The Tea with Tina
The Tea with Tina is going to be your new favorite weekly chit-chat that will feel like a good, juicy sit-down with your BFF. This podcast isn't your average (and boring) radio talk show-styled podcast. We dig deep, get personal, and have lots of fun along the way. Hear some relatable stories and a different perspective on various topics from health and fitness to pop culture. I am Tina Wieland, a certified fitness trainer and nutrition coach. Grab your caffeinated drink of choice, get comfortable, and be ready to hear the TEA.
The Tea with Tina
228 | Creatine Benefits, Balancing Supplements and Medications
Send me a text about the episode!
Ever wondered how a simple supplement could transform both your physical and mental health? Join me, Tina, as I share my personal journey with creatine and its remarkable benefits on muscle recovery and mental clarity, especially while managing thyroid issues. In this episode of Tea with Tina, I dive into the importance of high-quality supplements and reveal how skipping my creatine routine impacted my recent Hershey Park trip. You'll gain insights into balancing supplements with a healthy lifestyle to optimize overall well-being.
This weekend, I embraced a more laid-back vibe by enjoying movie nights, fall shopping at Hobby Lobby, and indulging in a cozy dinner at the Gorge Eatery. Despite the rainy weather thwarting my plans to visit local county fairs, the weekend turned out to be refreshingly relaxing. Reflecting on these experiences, I consider steering the podcast back to a more casual, talk show format, blending informative content with personal stories that resonate with our community.
In this engaging episode, we also delve into the heated debate between medication and natural remedies. By examining lifestyle factors and genetic predispositions, I provide a balanced perspective on health management. Real-life examples illustrate the importance of testing for deficiencies and the proactive use of both supplements and medications. Join the conversation and share your favorite supplements and health strategies with me. Let's explore the best ways to maintain our health and well-being together!
✅ Like the podcast? Leave a review!
💌 GET FREE DAILY HEALTHY RECIPES HERE
📝 APPLY TO WORK WITH ME
🌟 JOIN THE FREE FACEBOOK COMMUNITY
📸 FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM
🎥 FREE WORKOUT VIDEOS
💊 MY FAVORITE SUPPLEMENTS : CODE: 'TINAW' SAVES YOU $$$
Welcome to the Tea with Tina, your favorite podcast, where we talk all things health, fitness, lifestyle and maybe a little bit of tea gets spilled. We chat all about this in a super casual environment. So grab your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and enjoy, relax and enjoy. Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Tea with Tina podcast. Today, my beverage of choice is some Legion Athletics creatine. Let me tell you guys listen, shameless plug I am a Legion Athlet athletics affiliate, mainly because I just love their products. We're actually going to be talking about supplements and medication today, so this ties in really nicely.
Speaker 1:But listen, since I started taking my thyroid meds I don't know if it's a side effect from the thyroid medication or a side effect from my hashim's, but my muscle weakness has been terrible. I get really fatigued after a workout. The workout itself never feels challenging, it's just my recovery after is bad and I haven't changed anything. So you know, muscle wasting, muscle weakness, muscle soreness can be a side effect of the thyroid issue as well as the medication. And let me tell you, the one thing that helps immensely is creatine Creatine I did a whole podcast episode on this a while back, but creatine is by far the most well-researched supplement out there. It is the safest. Now you also got to make sure you get a high quality one, which this one is micronized creatine. This is, um, you know the way they filter it and process it. It's finer, higher quality, so you're not going to get that bloating or water retention, which is what I was worried about. You know, thyroid stuff already made me puffy and watery. I I didn't want that again, so this does not, you know, make you gain weight, make you hold on to all this water. It's great. I use the fruit punch flavor and let me tell you, when I drink it every day because you're supposed to do it every single day to allow it to build up in your system the muscle fatigue goes away and I feel back to myself. And there's actually been new research out that says that people who aren't just lifters, but everybody, could benefit from taking creatine, even older people. And they're saying that it has brain benefits. And let me tell you, I definitely notice it when I'm drinking it. I feel more mental clarity. And listen, I stopped this past weekend and we went to Hershey, which I'm going to be chatting about in um a little bit, uh, but we went to Hershey Park and I did, like you know, I think, 17,000 steps or something like that. And I walked the day before and, like today, I was just feeling it. I was feeling sore and achy and my like that's not normal for me because I'm pretty active and I was like, well, it was probably because I didn't take my creatine, so I'm right back on the train again.
