Thread: Women's Multi-Vitamin

I use Essential Balance from Nature Made. They have formulations for men and women. They occasionally have good deals on amazon.com.

My wife just uses the standard GNC Woman's formula when it goes on sale during "Gold Card" members week. It seems fairly descent and does not cost a lot. She has tried other formulations that had all the various natural things in them like bee royal jelly, herbs, bioflavanoids etc. in them but has not really commented on if there is a noticable difference or not. All I know is she can move more weight than a lot of men and her legs and figure are so much more pretty. Besides that she has the patience of a saint and tolerates me...

-OD

thx OD

Im just trying to figure out why all of the women multi's are so particular on iron content. some are with, some are without. Im not too sure what to "look" for when it comes to a good bottle of multivitamins.

I figured any would do, but there has to be some that are better than others

I never thought that vitmains/minerals needs for women were different.

You never thought so between women? Or between women and men?

women and men.

Originally posted by Emma Lanni
Hey all.
My multi vitamin bottle is running out - I've been using an organic brand my sister found me and its been working well, but it is like $60/bottle and I dont really want to spend a fortune.

What is a good Multi-vitamin for women that I should look into getting?

I've tried Women Ultra Mega & Multi-Vits by Beverly.

Vieope - there are bottles individually for men and women and then unisex.

My boyfriend and I used to share, but then I took one just for women, and realized that I know nothing about what I should look for in the contents. They all contain difference amounts of ingredients... not too sure what to look for.

I think the working theory is woman need more calcium and iron due to menstruation and other biological differences between the sexes. Men need less iron and it tends to build up to toxic levels if too much is taken.

I too have take the Beverly formulations for men as well as the GNC versions. I like them both. I use to have trouble with the old style GNC caplets because they were HUGE horse pills that would stick in your throat if you were not careful. They have since improved their packaging and they are about half as large now. Not sure if they increased the potency or reduced the fillers or just upped the dosages.

-OD

I take a multi by Nature Plus called Sources of Life. I really like this multi, although, I do get it without iron because of my lack of menstrual cycle. You would probably want the one with iron.

Thx Jodi and OD

Are these expensive?

What sort of ingredients should I look out for? Someone once told me to watch the chromium count and up the glutamine count. That makes zero sense to me.

Should I aim for the high Vitamin C counts? Calcium = Vitamin D, no? Maybe it doesnt really matter as long as its a multi huh.

Not too expensive - especially when GNC has their sales.
Chromium (picolinate form) was thought to be efective in increaseing insulin sensitivity - which is a good thing for muscle growth and fat loss. But some of the studies are suspect. Glutamine is not normally in a multi vitamin at all. I do 5000 mg ( 5 gram) doses in pure powder form immedialtely after rising, after workout and prior to bed along with 1000 mg (1 gm) dose of vitamin C. There are a bunch of threads around here talking about glutamine - but its not necessssary if you are just wanting to tone up and not grow. Calcium and Vitamin D are not the same thing. They are usually present together since they compliment each other in bio availability/absorption.

Vitamin C is usually used for its anti-oxidant capabilities. Since exercise can release a lot of damaging free radicals. Most multi vitamins have the three big anti oxidants already (vitamin A,C,E) in pretty high mega dosages. This should be sufficient to get you going. Some people also add a fat soluable anti ox to help combat the free radicals in the fat tissue (e.a. Alpha Lipoic Acid or ALA). The A-C-E vitamins are water soluable and do not help much in neutralizing the free radicals in the fatty tissue.

My recommendation is to just get a good multi vitamin and then fine tune later with other specific things you may want to try. For example, as a guy I also ingest a lot of tablet form garlic. This is suppose to be a natural testosterone booster. A lof of women like to use standardized gree tea tables or just drink green tea. It's a highly personal thing.

-OD

you so totally rock OD.

I am more at rest knowing that its really not all that big a deal. I know Glutamine helps a lot for cramps - something I still have to learn more about the why's and how's of..

Chromium Picolonate is something the ephedra supplements used to use huh. heard of that.

Tis true. Ill get the bottle Jodi was recommending perhaps. Or any highly recommended multi and touch up on individuals as need be in the future.

makes sense.

Glad to help a fellow surfer. You look awesome in the AVI emma. My kind of lady.

-OD