The days only top - ranking athletes took nutritional supplements are long past. Nowadays, almost everyone takes a multivitamin & mineral supplement. More and more people are finding that it's extremely difficult to acquire the nutrients that they need each day just from their odinary food. Becuase these people understand the importance of healthy eating, they obtain these nutrients from supplements. Before you make a choice from the vast range of nutritional supplements available, you have to remember that supplements on their own will not do anything for you. Dietary supplements are merely a useful addition to your everyday nutrition. That's because the basics for good health starts with a healthy, varied and balanced diet. If you add regular exercise to this, then you have the perfect basis for good health. Good nutrition and effective training are the two basic conditions for success:
- Dietary supplements
- Nutrition
- Training
Research has shown that the average person eats an unbalanced diet, prepares food incorrectly and is still not eating enough fruit and vegetables. To make matters worse, the quality of the agricultural land on which many products are grown is deteriorating, and more and more chemical pesticides are being used. Our food is also undergoing increasing amounts of processing, which leads to a loss of effective ingredients. In fact, if you eat lots of processed foods you can still suffer from malnutrition because the effective ingredients may have been completely eradicated from them. Finally, we're increasingly exposed to all sorts of stress factors, harmful substances, poor air quality and environmental pollution. And we're not always in a position to keep ourselves in peak condition. Many diseases, such as cancer, have been linked to, among other factors, a shortage of the right nutrients. Actually there are 3 factors that determine the exent to which you need to acquire essential nutrients in supplement form.
These are:
- Your eating habits
- Your lifestyle
- And your health
In the Netherlands, the Vitamin Information Bureau and the nutritional advisory group of the Health Council have identified so - called "high - risk groups" among the general public. These high - risk groups run an increased risk of vitamin deficiency because their eating habits, lifestyles and states of health are different from those of the average person for whom the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) were established. For that reason, these people are recommended to take extra essential nutrients. These high - risk groups are:
- Athletes
- Smokers
- People on a crash diet
- Chronic undereaters
- People over 65 years of age
- Vegans and people following a macrobiotic diet
- Heavily menstruating women
- People with food allergies
- Pregnant women
- Women who are breastfeeding
- People
- who drink more liquor than the daily recommended quantities(2 units of alcohol per day for women and 3 for men)
But nutritional supplements are not just designed to keep you healthy - they can also help you achieve your personal goals more quickly by helping you to keep going and ensuring that you reach your objectives more easily. Personal goals include things like turning in better athletic performances, dieting, gaining weight, building more muscle mass, acquiring greater muscular strenght, recovering more quickly after exertion, increasing your vitality or stamina or, for example, acquiring greater energy.
Want to live healthily?
Want to look and feel great?
Like to achieve some special goal?
Be honest - did you answer all three of these questions in the affirmative?
You did?
Then you too can certainly benefit from taking nutritional supplements!