Even taking all possible care in choosing foods, much of the food available for purchase is grown in soil that has been stripped of its nutrients or sprayed with Roundup. The Roundup not only puts poison in the food, but it destroys the bacteria in the soil which formally broke down the soil’s nutrients and make them available to the plant. In addition, with the use of oil-based fertilizer, farmers now grow the same crops on the same soil year after year instead of rotating the crops and allowing the soil to lie fallow every 7 years as has been done since biblical times. This further depletes the soil nutrients thus reduces the nutrients in the plant we and our animals eat. You may not have considered that you eat what your food animals ate.

For these reasons, the old saying that you can get all the nutrients you need from the food you eat is no longer true. To offset that condition a reasonable vitamin and mineral supplement is practically required for maximum health.

Note: I am a 184-pound male. If your body type and size is different, my suggested supplement amounts below may not be right for you. Check with your doctor or other health professional and adjust your dose to match your body.

NOTE: Many people, some of which are very learned with their advanced college degrees, tell me they have trouble swallowing pills. When I watch them take their pills they toss several in their mouth, drink some water and swallow. Then complain they can’t get the pills to go down.

The problem is there are two types pill which I identify as “Floaters” or ‘Sinkers.” They are easy to distinguish, if you drop a floater in water it will float on the water while a sinker will sink to the bottom of the water. Why does this matter?

When you place a floater in your mouth and take a swallow of water, the floater will rise to the top of the water. If your head is then tilted so your face is up, the throat, where you want the pill to go is a the bottom. When you swallow in this position, the pill is still floating at the top and does not go down. If you want to take a floater, tilt your head with your face down. This causes the pill to float to the top where your throat is now located and the swallow action works.

A sinker works in exactly the opposite manner. Tilt your head back with your face up to swallow a sinker. It is now easy to see why trying to swallow a sinker and a floater at the same time is a problem.

While I am on the subject of pill swallowing. Many people including me have problems making the pills go down. This is especially true of the larger pills. If I take several, all at once or one after another, I find they get stuck crossways somewhere along the path to my stomach (the esophagus) and I get heartburn or have trouble even drinking water. In short, I throw up. The problem is the pills are slick and there is nothing the walls of the esophagus can catch and push along. The solution is to eat solid food between pills. I find that bites of cheese, boiled, eggs, strawberries, or nearly any other solid foods will work. For this reason, I usually take my supplement along with my meal. Eat a bite or two of food, take a pill. Eat a couple more bites of food then take another pill. This way I get all my supplement taken without distress. Now if I can just find a way to remember to take my pills with me when I eat……..

I start my supplementation with a general multi-vitamin. The best I have found is the Life Extensions (LEF) Mix.

https://www.lifeextension.com/search - q=mix&t=coveo4A2453FD

This product come in three forms, a powder you can sprinkle on food, easy to take capsules or larger pressed pills. The powder requires 3 “Scoops” or 12 oz of powder per day. It works well on Oatmeal for example (Organic only please the regular oatmeal is laced with Roundup). The capsules are easier to take, but there are 12 of them per day. The last form is fairly large tablets, but here are only 8 of them per dose. I take the tablets, but some people find them hard to swallow. In all cases I suggest spreading them out across the day so there is not so much hitting your system at one time.

Some people are not comfortable taking this many pill so they choose the Two-per-Day product.

https://www.lifeextension.com/search - q=two-per-day&t=coveo4A2453FD

These are not as complete as the mix, and both versions need additional components depending on the results expected. Either of these products are much better than the tiny One-Per-Day or Centrum brand products.

To these products I add Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2 and Magnesium among other things.

Vitamin C is needed to make the rest of the items below work.

I take 2 pills per day.

https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item02227/vitamin-c-and-bio-quercetin-phytosome

It also works with Vitamin D to reduce your chances of catching the flu as well or better than the flu shot. By the way I never take the flu shot. It contains mercury and according to the Cochran Review work no better than placebo in most trials.

https://ahrp.org/cochrane-collaboration-flu-vaccines-of-no-benefit/

Most people are deficient in vitamin D and vitamin D will not work without magnesium and vitamin K2. The best way to get vitamin D is to venture out into the sun at midday with lots of skin showing. I am aware this is counter to doctors saying stay inside or cover up with sun screen. The doctors are again wrong. So long as there is no burning, you actually reduce the chances of the most dangerous cancers by being in the sun. If you don’t want to or can’t get into the sun, you must take a high dose vitamin D3 capsules as there is almost no vitamin D in the food we eat. Previously there was vitamin D in eggs, chicken, beef, pork, etc., but that was when the animals were raised outside. Now, the animals never see sunlight and their meat does not contain vitamin D.

