Key Supplements

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Work has been…. well, work. You know.

 

Around 10:00, I had a lovely banana. Check out those dual monitors in the background; fancy, huh?

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And at 11:30 (again, so early!… I must stop with the early lunches), I had a baked tofu + black bean + spinach wrap.

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A delicious combo!

 

And on the side, I had these yummy mystery fruits.  I’m not sure if they are baby plums or prunes or what (can’t remember what the sign said when I bought them!), but they sure were good.  They were very tiny, so I had three.

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I always get hit by a "sweet tooth" after pretty  much every meal, so I try to include fruit as a side.  It definitely helps calm the crazy chocolate cravings!

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I also thought I’d share with everyone the types of supplements I take.  I currently take 125 mg of Calcium each day (this supplement has Magnesium in it as well).  I eat so much dairy I figure I don’t need to take many Calcium pills.  I also take 1500 mg of Glucosamine everyday (1 pill with each meal).

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Last but not least, I occasionally (once every three or four days) take Iboprofen.  I take 400 mg at a time to reduce soreness and manage occasionally knee and leg pain.  However, there’s a lot of evidence that Iboprofen can be BAD for runners, so I limit my intake.

 

Specifically, research suggests that:

 

Ibuprofen may have a negative effect on the cells which repair bone and muscles after strenuous efforts. The research also reveals that pre-exertion ingestion of ibuprofen does not thwart post-exertion inflammation, and that in fact muscles and tendons often recover more quickly from strenuous exercise when placebo is given to subjects, instead of ibuprofen! Furthermore, ibuprofen is linked with gastro-intestinal dysfunction during exercise; instead of lowering the likelihood of muscle cramping, ibuprofen may actually hike the chances of stomach and intestinal cramps, as well as diarrhea. Importantly, ibuprofen seems to lower protein-synthesis rates in muscles after intense exercise, an effect which would certainly retard recovery.

 

Do you take any OUC drugs to reduce exercise-related soreness or do you just tough it out?

{ 2 comments }

 

  • Heather May 12, 2010, 10:28 am

    I am interested if you are still taking these supplements or if you have added more, swapped some out, or stopped taking any specific ones for any reasons.

    also – AH! i may or may not take ibuprofen before 75% of my runs. and probably the day following my long run as well! Thank you for this spotlight – I am going to def do some more reading on this and probably try to wien myself off of it all together.

    • caitlin May 12, 2010, 10:30 am

      I stopped taking ibuprofen and switched mainly to icing if i’m sore. i also stopped taking glucosamine because it wasn’t vegetarian. now i take a vitamin b supplement and a chinese herb for my hormones.

      i just realized that apparently all the comments on my early posts were lost when i switched servers 🙁

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