good post. Someone posed the question to me yesterday about whether supplements worked, and I first asked him what he meant by "they work" and his expectations. There are supplements made to elicit a certain response from your body, and if you feel you are getting that response than they do work. If you are looking for pumps, boost of energy, focus, recovery, etc. then there are plenty of supplements that do work for that.
As far as companies' claims that these supplements are essential for gaining muscle and will put slabs of muscle on you- it's upto you to be naive enough to believe that. Another factor as you mentioned is individual response- for example, some people respond well to creatine whereas others don't. Even the amount of protein one consumes has different effects in different people.
I've tried a few of them over the years and have experienced a noticeable change after taking some of them. But we're talking something small - like a gain of maybe 5 lb from Creatine, which is mostly water, but still helps you lift heavier due to the added bodyweight. And that's all you can expect from an OTC supplement. It's not going to help you gain 30 lb over 12 weeks like a steroid cycle.
You don't absolutely need them, but there are a few you can take and benefit from. People who juice don't need 99% of them, unless they're getting it for free.
like ingesting a scoop of 24 grams of "proteins" equals ingesting 24 grams of proteins coming from steack, chicken, tuna, eggs....
looks like there are a lot of people on here who have a hard time admiting they flushed their money down the toilets for years.
Taking protein powder is not the same or as good as eating whole food, for sure. But if you're eating 300 g or so protein a day and get sick of eating, protein powders are a convenient way to down some of it. Things like quality, amino acid profile and bioavailability don't matter when you're ingesting 300 g of protein per day.
