Hi everyone,
I am relatively new to LongeCity. I know the site for a couple of months now and I made an account earlier today.
My question to everyone is why you are interested in supplements. I will share my reason why I ask this, especially to those who have been interested in it for longer. Might also be cool if you check out my supplement stack as well. If you don´t care about my intro, skip to ´--------->´
So, a little bit info about myself as this is my first serious post: I am 24 years old, I have had interest in all kinds of topics (hard, soft, earth, climate and social sciences, politics, psychology, religion, philosophy (ethics, logics, epistomology, purpose in life, history, retorics, singing, gaming, weightlifting) and I have had these about my entire life. When I wasn´t learning at college I was at home studying about these.
In 2016 I started my whole-food plant-based diet, a friend of mine told me it has a lot of benefits for health, earth´s environment and off course the animals.
I never have regret it, as I started to became more and more interested in nutrition. I learned a lot of sites like nutritionfacts.org, veganhealth.com, veganRD, and a couple more (even YouTube channels like Cory McCarthy).
Then in the beginning of 2017, I slowly started to shift my focus to supplements. I came across this site called examine.com, which has a lot of info on it. In 2017 I hunted down about every single supplement on which I made an assessment to which I needed and which I didn´t. I have about all the essential ´vegan´ supllements like vit D, omega 3 algae, brazil nuts, iodine, b12, creatine, carnitine, beta alanine, taurine and even some non-essential others like glycine, hibiscus tea, amla, ashwagandha, tongkat ali, schizandra, andrographis, saw palmetto, ginseng (both korean and siberian), reishi, acai and even picrorhiza kurroa for my vitiligo.
I assumed I ´needed´ the non-essential supplements due to all the ´wonderful´ benefits being displayed by examine.com, how minor and unwell-researched some of them really are. I like to improve myself, make myself stronger, faster, smarter, better-looking etcetera. I spent months building a certain supplement stack, and I was happy every time when I could leave out a certain supplement, because I actually hate having a big long-term supplement stack. Less is more, I would say here.
The stack I mentioned above was a result of reviewing a lot of sites like examine.com, selfhacked.com and WebMD. Even though it is not finished, it was good for the moment being.
Then, not too long ago, I stumbled upon LongeCity. I was really annoyed and stressed when I came to the conclusion some supplements like reishi and korean ginseng are most likely harmful (hepatitis and gyno/immune booster respectively). It was thanks to LongeCity however I added glycine as well (thanks to user Darryl´s wonderful explanation on this amino acid).
---------> But then, when I woke up today, I looked around at my room. I saw all the different supplements I had and thought to myself: ´what the heck am I doing with my life? Seriously, am I just being crazy? Are these supplements all really worth it? How much hours, days, weeks, months or years are all these supplements really going to add to my life and is all the cost and obsession about it really worth it?´
I think the latter really speaks for it: the obsession. Next to the vitiligo I also suffer from OCD. It even became pretty severe when I became 21. I took rTMS-therapy for it, which most definitely helped. But I just realized the supplement-obsession might be a certain aspect of my illness.
So then I wondered, might some of the people on LongeCity have obsessive, perfectionistic personalities as well? Or perhaps they are ´anxiety-based´ people, having a fear of death or any other illness/bothersome trait? Or is it just a harmless, healthy genuine self-aware kind of interest?
And what some of the psyche-based reasons ever might be, what benefits do most of these supplements have anyway? And what about negative harmful side-effects? I have had a bad experience with consuming 10 grams of creatine for about 3 months: it thinned my hair and it hasn´t came back even though I took some saw palmetto.
When I look back at the non-essential supplements I listed above, I think pretty much all of them (except glycine, hibiscus, amla, ashwagandha) might be a waste of money. Half a gram isn´t going to make me a better person, my diet more likely is. My experience with most supplements is to notice no significant change in what they are meant to work for in the designated dose.
I also like to hear some honest commentary on my supplement stack. There are a couple of more I am (re-)considering about adding (ginkgo, black maca, chlorella, lemon balm, valerian (for OCD), astaxanthin, DHEA (longevity), melatonin, gotu kola (centella), pycnogenol, rhodiola rosea, devil´s claw (back pain), polypodium, bosweilia serrata and cissus for joint health, bacopa, CoQ10 and lavender.
I think most of it is just too much for me. Some ´peer-reviewing´ would really help me out here.
Many thanks,
Leon
Edited by Leon93, 18 December 2017 - 01:05 AM.
