Freakin' Fitness > Throw Down the Aces

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As part of my daily diet plan I supplement with a daily multivitamin with minerals. And I suggest you do the same. Just in case you’re too busy, too stressed, or too lazy to eat properly and include all of the essential nutrients in your diet, this strategy will provide that little extra insurance needed to keep your engine purring without a ping. But be aware, no matter how fancy, popular, colorful, cheap, or expensive your vitamin/mineral pills might be, they can’t substitute for a three square diet plan that’s rich in nutrients, energy, and fiber.

Choose a multivitamin/mineral supplement that contains at least 100% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for all of the essential vitamins and minerals, and especially note the levels of the B vitamins and the antioxidant vitamins that I refer to as “ACES.” ACES is an acronym for vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and the mineral selenium.

Let’s start with the B’s. Make sure your supplement contains all of the B-complex vitamins with a healthy dose of the RDA for thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, B6, B12, folic acid, and biotin. These B vitamins are necessary for carbohydrate metabolism and energy production. Just as food manufacturers “fortify” breads and cereals to enhance their vitamin B content, you can fortify your body with the same ingredients.

Like most families, the vitamin B-complex family has a kind of co-dependent relationship – they need each other to perform efficiently and effectively. So in addition to ingesting whole grains, legumes, vegetables, dried beans, seeds, and nuts, I consume a B-complex vitamin that has 25 mg of thiamin, riboflavin, and vitamin B6, 100mg of niacin, 500mcg of vitamin B12, 800 mcg of folic acid, and 300 mcg of biotin.

Now to the antioxidant ACES with their remarkable ability to retard aging, enhance immune function, and speed cell repair. It other words: help you feel great! First, I want you to examine the supplement label and look for the ingredient “beta-carotene,” which is usually in parentheses next to vitamin A. Your body can easily and conveniently convert beta-carotene into vitamin A, and beta-carotene doesn’t offer the toxic risk that ingesting the animal derivatives in vitamin A can. And FYI, the carotenoids within beta-carotene are plant pigments found in orange and yellow fruits and vegetables and dark leafy greens – like spinach. So listen to your mother’s sage advice and eat your fruits and vegetables!

FYI, the recommended daily intake of vitamin A is around 10,000 IU (that stands for international units). So if you are the stubborn kind and don’t heed your mom’s advice, make sure your supplement fills the bill.

Research at the New York Academy of Sciences states that we require 5-to-15 times the amount of antioxidants currently recommended. This is really scary, since few of us even eat the 7-to-9 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables now recommended to meet current guidelines for good nutrition. So I suggest you throw down those ACES - right down your throat!

After “A” comes “C.” Like beta-carotene, vitamin C is water-soluble and doesn’t accumulate in the body. (The great chemist Linus Pauling used to take 18,000mg of vitamin C per day!) But it’s important to note that if a little is good, a lot is not necessarily always better, so don’t waste your money on tons of supplements that will be excreted as expensive urine!

Instead, ingest a daily dose of 200mg of vitamin C (which is really all your body can use in a day) and make sure your diet consists of a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Because without vitamin C, you cannot survive, let alone thrive toward the fruition of your dreams. Your body cannot manufacture vitamin C. It must be ingested. You’ve probably heard the stories of the sailors developing scurvy onboard ships because of the lack of citrus fruits. Their meal plan usually consisted of dried meats and biscuits.

Vitamin C (commonly referred to as ascorbic acid) is essential for boosting your immune system, producing healthy collagen and tissue strength, reducing inflammation and promoting wound healing, and protecting the fat-soluble vitamins A and E as well as fatty acids from oxidation into cancer-forming free radicals.

Ascorbic acid occurs naturally in citrus fruits, bell peppers, tomatoes, rose hips, and strawberries. That’s one of the reasons I add green bell peppers and mushrooms to my eggs, and tomatoes to my salads and sandwiches. Not to mention they taste great!

After A and C comes vitamin E, which is a fat-soluble vitamin and should be taken with food to be efficiently absorbed. Its main purpose is to fight free radicals, those potentially damaging by-products of energy metabolism.

Free radicals, for your information, are unstable molecules with extra “free” electrons looking for a connection. Think of a hooker walking down the street! They can latch onto a cell membrane or blood vessel lining and create constant inflammation, leading to eventual damage and internal stress. Antioxidants – are the cops – who neutralize these electrons by actively binding with them – like with handcuffs – reducing their damaging effects.

Vitamin E is a natural preservative found in vegetable oils, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and dark green leafy vegetables – there’s that spinach again! No wonder Popeye had so much energy!

I make a special effort to infuse my diet with 400 IU of vitamin E. Cancer has knocked the socks off every Croce male for generations and I’m not going to let that devil get his claws into me.

Finally, the “S” is ACES stands for selenium—which is a trace mineral with powerful antioxidant and anticancer properties. Good selenium food sources are wheat germ, rice, yeast, and whole grains. Your daily supplement should include 200 micrograms of this important mineral. Selenium and vitamin E facilitate each other’s absorption, so it’s advantageous if they’re included in the same pill or taken together. -- PC