I heard the other day that the multi vitamins I take are worthless. The study said that I need to get my vitamins directly from consumption of food. Does that mean the vitamins that I feed my kids daily are worthless? How about the vitamins and nutrients that I think I am getting via my Kirkland Weight Loss Shake. Are those crap too? I need to know cause those gummy vitamins are expensive.

Pretty much; if you and your children eat maintain a healthy diet; there should never be a need for vitamins. Some vitamins can only be utilized by your body through food digesting no matter how many pills you take. Your body can only handle a certain level of a particular vitamin; ingesting more can make you sick and may even be lethal. Even if your doctor recommends you take a multi-vitamin you still might not be getting what you are paying for. Vitamins are not regulated by the FDA so manufactures are free to put whatever they want in the pills and write what they want on the label. When you take a pill that says 1000% of your daily recommended dose of whatever, guess what, your body will only use 100% of what it needs and piss away the rest; that is if that pill even contains half of what it really says it does. As of weight loss shakes, the only thing that it’s helping you loose is money. There is no pill, shake, herb etc that can safely help you lose fat other than good exercise and plenty of nutrition.

Good question. Answer is, that all the multi-vitamins you're taking are worthless. Save your money and buy fresh produce.<br><br>Basically the multi-vitamin or suppliment industry came about because over time the food we eat became faster and more processed which basically stripped it of important vitaminy characteristics. Most fast food has little to no nutritional value other than calorie fuel. Then to top that off, the medical community lost all hope of ever being able to tell people that they should eat food with more nutritional value and started telling people they should take a multivitamin to make up for the stuff they don't get from the food they are eating.<br><br>As far as weight loss goes if you eat less, then theoretically you would be taking in less nutrients as well. But if you are already eating like crap, then how would you be getting less nutrients if the stuff you are eating has little value anyway? So don't worry about it.<br><br>So weight loss goes like this:<br><br>1. Portion assessment: Measure your food realistically and pay attention to the labeling in the back of packages that says what a portion is and what the caloric value is. A good way to find out what your eating is to save all the labels of everything you ate over a week, add up the caloric totals and divide by 7 days. This is probably the hardest part because most people would never think to add in condiments, grazing sweets, or an afternoon softdrink because you were thirsty, or a glass of wine or beer beer because it normally has no caloric label. Calculate how many calories a person of your type should be eating to loss X amount of weight over X amount of time. Make a plan that cuts a few hundred calories a day so you lose about 1 pound a week. If you try to lose tons of weight fast, you'll gain it all back plus more and it will be torture in both directions.<br><br>2. Habit midification: Cut out consumption of things that add no value like soda, beer, wine, candy bars, and other grazing foods that somehow find its way into your mouth during the day. To make something habitual, it takes about 30 days of repeated behavior before it starts to become normal.<br><br>3. Make replacements: On all the other stuff you have to eat, make replacements on garbage you normally eat with stuff that has the same caloric value (or less) but with more nutrients. That solves the multivitamin problem you had plus your body won't be processing so much crap in addition to the pill. Most of the time this means spending more time in the produce section and varying the food just about every day. Who likes to eat the same thing for dinner anyway? Try new recipies.<br><br>4. Excercise. Like I needed to tell anyone this.<br><br><br>In Bio training for nursing school they had us track everthing we were doing using a free website called www.fitday.com. Make yourself a profile. With it you can enter all the foods you eat, calculate nutritional values, and track calories from food and exercise for your body type, ect. It does reports, and tells you when you are lacking certain types of vitamins and calorie sources (carbs, proteins, fats) so you get a better spread and can make adjustments. And it's free.<br><br>Now just send the money I just saved from not having to buy those shakes, vitamins, or books on weight loss to me. =)

I almost forgot. Vitamin suppliments should only be used when you have a medical condition that prohibits you from absorbing something or it isn't naturally occuring in your area. Normally, when something isn't naturally occuring the government mandates it to be added to everyday foods like vitamin D in milk, iodine in salt, or fortified stuff like orange juice. It was necessary way back in the day, but by now we should know better.<br><br>The problem with this is that if you eat reasonably well, consume the fortified products, and take the multivitamins you could be consuming toxic levels of normally necessary vitamins and it could make you very sick.

