3 Reasons Why You Need a Good Quality Vitamin PLUS 2 Ways You Might Be Wasting Money On Supplements

Seems like everyone is pushing vitamin supplements these days.  There are some good reasons for that, as I will illustrate below, but with so many options out there, how do you know which vitamins to take?  Are they all about the same?  In this blog post, I'll discuss three pretty big reasons why taking a good vitamin is important, and I'll tell you two ways you might be wasting your money on the supplements you're already taking.  These are all important things to consider when choosing the right vitamin for you.

3 Reasons Why You Need a Good Quality Vitamin:

#1 Your diet isn't cutting it

Eating a "healthy diet," even one that consists mostly of fruits and vegetables, isn't providing the same nutrient benefits as it did 50 years ago.  Some sources suggest you would have to eat 50-75 bowls of spinach today to equal the same nutrient value as a bowl of spinach eaten in 1954.  That's a heck of a lot of spinach.  "Because of soil depletion, crops grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today." (source). The right vitamins can help fill in those nutritional gaps.

#2 Longer life doesn't necessarily mean better quality of life

Human life expectancy has nearly doubled over the last 100 years (source).  Although we are living much longer, those extra decades are riddled with chronic disease. Who wants to live longer only to struggle with health issues and feel terrible all the time?  Rather than focusing on increasing our lifespan, many scientists are now turning their attention to improving our healthspan.  

The term “healthspan” emphasizes the goal of a healthy and longer life. The term “lifespan” does not explicitly include the quality of life and has sometimes been misinterpreted to imply that our research aims to extend life without paying attention to preserving the quality of life. ~ Steven Helfand

#3 You can't afford NOT to

If you think vitamins are too expensive, just wait until you start paying for medical bills and monthly prescription medications. About half of all American adults have a chronic disease.  That's about 117 million people!  1 in 4 have two or more chronic health conditions.  Chronic diseases cost over $1 trillion a year in the United States alone.  

"Nearly one-in-five (19%) Americans ages 65 and older say they had a medical problem but did not visit a doctor, skipped a medical test or a treatment recommended by a doctor, did not fill a prescription or skipped doses of their medicine because of cost constraints.  One-in-five (21%) also said they had out-of-pocket medical expenses of $2,000 or more in the past year." (source)  

Considering the rising costs of medical care, vitamins are a proactive way to attain or maintain optimum health, and are way more cost-effective than treating chronic disease.

Already taking a vitamin supplement?  Examine the facts!

2 Ways You Might Be Wasting Money on Your Supplements or Why Your Current Vitamin is Not Working:

#1 Your body can't absorb it

Ever heard of the word bioavailability? I hadn't until recently.  That's a fancy term to describe your body's ability to absorb vitamins and minerals from what you consume, including supplements.  Most over-the-counter vitamins are synthetic, (fake) so your body doesn't recognize them as food, and instead of absorbing the vitamins and minerals, you pee them out (hence that bright, fluorescent colored urine).  Sadly, typical vitamins only have a 20-30% absorption rate.  Even those high quality, health food brands are only 50%.  For me, this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "flushing money down the toilet," because that's exactly where those expensive vitamins and minerals are going.  If your supplement doesn't perform at 90% or better, it may be time to shop for a new brand.

#2 Some supplements do more harm than good

Many supplements are ineffective at best, but they can be dangerous at worst!  Too much calcium can cause kidney stones (source), and too much folic acid during pregnancy actually increases the risk of autism in infants (source).  When you really start to research this topic, some of the information out there is surprising and scary.  You need a vitamin that has the right proportions of minerals and vitamins, all working together synergistically, for your benefit.

Here are some of my sources if you want to read more about this topic:

• doTERRA Science: Microplex VMz Meets Recommended Dietary Intakes
• Nutrition and Health are Closely Related
• The CDC's Chronic Disease Overview
• Diet and Nutrition Prevention of Chronic Diseases

One Possible Solution

Now that you know why you need a quality vitamin, here's the supplement I use and recommend: the doTERRA Lifelong Vitality Pack

The doTERRA Lifelong Vitality Program makes taking the first step on the path toward a lifetime of vitality and wellness convenient and affordable. Our lifelong health and vitality depend on many factors including diet, physical activity, weight management, rest, stress management, exposure to toxins, and inherited genetic predisposition for disease or wellness. While some of these variables are beyond our complete control, breakthrough scientific research is revealing many ways we can influence—and even control—significant factors of aging and wellness. A long life full of vitality and healthy aging begins with providing your cells with essential nutrients and metabolic factors to help them perform optimally. It has a 90% absorption rate and is food-based, not synthetic.

It includes one bottle each of Alpha CRS+ (cellular vitality complex), xEO Mega (essential oil omega complex), and Microplex VMz (food nutrient complex).  Click the product names to see the science behind these supplements, read FAQs, and learn more about them.  You can buy them individually as well, but they are meant to work together, which is why you can save $74.00 if you buy them bundled together. You can also get an additional 25% savings when you enroll with doTERRA (as either a wholesale customer or a Wellness Advocate) and buy them at the wholesale price.  There's a Vegan version of the omega complex available as well.

