USA Today has a great profile of Ray Lewis leading up to this weekend’s playoff game. Lewis has had an incredible NFL career, and in this article we see why. He’s always been known as a workout warrior, but here we see how obsessive he is about his diet as well.

Stamped “P.M.,” the bag is filled with multicolored vitamin supplements. Before noon, the iconic Baltimore Ravens linebacker already had consumed a protein shake, egg whites, an apple, 2 gallons of water and a similar bag of “A.M.” supplements.

Lewis, 36, is explaining why he believes he has survived 16 NFL seasons — and still is playing at a Pro Bowl level as the Ravens prepare for Sunday’s AFC divisional playoff game against the Houston Texans— in such a physically demanding sport.

In addition to a relentless year-round conditioning regimen and aggressive therapy for the toe injury that sidelined him for four games this season, Lewis estimates he swallows 50 pills a day.

Then the veteran, hardly ready to declare this playoff run a prelude to retirement, reaches into the briefcase to show off his afternoon snack — another apple.

“I’m watching these guys, with their cheeseburgers and stuff,” he says. “And you’re going to compete against me? Even if you’re younger and faster, your fuel won’t let you beat me.”

His obsession for healthy eating is, well, notorious in the Ravens locker room.

“His diet is so ridiculous, even the people around him have to adjust,” linebacker Terrell Suggs says. “It’s crazy. Last week, I’m eating a bag of chips, and he throws ’em away.”

Lewis is a fish-and-vegetable man who hasn’t touched pork in 12 years and has eaten beef twice during that span. He also doesn’t drink soda or eat bread or sugar — except for scant exceptions. Like his cheat snacks, Twizzlers and Gummy Bears. “To keep living life,” he says.

I remember watching Chad Ochocinco several years ago describing how he ate mostly at McDonald’s. He was young and he could easily burn the fat and calories. Now he’d be wise to read this article and start emulating Lewis, as Chad isn’t the same player he was several years ago. Diet is a critical part of health and performance!

As we get older, we have to be more careful about what we eat. We don’t need to be obsessive like Ray Lewis since most of us aren’t pro athletes. But if you really was to get ripped, then you have to have the same devotion. Match your diet to your goals!

Our government, which is getting bigger and bigger, is continually trying to take away the rights of us citizens. Being consistent, the government has taken hold of several industries over the last few years to no benefit, and is now set its sights on the supplement industry. The FDA, a sheep in wolves clothing, is claiming they’re interest in taking over the supplement industry is public safety. However, government statistics show that supplements are basically benign, especially when compared to prescription drugs. Not to mention the outstanding natural health benefits associated with supplement intake.

If the government gets their way, they and the pharmaceutical industry know the supplement industry companies won’t be able to afford the FDA’s drug trial process. Most supplement companies will go out of business if supplements, which includes vitamins, are treated as drugs under the new regulations; drug companies like Merk, Pfizer and others will step in and take over.

Drug companies are not in the business of building health. It is in their best interest to have as many unhealthy people as possible. Its so important that big pharma spends more money on ads than it does on research (twice as much). It’s a marketing driven industry, trying to convince people they have an affliction and the drug companies have the answer.

Is it any wonder why there have been so many drug recalls associated with so many deaths. Perhaps if big pharma spent more on research, and the FDA did their job, many people wouldn’t have lost their lives needlessly. And this is who we’re supposed to put our trust in running our supplement industry?

Taken from Mercola.com:

Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011, introduced at the end of June by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) is trying to treat vitamins as if they are drugs, allegedly to “improve the safety of dietary supplements,” which implies that supplements must be a major safety hazard to begin with. Durbin’s bill goes hand-in-hand with new FDA regulations that amend the definitions for new dietary ingredients (NDI’s), and together, they can threaten your health and freedom of choice, and further serve to strengthen the fatally flawed paradigm of health and medicine.

An estimated 106,000 hospitalized patients die each year from drugs that, by medical standards, are properly prescribed and administered, and an estimated two million more suffer serious side effects.

How does the safety of supplements compare?

In 2001, 84.6 percent of all substances implicated in fatal poisonings were pharmaceutical drugs, according to that year’s American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) report. This compares with 0.8 percent for all dietary supplements combined, even including substances such as dinitrophenol, a dangerous (and illegal) substance banned in 1938, as well as the central nervous system stimulant Ma Huang (Ephedra). ONE drug alone, the anti-asthma drug theophylline, which was responsible for 15 deaths that year, amounted to 66 percent more than all the available dietary supplements combined.

