Before we get started

I’m not a doctor and do not give medical advice

Always consult with a medical professional before making changes to your diet or using new products

It was winter time and I started to notice a patch of dry, slightly red and itchy skin on one of my cheeks.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the start of a long and unhappy year.

I started to apply moisturiser, and it would go down. But then a few days later it was back. I guessed it was down to the cold and because I was wearing a helmet to ride my motorbike to work and back each day.

Time was not kind…

As the weeks and months went by, the redness continued to get worse each time it arrived and the gaps between it going away were getting shorter. I started to think it could be something else.

The redness on my face was itchy and inflamed

I did what anyone would do…

I started to apply all kinds of moisturisers and face creams. From products like Simple to Palmer’s cocoa butter lotion, but none of them worked.

And as the weeks went by, things started to get much worse. As this continued, the redness on my face was very visible. To the point where it looked as though I had got sunburn marks while wearing sunglasses.

Desperate times…

Fast forward 10 months and my face had got so bad that I didn’t want to go outside unless I was going to work. I felt incredibly self-conscious and embarrassed. It took a massive hit on my self confidence and mental health.

The outbreaks of redness and itching on my face would go in phases. First of all, it would be red and itchy. Then it would calm down a bit but start to heal over and the skin would become very flaky. Here’s how it looked as it was healing.

The skin on my forehead would peel and flake

The problem was that after this outbreak and healing, another outbreak would happen almost immediately afterwards.

It was at this point that I was getting desperate for things to try to resolve it.

What the doctors said…

The doctors I saw gave me some creams to try, but none of them worked. I’d seen multiple doctors, all of whom said it was a form of dermatitis such as Seborrheic or atopic. One said it was Rosacea. In short, no one knew.

So, I turned to trusty Google…The solver of all problems! Here are some of the key things I found to try out:

• Low histamine diets
• Removing all dairy
• Cut out known allergy foods, like eggs, seafood & nuts
• No caffeine, so no coffee!

I tried all of them! I even sold my £500 coffee machine to remove the temptation. I wish I hadn’t sold it now…

Below, I’ll share some more details on what I tried, what helped and what didn’t. But first, here’s the solution that literally changed my life within a few days!

The Ordinary Azelaic Acid

I’ll go into the details on this more in section 5 below, but this face cream has literally changed my life. It’s a cheap (£5.50) option so if it doesn’t work you have not lost much. It’s 100% worth it.

The best solution for redness like eczema, dermatitis or rosacea I’ve used

Remember, though, that this is my personal experience. What works for me might not work for you. If you are reading this post, I imagine you are in a similar position to where I was. I know how it feels, so it is worth trying things out to see if they work for you.

I’m confident you will find a solution, you just have to keep looking and trying things.

Where to buy Azelaic Acid

I always buy direct from The Ordinary, also known as Deciem. I buy 5 Azelaic Acid items at a time so that I get free delivery. You can purchase direct from there here.

I’d recommend buying direct from their website. Click the image below to go directly to the product.

Purchase Azelaic Acid Suspension 10% directly from The Ordinary

This famous saying is becoming more relevant again, hundreds of years after it was first coined. And for good reason.

It is estimated that around 15 million people in the UK suffer from Eczema. That’s over 20% of the population!

Do foods trigger a reaction?

An obvious place to start looking for answers is food. We know that some people have allergies to certain items, such as nuts and shell fish. So perhaps dermatitis could be caused by the accumulation of foods which the body does not react well to.

Allergy Vs Intolerance

Allergic reactions are your immune system’s response to something, they usually happen straight after having the food and can be severe and even life-threatening. They can often be caused by even a small amount of the food.

An intolerance does not involve the immune system and is usually worse if you have more of the food you are intolerant to. It can take time to show symptoms of an intolerance, so it’s not always easy to identify the cause without an elimination diet.

You can find out more about the differences from the NHS website.

