Finding the Best Supplement Routine for YOU

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There are supplement discount codes at the bottom of this resource!

What are the supplements everyone should be taking?

I get this question a lot.

So, let’s just start this resource outright by saying NO TWO PEOPLE ARE THE SAME.

Yes, we all have basic needs. We’ll call them our “big jars.” Those would include:

However, when people want me to talk supplements, they’re usually asking about micronutrients. We’ll call them out “small jars.” Those would include:

  • Vitamins (both water-soluble + fat-soluble)

  • Minerals

  • Amino acids

It’s a very key point of this article that I remind you: fill be big jars first.

No supplement is going to help your health improve without first meeting the needs of the big jars.  

This means consuming the food that’s best for your body, making sure you’re sleeping enough, drinking enough (quality) water, and being mindful of your breath.  

After those things are dialed in, that is when you start considering your micronutrient gaps, and filling them accordingly.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Cover the big needs before you supplement

Even if you’re filling the big jars perfectly, you’ll have some micronutrient deficiencies. That’s just how today’s food supply is… it’s far less nutrient-dense for it to be possible to consume everything we need, daily.  

Not to mention: the environmental toxins around us negate some of the things we do get from our food, and harm our digestive tract to make our guts less able to digest those nutrients.

But those are blog topics on their own.

With all the above in mind, these are the supplements I’m taking to care for my unique health needs.

Those would be:

The supplements I use for basic nutrient deficiencies

I mentioned that today’s food system isn’t as nutrient-dense as it used to be.

Before fertilizers, factory farming, and all the other things that big food production has created – we were much more well-rounded in our nutrient consumption.

We evolved to require very specific things to function optimally. 

With that in mind, the first two supplements covered here are filling those “gaps” I know my diet isn’t fulfilling for optimal health.

These are the two things I’d highly encourage you to look into supplementing, too – because most people aren’t getting these things enough in their daily lives.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Krill Oil (or another Omega-3 supplement)

I choose to use Natural Stacks’ Krill Oil for my omega-3 fatty acid supplement.

When it comes to omega-3 and omega-6 fats, our bodies need both.

But omega-6s are hugely prevalent today, thanks to all of the plant-based cooking oils and grain-fed meat in our society.  Yes, the food your meat is eating literally changes the fatty acid composition of its meat.

That being said, the “optimal” ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in our body is somewhere between 4:1 – 1:1.

The average person eating in America today has been reported to have a 20:1 ratio. (1)

Even if you’re eating all grass-fed meats and cooking with saturated fats, like ghee, you’re still exposed to omega-6s and likely not consuming enough omega-3s to balance out that ratio without a supplement. 

So, I recommend everyone take an omega-3 supplement of some sort. 

I choose to use Natural Stacks’ Krill Oil.  This company is the only 100% open-source supplement company in the world, meaning they are completely transparent about where they get each ingredient in any of their products. 

They source their omega-3s from Antarctic Krill, because it reaps a higher amount of these fatty acids per gram and is more bioavailable than sources like seaweed.

I take one serving of these daily, and have done so for the past 2 years.

Organ Meat Complex

I call this “nature’s multivitamin,” and I get this Organ Meat Complex supplement from Paleovalley.

They’re ingredient snobs, and I’ve told them so. They might even make T-shirts that say just that sometime soon.  

You can check out this full breakdown of the benefits of eating organ meat in this resource. But the general idea is that we used to eat a lot more of the whole animal than we do today. 

I’m lucky in that I hunt & am able to save things like heart & liver from those animals. I also buy them from farmers at the local markets in Austin from time to time. 

But even still, that’s not as much as we used to get & our bodies crave the high iron and CoQ10 from quality organ meat. 

This particular supplement is the only powdered version of organ meat I’ve seen that includes kidney, heart, and liver. They’re also certified grass-fed, and grass-finished.

That matters in the final nutrient breakdown of meat and organs.

I take one serving (4 capsules) of this supplement daily.  

