My Supplement Recommendations

You've asked me time and again to give you my thoughts on which supplements you should be taking to ensure that you're as healthy as possible while losing weight (and all the time!), so I've created this special page to give you my up-to-the-minute recommendations.

For starters, I should note that I am not a big fan of supplements. I find that a lot of women take large amounts of them and use them in lieu of eating healthfully, and they think that that is enough to keep them healthy.

In truth, supplements of any kind are just that -- supplements to your overall healthy lifestyle and not a replacement for all the good stuff you get from food.

Personally, beyond the bare minimum, I far prefer to get my nutrition from healthy foods! I really hate taking pills, and anything I can do to minimize that while still ensuring I'm strong and healthy is good to me. But there are a few nutrients it's hard to get from food, so it makes sense to supplement those specific things.

I do take a few supplements myself, but only what's vitally necessary to maintain my incredibly good health.

But there are a few nutrients that are hard to get from whole foods and lifestyle, and those are important to get. So I take a vegan DHA for omega-3s, the multi I recommend to you as well and a vitamin D/calcium/magnesium supplement to ensure all my bases are covered. Occasionally I take a probiotic if I've been run down. And some mamas need a good prenatal for the little one on the way, which takes the place of a regular multi.

Any basically healthy mama should be taking:

Daily:
The Safest Multi to Protect Your Health (2 capsules per day)
Or
The Safest Prenatals to Protect Your Health and the Baby's (instead of a regular safe multi for pregnant mamas-to-be) (2 capsules per day)

Plus:
Vegan DHA to ensure you get enough omega-3s (not fish oil unless you specifically need it for a medical condition) (.5mL per day)
For strong bones and a powerful immune system, you need vitamin D plus calcium and magnesium (2-3 capsules Osteo-Sun per day; non-vegan formulation is better assimilated, but both work)

That's a multi, vegan DHA and a good D/cal/mag supplement DAILY.

As needed only:

Excellent probiotics when you're run down, on antibiotics or have digestive or yeast issues (as directed)

For more specifics about my recommendations, keep reading:

Safest Multi

Safest Prenatals

Best Omega-3 Source: Vegan DHA

Powerful Probiotics

Further Reading:

Why Every Mama Needs to Take a Safe Multivitamin

Why Every Mama Should Take Vitamin D (coming soon!)

The Safest Multi to Protect Your Health

There's an endless array of choices to pick from when it comes to choosing a safe multivitamin, and yet there are some criteria you should use to make it simpler for yourself. (And yes, if you're not taking a multi right now, you should be -- not in lieu of healthy eating, but in addition to it to protect your health!)

You definitely want to avoid some of the most commonly included vitamins and minerals included in most multis because they're harmful to your health when consumed in isolated form, such as vitamin A / beta carotene, iron (unless you actually need it, indicated by blood test) and folic acid (which used to be thought healthy and is in nearly every prenatal and most multis on the market, and yet tests show that it is harmful to both mother and baby).

I've hunted far and wide for a multi that didn't include these harmful ingredients, and quite literally the only one I've found on the market is Dr. Joel Fuhrman's line of multivitamins. There are options for adults, prenatal use and great pixie-stick style vitamins for the kids. My whole family uses these, and I swear by them. Get your Gentle Care Formula multivitamins here.

And now to your questions:

Why exactly is vitamin A so harmful? Isn't it in all kinds of foods that we eat?

Everyone needs some vitamin A in their diets to be healthy, to be sure. And its precursor, beta carotene, is found in many, many healthy foods and is turned into vitamin A in the body all on its own.

In truth, every mama should want to have a vitamin A/beta carotene-rich diet. In its natural form, vitamin A/beta carotene is great for you, boosting immune function, and according to WHFoods.com beta carotene may also be really important for fertility.

You can get plenty of beta carotene from most of the darker vegetables (particularly, but not only orange ones), such as sweet potatoes, carrots, dark leafy greens and broccoli, in a form that gives your body a real health boost.

