Layne Norton

• SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Protein powder

  Uses whey as needed to reach his daily protein total and says there is nothing magical about it; it is simply a high-quality, cheap and convenient protein source. He ranks whey in his top tier of supplements.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle
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• SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Caffeine

  One of his three tier-one supplements for training. He also cuts it out completely for seven days before a powerlifting meet to reset tolerance, then takes it before the lifts, and admits the withdrawal headaches are real.

  Source: Huberman Lab: The Science of Eating for Health, Fat Loss & Lean Muscle
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• SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Creatine monohydrate

  Creatine monohydrate, caffeine and whey are his three supplements with enormous data behind them. He cannot see an argument against taking creatine, he says, now that cognitive benefits are showing up alongside the strength and lean mass effects.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle
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• SupplementDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Magnesium (threonate or glycinate)

  His tier-two summary is that magnesium can help performance, recovery and sleep in people who are low in it, while those already replete do not seem to benefit. He flags citrate and oxide forms as the ones most likely to upset the gut.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: Supplement Series, Tier 2
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• SupplementDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Melatonin

  Melatonin he covers as a tier-two supplement, one for sleep latency, duration and quality. He frames it as a timing signal, not a sedative. He notes the trials showing indirect body composition effects, along with grogginess and vivid dreams as side effects.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: Supplement Series, Tier 2
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• SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Rhodiola rosea

  Puts rhodiola in his second tier and says his own experience is that combining it with caffeine smooths the caffeine out and softens the comedown. He is careful to add that the research is still young and he wants more of it.

  Source: Huberman Lab: The Science of Eating for Health, Fat Loss & Lean Muscle
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• SupplementRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Ashwagandha

  Describes himself as very bullish on it, citing meta-analyses on lean mass, strength, sleep and stress, and includes it in his recovery product. He keeps it in tier two because he wants longer studies and a clearer mechanism first.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle
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• SupplementDiscusses$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Betaine (trimethylglycine)

  Ranks betaine in his second tier for possible gains in power, strength and body composition, notes the studies disagree, and puts the common dose at 2.5g a day with timing mattering little. The small, indirect effects are his explanation for the mixed results.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: Supplement Series, Tier 2
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• AppRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Carbon Diet Coach

  Built the app to automate as much as possible of what he did as a coach charging around a thousand dollars a month, so that people who cannot afford that get macro targets, a food log and weekly adjustments for about ten dollars. He says there is still a place for a human coach.

  Source: Huberman Lab: The Science of Eating for Health, Fat Loss & Lean Muscle
  Visit joincarbon.com (opens in a new tab)1/44Backed by 1 of 44 stacks
• BookRecommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.

  Fat Loss Forever

  His own book on why weight regain is the real problem and how to hold a loss for good. The show notes for his fat-loss episode point listeners to it, in e-book and paperback, alongside the Carbon app.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: What Really Matters For Fat Loss
  Visit biolaynestore.com (opens in a new tab)1/44Backed by 1 of 44 stacks
• BookRecommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.

  The Complete Contest Prep Guide

  Wrote it from his own preps and the competitors he has coached, covering calories, macros, nutrient timing, refeeds, peak week and posing for anyone taking a natural physique competition seriously.

  Source: Biolayne: The Complete Contest Prep Guide
  Visit biolayne.com (opens in a new tab)1/44Backed by 1 of 44 stacks

Repeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.

• Resistance trainingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  He is a masters powerlifter. He squats over 600 pounds and deadlifts over 700. If your spinal cord works, you can lift, he tells people. His own back pain flares when he is stressed, he says, and he has learned to adjust the movement rather than stop training.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Consistent sleep and wake timesDoes itFREE, no cost

  On weeks without the kids he tries not to let his wake time drift. A consistent wake time helps him more, he has noticed, than the extra sleep he would get by sleeping in.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Protein-forward eatingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Eats four protein-containing meals a day, spaced from breakfast to a pre-bed meal, and points to roughly 1.6 to 2g per kg of bodyweight as where nearly all of the benefit sits. Older adults, he adds, need more per meal to get the same response.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Autoregulated training (RPE)Does itFREE, no cost

  Thinks everyone should autoregulate: on a bad night's sleep he goes in, tests how the bar moves and drops the target load if it feels off. His best set of squats ever, he says, came after a sleepless night, which is why he tests rather than skips.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Flexible dieting (macro tracking)Does itFREE, no cost

  Tracks everything he eats and allows himself a variety of foods, including treats, which he says lets him steer his body composition without it feeling hard after so many years. He warns that the same approach feels stressful to other people, who should pick a different form of restriction.

