Increasing your riboflavin intake for 12 weeks can greatly improve your overall health.
Riboflavin, or vitamin b12, is a nutrient your body badly needs. Without it, you can’t think clearly, or grow your skin cells! One of the best ways to get this resourceful vitamin is by eating the diet healthy and fresh eggs, green vegetables, and lean meat.
When it comes to your health, you have to know about the different types of minerals and vitamins. However, with so many nutrients, making a meal plan, or setting up a supplement regime, can be anything but easy.
To help make things simple, we put together this complete guide. We’ll walk you through the top vitamins and minerals that should be on your radar, so you can look and feel your best!
Read on to learn everything you don’t know, but should, about eating right.
Vitamins and Minerals for Health and Fitness
We know that taking different types of minerals and vitamins makes our bodies healthy. But what exactly are minerals and vitamins, and how do they work?
Every day, the foods you eat provide your body with different minerals and vitamins. If your diet is lacking, then your body can’t function at full capacity.
You can think of vitamins as organic substances. They’re organic substances because they’re made from animals or plants.
When it comes to vitamins, there are 2 groups; water and fat-soluble. Examples of fat-soluble vitamins include vitamins E, A, K, and D.
Fat-soluble means that these vitamins can dissolve completely, in fact. It’s easy for your body to store fat-soluble vitamins.
Then there are also water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C or B complex vitamins. Your body can’t store water-soluble vitamins.
Whenever you eat something, and your body doesn’t use all of the water-soluble vitamins, you excrete them from your body. The vitamins will go through your bloodstream and usually leave as you urinate. That means you need a new supply of water-soluble vitamins daily to stay as healthy as possible.
Minerals are a little bit different because they come from inorganic sources. Examples of inorganic sources include water and soil. Minerals are eaten by animals or absorbed by plants.
There are some minerals that your body needs a lot of to stay healthy, like calcium. There are other minerals that you only need a small amount of. Minerals like copper, zinc, chromium, and iodine are trace minerals because your body doesn’t require large amounts.
Minerals will also play a role in helping your bones grow nice and strong. When you eat dark green leafy vegetables, you’re also getting a good dose of calcium. Sourcing calcium from vegetables, yogurt, and even milk, can help your bones strengthen.
Staying Physically Fit With Carrots
Minerals and vitamins do more than just help your body grow. Minerals and vitamins are also responsible for supporting your immune system, organs, and cellular activity.
For instance, carrots are full of a substance called carotenoids. Your body can convert carotenoids into vitamin A. Receiving a healthy supply of vitamin A makes it easy for your body to avoid eye problems.
Then there’s vitamin K. Vitamin K is great at helping your blood clot. If your blood didn’t clot, you could bleed out when you got a minor scrape!
Where can you find vitamin K? It’s abundant in soybeans, kale, and broccoli. Any dark green leafy vegetable will have some vitamin K in them too.
Finding Foods for a Healthy Lifestyle
Different vegetables and dairy products can help your body get the minerals and vitamins it needs. However, you’ll have to extend your food choices far beyond vegetables.
For instance, you’ll also want to incorporate fresh fruits, lean meats, whole grains, and poultry. With the right mix of foods, your body will be able to get the perfect balance of nutrients.
When buying foods at the grocery store, double-check all of the labels. Make sure that you’re buying foods with a lot of minerals and vitamins.
If you’re buying beverages, go for healthy options like milk. Milk is full of potassium, vitamin D, phosphorus, and calcium.
Try to steer clear of sugary packed drinks, such as fake juices or sodas. Keep in mind that you don’t have to sacrifice flavor to be nutritious.
Adding fresh fruit to your water is a great way to make it taste better. You can also get creative with fun fresh salad combinations, tasty baked potatoes, and exciting sandwiches.
Vegetarian Tips
If you’re trying to cut meat out of your diet, make sure that you’re still getting a healthy dose of iron and zinc. It’s easy to get iron and zinc from chicken and fish.
Since you won’t be eating meat, you can seek out iron and zinc from leafy green vegetables like spinach.
You can also start eating beans. Black beans are a great source of vitamins and minerals, and they taste great too!
Antioxidants for Health and Wellness
You’re sure to come across the word antioxidants on your health and wellness journey. You can find antioxidant-infused beverages, foods, and even supplements.
What exactly are antioxidants? Are they a vitamin, mineral, or something else entirely? They’re not really either.
Basically, the term antioxidant explains anything that can counteract the activity of unstable molecules. For instance, free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage your DNA. Free radicals can also wreak havoc on different parts of your cells.
Antioxidants are a natural way to stop free radicals in their track. Your body naturally produces antioxidants, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have enough. Thankfully, by eating foods rich in antioxidant compounds, you’ll be able to give your body a head start.
Examples of antioxidant-rich foods include blueberries, onions, apples, and green tea. Vitamins C and E, and the mineral selenium, also fall under the antioxidant category.
If you want something sweet and healthy, try a piece of dark chocolate. Just make sure you’re eating real dark chocolate though, and not a chocolate liqueur blend. Real dark chocolate or cacao is an excellent antioxidant, and it tastes great.
