You’ve probably seen it too: hydration powders with massive sodium, “greens” packed with mystery blends, and ads that imply you need three different supplements before lunch. We sit down with Shannon O’Grady, CEO of Gnarly Nutrition and a PhD-trained nutrition scientist, to get a straight answer on what actually works in sports nutrition and what’s mostly just expensive storytelling.

We dig into the current electrolyte craze, why most people don’t need daily electrolytes for a normal workout, and how to think about sodium without getting swept up by trends. Shannon breaks down creatine as one of the most researched supplements on the planet, what it’s good for, and where the cognition claims can get overblown. We also talk about the supplement industry problems that frustrate educated consumers: proprietary blends, “fairy dust” dosages, and labels designed to look scientific while staying impossible to verify.

Then we go deeper on trust and safety: GMP compliance, NSF-style third-party auditing, contaminant testing, and banned-substance screening for athletes and regular people who simply don’t want sketchy ingredients in their routine. Along the way, Shannon shares her own path from endurance sports and research to leading a brand, plus why jiu-jitsu has become her favorite teacher of resilience and calm under pressure.

If you care about clean ingredients, transparent labels, and evidence-based supplements you can actually trust, this one will sharpen your filter fast. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s drowning in supplement ads, and leave a review with the one product claim you want us to fact-check next.

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