Shakeology, Activit, and Peak Health

At the Team Beachbody Summit this weekend we launched a product we’ve been working on for a few years. It’s called Shakeology. I think it’s better served by its tag line, The Healthiest Meal of the Day.

It’s a protein shake, greens formulation, pre and probiotic supplement, anti-oxidant, phytonutrient, adaptogen, enzyme formulation all rolled into something that tastes like dessert. In short, it’s the smartest 140 calories you can put into your body.

I’ll be writing, chatting, and blogging about this formulation over the upcoming weeks. Today I’d like to begin by addressing the most popular question of the weekend: Should I keep taking my Activit (or Peak Health) along with Shakeology.

The short answer is yes, but since Shakeology has a lot of vitamins in it already, this requires further explanation.

First off, taking your vitamins with Shakeology will improve their bioavailability. It’s a perfect transport vehicle for most of your supplements. All of them, really, except for creatine, Recovery, and other sports specific supplements. As you’ve probably heard, you don’t get all the nutrients on the label of a vitamin, nor do you get all of the nutrients in the foods you eat. The better your diet is (more balanced, pH-wise, in short) the better it can utilize nutrients in the foods you eat. Shakeology will help with both.

Next we need to address the RDA. It’s important to keep in mind that the RDA for everything is targeted for a subsistence level. An active person needs more, and it can be a lot more. When we try and decide how much more we should use the example of an extreme athlete. When you’re involved in something like the Tour de France, you CAN’T consume enough nutrients in a day to recover from what you’ve done. This is why drugs are used and why doping in sports is such a problem. With this in mind it’s easy to see how someone working construction would have a vastly different RDA than a computer programmer. So you can see how RDAs have little relevance to you, especially if you’re doing something like P90X.

This is why you’ll want to continue to take your vitamins. As you get into better and better shape your nutrient needs continue to grow. The cool thing is that you get to eat more. The downside is that the harder you train the more you’re at risk for overtraining. And the best way to keep from overtraining is to eat well. The more nutrients your calories contain the better you are eating.

There’s an old sports adage that states, “There is no such thing as overtraining. There is only undereating, undersleeping, and failure of will.” With Shakeology as a component of your diet you stand a better chance of checking off, at least, one part of this equation.