I think this post is okay. I’m not talking about illegal drugs or giving/asking for medical advice.
Do you have a supplement regimen? Vitamins, minerals, herbs, protein powders etc?
Care to share?
I try to take a multivitamin in the morning and a magnesium in the evening. Other than that it’s all about pounding water, eating mindfully and keeping my priority on good sleep hygiene.
Great question @morpheus.
I’ve taken a lot of supplements for athletic stuff, and I can’t tell if they really did anything. Creatine is the only one that I could say has obvious benefits.. Discovering a clean high protein diet that matches your natural gut absorption is a bigger improvement than any supplement. Also I have a small serving of fruit, mixed nuts and Soylent meal replacement along with every meal, this fills in most nutrient gaps
Maca Root, Beet Powder, L-Cysteine and L-Arginine, Lecithin and Pygeum. All recommended by my cardiologist for circulation and heart health except for the pygeum. And a multivitamin for overall health.
I take Nordic Naturals DHA/EPA, D, B12, nutritional yeast, and kelp powder iodine. All of my other nutrition comes from food. I'm raw/vegan.
I take a women's multivitamin, and a bit of extra Vitamin D3 and B12.
Since people are mentioning lifestyles...I've been vegan for six and a half years (for ethical, not health reasons). All my labs are in range, but doctah doctah said everyone should take Vitamin D, and since my energy is low, we've just recently added the B.
~ Sunset Snuggles
🦄 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Fiend 🐘 Animal Lover
Simply a multivitamin. For most other supplements there is really no evidence that most work and a lot of evidence that many do not work at all, and may do harm. I'd feel a whole lot better if the FDA was approving them and Alex Jones or Joe arogan were not hawking them.
Vegetarian for 20 years, so I take vitamins D and B12. Other than that, I try to stick to Michael Pollan's advice: Eat food- not too much, mostly plants.
Pretty much none right now, though dabbling with D, Magnesium, and C. There's isn't much evidence that regular use of supplements actually help, and most are so poorly regulated (random samples from lab testing show they are up to 50% off their specified quantity and may contain excess contaminants)
I take a vitamin D-A-K-E supplement, minerals, omega 3 fish oil, and saffron. I drink remineralized coffee and I drink a magnesium powder before bed. I try to eat a high protein diet, I’m not vegan or vegetarian. I set my alarm to go off every hour as a reminder to drink water and I still think I don’t drink enough. I did do creatine but I’m not working out right now due to a shoulder injury so I haven’t been. I agree with most of you in terms of do they actually help or not 🤷🏻♂️
I love the Emergen-C drink for daily vitamins. The name brand tastes better to me than store brands. Orange is good, but currently loving the raspberry.
I was taking iron to be able to give blood, and not have low iron when they do the finger prick, but then I saw that it can cause liver damage if you don’t truly need it. So I’m going to just make sure I get enough iron (with diet) before the blood drives I attend.
@CuddleHugs01234
@SunsetSnuggles Every 56 days, unless I’m sick or out of town. I did bruise from the last one. But everyone I know knows I don’t do drugs. But, no, normally I don’t bruise and it leaves no evidence of me giving blood. I highly advocate giving, if you are able, because it literally saves lives.
I highly recommend talking to a registered dietitian and getting tested for deficiencies before starting supplements. The supplement industry is one of the biggest scam magnets, and the vast majority of people end up wasting money or megadosing on things they don't need. The science just doesn't support it.
That said, some folks can benefit from targeted high quality supplementation to make up for deficiencies due to medications, illnesses, dietary gaps, etc. I'm chronically anemic and low on a few key nutrients that food alone cannot make up for due to absorption issues, so I take specific forms of iron, magnesium, and vitamin D. I'm not great at remembering to take them, but I definitely notice a difference in the frequency and level of my symptoms when I consistently take them over time.
