Quality Supplements Can Change Your Life

A healthy diet and exercise offer a great start on your journey to total health and nutrition. But food and movement alone may not be enough. They most certainly won’t maximize your health regimen. For today’s blog, we interviewed Total Nutrition & Therapeutics’ Clinical Nutritionist, Katie Gravante, to see how supplements can jumpstart your wellbeing. 

The Truth About Supplements

Far more than an extracurricular activity, supplements can be essential to your health. Whether you’re decades into your journey toward wellness, or just starting out, supplements can play a huge role. According to Katie, it may be impossible to begin or continue on your journey without the help of supplements. 

When people think of supplements, they often think of protein shakes, muscle building, or even gimmicks and unregulated substances. These common misconceptions hide the truth: that a host of pharmaceutical-grade supplements—backed by third-party lab testing—exist to serve some of your body’s most basic needs, some of which have gone neglected for a long time. 

Total Nutrition’s Diagnostics & Supplements 

Led by our Clinical Nutritionist, Katie Gravante, Total Nutrition & Therapeutics provides a vast range of the most important dietary supplements. They’re available for sale to anyone interested in boosting their wellbeing. However, Katie and her team encourage our patients to work with us on developing a plan tailored directly to your lab tests. This is far and away the best avenue to success with supplements. 

Starting With Diagnostics

To begin, Katie schedules diagnostic lab work to determine which supplements you require and in which doses. Katie looks for signs of inflammation, blood sugar numbers, and micronutrient levels (serum vitamin levels). Altogether, your labs will provide a 24-hour snapshot of how your body absorbs and delegates nutrients. 

A Deeper Look

Katie tests for other factors as well. For example, some people don’t respond well to encapsulated supplements. Seeing this in your lab work, Katie will incorporate liquid supplements to help with absorption. 

Additionally, Katie uncovers any dietary restrictions previously unknown to you. For example, if you eat certain foods repetitively, your body may develop subtle intolerances or even allergies. In general there are 24 types of food in a healthy diet. Your labs betray whether your body has developed an issue with any of these given foods.

Katie also likes to test for synthetic acceptance, blood clots, and Alzheimers:

 

• MTHFR Genetic Test: reveals whether you’re able to break down synthetic B-vitamins. If this is the case, you can’t take supplements created with synthetic molecules. 
• Factor-5: looks at your risk of developing blood clots–if you’re found to be at risk, fish oil helps thin the blood.
• APOE Genotype Test: looks for your risk of developing Alzheimers–those at risk need to protect their brain with turmeric, vitamin d, and fish oil. 

Building Your Supplement Plan

Starting Heavy

With your lab work completed, Katie will work with you to build a supplement plan. Patients sometimes feel overwhelmed at first because of the prescribed volume. However, the heavier load is only temporary, meant to kickstart certain mechanisms and reverse deeper damage. 

The Food-Supplement Relationship

Of course, supplements are only part of a healthy diet. Supplements also work better when paired with the right foods. Katie works with patients to start eliminating foods that cause inflammation and spike blood sugar. These are the root causes of many diseases, from heart disease to diabetes. Namely, these foods are:

• Gluten
• Grains
• Dairy

Katie encourages patients to remove these foods gradually. Many people have been eating these foods their whole lives—for many, these foods make up most of their diet. The process of eliminating these foods is far more successful when taken slowly.  

Three Classes of Supplements

As with functional medicine as a whole, supplements each have their role to play. Katie’s program divides supplements into three general classes. 

Foundational: These supplements should be taken all the time. In fact, most would be better off taking these supplements for the rest of their lives. Foundational Supplements include:

• Multivitamin
• Turmeric
• Fish Oil
• Probiotic

Repletional & Healing: These supplements are designed to heal the body. Additionally, they’re designed to improve or replenish elements that are lacking. 

• Magnesium
• Co-Enzyme Q-10
• Vitamin B-12
• Vitamin D

Optional: This last class of supplement is taken according to their added benefit to individual patients:

• Protein shakes 
• Green powders (fruits and vegetables compressed to powder form)

Additionally, Katie works with mental health through supplements that help boost or guide your neurochemistry. Such supplements include:

• GABA 
• L-Theanine 
• 5HTP 
• Mood Food – B-vitamins which help brain, energy, vitality (Xymogen)

Supplement Trajectory 

Taking a step back, Katie establishes a trajectory for your supplement usage based on diagnostic testing. 

Patients need to check in with diagnostics as a snapshot of health to gauge health. Katie recommends patients repeat lab work every 5-6 months, enough time to see real change but not too long that anything is overlooked. Eventually, you may only need yearly check-ins. 

Get Started With Katie Today!

As mentioned earlier, Total Nutrition offers every pharmaceutical-grade supplement we have in stock for those looking to bolster their health. However, patients that work with Katie have had much more success. Not only are they more adherent to their health program, but both the results from their biannual and annual diagnostics and their reports of boosted wellness show a huge difference.

Supplements are utterly crucial if you wish to create a comprehensive health plan. Visit Total Nutrition & Therapeutics online or give us a call today to find out more about how Clinical Nutritionist, Katie Gravante, can help you make it happen.  

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Contact Total Nutrition and Therapeutics for more about Supplements!

Supplements have taken a giant step forward over the past several years. No longer do they center on bodybuilders and athletes. Today’s supplements are composed of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients tailored to our body’s most essential needs. Total Nutrition’s Clinical Nutritionist, Katie Gravante, works with patients to build a comprehensive supplement plan based on your body’s strengths and weaknesses. Visit our website for more information on our supplement plan today!