Vitamin and supplement suggestions?

[Jallora]

I just started biking a few months ago, and I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far. I try riding 10 miles a few times a week in the evening, and I'm riding 32 miles once each weekend. I have to start increasing that though since I have a 100 mile ride scheduled in late September. I'm riding for general fitness, as a common exercise/activity with my DH and to lose weight. I'd like to lose at least 40 lbs. I was hoping that some of you could give me some suggestions as to what vitamins and supplements I should add to my diet. Also, is there something extra I should take during AF's monthly visit? I seemed to be struggling a little more this week. Iron, perhaps?

Thanks in advances for all of your suggestions and support.

Aimee

[Andrea]

A multivitamin is usually a good idea for anyone. If you think your iron could be low, a visit to the doc might be in order just to check/get iron supplement recommendation.

[lph]

Actually, I've been told that multivitamin supplements are at best a waste of money, and at worst can be detrimental, unless you really have a pretty unbalanced diet. Apparently getting vitamins the natural way through food ensures better uptake or something. That said I do take calcium, since I eat very little dairy products, and my calcium supplement has some vit. K and D in it to aid absorption. I also take seal oil for the omega 3, good for the heart and joints and supposedly mental health (!) too.

Checking your iron is a good idea, I should do that too.

[Andrea]

Yeah, it is better to get the recommended vitamins & minerals from food, but personally, I am too lazy to calculate whether or not the food I eat every day is sufficient, so I take one as a back up. I get the generic ones, so they don't really cost that much.

There are some vitamins that you can have too much of and experience ill effects, but a once-daily multivitamin shouldn't have enough of anything in it to cause problems unless you've got other issues going on where you're either not correctly processing or storing too much of something.

[Jallora]

Thanks for the advice! I'm not always the greatest about eating my veggies, so a multi-vitamin isn't a bad thing for me. I stopped by The Vitamin Shoppe on my way home and talked to the lady there. I explained my situation and pretty much expected her to start flinging half of the store in my basket. Believe it or not, she spent time talking to me about different things that I could take and why. Then she told me that she recommended that I only pick two things to start and take them for a few weeks before adding anything else. She said it's not good to start throwing a bunch of new things at your body at once. Wow! It was very refreshing. I asked what she recommended, and she got me started on Alive!, a whole food multi-vitamin, and flax seed oil. I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I'll also get with my doctor about checking my iron. I'm actually due to give blood next week, so they should let me know if they see a problem.

Thanks!

Aimee