My Vitamins and Supplements Story

Back when I was a young girl, I remember vacationing in my cousin’s house and every morning, they would give us vitamins to take after breakfast. I think that was my introduction to the whole taking of vitamins and supplements lifestyle. As I grew older, I started reading more about the vitamins and supplements that people could take to make themselves healthier. Honestly, there are way too many that I became overwhelmed with the idea. I would take a multivitamin then try a supplement or two that I saw ads for to see if they worked. If they didn’t I’d stop taking them and move on to the next. It was a bad idea. At one point I had a health scare that was caused by the supplements (and diet teas) I was taking to lose weight which caused issues with my digestive system. The resulting issues from it are something that I have to deal with today.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Later, I had a doctor who advised me to stop taking all these supplements and just limited me to vitamin C, calcium, and fish oil along with my maintenance meds (which I take due to other pre-existing medical conditions that I've had since childhood). He told me that we can get most vitamins and minerals from the food we eat as long as we have the right kind of diet and that any excess vitamins we take in are disposed of by the body anyway so taking too many supplements wouldn’t be much help and a waste of money.

One thing that I also heard from a friend was that taking too much medicine is also not good for the body, particularly for your kidneys. Considering that I have maintenance medicines that I already take daily, taking other vitamins and supplements is something that I am very cautious about these days. So unless you are taking supplements under the supervision of a doctor, I think it is best not to experiment with these things, especially these days when you can buy so many supplements online that claim to do various things to make you healthier. 

The way I see it, if the listed ingredients of these supplements are vitamins, minerals, or whatever they are that are available in real food, it would be best to just go after the food that has those featured ingredients (vitamins or minerals). I think that would be the healthier and safer option. 

In an episode of the Fandesals Podcast, my friend Judith shares some of the vitamins and supplements that she takes (with the supervision of her doctor). I am sharing this episode at the end of this post. One thing that I realized from the episode is that there is no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to the vitamins and supplements that people need in their day-to-day lives. The ones that she takes as shared in the episode are based on her medical conditions and are based on what her body needs. This is something that people need to take note of especially if we just keep following celebrities and influencers on what we need to take. 

On the opposite end of this mindset of taking too many vitamins and minerals is a concern that Judith shared in the episode: some people think that taking vitamins can make you fat so they avoid it. I can’t give a scientific explanation for this, but I have to admit that this is true for some people. Once they take vitamins, they tend to gain weight. But, as I mentioned earlier, this is an issue that can be resolved if taking the vitamins is done under the supervision of a doctor who can explain the cause of this and help the person lose weight if necessary.

Vitamins and supplements are not bad as long as they are taken under the supervision of a doctor and are certified medically. There are so many products out there these days and we cannot be sure which ones are real or not. We need to do our research and learn more about the vitamins and supplements that are out there before we try any of them. For me, if we can go on a more natural path to being healthier, that would be the better way.

For more on this, here is the Fandesals episode I mentioned, hope you can watch it!