Vitamins and You
First and Foremost I want to thank you for coming out today
to join me in exploring the benefits of vitamins and minerals. Secondly, I want to emphasize that I am NOT a
doctor…simply a mom, wife, and woman who has embarked on an exploratory journey
into more holistic living. If you have
been following my blog at all, you will know this journey has been a little
hard for me to admit to and that I am highly skeptical. However, I have opened myself up to trying
some things out in order to see if they would improve the health of myself and
my family. I will say, that my
trying of these products took a bit of
arm twisting for me ;) and when I was approached by a dear friend again about
trying them to see if they would help me, my response was something like…”well,
I don’t think they really work for me, but if I was going to try something else
I will try the vitamins and digestive aides and go from there.” I was very prepared to call her in a week or
so and tell her that none of it had worked.
I was not fixable. J
A little about myself:
Food has always been a large part of my life. I have struggled with eating disorders, found
healing, got stubborn, went back to hold habits….anyway, you get the
picture. So, eating healthy and doing
the best for my body has been a life long journey. Several years ago, I had my gall bladder taken
out and about 18 months ago or so I was diagnosed with MENS 1 which is a
genetic disorder of the endocrine system that often can reak havoc on your
digestive system. Basically, since then,
I have always been searching for the answer to help with some of the symptoms I
struggle with. I have taken supplements
throughout my life, but never have really stuck to one thing or another, even
though some of them, I found helpful.
Basically, I had just given up on finding much relief.
Several weeks ago, due to the prompting of a friend who
wanted me to try ONE MORE THING to see if it would help, I began digging a bit
deeper into the aspect of using supplemental vitamins. This is nothing new to me and because of my
health issues I have been on a search for a long time for something that would
help my digestive issues. I would find
things here and there that would help, but nothing I ever stuck with. I have tried everything from eating clean,
including gluten free, to supplements, to giving up! About four weeks ago, I started again and
have had some positive results both with supplements and oils. Keeping in mind, there are some things I have
tried that haven’t worked while other things have. My health issues, which take on the form of
upset stomach, body aches, diarrhea, constipation, hemorrhoids have seemed to
been improved since starting on vitamins.
Since beginning taking supplements, my potty issues have evened out and
though, I still need to watch what I eat (lets face it, my body REALLY doesn’t
like sugar, refined flour, corn, potatoes) the supplements have offered relief.
I have also found healing in other
health related areas (these were not areas I was looking to fix by taking the
vitamins as I didn’t realize I could find a solution for the issues. It was more of a happy side affect. I would be happy to share more about that
privately after the class if you are interested in knowing more.) I
still take a vitamin d, because I only take a half dose of my vitamins (it’s an
experiment and my husband is on them too, we wanted to save some money) and a
half dose doesn’t offer enough vitamin D for me because of my
hyperparathyroidism, but I have not had to take added calcium or magnesium for
the leg cramps as the new supplements have been enough to deal with those
issues. Soooo, because I’m a skeptic, I
had to ask why, but; because I am a skeptic ;), I wanted third party
information. This is the way my mind worked as I received information from
specific companies: “Their doctor says
it is the best, but of course he does.
What else is he going to say about a product he wants to sell?” So, I
began looking up some information and this is what I have found:
In short, vitamins and minerals help our bodies work
properly. There are two kinds of
vitamins. Fat soluble (A, D, E, K) which
are dissolved in the fat and stored in our bodies and water soluble (C and B
complex vitamins) which are dissolved in water before being absorbed. Water soluble do not store in our bodies as
well and need to be replenished. Vitamins
and minerals boost the immune system, support growth, and helps cells and
organs do their jobs. For example,
vitamin k helps blood to clot and carotenoids, found in carrots, are converted
to vitamin A which helps prevent eye problems.
Vitamins and minerals are best obtained through the food we
eat. However, these foods need to be
high quality foods. In other words, you
can get vitamins and minerals in processed foods, but they will not affect your
body in the same way you would get them from eating whole foods. The quality of food is important. And in my experience, the more whole a food
is the better. An example of obtaining
vitamins through food would be vitamin c.