What I tried…

When I first decided to look into this, I opted for an elimination diet. From looking a whole load of articles online, and based on what I liked, I came up with the following foods to eat:

• White rice
• Chickpeas
• Kale
• Ginger
• Beetroot
• Water

That’s it! I ate the same thing, every day, for around 10 days. The results were incredible! My skin cleared up and I had very little inflammation in my body. I could tell because my skin was less “puffy”, especially around my stomach and face.

Unfortunately, this was not sustainable. After 10 days, I had to go out and was feeling very happy so I had a burger, chips and a milkshake. The next day it flared up again.

After 10 days, my skin was clear. Then I had a triggering food item

You can see in the images above that my skin was very clear after trying out the diet. Then, the day after it started to flare up going red and after 3 days was worse still. This continued to become more inflamed over the course of a week.

But all was not lost. I now knew that there was something to the food intolerance side of things. Unfortunately it took me a long time to workout exactly what my triggering foods were though!

I’ll talk more about the elimination diet in “Section 4″ below.

What foods to remove

There are some commonly known foods which are likely to cause allergic reactions, as noted by the NHS:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Nuts
• Shellfish

That doesn’t mean it will be those, but it is a good starting point if you aren’t sure.

What I now know…

I now know that my body doesn’t tolerate eggs and dairy products very well. I don’t get an allergic reaction, more of a build up of symptoms if I continue to have eggs and dairy regularly.

I can get away with having a few eggs a week and a bit of milk here and there, but if I have a little every day, the redness on my face gets worse. I also develop a bit of a rash on other areas of my body.

It took me ages to work this out because the reaction is gradual. It builds over time and is almost unnoticeable at first. Often, I’ll start to get a bit of itching and tingling first, then it gets worse from there.

Some other food triggers to avoid

From personal experience, and the knowledge that these foods cause inflammation in the body, I would recommend avoiding or having as little as possible of the following items in your diet:

• Alcohol – and obvious one but this plays havoc with your body. It’s a poison so your body has to work hard to remove it which means it can’t work to repair your skin and body. If you HAVE to have some, go for organic wine where possible. Just 1 glass a week max.
• Sugar – Man made sugar is in a lot of products and it’s not good for your body, especially in the doses we regularly consume it in nowadays. Natural sugars aren’t a problem, such as from fruits. But if you are having lots of processed foods this is going to damage your body and skin.
• Wheat – Not necessarily bad, but lots of bread products are made out of terrible ingredients. They will say “wholewheat” and have lots of fancy marketing terms to make you think it’s healthy, but it’s usually not. A lot of people suffer from bloating as a result of poor quality ingredients in bread. I would recommend avoiding where possible or go organic and fresh.

Azelaic Acid Rich Foods

While doing some research into this topic, I found a nice scientific article which describes some details about naturally occurring Azelaic acid. Here’s one excerpt:

“Azelaic Acid is a naturally occurring dicarboxylic acid produced by Malassezia furfur and found in whole grain cereals, rye, barley and animal products.”

Good to know, so adding those into your diet might help get more Azelaic acid into your system. But, personally, I would opt for the skin appliance method because you are most likely wanting to treat Rosacea, acne or some kind of skin blemish you have.

Here’s another interesting note:

“Azelaic acid also possesses a direct anti-inflammatory effect due to its scavenger activity of free oxygen radical. This drug is used topically to reduce inflammation associated with acne and rosacea.”

So, it shows that Azelaic acid is used topically (applied to the skin, externally) to treat these conditions.

During the 18 months that I was having consistent flare-ups on my face which was either rosacea, dermatitis or eczema. No one could tell for sure. I came across a lot of talk online about histamine intolerance.

So I decided to dive a little deeper into what it is and whether it could be the cause of my issues.

What is histamine?

Website Healthline say “Histamine intolerance is not a sensitivity to histamine, but an indication that you’ve developed too much of it.”

There are many reasons why this can happen, but in my case I was suspicious of two things:

1. Over eating of cold meats
2. Hay fever

Over eating of cold meats I was worried about because, according to sources online, histamine levels increase in meat after it is cooked especially if you keep leftovers and eat them at a later date.