Eye Defense

This is a unique product from Natural Stacks that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

I take a serving of this high-dose vitamin A & Sea Buckthorn supplement daily, because a large portion of my work is spent looking at screens. 

Depending on your situation, you might not need to take it as much. But for heavy computer and/or smartphone users, I’d suggest you look into it. 

The functionality of a high vitamin A dose is different than simply using blue blocker glasses.

Playing with the light you’re exposed to at certain times of day is extremely beneficial to health. It’s the highest-studied alternative medicine to date. (2)

However, using blue light blocking glasses during the day can be detrimental to circadian rhythm, too. It drives me insane when I see people using them all throughout the day.

Blue blockers work at night because they mimic the lighting we receive at sunset.

We are exposed to red & near-infrared wavelengths at sunrise and sunset, so we should be avoiding blue light at those times of day.

But at high noon and toward the middle of the day in general, we’re exposed largely to blue light.  

If you’re working on a screen while wearing blue blockers all day, you could be preventing your body from fully waking up.

This Eye Defense supplement is a way to protect your eyes while avoiding the circadian disruption of wearing blue blockers all day.  

Me, being way too excited about a clear face in my mid-20’s

Me, being way too excited about a clear face in my mid-20’s

Supplements I take for hormonal balance

It’s no surprise if you’ve been following me for a while that hormonal imbalance has been causing me issues for a while - notably, my acne.

That’s started clearing up recent.

And if you’ve seen any of my holistic PCOS chronicles on YouTube, you know that I’ve been actively trying to get my menstrual cycle back for the past year.

It came back 5 months ago, with no birth control.

Before that, I hadn’t had it for exactly 2 years (January 2017 – January 2019) after quitting my birth control cold-turkey.

Not necessarily the “conventional” way to stop taking a medicine and I’d never tell someone to do the same as I did.

But I felt that my birth control was causing my anxiety, and I’d never had a regular cycle before starting those pills. I was on them for 5 years due to acne, and the acne would still pop up. 

There was more negative than positive, and my body felt drained of its own hormones. So, I stopped taking them.

With the help of my naturopath, Dr. Roz Ranon, at Integrative Health from July 2018 – January 2019, I changed a lot to get that cycle back. 

The next 3 supplement are per her recommendation for my condition. 

Ashwaganda Root Extract

Touted as an adrenal support herb, ashwaganda is something I’d toyed with before but didn’t really know why. 

My naturopath predicted that a large portion of my PCOS symptoms were due to my body’s elevated cortisol (stress hormone).  We used a multiple-tube spit test to make sure this guess was right, and my cortisol was, in fact, elevated.  

As such, she suggested I take ashwaganda twice per day to support my adrenal glands.

These are the hormonal glands that regulate stress response. “Adrenal fatigue” is a common term used today to describe the condition these glands fall into when they’re over-firing too much.

By taking herbs like ashwaganda to help repair the adrenals by reducing cortisol. It helps the body better sense when to actually fire that stress hormone into our body. (3)

Full disclosure: I typically only take this herb once per day. I still feel that dose has helped decrease the stress on my adrenal glands significantly.

Saw Palmetto

If you purchase the brand of saw palmetto that I use (Gaia brand), it’ll likely be marketed as a prostate support supplement.

And in men, it does support healthy prostate function. But I don’t exactly need that.

My naturopath suggested I incorporate this into my routine because in women, it helps with testosterone regulation. 

My blood panel that we took showed that I tend to sit at a slightly higher-than-optimal testosterone level for a woman.

This is normal for someone with PCOS and could be one of the factors playing into my acne problems all these years. It could also be a key player in preventing my period from coming back after quitting birth control.  

I’ll update this resource on my testosterone levels after almost 8 months of supplementing with this the next time I get my blood work tested. But I have seen acne significantly decrease & regular periods since my cycle came back, so this seems to be helping.  

Vitex (Chaste Tree) Extract

This supplement was also recommended by my naturopath for my cycle.

It can go by both names: Vitex Extract and Chaste Tree Extract. Those are the same thing and I’ve been using Integrative Therapeutics brand.