Speaker 1:Okay, so creatine for sure go to legion, legion athletics. If you use code tina w t-i-n-a-w at checkout, you'll get 20 off if it's your first time. If you're a returning customer, you get double reward points towards your next visit, which I also love. Their rewards program they're like amazing, you get like I swear I get like $10 off every order. They're points they just rack up. And also, for my skeptics out there, they have a great return policy as well. I've used it. I'm picky about flavors. If you get something and you don't like it, literally just message them. You can send the item back. They don't charge you. Well, actually, you don't even have to send it back, you can keep it, but they'll send you a new flavor, a new product. They'll refund you whatever you need. They're really good with the returns. So, yes, we have all that Now. Now that that's out of the way of my drink of choice, of creatine, maybe you have coffee and energy drink water, whatever.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to chat a little bit, give you a little bit of a life update. And let me say too, I've kind of went back and forth with this podcast. It's been an experience. We're in the 200s with episodes now and you know, I feel like there's two types of podcasts, right. There's the very informative, like you click on it for a specific purpose, you're learning about a specific thing, and that's it. And then there's the more like talk show style podcasts, and I will say that I definitely fall somewhere in the middle there and I'm leaning to go back to the talk show style.
Speaker 1:I kind of went towards like, hey, this is the topic we're talking about. I'm not gonna say any small talk, any chit chat. You know, we're just gonna go straight into the topic, which I feel like there's probably different types of listeners, so some of you guys might just want to get straight to the point and some of you probably don't mind hearing the chit-chats. I know me. I mean, if it's a topic I really want to know something about, that's what chapters are for, whether it be a YouTube video or podcast. I don't know if you knew this, but you can actually like go through the chapters, so you know, maybe 10 minutes in I start talking about the supplements and medication and you just want to listen to that part and you don't want to hear me talk, you can just skip to that part. I'm not going to be upset about that.
Speaker 1:But for the people that like the chit chat, it's weird. I don't know what it is, because there's this couple that I listen to. I love them, they're into health and fitness and they're like in their 40s, like mid to late 40s, and they live in LA and they just do like a little chat, um talk show and they talk about their lives. Don't know them at all, but I just still find it fascinating, like you're almost watching or listening to a reality show and you get to know these people and it just makes you feel more connected and I really love that and I enjoy talking about it too. It keeps me interested, um, and I think that allows you to be a little bit real. I feel like a lot of social media is very it's very manicured. You know the perfect poses, you're getting the best angles. You're saying the perfect things.
Speaker 1:I got into podcasts was because you could just show up as yourself. You know you don't necessarily have to filter out anything and I feel like when I do something that's just science-based or like you're only focusing on this topic, it loses that. So I'm going to dive in and play around with like segments. You know different themed segments so I might be experimenting with that. I also would like to in a perfect world videotape these in a more casual way. I have a couple spots around my house that I could film.
Speaker 1:It's just the time-consumingness of setting this up and filming and editing because I don't make any money from this. This is purely for fun, to educate, have fun. You guys get to know me community building, all that stuff but I do not make money. And even if I did make money off it, it probably wouldn't be a lot like if I did a sponsorship or something like that. Like, really there's no, there's no money making in this, so it's more of a time thing. But that may also be something in the future.
Speaker 1:But as a reminder, your guys's support means a lot. Anybody who listens. I appreciate you being here If you ever leave a review or you give me a couple stars, share my episode with somebody so somebody else sees it. It means a lot to me. So I do appreciate you being here, right, and with that being said, let's kind of get into what I did this past weekend. So let me see, friday was a little bit of a crash day for me. Friday's always crash day. I don't know if it's a mental thing, but I take clients up until about noon and then I'm just done for the day. My brain checks out, because Tuesday, wednesday, thursday are usually my most busy days. I'm running around, usually working about 12 hour days. So once Friday comes, I'm just like, yeah, I'm checked out, let's, let's be done, guys. So Friday I did not do much. Oh, I know what I did, though.
Speaker 1:We watched Sling Blade. Okay, sling Blade is a movie, I believe, from like the late 80s, early 90s. It has a star studded, cast um, and it's about this guy who, at the time, they frame him as mentally retarded. Right, that phrase doesn't go well these days. Actually, looking at him, I would say he was probably on the spectrum. Um, like severely disabled on the spectrum, like he'd be on the um more on the extreme end. But it's really. It's a really good movie about him, how he kind of gets out of the mental, a mental institution, because he um killed his mom when he was younger and he's put in there and he got out for good behavior and he goes out into the real world. Um, but really one of those good movies. It's a little bit of a slow burn but it hits hard. So we watched that. You can only find it also.