At the time, I was really well prepared with my food so I was cooking batches of mince and eating it over 2-3 days. I was then cooking a chicken and eating that over a 2-3 day period.

I have hay fever and that means I produce more histamine so I suspected that my histamine levels were already higher.

What I did about it

I tried out many of the recommended ways to prepare foods, what foods not to eat and histamine lowering foods to consume.

I bought some recipe books, histamine reset PDFs and read lots of other info about histamine intolerance in my desperate search for finding a solution. I was prepared to try anything.

None of it helped that much to be honest! My face was still going in phases of flare-ups and flaking and I was losing hope with all the different lotions and potions I had been trying.

My conclusion about histamine intolerance

Is that I’m sure that some people have this issue, as there are so many out there who have seen positive improvements after following a low histamine diet.

They’ve seen dramatic improvements in mood, skin and their overall health as a result. So, if nothing else is working for you it’s definitely worth trying. It might work it might not.

One positive that came out of it for me was that I now eat way less meat. It’s something I wanted to do for a while anyway, so trying it out definitely helped me.

When you write down on paper what you need to do for an elimination diet, it seems very simple.

Eat the same foods each day for, let’s say 1 week, track how you get on and then add extra ingredients into the mix.

Starting off with “safer” foods which you feel are less likely to cause issues and then adding in more variety or potential trigger foods will show you if one of them causes a problem for your body.

It’s not that simple…

The reality of it is far from easy. When you are super restricted on what you can and can’t eat, you have to be super prepared. All the foods you can eat need to be readily available otherwise temptation can cause issues.

And you really start to notice what cravings and had habits you have! Those sweet treats and coffees can be really addictive…When you remove then, you can have mood swings, cravings and be miserable to be around…

Is it worth trying?

The short answer is yes, it is. But it’s not a long term solution. The point of this short term diet is to find out which foods cause problems for you.

This is a helpful step-by-step guide on how to plan for an implement an elimination diet.

What I did and what I learned

I managed to stick to a pretty restrictive diet for 10 days which definitely helped show me that something I was eating caused the red flare-ups on my face.

My problem was that I re-introduced too many other foods at the same time! So I had no idea what caused the issue.

The best piece of advice I can give is to start off with a not too restrictive diet. For example, just remove the most commonly known trigger foods such as:

• Eggs
• Dairy
• Processed sugar
• Nuts
• Shellfish

Try that for 1 week and see what happens. If no improvement, you may want to try being more restrictive. If it does work, and your symptoms improve, you know it’s one of the ingredients on the list.

Top Tip: White rice is filling and very unlikely to cause a reaction in most people. It’s easy and fast to cook in just 10 minutes, too. That can be a staple part of your elimination diet allowed foods. Remember, it’s only for a short time.

As I was reaching the end of my tether with the rash I had developed on my face, I finally found a solution which came at the most unexpected of times.

I felt a glimmer of hope after reading this…

It was one of my housemates birthday’s approaching in April 2019, so I was trying to work out what to buy her as a gift. I noticed that she liked to use creams from The Ordinary. She had a batch of them in the bathroom cabinet and she was running low on one of them, the Azelaic Acid.

So I went onto their website and looked at the product. I noticed that there was a write-up which mentioned about how good azelaic acid was for helping reduce redness and rosacea.

At that point in time I was willing to try anything and being only £5.50 I was definitely going to try it so I bought an extra one for myself to try out.

Update: Since I originally wrote this post, the cost of the cream has almost doubled! It’s now £9.90…Still worth it though and lasts a long time. I did always think that £5.50 was cheap.

Applying azeliac acid

The first thing to note is it’s always best to try a new product out on a small area, known as a spot test. This is especially important on an area like your face because the skin is more sensitive than other areas on the body.

I did that and it wasn’t a problem, so I went ahead and put the cream all over my face. Then it started…A stinging and tingling sensation. I was worried. It felt almost like it was burning!

I rushed to the mirror to see what was happening, but there was nothing there. No redness or inflammation.

The stinging continued for 15-20 minutes, mainly around the areas where it was red already. Then it slowly went away. I applied it twice a day and each time the same thing would happen.