For a limited time, you can earn a FREE Lifelong Vitality Pack with your enrollment.  This promotion is only available through September 30th, 2017.  Contact me for complete details or visit my website for more information.

I am on a mission.

Yes.  I am on a mission.  I'm on a mission to bring awareness and educate others through sharing my story.  I share my story because I hope someone will benefit from hearing it and realize two things: First, that they are not alone, and second, that there are other options available to them.

My brother has long been a proponent of natural cures.  He started talking to me back in the 90’s about natural remedies, like using melaleuca.  In the early 2000’s he was doing The Master Clease diet to fix candida overgrowth and suggested I visit CureZone.com, (whose slogan is: educating instead of medicating), where he insisted I would find answers to every health problem out there.  Although some of it was a little "out there," other parts were more believable and some of it was even credible.  In 2009-2010, I was diagnosed with menorrhagia and my doctor recommended getting a Mirena implant.  It seemed strange to me that she wasn't interested in helping me figure out why I suddenly had menorrhagia, but was very quick to suggest a procedure that was not intended to treat my original problem and had many risks associated with it.  Although she gave me a referral and strongly encouraged me to set up an appointment, instead I went home and did more research.  Some of the experiences shared by other women who had gotten the implant scared me.  So, I started googling other possible causes or solutions.  Guess what?  I found out it was a vitamin K deficiency.  This deficiency was also causing issues in other areas of my body, like bruising easily, and other wounds not clotting well.  None of those things would have been resolved by getting a Mirena implant.  All I had to do was include more green leafy vegetables into my diet.  Problem solved, (and without a risky medical procedure).  

I felt so excited and empowered by the experience, I continued to do more research about natural health and wellness.  I started this blog in 2013 in order to share some of my newly gained insights.  I intended on blogging once a week, every week, for a whole year.  Each post would feature a different habit we could either start doing or stop doing to be more healthy.  I didn’t get very far though, ironically, because my own health became compromised again.

One morning that March, I woke up feeling unusually tired.  I’m not talking about hit-the-snooze-button-one-more-time kind of tired, I’m talking about my-whole-body-feels-like-lead-and-I-don’t-think-I-can-even-move kind of tired.  I had to get up, because my kids had school.  I woke them up, but instead of staying awake to prod them along, I went back to bed.  My kids were 6, 9, and 11 at the time, so they were fairly independent.  They could get dressed, eat cereal, and brush their teeth/hair without my assistance…but they sometimes got distracted and didn’t share my sense of urgency about the bus coming.  So, I set my alarm to go off at 15 minute intervals and when it rang, I got up to check their progress, but then promptly went back to bed.  When all three were off to school, I slept until after noon.  Then I got up, ate something, and tried to be productive, but I noticed my muscles were fatigued.  I struggled to walk up the stairs, not because I was out of breath, but because my body felt heavy and my legs were tiring out more quickly than usual.  I could not hold my arms above my head for more than a few seconds, and even lifting a gallon of milk out of the fridge felt like an enormous weight.  I went to bed shortly after dinner, thinking a good, long night of sleep would fix it.  

But it didn’t.  I felt tired and fatigued again the next day, and the day after that.  I continued to feel fatigued for several weeks.  Even my chest felt heavy, like I couldn’t get a deep breath.  I went to the doctor.  They said it might be the tail end of bronchitis, or a virus.  They recommended more rest and said it would probably resolve on its own in a week or two.  I returned to the doctor 3 weeks later, still feeling awful.  They said it must have turned into an infection, so they gave me a round of antibiotics.  No improvement.  By now this was was going on 8 or 9 weeks of me sleeping all the time, not having any energy, and experiencing all-over muscle fatigue.  They decided to take some blood samples to check for the obvious stuff…thyroid issues (which run in my family), mono (which I had as a child), and other possible causes—23 different blood tests in all.  I was scared about what the results might be…but also anxious to finally figure out what was causing my issues.  I was both relieved and frustrated when they all came back within a normal, healthy range.  Next we considered auto-immune diseases like Lupus (which my aunt had), and MS (which one of my sisters and one of my cousins have).  Unfortunately, those can be trickier to diagnose in the early phases.  The doctor prescribed me a round of steroids.  Most people feel good on steroids, but if I had an auto-immune issue, I wouldn’t just feel good, I would feel GREAT— I would feel better than ever.  Like a million bucks.  The steroids increased my energy levels a little and allowed me to be somewhat more productive.  I felt more like my normal self, but not GREAT by any standards.  

Next, my doctor asked if perhaps depression was a possible cause.  I explained that I wasn’t depressed when my original symptoms started.  I admitted I was surely depressed now, after 4 months of dealing with chronic fatigue!  I assured her my feelings of frustration, sadness, and hopelessness were a result of what I was experiencing, not the cause.  