Speaker 1:Random side note on Red Coral C-O-R-A-L. Red Coral is a free streaming service. They have a good bit of ads in there for warning, but it's completely free and they use. Like, a lot of filmmakers and stuff will put their stuff on there. Um, I don't know why it's only on there. You can't find it anywhere else, not even Amazon, like you literally cannot find it anywhere else. So there's that, um, but we did watch. It was something different. It was good.
Speaker 1:Saturday, saturday, saturday what did we? Saturday? We went to Hobby Lobby. Let me tell you we were trying to look at the Halloween stuff. You know Hobby Lobby is like grandma fall. You know they don't have anything scary, but it was cute. You know they had a lot of as your timer for my kitchen and I got this really nice circular painting that had a mushroom on it. I don't quite know where I want to hang it yet, um, but it fits perfectly with our decor and the vibe. We're going for it either in the kitchen or the hallway. I love it Super cute.
Speaker 1:Um, I was just really happy looking at everything in Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby has some really good quality stuff, um, for pretty cheap. Like they were even having like a 40% off sale on all the fall stuff. So it was a really good deal and I love how they kind of sectioned things off Based off of different like themes. Like they even had some Christmas stuff and then you know I'm not into Christmas yet, it's a little too early, but they did have some really nice like cottagecore Christmas. They had like a sweet treat Christmas, so they had like different themed traditional Christmas. They had like a sweet treat Christmas, so they had like different themes Traditional Christmas. I love how they organized that and they did that with the fall stuff too. Different themes, like a mushroom theme and a you know traditional fall theme, a kids fall theme. So that was really nice.
Speaker 1:We got some Starbucks. I'm normally not a Starbucks girly, I'm more of a Dunkin, mainly because there's never any Starbucks within 10 minutes of my house. There's only two Dunkin's within 10 minutes of my house. Starbucks is is closer to 20 minutes, but I do agree that their coffee's a little smoother, a little better. I was impressed ordering on their app too. Like I guess I'm just that late to the game, but I was ordering on the app and it told me when it would be done and there was like a little like a little widget like that was saying, oh, it's being prepared and it tells you when it's done. And wow, I love that, I loved it. So we did that. And you know what we actually did go to my favorite restaurant, the Gorge Eatery, which I love it. There Just got a mushroom burger with some fries and they had a special appetizer that was steak egg rolls. So that was fun, just a nice little evening out.
Speaker 1:And, uh, we really wanted to this week hit up some fairs, because the time of recording this is august, so august, september is kind of like the county fair. Um, a lot of fairs happen. Like every week there's one, usually in a different location, but the rain was really bad this past week. From the hurricane down south, we got all that rain. It was a washout so, and actually last weekend was kind of like a washout as well, and so we weren't able to go and we we drove past the one that we wanted to go to and it looked okay, but it was a little. You could tell it was a little crowded and it was a little smaller than we're used to. But this week there should be a um fair. Maybe it's next week, maybe it's next week one of these weeks there's.
Speaker 1:There's a fair that's close to us. It's called the west end fair and, um, they have a really nice fairground. You actually walk around to different like vendors. They even sell plants I'm all about that. They have rides, they have really good food Like little tractor walkthroughs, they have demo derbies, so it's actually really nice, really well rounded. I enjoy it. Again, it just gets a little crowded, but you know I'm here for it, so we're looking forward to that.
Speaker 1:But that was Saturday, earlier in the day. We kind of just got stuff done. I actually went on a walk. I did say that I did a lot of walking this weekend. I did three miles. My legs were sore. I was going fast. I think it's because I actually got to sleep in too. Oh, praise thee, I got to sleep in till about 9. I'm somebody that I get up around 5.30, 6am. I have to take medication at 6am on the dot, like I'm not somebody who messes around with that, so like I always have to wake up at 6am regardless, even if I fall back to sleep. So, yeah, I got to sleep in a little bit and that was good. Caught up on some work Did all of that.
Speaker 1:I did some new branding colors for my, for Tina Weiland Fitness as well. I did some a refresh, I should say, because traditionally I have teal and, like this highlighter, lime yellow color. I love it, we love it. I just wanted a little bit of a refresh, so I cleaned things up a little bit. I actually I don't know what got into me.
