Why I Take a Multi-Vitamin

The health of our soil is not what it used to be. Modern farming practices have depleted soil quality over the last several decades. The result is food that is less nutrient dense. When feasible, my family seeks to buy organic or non-GMO foods to try to minimize our exposure to the toxic chemicals in weed killers, and to maximize the nutritional value of what we're eating. However, even when I'm eating a variety of mostly whole, unprocessed, organic one-ingredient foods, I believe that there is a strong likelihood that I'm not getting micro-nutrients - vitamins and minerals - at an optimal level. That is why I take a high-quality multi-vitamin and mineral supplement daily.

I also keep in mind that the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) on food and supplement labels that we use as guidelines to make sure we are getting adequate nutrition are the lowest amounts needed to maintain human health. They are not the optimal amounts and they are not maximums. They are references for healthy individuals. What if I'm not healthy? After all, I started this Bite-Sized Insights newsletter on holistic health and nutrition after experiencing my own health crisis. When I focus on the term "dietary allowance," This makes me think of wartime, or a time when resources and food were scarce. It's a minimum allowance, or ration, if you are a healthy individual.

According to the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements, "DRI [Dietary Reference Intake] is the general term for a set of reference values used to plan and assess nutrient intakes of healthy people. These values, which vary by age and sex, include:

• Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA): Average daily level of intake sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97–98%) healthy individuals; often used to plan nutritionally adequate diets for individuals."

Okay. What if we want to optimize? Or, what if we're not totally healthy? The Center for Disease Control National Center for Health Statistics website states that the "percent of adults age 20 and older with obesity is 40.3%," as of 2023. Further, 2018 statistics state that over 73% of adults are overweight, including obese. This information leads me to conclude that the majority of American adults are not metabolically healthy.

Ensuring we get the nutrients our body needs to function properly is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, or health-style. The choices we make — or don’t make — about our daily routines, behaviors, and environments can either contribute or detract from our overall health and well-being.

Why should we care about our health-style? According to Harvard Health, a healthy lifestyle can significantly reduce the risk of chronic diseases, improve physical and mental health, and increase life expectancy. So, you can see from this list of benefits that the choices you make on a daily basis significantly impact your health.

Components of a healthy lifestyle can include a balanced diet, regular physical activity, sufficient sleep, stress management, and maintaining social connections. Earlier, I mentioned that I believe that most of us are not able to get the vitamins and minerals we need for optimal health due to soil quality. So, what can we do?

We are all bio-individuals and so a healthy lifestyle is not one-size-fits-all. We must each take an individualized approach to find what works best for our needs, preferences, and circumstances. What works for me may be informative for you, but it may not be right for you. What makes this even more complicated and confusing is that what worked for me 10 years ago, may not work for me now. This is why getting in tune with your body-mind, and paying attention — really listening to how you’re feeling physically, mentally and emotionally, is key to figuring out what works for you right now.

Paying attention, along with lab testing, can take the guesswork out of designing a personalized health-style that will support your vision for your health goals. Maybe your goals are similar to mine - to feel energized, resilient, slimmer, happier, and to be biologically aging at a rate slower than my chronological age aka look and feel younger - ha ha.

There are some baseline daily practices that I do to support my goals. I practice at least 10 minutes of yoga and 10 minutes of meditation every morning. I try to get at least 5 minutes of sunlight in my eyes before I put my contacts in, and when the weather allows, I stand on the ground with my bare feet - a practice known as grounding - when I’m getting my morning dose of sunlight. I also take supplements. I’ve taken supplements since I was a small child. I remember my Mom mixing protein powder into our orange juice from time to time for a snack, and taking a liquid multi-vitamin (easier for a child to consume). For years during adulthood, I made sure to take a high quality multi-vitamin and mineral supplement. And now, I take one that is more individualized for thyroid support, due to my hypothyroidism.

Just like food quality matters to me, so does supplement quality. Supplements are not as regulated as pharmaceutical drugs, so we must rely on companies we trust and third-party testing to ensure that what is on the label is what is in the capsule/gummy/pill/chew. Now that I’m a certified health coach, I have opened my own dispensary on the Fullscript online platform. Fullscript is one of the most trusted providers of supplements because they make sure that every product on their site has been tested by an independent third-party lab for quality. Email me if you'd like a link to my Fullscript store, and I'll tell you my favorite basic multi-vitamin - the one that I took myself for years.

Another factor that I consider is ease of use. Can I take the supplement in the evening, which is my preference because I have a higher likelihood of remembering to take it after I brush my teeth at night? Or, does it need to be taken with food, or multiple times during the day? These are considerations because if its totally inconvenient, I will not follow through, and that will be a waste of my money, and make me feel bad about not being able to do it right.

I also consider whether I can tolerate a supplement or not. Will it give me a stomachache, make me feel nauseous, or worse? Generally, I have a high tolerance for supplements, but I do recall one time having to pull over to the side of the road on the way to work to throw up. Not cool. I stopped taking that supplement on an empty stomach and eventually transitioned to a multivitamin that was more gentle.

In my practice, we assess metabolic type so clients can narrow in on what combination of proteins + fats, and carbohydrates specifically work for them personally. Then, we test for food sensitivities, hormone levels, digestion, detoxification among other other potential underlying issues, to design a healthy lifestyle plan together. Ideas for diet, de-stressing, movement, and supplementation are given along with the recommendation that anyone undertaking any supplement, diet, or exercise regimen should always consult with their medical provider in advance.

I'm telling you all this, so that you know you have someone in your network that cares about this stuff [a lot!] and who can help you if you're looking for clarity.