Essential. What is essential is core or critical. What is essential is needed day in and day out, it is useful at regular intervals, and it is integral to optimal performance. What is essential is foundational. The weights are essential, your desire is essential, the right food is essential. Beyond that, Animal has brought you the foundational products, the year round supplements deemed necessary to your consistent growth and progress. Those that don´t need to be cycled. Products like Pak, Flex, Nitro and Pump. To this essential category we now welcome Animal Omega, "The Essential EFA Stack". Animal Omega is the ultimate in essential fatty acid supplementation.
If you´re looking to pack on lean muscle mass, add on quality size, or even cut down, ya gotta first take a look at your diet. No matter what your goals are, your quest for the ultimate physique begins and ends with the diet. In other words, the foods you eat. Tailoring the right meals will yield the right results in the gym. Food... Yeah, when you get down to the basics, it´s quite simple--to pack on mass, ya gotta take in more quality calories throughout the day. And vice versa, to cut down, ya gotta consume fewer calories, but also from quality sources. And of course keep up the lifting and cardio. Building a solid physique doesn´t just stop once you leave the gym, it essentially begins and ends with your diet and nutrition which is a 24/7 job.
When it comes to diets, for the most part, most opt for a low fat, moderate protein, moderate carbohydrate approach. "Trimming the fat" was seen as an integral part of living a healthy lifestyle and shedding the pounds. This is the old school approach, and one put forth by many champions. This was seen throughout the 80s and 90s with the rise of low-fat foods coming onto the market and getting heavily promoted in the news. But as years went on, obesity became more of an epidemic and caused the folks in the nutrition industry to look into it. People weren´t eating fat much anymore. They shouldn´t be getting fat. Right? Wrong.
Low fat diets so often translated to lowered levels of the hormones most critical to strength and muscle growth-obviously a huge disadvantage to serious iron athletes.
Long story short, this science just further solidified what a number of nutritionists and doctors have been promoting for years-that there is an important role for fats in the diet and they shouldn´t be shoved to the background, but instead brought into the limelight. In other words, "fats" in general aren´t the problem. It´s certain fats which create the issues. Other fats are, on the contrary, important. Over the years, researchers have found that there are numerous health benefits of certain fats, the essential fatty acids. In other words, it shouldn´t be about trimming all the fats from the diet. Cutting back on saturated and trans fats, yeah. But you should actually start using or upping the intake of EFAs, on the other hand.
EFAs are those necessary fats that we as humans are unable to synthesize in our bodies and must be obtained from either diet or supplementation. Just like essential amino acids (EAAs as found in Animal Nitro), and other essential micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals, we need optimum amounts in order for the body to function properly, let alone to make gains in lean mass. Getting the proper EFAs isn´t always easy, especially when they are hard to obtain with a typical diet. A typical diet consists of an overabundance of saturated fats, trans fats, and those fats from plant sources (think of common cooking oils) usually overloaded with omega 6 compounds, as they are the easiest and most economical to get your hands on. Now don´t get me wrong. Omega 6s are important, as they are EFAs too. But it´s not just the types of fats. It´s also the ratios. More on that later.
EFAs exert positive effects in many areas, including thermogenesis, anabolism, hormone synthesis, prostaglandin function, immune function, repair of cellular membranes, enabling cells to obtain optimum nutrition and more. For the bodybuilder, EFAs are vital for optimal metabolism, hormone production, cardiovascular health, peak performance, reducing exercise soreness and maximizing fat burning. It´s a wonder why they are so overlooked and underutilized by the population.
For supplementation purposes there are only 2 types of fats that are needed; Omega 3´s (n-3) and Omega 6´s (n-6). Omega 9 is necessary, yet not essential because it can be made by the body in modest amounts. The reason why the body can´t make an n-3 or n-6 fatty acid is that human metabolism can´t add a double bond to a fatty acid that is more than 9 carbons away from the delta end (acid end). This is also the reason why the body can´t convert an n-3 fatty acid to an n-6 fatty acid. Yeah, it sounds like science mumbo jumbo, but is important to see from a chemistry perspective why it´s so hard to obtain the right EFAs from the diet.
This is where a supplement like Animal Omega comes into play. Sure, it ain´t fancy. No cool bells and whistles here, just the basics. It´s not going to "pack on 10 lb in a week" but long-term, it´ll get ya to where ya want to be. EFAs are needed, not just any old EFAs, but the right kinds and the right amounts. That´s what Animal Omega is all about. Omega is the most complete EFA product on the market. It contains the right fats that bodybuilders require. It´s a full spectrum, molecularly distilled EFA supplement, each pack containing a precise and pre-dosed ratio of n-3 to n-6. It is packed with sources of Omega 3 oils extracted from various fish sources such as salmon, cod liver, herring, and plant-sourced omega 3s from flaxseed oil. Such a well-rounded mixture, ensures that you obtain all of the various n-3 extracts that are so important for general health. You get the balance of alpha linoleic acid from flax and the key fish oil extracts, EPA and DHA.
Animal Omega is then rounded out with key Omega 6 oils, including; borage, evening primrose, sesamin, and CLA. Linoleic acid is the other essential fatty acid found in nature. As said before, lack of n-6 in ones diet is hard to come by. However, there is a specific form of n-6, gamma linoneic acid or GLA, that is crucial for health. This is contained in ample doses in Omega. The body uses n-6 essential fatty acids to make various prostaglandins and leukotrienes.
Another n-6 found in Animal Omega is CLA. CLA, is touted for its ability to reduce body fat, being anti-catabolic, acting as an antioxidant and enhancing the immune system. CLA positively influences the metabolism and assists with fat regulation and protein metabolism. CLA, though is not specifically an EFA, (it´s a naturally occurring fatty acid found in meal and dairy) is an important addition to the Animal Omega formula as its health promoting properties were too good to pass up.
Sesamin is another hot ingredient added to the Omega formula. It´s a naturally occurring lignan found in sesame oil. Sesamin can help maximize fat loss, support liver and kidney health and maintain healthy lipid profiles when combined along with other EFAs as found in Animal Omega. Sesamin is touted as a promising ingredient in the process of lean mass recomposition.
All of these potent fatty nutrients are supported by a comprehensive nutrient transport complex which allows for maximum absorption and utilization and transport of Omega´s.