Speaker 1:I went into this like mode where I was like I am really into this. I used to do this a lot when I was like into blogging and my website. I would just love like making different brand color palettes and playing around with things, and obviously I didn't want to change my brand too much. I've gotten it down pat pretty well, like I'm happy with my fonts and my colors and my vibe, but I was like I just wanted to freshen it up and I literally went down a rabbit hole. I was on pinterest looking at like these teal Color boards, like could I do teal and gold? Like what were the different things? I was experimenting with different color palettes, like playing around, I went on these like color palette generators and I finally, because there was like a vision I had, I finally landed on something that I liked and unfortunately this is sad, but I think it's worth it, maybe for my OCD I took out the lightning bolt.
Speaker 1:Right, I originally wanted the lightning bolt because I had the highlighter yellow and it you know the teal is more kind of calming and it's my, my color. You know I love teal and it could compliment like yoga and strength training. But but the teal or the um highlighter yellow added that element of like energy and working out and and all that, and that's kind of why I did the lightning bolt too. I love the lightning bolt, brings that energy. But let me tell you, for design, lightning bolts suck. They are very um asymmetrical. So anytime I tried to add it to my logo or like put it somewhere, it looked wrong. It just looked wrong and I just couldn't tolerate it. So I decided to do a starburst or it kind of almost looks like a sun, like a starburst sun type logo icon and it's much better. It's, it's balanced, it's circular. It works so much well, more well, so much more well works better.
Speaker 1:With the logo, I can actually incorporate it in more things and the way I look at it is it still shows energy and power through the sun and I love that. I can kind of incorporate that like the sun through nature and being outside, so you still get that energy, and also kind of goes into this tina 2.0, who's using like yoga and mobility and walks outside. So it just I love it. We're about it. I'm sitting on it a little bit because I still have to update everything on my website. I want to do a little photo shoot to update my photos. I kind of want to plan that out. I have to update my podcast, which I did do, refresh the cover art, which I didn't upload, yet my email list. So there's a lot of stuff going on with that. But again, it's not necessary, just something fun. So I have that kind of on the back burner. But that happened like Friday night and Saturday, so that was going on. Sunday was the big day, though that was kind of the highlight of the weekend.
Speaker 1:We went to Hershey Park back in May. We bought some tickets to Hershey. We got a good deal. It was like a military deal from my husband. It was like buy one, get one, 50% off. So it was a pretty good deal and so we went.
Speaker 1:I think we went to Hershey two years ago. We went for the Halloween nights, their opening year, so it wasn't super busy, which I was very thankful for. It was a little disorganized because, like it was the first year, you know, nobody knew what the heck was going on. But again, I was grateful that, like we were kind of the first ones, it wasn't super crazy busy, right, um, so we went there, but that was the last time that we went, so we're like you know what, let's go. Um, let me say I think it was a combination of bad timing and for some reason Hershey has been extremely busy the past year or two.
Speaker 1:We actually looked at the stats. They have a graph and it showed, like at opening, the time of opening, the percentage of people or the percentage of park capacity. Um, pretty much for the past five, ten years it's been around 40 percent, give or take a little bit. Within the past year two, the average has been 70 percent. So I don't know if it's like everybody is finally completely over covid, we're through it. So like they want to go to hershey. I know there was an article that came out that rated hershey as one of the best parks in america. Within the past that probably contributed, but when we went we were kind of just like shocked.
Speaker 1:Right, like, one of the parking lots was completely full. By the way, parking by Chocolate World was $60. Okay, that was a lot. It's expensive and normal parking is $35 there. If you purchase ahead of time it's $25. But I think it used to be $15. And that's just, you know. I know prices are going up everywhere, everything goes up, inflation, whatever but it's just like it's just crazy to see how quickly things have jumped in such a short period of time due to covid, inflation, companies taking advantage. Whatever the reasons are, it's just, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:So we, we did that. We, you know, we already bought the tickets, like okay, so we parked. We, we went into the park. It was extremely busy. It was the busiest I've ever seen it. Um, you could not get on a ride. I would say the average wait was about an hour and a half to get on every ride. Hour and a half to two plus hours. Like the nice, the good rides were two hour waits. Um, the lesser favorable rides were probably around an hour hour and a half. It was crazy. A couple things were a little bit of a shorter wait, but it was like you know, the Ferris wheel, which I hate heights, I'm afraid of heights. So that didn't work. But you know we still made the best of it.
