supplements

I Took A Banned Drug And Didn’t Even Know It

February 8, 2012

From now on I’m sticking to sugar as my pre-race pep. Jelly beans are happy pills indeed. Bad news bodybuilders: dimethylamylamine (DMAA) may be responsible for the deaths of two soldiers, according to the U.S. Army. Eh, just another day and another story about a sports supplement gone wrong? Not for me. This story hit me hard. Probably because I have some DMAA in my cabinet as we speak. You may not recognize DMAA by acronym alone but it’s also known as Asian geranium extract and it’s found in some of the most popular – and most effective – supplements [...]

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How Much Vitamin D Do You Need, Exactly? And How Do You Get It?

December 19, 2011

I think vitamin D is the least of this guy’s worries in the sun… At first I thought his nipples were stickers. If my life were perfect I’d live near the equator and get plenty of sunshine every day that my body would then naturally use to produce all the vitamin D it needs to be happy, healthy and less insane. Of course, that would also mean the mice that live in my kitchen would sing while cleaning it instead of pooping out a litter of mewling baby mice under my sink that scared me so badly I still get [...]

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Preventative Health Care: Is being “not sick” the same as being “healthy”?

November 29, 2011

YES IT WILL. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Don’t disillusion me. Remember that kid in your class who ate dirt or licked the inside of the freezer or sucked down paste? Well it turns out that he may not have been one pinto bean shy of a bingo like we all thought. Pica – the intense desire to eat non-food items – is now thought to be the result of an iron or other mineral deficiency. Who knew? Get the kid a steak and he might have been class president. Or maybe his blood was fine and [...]

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Adderall: Perfect life in a pill or Stepford epidemic?

November 2, 2011

I was first introduced to Adderall a few years ago by a friend deep in the anorexic abyss. At the time I wrote it off as just more evidence of the all-consuming nihilism of the disease. Not only was she starving herself, working out hours every day and popping diet pills like candy but now she was taking prescription meds too – just one more thing to maintain her tortuously thin frame. To her though it was significant: it allowed her to maintain her focus and mental functioning during an illness that is notorious for compromising both. Yet, I wrote [...]

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Prebiotics, Probiotics and a Hospital Epiphany [Giveaway!]

April 28, 2011

Hospitals with their life, death, and strange smell zeitgeist have been the setting for several major revelations in my life (not the least of which is that nutritionists consider Malt-o-Meal a “solid food” but Jell-O is a “liquid”) and this time it was no different. My 3rd son, just nine months old at the time, hung limply in my arms as nurses and doctors buzzed around us. There was no waiting for us in the the waiting room when I brought my baby in, nearly unconscious with a fever of 107. The triage nurse took one look at my son [...]

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B Vitamins for Better Health or More Supplement Hype? [Getting Health Advice From the Costco Taste Test Guy]

March 28, 2011

Cartoon says: (man) “Gosh, Honey, you seem to thrive on cooking, cleaning and dusting and I’m all tuckered out by closing time. What’s the answer?” (woman) “Vitamins, Darling! I always get my vitamins!” Charlotte says: Gee willikers, I want some speed fortified with vitamins too! I was accosted at Costco. It all started on Saturday – I was trashed after doing Hot Yoga and TurboKick back-to-back (talk about the two sweatiest classes ever!) so I suggested to Gym Hubby that we take the kids to Costco for what I call “the walking lunch.” (Confession: I actually wanted to go to [...]

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Mini-Experiment: Progesterone Cream [Learn from my mistakes!]

February 24, 2011

Now that’s a problematic bikini line! Repeat after me: I will not take medical advice from celebrities whose claim to fame is a Playboy spread. I’m not saying Jenny McCarthy isn’t funny, talented and gorgeous but the only medical tips I’m taking from her here on out are those regarding my bikini line. (Side note: as a child, I always thought “bikini line” meant hair on your belly, along the waistband of the bikini. It horrified me that puberty was apparently going to give me a furry tummy. When it didn’t I felt all superior to those poor women who [...]

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I Was Wrong: Creatine Revisted

February 6, 2011

I suppose there are worse mistakes* to make…. Oh creatine, you confuse me so! I said it didn’t work. I thought it didn’t work. I don’t see a difference in either muscle size or definition. And then I got my body fat percentage measured and I am down 2% from last month. (And because I know someone will ask – yes, same time, same place, same trainer, same calipers. It’s not perfect but it’s the best I can do unless you all want to take up a collection for me to get my body fat hydrostatically tested again. Which, honestly, [...]

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Can You Spot-Reduce Your Thighs? [Learning to love the body I've got thanks to dubious science and the Internet!]

January 16, 2011

Leave it to an incorporeal computer to give me a reality check about my body. Somewhere Isaac Asimov is smiling. But just as the Internet giveth, so does the Internet taketh away… and now I’m just confused. Every woman has a body part that she just doesn’t like much. (Strike that – while most women do, I imagine there are some who love every inch of themselves and more power to them!) Oh sure we’ll gripe about there-ain’t-no-love-in-these handles (so says TurboJennie) or our Oprah-waves-goodbye upper arms (so says Oprah) but there is usually one extra special body part that [...]

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Creatine Supplementing for Women: The Good, The Bad and The Bloated

December 29, 2010

Proof that even the skinniest girl will look bloated if she stands wrong. And this is how 80% of Star magazine’s headlines are born… Increased muscle growth, faster recovery, increased endurance, less body fat, reversal of the beginning stages of heart failure and greater mental acuity (about a 10 point increase in IQ!) are just a few of the many benefits of the supplement creatine. Benefits, I might add, that are very well supported by reliable research as creatine is possibly the most researched athletic supplement out there. So why isn’t everyone running to take this miracle in a powder? [...]

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