I would like to confirm that I am not a supplements specialist and I personally work very closely with the team at Nutri Advanced who are the specialists and support me in ensuring my clients use the best supplements to support their goals.
What are dietary supplements?
Supplement are there to supplement your diet to ensure you are taking in the sufficient vitamins and minerals your body requires.
Nutritional supplements include vitamins, minerals, herbs, sports nutrition products, natural food supplements and other related products used to boost the nutritional content of the diet.
Supplements should not be used to replace food but to ensure you are taking what your body needs.
Dietary supplements may be found in many forms such as tablets, capsules, softgels, gelcaps, liquids, or powders. Some dietary supplements can help ensure that you get an adequate dietary intake of essential nutrients; others may help you reduce your risk of disease. (Source: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm195635.htm)
In a perfect world, no one would need supplements. But given the stress of our modern life, the poor quality of our food supply, and the high load of toxins on our brains and bodies, most of us need a basic daily supply of the raw materials for all our enzymes and biochemistry to run as designed.
I have a team at Nutri Advanced designated to supplement planning for all my clients to ensure that my clients are gearing all the vitamins and minerals they need on a daily basis but also to supplement their goals e.g. weight loss.
Benefits of supplements
Supplements can help prevent vitamin and mineral deficiencies when the diet is not adequate to provide all necessary nutrients. They can also provide amounts of nutrients larger than the diet can provide which may help to protect against future disease.
So if you eat your fruits and vegetables, expose yourself to adequate sunlight, get plenty of sleep, and stay well hydrated, your body shouldn’t really need a supplemental source of vitamins and minerals, right? Wrong.
Here are 6 reasons why you will benefit from taking dietary supplements, no matter how healthy your lifestyle may be.
- Nutrient depletion in the soil. Fertilisers in modern fertilisers actually deplete the soil of essential nutrients. Agriculture relies on the elements in the soil for absorption of proper amounts of minerals, and when this process is interrupted, the plant does not contain essential minerals and cannot form essential vitamins. So, if the plant doesn’t have it then you’re not going to get it….
- Your ability to absorb nutrients from food actually decreases as you age; this is the reality. So while growing children should absolutely be taking a multivitamin to support healthy tissue and bone formation, supplementation becomes equally important for the older population. While you could just eat more food, but this introduces a problem with caloric balance so you may then have a weight issue to deal with. Beware that many medications also interfere with proper nutrient absorption.
- Commercial harvesting, shipping processes, long term food storage, food processing, and addition of preservatives degrades the nutrient content of food. So unless you’re eating a very fresh plant, it is a far different species at consumption than it was when initially grown. In addition, compounds added to the food during many of these processes, such as MSG, saccharine, sweeteners, colourings, and flavours will increase your body’s need for nutrients to deal with these damaging synthetic derivatives – this is just reality!
- Pesticides, herbicides, and chemicals found in the modern food supply are combined with chemicals in water, environmental contamination from elements such as degraded plastic, air pollution from carbon monoxide, lead and mercury. This increases our needs for extra vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to combat formation of free radicals and the attack upon our metabolism and immune system; keeping us well.
- Exercise increases nutrient needs. If you are an athlete or frequent exerciser the vast amount of extra oxygen and energy used by active individuals will necessitate nutrient consumption that far exceeds the typical RDA of the average population. Consuming just the stated RDA can actually limit your athletic performance.
- Supplements can aid weight loss or weight gain by taking the right supplements, the right dosages and at the right time; these are only advised in line with your personalised training and nutritional plan.
Prea xx
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