Been away from training for a long time. I’d like to start taking a multi, D3, fish oil and magnesium supplments after throwing out all my expired stuff. I’m just overwhelmed with options. What brands are you taking?
All the supplements you listed are basically useless.
Multivitamins just make your urine more expensive, Vitamin D and Magnesium are pointless unless there is a diagnosed deficiency with symptoms, and fish oil does nothing significant.
By all means, if the placebo effect is worth the money to you, take them, but don’t expect more than the placebo effect.
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Most fish oil on the market is rancid, buy canned cod liver instead. It is much cheaper (<2 euro/can of which you need to eat only 1 or 2 per week) delicious and packed with many other micronutrients (like vitamins b9, b12, b6 a and d3 )
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I have to agree with @RolandGosebruch here… I’ve studied nutrition for years, had tons of health issues which required blood panels over a 5 year period, and I like to read.
Multivitamins are literally just a way of making your pee more expensive. Each vitamin and mineral requires quite specific combinations with other vitamins, minerals, fluids, and nutrients to be absorbed properly. To expect that taking a single dose of all essential vitamins and minerals, that all require DIFFERENT internal conditions to be absorbed properly, and expect to absorb them, is contradictory in and of itself. Not to mention that almost all multivitamins are compressed pills with an absorption rate below 10%.
Vitamin D is the most promising of what you mentioned, but only if you megadose. From the research I’ve read and through my own blood panels, nothing under 10,000 IU’s a day seems to make a difference. For most brands, that’s 5-10x the serving size, which means you’ll be spending a LOT of money on something that’s far from guaranteed to improve your health.
In terms of fish oil, you’ll run into absorption issues and food combining again. You’re way better off just eating fish once a week. The largest study ever conducted found no improvements from taking fish oil in healthy individuals. (https://www.vitalstudy.org/)
In your own words, you’ve been away from training for a long time. This is the last thing you should be concerned with. Get back into training properly, and in 6 months, take the money you would have spent on supplements and get a blood panel done. If you observe any obvious deficiencies, you could make a plan to adress these at that point.
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And even that could lead to a confusion of cause and effect. E.g. a low Vitamin D level might be a symptom of a different root cause, not the cause itself. So, supplementing Vitamin D might take care of the low level, but the real problem goes on untreated.
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That’s a very good point that I forgot to include. Some deficiencies are easier to detect and remedy than others, but if anyone goes down that route, I’d most definitely get regular blood panels to ensure things are actually improving.
Also, when I say “make a plan to adress these deficiencies”, I mean make a plan with a professional. Whether it’s a dietitian, GP, or anyone else with a degree in the field (nutritionists, holistic health advisers, witches, and wizards do not qualify).
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By eating a complete protein, vegetables and fruits you should meet your body’s requirements.
Two things that a lot of athletes take are protein and collagen. They have been proven to be beneficial to some. You can search the TR podcasts for more info.
I’m not knowledgeable enough to have any insight, but this website has always been my quick first check to see if something is even worth considering:
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I think I post this at least once a quarter, another good reference site:
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