How long does it take for azelaic acid to work?

I noticed the improvements within 3 days. I could tell that the redness was going down on my cheeks. The other point to note is that because azelaic acid can dry out the skin, my skin started peeling a bit.

I continued using it twice a day, every day and the results were incredible. The redness disappeared completely and my skin looked normal again for the first time in 18 months.

How to use azelaic acid in your skincare routine

This is my personal experience of using it. I’m by no means an expert.

• Apply twice a day, morning and night when you have an outbreak of redness, rosacea or acne on your skin
• Use a fragrance free moisturiser specifically for sensitive skin afterwards to avoid too much peeling and dryness
• Go back down to once a day before bed once the symptoms are gone and increase frequency of use as and when required
• Pay particular attention to any foods you eat which you think trigger your skin, such as eggs, dairy, nuts or seafood

This is the routine I have been using for more than a year now and with good results. My skin is not exactly the same as it was, and I’m not sure it ever will be, but it is way better and the redness has gone. Most people would never tell that I had any issues.

Where to buy azeliac acid

I can’t speak highly enough for The Ordinary Azelaic Acid product. Everyone I speak to also loves the product from The Ordinary. For such a small cost, it seems like a no-brainer to try it out.

I’d recommend buying direct from their website. Click the image below to go directly to the product.

Purchase Azelaic Acid Suspension 10% directly from The Ordinary

Only interested in the discount codes?

No problem…Use these. Links take you direct to the supplier

Before we get started

Early scientific evidence looks good for CBD products, with minimal chance of adverse side effects.

However

I’m not a doctor and do not give medical advice.

Always consult with a medical professional before using any CBD product.

If you’re trying to improve your health, going organic without any added nasties is the way to go. And CBD products are no different.

Start by checking the label of the product. Does it say it’s organic? If not, it won’t be.

Next, look at the other ingredients and see what’s in it. Some added vitamins could be beneficial, but fillers and preservatives are best avoided.

Unsure of an ingredient, Google it.

Having said that…

A lot of products I have researched are not certified as organic, but they are grown under organic conditions. So no pesticides, fertilizers or chemicals used.

Certification is expensive. If I trust the brand and they do everything else right, I usually accept what they say about the growing conditions.

The key point is this…

If your purpose is to improve the quality of your health, always go organic when you can. And with CBD products, you can always get very close to it.

The MEDTerra CBD oil I review below is about as high quality as you can get. Below is a MEDTerra discount code for 15% off.

I’ll talk more about the dosage later in this post, but related to that is how much CBD you’ll get per serving.

It’s a similar concept to drinking alcohol…A strong beer could be too much. A lighter beer and you won’t feel anything.

The same is true for how much CBD you are taking per serving or per day.

Here’s the thing…

A lot of the cheap products around are cheap because they don’t have much CBD in them.

Takeaway tip…

Look for a product that has at least 15mg of CBD per serving.

If buying capsules it will say clearly, but for CBD oil which comes in tinctures with a pipette, you may have to work it out.

Check out this handy guide for the most common size bottle and CBD content

[CP_CALCULATED_FIELDS id=”6″]

Here’s how to calculate it manually:

• Volume of bottle: 30ml
• CBD per bottle: 1,000mg
• Serving size: 1ml
• 1,000 / 30 = 33.3mg per serving
• This bottle will last 1 month if taken every day

Quality beats quantity (almost) every time.

Put a low quality CBD oil into your body and you won’t get much out of it. You’re basically wasting your money.

Look for products that are transparent in where the hemp is sourced from, what extraction process is used and how it is processed.

The bottom line…

Any decent company want to tell you about how high quality their product is and show you proof.

The more details they share with you, the higher the chance it’s legitimately higher quality.

Takeaway Tip…

The US and Europe have the highest quality hemp, so check it’s from there.

High quality producers will use the line from “seed to sale” to indicate that they can track their produce from where it’s planted all the way to the end product. This is what you want.

Each CBD product you take should be independently lab tested.

You want to know it’s safe and includes the ingredients as advertised.

