Working in a natural health field, we are blessed to encounter a lot of patients just like you. Patients who truly care about their health and wellbeing and are willing to put in the work to make sure they are doing what they can to care for themselves. But that’s a stark different from the ‘pill for every ill’ approach of most of society.
There are many people who just want to take a pill to make their problem go away. Why? Because it’s easy. Certainly easier than meal planning, buying healthy food, making time for daily workouts, scheduling time for prayer or meditation and still making sure to get around eight hours of sleep a night!
Unfortunately, that’s just not the way health works. Even if you do find a pill to combat a certain ill, it usually has detrimental side effects that creates more ills, sooner or later. It’s just a band-aid.
One pill that we can get behind, though, is a high-quality multivitamin.
Does this mean that we can throw away all attempts at living a healthy lifestyle because we have the multivitamin to save us? No! Of course not! But does a multivitamin aid and improve an already healthy lifestyle? Yes!
Even people who focus on eating lots of nutritious food can have nutrient insufficiencies due to today’s soil being lower in minerals than it was decades ago. A multivitamin can help fill these gaps and make sure your body has the vitamins and minerals it needs to function its best.
Macronutrients vs Micronutrients
When many people talk about eating healthy, they focus on macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Mostly, health “experts” will recommend keeping carbohydrates in check, keeping fats low, and making sure you have enough protein.
But the body is complex and this macronutrient focus barely even skims the surface when it comes to making sure we are focusing on what the body needs. Instead, we need to take a micronutrient focus, as it’s these vitamins and minerals that the body depends on for all the chemical reactions and processes necessary to keep you thriving.
The Simplest Way to Focus on Micronutrients
Tracking micronutrients would be an arduous task. There are lots of different micronutrients the body needs to function! Instead, we can take the simple approach of prioritizing whole, unprocessed, organic-when-possible foods and supplementing with a quality multivitamin. Whole, unprocessed foods are going to be much higher in nutrients than anything out of a box, bag, or canister, and the multivitamin works to bridge the gap of what may still be missing.
One fun way to focus on whole foods is to aim for a variety of color each day, with a reminder that you still want to be eating a vegetable to fruit serving ratio of about 3:1. The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) makes tracking colorful food and micronutrients easy with their Phytonutrient Spectrum Checklist – handy for both adults and kids!
If you want to take a deeper dive into micronutrients/phytonutrients and the benefits for your body, check out IFM’s Phytonutrient Spectrum Comprehensive Guide here. (They also have a great collection of recipes that incorporate colorful foods!)
Choosing a Multivitamin
When it comes to giving your body the boost it needs beyond a healthy diet, your multivitamin choice is important. Make sure you choose one that has vitamins and minerals in a form that is best absorbed and in their natural form rather than synthetic form (e.g. choosing a multivitamin with folate rather than folic acid and magnesium glycinate rather than magnesium oxide).
One of our favorite multivitamin options is Seeking Health’s Multivitamin One. It’s a great one-capsule-per-day choice with the preferred forms of a variety of micronutrients. Call our office at 952-949-0676 to reserve a bottle or stop by to purchase yours.
