SUPPLEMENTS · NUTRITION · PERFORMANCE
WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS.
Honest supplement reviews with no brand deals — just what I actually take, test, and recommend.
PROTEIN
What is Protein and Why Does It Matter?
Protein is the one supplement that actually earns its place in every training bag. Your muscles break down during exercise and rebuild stronger — but only if you give them the raw material to do it. That raw material is protein.
How Much Do You Actually Need?
Most active women and man need between 1.6 and 2.2g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight daily. If you're training hard and not hitting those numbers through food alone, a protein supplement isn't a shortcut — it's just convenience.
Whey, Plant or Casein?
Whey is the gold standard: fast-digesting, complete amino acid profile, well-studied. If you're plant-based, a blended pea and rice protein gets you close. Casein digests slowly, making it useful before bed when your body does most of its repair work.
Will Protein Powder Make You Bulky?
No. That myth belongs on this site. What protein will do is help you recover faster, reduce muscle soreness, and make hitting your daily targets easier when you're working a full shift and trying to feed a family. Choose one with minimal additives and ignore anything with a celebrity on the label.
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CREATINE
What is Creatine and Why Does It Work?
Creatine is the most researched supplement in sport. Not one of the most — the most. Your muscles use ATP for energy during high-intensity efforts. When ATP runs out, performance drops. Creatine phosphate helps regenerate ATP faster, which means you can push harder, for longer, before fatigue sets in. More reps, more power, better training adaptations over time.
How Much Should You Take?
Dose is straightforward: 3–5g of creatine monohydrate per day, every day. No loading phase needed. No cycling. No need for the expensive HCL version — monohydrate is the form used in virtually all research, and it's cheaper. Take it whenever is convenient. Timing matters far less than consistency.
Monohydrate vs HCL: Which Should You Buy?
Creatine HCL is marketed as more soluble and easier on the stomach. But research showing meaningful performance differences over monohydrate doesn't exist. You're paying a premium for a marginal difference in solubility. Creatine monohydrate wins. Buy a plain, unflavoured powder. The simpler the better.
Is Creatine Right for Women?
Women naturally have lower intramuscular creatine stores, which means supplementation has more room to make a difference. Emerging research also links creatine to cognitive function and mood. The bloating concern is largely overstated. If you train and you're not taking creatine, this is the one supplement worth adding first.
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VITAMINS & MINERALS
Why Active Women in the UK Need to Pay Attention
Supplements don't replace a good diet, but some gaps are genuinely hard to fill through food alone — especially for active women in the UK. Three stand out above the rest.
Vitamin D
The UK doesn't get enough sunlight for most of the year to produce adequate Vitamin D levels. Deficiency is linked to low mood, fatigue, and impaired muscle function. Public Health England recommends 10mcg daily from October to March. If you train outdoors in winter, supplement year-round.
Iron
Heavy training increases iron loss through sweat and foot-strike haemolysis. Menstruating women are already at higher risk of deficiency. Symptoms — fatigue, breathlessness, poor performance — are easy to mistake for overtraining. Get your levels checked before supplementing.
Magnesium
Magnesium supports muscle function, sleep quality, and recovery. If your sleep is disrupted, you're cramping, or you feel wired but tired after training, magnesium glycinate in the evening is worth trying. It's cheap, safe, and effective.
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AMINO ACIDS
BCAAs vs EAAs: What's the Difference?
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. BCAAs are three of them — leucine, isoleucine, and valine. EAAs are all nine essential amino acids your body can't produce itself. If you're choosing between the two, EAAs give you the full picture.
Do You Actually Need Them?
The honest take: if you're already hitting your daily protein targets, standalone amino acid supplements add very little. The research on BCAAs is underwhelming when protein intake is adequate. However, training fasted is one scenario where EAAs before a session can help reduce muscle breakdown.
When They Make Sense
If you're already dialled in on protein and looking for marginal gains, EAAs are better value than BCAAs. Look for a supplement with at least 2–3g of leucine per serving, and ignore anything marketed with vague claims about toning or lengthening muscle.
Timing
Take EAAs around your training session if you're using them fasted. Otherwise, total daily protein intake matters far more than when you take amino acids. Don't overthink it.
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PRE-WORKOUT
What Actually Works in Pre-Workout?
Pre-workout supplements range from genuinely useful to wildly overhyped. The ingredient that works is caffeine. It improves focus, delays fatigue, and increases power output. The research is solid. A dose of 3–6mg per kilogram of bodyweight is effective — for most women, that's 150–250mg.
The Problem with Most Formulas
Most pre-workout formulas bury the caffeine inside a proprietary blend alongside ten other ingredients in doses too small to do anything, while charging a premium for the packaging. Read the label. If caffeine isn't listed with a clear dose, move on.
Beta-Alanine and Citrulline
Beta-alanine causes the tingling and does have evidence behind it — it buffers acid build-up in muscles during high-intensity efforts, useful for boxing or interval running. Citrulline supports blood flow and is worth having. Everything else — the 'focus matrix', the 'neuro blend' — is mostly marketing.
If You Train in the Evening
A high-caffeine pre-workout will wreck your sleep. Opt for a stimulant-free version or just use black coffee. Sleep is more anabolic than any pre-workout on the market.
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FAT BURNERS
The Honest Truth
Fat burners are the most aggressively marketed and least effective category in sports nutrition. Most formulas contain caffeine — which does slightly increase metabolic rate — alongside ingredients like green tea extract, CLA, and L-carnitine. The caffeine is doing most of the work.
What the Research Actually Says
CLA shows modest effects in some studies, but the real-world impact on body composition is minimal. L-carnitine has a theoretical mechanism but the evidence for meaningful fat loss in healthy adults is weak. Thermogenic blends mostly work by raising your heart rate slightly — not by meaningfully accelerating fat loss.
What Actually Burns Fat
A sustained caloric deficit, combined with sufficient protein to preserve muscle. Training increases your deficit and improves your body composition over time. No supplement changes that equation significantly.
If You Still Want One
If a fat burner helps you feel motivated and you're aware it's mostly caffeine doing the work, it's not harmful. Just don't pay £50 for something doing the job of a £3 bag of coffee. Read labels, question claims, and put your money into food quality and training consistency first.
IF YOU MUST
MYTH BUSTING
What You've Been Told Is Wrong
MYTH BUSTED
Protein Powder Will Make You Bulky
The most persistent myth stopping women from hitting their protein targets. Protein powder is food. It doesn't trigger bulk — excess calories and years of progressive lifting do. Most women consuming 1.6–2.2g per kg will recover faster and look leaner, not bigger.
READ MORE →MYTH BUSTED
Creatine Is Basically a Steroid
Creatine is a natural compound already produced in your body and found in red meat. It helps regenerate ATP — your muscles' energy currency. Steroids are synthetic hormones that mimic testosterone. Calling creatine a steroid is like calling a banana a drug.
READ MORE →MYTH BUSTED
The More Vitamins You Take, The Healthier You Are
Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K accumulate in the body and can reach toxic levels. Too much vitamin C blocks copper absorption. Too much calcium competes with iron. More is not better — it's often just expensive and occasionally dangerous.
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