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Arete Warriors – spirit, mind, body strong
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These are the supplements I take
Dear Reader,
I sold nutritional supplements for years so I am admittedly a fan. When AdvoCare changed their pay plan (& took away my 6 figure income) I considered that my invitation to try other brands. 😁
I still love & take AdvoCare’s Spark & OmegaPlex & if you order from my site I still get a tiny kick back.
I’ve gotten discount codes for the companies I could (provided in the link). You can also just order most of them on Amazon too.
Let me start by saying, I am not a nutritionist or registered dietitian. If you’re looking for such an expert, may I recommend my good friend Kelly Harrington, RD. She is fabulous.
So I’m not recommending anything. 😉 I’m just telling you what I take.
Let’s Prepare – the warm up
Right now, creatine is all the rage. I first took creatine when I was a thrower in college. Back then, only football players were using it. I did gain a few pounds initially but I noticed that my 30th throw at practice was as peppy as my first.
Since then, we have learned that creatine benefits not only muscle (a huge deal for women over 40), but also our brains (maybe a bigger deal for some of us). 😜
The generally accepted dose is 3-5g/day. It does not do much if you take it here & there. You need to take it daily to receive the benefits. We cycle it here. (Every so often we will not take it for a week or two.)
We use Naked but I think as long as it’s creatine monohydrate you’re good.
Most post workout drinks have creatine in them already.
I have tried a LOT of pre/post workout drinks. You don’t need to be taking this but I don’t like coffee & Spark was the only thing that ever lit me up enough to WANT to workout.
Pre-workouts often have beta-alanine, B vitamins & other ingredients besides just caffeine.
Legion is my favorite pre-workout & the rest of my family loves their caramel & vanilla protein shakes. Ali & I also drink their post workout (which has the creatine already in it) & they also have a yummy gummy form.
I have the MTHFR gene so I do not want folic acid. This limits which products I can take but to be honest, 30-40% of caucasians are likely carriers of at least one copy of this gene so you might consider just avoiding folic acid (synthetic) as well.
You want folate, naturally occurring in food & also written as 5-Methyltetrahydrofolate, L-5-methylfolate, & folinic acid on supplements.
*Since most of you won’t know if you (or your kids) have the MTHFR gene or not, I challenge you to just stick to folate for one week & see what happens. That means avoiding “enriched” foods (breads, cereals, pastas…) & making sure your vitamins don’t contain folic acid.
The cleanest pre/post workout drink I tried is a brand called Promix. Sadly, I felt nothing from it but I do now take their Debloat: Prebiotic + Probiotic drink daily.
I suffered for 7 years from continued illness that no doctor could figure out. It was a naturopath who eventually diagnosed me with leaky gut. Once we healed my insides, I could eat whatever I wanted & rarely EVER get sick anymore.
Our immune system is only part of the benefits of having a healthy microbiome. Your brain, muscles & heart are all heavily influenced by how healthy (or not) your gut is.
I’m taking Seed probiotics right now but it is an expensive choice. I know there are plenty of other options (including what you eat) but I have a deep passion (for obvious reasons) about this area of nutrition so I choose to go with the highest quality I can find.
I also sometimes drink Gut Restore from a company called Body Health. I also take their Perfect Aminos & they have some amazing sleep aids I love. Body Calm is a magnesium drink (also has their perfect aminos blend) & I swear, I sleep like a baby when I drink it.
I can’t remember the last time I was sick honestly & although I attribute most of that to the cold plunge, I also have to think adding colostrum has helped.
It’s supposed to help with the intestinal lining & since I have a history there, I added it in about a year ago just for added insurance. I take Armra but again, it is expensive so I split between that & Wondercow.
I also put a pill form in the kids’ vitamins last fall in an effort to prevent the usual fall sicknesses. Izak has not missed one day of school despite a crazy schedule & he is usually prone to respiratory illness so this was huge. Nadia also never complains of stomach issues anymore despite a consistent history of them. I can’t say this is why, but I’m a fan.
I like to take breaks (cycle) so they are not on the colostrum now. I will see if their health changes.
I take AG1 daily for my general vitamins. It is a green drink & I take the drops of D3/K2 as well. (Super important – especially in winter months.)
For years I had some suspect lab results related to my heart, so my functional medicine doctor had me on all kinds of things to help. None of it seemed to be working so he finally sent me in for some testing.
Turns out, I have an enlarged heart.
😁 You knew it, didn’t you. 😜
Not sure if that has anything to do with the numbers though because we started eating out a lot less & my numbers have been much better since then.
The last thing I’ll mention is collagen. There are many different types, each supporting specific growth for hair, skin, nails, ligaments, cartilage, bone, etc.
Collagen reads as protein on the label, but I encourage you to not count the grams for your daily protein needs, mostly because collagen doesn’t feed your muscle like complete protein does.
Protein might just be THE most important “supplement” we could add by the way so if you are not prioritizing protein (I’m a big fan of the animal kind) please do so!
Let’s Work – the exercise
As I said, I’m not recommending any of this to you. I am a fan of a good overall multi-vitamin (without folic acid), Omegas & probiotics.
But here’s my real message, if what you’re doing isn’t working, if you don’t feel GOOD, do something different!
Perhaps you’re deficient in D or B? Magnesium could help you poop & sleep – 2 very important things to reaching your full potential!
