Recently I met someone who was complaining of suffering with constant low energy.
Do you know what she did? Well instead of thinking about diet or lifestyle the first thing she did was to try some supplements to help give her energy!
The thing is they were just some standard multivitamin supplements with added Gingseng.
Supposing they do help at all, which I doubt they will, they will only be masking the real reason why this lady was tired in the first place.
There are many reasons why someone could be feeling tired all the time; from the simple to the concerning.
I didn’t get much time to chat to this lady but my first guess would be that her diet was to blame. Probably too much starchy carbohydrate like rice.
During my history of working in gyms and health clinics I have seen most people improve their energy simply by reducing the starchy carbohydrates and increasing green vegetables, fats and proteins.
The second most common cause I see and another simple one to sort out is food intolerance. Quite often I see people reacting to grains in a way that makes them tired. It isn’t enough for people to link the two or to even suspect they have reactions to grains, but I see it.
There are other factors that would need looking into such as various types of anaemias or vitamin deficiencies, or even hormonal imbalances such as “adrenal fatigue” or ” an under active thyroid”.
I use these terms in inverted commas because it is often more complex than this and the mentioned glands may actually be fine and producing the desired hormones but that the hormone receptors or the cells may not be working properly.
What if everything was actually fine but the lady was tired because she’s always going out and not getting enough sleep? Or maybe she was on a crazy calorie restricted diet?
Who knows.
My point here is that to solve health problems you have to look for the causes, not just take a random high street shop bought supplement!