FA3™

The recommendations for dietary fats are legion: 

Thirty percent of your daily calories should come from fat. Get about 90 grams of fats a day. Get lots of Omega-3 fatty acids. The Western diet contains very little GLA, so make sure you get some regularly. Make sure to get some coconut oil every day. Try to grab a handful of walnuts every day. Add extra-virgin olive oil to your vegetables. In addition to getting animal-based omega 3 fatty acids, get some plant-based omegas, too. Make sure your ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids is approximately 2 or 3 to 1, lest you develop all kinds of inflammatory diseases, including heart disease. Include medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) in your diet because of their rapid conversion to energy.

Sure, after I've done all that, every single day, maybe I'll have some time left over to, I don't know, HAVE A LIFE? C'mon! Who's got the time, dedication, or wherewithal to do all that!?! Not us. That's for sure.

Flameout™ Needs a Partner!

Look, if you eat like a bodybuilder, it's standard operating procedure to make an effort to achieve a certain macronutrient ratio. As an example, we might strive for a diet consisting of 40% protein, 30% carbohydrates, and 30% fat. And some even shoot for a lower carbohydrate percentage, replacing the omitted carbs with even more fat. That's all fine in theory, but practice is another thing because it's just hard to do.

Now Biotest has already given you the best source of anti-inflammatory omega-3s on the planet in Flameout, but we've neglected (who hasn't?) the rest of the fatty-acid picture. In other words, we left some of our bases uncovered. Flameout covers our fish oil (omega-3) and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) needs, but that leaves a big hole for the other essential fats, fats that are collectively important for optimizing body composition, hormone production, bone health, and immune function, among other things.

So most of us at Biotest, in order to cover the other fatty acid bases, would chug some olive oil here and there, fry our foods in coconut oil (when we could find it), and then, on the off-chance someone had some highly coveted borage oil in the refrigerator, we'd appropriate (polite word for steal) some.

In essence, we were fat marauders, finding it where we could but rarely getting the proper amounts, and even more rarely getting the proper ratios we needed for health or for optimum body composition. So, to make our lives easier, in addition to making it exponentially easier to maintain a healthy body, we applied horse sense to the problem. We decided to create a partner to Flameout, the Robin to its Batman, or the Batman to its Robin. We had to create a fatty-acid softgel that contained all the rest of the healthful, functional fatty acids we need to take every day, the ones we need to be leaner, more muscular, more energetic, more healthy, and to have purty skin like one of those harp seals that get their skulls bashed in every year for their silky pelts.

In addition to all those healthful goals, we had to create something that would make it easier to meet our daily macronutrient ratio for fats in general. So, say hello to FA3™ Essential Fatty-Acid Super Complex.

FA3™ Essential Fatty-Acid Super Complex

FA3™ contains the highest quality and purest available forms of lauric acid, oleic acid, and gamma-linoleic acid (GLA). These are derived from special, standardized forms of organic virgin coconut oil, certified organic olive oil, and borage oil, all incorporated into a self-emulsifying delivery system that substantially enhances digestion and bioavailability.

FA3™ Fatty Acids (4 Softgels)

Daily Needs for Performance

Take 6 to 9 capsules a day (depending on your body weight and dietary habits), along with a serving of Flameout, and you've met your fatty acid needs for the day.*

*Meeting your fatty acid needs is no small feat, because in today's industrialized food culture, hardly anyone ever meets their ideal fatty acid needs unless they really, really try.

When I started writing this article, I was working under the assumption that people understand the need for functional fatty acids, but as I pored through the research, I realized that there was a lot of stuff I didn't know and a lot of stuff that I'd forgotten, so it stood to reason that maybe some of you might stand to benefit from a refresher course on what the above fatty acids do.

No sweat.

Generally speaking, "free" fatty acids perform a host of functions from actually being incorporated into your cell membranes, being metabolized into inflammatory mediators, binding to DNA to upregulating metabolic machinery, facilitating the production of anabolic hormones, or being metabolized for energy.

As far as the specific fatty acids in FA3, here's a brief list of their functions:

Lauric Acid

• Provides rapid burst of energy (through metabolization of MCTS*)
• Stimulates metabolism
• Is beneficial to skin
• Contributes to prostate health

* MCTs, or Medium Chain Triglycerides, have a shorter "chain length" than many other fats and because of this unique structure, are burned more readily than other types of fat, thus providing rapid energy with less fat storage.

Oleic Acid

• Increases Testosterone production*
• Is cardioprotective (beneficial effects on the heart, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure)
• Combats degenerative disease

*An animal study just published in "Lipids" reports that olive oil, or more specifically, oleic acid, increases the rate at which the testes produce Testosterone. The Leydig cells in the testes make Testosterone from cholesterol. A diet rich in olive oil and coconut oil (oleic acid and lauric acid) apparently helps the cells absorb more cholesterol. In short, the more cholesterol the Leydig cell has available, the higher the rate of Testosterone production. Incidentally, the testes of the animals on the oleic acid and lauric acid diet actually got heavier.

Gamma-Linolenic Acid

• Stimulates metabolism through activation of brown fat
• Is anti-inflammatory
• Is anti-estrogenic
• Improves cholesterol levels
• Improves skin health

Linoleic Acid

• Is essential in natural production of steroid hormones
• Is essential in controlling cellular metabolism
• Is anti-inflammatory

And these are just a small sample of the purported effects of the functional fatty acids in FA3. Heck, it's a pretty safe bet that if you Googled practically any medical condition in conjunction with one of the above fatty acids, you'd find some research to support their use.

In fact, my initial thought was to list references supporting the above benefits, but there are so many, the task was downright daunting, so much so that I didn't bother. Suffice it to say, the healthy benefits of the functional fatty acid in FA3™ comprise a very, very, long list. Some of the purported effects have yet to be proven conclusively, but no one can argue that the overall benefits of the fatty acids in FA3,™ taken in sufficient quantities, aren't pretty damn impressive.

If you want to start making your life easier right away, if you want to start getting healthier right away, if you want to improve your body composition right away, all at an extremely reasonable and affordable price, get yourself some FA3.™