the vitamins + supplements post.

hey guys! glad you are all digging the cell mate giveaway! you have until tomorrow to enter. get on it.

i have had a whole slew of people ask me to talk about what vitamins and supplements i take, why i take them, when i take them, how often i take them… you get the idea. so today is the day i am going to show and tell you! i want to start things out by saying i am not a trained professional in anything except for procrastination. anything i say about vitamins and supplements is not to be taken as advice or as something you should apply to your own regimen. if you choose to take any or all of the things i talk about, you should consult someone who knows what they are talking about.  unless specified, all supplements and vitamins were purchased by me, for me.

in short: i am posting the vitamins and supplements i take and why i take them purely because you guys are curious and i am not telling you that you should take any of these yourself.

great, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business!

this morning i woke up and completed the plyometric cardio circuit of the insanity DVDs.

today was day #10 and i am still going strong with my morning insanity workouts! that is not as much as i can say for my workout partner.. because i did the workout alone this morning. he said he doesn’t have enough energy in the mornings to properly complete the intense workouts. well.. i am the laziest person on the planet and i have managed to complete the workouts with more and more energy as the mornings go on.. so i know it is POSSIBLE. you just have to want it bad enough. i want fat loss. bad. if you work out in the mornings, it jump starts your metabolism for optimal, all-day fat burnage. marshall is looking for muscle gain and cardiovascular endurance. SO, with that in mind, i can understand why he prefers to do the workouts in the afternoon, when he has more energy, and can do the workouts properly. it sucks that i don’t have him there to motivate me, but at least he is still doing the workouts and he is doing them to his own advantage. as far as i am concerned we are still in this together! oh, and i did update my insanity challenge page, it’s insane.

i had a banana protein muffin pre-workout because i felt like i needed something in there to power me through the insanity. i promise the recipe is coming to you soon, i just want to perfect it before releasing it!! they are delicious though, promise.

breakfast came about an hour after my workout—i got ready for work and made coffee and made breakfast, that took an hour.

protein oats + peanut butter.

this bowl had 1/3 cup oats, 1 serving of EAS premium vanilla protein powder and a bunch of cinnamon then i topped it with 2 tsp ground flax and a little over a tablespoon of cinnamon raisin peanut butter.

i don’t always add flax to my oatmeal, but i remembered to today and really should try to more often.. it is packed with fiber and omega 3s, plus it tastes good!

this morning i took my regular vitamins and supplements—i take the same ones with breakfast each day.

women’s multivitamin, super B vitamin and fish oil.

women’s one a day multivitamin

i take a multivitamin every morning because i have always been told i should. i have taken this same mutli for years. it is called “women’s active metabolism” and i take it because i subconsciously think it helps boost my metabolism. maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t, but i will continue to take this every day.

super B-complex

i take this nature made supplement each morning and have been for almost 9 months now. i wanted to take vitamin B and wanted to get it all done in one swoop. this pill contains all the essential B vitamins: thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B-6, folic acid, biotin and pantothenic acid.  i bought nature made because i think it is a solid company. and it’s at costco. i’m frugal! vitamin B helps convert food into energy. i know my multivitamin contains vitamin B, but i kind of feel like a little more won’t hurt. again, i am no expert. remember that.

omega-3 fish oil

i have taken fish oil for years! another one just because i have been told and have read everywhere that i should be taking this. i don’t eat a lot of fish (trying to eat more!) so i feel like i need a fish oil supplement. this is also a reason i try to put flax in recipes and on oatmeal and whatnot. i need omega-3 in my life! your body doesn’t make omega 3’s.. you have to get them through food or supplements. did you know that? fish oil is great for your brain.. i need all the help i can get. i bought this brand because it was on sale. it says to take 3 a day. i take one in the morning and two after lunch. just watch out for the fish burps!

glutamine (2 capsules morning, 2 afternoon) and thermoCLA (2 capsules morning, 2 afternoon)

glutamine

dosage says to take 4 a day, so i take 2 with breakfast and 2 with lunch. i used to only take one dose after my workout (over a year ago) and then i ran out and never bought it again. i finally did and now i am taking it again.. in the morning after my workout and breakfast and again in the afternoon after lunch because i feel weird about taking 4 pills at once. clearly i have it down to a science. anyway, i take glutamine because studies that show glutamine will in fact increase fat burning when taken after meals. you probably have seen a lot of people taking glutamine supplements or adding it to their post-workout shake. well, it hasn’t done me wrong, so it must be doing something right. oh and i bought this brand again because it was on sale.

