Episode 174: The Exact Supplements I Use

With so many supplements promising weight loss and better health, it's hard to know what's actually worth your money. In this episode, learn which supplements are actually used, why they're used, and why nutrition should always come before filling your cabinet with pills and powders.

If you prefer video, you can watch these podcast episodes on YouTube as well: https://www.youtube.com/@mindstrongfitness2541

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

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Becoming MindStrong Episode 174: The Exact Supplements I Use

Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome back to the Becoming Mindstrong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of Mindstrong, where education's our jam. We only work with perian-postmenopausal women because this is a stage of life where it is so easy to feel hopeless, to feel like we're broken, to feel like we're doing everything right and nothing's working. So I give up trying. And as an educator, I am here to show you. It is true. The tool bag of our 20s, 30s, early 40s-it doesn't work anymore. If it did, we wouldn't be here. But that doesn't mean we're broken. It means we need a new tool bag for this new body we're living in, and that's what we are here to do. In my over a decade of being in this industry, I get asked a lot about supplements, specifically what supplements I use myself. So in today's episode, we're going to start as as I love to do 30,000 foot view about a conversation around supplements, and then from there we will dig in deeper. I will share exactly what supplements I will that I use. Most importantly, I'm going to share the why behind it. If you know me, one of my core values, one of the core values of Mindstrong, is educate on the why. So to me, it means nothing if I tell you what I'm using without understanding the why behind it. So let's start this conversation. 30,000 foot view. What are supplements? By definition, the word supplement means to add to. So if you've hung out this podcast before, you've heard me use this analogy because it is my absolute favorite when it comes to supplements. It's the best one I got. Let's say you came to me and said, "Hey Rachel, I want to buy this house. Do I need a second job in order to buy this house? My answer is whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! I have like 17 questions before I can answer that. I need to know how much money do you make, how much does the house cost, how much do you have in savings, how much debt do you have. I need to know where you are and where you need to be before I can advise if you need to supplement or add to your income to fill that gap. Supplement means to add to, and I am harping on that point because there are so many people, especially on social media, who are pushing, pushing, pushing. Take this powder. Take this pill. Do this. Do that. But if we don't know where we are and where we need to be, what in the actual heck are we adding to? I always have this visual of playing darts with a blindfold on. Right. Like, what are we aiming at? What's the goal here? And I'm going to pause here and go down a rabbit hole for a second because I think it's important. I have been in the online world for a very long time. I cannot even put into words how many times a day I get solicited by supplement companies. If you advertise this powder for us, we'll give you free supplements. We'll give you a kickback, whatever the case may be. Now, for me as an educator, morals are above everything. I there are only two as of the time I'm recording this. There are only two supplement companies that I team with, and it's because number one I use them myself, and number two I actually believe that they're effective. I reject probably in a given week 20 supplement companies. That might be be a low, low estimate because I don't even read them. I delete them, and I'm sharing that because a lot of people in this industry-not everyone. There's a lot of great people out there, and a lot of people in this industry are motivated by income, not by morals. So when you see these influencers on social media and they're saying, "Take this powder, take this pill, whatever the case may be, it doesn't even necessarily mean that they're using it. It means they're repping that company. They're getting some kind of compensation, and there's nothing wrong with getting compensation. The two companies I do rep, of course, I get some compensation for them.

