| CONTENTS for DAN'S PAPERS the week of April 27, 2007 |
| Take Your Vitamins
Out here in the Hamptons, everyone loves to play sports and be outside all year long. And because of that, it seems like we all get sick in the wintertime (due to the "it's not that cold" syndrome) and suffer from aches and pains year-round. These tend to intensify during the spring and summer when we push our bodies to the limit, trying to make up for all those months we couldn't swim in the ocean and play tennis in the sun. Unfortunately, even if we're ready to play, our bodies might not be in top working order after our winter workout hiatus. Luckily, there are ways to rev your body into tip-tip shape from the inside out. My personal favorite body-wrecking activity is horseback riding. Earlier this year, my joints would snap, crackle and pop after riding and no matter how much I stretched, my hips and knees were always sore. To top it all off, heating up on the horse and cooling off too quickly day after day, all winter long, had lowered my immune system and I kept getting sick. I was living on Aleve and Dayquil, but that wasn't really helping. By dinnertime, I would have taken as much of one or the other as you are supposed to take in a 24-hour period and the effects would wear off before bedtime, leaving me grumpy and achy for the rest of the night. Spurred on by years of waking up to a mouthful of Flintstones chewables, I decided to go the healthy route and start taking some vitamins. I eat a well-balanced diet, so I opted for a regular multivitamin instead of a cocktail of pills for my daily maintenance. I started with One-a-Day WeightSmart, but then learned that the "Weightmart" part was a scam. So, I switched to Centrum Performance, which has all sorts of nice herbal things to help keep me energized. For my joints, I had no idea where to start. The only joint products I knew of were things I give my old cat, Beasley, and the supplements I feed my horse, Oreo. Since I am pretty good at choosing horse supplements, I decided to find something for humans that had the same active ingredients as Oreo's supplements. As I perused the Smartpak Equine catalogue, I saw that most supplements had both Glucosamine, which supports cartilage and joint flexibility, and Chondroitin, which acts synergistically with Glucosamine. The most advanced joint supplements also had something called MSM and the most expensive also had HA (Hyaluronic Acid). MSM is a natural anti-inflammatory that increases joint fluid production and HA keeps joint fluid flowing smoothly. The product I give my horse daily has all of these and in the past few months his joints have been cracking less, even when it's cold out. Bingo. I took a little trip to the local pharmacy and started combing the shelves for human products with similar ingredients and settled on Osteo Bi-Flex. The label suggests taking two pills per day, but since they are so huge and I am already taking a multivitamin and an allergy pill, I decided to try taking one per day. It has been two months since I started my regimen and I haven't been sick once. My muscles still get sore after riding, but my joints are fine and as an added bonus, I have stopped cracking my knuckles since they are not nearly as sore. For a once-in-awhile headache, painkillers like Advil and Aleve are fine, but for daily wear and tear on your body, nothing beats a good combo of natural supplements. There's one for almost every ailment and most of them are safer to take daily than over the counter medicines, which can destroy your stomach and make you feel queasy if you take them too often. Don't forget to run everything you are taking by your doctor and don't be afraid to ask for advice from a certified nutritionist. For more information on nutritional supplements, call (631) 726-5164 or visit www.vitaminshoppe.com. Vitamin Shoppe is located at 760 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. - Sabrina C. Mashburn
|
