If you want to try enhancing your slow carb diet results with the PAGG stack as recommended in the book the Four Hour Body, then you want to be sure you are getting the best possible results for your cash investment and for your health.
High quality ingredients cost good money, so you need to ensure not only that you are taking the right stuff, but that it is doing its best for you, metabolically speaking.
Tim Ferriss' results proved over and over that it's not about what you eat - it's about when and how it actually hits your bloodstream and cells that matters.
PAGG - the supplement stack containing Policosanol, Alpha-lipoic acid, aged Garlic extract and Green tea flavanols - differs from many supplements in one important regard.
With PAGG it's not about overall levels within the body, but about acting synergistically on the food you eat - this is why you take it 10 minutes before each meal.
* Timing is everything, and for this reason, capsule rather than tablet delivery is best.
Capsules contain the pure ingredients, in precise quantities, contained in liquid form within a rapidly-dissolving gelatin capsule.
To make a tablet, the ingredients have to be emulsified and compressed, which can slow down absorption.
Of course with many food supplements this effect is desirable (provided they are not compressed so much that they never dissolve and get adequately absorbed, a complaint effectively proven against some major mineral supplement manufacturers) - in fact coatings are used to protect delicate substances from the harsh stomach environment, and ensure assimilation later in the digestive cycle.
But with PAGG, the whole point of it is to ensure it hits your bloodstream in one go, just before you eat, so you can benefit from the critically-timed increased insulin sensitivity.
You do not want a time-release or extended benefits effect, you want a direct impact on your blood chemistry...
A slowly dissolving tablet is not going to provide that.
Another important reason for opting for capsules over tabs, is the volatility of the ingredients contained.
Alpha-lipoic acid in particular is a powerful antioxidant - this is its main reason for inclusion within the stack - and to preserve its potency, it needs to protected within an opaque capsule that admits neither light nor liquid, and that doesn't require the addition of binders or additives.
Photodegradation of ALA to dihydrolipoic acid occurs extremely rapidly on light exposure, and this is a less effective anti-oxidant for fat loss.
So why would people choose a tablet at all? Well, often tablet-form supplements are cheaper, and the PAGG stack is no exception.
It is simply a cheaper manufacturing process, to combine and press out tablets, than to encapsulate them.
Some (not all) tablet brands contain exactly the same exact doses of the high quality raw materials, at least at the point of manufacture (see above, re ALA degradation on light exposure).
Other people find tablets physically easier to swallow than capsules - this is a matter of preference, compacted tablets are smaller, but they are also rounder, and may have unpleasant tastes or textures that a capsule protects against.
Certainly for a weight loss program like the slow carb diet, compliance - actually taking the things, over a sustained time period - is an important issue, and this is why the PAGG stack capsules produced by Pareto are designed to simplify the dosage to the absolute minimum, just 4 single capsules per day (red before meals, blue for bedtime).
*(Policosanol, taken only in the bedtime dose, is slightly different - and works best overnight when cholesterol production in the body is maximised).
High quality ingredients cost good money, so you need to ensure not only that you are taking the right stuff, but that it is doing its best for you, metabolically speaking.
Tim Ferriss' results proved over and over that it's not about what you eat - it's about when and how it actually hits your bloodstream and cells that matters.
PAGG - the supplement stack containing Policosanol, Alpha-lipoic acid, aged Garlic extract and Green tea flavanols - differs from many supplements in one important regard.
With PAGG it's not about overall levels within the body, but about acting synergistically on the food you eat - this is why you take it 10 minutes before each meal.
* Timing is everything, and for this reason, capsule rather than tablet delivery is best.
Capsules contain the pure ingredients, in precise quantities, contained in liquid form within a rapidly-dissolving gelatin capsule.
To make a tablet, the ingredients have to be emulsified and compressed, which can slow down absorption.
Of course with many food supplements this effect is desirable (provided they are not compressed so much that they never dissolve and get adequately absorbed, a complaint effectively proven against some major mineral supplement manufacturers) - in fact coatings are used to protect delicate substances from the harsh stomach environment, and ensure assimilation later in the digestive cycle.
But with PAGG, the whole point of it is to ensure it hits your bloodstream in one go, just before you eat, so you can benefit from the critically-timed increased insulin sensitivity.
You do not want a time-release or extended benefits effect, you want a direct impact on your blood chemistry...
A slowly dissolving tablet is not going to provide that.
Another important reason for opting for capsules over tabs, is the volatility of the ingredients contained.
Alpha-lipoic acid in particular is a powerful antioxidant - this is its main reason for inclusion within the stack - and to preserve its potency, it needs to protected within an opaque capsule that admits neither light nor liquid, and that doesn't require the addition of binders or additives.
Photodegradation of ALA to dihydrolipoic acid occurs extremely rapidly on light exposure, and this is a less effective anti-oxidant for fat loss.
So why would people choose a tablet at all? Well, often tablet-form supplements are cheaper, and the PAGG stack is no exception.
It is simply a cheaper manufacturing process, to combine and press out tablets, than to encapsulate them.
Some (not all) tablet brands contain exactly the same exact doses of the high quality raw materials, at least at the point of manufacture (see above, re ALA degradation on light exposure).
Other people find tablets physically easier to swallow than capsules - this is a matter of preference, compacted tablets are smaller, but they are also rounder, and may have unpleasant tastes or textures that a capsule protects against.
Certainly for a weight loss program like the slow carb diet, compliance - actually taking the things, over a sustained time period - is an important issue, and this is why the PAGG stack capsules produced by Pareto are designed to simplify the dosage to the absolute minimum, just 4 single capsules per day (red before meals, blue for bedtime).
*(Policosanol, taken only in the bedtime dose, is slightly different - and works best overnight when cholesterol production in the body is maximised).