Speaker 1:I'm somebody that I kind of I rode my rides there. There wasn't anything crazy. I wanted to ride. I wouldn't have minded riding the new coaster, the wildcat revenge, where it's the steel wood combo, but that was a very long wait and weather was beautiful. I also think like it was a mixture of some things. The green day concert got rescheduled. Um, kids go back to school soon. The weather was nice. It's been raining all week.
Speaker 1:So like it was just a combination of things where I think more people were generally in the park, but we definitely hit up the arcade. We played a lot of games, which was fun. We did zoo of america, which I loved. I love zoo of america, the animals and things like that. We just kind of walked around the park. I'm somebody who just likes to go for the vibe. Um, got some good chicken strips and fries Can't get mad about that and I did get some ice cream. So overall I was pretty happy.
Speaker 1:And I saw a Reese's Cup, the Reese's Cup guy. I snuck a picture of him. I didn't stand in line because it's all the kids that get selfies with him, but you know, I took a picture from a distance and he waved. I don't know if he was waving at me, but but I got him waving. So, um, that was fun.
Speaker 1:Some of the prices again, though it was crazy. Like there was this glass I think it's hopefully it's real glass. It was like a mason jar, crazy ice cream creation where they give you like a whole, you know, piece of cake on top. It was like $18, $18. That's like just wild, like that's Disney Universal prices and maybe they're trying to compete. I don't know. I don't know what's going on there, but yeah, definitely things have increased and the wait time was not fun. So I don't know what it would be like on a weekday. Like I said, we haven't been there in a while I was actually reading some of the reviews, the recent ones, and from what I was seeing, this seems to be the trend for the past year, year and a half everybody was having the same kind of complaints, saying it was really busy, there was a two hour plus wait, um, they could be understaffed, I don't know, but it was still fun.
Speaker 1:We did not stay the whole time. We got there around noon, 1230, and we stayed till about seven. I always want to stay in the evening, you know, to see the lights and everything on the rides. We never make it. We always say we got to go later and we just, we never listen to our past selves. And this time Derek was like listen, we're gonna listen to ourselves and we're going to come later, even though it seems like we're missing out. We just, we just never make it. I guess, just because we're going to um come later, even though it seems like we're missing out, we just, we just never make it. I guess, just because we're not kids anymore and it's like we get tired and and, uh, it's like a two hour drive home. So, you know, we actually got home at a decent time, it wasn't super late and, uh, I got semi good sleep. So here we are, but it was fun. Anyways, that's going to wrap up for my little chit-chat stuff.
Speaker 1:What I wanted to talk about today, though, the actual learning topic, was just the whole vibe around taking medication and taking supplements. Okay, because I feel like there's these different camps of people, especially with medication. There's these people I think I talked about a story, an argument that I had with a girl who was completely against medication. There are people that are super against medication. They believe that they are somehow better than people if they somehow go through life and not need any medication. They do everything natural and like look, that's awesome. You know, I'm proud of you. If you can make it through life, you don't need any medical intervention. You know, and don't get me wrong, okay, there's spectrums for everything. Because, I agree, I think there's a lot of things that get over prescribed, like if somebody has high blood pressure, okay, and it's not life threatening, right.
Speaker 1:Let's say we don't need to get it down immediately because it's like really high, Someone's blood pressure is creeping up, why would you immediately prescribe that medication? Why would you immediately prescribe that medication? First thought would be let's talk about lifestyle, right? Are you drinking enough water to balance out maybe the sodium and electrolytes in your body? Are we getting enough nutrients? Are there any imbalances? Are we moving our bodies? Do we need to lose weight? Let's try that for three to six months and then you know. If things aren't coming down, if things aren't improving, we can look into medication. Because here's my argument for medication Sometimes there's a genetic component.
Speaker 1:There is simply a component where you can do all the right things and it, you know, it still doesn't improve. I've seen it. I've seen very healthy marathon runners, particularly males, people who lift a lot. Their blood pressure, just genetically, is high and they have to be on medication. Cholesterol I've seen it with cholesterol and whether it's genetic or sometimes, there is a complex kind of chain reaction going on where, whether it's from stress, something you can't quite control right now, there's always a lot of weird checks and balances going on in our bodies and that could cause you to have, you know, high cholesterol. Right, like even with thyroid. They say thyroid issues can cause you to have high cholesterol if your thyroid's off. So you know, it's kind of like a byproduct. It's not necessarily genetic, but it's because of the hypothyroidism that I would have, right, if I were to have high cholesterol. Luckily I do not, but that could be a thing and it's something out of your control.