Pecans are another tasty source of antioxidants, along with strawberries. Put together a nice blend of strawberries, blueberries, and pecans, and you’ll be eating your way to better health.
For something to add to your dinner, try adding and consider eating artichokes. Artichokes are full of antioxidants and your daily source of dietary fiber. You can also get a lot of important minerals from artichokes, as long as you eat them the right way.
We find that boiling artichokes is one of the healthiest ways to eat them. Just hold off on putting too much butter. Finally, beets, spinach, beans, red cabbage, kale, raspberries, and goji berries are also excellent sources of antioxidants.
Supplements vs Food Sources
Are you worried about making the perfect meal plan? In some cases, people have trouble getting all the nutrients they need from foods, so they use supplements.
Speak to a licensed dietitian or to your primary care physician to find out if you’re lacking in any minerals or supplements. They might be able to recommend a daily supplement regime or vitamin that can help boost your overall fitness. For instance, you could look into finding sarms for sale, if your main goal is to increase muscle mass.
When shopping for supplements, you’ll want to look for limited ingredients options. The best supplements will only have the mineral or vitamins you need without any fillers or add-ins. Then you’ll also want to make sure that the dosage is right.
Sometimes vitamin companies make supplements that have too large of a dose. Megadoses can harm your body, and they’re unnecessary.
Remember, your body can’t store water-soluble vitamins. Taking a megadose means that your body has to process and filter more of the supplement out of your system.
When looking online, it helps if you understand how minerals and vitamin supplements are measured. Usually, they’re measured in milligrams, micrograms, or micrograms.
A milligram will be listed as mg, and it’s one-thousandth of a gram. A microgram will be listed as mcg, and it’s 1 millionth of a gram. It takes 1,000 micrograms to create one milligram.
If you’re having trouble finding a supplement brand you trust, talk to your pharmacist. They can usually recommend brands that will fit whatever fitness goals you have.
Perfect Your Sodium Intake
Let’s get back to minerals! Sodium is another mineral your body needs.
For a lot of people, their sodium intake comes from salt. However, there’s also sodium that we get that doesn’t come directly from the salt shaker.
Oftentimes processed food is full of salt. Canned food is also notorious for having a lot of salt, even if it’s a healthy option like black beans.
It’s good for your body to get a dose of sodium. But too much sodium can cause problems. Overloading your body with sodium can increase your risk of high blood pressure and make you more likely to have a stroke or heart attack.
As you age, you’ll want to limit the amount of sodium you take. Typically, around 50 years of age is when you have to start majorly cutting down on your sodium intake.
When you’re older, you might take as little as 1 teaspoon of salt a day. If you have high blood pressure, you’ll need to cut down on your sodium intake even more.
It’s a good idea to talk to your doctor to find out what your sodium levels are right now. A simple blood test will help you determine if you need to increase or decrease your sodium intake.
When shopping for grocery products, it’s a good idea to look for products that say low sodium or unsalted on the label. Sometimes the products will also say sodium-free or salt-free.
Go one step further by reading the nutrition facts label to see exactly how much sodium is in each serving. There are also natural ways that you can counteract your sodium levels. For example, eating fresh fruits and vegetables helps your body naturally increase potassium while decreasing sodium.
Magnesium for Optimal Health
Another mineral you should pay attention to is magnesium. Magnesium helps your body regulate muscle functions, nerve functions, protein synthesis, etc.
If you want to have steady blood sugar levels and healthy blood pressure, you’ll need to have magnesium. The exact amount of magnesium you need will vary depending on your gender and age.
Men tend to need about 100 mg more of magnesium than women, but you’ll want to talk to your doctor to find out your exact amount. Some of the best magnesium sources include legumes.
The legume family has foods like lentils, peas, and soybeans. Kidney, black-eyed, green, lima, and navy beans are also legumes.
Along with legumes, you’ll want to eat enough dark green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale. You can also eat fortified foods, such as magnesium fortified breakfast cereals.
When choosing milk and yogurt products, avoid things that have flavoring agents. Instead, plain Greek yogurt can be an excellent source of magnesium.
If you’re having trouble getting enough magnesium from your daily diet, there are dietary supplements you can buy. For instance, magnesium chloride, magnesium citrate, and magnesium lactate are supplements that are easy for your body to absorb. There are even laxatives that include magnesium!
Have you been suffering from migraine headaches lately? Then you might be dealing with low magnesium levels in your tissues and bloodstream by getting on the right. Talk to your healthcare provider about taking magnesium supplements to help counteract migraines.
Finding the Best Types of Minerals and Vitamins
When you’re giving your body the different types of minerals and vitamins you need, you can feel great all day long. Instead of waking up tired in the morning or going to bed stressed out, you’ll finally have a sense of balance in your body.
Set up a meal plan for this week. Include the fresh fruits and leafy green vegetables that you’ll need to get the correct dose of vitamins and minerals.
Then get ready to feel the best you’ve ever felt! When you’re ready to learn more, look around our site for more helpful posts.