Do You Need To Change Supplements Every Now And Then?

Thanks to the increased level of health awareness, almost everyone has become educated about their health and nutritional needs. Today, more than ever, people know the exact name of the supplements they need before ordering them from pharmacies. They check the nutritional facts on their food before ingesting any, and they take good care in calculating how everything adds up to their recommended daily allowance. This awareness leads many people to stay consistent with their supplemental intake, as most of our eating habits make it difficult to get our daily doses of vitamins and micronutrients. 

Our supplemental needs vary depending on many factors. A hard-working athlete might need protein and amino acid supplements to reach their fitness goals, but a pregnant mother will need to fortify her nutrition with iron and folic acid. Our supplemental needs can also change as we age or modify our lifestyles, or following a major life-changing situation. 

If you’ve been following a certain supplemental regimen, whether it’s been subscribed by your doctor or self-prescribed, you might need to change your supplements every now and then.

Here are some situations where changing your supplements might be necessary.

1. Have you recently made significant changes to your diet?

In the best-case scenario, your diet should be sufficient to provide your body with all of the needed nutrients. These nutrients involve both macro-nutrients, like protein, carbs, and fats, and micro-nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals. With major diet changes, your body might become lacking in some essential elements. 

This is specifically true if you become a vegetarian, because vitamin B-12 and iron are mostly present in meat. Popular grain-free diets, like Paleo and Ketogenic diets, are also lower in B vitamins. Another diet regimen that is lacking many essential nutrients is the gluten-free diet. Since you avoid most grain and gluten products, your daily intake of iron, calcium, fiber, folate, and B vitamins are greatly affected. The dairy-free diet also affects the levels of calcium your body is getting. 

If you’ve recently started on any of the popular diets or changed your eating habits for any reason, you should visit your dietitian to understand more about the nature of your new diet. Your dietitian may point out the nutrients your diet is lacking, and prescribe you the needed supplements to maintain a healthy and well-balanced diet. 

2. Did you make any significant changes in your lifestyle and activity?

Hugely changing your way of living is also often accompanied by major changes in your diet. If you’ve previously led a lightly-active or a sedentary life and you’ve just adopted a heavy training regimen, this will have major changes on your diet and supplements. 

As you can learn from Fitness Informant, an athlete’s needs can be best met by supplementing their diet with protein powders, protein bars, or amino acid supplements. However, the supplements will change depending on your training regimen and goals. If your main goal is to lose fat, you’ll go for supplements that increase your metabolism, while your need for protein should be satisfied only through your diet. If you’ve just finished cutting down fat and you’re changing your training regimen into building muscle mass, then protein shakes, bar, and supplements will most probably be needed alongside your diet. 

Natural aging can cause major lifestyle changes as well, where your need for calcium and vitamin D can become crucial. Other major changes can result due to increased stress from work, study, or personal life. As your body and mind are put under more stress, your immunity and energy levels can be affected. In such cases, it might be smart to incorporate omega-rich fish oil and flaxseed oil supplements into your diet. Research has shown that they’re quite effective in lowering cortisol levels, also known as the stress hormone.

3. Did you move into a location of a completely different climate?

Moving into a new location of a different climate can have an impact on your style of living. We don’t usually associate this kind of change to our dietary habits, but we should. If you were used to living in a sunny area and relocated into a place where the sun is almost always absent, you might quickly become deficient in vitamin D. The main source of vitamin D is the sun, and we very rarely get it from food. If that’s the case, you’ll need to start taking vitamin D supplements. You should also know that vitamin B-12 can help restore your energy levels, and supplements containing zinc, vitamin C, vitamin E, and vitamin B-6 can help boost your immunity to fight infection during fall and winter. 

4. Are you experiencing indigestion after starting on new supplements?

If you’ve been consistent in taking some kind of supplements or you’re just getting started with a new prescription, and you started complaining of indigestion, then the culprit might be those supplements. Some supplements irritate the wall of your stomach, causing feelings of indigestion and nausea. When that happens, it might be best to stop taking the new supplements, seek a change, or stop them altogether. 

Indigestion can also occur irrelevant of the supplements you’re taking. It can be due to physiological changes your body is going through, in response to lifestyle changes or natural aging. In this case, your doctor can prescribe you probiotics or digestive enzymes, which can aid with your digestion and ability to utilize the food you’re eating. If you can fully utilize all of the nutrients from your solid diet, your need for supplements can be gone for good. 

Supplements help our bodies get the essential nutrients that our diet lacks, but at times it’s better to change our supplements or add on them. Our supplemental needs can change over the years due to the natural aging process, but there can also be some factors that urge the change. If you’ve recently made huge changes in your diet regimen, you might be in for a consistent need for supplements to provide the nutrients you’re now missing from your diet. The same goes for suddenly changing your sedentary lifestyle into an active one, in which your supplemental needs will vary depending on your training. Also, major lifestyle changes, climate change, and signs that your digestion is impaired can all be indications that you need to change supplements.