But when you supplement vitamin A or beta carotene, you run health risks. In one important study, for example, scientists found that despite their intention of proving that beta carotene taken in isolation slowed the growth of cancer, instead these supplements actually increased cancer risk for all types of cancers.

As a result, I don't recommend that you take any supplement containing vitamin A or beta carotene -- but by all means, try to get in all you want in your food. It does a mama's body good!

That's why I recommend this multi alone – I've yet to find another that doesn't have vitamin A or beta carotene in it, which is why I gave it a shot to begin with.

I've always been anemic, but you said iron isn't safe to take. What should I do?

First of all, let me note that I'm not a medical professional, so my advice is based solely on my own extensive research and is not a medical opinion. If you're anemic (easily determined via a simple blood test), by all means you need to ensure that your iron levels are high enough. I've been borderline anemic a couple times in my life, and taking an iron supplement easily took care of the problem.

Likewise, most pregnant women need extra iron, at least in the later months of pregnancy, due to increased blood volume.

But if you aren't anemic, you don't need more iron, plain and simple, and since it potentially causes nervous system problems in later life when we take it in excess, why risk it?

Just make sure your levels are OK and all is well.

I've been told that women of childbearing years need to take folic acid. Why would we want to avoid it?

Folate -- the naturally occurring substance in many whole foods -- is absolutely critical for your health and that of your baby. It's important for preventing spina bifida and other neurological defects in babies.

And we moms need it for our own health because it helps prevent heart disease, neurological problems and osteoporosis -- which might seem a long way off in terms of risk, but it also helps our bodies prevent illness and keeps our skin looking great too all along the way.

But that's folate, which you can have in abundance in plant-based foods and only benefit from.

Folic acid is another story. It's a synthetically created chemical that has recently been found to cause serious health problems.

One significant study recently found that women who took folic acid ended up with twice the breast cancer risk of those who didn't take the supplement. Another study found that children born to women who took standard prenatal vitamins containing folic acid are significantly more likely to suffer from asthma, cardiac abnormalities and respiratory illnesses during infancy.

With all that risk, why not just get your folate from food, where it's supposed to come from?

This overview of key questions about multivitamins should give you a pretty good idea of why I am such a fan of Dr. Fuhrman's Gentle Care vitamins. They don't have any of those not-so-healthy vitamins and minerals, so they're true supplements that really do add to your health.

Get your safe multivitamins here.

I only recommend products that I have tried and trust implicitly, and that's why I'm sharing my favorite vitamin source with you.

My whole family takes the Dr. Fuhrman line of vitamins, and they're the only ones I recommend to anyone (including my own mother, who takes them too at my recommendation!).

You may not know this, but it was my discovery of Dr. Fuhrman's groundbreaking nutritional information that led to my own discovery of the power of a mostly plant-based, whole foods diet, which in turn led to my massive improvements in health that have made it possible for me to be the LeanGreenMama I am today!

He's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about sharing healthy lifestyle advice with you, and I recommend his multivitamins without any reserve whatsoever.

If you've been wondering which vitamins to take, why not go for the safe choice for yourself and your family? Get Gentle Care vitamins here.

The Safest Prenatal for Your Health (and Your Baby's)

Everything I shared above about the Gentle Care multivitamins is true for the Gentle Prenatal multivitamin I recommend, except that there is iron added because many pregnant women need additional iron while pregnant.

Please note that while I've taken all the other supplements recommended here myself for years with fantastic results, I have no direct experience with the Gentle Prenatals, preferring instead to supplement the Gentle Care multi with iron separately as needed with a different product known to be extremely gentle on the stomach (not because I believe the Gentle Prenatals to be difficult to digest, but rather because while caring for my son and running a business, I couldn't afford to take a chance on *any* stomach upset whatsoever and I knew the other iron was something I could easily tolerate). So I recommend the Gentle Prenatals from the huge amount of trust I have for Dr. Fuhrman and not from personal experience with them. Get Gentle Prenatals here.

Everything I've read about prenatal vitamins says we need to take folic acid. Why would we want to avoid it?

Folate -- the naturally occurring substance in many whole foods -- is absolutely critical for your health and that of your baby. It's important for preventing spina bifida and other neurological defects in babies.

