1. Vitamins and Supplements
Tips to supplementing your diet

2. Today’s Topics Determining Your Health and Wellness Goals
Nutritional Needs to Meet Your Goals
Tips to Supplementing Your Diet
If It’s Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is
Where to go to Find Additional Information

3. Determining Your Health and Wellness Goals
What is it that you wish to accomplish?

4. Determining Your Needs
You must first determine what your specific health and wellness goals are, in order to distinguish your vitamin and supplemental needs
Do you wish to:
Lose excess fat
Build muscle
Increase your aerobic endurance
Increase your muscle endurance
Complete a specific race, competition, etc
Based on the goals you wish to accomplish, you will need to seek out and use specific information to help you achieve those goals. Oftentimes, there is an abundance of available information, but people do not know what they should listen to, where the information is coming from, if it is biased or truly out there to be helpful, or where they should even start. Someone wishing to lose excess fat will not need to use the same vitamin and supplement information as someone wishing to complete a marathon. Therefore, it is imperative that you first set out the goals that you wish to accomplish, then you can seek out information that will be most helpful to your goals.

5. Nutritional Needs to Meet Your Goals
You must eat right to reach your goals

6. Your Nutritional Needs
Adequate caloric intake
Protein
Carbohydrates
Healthy Fats
Vitamins and Minerals, such as:
Vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and the B vitamins
Minerals including, but not limited to, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and iodine
Some adults tend to eat in excess of the calories that they need on a daily basis, which can contribute to excess weight gain. Others tend to eat too few calories, or foods that are not nutrient-dense, and they may experience other health issues related to not eating sufficient amounts of needed nutrients.
On average, healthy men wishing to maintain their current weight need to consume 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day, while healthy women need only 1,600 to 2,400 daily. Someone who is overweight or obese would need to consume 1,000 to 1,600 calories per day in order to lose weight. According to the UDSA, in order to calculate your own caloric needs for healthy body weight maintenance, you will use your own body weight- 13 calories per pound if you’re sedentary, 16 calories per pound of you’re moderately active and 18 calories per pound of body weight if you regularly engage in high-intensity exercise.
Determining your fitness goals will play a major role in determining the amounts of food that you need to consume each day in order to meet those goals. For example, someone wishing to lose excess body fat is likely to lower their calorie intake in order to achieve that goal. On the other hand, someone wishing to build muscle will not only need to strength train to do so, but they will also consume a much higher amount of calories each day in order to achieve that goal. This is why it is so important to understand that nutritional needs are not a “one size fits all”, and it is important to understand the source of information, and ensure that it is unbiased and tailored to helping you achieve your goals.

7. Tips to Supplementing Your Diet
There is such a thing as too much supplementation

8. Knowing Your Sources Eat whole foods Supplement only as needed
Do your research
Know Your Sources
It is best to strive to have the bulk of your nutrition coming from whole food sources. However, sometimes this isn’t possible. Life is busy, and our schedules are typically very busy. Sometimes this does not leave a lot of time to cook and eat real, whole foods. So supplementing your diet can be very convenient, and a big time saver. If you are trying to build muscle and are trying to consume 300 grams of protein each day, you might not have the time to eat all day long, so supplements such as protein shakes or protein bars can be a very handy tool to utilize in your diet. They are quick to make, and you can take them on the go with you. The same goes of meeting vitamin and mineral recommendations. For someone that doesn’t like certain foods, it could be hard to consume enough of certain vitamins and minerals. In these instances, supplements such as a multivitamin can be extremely beneficial. This is where it is very important to know the resources that you are using, and do your research. Be sure that they resources you are using are not sharing this information for the sole purpose of selling you their product. Many nutritional stores will have an abundance of items for you to review, and will not prefer you buy one of the other. If you are using the internet to do your research, rather than in-store, be sure you are looking at non-biased, reputable websites that don’t have an ulterior motive. The USDA has a plethora of information for you to use to help make informed decisions regarding your health and your nutritional needs, without pushing their own agenda or certain products.

9. If It’s Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is
There is no magic pill that replaces hard work and good nutrition

10. There is No Magic Pill Eat for your goals
Exercise to achieve your desired results
Be patient
Trust the process
No shortcuts
We have come to expect things as quickly as we can get them- faster answers, faster results. We do not like to weight. But when it comes to health and wellness, patience is key. It is truly a journey. There is no magic pill that will help you reach your goals in a matter of a week. All of the ads that claim to “get you bikini ready in 2 weeks!” are false. To be successful in one’s journey, you must understand that it truly is just that- a journey. There will be good days and bad days. Days you feel like you’ve made leaps in bounds in your progress, and days that you feel you’ve taken three steps backwards. If supplements that you see advertised on social media, or tv, or in the store seem to good to be true, chances are that’s the case. Diet pills on the market, such as Hydroxycut, claim to help you lose “x” amount of weight when coupled with diet and exercise. Most of that is going to be water weight that will come back as quickly as it is lost. So again, a basic rule of thumb is, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
Taking shortcuts to reach your goal will often go awry at some point in your journey. Some fitness competitors will dramatically cut their intake of carbohydrates in order to achieve their fat loss goals. However, not only will they experience a drop in their athletic performance due to depriving their body of its main source of fuel, but they will also experience a dramatic rebound in body weight when they introduce carbohydrates back into their system, if they do not do so carefully.

11. Where to go to Find Additional Information
Be aware of the sources that you are using

12. Reputable Resources for You
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
fitness/index.html
National Institutes of Health
resources-your-community
Office on Women’s Health
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
These are just a sample of the many websites that you can visit to begin research to help you with your goals. The same rules that apply to my writing papers for class apply to choosing reputable websites- look for sites that end in .gov, .org, or .net. Avoid Wikipedia and other sources that can be authored by anyone on the internet. Look for articles that site their sources, and that can provide documentation for the research that they are citing. Oftentimes, college websites will also offer a plethora of information that has been cited and is reinforced by research.

13. References
National Institute on Aging. (2017). Vitamins and Minerals. Retrieved from
SFGate.com. (2017). Nutrition Needs During Adulthood. Retrieved from adulthood-6698.html.
U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2017). Calculatrs and Counters. Retrieved from counters.