The doctor concluded she wouldn’t be able to give me a diagnosis until my symptoms got worse.  If or when my symptoms got worse, they would hopefully point towards something more specific.  Until then I would just have to “wait and see,” continue to get plenty of rest, and try to manage my symptoms as best as I could.  I don’t remember much about the following months, except that I ended up quitting all my volunteer commitments and let the housework go.  While I had short bursts of energy some days, most days I didn’t get out of my pjs.  I spent the majority of time in bed or on the couch.  My quality of life had quickly deteriorated, for no apparent reason, and I did, indeed, become withdrawn and depressed.  This lasted for 7 or 8 months.

At that point, my friend Karla recommended a book she was reading by Jillian Michaels, called “Master Your Metabolism.“  In the book, Jillian explained how diet foods actually make your metabolism worse because they often contain fake ingredients that your body doesn’t interpret as food or know what to do with.  Some of these ingredients are toxins, which are stored in your cells, your muscle tissue, your organs, and your fat, making your whole body work harder, or even leading to disfunction.  Eating the wrong foods could cause a whole slew of negative side-effects, including…*drumroll, please*…chronic fatigue!  Whoa.  Up to that point, I understood eating the wrong foods would make me fat, but I didn’t realize eating certain foods could cause chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or other medical issues.  This set me on a totally new path.

After doing more research, I discovered there are thousands of people who get diagnosed with diseases they don’t really have, which are actually the result of consuming the wrong things.  [I’m not going to site all of those sources here, because I want you to do your own research and come to your own conclusions].  I stumbled upon some good blogs and books, like “100 Days of Real Food,” and “Whole30: It All Starts with Food.”  I decided to try the Whole30 diet…not to lose weight, but to hopefully feel NORMAL again.  I was really praying 30 days of eating clean, unprocessed foods, would reset my body and take care of my issues.  And it worked, though not immediately.  I experienced horrible headaches and irritability from sugar withdrawals.  However, after 3 weeks of eating Whole30 compliant foods, I. felt. amazing.  *cue the Hallelujah chorus*  Yet, the diet was extremely restrictive, and it was hard for me to be self-disciplined when I was the only person in my family eating this way.  It’s definitely not something I could do long-term, (and wasn’t meant to be…that’s why it’s called Whole30, not WholeForever).  I was thrilled though, because It accomplished three things: it resolved my chronic fatigue, it made me reconsider the foods I was putting into my mouth, and it set me on a new path towards alternative healthcare.

This is just one part of my story friends.  I have many other stories along this better-self-care journey, and it’s all important stuff.  It’s so important that I want to talk about it with everyone I meet, but I don’t, because I’m sure they’ll think I’m totally crazy.  So this is my soap box right here:  

I believe there are significant problems with our American health care system.  As a society, we get unnecessary procedures done to resolve issues we could have fixed through alternative means.  We take pharmaceuticals, which alleviate the symptoms, but do not address the root problem, and often cause other harmful or negative side-effects.  I think most of our health issues are the result of our own bad habits (poor nutrition, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, not drinking enough water, excess sugar, excess alcohol, etc.) or things we are exposed to unknowingly, (junk in our water, pesticides, chemicals, toxins, etc.)  I am not saying all medicine is bad or that all medical professionals are bad or that all clinical visits are unwarranted.  I am married to a registered nurse y’all.  Traditional medicine has it’s place, but it isn’t the end all, be all, and it shouldn’t be our first course of action.  It should be our last course of action, after we’ve exhausted all other options.  As a society, we’ve totally forgotten what those other options even are.  We blindly trust that the food we eat and the products we use every day are safe and good, when they are actually contributing to a whole slew of health concerns.  We complain about feeling yucky or about our kids always getting sick, but we continue to make the same choices that keep us stuck.  

I was already exploring natural health care options when a friend introduced me to essential oils last month.  I attended her doTERRA class and was so excited by what I heard that I enrolled as a Wellness Advocate that very night.  You may be thinking, “oh great…another one of THOSE wackos.”  Please understand…this is not about selling essential oils.  My mission hasn’t changed.  My goal is still education and awareness.  I want to open up communication and dialog between the people within my sphere of influence, to exchange ideas and talk about ALL the alternative options available to us (including essential oils as one part of that equation).  I believe these options, when used in conjunction with traditional medicine, will contribute to better health. 

Everyone is different.  Some people are more sensitive to chemicals and toxins than others.  My kids happen to be sensitive to Red 40.  It makes them act like Hammy the Squirrel in the movie “Over the Hedge.”  I have friends whose kids were labelled ADHD, and are able to manage their symptoms entirely through diet, herbal supplements, and natural remedies, instead of putting them on prescription meds.  There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but when faced with a physical or emotional issue, I do urge you to explore every option available to you.  Educate yourself.  Do your own research.  Read books.  Take classes.  Figure out what works and what doesn’t.  Talk about your experiences.  Share your results.  

We’re all in this together.

~Sarah

P.S. If you want to join the dialog, please visit:
My 52 Healthy Habits Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/52HealthyHabits/
My doTERRA Facebook page: Natural Health with Essential Oils