Supplementing a Diet

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 Now one area I sure am lacking true education and knowledge in, is supplements. I understand the basic elements and recently was progressively enlightened on a major aspect of nutrition in the form of Omega fatty acids.

Some of my family are health nuts. They know the trends, pills, magical solutions, and the business. I've learned a lot from them. My sister keeping her kids health and having to adapt their diets to their health needs was eye opening. But they also have connections to people who are deep into supplements. From body building to essential oils, I'm pretty clueless.

I recently did some work for a nice lady, trying to assist her in understanding today's digital world. She had just bought an iPod and couldn't figure out how to get music onto it. I spent ~2 hours trying to teach her the process, but she was fairly lost. I do hope she's figured it out more now! Anyways, she works at Vitamin World and as payment (as she gets a great deal on the stuff there) she'll buy me some stuff rather than paying me a few bucks for my time.

Now a quick veering off the subject matter:
Recently I had been studying the effects of the Omega fatty acids. This is a very controversial subject, but some underlying aspects seem to be solid science from what I've learned. Basically, oils come down to 2 types. Saturated, and poly/mono unsaturated fats. Saturated are the "bad" fats. Unsaturated "good" fats. You can't go overboard on either, it's all a balance game but the very word "fats" doesn't necessarily imply negative health effects or weight gain or anything like that. They are a required nutrient for our body to function, create cells properly, and there's a lot of evidence keeping them in balance prevents disease.

Avoid a cocktail of supplements, though

Now, there's a lot to learn here. With time, you can look at your cooking habits and look around at what might work better. Look at the varied diets around the world, and how their health is. America, in my opinion, has done a lot to avoid doing our food like anyone else yet we have little history of how we prepare it. Looking around the world, a large majority of cultures have food practices around today that are consistent of that of their ancestors thousands of years ago. Sushi and curry being huge examples, and those are remarkably healthy countries they originate from.

Learning when to use coconut oil over vegetable oil, what soy-based (read: ALL CHEAP OIL PRODUCTS ON STORE SHELVES) means to you, when to use olive oil, and so on and so forth are all examples of things that with time you can learn to keep different aspects of your health in check. There's a lot to learn, so everything comes back to habits.

Choices and habits define who we are

Doing your research and coming up with your own diets is important though. What you can't make up for in diet, you CAN make up for in supplements, and it's something I will progressively learn and participate in. My little rant above was basically to show that there's a LOT to decide as far as food and cooking goes that takes precedent, and then after you work on that you can start compensating dietary flaws (due to monetary or perhaps geographical difficulties) and round you out. Even those with a seemingly perfect diet still need supplements to keep them in line and always advancing their physique and fitness.

What I currently take that I feel balances out my diet pretty successfully is a daily multivitamin, a protein shake in the morning (1-1.5 scoops with 8 oz milk), and an Omega-3 supplement. Vitamin World has a nice line-up of vitamins and supplements, I just got their house brand Omega-3 (with both kinds of Omega-3, can take up to (3) of the tablets per day), and their house multi-vitamin which seems to cover the important bases. Then to keep up with protein I take the protein shake and also as a meal supplement to get through the day without snacking. I also drink another after hitting the gym if I work out that night.

Currently that's all I use, but I would like to do more research and find out what else I could throw in the mix to achieve peak performance, but I'm nowhere near that. In all I have read though, don't jump into anything. Don't let some snake oil salesman wring you into spending thousands on supplements promising health and change if you wouldn't even know how it affects your body or if you're also not adapting your diet and routine at the same time. I got maybe ~$40 worth of product that I was already looking into purchasing regardless, so it was a no-brainer experiment and I seem to be feeling better. I can tell a day where I've missed my vitamins. and I've missed my vitamins, that also means I've missed my allergy pill so that day will NOT BE FUN!

There's no easy cure to health (except maybe eating nothing but fresh fish and sushi all day, every day!), but with our access to information, modern medicine, development of science and appreciation of our ancestor's we can all work to find a successful balance.

http://strive4health.net/