Speaker 1:I know this was something I struggled with with my thyroid when I was getting diagnosed because my levels were slightly elevated. So I thought you know what, if I do all the right things, I can bring my body down to check right. I can. I can drink my water, get enough sleep, reduce my stress, cut out processed foods like I was doing everything. Guess what? My levels got worse. So it's and you know, I don't know if it was directly correlated to that it could just be fluctuation, because your thyroids, actually your hormones, are fluctuating all the time. Sometimes stressful situations the winter can cause those levels to get worse.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of different things. It's never like completely balanced the whole time, but you know that showed me like I just I needed to take medication. You're not wrong if you need it. Like you can be someone who's actively trying to be a healthy person and still need medication, right, obviously, just be mindful. Question things like did you try natural things first? Um, just like you can be really unhealthy and be very fortunate and lucky and never have any health issues. Looking at grandma who lives to be 109 and smokes a cigarette every day and drinks Dr Pepper Right, like sometimes there are just freaks of nature or there's probably something that maybe we don't even realize yet research-wise that can be maybe impacting our health.
Speaker 1:I know I was reading a little bit into DNA, how they're talking about, like our DNA strands and how they can shorten over time and that causes us to be unhealthy or shorten our lifespans. But the things that cause it to shorten aren't always what we associate with healthy and unhealthy. I can't think of any of the examples off the top of my head, but it was very interesting to view things like that, like it was just things that you wouldn't think of and you're like, oh, that's interesting, like I wouldn't think that would be something that would make you live longer, but it was a certain treat or maybe a certain nutrient or a certain style of life and then other things that could potentially be viewed as healthy can actually shorten those DNA strands. So it's interesting. It was interesting. So yeah, we have that.
Speaker 1:But I just feel like there's people out there that live on the other end of the spectrum and they just praise. You know, everything's all natural, everything's organic. I use all herbal supplements, I am health, screw medication and like it kind of bothers me because, as somebody who's just, I tried to go into that world because I actually got that like I got the fear-mongering of of all that stuff and I was like, oh, chemicals are bad, I have to do everything natural, I have to eat completely healthy or I'm poisoning myself and I'm gonna get cancer and I can't take medication. And I try to live healthy and you know what, being really quote-unquote healthy it's, it's relative okay, because you can gain weight when you eat healthy food. You can have all organic, healthy food. If you're in a calorie surplus, girl, you're gonna gain weight. Okay, I don't care. If you eat healthy, I don't care. If calorie surplus girl, you're going to gain weight, okay, I don't care. If you eat healthy, I don't care. If you shop at Whole Foods, you're going to gain weight. You can lose weight eating junk food. If you're in a calorie deficit, now, you're probably going to be malnourished from the nutrients, but you can lose weight right. So healthy doesn't always mean anything.
Speaker 1:But also all that herbal stuff, herbal supplements, never sat well with me. Every single one I tried gave me a weird side effect. People go to the ER. They say I don't know how many cases, but they say they have a lot for, like, liver issues From like combining these herbal supplements and they don't know which ones should combine with what, and if they're taking them and they don't need them, they combine with what? And? And if they're taking them and they don't need them, they can end up in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Right, just because it's herbal and it's natural doesn't mean that it can't cause us negative side effects or problems, right? Um, I think that's something that we forget. We think just because something's natural, it can't hurt us. There's like plants that are poisonous, right, you can drink too much water and die. Like there's. Just just because it's natural does not mean it's the end, all be all, you're going to be great because everything's all natural. Right.
Speaker 1:And another argument I had for these people because the one girl I was arguing with was like, well, I'm going to be on an endless pursuit of trying to do everything naturally. You know, I want to get to the root cause. But like what if you're just born that way? You know, like people who are born with the inability to walk right, or people that get paralyzed from the waist down. Or you can be like I'm just going to look for a root cause to cure me being paralyzed. It's like no, you're just paralyzed. Or if your leg gets amputated for a certain reason, is there a root cause? No, like. Sometimes there's people that are just born with things where their body isn't functioning right. It was a glitch, a glitch in the system. Or sometimes you go through certain changes in your body, different things happen and you simply just need the help of medication. And here's the thing too. Again, medication is not the end, all be all. Even with Ozempic and things like that, people think like, oh, this is my ticket. It's like no, you still need to eat healthy, you still need to be active.
