Hey POPsters!!!
So I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding multivitamins, dietary supplements, and whether I take them or whether or not you should take them.
As you know, my philosophy on diet is this: the nutrients you need to sustain a healthy lifestyle and well-nourished, balanced diet should come from whole, natural foods. It is obviously the best to eat less processed things – local, organic, and fresh is the finest you can do for your body.
However, the reason why the health food business is booming right now is because a lot of people just don’t have the time to grow and cook their own food. In fact, MOST people will end up being deficient in certain vitamins and minerals because the average American does not eat clean. At all. Think hamburgers, fries, ice cream, pasta, cookies, soda, muffins, etc…on the daily! Eek. So multivitamins are not a bad idea. Just don’t think it cancels out bad food by any means. It is a SUPPLEMENT not a SUBSTITUTION.
I think you POPsters are quite superior in your knowledge of health and fitness (the fact that you’re following this blog indicates that), so I don’t need to preach clean eating – however, I do want you to be aware of the value that these vitamins provide.
- Vitamin A: You need it for healthy bones, vision and cell function. It makes white blood cells that helps your body ward off infections and promotes nice hair and skin.
- Source: Organ meats, milk, fortified cereals, cheese, eggs, carrots, spinach and sweet potatoes.
- B Vitamins: You need it to convert food to energy, make healthy red blood cell, reduce the heart disease risk, reduce or even eliminate PMS symptoms, reduce or eliminate anemia, minimize or even eliminate depression, and to prevent birth defects.
- Source: Whole grains, fortified cereals, milk, yogurt, meat, fish, poultry, fruits, nuts, peanut butter, eggs and green vegetables.
- Vitamin C: You need it to protect against immune system deficiencies, cardiovascular disease, prenatal health problems, eye disease, and even wrinkly skin!
- Source: Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, broccoli, oranges and cantaloupe.
- Vitamin D: You need it to absorb calcium and phosphorus!
- Source: You can get some from the foods you eat but most is made by your body after sun exposure.
- Vitamin E: You need it to neutralize free radicals in the body that cause tissue and cellular damage. Meaning…you want to have this to stay young-looking!
- Source: Nuts, seeds, vegetable oils and fortified cereals
- Vitamin K: You need this for blood clotting. Without it, a small cut would cause continuous bleeding in the body.
- Source: Green veggies like broccoli, spinach, asparagus, brussel sprouts and cabbage.
- Calcium: If you don’t enough, you could develop osteoporosis or weak bones.
- Source: Cheese, yogurt, milk, sardines, dark leafy greens like spinach, kale, turnips, and collard greens, soybeans.
- Fish Oil: Omega-3 fatty acids help to prevent cardiovascular disease.
- Source: Fatty fish like salmon, flax seeds.
If you’re interested in knowing exactly how much you need, you can check out the USDA’s chart broken down by age group and gender right here.
Are you getting all of these vitamins in your diet right now? If you’re eating whole and clean, you should be! But if not, it’s ok to take a multivitamin to make sure. When I was on my bikini diet for my bikini comp, my coach actually advised me to take vitamins because I was missing out on a lot of food groups. I barely had any carbs and fats. Like I said during my recap of the whole thing, dieting down for that competition was not exactly the HEALTHIEST and most SUSTAINABLE way to lose weight. It was fast and it worked, but I definitely felt a slowing-down in my cognitive processes sometimes…lol. NOT GOOD! You need carbs for energy and to make those neurons fire!
I actually took gummy vitamins because I COULDN’T STAND swallowing pills. It’s like the worst thing ever. Also, the gummies were like candy so it was a nice treat to have that was good for me. Make sure that when you choose a gummy vitamin choose something that uses organic sweeteners and NOT high fructose corn syrup.
One brand I am honestly obsessing over right now is SmartyPants. Their gummies taste like sour punch candy straws! OMG that was and still is my fave candy! Ooh, that and watermelon belts. OMG dying, LOVE!!!!
This is what the nutrition label looks like:
I think 6 gummies for 50 calories and 11g of carbs and 8g of sugar daily is not bad at all. When I take these, I do it right before a run or workout to boost my energy. If I use those carbs right away, they won’t store as fat. So it’s nothing to really worry about. My favorite is the red one :)
I asked SmartyPants if they’d be willing to treat you POPsters to some of the goods and was soooooo happy to hear that they said yes!!! Ahh can’t wait to share these with you guys. They are honestly TOOO GOOD. I can easily overdose on them :P
We are giving away FIVE 1-month supply bottles of the adult vitamin gummies to FIVE lucky POPsters who can tell me in the comments below…
“WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CANDY!!???”
I’ll be picking randomly picking winners on Monday July 2nd, 2012! This is an international contest, so go bozonkers people!!! And if you simply cannot wait, the peeps made a generous coupon code for us to use. “BLOGILATES20″ for a 20% discount. Woot woot. Love saving $. You can get em here.
GOOOOOOO!!!!!
Resources:
- http://www.livestrong.com/article/273341-the-recommended-daily-intake-of-vitamins-for-adults/#ixzz1z77jhBOI
- http://nutrition.about.com/od/vitaminssupplements/f/whyvitamins.htm
- http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/multivitamins.aspx
starbursts and saltwater taffy!