I just caution people not to fall for hype, especially from "doctors" online who sell or get commissions for the products they recommend. If you dig further, a lot of them are not medical doctors (they'll be PhD doctors instead for instance) and/or have zero nutritional training, and they all tend to recycle the same few limited studies that are poor quality. You're far better served by finding out what specifically your body needs and learning what forms of the supplements are most effective. And remember that most general practitioners had extremely little education on nutrition - they often only are repeating what supplement companies push the same way most health influencers do.
@SunsetSnuggles Yep, that kinda mark doesn’t happen from giving blood.
@SunsetSnuggles I have a scar from plasma donation and now IVIG (I only have one arm with viable veins). I donated plasma twice a month for a year, several years before I was diagnosed with a primary immunodeficiency and started receiving donated plasma which now disqualifies me from donating. It's really not that noticable and definitely looks nothing like track marks or IV drug users.
Pic of mine
As April is Primary Immunodeficiency Awareness month, though, let me take a moment to plug plasma donation for those who are able to do it -
donated plasma is used to create treatments for hundreds of conditions, including PI and it saves lives and vastly improves quality of life for folks like me. People with primary immunodeficiency (like me) can't make their own antibodies, so we have to "import" the immune systems from literally thousands of donations in order to boost our own and keep us from getting sick. Without donated plasma, we can end up with pneumonia and other life-threatening infections that land us in the hospital several times a year. Plasma donations are also used for other blood parts like clotting factors for hemophilia, and treating serious viral infections like COVID-19.
Donated whole blood is absolutely life saving, but it doesn't get broken down into separate parts for those needing plasma or platelet donations. There is a chronic shortage of donated plasma each year that impacts hundreds of thousands of patients and drives the costs of treatment skyhigh. If anyone is interested in learning more about plasma donation and/or primary immunodeficiency, feel free to DM me
@CuddleHugs01234 love both flavors 😊
@cuddlefaery
Each week, I fill one of these little pill boxes with my vitamins, so that I don't have to open three bottles every morning. (Who got time fo' dat? Ain't nobody.) This makes it instantly visible whether I have taken my vitamins for the day yet or not ('cause Lord knows remembering to take them is half the battle...remembering if I took them already is the other half... 😂).
To ensure I take them each morning, I have an alarm on my phone that is set to repeat every single day (even though I detest alarms with the passion of a thousand suns). If I don't take them, I snooze the alarm, so it bothers me again, and I can't forget.
I like this one, in particular, because it holds multiple gummy vitamins (yes, I am a child. 🧸).
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equate-Weekly-Pill-Planner-and-Organizer/970609809?athbdg=L1200&from=/search
@cuddlefaery the supplement industry really needs more regulation.
I heard that they can get away with so much stuff because they’re classified as “food” and the supplement companies fought for that for bigger profit margins
@sunnysideup yup, exactly. There's very little regulation on them and lot of the time violations get solved with simple word changes on their advertising rather than actual reformulations or investigations.
@SunsetSnuggles I do use a pill reminder app and organizer - I have to with all my medications. The problem is when I forget to fill it and break my routine 😅
Or, I mean, if it were me...hide the cookies where the vitamin bottles are...you know I won't forget to track down the cookies on a weekend... 🍪
@SunsetSnuggles I've heard that getting your B vitamins is challenging on a vegan diet? Sounds like you're doing well though
@SunsetSnuggles Well, giving whole blood. It’s just a small needle for whole blood. I’ve never given plasma.
@Morpheus 🙂🙂🙂
@SunsetSnuggles I ended up getting a giant monthly pill organizer, so I only have to fill once a month when I do my Rx refills. The more I can automate and less I need to remember with the ADHD + brain fog, the better lol
I take a multivitamin, fiber, omega-3s, and iron.
I weightlift often and mine consist of recovery/pre workout/protein powder/CBD products.
BCAAS, ZMA, Dymatize protein powder, psychotic gold by Insane Labz, Mobius CBD drink.
⬇️75#s
@SungSherBear I can’t do preworkout. Always feel like I’m spun out of my mind 🤣
ZMA for sleep
@Morpheus some preworkouts have steroids, some don't
@sunnysideup im sensitive to any kinda stimulant. As much as I love coffee I have to be careful with it. One and done or I can get the shakes.