When to take Flax oil

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I started taking flax oil for the nutritional benefits and to replace carbs. When is the best time to take it? In the morning or at night with a protein shake? I’m 5’8 170lbs and trying to diet down to a lean 160lb. How many tablespoons do you recommend taking? Should I take divided doses?

2

Paul, flax oil is great for it’s Omega-3 benefits, you are correct. If you’re trying to lose weight, I suggest you read John Berardi’s Massive Eating Plan. Not for the amount of food, but just for the science behind not eating carbs and fats together. Berardi’s Don’t Diet method, based on Massive Eating, presents a “taper” method to lose fat, which I have found very effective.

Essentially, if you're dividing your meals into "Protein anf Fat" and "Protein and Carb" meals, you would eat P+C meals towards the beginning of the day, and P+F meals towars the end of your day. I have used this method and found it very effective. So, to answer your question, it would seem that the best way to incorporate flax oil into your diet for weight loss would be to use it as the fat component of at least some of your P+F meals. Other great fat sources include Fish Oil, Udo's Choice, and the like. I would suggest having at least one of your P+F meals with flax oil. If it makes it easy for you, you can just have it with your pre-bed meal; mix it into a cottage cheese/protein powder shake. If you have a preferred pre-bed meal, and taking flax oil at other times during the day isn't a hassle for you, do that. Hope this helps.

3

That really helps. But how many tablespoons a day? I’m thinkin 2-5…

4

That would depend entirely on your daily caloric needs. Each tablespoon has 130 calories; so if you determine that you need 2500 calories per day, and you want roughly 30% to come from Fat, that’s 830 calories from fat per day; so if you want half of all fat calories coming from flax, that’s 415, or roughly 3.5 table spoons. This is just a crude example with convenient numbers, so again it would depend on your caloric needs. Hope this helps.

5

I take my Flax Seed Oil in the morning with a 43g protien shake. the flax + shake gives me 420Kcal/43g protien/17g Carb/15g Fat. A nice start to the day. Then again, i am trying to bulk, not cut, so it dosnt really matter to much when i have mine. I take 1 tablespoon (15ml) if that helps :slight_smile: Paul Govier