thermoCLA

CLA is something i started taking when i started body for life in august of 2008. i have been taking it almost religiously since then, except for the times i ran out and was too lazy to get to GNC to buy more. i used to take the regular CLA but switched to the thermoCLA about a year ago. i switched because i like thermogenics. thermogenics speed up your metabolism and boost energy (or so they say) but they do make some people woozy, so make sure you consult a professional before using one. anyway, CLA is short for “conjugated linoleic acid” and it reduces fat—namely abdominal fat. i know this works for me because of experience and i swear by the stuff. of course, it has it’s pros and cons. you can read about them here. i saw on wikipedia that the food that has the highest concentration of CLA is kangaroo meat… well, i am not going to be eating any kangaroos any time soon (or ever) so i will stick to the pills. i take two in the morning with breakfast and two after lunch.

speaking of lunch…

3/4 cup cottage cheese + ranch seasoning & PB+banana+jam sandwich.

i totally botched my meal plan again. like i said, i made that as a loose guide to follow if i felt like it. anyway, i wanted to go down the sweet AND savory path for lunch. cottage cheese is strictly savory for me! i mixed it with some ranch seasoning for a little extra oomph.

the sandwich was two slices of oat bran bread from sunflower market, 2 TB cinnamon raisin peanut butter, a skiff of strawberry jam and half of a banana.

here’s my secret: i microwaved it in the plastic bag i packed it in for 30 seconds before eating. this made it warm, melty and gooey. SO good.

yum.

after lunch it was time for my after lunch supplements.

again, two thermoCLA capsules, two glutamine capsules, two fish oil capsules and one new guy: a probiotic.

i have been curious about probiotics for over a year now. i have always wanted to take one because i read everywhere how great they are..plus i don’t eat enough yogurt. anyway, i have never taken one.. simply because i never knew which one to take! when renew life contacted me and offered to send me* a bottle of their ultimate flora critical care probiotic, i agreed.

i started doing some more exploring and learned more about the benefits your digestive health can reap by taking a probiotic each day. there are one hundred TRILLION bacteria cells in your gut. there are three types of bacteria: beneficial, neutral and bad. taking a probiotic ups your beneficial bacteria and creates a strong GPS (gut protection system!) which is the main driver to a healthy immune system. 80% of your immune system is found in the gut! why wouldn’t you want to keep it healthy? the more beneficial or “friendly” bacteria in your gut, the harder your immune system will fight a bad virus off. (you can see this youtube clip or this one if you want to hear more and see some cool diagrams.. that is where i pulled that whole paragraph of info from.)

this specific probiotic has literally billions of cultures to work in your digestive system’s favor:

renew life was developed in 1997 by doctor brenda watson. she has devoted her time to developing helpful information available to the public regarding the benefit of probiotics. her latest project is a PBS special called “the road to perfect health — balance your gut, heal your body” and you can check here to see when it will be broadcasted on your TV.

anyway, that is my schpill on probiotics. again, i am no expert, but my gut DOES feel better ever since taking it. also, i want to point out that marshall has crohn’s disease and since he has been taking probiotics daily, he has been able to tame the crohn’s beast quite a bit.. if you catch my drift.

anyway.. back to my day. around 2:30 i get a sweet tooth and eat my adora calcium disc:

to be completely honest, i take this calcium because it’s chocolate. a chocolate way to get more calcium? why the hell not?! i take one a day but on the days i am reallllly craving chocolate, i have two.

if i am lacking in fiber for the day, i will have one or two fiber choice discs..

but i noticed that when i ate a couple on a day where i had ENOUGH fiber, i got really bloated and my stomach hurt for HOURS.. so i have limited my fiber supplement intake to only the times i REALLY need it. this is hard to do because they taste like candy! i got plenty of fiber today, so i didn’t have any fiber choice.

and that’s that! those are the vitamins and supplements i take in the course of a day. i do have other vitamins and supplements in my cupboard that i don’t currently take.. they are:

• cranberry pills: i take these only when i don’t get enough water because i get chronic UTI’s.
• lysine: i take this only when i feel a cold sore coming on.
• CoQ10 enzyme: i won this in a giveaway and haven’t started taking it yet.. i have no idea why not, it is supposed to be really good for you!
• Xpel: this is a pill that helps eliminate water weight and i only take it before a photo shoot or before a bikini-filled vacation.
• muscle armor: this is a powder that i drink after lifting weights. i used it for my whole BFL challenge and think it’s a great supplement!
• vitamin D: i heard that you can get too much vitamin D. no idea if that’s true, but that is why i have shied away from taking extra vitamin D.

now you know WAY more than you need to about my vitamin and supplement consumption! hope it answered your questions if you had any.

i won’t bore you with the details of the rest of today’s meals & moves because this post is already suuuper long.. but i did have an apple larabar, then went to bikram yoga, then came home and had salmon with capers, pasta, roasted cherry tomatoes and white asparagus for dinner. ’twas delicious.

Q~

what vitamins and/or supplements do you take, if any?

xo. janetha g.

*please see my FTC disclosure regarding this free product i received for review.