NOTE: the recommendations outlined below are for those wanting to put on muscle and to lose fat. If your primary goal is to lose fat and to "tone" (although I don't believe there is such a thing as "toning" because you're either getting stronger or getting weaker and gaining fat or losing fat), then you should take half a pack of Myoplex Deluxe (or one pack of Myoplex Lite) instead of a whole Mypolex Deluxe, and the Phen-free instead of the Phosphagen HP
More than likely, you do. Here's the scenario: You want to lose 20 lbs of fat and gain 15 lbs of muscle. How do you do that? By doing intense resistance training and cardio work. But to be able to train intensely, you're going to have to make sure your body is getting enough "quality fuel" and that it's getting enough sleep. These are the times when your muscles are growing and also when the fat is being burned. You might be able to train intensely for a few days or maybe a week without consuming the proper nutrition, but at some point you'll start to overtrain, or worse yet, you'll not be training at an intense enough level to get the results you want. Getting maximum results in a minimum amount of time requires you to consume the highest quality nutritional products that you can get your hands on. In my opinion that's EAS supplements, but I really haven't tried any others yet. Again, find the ones that work best for you. (the reason I use EAS is because of their reputation, the unconditional money back guarantee, the fact that all products are scientifically based, and the fact that part of the money I give them goes to the research of new products and to charity, and not just into the hands of the chosen few. Although I don't think Bill's yellow Ferrari was bought from selling girl scout cookies, but in my opinion he deserves it.)
Here's another way to look at the role supplements play, but first let's agree that to be successful on this program we need to lose fat and replace it with lean muscle.
The process of building lean muscle is as follows. You perform intense resistance training to slightly damage the muscles. Your body's defense mechanism then sets off the necessary procedures to make the muscle stronger so that it can withstand any future damage (it's adjusting to it's environment). And to build this new muscle, it needs a certain amount of high quality nutrients and a certain amount of recovery time.
There's a great analogy in the BFL book that goes as follows: Building lean muscle is similar to maintaining a building. Say an earthquake (intense resistance training) hits and slightly damages the building. Your job is to now make the building stronger. So what you do is take the best people and materials (supplements) that you can get and you rebuild the structure to make it stronger to prevent damage from future earthquakes. But, if another earthquake hits before you have time (recovery period) to get the new structure in place, it causes further damage and you're worse off than when you started. So, in order for your building to be the strongest it can be in the shortest amount of time, you need intense earthquakes, you need really good building materials, you need a really fast recovery team, and you need the next earthquake to hold off till you get the new structure in place.
So, do you need supplements? Well in the following analogy the supplements play the following roles: the building materials (myoplex), the speed of the recovery team (myoplex, betagen), and the intensity of the earthquake (phosphagen, betagen). And you provide the length of time between earthquakes by giving your muscles a certain amount of time to recover. By not using supplements you are essentially causing the initial damage to be less, the nutrients you need to build the new muscle will be less than optimal quality, and the recovery period will be longer. And if you don't allow yourself ample recovery time, you're just causing further damage. Now, this process is fine if you aren't in any hurry, but if you want to build lean muscle in as short a time period as possible, you're going to want to use the supplements. Also note that this lean muscle will cause the rate at which you burn fat to increase exponentially.
I'm not going to pretend I've used all the supplements because I think keeping it simple is the best way, so I'll go into the ones I've used. The first and most important supplement you want to get is a meal replacement drink. In EAS terms, it's Myoplex. Eating 6 quality meals a day can lead to a long day in the kitchen, so that's why I use the Mypolex for 3 of my meals. Actually, I use Myoplex Deluxe which is the same basic formula as regular Mypoplex, but it has added vitamins and minerals. I also stick to the Vanilla flavor. This is a really great one, and can easily be mixed with fruit and peanut butter. I've also tried the Mypolex Mass. The first week on the Mass, I could really feel a difference in the gym. I literally was lifting more poundage than I normally did, but after a week or so, the "instant" gains started to taper off, and I started feeling a little pudgy due to the increased calorie content. And, just for the record, I did try one of my girlfriend's vanilla Mypoplex Lite's, and it didn't taste anything like the deluxe. So now, it's deluxe all the way for me.
The other staple in my supplement program is the Phosphagen HP. I drink a glass of this with my breakfast in the morning, and also after working out in the evening. This is a creatine-based product, and gives you that extra something something that you need when working out at a high intensity. I usually mix this with a serving of Betagen. The Betagen is primarily a mix of creatine and HMB (the HMB is a supplement that reduces muscle tissue breakdown and can lead to increased growth and less recovery time). I also tried the Phosphagain2, but didn't really care for it. I felt like I was getting pudgy instead of getting more ripped.
I think as long as you're taking 3 servings of Mypoplex, and 1-2 serving of Phosphagen/Betagen each day, that's 90% of the battle. Ideally, you don't want to eat whole foods before going to bed, and you want to drink a Myoplex within an hour of working out to give your body the fuel it needs to start the building process (remember, your muscles don't grow when you're in the gym, they grow when you're eating/sleeping).
Since most of us have to work, it's kind of a pain hauling your kitchen to the office. I usually mix up a double batch of Myoplex in the morning at home, and then put it in a 1-quart plastic bottle. Then I stick it in the fridge at work and drink half around 9am and the rest of it around 1:30pm. If you don't have a fridge at work, you could get a hand mixer and mix them at work, or you could just mix it at home and store it in a little cooler that you take to work. If all else fails, just eat the powder straight (I wouldn't recommend this though). Finally you could buy the Myoplex Deluxe Bars, and just take those to work. A note about the bars: they are really good, but don't have the exact same contents as the shakes. The bars have more carbs and sugar and calories, with less protein than the shakes. Plus, since the shakes are liquid form, your body will more easily digest and efficiently process the shakes. I like to use the bars mostly for out of town trips, or when I'm pressed for time.