Speaker 1  3:56  
I get free product, I get a kickback, and I disclose that because there's nothing wrong with that, and there are a lot of people in this industry pushing products that they themselves don't actually use because they're only doing it for the financial gain. So I think that's an important caveat to include here because social media can be a confusing place. Getting back on track, supplement means to add to if we don't know what we're adding to, meaning where we are, where we want to be. We are playing darts with a blindfold on. What are we aiming at? Here's what that means. We're gonna we're gonna zoom in a little bit. You hear me talk a lot on this podcast about the fact that nutrition is 90% of this game. When we get our nutrition in check, meaning right number of calories, right proportion of carbs, fat, and protein for your personal body. We know online macro calculators do not work. One size fits all never works, especially in a body over 40. It will not work when we know your number of calories, your proportion of carbs, fat, protein for your personal body. Once we get that in check. The vast majority of imbalances in your body are going to level out. Nutrition. This is such a cheesy analogy, but I'm going to use it. If you're going to build a house, you got to lay the cement first, right? Nutrition is the cement. It is the foundation. So when people come to us and say, you know, should I get deep blood work done? Should I be taking these supplements? The answer is always: if you want to, go for it. Right? Sometimes it's fun to do a before and after comparison, and we got to get your nutrition in check. That is a capital M must. So if you're going to choose to do one, meaning do blood work or whatever the case may be, at some point, we have to get your nutrition in check first, and then we can dig a little deeper on the other side. Some people choose to do both. There's nothing wrong with that. But gun to my head, which 1am I picking? Blood work afterwards because we need your nutrition in check no matter what. Once we have your nutrition in check, the foundation is laid, the cement is laid down. Right now, if we need to supplement or add to, we know number one why we're doing it, number two what we need, and number three how long we have to stay on it, right? To go back to my terrible darts analogy, we're taking the blindfold off and we're aiming for the bullseye, and this is a topic I get super passionate about because number one, what I said about social media earlier, there is so much BS out there. There's so much noise out there, and people are not only wasting their cash, they're wasting their time taking things that aren't actually helping. We have to get your nutrition in check first, and then if we need to supplement or add to, we know why, we know what, we know how long. So, with all of that said, let me tell you the supplements that I personally use. I'll tell you the why behind it, so you can make an educated decision yourself. The only supplement that I use somewhat consistently, and this is capital T truth, I do not use a lot of supplements. That'll become very clear early on. The only one that I use somewhat consistently is protein powder. Real quickly, as a former teacher, differentiated learning is real. So, if right now you're listening to this episode as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever you get your podcasts, know that it also exists in video form on YouTube. Similarly, if you're watching me right now on YouTube, know that this episode also exists as a podcast on all the platforms. So, however you take in information best, know that we've got you. The podcast exists both in podcast form and video form. We'll link both in the show notes below, so you can learn however you learn best. Now, let's get back to the episode. The goal with protein is to get as much protein as possible from the foods we're eating. Now, in an ideal world, that means we don't need protein powder, right?

Speaker 1  7:52  
We're eating whole food straight from the earth, hitting our protein goals every day using the foods that we're eating alone. And in an ideal world, we'd put our feet in the grass, we'd meditate, we'd sing kumbaya, and we'd hug our neighbor every day. Life don't always work that way. For me and my work schedule and my lifestyle, I don't typically eat enough during a workday to get enough protein in. So at the end of the day, back in the day when I was tracking my macros, now I eat intuitively, so I know how to do it without tracking. Typically, more days than not, it gets towards the end of the day, and I'm like, ah, darn it! I didn't, I forgot to eat enough protein during the day again. So, a protein powder, a good protein powder, because there's a lot of garbage on the market, a good protein powder will help you supplement or add to. Meaning, I know how much protein I've eaten today. I know how much protein my personal body needs. If a day happens, which it typically does in my world, that I did not get to my goal number using the foods I'm eating, I am going to supplement or add to with a good protein powder. Protein powder is the only literal single supplement that I use somewhat consistently, and it is the literal only single supplement as of the time I'm recording this that most of our members use. We are not a company where you come to us; we give you a supplement stack, right? It's something I've had business coaches tell me, you know, much money you could make if you sold a year worth of supplements right up front. I will not do it because you don't need it, and I will always lead off of morals. The only supplement that we don't even require, we just tell people, hey, most women find that a good protein powder will help. We have tons of women who don't use them, and it's usually a go-to because most of us are not eating enough protein in a day. That's it. Protein powder is the only one that's consistently in my cabinet. There are two more supplements that I kind of go on and off with. Number one is creatine, and creatine is such an interesting topic. I fully whole body believe that six months to a year from now, I will be doing a podcast all about creatine and my feeling. Will trend more in one direction. Creatine is one of the few supplements out there that is actually being tested on menopausal woman women, and it makes my heart so happy. So in the past, creatine has always been thought of as a bodybuilder supplement. What it can do is help with muscle repair faster. So you do an intense workout, you take some creatine. It helps your muscles recover. You can get back in the gym and push harder, so you can grow faster. What they're finding now is that creatine has such positive effects in other ways, including brain health. To me personally, because I I want to know whole body. Heck yes, that I'm on board before I promote something. I'm not there yet with creatine? I think the research is too new, and I would bet that within the next year my feelings are going to change, and it is going to be one that I strongly suggest. I'm not there yet. What I always tell our members is that the research is trending positively enough, and creatine is one of the least expensive supplements out there, so I'm always a fan of experimenting. If you want to try it, try it. The two caveats I'll give you is number one, it can dehydrate you, so make sure you drink more water, and number two, most creatine tubs bottles will tell you to front load. They'll tell you to take two to three times the serving size up front. You do not need to front load. Just start taking the regular serving size. You'll be fine. You could try it. See if you feel any differently. If not, go off it. Or if you love it, keep doing it. Just make sure to drink more water. Creatine, I go on and off with. I have periods where I'm more consistent, or I'm not.

