Should I be taking nutritional supplements?

After a few weeks of presenting real world, in the trenches, advice from some of my most successful clients, I thought that I would catch up on questions that have been sent to me over the past few weeks. Today’s first question comes from Karen Kidder-Laflamme, a long-distance Fitness Solutions online reader in Woodstock, Georgia.

Q: I was wondering what you thought about nutritional supplements. Are they really necessary? And if they are, what kind of vitamins should we take?

A: This is one of the questions that I’ve been asked the most throughout my career. How to eat and how to approach nutrition is something that every one of us has to consider, literally, on a daily basis. While I’ve written extensively about ways to make sound nutrition and food preparation simple, it is outside of my professional scope of practice to give specific supplement recommendations. This should always be left to a registered dietician, licensed nutritionist or physician. Personally, I do not take any supplements, not even a multivitamin. I love cooking and doing food prep and by lunchtime, I’ve already had three to five servings of fruits and vegetables. It works for me. My wife, on the other hand, lives with MS and is not a fan of cooking or thinking about what to eat early in the day. On the advice of her physician and the specialists that she works with, she takes a variety of supplements twice daily.

To better answer Karen’s question, I reached out to Dr. Stuart Phillips, Director of the Centre of Nutrition, Exercise and Health Research at McMaster University. Here is the answer that he sent me for Karen:

“Most people take vitamins as some kind of ‘insurance’ to make sure they’re getting what they need. Few vitamin deficiencies exist in Canadians (or Americans), however, many young women don’t hit their calcium or iron needs so supplementing those might be helpful. Vitamin D is the one vitamin many Canadians may be deficient (or insufficient) in, particularly in winter as there’s not enough sunshine for us to make the vitamin D that we need. I’d recommend that those who are concerned about their vitamin D take a supplement of at least 400IU/d from October to April. Outside of that, chose a variety of foods including fruits and vegetables and you’re going to be fine.”

In regard to the idea of eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, a great bit of advice is to “eat a rainbow” every day. This bit of wisdom refers to the fact that plants contain different pigments, or phytonutrients, which give them their colour. Based on their colour, they will have higher levels of specific nutrients, providing a wide variety of health benefits. The more colourful your food choices are the better chance you’ll have of consuming a wide range of health providing nutrients.

Finally, I like to advise clients that if they are choosing to use supplements to remember that they should be considered “supplemental” to a healthy diet. Think of them as something to consume “in addition to” a solid nutrition plan, not “in place of” and that they should be taken on the recommendation of a qualified dietician, nutritionist or physician.

The second question this week comes from Terry Morgan of Hamilton.

Q: As we get older, how do we pick just one way to stay on track and get in shape? I find that there are too many ideas pulling in different directions.

A: My immediate thought is that we actually should not be picking “just one way” to get into shape and to stay on track.

When we are young, exercise is usually undertaken for athletic improvement and for esthetic reasons. We want to win and we want to look good doing it. As we age, the focus of working out shifts to the management of medical conditions and the slowing of age related declines in lean muscle mass, flexibility, mobility, endurance and coordination.

The best plan for adult exercisers who want to keep doing the things that they love doing is to engage in a wide variety of activities from weight lifting to walking, stretching and circuit training using an “undulating” training schedule. An undulating schedule means that you would do muscle building exercise with weights (or other tools), endurance activities, high intensity interval training and balance and coordination drills every week, alternating between the different routines on different days.

A big consideration for older exercisers is that they have get recovery between exercise session. When using the undulating method, you will be recovering from one type of workout while engaging in a different type.

In other words, there is no one “best way” to get into great shape as we age; using as much variety as possible is the best way.