Speaker 1:The way I look at it is look at a car right, if you give it an oil change, you rotate the tires, you take care of it, you keep it clean, it's going to run smooth, right, no issues. You put that extra work in. Yeah, it's extra work, but you're being preventative and and you're going to have a better chance. Now, yeah, sometimes things happen, sometimes something could just randomly go wrong, just like in humans. You could do everything right and something randomly could go wrong, but you have a better chance. And well, if you have a car that you never do the oil change, you forget. You let your tires run until they're bald. It has a weird squeaky noise. You didn't check it right. It's going to be clunky. It's going to run not as efficiently, you know, maybe you're going to get crappier gas mileage. It's going to be more prone to breaking down because you're not taking care of it and you do your tune-ups and everything that you need to do. It's probably going to run more efficiently. It will absorb your medication better. You're going to get a better quality experience. You're going to feel better. Your body's processes in general are going to run more efficiently. So why wouldn't you give yourself your best fighting chance? If you just kind of do whatever, you're risking running into breaking down like a car and running into more issues and feeling like crap, and that's just. It's what it is. Our bodies are like machines. Machines are modeled after us and we're not perfect.
Speaker 1:Now, with this kind of comes supplements right, because we were talking. I mean herbal supplements and medication. You know medication has its place. Supplements and medication. You know medication has its place. I think it's a case by case basis. It's not all bad. You know we need to question like are should we take this? Did we try everything naturally first? Is this life threatening? Do I need to be on this for a period of time and is there a chance I could come off of it? You know there's a lot of different questions. Same thing with herbal supplements.
Speaker 1:Some people might benefit from an herbal version of something like like for cholesterol, right, like I can't think of it off the top of my head, but there's probably some sort of herbal supplement out there that helps with cholesterol or anti-inflammatory stuff, right. So maybe you want to try something natural before you try, um, you know medication, because a lot of cholesterol meds I know um cause muscle wasting. It actually breaks up your muscle and you get a lot of cholesterol meds, I know um cause muscle wasting. It actually breaks up your muscle and you get a lot of muscle soreness and fatigue from that because it wastes your muscle away, right, and that's a very negative side effect. So maybe you want to try something natural first, right. Um, now with supplements, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:I think people think that if they take a supplement coming from somebody who was just endorsing creatine, I think people think that, oh, if I take a supplement, I'm healthy, if I take a supplement, I'm healthy, it'll fix things. Oh, if I take this multivitamin I'm gonna feel better. And you may. But just like anything, I think it's more important than ever to test. Don't guess. To test, don't guess.
Speaker 1:Get blood work. Ask your doctor for blood work. Um, go on alta labs, ulta labs. Order your own blood work. If your doctor refuses or your insurance doesn't cover it, you can get low cost lab work done. Um, like your local quest even quest sells, uh, blood work that you can get done.
Speaker 1:But test, test your iron levels, test your vitamin, your vitamin levels. Get that checked and see where you're at. Also, pay attention if you're on the low to normal range or the high to normal range, because, remember, it's just the levels. That you're seeing is an average, right, and there's always outliers. And you know, let's say, your iron is low, normal, right, well, I would consider this a flag because it's like okay, if it's low, normal and you're symptomatic, it would probably be worth trying to supplement with a little bit of iron to bring those levels up right. Um, you don't, you don't want to wait till it's like so terrible, which I think is the case for a lot of doctors is they wait till you're, you're symptomaticomatic, you're feeling like garbage, to absolutely confirm.
Speaker 1:But in my head, a lot of trainers and health and fitness professionals are very preventative. So you would say, okay, well, this is low to normal. Or, oh, my vitamin d is like high normal. It's still within the normal range, but it's high so I'm gonna back off. And I actually had this happen to me. Okay, this is why I'm sharing, because you can over supplement with supplements. You could take too much. Okay, um, now this is important with the fat soluble, because the fat soluble you actually build up in your body. Okay, um, water soluble, you just pee out if it's in excess. It's much harder to um get like vitamin toxicity levels but, like vitamin d is fat soluble.
Speaker 1:And I used to live in pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is one of the cloudiest areas. It gets the least amount of sun less sunny days than seattle. Okay, so I thought, yeah, I got a and I believe when I got my blood work done, um, I was low. So I would just naturally started supplementing with vitamin D. I took the gummies. You know a 2000 IU a day and I took them and then I moved out here and there's more sunny days and I go for walks outside, um, so I get more sunlight that way.