It’s also good to know that the company are prepared to show you the independent reports to prove the quality of their product. After all, why would they hide anything?

Some companies also add a heavy metals report to their testing. This is a big plus, as it shows a higher degree of confidence in their product.

What to look for…

The reports should be freely available on their site and be dated.

You should be able to look-up the company that did the report and confirm its legitimacy.

Then check the numbers on the report match what it says on the product. There will usually be a report for each product type.

Also look for the date it was done. It should be fairly recent, within 10 months. Often, the company will also do in-house testing on every new batch produced, too.

No lab report?

No purchase! In such a new and unregulated there are, unfortunately, too many low value products and companies using low quality products.

Always go with your gut instinct, too. If a product seems to cheap compared to most others, ask why.

It’s a great starting point and one which a lot of people overlook.

We hear all the hype about CBD oil being amazing for our health and often don’t question why.

Bad back? Try CBD oil. Constant headaches? CBD will fix it. Money problems? Try CBD oil!

What we know…

So far, well-blinded Randomised Controlled Trials have not been done (as far as I can find) for any of the conditions in which CBD is reported to help alleviate.

But there have been fairly good tests done in real world settings (clinics, mainly) which have shown promising results from using CBD for a whole host of conditions, such as:

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Insomnia
• Depression
• Epilepsy

Note: Most of the cases have been quite severe, which is why the patients are in clinics. Studies on the general population appear to be even more limited as of yet.

The good news…

Is that CBD looks to have good potential in terms of helping people with severe conditions, so it’s fair to think it might help you and me, too.

It’s also been reported as non-addictive by the World Health Organisation:

“In humans, CBD exhibits no effects indicative of any abuse or dependence potential.”

Back to why take CBD?

Most people take CBD to help with pain, anxiety, sleep or depression issues. And so far, studies appear to back up that it could be beneficial for that.

The only way to know for sure is to try it for yourself. It looks very safe to take and without any addictive qualities, so all you’ll lose is a bit of cash from buying it if it doesn’t work for you.

So, you have your CBD product and now you want to know when to take it.

It’s a good question.

The first thing to say is there is no specific time of day best suited to taking your CBD product. It really depends on why you are taking it.

For example, if you are taking it to help with sleep it would be a good idea to try taking it at night.

If you are taking it to help alleviate stress and anxiety which you feel most in the day, then taking it in the morning and/or throughout the day would be a good starting point.

The bottom line…

Try what you think would be best for you and your situation and then adjust as and when needed. Here’s a handy graphic to show when you might take your CBD based on why you’re taking it.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) say:

“CBD is generally well tolerated with a good safety profile”

The only caveat is that you can have too much of a good thing…Meaning, it depends on how much you take.

It’s safe to say that for most people, taking a reasonable amount (more on that in a second) it should not cause any issues.

The key thing…

Is to start off with a small amount and build up gradually.

Many studies have shown no negative side effects from taking CBD oil and the WHO have said it’s fine so you can take it with confidence.

Is CBD Oil Legal in the UK?

Yes, CBD oil is legal. The illegal substance is THC, which can be found in some cannabis plants.

CBD oil should be made from strains of the cannabis plant which have been bred to have low levels of THC and the remainder removed as part of the production process.

What to look out for…

I’ll talk about this more later, but you can get some CBD products which contain a trace amount of THC. They’re called full spectrum or broad spectrum CBD oils.

The trace amount is usually 0.05% but is allowed to be up to 0.2% for it to be legal in the UK. 0.3% for the US, but this could differ between states.

If you’re looking for a full or broad spectrum CBD oil, check out my review of Hempura below. There is a nice 5% off Hempura discount code there, too.

Note: I am not a doctor and I’m not prescribing how much to take. The below are my opinions based on research and articles.

A large number of people are looking at CBD oil as a way to help improve sleep, reduce pain and minimise anxiety.

It’s no surprise, as these conditions have all been looked at in trials by medical professionals and have shown promising results.