Also beware of food supplemented with vitamin D and many Vitamin D supplements which use synthetic vitamin D2. It is less than 20% as effective as Vitamin D3 and some studies show it increases all cause death. Be sure your supplement is cholecalciferol which is the chemical name for Vitamin D3.

https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item01718/vitamin-d3

I take one 7000 IU capsule per day to keep my level up. It may take much more that that at the start. Vitamin D is fat soluble and until your fat is saturated, the levels in your blood will not increase very much. There is no way to determine the proper amount to take without a blood test. The value is included in the weight loss test panel listed above, but the test is also available as a separate test.

https://www.lifeextension.com/lab-testing/itemlc081950/vitamin-d-25-hydroxy-blood-test

The best plan is to run one of the tests suggested above and look at the results. The medical chart below will tell you how much to take.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/589256_8

My first test came back at 22 ng/mL. I wanted to reach 80 ng/dL in 3 months. From the chart, 2000 IU per day increases the level by 20 ng/mL so I needed (80-22)/20 or approximately 3 x 2000 or 6000 IU per day. I found that like many other health measurements used by doctors, this one grossly underestimated the amount needed because of the size of my body at the time. I tried this level for 3 months then tested again. The number hardly budged. This number will work for skinny people, but the more fat on the body the more that is needed. I took 25,000 units for 3 months before the correct level was reached. How much you need I do not know. You will have to test to find out. Most people in the US are low in vitamin D because they work inside, cover up when outside or slather on sun screen coupled with the fact there is no vitamin D in the foods we eat. Incidentally, the “standard acceptable range used by most doctors is 20-50 ng/mL. This is well below the optimal range. There is good evidence that 50-100 ng/mL is much healthier range.

Taking enough vitamin D3 will assure that you are absorbing enough calcium from your food. I do not normally recommend a calcium supplement. If you eat meat and vegetables with an occasional glass of raw milk and take the LEF Mix above you will get plenty of calcium.

If you take Vitamin D3 you must also take Vitamin K2. The function of Vitamin K2 is to tell the body what to do with the calcium the vitamin D causes to be digested. Without enough Vitamin K2 your body will deposit the calcium in your arteries and skin. This will cause lumps under the skin and hardening of the arteries. (And all this time you though hardening of the arteries was caused by high cholesterol, well you and most of the medical world have been misinformed - or lied to - your choice.). With enough Vitamin K2 in your body, calcium is actually removed from your arteries and deposited in bones and teeth where it belongs. See my article “Cholesterol Does not Cause CAD” for more information.

I take 2 of these Vitamin K’s each day.

https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item02335/super-k-elite

If you are not taking an iodine supplement, I suggest the following product instead as it has a small amount of iodine which most people need. Note it also contains some vitamin D so you may need to reduce the amount of other vitamin D supplementation.

https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item02040/vitamins-d-and-k-with-sea-iodine

As for magnesium you can use magnesium oil and rub it on your body or you can take a daily dose of Calm™, read the package for dosing. If you choose the Calm product, be aware that it can cause diarrhea if you get too much. If that happens reduce the dose. The magnesium oil you rub on your body does not have that problem. I use the magnesium oil as a natural deodorant and spray it under my arm and on any sore muscles each day. Here are the links to the products.

Calm - https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Vitality-Magnesium-Organic-Raspberry/dp/B075SNDF5G/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=Natural+Vitality+Natural+Calm&qid=1624473857&sr=8-9 Note: Calm comes in other flavors.

Magnesium oil. https://www.ancient-minerals.com/product/magnesium-oil/ Note: It comes in larger bottles and is cheaper, also, it is not really an oil. It is a saturated water solution of magnesium flakes. It does not stain clothes; it just feels like oil.

Finally, I add the oil soluble vitamins that cannot be included in the above items. I get them from this once daily Health Booster.

https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item02291/once-daily-health-booster

Here is a good place to explain how I keep track of what I am doing. To make weight measurements you need a scale that provides reproducible readings. By that mean that if you take your weight in 5-minute intervals, the numbers must always remain the same for many measurements in a row. If you cannot get at least 3 equal reading a in a row, get new scales.

Your body weight varies with time of day, time of week, and time of month. Women, do not be alarmed if you have a weight increase or decrease as your period comes and goes.

Some people step on the scales only once per week and others, like me, weigh and record every morning. I have a ritual. I get up. Use the toilet then record on my phone app, my weight, blood pressure, and body temperature. Once a week I add blood sugar readings. The software will produce a graph showing my weight over time. Using this method, I can see at a glance if I am gaining or losing.

Note: Morning temperature taken when you wake, but before you first get out of bed is one measure of thyroid function. My temperature at this time runs 99-100 degrees when my thyroid is working properly.

There are other vitamins, minerals, and herbs (Gingko Biloba and Lithium for mental alertness, etc.), but this is a good start.

Search for weight loss at LEF.org for more information and additional supplement suggestions.