But what about those of us who DON'T eat healthy. I'm one of those hated men who does not have a weight problem by any stretch of the imagination. I am blessed with a high metabolism and my body has always taken what I feed it and made energy. I rarely eat vegetables, and when I do, it's peas or corn. Meat and taters, tis about it. I eat maybe one salad a week. I KNOW I don't eat healthy, but somehow, I've remained relatively healthy. It seems lately my body doesn't make as much energy, but some of that I attribute to stress (work and dad related)...<br><br>Specifically, Mens1aDay vitamins... I shouldn't bother? Really?

Genetics plays a big role and so does lifestyle. I can tell by your avatar that you do get out every so often. You should think about though that you may not be predispositioned to retain body fat or your digestive system is less than efficient at absorbing the food you eat, there are plenty of relatively thin people that die of heart attack.<br><br>As to whether or not you shouldn't really bother with multivitamins, that's why the market for suppliments is sooo huge... because the people don't really bother anymore. And you will teach your kids directly or indirectly your own habits.

Thanks for the reply. I do skate at least once a week (when not nursing an injury). And I'm trying to get into a more traditional work out habit with the FitFatDad challenge. (I'm doing very poorly on that. But I haven't given up.)<br><br>Yes, I know as the kid gets older, it's going to get very difficult to not eat my vegetables... The stink eye from the woman will be bad enough, but as soon as he asks Why doesn't Daddy HAVE to eat HIS green beans? I'm in deep trouble.<br><br>It has been years since I had my cholesterol checked, but when I did, it was ok, much to my surprise. I really should have it checked again. I have no doubt I am not immune from a heart attack.

Even with a decent diet filled with lean meats, good grains, & (non-white) veggies, you may still come up short if you're not getting sufficient variety or enough of the right kinds of foods. I do have a malabsorption issue to contend with and, on top of that, can't tolerate much red meat. During an attempt to donate blood last year, I discovered that I had developed pernicious anemia, caused by serious vitamin B12 & iron deficiencies. Since I began taking iron supplements & monthly B12 injections, my energy has rebounded and the anemia is at bay.<br><br>Similarly, our pediatrician advised us that our son was a bit low in iron too. We believe this was more due to his limited diet in the orphanage before he was ours, but it may also have something to do with the minimal consumption of red meat at our house. And his dietary preferences (like most toddlers, I'd suspect) are a bit limited anyway - despite efforts we're making to expand his chow repertoire. So to help ensure that whatever needs we might not cover consistently via food nutrients, are still getting covered regardless, he gets a little dropper of Polyvisol each day.<br><br>Certainly, I'd rather get my nutrients from food, but I believe supplements do have a place too. And they're relatively cheap insurance...

One easy way to help boost your intake of iron is to cook with cast iron. The iron leeches itself into your food when cooking and can seriously boost your iron intake. Iron helps in the transport of oxygen in your blood.<br><br>I found this article on it. It does have the same disclaimers though: only take iron suppliments under the direction of a medical practitioner because toxic doses can make you seriously ill.<br><br>www.vegfamily.com/health/boost-iron-intake.htm

Izzy, that's near-genius in its simplicity! I had never even thought of cooking food in cast iron to increase iron. Will definitely hafta work on this. I needed an excuse to buy a cast iron skillet anyway - I recall vividly my Mom's cornbread, which was always fixed in a square cast iron skillet that was probably older than any of us kids - I've never been able to make cornbread that's as good and it just may be because I don't bake in cast iron. Thanks for the info!<br><br>My doc does blood tests every 6 months to keep tabs on things. And I'm faithful about my annual physical that's offered at work.