Here’s the thing…

The amount of CBD used in most studies is pretty high. We’re talking 300-600mg a day. Considering you only get 500mg in some CBD tinctures, that would be 1 bottle a day!

Some studies have even used doses up to 1,500mg a day…

From my research, the general advice seems to be as follows:

• Find a high quality, high strength CBD oil (1,000mg or higher per bottle)
• Start off with a dose of around 15mg a day and work your way up slowly
• Take note of how you feel each day

Note: This is the approach to take regardless of your condition.

The reason to do it this way…

Everyone has a different tolerance to CBD. Some people can have a higher dose without feeling the effects.

Start off day 1 with 15mg per day. After 5 days, increase it to 20mg if you feel fine. Then every week add another 5mg and see how you feel.

As mentioned, CBD oil is deemed very safe so unless you go crazy with the dose you should tolerate levels even up to several hundred milligrams (mg) per day.

The takeaway tip…

Every person is unique so start off with a small dose of 15mg per day and work upwards until you get the desired effect to your sleep, anxiety or pain.

If you’re taking it for sleep, have it before bed. For anxiety, take it in the morning and for pain take it when your pain is usually at its worst.

It’s not all about CBD…

There are over 100 different compounds found in the cannabis plant. CBD is one of them. THC is another.

We know that THC gives users a “high” like feeling, whereas CBD does the opposite. This is why it has been shown to help with anxiety.

And there is where the 3 main types of products come in:

• Full spectrum CBD – The purest form. Usually minimally processed and contains all the natural, original compounds in the plant. From CBD to THC, albeit with very limited levels of THC due to the strain of cannabis plant bred.
• Broad Spectrum CBD – Very similar to full spectrum but with all of the THC removed. For those who want no amount of THC. Some broad spectrum products also remove other compounds for various reasons.
• CBD Isolate – This is pure CBD. Just the one compound. Most of these are CBD oils and greater than 99% pure CBD content.

So which is best…?

It depends on your opinion and why you are taking it in the first place.

My personal opinion is that a full or broad spectrum would be best because it’s as close to the original plant as possible.

Just like taking a vitamin tablet. I would argue that eating an orange is better than taking vitamin C. Extracting one single vitamin in isolation may not have the same impact in the body when compared to taken multiple vitamins and nutrients at the same time.

For example, we know that calcium can only be absorbed well when there is enough vitamin D present in the body.

Takeaway Tip…

Try each of the different types out for yourself to see which you like the most and which helps best.

Try all three, looking closely at the cannabinoid content of each product to see if a difference in it has a different impact.

To get the final product, some kind of extraction and filtration process is required.

The two main types are super-critical CO2 and ethanol.

The ins and outs of each process we will not go into here, but the same questions remains. “What’s the best extraction to use?”

It depends…

On what you want to get out of the end product. Because of the different ways the extraction processes work, they are better or worse at pulling specific cannabinoids from the plant.

For example, you may want pure CBD, THCA or some other compound.

One manufacturer will claim their extraction process is better but it will depend on each product and the consumer’s requirements.

My personal opinion…

Is that I’d rather go with the least amount of processing possible. That seems to be full spectrum first off, but if you want a pure CBD oil then choose CO2 extraction.

The reason for that is because when using ethanol, it has to be done 100% right. Also, any manufacturer who use CO2 has heavily invested in their equipment and should, in theory, have a more efficient, reliable and safe product.

As the CBD market explodes Worldwide, there are more and more ways to take it.

You can vape it, apply it to your skin and consume it in oils, capsules and gummies.

So, which is best?

Personally, I’d avoid the vape option or any other way which requires you to smoke anything. There is no way that is going to end well in my opinion, so I won’t even cover that here.

Applying CBD oil topically (to your skin)

Your skin is a protective layer so it’s not going to allow too many things in. That’s why applying CBD to your skin is tricky. The dose will have to be high and the amount applied liberal for any absorption to take place.

The benefit is that if it does penetrate through the skin, it can get straight to work in an area which is causing you pain.

For example, if you have Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), you might find applying a high strength lotion helps alleviate the pain.