  Source: Huberman Lab: The Science of Eating for Health, Fat Loss & Lean Muscle

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• High-fiber eatingDoes itFREE, no cost

  Leans on air-popped popcorn as a treat that delivers around ten grams of fiber, and picks frozen meals partly for their fiber. He says he is not aware of a single cohort study on fiber and heart disease, cancer or mortality that failed to show a protective, dose-dependent effect.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Training close to failureRecommendsFREE, no cost

  His training episode argues that proximity to failure matters more than load for hypertrophy. It also argues that volume is dose-dependent without being linear, and that lengthened positions deserve more attention than most lifters give them.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: Keys to Building Muscle Part 1, Training

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• Time-restricted eatingDiscussesFREE, no cost

  He used to recommend against intermittent fasting. His own protein research was the reason. It now sits on his list of things he has changed his mind about: a standard 16:8 window does not appear to cost lean mass, he now says. The conditions are that people lift, eat enough total protein over at least three meals and train inside the feeding window.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: Things I've Changed My Mind On

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Daily practices held long enough to become default behavior.

• Batch cooking proteinDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Batch cooks chicken breast so quick protein is always available, reasoning that carbs and fats are easy to find in a hurry and protein is not. Greek yogurt, lean red meat, pork, fish and eggs fill out his usual list.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Diet soda and non-nutritive sweetenersDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Says he drinks Diet Coke and would not worry about his kids having one a day, though they drink water by choice. His wider point is that swapping sugary soda for diet soda produces real weight loss in trials, slightly more than swapping to water, so he treats it as a tool rather than something to demonize.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• High-protein frozen mealsDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  He eats quite a few frozen meals. He picks them for higher protein and fiber. Cooking everything from scratch or hiring a chef is not realistic, he says, and perfection should not be the enemy of good.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Daily walkingRecommendsFREE, no cost

  He trains two to three hours a day. Nobody needs that, he tells people: a vigorous 30-minute walk each day already puts them well ahead, though he would still add resistance training to it.

  Source: FoundMyFitness: Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle

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• Daily step targetRecommendsFREE, no cost

  His coaching team has clients hold the step count they already have, say 8,000, through a fat-loss phase. No added cardio. Spontaneous movement drops on a diet and people do not notice it going.

  Source: Huberman Lab: The Science of Eating for Health, Fat Loss & Lean Muscle

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• Regular weigh-insRecommendsFREE, no cost

  Lists self-monitoring through weighing and logging food among the things that improve adherence to a deficit, and calls regular self-monitoring one of the most consistent habits of people who keep weight off. What gets measured gets managed, as his show notes put it.

  Source: Dr. Layne Norton Podcast: What Really Matters For Fat Loss

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• “if I had to build my Mount Rushmore of supplements, it is very clearly three supplements. It is creatine, monohydrate, caffeine, whey, protein. The amount of research data on all three of those is enormous.”

• “So I tell people, just take creatine monohydrate. It is tried and true.”

  On Creatine monohydrate

• “But I have not found a study on fiber and cardiovascular disease and cancer and mortality where it did not show improvements from higher fiber. So to me, that suggests that that effect is real.”

  On High-fiber eating

• “I'm very bullish on ashwagandha. There's a few meta analyses now showing improved lean mass, improved strength, improved sleep, better stress management.”

  On Ashwagandha

• “So I think everyone should auto regulate their training regardless of whatever happens. Okay. And so if you have a poor night's sleep and you come in and you're feeling like crap and it's not moving, well, then reduce the load and adjust accordingly.”

  On Autoregulated training (RPE)