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I have tried a few of the various supplements that are out there and I figured I would give you my personal review of them.

Creatine

Can't say I saw much effect one way or another, but that could be because I did not take it with enough carbs for it to be taken up into my muscles. There's all sorts of sites out there on the Internet with advice on how and what to take it with to get the best results. Many say it works great for them, but for me it did not seem to make a difference.

Protein

Not exactly a supplement, but there are many specialty foods that can help you reach your protein more conveniently. There's a lot of debate about how much protein a body builder of strength athlete needs. I weight about 210 lbs and try to consume about 200 grams of protein per day. Some say this is way too much, some say it's not enough, do your own research to find out what you think is best. My personal recommendation for getting more protein in your diet is to prepare you own meals with things like tuna, chicken and lean beef. These "real foods" taste better than most protein bars and are generally cheaper ($2 to $3 dollars is more than I want to pay for protein bars when chicken and tuna are so cheap.) Here are my opinions on various protein supplements:

Powder:

I use Optimum Nutrition's Whey Protein because of the price. Some powder are nasty, but I find Optimum Nutrition's very palatable when mixed with skim milk. Add a little sugar or honey for a carb boost after a workout and it's very tasty.

Bars: No bar I have found tastes as good as a Snicker, but some are more palatable then others. In my opinion the only thing bars have going for them is that they are convenient, other sources of protein are cheaper and taste better.

	Pure Protein® Bar This brand is pretty good as far as flavor goes and packs about 30 to 34 grams of protein each. I like the blue berry cheese cake ones the best.
	Met-RX This brand has about 27 grams of protein per bar and their cookie dough flavors are pretty good.
	Designer Whey Bars These are probable the best tasting protein bars I've had. Though still not as tasty a Snickers they are enjoyable to eat, at the sacrifice of having a little less protein per calorie (about 40% of their calories come from protein). The U-Turn bars I get from Wal-mart cost about $1 each and have 150 calories and 15g of protein. All three varieties from this company taste good and I recommend trying them all to see what you like. I take them skiing with me so I have something to munch on while riding the chair lift.

Ripped Fuel

I've had good weight loss results on this, but I don't know if I would recommend it to everyone. It's basically ephedrine )from Ephedra ), caffeine, L-carnitine, and chromium picolinate. While on it I lost weight more easily but the downside is that I had some trouble sleeping and I had a tendency to be hyper while on it. It also felt like my body temperature was higher than normal, and if I was in a warm room I would sweat more. While that seemed to be the worst of my problems, ephedrine has been linked by some to other health problems so you should read up on it before you decide to take it. Use of ephedrine has been banned from the Olympic games. Ephedra based products can no longer be sold after April 12th 2004 (See a news item about the FDA ban).

External Links:

http://www.nutritionalsupplements.com
http://www.supplementwatch.com

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