The challenge starts on Saturday at midnight – hope you guys have gotten your reading done or are almost there. Tomorrow would be a good day to clean out your cupboards to get rid of anything that may tempt you during the challenge.
Here is an article Dave forwarded to me about fish oil:
Fish Oil Tips for the Paleo Challenge:
If you’ve never taken Omega-3/fish oil supplements before don’t worry. Here are a couple pointers.
The “3″ in Omega-3 stands for three fatty acids: ALA, EPA and DHA. If you must geek out…the abbreviations stand for alpha-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid. In supplement land, EPA and DHA are usually sourced from fish/meat. ALA is derived from plants (usually flax seed). For now, don’t worry about the ALA stuff. The really important ones to supplement your body with are: EPA and DHA.
Buy a good brand of Omega-3 supplements that has high levels of EPA and DHA per capsule or serving. You can find Omega-3 supplements in either pill or liquid form. Don’t worry–the liquid form does not taste bad as they come in flavours like berry or lemon. If you don’t like swallowing mass quantities of pills, you may find the liquid form easier to swallow.
http://whole9life.com/fish-oil/
If you are starting off, you can use the Robb Wolf Fish Oil Calculator to determine how much Omega-3 supplements you should be taking per day (link above). You need to fill in your weight in pounds and your activity or health factor (if you have never taken fish oil before choose between 0.5 to 1.0). If this is your first time, you may find that the Fish Oil Calculator is telling you to swallow a LOT of pills. Depending on how concentrated your Omega-3 supplement is, it may be recommending upwards of 20+ pills per day. Don’t. Freak. Out. This is normal. At least for the first month or so, you need a good dosage of fish oil to help cut down on the systemic inflammation in your body.
After a few months of taking fish oil, you should probably re-evaluate and cut down the fish oil dosage using the 0.5 or 0.25 factor.
Fish oils thin out your blood a lot. So if you are in a line of work where you have the potential to bleed and need the ability to clot fast (ie the military) then you may want to go easy on the fish oil supplement regime especially before/during deployment.
Don’t worry about mercury poisoning from ingesting too much fish oil. Good brands will indicate on the label that the oil has been molecularly distilled and is clinically tested for mercury. Even still there is some science behind this all but basically your body cannot absorb mercury through oils. It can only absorb mercury from eating/ingesting mercury tainted protein.
While fish oils are relatively shelf stable– it still makes sense to keep them in a dark and cool place so they don’t go bad. I like to keep my fish oils in the fridge. You don’t want to be consuming rancid fish oils. That’s nasty stuff.
I’m a fan of Webber Naturals Triple Concentrate Omega-3 pills available at Costco. 900mg of EPA and DHA in each capsule. Last time I worked it out, it was the most cost effective. Nordic Naturals and Carlsons are highly regarded brands but are slightly harder to find here in Canada
If you are pregnant or breastfeeding you may want to be a little more moderate in the amount of fish oil you ramp up to. Robb Wolf has mentioned on his podcast that pregnant women should probably look at getting a Omega-3 supplement that has a higher DHA than EPA balance. Apparently DHA is proven to help with fetal brain development. Waiver: of course consult your doctor about this yada, yada.
Further reading:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fish-oil-health-benefits/
My suggestion to you is if you like salad but want to make them a little zippier add some slivered almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds to it. I love the extra crunch and flavour they add (plus it’s a good way to add some fat blocks).