I don’t think I could ever just pick one favorite candy. Hot Tamales, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey Kisses….oh my I love them all!
My favorite candy would deff have to be airheads!
can’t get enough! :P
Right now I’m loving pretzel M&M’s, but my all time fav is Twix. Caramel, cookie, chocolate: what more do you need?!
Anytime I see a bar of snickers at the checkout line I always grab one….maybe two :) can not resist!
I never had a “favorite candy”, per se…. But I enjoy the old “Mary Jane’s” and sometimes a bag of Sour Skittles, as well as old fashioned Saltwater Taffy. I must be an anomaly…
Sour Patch Sour Watermelon… ahhhhhh! sooooo good!
I’m a chocoholic and I would say Dove’s chocolate is my fave. =)
My favorite candy would be any gummi candy, gummi worms or bears or anything else.
Hmm… probably favorite candy is Mike&Ike’s. :)
Hmmm… I’m sort of a chocoholic, especially when combined with nuts. My absolute favorites are Ferrero Rocher and Richter Sport Hazelnut Chocolate (love this… especially since there are whole hazelnuts in it!).
Also, I love this post! I actually just sort of preached to my sister’s boyfriend on the benefits of clean eating… or eating veggies at all… after he had downed two big macs, three tacos, two panera pastries and a large dr. pepper. In one sitting. My sister is trying to sneak veggies into his food, but he won’t have any of it… so, I asked him what veggies he likes, because he could try to eat more of what he likes, but apparently he only likes lettuce. I was trying to convince him, since my sister has been trying to eat healthier (I got her addicted to your videos this week!), but it’s difficult, she said since she’s with him a lot of the time. Maybe my sister should convince him to eat a multi-vitamin… at the very least.
My fave is M&Ms, any variety…I’m an equal-opportunity M&M employer:)
I received dark chocolate covered acai berries as a gift and totally loved them. I also really like sour gummies:).
Melted Gummy Worms !!!! ;)
M&Ms! I love color sorting them and eating them in rainbow order haha
Reese’s peanut butter cups!!!!
Red hots! Forever and always. Too bad (or probably good for me) that they’re getting really hard to find.
Pixie Sticks!
I LOVE Haribo Alphabet Letters. I used to eat a package a day which equaled like 1,000 calories! I also like Skittles.
For chocolate I am a KitKat, Reeces, Kinder Hippo girl. I have been eating dark chocolate lately, since it’s better than that yummy delicious junk…..
Skittles …. Taste so good everytime
I absolutely love fizzy cola bottles ! Love the sour fizzy feeling on ya tongue, yummy !!!
I DON’T EAT CANDY OFTEN MABY ONCE A YEAR IF NOT LONGER BUT I DO LIKE THE M&MS with pretzel
waith ferrero rocher too mmmm….
My all time favorite candy are sour belts! Yummm :]
Any Mexican spicy candy. :/ but I’ve given it all up so roasted edemame yum!
Tropical Skittles! So yummy!
My favorite is Almond Roca! Mmm.
LOVE raisinnettes! Especially the dark chocolate ones :) Hope I get to try out those gummy vitamins. Its really nice that they have fish oil in them too.
I love this typical Dutch candy called ‘cinnamon pillows’ ^^
Or peanut butter cups.. omnomnom!
My favorite candy is peanut m&ms!!
Ahh, don’t yell at me Cassey, but I’m a huge candy junkie so it’s hard to choice just one! :P But I would have to say peppermints..and even better peppermint patties. *drools*
:)
Minstrels! Love chocolate too much :)
Definitely Swedish fish!! :)
I absolutely love peanut m&m’s..yum!!!
my faves are gummy squares… they are sugar free from an European chain called Bee Sweet, they are AMAZING! and you wouldn’t be able to tell they are sugar free if they didn’t tell you. I have a diabetic dad so I am always on the hunt for good sugar free sweets…
kitkats for sure– the crunch, the chocolate, the wafers…it’s perfect!
I love Swedish fish and peach rings!
I could eat snickers and almond joys all day, they are delicious.
I can’t get enough peach rings, so yummy!!
So exciting!
Even though I’m a choco-holic I have to say that my favourite candy is dried pineapple… the dyed kind, not the natural kind – possibly worse for you than confections!
I love sour gummi worms!
Hot tamales!!! ;)
Swedish fish! Haha.
I would kill for Kinder Bueno! Haven’t had them in a while, they are too good. I can’t eat just one, so I don’t buy them. ;)
KINDER BUENO IS BIG IN MY COUNTRY I’M ITALIAN THE HAVE KINDER BUENO WITH COCONUT TOO MMM
Wild Berry Skittles!! The purple pack!!! and Peach Sour Patch Kids!!! <—-can rarely find these anymore! =(. .(=
I love mounds bars.
I love the Smartie lolipops! My fav!
I love the sour patch kids a little bit of sour and then some sweet!!
Peanut butter M&Ms–but only at the movie theater! And not just peanut M&Ms. It’s the creamy center that makes it so melty and good.
Twix!
Lindt Lindor Truffles are my weakness.