Truth be told…

You’ll have to try it out for yourself to find out if it works well for you. If you taking CBD for general health and well-being I would recommend ingesting it using a sublingual approach – dropping some oil under your tongue and holding it there.

Ingesting CBD products

You can find gummies, capsules and oils to take. It’s hard to know which is best but here are my thoughts.

CBD Gummies

These are not even worth considering. I haven’t been able to find any that don’t contain a load of added ingredients, sugar and unhelpful chemicals.

Capsules & Tablets

They could be ok for those who don’t like the oils, but again you will find it hard to find ones without fillers and capsule shells which contain questionable ingredients.

Additionally, there are question marks over how much your body will absorb. This is because the ingredients will have to survive the harsh conditions in your stomach and then be absorbed into the bloodstream in your intestines.

Oils

This is what I would recommend for most people. You can put the oil under your tongue so it gets absorbed more easily into the bloodstream.

They are also the cleanest and purest because they just contain the ingredients you want and a carrier oil such as coconut oil or hemp seed oil.

The bottom line…

Always go with the cleanest, purest form of the product. That’s the CBD oils which come in tinctures which you drop under your tongue.

I’ve spent a lot of time researching products which meet the criteria set out in this post.

There are thousands to choose from, very few tick the boxes.

Below are the ones I recommend, which fall into the following categories:

• CBD Oil (Isolate)
• CBD Oil (Full & Broad Spectrum)
• CBD Capsules

Note: I do NOT recommend gummies because they all contain added ingredients such as sugar.

Go pure when you can, which is why oils are best and what I recommend.

Get Ripped 3 Day Split Routine

Follow these key points to add up to 1kg of muscle per month:

• Quality over quantity – NEVER sacrifice technique to lift a heavier weight
• TEMPO – Training with tempo is critical to building muscle (explained here)
• Supersets – Used to get better results and save time (explained here)
• Buddy – Train with a partner. No partner? Use machines instead of free weights so you can go to failure safely

Note: To build lean muscle, going to failure with CORRECT and CONTROLLED technique is essential.

Best Rep & Set Ranges for Building Muscle

It’s the topic most people go to when talking about weight training…How many sets and reps should I do?

The thing is, no two reps and sets are the same…How quickly (tempo) you move the weight will change the feel and result massively.

We’ll talk about that in a moment, but first let’s look at the common rep ranges:

• Reps: 4 to 6 – The rep range for building strength, not necessarily with much size gain
• Reps: 8 to 12 – The most common rep range for building muscle (hypertrophy)
• Reps: 15+ – Thought about as more muscular endurance training

What about speed of movement?

Two people (Dave & Steve) are both doing 10 reps of bench press on 60kg. Which one builds the most muscle?

No, this is not some cryptic puzzle for you to solve…

The answer is: It will depend on each person’s speed of movement. The speed they lower, pause and push the bar. Also known as Tempo.

Let’s see how they lift…

Dave lowers the bar for 1 second, doesn’t pause and pushes for 0.5 seconds. This is probably typical of most people in the gym.

Steve lowers for 2 seconds, pauses for 1 second and pushes for 1 second.

How do the two compare?

• Dave put his muscles under 15 seconds of tension (Time Under Tension)
• Steve put his muscles under 40 seconds of tension

There’s a big difference here. Steve’s set is almost 3 x Dave’s set in terms of time under tension!

Same exercise, same weight, very different load on the muscles. This is key because extra load on muscle = muscle growth.

What that means for you…

Depending on your goal, you may want to think about how quickly or slowly you lift weights.

Always lifting fast means you get to use momentum which reduces the load on your muscles.

If you want to build muscle, understanding Time Under Tension (TUT) and Tempo is critical.

Here is an example from the bench press of a good muscle building number of sets, reps and tempo:

• Use a 3 second eccentric phase (lowering), pause for 1 second, 1 second concentric phase (pushing), pause at the top for 1 second
• Complete 4 sets of 12 reps

If you’re used to “normal” tempos you will definitely need to lower the weight to start with.

Put your ego aside. Lifting very heavy is not usually necessary.