Christina: This is Christina with the DVCC and today I’m joined with Josh, trainer at the DVCC’s Bedford location. We’re going to discuss the DVCC’s Vital 3.
Josh, we’re here today to talk about the DVCC’s Vital 3; can you tell us a bit about what this is, what are the Vital 3?
Greg: The DVCC Vital 3 are three supplements that we believe are to be of paramount importance for general health and wellbeing and to lose body fat and build muscle tone.
Christina: Let’s take each component one by one; what are all three 3 components?
Greg: The first component of the Vital 3 is magnesium. 
Magnesium is something we can get in foods; there are a lot of foods that naturally contain magnesium, some of those being dark leafy greens, nuts, seeds, fish, beans, whole grains, avocadoes, yogurt, bananas, dried fruit, dark chocolate – those being of the highest concentration. Obviously, some of those, if fat loss was your primary goal, you wouldn’t want to eat, such as bananas, because they might be high in magnesium but they’re also high in sugar as well.
Christina: And what about chocolate?
Greg: Dark chocolate can be enjoyed; it’s a nice one to have there in moderation, so if you’re feeling like you need to indulge, some good quality dark chocolate – the darker you go, the better – it certainly can be enjoyed in moderation, sure.
Christina: Often we see magnesium and calcium together; what’s the difference between the two?
Greg: What we want to do here and the reason we recommend magnesium is because of its effect on cortisol, which is the body’s stress hormone. So any time you get stressed, whether emotionally or physically, your body will secrete a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol causes fat storage around the belly button area. It’s been proven we’re a hundred times more stressed than we were a hundred years ago, so definitely in this modern day, magnesium is very useful.
What people will notice most of all when they start taking magnesium is an improvement in their sleep. What tends to happen these days is that stress levels build up throughout the day so the cortisol level is very high when you go to bed and consequently very low in the morning. So what happens is people really struggle to get to sleep when they go to bed at night; they have poor quality, broken sleep and then find it very hard to get up in the morning.
In an ideal world, the levels of cortisol should be the opposite way round; they should be very low in the evening so that you drift off to sleep nice and easily as soon as your head hits the pillow, you’re out until the alarm wakes you up in the morning and you’re ready to go, you’re not hitting snooze over and over again; you’re ready to go and do whatever you need to do during the day.
Magnesium will help your body deal with cortisol a lot more effectively and allow that to happen. Obviously these supplements have to be taken regularly and consistently for them to make a difference, it’s no use taking them every few days; it has got to be done on a regular basis.
So what you’ll see after five days, because that’s how long magnesium takes to build up in the body, is much better quality of sleep, so you’ll get up much easier, feeling rested and rejuvenated. It will also burn fat around the stomach, because as I said, magnesium will help reduce cortisol and cortisol is responsible for fat storage around the belly button area. A little-known benefit of magnesium that might appeal to some is it actually does prevent carb cravings, particularly from chocolate.
Christina: Sounds like a magic pill, magnesium!
Greg: Yes, it’s one of those things that you can really feel the difference. Everyone listening to this will know how good they feel after an amazing night’s sleep. Sleep is something I’ve never struggled with personally, so I consider myself very fortunate, but it wasn’t until I took magnesium that I really noticed how well my sleep could be. It’s something that, even though you might sleep well, it’s not something that you shouldn’t take. I firmly believe that everyone on planet Earth should be taking magnesium, because it is so beneficial.
Christina: Great. That’s one of the components of the Vital 3; tell us a bit about the other two?
Greg: The next one I’d like to talk about is fish oil, specifically Omega 3 fish oil. 
We have had our fish oil custom made for us; it’s made to our own pharmaceutical grade quality, we’ve had all the toxins and impurities removed from it. The benefits of fish oil are very far reaching too and it’s something that I definitely also think that everyone on planet Earth should be taking.
Omega 3 will accelerate fat loss by increasing insulin sensitivity, so it makes it easier for you to build muscle tone and burn body fat which is obviously a very good thing for a lot of people listening.
