Curing the vitamin addiction

Scott Birdby Scott Bird | November 24, 2005
Filed in Diet and Nutrition , Favourites | 14 comments

My name is Scott, and I am hooked on vitamins.

It began a couple of years ago - quite innocently - with the usual suspects; Vitamin C and a Multivitamin. A bit of light reading added things like Coenzyme Q10 to the list (CoQ10 wasn’t anywhere to be seen on the Multivitamin jar) and the daily intake gradually grew and grew. Once it became almost impossible to open the cupboard door without spilling various bottles across the bench I realised it was time to take action.

Selling small bottles of vitamins is an enormous industry. As with insurance, sales are based largely on fear. If you don’t take x, bad things will happen to you. Your stress-free days and full nights of sleep will not simply become a rarity (assuming you have them now); they will cease to exist. How anyone managed to cope without several carefully selected pills each day is a mystery.

A few weeks ago I found myself in a health food store. Unsure of which vitamins I needed and which I already had in the cupboard, I bought a new jar of everything (everything on my list, that is - about 15 at last count). Since then I’ve noticed that my grocery shopping bills have been going down, and my diet has been gradually improving. My current thinking is that I’d not only save a considerable amount of money by skipping the vitamin supplementation, it might force me to keep thinking about the foods I eat. After all, vitamins from the right foods are better than those from a bottle. To me at least.


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Comments

1

nice post scott,

would it be at lot of trouble to post the full list of the different vitamins/supps you’re taking? im just curious…

also how much do you spend on vits/mineral supplementation?

[mine consists of a multi vit, some extra vit c and fish oil. i tried flax and some other oils once and thats about it. vits/mins definitely arent cheap!]

Posted by: john yeo | November 24, 2005 11:36 PM

2

John, I’ve never really worked out the cost (far too scary), but I guess it’d be about the same as a bottle of multivitamins x 15 or so.

The current list :

Calcium 600mg + Vit D
Chelated Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc
Coenzyme Q10 50mg
Echinacea 400mg
EPA fish oil concentrate 1000mg
Flaxseed Oil 1000mg
Garlic 1000mg
Glucosamine sulphate
L-Carnitine 500mg
Lecithin granules
L-Glutamine powder
Magnesium 150mg
Mega Soya Lecithin 1325mg
Multivitamin + multimineral
Vit B complex
Vitamin C 1000mg
Vitex Forte 1000mg

I want to keep taking the multivitamin + multimineral, and the vitamin C. The rest should be covered easily by my diet.

NB : I don’t take all these at once, and some of them are quite similar. I usually take about 10 and rotate them.

Posted by: scott | November 25, 2005 9:24 AM

3

” vitamins from the right foods are better than those from a bottle. To me at least.”

From what I understand, that’s entirely accurate.

I don’t see what are arguably the two most important legal supplements for lifting, creatine and protein.

Posted by: Jon | November 27, 2005 1:32 AM

4

Hey Scott,

I agree with you 100% about the vitamins from foods being better then those from bottles… That is quite the list of supps. you’re on! Earlier today I was actaully pondering my vitamin situation. There are so many vitamins out there that are said to have good effects, it is almost impossible to know what ones to take. I am considering just getting Animal Pak vitamins. It would take the guess work out of it, and it quite possibly might be cheaper.

Posted by: Marie Rochat | November 27, 2005 5:07 AM

5

John, that was only a list of vitamins. I’ve also been getting through plenty of protein powder (another expense - probably worth a separate post), and I’m not taking creatine. Not yet, anyway.

Marie, yes that’s quite a list (it was actually worse than that a few months ago, I’ve already cut back a bit). I think the only vitamins I’ll be buying from now on are a multi and vitamin C. Should be a lot cheaper. Will be interesting to see what benefits you see from the Animal Pak ones.