However, I only take this one the week leading up to when my period is supposed to start.

It’s a PMS regulation supplement, targeted at reducing those symptoms. Since my cycle has started, I’ve noticed a significant reduction in cramps and mood swings before my period starts after incorporating this into my monthly routine. 

Ladies – check this one out, for sure!

Non-capsule supplements that I take regularly

All of the supplements before this point are taken first thing in the morning, in capsule form. 

However, I do use a few other things throughout the day that help me with my health & fitness goals. 

I honestly forget that protein powders and electrolytes could as supplements, because I just use them naturally as needed.

These final two supplements aren’t really taken on a schedule, but I still average about 1 serving per day of them.

Collagen protein

I’ve boasted about Vital Proteins for years & stand by that love affair.  

I have a full protein powder resource here for more information on the most common animal-derived protein supplements in the sports industry today.  

Essentially, the benefits of supplementing with collagen protein are (supposedly):

  • Improved gut lining / repair (resulting in better digestion)

  • Better joint health / elasticity

  • Healthier, thicker, and faster-growing hair

  • Stronger skin & nails

  • Muscle growth (a result of consuming any type of protein) 

I say “supposedly” because the research is still being conducted on this protein source. It’s so new in powder form, we don’t have much hard data on it yet.

However, collagen protein is the main building block of animal bodies and I’ve seen a huge change in my hair & nail health since beginning to use Vital Proteins 3-4 years ago.

My gut has also definitely improved & I’ve never had significant join issues, but I’m also young and have changed a lot about my diet in this time as well.

Either way, I enjoy taking this flavorless protein as a supplement to hit my protein goals and look forward to seeing what the research shows us when it’s out.

I haven’t seen anything bad come from it and would much rather get my protein for muscle growth from an animal-derived source that is not dairy, if I can help it. 

This checks all of those boxes.

Also: if I’m not supplementing with Vital Proteins directly, I’ll usually drink a Smoothiebox smoothie with 20g of collagen protein that day.

used with permission from sl,enderella®

used with permission from sl,enderella®

Slenderella® Boost

Lastly, I drink some Slenderella® Boost almost every single day.

This is a liver detox brand and this particular supplement is a delicious, berry-flavored drink that could also count as a multivitamin. 

It supplies you with powerful, bioavailable liver detox vitamins and antioxidants like B6 and glutathione. It’s also got a huge serving of methylcobalamin vitamin B12, which provides a non-caffeine energy boost that feels a lot better in the afternoon than more café.

I have a longer resource on the benefits of this supplement here, but basically, I recommend you take care of your liver health with this stuff.

The liver is the body’s largest detox organ. We’re seeing tons of cases of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease today because of all the toxins in today’s environment.

By taking care of the liver’s health, that organ can then take care of the cleanliness of the rest of our body.  

This makes weight loss easier, boosts our metabolism, and can even help keep skin clearer and improve clarity of thought. 

Yeah. It’s insane how much the liver helps the rest of the body when it’s working well.  

Final thoughts on daily supplementation

I’ll just reiterate here that supplementation is highly individual, and you shouldn’t be afraid to research your own brands.

Use your blood work to determine where your healthy eating & stress management are coming up short. 

Start supplementing based on your results & needs from there! 

Discount codes for supplements listed in this resource

For Natural Stacks products:

FLABSTOFITNESS at checkout

For Slenderella® products:

FTF15 at checkout

For Paleovalley products:

FLABSTOFITNESS at checkout

Scientific Article Sources

(1) Simonopoulous, AP. (2002). The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids. Biomed Pharmacother. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12442909

(2) Azeemi, S. T. Y., Raza, S. M. (2005). A critical analysis of chromotherapy and its scientific evolution. Evidence Based Complementary Alternative Medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297510/

(3) Chandrasekhar, K., Kapoor, J., Anishetty, S. (2012). A Prospective, Randomized Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of Safety and Efficacy of a High-Concentration Full-Spectrum Extract of Ashwagandha Root in Reducing Stress and Anxiety in Adults. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573577/