Fish oil has been shown to be very good in relieving inflammation and joint pain; it will also lower blood pressure; it’s been shown to have benefits on the skin, hair and nails – many things.
Christina: How about the last component?
Greg: The last one is protein. 
Protein is somewhat of a special case scenario; it will fit more for people, depending on their specific goals.
For people who want to build muscle tone, it is definitely a worthwhile investment; specifically after a workout would be the optimal time to have protein. The protein that we have at the DVCC is a whey protein and the reason we have that is because it is very quickly absorbed into the bloodstream by the body. That’s what we want to do after a workout; we want to recover as quickly as possible so whey protein is the fastest way to do that.
For other people, perhaps someone who struggles to eat breakfast in the morning, a solid food meal, or perhaps someone who has to travel between meetings quite frequently and doesn’t have time to have a solid food meal, then a protein shake and a small handful of nuts would be a very effective, fast, fat burning meal to have.
Christina: So this is the DVCC’s Vital 3. Does this come in one compact pill or are they three different supplements that need to be taken together?
Greg: It comes as three different supplements;
Protein: the whey protein comes as a powder: we do it in two flavours, chocolate or vanilla, depending on which one you like best – there is no difference between the two other than the flavour;
Fish oil we do as a capsule or a liquid. Personally, I take the liquid; I know a lot of people that do as well. I also know a lot of people that prefer tablets. The Omega 3 oil is flavoured with sweet orange oil which is naturally occurring; it does have somewhat of an oily taste. Some people prefer that, some people prefer to take capsules; that’s fine either way;
Magnesium comes in a tablet.
Christina: You’ve talked about some of the benefits of taking these; what happens if our bodies are lacking in any of these components?
Greg: Magnesium is probably the easiest to tell if you’re lacking. An excess fat storage around the belly button area would be a sign that you’re producing too much cortisol. Poor sleep - whether you find yourself struggling to get to sleep at night, if you’re getting up – if that’s to go to the toilet or for any other reason – if you’re waking up in the middle of the night that’s a sign that you could be deficient in magnesium. If you find yourself craving chocolate, that could be a sign that you could be deficient in magnesium; there are a lot of telltale signs. It’s very hard to get enough magnesium solely from food, so it’s definitely a worthy investment for anyone listening to this.
Christina: And how about if I’m lacking in fish oils or protein?
Greg: Depending on what you are eating during the day for protein, you want to be basing each meal around a good source of lean protein: meat, fish, poultry, things like that.
Fish oil – a lot of people I speak to don’t like fish, so you can easily tell that they wouldn’t be getting enough Omega 3 fish oil. It comes down to the quantity of healthy fats you’re getting in. Again, you’ll find that due to the impurities in most sources of Omega 3, you’d be much better off to get it from a pure blend like the DVCC optimised fish oil, rather than eating too much fish, salmon for example.
Christina: You mentioned that it’s hard to get enough of these components in a regular diet, but are there any specific foods or drinks that we should consider adding to our eating habits?
Greg: Yes. As I mentioned before, magnesium can be found in a lot of things. To go through the best ones: dark leafy greens, because they’re very healthy; nuts, seeds, fish, whole grains, avocadoes, dark chocolate; these would be the ones that I’d recommend to get magnesium.
Omega 3 fish oil can be found in quite high quantities in salmon and other oily fish; flax seed oil or flax seeds would be another good source of fish oil.
Proteins: any lean source of protein, so meat, fish, eggs and things like that would be good sources of protein to have.
When we’re talking about supplements it’s not purely the amount that we want to be concentrating on; also we want to be concentrating on the source.
Particularly when we’re talking about magnesium, you’ll find it in many supermarkets and health shops; we actually have ours imported from Europe, not because of the quantity but because of what’s called the type of chelate. Typically, magnesium will be bound to another molecule that will help it to be absorbed by the body. At the very basic level, what you find at most supermarkets is something called magnesium oxide, which is not very good for the purpose that we’re talking about here.
One step up from that you’ll find magnesium citrate; what we have at the DVCC, and what we have found to be the absolute best form of magnesium, is magnesium bi-glyconate. If you’re taking magnesium, do have a look at what it is chelated to and you’re looking for the word magnesium bi-glyconate.
