Women Weight Lifters?

Your results are going to come from proper eating and training, supplements are only going to help a little. If you diet and training aren't good enough no amount of CLA, Oxylean, Mass gainers, and Jack3d are going to get you where you want.

Whey protein is very very helpful - it's a super quality form of protein and easy to help hit nutritional requirements -however for a lot of females, I think they can reach their macros from whole foods - so I would avoid spending too much until you know where your heart is (as in passion/enthusiasm) and understand the nutritional aspects further. Also if you are mainly concerned with losing weight - keep your foods as clean (no junk/processed food) as possible, and have good portions.

Supplements which will help and are quite a good way to ease into it all-

multivit (any multi at the start, would take 2 x 1-a-day)

Joint supplement- fish oils/omega3/EFAs something like this, can further supplement with condroitin/glucosamine etc. if you want. A lot of weightlifting and cardio will take toll on the joints.

Green tea is an excellent thing to drink and use as a health aid, energy perk (has caff in it) and also has a whole host of fat loss benefits additional to other points.

Hope this helps!

p,s, if new to it, I would avoid creatine if you are looking to lose weight- depending on how strong your motivation is and how you track weight/fat loss, as it will spike your weight up and increase your water bloat, which is just temporary whilst using it, but it will skewer your figures on weight/appearance of fat.

Don't listen to bb.com they push so much supplementation because well that is their business that's how they make money so of course they'll tell you to spend $100 every month on powders and pills.

If you insist on supplementation all you really need is:

Multi-Vitamin (a prenatal is very cheap and can be used by men and women)
Pre-work out best thing to take is a caffeine pill (they cost like $3 for a whole bottle) or black coffee.
Protein Powder Only if you can't get enough protein from foods

Some you can consider to augment your training:

Creatine Doesn't do all that much but it is cheap. I don't see this as a necessary
BCAA Also I don't see this as a necessary
Fish oil If you don't eat fish often

This. I might disagree slightly on creatine. As said it is cheap and it does work. The rest are all insurance in case you can't get enough of them from real food.

I ocassionally have a protein shake with bcaa's - maybe once a week. I prefer to eat real food. I just make sure to eat 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean body mass I have.

A healthy diet and adequate rest should take priority.

In my honest opinion you only need Creatine, a multi-vitamin, Fish oil, Udo's or something to get Omega 3/6/9's in and whey/soy/rice/hemp/egg protein powder ONLY if you cannot meet your protein requirements with food due to convenience issues. Maybe Vitamin C if your worried about putting any stress on your immune system. If you eat pretty well you probably don' t need anything but protein and creatine.

Okay what Ive gotten from this is that everyone's different but a multi vitamin and fish oil are the most common, however caffine and protein are commonly used as well. I already take multi-vitamin and fish oil.

And to those concerned about diet and excercise:I used to be an all american college athlete so in all reality the excercise thing Im good....the diet just keeps getting better But all the books and articles I read, alot talk about supplements. Or going to other people's pages that have been successful I see the same thing.

So just questioning

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

The only supplement besides a multi I would take is Creatine. Its cheap and it doesn't do anything radical except increase ATP in the muscle. It doesn't work for everyone but you should at least try it out. People spend $$$$ and a whole bunch of crap but I think creatine is the only that actually has some quality science behind it and it won't make you poor. You see people popping 50 pills of this and that. It all really comes down to diet and exercise.

I supplement with protein shakes & creatine usually with fruit just after a workout. I buy the pure powdered creatine and whatever whey protein powder I can find with the least additives. I also take a multi vitamin, calcium, vitamin d, fish oil and magnesium.

I think it's best to eat real foot though, chicken, fish, eggs, veggies.