of it. The muscles prefer glucose as a fuel over fructose, so the muscles won’t use it. It all goes to the liver where it is either converted to glycogen or goes to aid in the production of fat and cholesterol. Most of the time it will do the second function.

What everyone should realize is that a supplement is meant to do exactly that, supplement. The problem starts when you take a protein bar because you don’t have time to get a steak. It is important that your existing diet should be commendable. If you’re trying to loose weight stay as far away as you can from them. If you’re also about to go for a competition I also would not recommend that you should take them.

There are other types of supplements that you should consider using. Especially protein supplements. Weight gainers come in the form of shakes, while protein powder as the name suggests, comes in the form of powder. Meal replacement powders (MRP’s) can also do you a great deal of good. They are low in calories and also contain fewer carbohydrates. You can many supplements in the form of capsules and tablets. Fish oil capsules are a good example of capsules while beef liver tablets are just a must to have. You can make really healthy and at the same time tasty concoctions of these supplements and come with your very own custom made nutria punch!

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