Speaker 1:I wasn't outside as much when I first started supplementing, so I think my levels are higher and when I went last time she was saying, hey, your vitamin Ds are normal, but they're definitely on the higher end, so you might be over supplementing. So I actually did pull back from that and I'm actually going to get retested to see where my levels fall and again, that can change over time, like something like that with your lifestyle, maybe you start to eat healthier and you don't need to supplement with certain vitamins and nutrients Because you're getting them from your food. So you need to assess your lifestyle On a case by case basis. Of course, if you're deficient in something, it's good to supplement. But I would say more and more, it seems like people are getting away from the multivitamins because it just seems like they throw everything in there and it can be dangerous.
Speaker 1:Nowadays, especially with energy drinks, you have the electrolyte drinks, you have vitamins added into granola bars, protein bars, bread, even like they're adding the nutrients, extra nutrients, into things to say, hey, it's loaded with vitamin D and this has iron in it and this has this, and then you don't really take the time to add up everything to see how much you're truly consuming and you can. It can be dangerous. You can actually be really consuming too much. It gets very confusing. So if you're curious, you can always just like you, track food, track your supplements, track your food, pay attention to the nutrient levels that pop up. You know whatever you're looking for In a food tracker like MyFitnessPal, my clients, the in-app food tracker is very similar and you can just see the levels and look at the recommended dietary intake, the RDI.
Speaker 1:Look it up online. Usually it's a range and you can even look up what levels are a toxic level, like what is a dangerous level, and just see where you fall. You know if you're within a normal range, then okay, no issues. But if something looks a little high, it should be reason for concern. And definitely look up like symptoms. If you're concerned, look up symptoms of having too much of a certain vitamin or mineral. A lot of the times it's like diarrhea, nausea, headaches, muscle aches, like nothing life threatening, but you'll notice something is off. But certain ones you do. You do have to watch for. So you're probably better off just individually supplementing with things. Again, it's case by case.
Speaker 1:I know one of my friends. She has to take a B vitamin shot. She has to shoot it into her leg. She just for some reason her body can't absorb vitamin B. She has to take a supplement for it. I know people that are super low on iron and they just got to take iron supplements. They have to get iron infusions. Same thing with vitamin D, but again, it's case by case basis.
Speaker 1:So honestly, I haven't really been taking a lot of vitamins lately. I just feel like it was too much, like I didn't really need it. Even with the fish oil I'm a little thrown off lately because I saw a new study I have to look into it that says that taking fish oil in healthy individuals can actually increase your risk for heart problems, like you're getting too much. But people who need it actually it does benefit. But I'm like okay, but I know fish oil you're supposed to supplement with if you don't really get that many servings of fish. You know your healthy omega-3s and omega-6s, so I'm curious about that one. That's why I've been a little hesitant to take that.
Speaker 1:But I used to take a multivitamin vitamin or the fish oil, vitamin D, sometimes a probiotic, but I just have found myself not needing it. I'll occasionally do a protein powder and creatine and pre-workout's nice. I love the stem-free pre-workout from Legion because it gives you a little boost without caffeine, which is nice. So I really haven't been supplementing with the vitamins. I just haven't needed to. And I think some of that also came from like when I was on a certain birth control pill. It was really draining me of my resources. And now that I think I have my thyroid situated and my birth control situated, I feel like my body's a little bit more stabilized, right, and that's another thing. It's like just depending on your circumstances and where you're at, sometimes you might need more for one reason or another and sometimes you might need less.
Speaker 1:So you know, take everything with a grain of salt. So what is that lesson? What is the lesson between supplements, medication, uh, herbal, natural it's. It's all individualized and you have to do your research, be your own advocate. Again, tests don't guess. You know. If you're not symptomatic it's probably not something to worry about. But it is good to get a general blood panel just to monitor your levels and see Is something dropping, is something increasing? You want to see trends over time and catch things early so you don't wait until it's really bad and then you're like, oh, I've got to deal with this, try to be preventative with it.
Speaker 1:So that is kind of all I wanted to chat about today. I hope you found that helpful. If you take any supplements that you love, you know, share with me. Share with me. In the description there should be a link that says send me a text, and you can send me a text and it's fan mail and I'll actually get a little notification for that. If you want to chat about the show, chat about supplements, herbal stuff, whatever, feel free to share. I'd love to hear it. Alright, guys, thanks for tuning in for today. I will see you on the next one and have a great rest of your day. Bye.