Speaker 1  11:35  
It hasn't been a massive effect for me, but again, I think that's. I think I'm going to get more serious about it as an experiment. As more data comes out, the only other supplement that I use from time to time is collagen. Now I want to be very clear about collagen because this is a supplement that gets overhyped in the nutrition world. Collagen has nothing to do with weight loss, and there are so many companies out there. There's so many of these pyramid schemes, mass marketing online noise that have focused on collagen. The collagen that I use is literally a 20-$5 tub that I get online. It is it is so no brainer. I have known people, people in my own circle who got into these pyramid schemes? Who have tried to sell me collagen that costs $130 a month? And because I'm someone who always likes to experiment, I tried it once years and years ago. I can't remember if I did a podcast on it. I probably did, and I told them because it was a good friend of mine. I was like, "Look, here's my $130 but I'm telling you right now, in no world am I going to promote this in my community unless I notice a difference in myself. I got my $30 tub. I've been taking it for a while. I'm going to try your $130 tub. We'll see how it compares. I literally felt no difference. It was the exact same thing. It was it was a 25 $30 tub you could get online packaged really nicely for $130 Do not buy into the hype. What collagen can help with is joint pain. That's why I take it because, especially from bench pressing for so many years, sometimes my elbows act up. It can help with joint pain. It can be a game changer for joint pain. It can help with hair growth. It can help with nail growth. It can help with skin. It has nothing to do with your metabolism. It has nothing to do with weight loss. It can help with hair, skin, nails, joint pain. When I take it, it's because joint pain is flaring up. It would be great for me to take it more consistently. I don't because I don't like to take a lot of supplements. That is literally it. That's it. Those are all the supplements I take. Now I'm not going to go down a rabbit hole of multivitamins and vitamin D things like that. If or when you get blood work done, and your doctor or naturopath tells you, "Hey, we've got your nutrition in check because we've laid the foundation. That's number one, and X, Y, and Z vitamins are low. Yeah, that would be a place to supplement or to add to. But again, we have to start with nutrition alone. You do not need a million supplements. The people online pushing a bunch of supplements are probably getting kickbacks from it, or it's their own supplement company, so they're making a ton of cash off it because you can make a ton of cash off supplements. the The profit margins are massive there. You do not need it. The only thing that a lot of our women choose to be on it is not required, but most women are not getting enough protein eating whole foods, so we can supplement with a good protein powder. For me personally, creatine is hit or miss. Again, I think that's going to change in the time ahead. Try it if you want to. Collagen is not weight loss. It is not metabolism. It is hair, skin, nails, and joint pain, which is what I use it for. And that is it. At the end of the day, if we want to prioritize nutrition, nutrition, nutrition is always number one. Number two, resistance training, pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do, especially over 40. It's a time of life we naturally lose lean muscle mass, we naturally lose bone density, progressive over. Which means pushing our muscles do what they can't yet do is the second best way to counteract that. But number one, always, always, always comes down to nutrition. For more information on MindStrong Fitness or to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team. Visit www.mindstrongfitness.com.

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