Posted by: scott | November 27, 2005 8:30 AM

6

Scott,

You should read a book called “Eat Smart, Play Hard” by Liz Applegate (ISBN 1-57954-344-8). I would link to my review of it, but apparently I never got around to writing one after I read it a few months ago. I will have to reread it and write a review at some point in the next week or two…

The book has a lot of general info about diet and what kinds of foods are best suited for different athletic pursuits, and when it makes the most sense to eat those foods. It has advice on how to prepare for specific endeavors and on what to eat as you go about your season. It covers extreme sports such as marathons and centuries as well as less strenuous activities such as yoga and golf.

One of the things that she emphasizes is how much easier your body can absorb and make use of vitamins and minerals when gotten from food rather than pills, due to the vitamins being present in the right quantities compared to one another to be easily metabolized. Also, when eating the actual foods, you rarely ingest so much at once that your body can not process it all and instead voids most of it through waste fluid.

Once I’ve gotten around to writing my review of it, I will shoot you an email.

Posted by: Blaine Moore (Run to Win) | November 28, 2005 3:21 AM

7

Wow, I’m getting pill envy.

I always buy vitamins but never really get into the groove of taking them properly. The current ones (Blackmores Men’s Performance Multi) are like horse pills and have various ‘vitality enhacing’ herbs in them (tribulus et al), seem to be mainly the ‘happy vitamin B’ and zinc by the truckload though.

The unusual thing about EnZed is that we are a completely Selenium-free land, there is none of the stuff in the ground, so it doesn’t get into the food chain easily, so all the vitamins have that in it too.

When it comes down to basics though, swallowing food tastes great, swallowing pills doesn’t (except the kids ones)

Posted by: Steph | November 28, 2005 7:24 PM

8

Scott, i think your plan to cut down to multi vit/min and vit c is a good. (personally i also think fish oils are important)

also with all that money you save you can get yourself some creatine (and extra protein) - you should get very noticable results with creatine and its safe.

Posted by: john yeo | November 29, 2005 12:23 AM

9

i was wondering, what is your complete protein (grams) intake in a day?

Posted by: john yeo | November 29, 2005 12:31 AM

10

Blaine : that book sounds great. Look forward to the review.

Steph : you’re not meant to get pill envy. I’m trying to cut back :)

John : surely fish oils are in the same boat as most of the other vitamins - if the nutrients (or fats in this case) are already in your diet, why take the capsules as well?

As for protein, I haven’t actually worked it out for ages. I just try to get a healthy dose with most meals; prob around 6 per day (I eat about 8). I don’t suppose you’ve come across a good UK site similar to FitDay?

Posted by: scott | November 29, 2005 8:26 AM

11

true… however the typical diet provides much more omega 6 than omega 3. the ratio in a typical diet these days is around 10:1 - 20:1 but depending on who you listen to the ideal ratio is much nearer 2:1 (omega6:omega3).

obviously increased omega 3 through diet is preferred but usually involves making fish a large component of total dietary protein - which is typically uncommon here in the UK, most fish seems to be really expensive (although ive found coley fillets from my local fishmonger to be as much as i pay for turkey - around ~£3.50 per Kg - but again i dont think they’re particularly high in omega 3)

mackerel, trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon are good sources of omega 3. (walnuts, flax and dark leafy vegetables also provide omega 3)

ive never found a fitday equivalent in the UK - ive been toying with the idea of writing my own software for that and for logging training sessions, along with some stat analysis - although thats another story…

Posted by: john yeo | November 29, 2005 3:58 PM

12

despite this its definitely at the bottom of my personal order of importance for supplementation however…

whey protein
creatine
multi vit
some extra vit c (1000~2000mg per day)
fish oil

Posted by: john yeo | November 29, 2005 4:15 PM

13

Whilst I probably eat more oily fish than the average in the UK, there’s certainly a long way to go. I’m far more likely to get the bulk of my Omega 3 from seeds, nuts and leafy veg.

On the FitDay front, I’ve also considered writing a more customisable UK version (my biggest gripes are that you can’t import/export lists of custom foods, and that it doesn’t have detailed nutritional information - not to the level I would like). Let me know if you ever want to team up and do this.

Posted by: scott | November 29, 2005 6:28 PM

14

its definitely something im interested in doing. lets take it to email and exchange a few ideas?…

Posted by: john yeo | November 29, 2005 7:34 PM

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