Vitamins vs. Exercise

After many computer problems that all boiled down to RAM, my midterm has been presented and I can happily return to the fledgling blog (and not so happily to the healthy habits that are the reason for the blog in the first place).

As I’ll describe later, one of the main goals for me at least is to exercise consistently. Yesterday was one of those days when exercise consistency fell to the wayside because of said midterm headache. One of the more tertiary goals of the blog is to create all around “healthy” habits, including things like sleeping enough, deep conditioning, and taking vitamins. I foolishly decided that I could substitute one habit (vitamin taking) for another (yoga) and have some sort of equivalent health outcome, or at least blog points for doing something rather than nothing.

Yesterday is proof that vitamin over-zealousness does not a healthy person make. Around lunchtime I took one, and in some cases two, of every fun overpriced vitamin that currently lives in my kitchen. The list looked a little something like this:

• women’s multi-vitamin (a must-have base, right?) calcium with vitamin D supplements (because I needed to make up for my total abandonment of cow’s milk in favor of ridiculous plant-based milks)

• acai antioxidant supplement (pretty purple bottle, no proven health effects when I take them, but a pretty bottle)

• vitamin B supplement (which in addition to turning your pee bright yellow, also has a horrible plant-y aftertaste)

• probiotics (because my digestive system and other unmentionables really benefit from these little bacteria!)

• Fish oil horse pills (because they’re supposed to be good for your heart, or something similar)

Now, this was a lot of vitamins to take at once, especially when I usually take a few before bedtime and the others once a week or so. The before bedtime is key here, because when one takes FISH oil and stinky vitamin B (which I take only because Vii’s mother forced me to years ago) in the middle of the day while their stomach has a lot of sloshing around yet to do, unpleasantness occurs. Unpleasantness in this case takes the form of horrible tuna-rancid grass (yes, that is the taste/ smell of digested vitamin B) burps. Be warned, Vii and non-existent blog readers! This could happen to you, so time your fish oil and vitamin B carefully!