3 Ways To Reduce Your Fish Oil Dosage

fish oil dosage

Three easy ways to cut back on your fish oil dosage but still gets all the benefits.

Carol called me from Massachusetts. She’d just started a high-intensity exercise program. As part of the program, her instructor advised her to get about 6000 mg of Omega-3 per day. That seems like a lot. Even to me. How many pills is that, you ask. Well, Carol and her exercise guru did the math with their Costco Kirkland brand Fish Oil pills. Like most retail grade fish oil, it had about 300 mg of Omega-3 per pill. She was asked to take 18 fish oil pills a day! And she did. Every day. Talk about resolution and commitment! You gotta admire that. But after a while, she began noticing something unpleasant – a little more belly fat than normal. If I’d joined a new exercise program, a little more belly fat would be the last thing I’d want or expect. On behalf of Carol, WHAT THE HECK?! Besides the Omega-3, there were two things she did not bargain for:
  1. About 225 calories
  2. About 13 grams of fish fat (saturated fats and cholesterol etc.)
Each fish oil pill has between 10 and 15 calories. Let’s take an average of 12.5 calories. 18 pills have about 225 calories. That’s the equivalent of eating a Snickers bar every day! A pound of body fat is about 3500 calories. So Carol could have been gaining 1 lb. every 15 days, just from eating all the non-Omega-3 fat in her pills. I’m sure that was not her goal. At this point, someone had given Carol some OmegaVia pills. She’d already done the math that with OmegaVia, she needed a lot fewer pills. That’s when she called me. I love getting calls from people like Carol. We talked about a whole bunch of things but mostly about how we could reduce her fish oil dosage.

Three Easy Ways to Reduce Fish Oil Dosage:

  1. Take a stronger Omega-3 product (Ultra-concentrated fish oil)
  2. Reduce your Omega-6 consumption
  3. Eat more seafood (but you already knew that!)
Let me explain that a little more.

1. Ultra-concentrated Fish Oil

This basically means that there is more Omega-3 per pill than in regular fish oil pills sold in retail stores. A pill with 60% Omega-3 may call itself pharmaceutical grade or Triple Strength, just like one with 85% Omega-3. Regardless of what it is called, to reduce your fish oil dosage, always choose products with the highest Omega-3 content. More Omega-3 per pill means fewer pills to take. Costco has a ‘One Per Day’ Fish Oil with 684 mg of Omega-3 per pill. If Carol had taken that product, she would still have to take 8 or 9 pills. But that’s a lot better than 18 pills!

2. Reducing your Omega-6 consumption

How much Omega-3 you need (for any health benefits) depends on how much Omega-6 you are eating in your diet. Omega-6 is an essential fat. Meaning, without it, you would die. Our bodies are designed to use roughly 2 parts Omega-6 to 1 part Omega-3. But thanks to modern agriculture and processed foods, an average American eats about 20 parts Omega-6 to 1 part Omega-3. We eat way too much Omega-6. These two similar fats compete with each other in your body. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fight for the same enzymes and fight for placement into your cell membranes. Omega-6 wins the fight simply by drowning out the Omega-3. So the more Omega-6 you eat in your diet, the more Omega-3 you will need to provide your body. So where is all the Omega-6 coming from?
  1. Corn oil
  2. Soy (vegetable) oil
  3. Sunflower oil
  4. Safflower oil
  5. Peanuts and Peanut butter
  6. Canola oil
Switch to Olive oil for cooking. Olive oil has harmless Omega-9 instead of Omega-6. Butter and Coconut oil are great as well. I use Butter and Coconut oil almost exclusively for scrambling eggs and sautéing because they have no Omega-6. Watch out for salad dressing! They are full of cheap corn oil. Instead, ask for some olive oil on the side, if you’re eating out. You see, Corn and Soy (vegetable) oils are really cheap, so restaurants and food processors use it almost exclusively to keep costs low. If you buy fried foods, I can guarantee that it was fried in cheap, high-Omega-6 vegetable or seed oils. Unfortunately, most people think these oils are good for them because, well, they are from vegetables. And veggies are good for you. My local Albertson’s grocery store proudly advertises the fact that their fried chicken is ‘Cooked with 100% Pure Vegetable Oil.’ Sigh! Of course, veggies are good for you. But just not oils made from seeds, grains or soy. It drives me crazy when I see supplement companies trying to peddle Omega-6 products on unsuspecting consumers. It’s sad. I’ve blogged ranted about that here. So keep cutting back on Omega-6 and you’ll find that you don’t need as much Omega-3. You might find that you may not need fish oil supplements at all. And Carol can cut back to just 2 fish oil pills a day. And that’s exactly what she’s doing.
* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.