Cortisol is a catabolic muscle wasting hormone. The key to building muscle is to be more anabolic than catabolic. Muscle mass will increase when muscle protein synthesis occurs more frequently than muscle breakdown.
Anabolic steroids make it easy to build muscle because muscle protein synthesis is at high levels and muscle breakdown is drastically minimized. Natural supplements can also help reduce the effects of cortisol, not as good as steroids, but it is better than using nothing at all. Let’s take a look at some of the best dietary supplements to battle cortisol. You can actually stack all of these and a make a cortisol-crushing cocktail
- BCAA’s. Consuming BCAA’s will help battle cortisol. And I am not talking about BCAA supplements made from free form amino acids. I’m simply talking about getting BCAA from quality food. Food such as whey protein and egg white protein. Whey protein is 30% BCAA, so using BCAA’s is awesome for battling cortisol. If you want to upgrade from normal whey protein, I would suggest using my Advanced BCAA. My Advanced BCAA is actually hydrolyzed whey protein that is 50% BCAA. Nothing else like it in the world. I would suggest using a serving of whey protein pre workout. Combine it with carbs.
- Phosphatidylserine. It is well researched that phosphatidylserine can battle cortisol. This amino acid derivative can be found in egg yolks. You need about 400 to 800mg per day. A company called Chemi-nutra make a high quality phosphatidylserine called Serin-Aid. Here is the brand that I would get. Take this about 1 hour before you workout.
- Vitamin C. Sucking down a pre workout drink that contains blended vegetable and fruits would be ideal. More veggies than fruits if you can. But if you want to supplement with vitamin C you can. I’m a big advocate of branded supplements like Serin Aid for example, thus here is a branded form of Vitamin C.
- Green Tea. Studies have shown that by using Green Tea can reduce cortisol. Again I only recommend branded ingredients. I feel the best one to use is DSM’s Teavigo. It can be purchased here.
- Finally, Long Jack. The most researched backed Long Jack supplement is the LJ100 brand by HP ingredients. They make a special supplement that contains 450 mg per capsule. Here it is.
In conclusion your Cortisol Crushing Cocktail would look something like this.
Blend up some spinach, kale, blue berries and oranges. Put in about 2 heaping tbs of whey protein with 1 tsp of Advanced BCAA’s. Take some capsules of Serin-Aid, Green Tea, and LJ 450. Wow talk about a cocktail of high-quality ingredients. This is much more effective than buying a powdered supplement who’s ingredients are all sourced from China and most likely be loaded with artifical junk and synthetic vitamins and other ingredients. It is always better to make yourself a stack instead of buying kitchen sink supplements or proprietary blended supplements.
Alex Rogers is a supplement manufacturing expert. He has been formulating, consulting, & manufacturing dietary supplements since 1998. Alex invented protein customization in 1998 & was the first company to allow consumers to create their own protein blends. He helped create the first supplement to contain natural follistatin, invented whey protein with egg lecithin, & recently imported the world’s first 100% hydrolyzed whey.