In order to receive vitamin c through food is low fat yogurt, low fat
cheese, sardines, salmon, perch, soybeans, spinach, and oatmeal….to name a
few. Getting everything you need through
food takes careful meal planning. As I
looked at some of the meal plans suggested in order to get the proper vitamins,
I had to ask myself, realistically, do I eat like this? Is this a sustainable plan for me? Honestly, for me, though I do what I can to
eat healthy and for my family to eat healthy, the truth is we are busy, life
gets crazy, food becomes fast, family meals become less, and meals become more
processed. One of the concerns I have
found as I researched, was that too much of a good thing, including vitamins,
can be also detrimental to ones health.
However, as I look at my current lifestyle, I am beginning to doubt that
I or my family get too many vitamins at this point. But, I will say, I think it is something to
be watchful of just like you would be in eating too many cookies…..I think it
would be safe to say that too much of anything is harmful to us.
As I have done a bit more research, I have found that
minerals and vitamins do help our bodies heal because they support our cells
and cell function. The stronger our
cells are, the better they can function and therefore help our bodies
heal. They can do their jobs much
better.
In light of my inability to eat completely clean all the
time, I am finding that supplements are helpful for me. THOUGH SUPPLEMENTS ARE NOT a substitute for a
healthy diet, but they can help fill in the gaps we have. I listened briefly to a woman named Melissa
Guthrie who has studied nutrition for 20 years and is a triathlete. I think what she said kind of sums it
up…..Our bodies can heal themselves because of our lifestyles and choices. Not saying that doctors are not
beneficial! They are! I need my endocrinologist. But His plan of attack for me though in dealing
with MENS 1, hemmroids, diarrhea, upset stomach, and hyperparathyroidism? Eat clean, take Vitamin D supplements (this
fall I had added Magnesium and Calcium to help with painful leg cramps I was
getting) Sounds familiar and quite holistic.
Be healthy and take what you need to fill in the gaps. What I have been finding over the last
several weeks, is the taking a supplement has been helpful to some of my
issues. My husband has also noticed a difference
in his energy levels.
Out of curiosity, I also looked up links between depression and proper vitamin
and mineral levels in our bodies. I have
heard testimonies of others who have gone off of anti depressants as they began
using supplements (though I would treat this as an experiment as going off of
anti depressants, from my experience, can be hard business. I suffered greatly for about a week when I
went off cold turkey in my 20’s. This
was a spiritual choice. That might be a
different class) But, I did find there
is a connection low levels of b-12 and other b vitamins as well as vitamin
d. A study was done on women with low
vitamin d levels we were severally depressed.
For 12 weeks, they were given vitamin d orally which brought their vitamin
d levels up to normal. The women
reported that they felt better and were markedly less depressed.
Another study I recently read about the use of essential
oils involved a study by the USDA on chickens.
96% of the antibiotics used in the US are consumed by livestock and 70%
of them are considered medically important for human beings. A resistance to these antibiotics are
beginning to emerge and according to the CDC, 2 million illnesses in 2013 were
due to antibiotic resistance along with an estimated 23,000 deaths. This amounted to an extra $20 billion spent
on healthcare. The study I mentioned
already, was to help find an alternative to the amount of antibiotics that are
being given to chickens. The study that
was conducted was published in Poultry Science and their findings showed that
chickens who consumed feed with added oregano oil had 59% lower mortality rate
due to ascites, a common infection in chickens, compared to their counterparts
who do not receive the oregano oil.
All of these studies I found to be very informative and
pointed me into the direction that this oil “obsession” and alternative to
health care might actually have something to offer me.
My next question has been…..why one company over
another? How do I know I am getting the best
of the best? And you know, the best
answer for this that I have come up with is my own personal experience which I
have shared with you a bit already. I
have tried several different supplements and companies and so far, the product
I am currently on has been the most successful for me. I have vacillated so much, especially in the
use of oils, because if you google oils you come up with articles for it and
articles against it. You find success
stories and you find horror stories and each company says it has the best and
most pure of the essential oils. It left
me at a place of not knowing what I should believe and, quite frankly, even more skeptical. The best research I have done on this has
come from the experiments I have done on my own family and they have been
successful. Now, I will add, ONE MUST
KNOW THEIR BODY! There is one oil in
particular, because I have a more sensitive stomach, that I cannot ingest, but
I have not had a problem with using it NEAT which is using it in an undiluted
form, when I rub it into my skin. So,
again, why one company over another? Go
with the one that works. Go with the one
that you have researched and tried. It
is just like anything else in this life.
We have to be responsible. We
have to do our research.
No comments:
Post a Comment