According to CDC mortality data for 2005, prescription drugs killed more than 33,500 people that year, second only to car accidents. That same year, the American Association of Poison Control Centers reported 27 deaths that were associated with dietary supplements

Legal DRUGS are killing massive numbers of people, not vitamins and supplements. Unfortunately, one reason for all these drug deaths could be the lax way the FDA “regulates” the drug industry by not requiring that all serious events in a trial be made public:

“When a clinical trial that is undertaken by drug companies shows that a drug has serious side effects, there is no law that says that study has to be published or made public in any way,” Dr. Dean says in her book.

Vioxx is a perfect example of a product that was approved without having published all the clinical studies where serious events that resulted in the deaths of over 60,000 people were discovered.

What’s obvious is that the number of people taking supplements and vitamins is continuously growing. It’s a $60-billion-a-year industry, and the drug industry wants a piece of that pie, as evidenced by drug giant Pfizer, which recently announced that it’s going into the supplement business to counter some of the losses from its blockbusters that are soon going off-patent. The FDA is apparently on-track to protect its client’s vitamin and supplement interests by proposing the new policy it slipped in just before July 4.

What can you do? Go HERE and get involved.

Everyone picks the beginning of the year for their new year’s resolutions, and they usually involve working out and getting back in shape. Now that the weather is getting better and spring is about to start, you’re going to start seeing more people outside and coming out of hibernation. So, have you gotten off to a good start with your new workout and fitness plans? Take a look in the mirror and see if you’re anywhere close to achieving your goals. Are you putting in the time? Have you put together a plan? And have you been watching your diet and taking advantage of sports supplements to maximize results? Supplements like protein powder and whey protein can make a huge difference.

If you haven’t created a plan yet, search the workout tips on this site in order to help you craft a plan that will help you achieve your goals.

In my Q&A column posted in January, I discuss the NCAA legality of Tribex and Hardcore ZMA and drug tests, whether or not kids and teens will stunt their growth if they lift weights and use creatine supplements, and I share some fan mail from a wellness chiropractor.

Q: Mike
Nice job on the recent health article. I’m a wellness chiropractor and I’m always looking for ways to communicate ideas of health to people. I never in my life thought I would use Bullz-eye.com as a professional reference, but you did a bang up job writing in simple, but not watered down language.
Do you have links to some of your other works? And, do you have a good form of your recent article that I can hand out (I’d rather not direct conservative clients to bullz-eye.com’s bikini page for nutritional advice. That said, what you wrote needs to get out everywhere in America!

Evan

(Dr. Hughes)
Concord Family Chiropractic

A: DR. Hughes
Thanks so much for your kind words. I understand as a business owner not wanting to offend any clients. Being considerate and service oriented is lacking in for too many businesses. I am glad to hear that there are some people out there as considerate as you. However, I do feel Bullz-eye.com?s ?bikini? features are very tasteful. Offensive, risqu? content, which I understand is subjective, is something Bullz-eye.com?s partners have always wanted to stay away from.

I appreciate you taking the time to visit B-E.com and reading my articles. I’m attaching several articles you can use as hand outs.

Mike

Are taking multivitamins necessary? do they work? How does a vegan get leaner? Should they be eating soy? Are testosterone boosters safe and effective? Which ones should I take and what’s the best way to take them?

Below is a sample of the recent Q&A column on www.bullz-eye.com.

Q:Mike, I?m currently taking a multivitamin because I?m trying to change my health for the better. Is this a good choice? Should I be taking other supplements?

A:Sergio, Short answer No. Multi vitamins are a waste because the absorption is so poor. Some vitamins and minerals compete with one another making absorption even worse.

What I take: Vitamin D (most important) 10,000iu per day, Vitamin A once per week 5000iu, CoQ10 100mg/day, Omega 3 fish oil, CLA, and cook with coconut and olive oils.

I recommend reading my article “Daily consumption for optimum health”, and below are a few other websites to consult.

vitamindcouncil.org
westonaprice.org
vitamin-d-max.com (this is where I purchase vitamin D)
vitacost.com (this is where I get omega 3, CLA and CoQ10.)
therabiotics.net (this is where I get my probiotics)