And we moms need it for our own health because it helps prevent heart disease, neurological problems and osteoporosis -- which might seem a long way off in terms of risk, but it also helps our bodies prevent illness and keeps our skin looking great too all along the way.

But that's folate, which you can have in abundance in plant-based foods and only benefit from.

Folic acid is another story. It's a synthetically created chemical that has recently been found to cause serious health problems.

One significant study recently found that women who took folic acid ended up with twice the breast cancer risk of those who didn't take the supplement. Another study found that children born to women who took standard prenatal vitamins containing folic acid are significantly more likely to suffer from asthma, cardiac abnormalities and respiratory illnesses during infancy.

With all that risk, why not just get your folate from food, where it's supposed to come from?

Make sure you're taking a prenatal multi that doesn't contain anything harmful. Get the safest prenatal vitamins here.

Best Omega-3 Source: Vegan DHA

Everyone needs a good supply of omega-3 fatty acids, particularly ALA and DHA, in their diet, which help our cells work optimally, reduce inflammation throughout the body and are particularly important in terms of cardiovascular health, brain and nerve function, and cognitive skills.

In particular, mamas with a predisposition for depression (postpartum or otherwise), fatigue, elevated cholesterol, heart disease and stroke, as well as dry skin and eczema need to ensure that they're getting optimal levels of omega-3s in particular, but we all need these vital nutrients.

Low omega-3 levels are also linked with many common diseases like ADHD, MS (multiple sclerosis), asthma and Alzheimer's, among others -- so there is NO reason to neglect the omega-3s in your diet. You need them now and in the future!

Get the omega-3 source I trust most.

Please note that we don't need much of the omega-6 fatty acids, which are common in highly processed foods.

We can get plenty of ALA from plant-based sources such as walnuts, flax, chia and hemp seeds, and a number of cruciferous veggies like kale, collards, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts have moderate levels of ALA. In other words, a healthy diet is already going to have a good bit of ALA in it.

But we also need DHA. And while our bodies are supposed to be able to manufacture the DHA we need from ALA, it's common for our bodies NOT to be able to do that as efficiently as possible. And most of us don't get enough of either in our diets, so it makes sense to supplement.

Good sources of omega-3s (DHA and its counterpart EPA) include fatty fish such as salmon and eggs raised with special feed to boost the DHA content of the yolk (found at many health food stores and better grocery stores). But fish is often contaminated with mercury and dioxins, so mamas need to watch how much they eat carefully.

And the basic dietary approach I recommend, a mostly strict vegetarian diet with at most a small amount of animal products as a supplement to the main plant-based diet, keeps you safe from mercury intake, improves your health in myriad ways and ensures maximum weight loss in the shortest possible time, is high in ALA but may not have enough DHA if your body isn't good at converting ALA.

You can ask your doctor to test your omega-3 levels at your next visit, or you can go ahead and supplement DHA because studies have shown that American women's breast milk contains a much lower amount of DHA than is optimal – which clearly reflects that we mamas aren't getting enough in our diets. And recent research links children's intelligence and susceptibility to ADHD to insufficient DHA levels, so this is something we mamas need to pay attention to.

If you wish to supplement, I strongly recommend that you go with a vegan DHA product to avoid the mercury and dioxin contamination common in fish oils and other DHA supplements. As before, I strongly recommend Dr. Joel Fuhrman's formulation here because his team has done a huge amount of legwork to ensure that the DHA supplement he offers is fresh, pure and free of toxic contaminants. It can be tasted to ensure that it isn't rancid (most omega-3 supplements are contained in capsules, which makes it harder to tell if the oil is fresh or not). And unlike cod liver oil, another common "oily" omega-3 supplement, it doesn't contain high-dose vitamin A (see The Safest Multi above for more on the risks of vitamin A supplementation).

In my household, my husband and I both take this DHA daily and have for years; the only reason my son does not is due to an allergy to the lemon oil used to flavor the product, but otherwise I would give it to him without restraint.

To get the best source of vegan DHA that I've found, head here.

