We live in a pharmaceutical world full of
pills, potions and powders all promising to have us firing off all cylinders
and ready to tackle what ever this stressful world has to throw at us. Millions
of people now have breakfast with a side order of pills. But before you turn
yourself into a human rattle, do you actually know if what you are taking is
beneficial to your heath or if, in fact, you are wasting your money, or worse
still, harming your body?
21st century malnutrition is the
result of modern day food processing. The food we eat today has 50% less
nutritional value than it did 50 years ago. Our soils are so intensively farmed
that they have been leached of valuable nutrients. Add to this the fact that we
can get any variety of fruit and vegetable all year round shipped in from Timbuktu
Supplementation is a great way to ensure
you are getting the required nutrients into your body to keep you functioning optimally.
But it’s not as simple as walking into your local shop and picking up a bottle
of X, Y or Z from the shelf because some magazine said you should.
Supplementation, as with all nutrition, is completely individual. What one
person may need, you may not, and by following what they do you could end up
damaging your health rather than benefitting it. The phrase ‘too much of a good
thing’ can definitely be used when talking supplementation.
During different life stages – childhood,
teens, pregnancy, menopause, old age- you require different things. From
different lifestyle factors –activity level, stress, diet, environment,
disease-status- you have different needs. There is so much to consider when
looking at supplementation that I will always recommend consulting a
professional for advice before self-diagnosing. Supplementing your diet is an
extremely beneficial thing to do, but only if you do it correctly. For more
information and to find out how you should be supplementing your own diet,
please don’t hesitate to get in contact with me.
Supplementation is also more complicated
than individual need…you need to consider the supplement itself and how and
when you are taking it.
Determining the good from the bad…
When you walk into any chemist, pharmacist
or local health food shop you are faced with row upon row of supplement options
to choose from. By process of elimination you may just grab the cheapest one as
they’re all the same right? WRONG! Unfortunately, this is one thing you really
shouldn’t skimp on. The quality of the supplement is very important to ensure
it is easily available for use, your body doesn’t need to use its own resources
to break it down and you’re not just going to be paying for very nutritional
urine!
Source food based supplements.
Vitamins and minerals in this form are recognisable to the body on a molecular
level. Many cheap supplement products are synthetic (man-made) and your body
cannot recognise their structure which dramatically reduces their
bioavailability. Supplementing this way will be more expensive, but doing it
the cheaper way is effectively pointless. And besides…you really can’t put a
price on your health!
When to take your supplements
The most important thing to remember here
is never take your supplements on an empty stomach. Your body will not
absorb the supplement and all the goodness will be lost in your urine. Also
consider that nutrients work in synergy and this needs to be addressed when you
take your supplements. For example, iron is absorbed better in the presence of
vitamin C so should be taken with a vitamin C rich meal.
In many cases people will require some form
of supplementation protocol that they will follow daily. But not everyday is
the same and you may need to include additional supplements in response to
changes such as illness, intensity of training, the time of year, monthly
cycle, stress and sleep patterns etc. Working with a professional can help you
to determine a good supplementation procedure to work with you, your body and
its ever changing needs.
And finally…I couldn’t write about
supplementation without the cliché…Supplementation will not and should not
make up for bad diet and lifestyle choices. If you don’t look after
yourself in the first place, popping a few pills each day isn’t going to help
you. As I mentioned above, nutrients work in synergy and supplements won’t work
on a nutritionally depleted body.
Supplement to support your diet and
lifestyle not to make up for it.
:)
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