Fish oil has two active ingredients: EPA and DHA. What we’re looking for is very high levels of total EPA and DHA. It is slightly higher in liquid than it is in tablets, but a typical tablet from the DVCC has just over 560 total milligrams of combined fish oils, EPA and DHA, and that’s what you’re looking for there.
Christina: You already mentioned that you consider everyone on the planet should be taking these; is there any exception to that? Is there anyone that shouldn’t take these supplements at all?
Greg: No. As I said, they’re all naturally found in foods so people will be getting them, just not in high enough quantities to really exhibit the positive effects that we’ve gone through.
Christina: Magnesium, you mentioned, will help us lose weight from the stomach, from the belly fat?
Greg: Yes, correct. Fish oil will help you lose fat from your hips, or ‘love handle’ area.
Christina: That’s a good thing to know after Christmas!
How come these three supplements complement each other?
Greg: They are just what we found to be the most beneficial supplements for fat loss. It’s something we’ve been asked numerous times over the years and, in our experience, magnesium and fish oil, especially when taken together, do produce the best results when it comes to fat loss and building lean muscle tone.
Christina: How often should they be taken? You mentioned every day, but is there a certain time of day?
Greg: Magnesium is best taken in the evening with your evening meal; it gets absorbed better with food. What we have found to be the optimum dose of DVCC magnesium is four tablets. What you’d expect to see is no change in the first five days and then after that five days of taking it every day, you would notice a marked difference in your sleep; your ability to get to sleep, the quality of your sleep and your ability to wake up feeling rejuvenated in the morning. So very quickly that will change and obviously it will stay that way providing you keep taking it consistently.
Fish oil is something we recommend taking morning and evening, with meals as well, so with breakfast and with your evening meal. The quantities do depend on whether you take liquid or tablets; what we recommend is two teaspoons of oil in the morning and one with your evening meal; or if you’re taking capsules, three capsules in the morning and three capsules in the evening.
As I said before, protein is a bit of a special case scenario, so if your goal is to build lean muscle tone, then certainly taking it very quickly after a workout, just with some water, would be the best thing; or if you were taking it as a meal replacement if solid food wasn’t available, then at whatever time that may come during the day – whether it’s a morning meeting or whether you’re rushing between meetings in the afternoon – something of that nature.
Christina: If I don’t have much time to think about food and healthy eating, can I just eat what I want and take supplements to make up for my not so healthy diet, or doesn’t it work that way?
Greg: I would recommend it would be an unwise mood to do that.
Supplements – the key is in the name – they are there to supplement your nutrition, so we really do have to look at the whole picture here. Supplements are never going to remedy poor nutrition so you have to have your nutrition in check as well to really see the full benefits of taking these supplements.
Christina: What should the vital 3 be accompanied by? For example, do I need to be drinking more water, doing more exercise?
Greg: No. The great thing about them is they don’t actually require you to change anything during your day, only that you supplement your day with these tablets. So you don’t need to drink extra water; they will benefit everyone.
Christina: Great. If you could sum it up for us again then, taking the Vital 3 will help us to …?
Greg: A number of things; probably the most prominent thing in most people’s minds is lose body fat and gain muscle tone.
Magnesium will help you have improved quality of sleep, which also has far reaching benefits when it comes to productivity or just how you feel throughout the day.
Fish oil will lower your blood pressure; it will improve your joint health, your joint mobility; it will also improve your mood.
Protein will help you build lean muscle tissue and also provide you with a healthy fat burning meal if you’re ever caught short and don’t have access to solid food.
Christina: Excellent. Anything else to add at all?
Greg: No, that would be it, thank you.
Christina: Thank you very much.
Greg: It’s a pleasure.
Christina: The DVCC has centres in Bedford, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Hitchin and very shortly Stevenage and Central Bedfordshire. So if you’ve been listening to this interview and you’d like to find out more about how the DVCC can help you, then please book an appointment for a DVCC 60 minute discovery call, at www.theDVCC.com/signup.