Immunity-Boosting and Bone-Building D/Calcium/Magnesium Supplement

Review coming soon!

Get the supplement I trust for my whole family here.

Powerful Probiotics

I don't recommend probiotics for everyone all the time because we don't need to take them constantly – once the body builds up a good supply of healthy bacteria from supplementing, it typically will stay at a good level if you take care of yourself.

But if you have recently taken antibiotics or are about to take them, the meds typically kill off most of the good bacteria in your gut. And since these healthy bacteria are important for your digestion and your immune system, being off balance can make a big impact on your health.

Get the probiotic I trust for my whole family here.

Why Every Mama Needs to Take a Multivitamin

Question #1: Do I actually need to take a multi?

My Response: I like to think of multivitamins as an insurance policy, like homeowner's insurance.

As a homeowner, it's my job to do everything I can to keep my home safe and sound so that nothing in my power can go wrong. And yet no matter what I try, it could be that there's an electrical fire someday that I can't do anything about, or one of my family members accidentally starts a kitchen fire, or one of my cats goes wild and does who knows what. :)

If that were to happen, I'd be thrilled that I've had that insurance policy all along because it means I've got a means of paying for damages and rebuilding.

In the same way, a good multi that's free of harmful vitamins and minerals like vitamin A/beta carotene, iron and folic acid protects us. Because none of us get our diets 100% perfect every day no matter how hard we try (what's perfection anyhow?).

And if you're a busy mama who's currently overweight and struggling with losing a few pounds, you're likely not doing everything you can diet-wise to ensure that your body is as well-nourished as it needs to be. In that case alone, it doesn't hurt to take a good multi, much less if you're pregnant, nursing or just plain stressed out chasing after your kids.

In case of a health crisis, that multi might have had something in it that our bodies need in a crisis that we otherwise might not have, and it's nice to know that there are reserves in there to help rebuild our tissues to regain our health.

I also personally take a multi to ensure that I'm getting enough vitamin B12, because I don't regularly have any sources of B12 in my diet (which all come from animal sources, and I follow a strict vegetarian diet to control certain health issues), as well as a few other trace elements that are sometimes hard to get in our diets but are great for us to have.

Question #2: Will taking a multi help me with weight loss?

My Response: In truth, any mama can lose some weight simply by cutting down on her caloric intake. But that doesn't mean the weight loss is healthful because more likely than not, she's not making the nutritional changes necessary to ensure that her body is being nourished with healthy, mostly plant-based whole foods as she goes.

But for your own sake, I want you to reap the massive health rewards of a healthy lifestyle, and not just lose a couple lbs. from starving yourself, which isn't going to get you anywhere except back in the same old Weight Loss Death Cycle, as I refer to it, where you lose a little painfully, gain a little (maybe a little more), get discouraged and have to start all over again and again.

As a result, I'm focused on your health first and foremost. And since the foundation of good health is nourishing your body, I want you to make sure you've got that insurance policy while you work on finetuning your way of eating.

Get the only multi I recommend here.

Question #3: Many vitamins hurt my stomach. How can I be sure that these won't?

My Response: Some multis are made with less than optimal ingredients to begin with, which can lead to stomach upset, whereas the Gentle Care vitamins are made with the highest quality chelated minerals and naturally derived ingredients -- which means that you get the maximum benefit from them nutritionally (they're made of the most bioavailable ingredients, to get technical) and they're far less likely to cause you tummy trouble.

Secondly, it's very often the iron in multis in particular for women that is so problematic for digestion, which the Gentle Care vitamins don't contain. (As a reminder, we don't want to supplement iron unless we really need it because it can cause more trouble than good. If you need iron, you can either take a separate iron supplement as needed or opt for the Gentle Prenatals for convenience if you're pregnant.

I personally had always gotten sick in the past from other supplements (and pretty much any and all medication, even the simple stuff like Tylenol), and I've never once, even during peak morning sickness during 2 pregnancies now, ever gotten ill from taking the Gentle Care.

Get the only multi I recommend here.

Why Every Mama Needs to Take Vitamin D

Article coming soon.