Currently there is a LOT of talk about ‘Nutrient Density’ and this is important as is ‘Nutrient Bio-availability’, however, most of you reading this vlog are not consuming a highly processed foods diet so most of your diet is ‘Nutrient Dense’ & ‘Nutrient Bio-available’ by default. It’s the Balance that is missing . Why? . . . that is the subject of this vlog. 

What is the right balance between food and supplements?

At OFM, we strive to help you get ‘nutrition as nature intended’ and so we don’t promote using a lot of shakes, manufactured proteins or meal replacements for athletes. These can have a place for severely time constrained athlete who have immense training loads but they are meant to augment a real food diet rather than supplant it. 

When well fat adapted, most OFM athletes consume only 1 or 2 real meals per day unless they are in a heavy training cycle. So we strive to get the nutrition from real food then, using supplementation, top off the nutrition to achieve the balance.

"Nose to Tail" or Whole Animal eating

One of the best way to give your body what it needs is the to adopt the concept of “Whole Animal Eating” otherwise known as “Nose to Tail”.  It is vitally important as a high-performance athlete that you are getting the nutritional elements and co-factors that come from organ meat (mainly ruminant liver) and skin and connective tissue (gelatin/collagen) to balance the nutritional elements found in muscle meat, eggs, fish and cultured dairy products (if tolerated). ‘Whole Animal Eating’ actually works to minimize the amount of animal products consumed because, by achieving Nutritional Balance the body is much more efficient thus needs a lot less animal protein. 

The key supplements to use

Here are the four principal supplements we recommend to effectively provide the nutritional balance you need to Optimize Fat Metabolism.

• Gelatin  - which comes from the skin and connective tissue
• Freeze dried liver capsules with dried Kelp - As advertised, Liver from grassfed beef cattle grown in the Australian Outback infused with pristine Tasman Sea kelp for bio-available iodine (a mineral critical to thyroid health)
• Magnesium Chloride - Not only is Magnesium Chloride well absorbed but this is the most natural and abundant form of Magnesium. Magnesium Chloride is actually more abundant than Sodium Chloride (salt/NaCl) but Magnesium is a mineral lacking in the modern diet.
• Vitamin D - derived from Lanolin/Wool. While it is preferable to get your Vitamin D from sunlight exposure on our skin surface very few of us have the good fortune to be out in the sun all day with a modicum of clothing. Most of us are fully clothed and under artificial lighting most of the time. This dictated supplementing with Vitamin D as the easiest and most doable way to maintain Vitamin D levels. OFM has developed a specific protocol for optimizing uptake and maintenance of Vitamin D supplementation. 

These are the basics and consistent for most ‘first-world’ athletes in the context of their lives and what is doable.  The next step is to look at the individual as an Individual, yes, YOU! to see what is appropriate and what is required.  At OFM we are constantly researching, innovating, experimenting and testing our supplement protocols to optimize health & performance. 

Think Pareto’s Rule or 80/20 to get 80% from your diet and 20% from supplements to achieve the nutritional balance so you can get a lot more from a lot less. It is actually surprising how little you need and how good you will feel. This leads me to one final detail. 

What about the calories? 

. . . what we find is when the athlete achieves nutritional balance the calories, for the most part, take care of themselves. 

If you want to work with us on our 3 month mentorship program where we will get you fat adapted and nutritionally right on an Individual basis - click here.