Better time management through science: Multivitamins and Antioxidants

We’re busy. We work hard, play hard and live hard. Who has time for eight hours of sleep every night? I don’t, that’s for damn sure.

When I first started my job as an analyst at an investment bank, I wasn’t burning the candle at both ends – I was throwing it in the fire! Getting to work at 7 AM, working until 8:30 PM, going to the gym to work out, then meeting up with friends for dinner. After dinner, I was inevitably pulled into a club (against my will, of course) only to extricate myself from the alcohol fueled melee sometime after 1 AM, stumble home, and get up at 6 AM and start all over again.

There was one thing that really cramped my playboy style: getting sick. When you’ve got a cold or the flu, no one wants you around. It’s bad enough at work when you’re sniffling into the phone or coughing on a client, but when you’ve been ingesting cold medication all day and then try to hit the bars, your buddies are going to ditch your runny-nosed, slobbery ass when you make your fifth disappearance to blow your nose.

Okay, your parents are going to tell you to just slow down and not go out as much. Screw that! As a young successful, not to mention handsome, guy, it is my duty to go out and be seen. How was I able to keep up this lifestyle and not run myself down to the point of dying from the common cold? I made two major additions to my life: multivitamins and antioxidants. Since adding both of these to my lifestyle, I have literally not gotten sick.

I had taken a multivitamin for years. My mother used to feed me Flintstone’s vitamins and then Centrum. But these contain ingredients from sources that cannot be easily absorbed into your body. They are not going to kill you, but your body can’t absorb them. (Do your own google search. I don’t want to try to explain the science.)

I switched to Optimum Nutrition’s Opti-Men multivitamin. This formula requires that you take it three times per day (I take it with breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Why three pills per day? Your body cannot absorb all of your daily nutrients at one time. Think about it, if you spill a full beer, you can clean it up with one sponge, but you’re going to need to make several trips to the sink. Your body works the same way. Once it reaches capacity, it will not absorb any more nutrients and you end up just pissing them out. That’s your money going down the toilet. Literally.

In addition to the Opti-Men formula, I also like the GNC Multivitamin. GNC has tried to expand their multivitamin line by adding vitamin “packets,” among other things. Just stick with the good old bottle of Mega Men Multivitamins. The GNC formula requires just two pills per day and is easy to find at your local GNC store, where you can also buy my other favorite product: FRS.

FRS is my favorite supplement ever. Period. As dumb as it sounds, it’s nearly a miracle drug. FRS is basically a company that has created multiple delicious methods of delivering quercetin to your system.

Quercetin is the antioxidant that occurs naturally in red onions, blueberries, blackberries, tomatoes, broccoli, etc. It allegedly can fight cancer and respiratory illnesses, reduce blood pressure and increase energy. All I know is that it gives me mad natural energy with no crash and keeps me from getting sick.

I drink one FRS Low Cal energy drink can (I prefer Peach Mango) in the morning pre-workout and then eat two of their pomegranate blackberry flavored chews in the afternoon, around 4 or 5. The taste of both the chews and the chews take some getting used to, but after a few days, you’ll enjoy the taste and look forward to your morning and afternoon treat.

The energy drinks have 325 milligrams of quercetin and the chews have 270 milligrams. Compare that with a half cup of raspberries, which only have 40 milligrams of the stuff!

Multivitamins will be the cheapest option. Depending on whether you purchase the GNC or the Optimum Nutrition options, you will be spending approximately $10 to $15 per month. FRS costs more. The chews will cost about $17 per bag and last 15 days. The drinks are about $7 for four. For a month, this will cost you $34 for chews and $52.50 for the drinks.

The grand total of this lifestyle optimization comes out to about $97 per month. More than worth it to save yourself from a few days of the crud!