Vitamins and Supplements 2018
Here’s the fourth installment to the Kayla’s Quick Reads series! These posts are for the busy millennial in mind, designed to be read from top to bottom in 5 minutes or less. This post is actually an update to the 2017 Vitamins and Supplements posts.
As I mentioned in that post, an important piece of maintaining good health is vitamins. While taking vitamins don’t necessarily help your body get anything “extra”, they are really good at filling voids. For example, if your body has the right amount of Vitamin A but is deficient in Vitamin D, when you take a multivitamin that has both your body will use the Vitamin D to fill the void and get rid of the extra Vitamin A via waste. I think almost everyone should be taking a vitamin and/or supplement because almost everyone has some kind of vitamin void. Some vitamins can be very difficult to to attain via food alone, so taking vitamins and supplements can be very helpful.
Everywhere you look, somebody is talking about a weight loss supplement or seemingly “magic pill” that will help you reach your body goals without the hard work. While I don’t support that idea, like I said I do think that supplements can be helpful, and for that reason supplement education is important. There’s a huge difference between a pill that claims to do all the heavy lifting for you and a pill that will help you make the best of the heavy lifting you’re doing. I didn't know everything last year and I still don’t know everything, but in this post I’ll be breaking down the vitamins and supplements that I like, and hopefully helping you become a little more knowledgeable about what you put into your body and what it’s actually doing.
I learned at the beginning of the year that I have some vitamin deficiencies and have since changed up my vitamins and supplements a little. So here are the vitamins and supplements I currently take.
Sports Research Vitamin D
I am deficient in Vitamin D, which is pretty common for people who live in the northeast part of America and for African Americans. So I’ve started taking Sports Research’s Vitamin D and so far so good! The product is high quality, the capsules are very small, and there are 360 capsules in the bottle, which means that I only have to purchase this about once a year!
Gaia St. John’s Wort
Although I’ve been doing a lot of life work to keep myself on the up and up, I like to take extra precautions with supplements and this particular one is great for mood and stress support/emotional health. This supplement gives me a little extra energy without the crash, and it also helps me keep my stress levels low.
Sports Research Omega 3
I am also deficient in Omega 3. Omega 3 supports heart, joint, and cognitive health. I love this supplement because the capsule is on the larger side, but it’s manageable and I get all that I need for a day in that one capsule. An additional plus is that it’s gluten free.
Of course, these vitamins and supplements work best alongside a healthy diet. I definitely try to get more of these vitamins naturally via my diet, but it’s nice to have these as a backup.
That’s it! Hopefully you found this helpful, and thanks for journeying with me.