Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Forget about whether vitamins and herbal supplements actually help you. The question today is: do your vitamins and herbal supplements really contain what they say they do? Consumerlab.com has tested a wide variety of products to determine whether they contained 100% of the labeled amount of vitamins, minerals or herbal supplement.

• Consumberlab.com – Independent Tests – Latest Results

This company offers a summary report for each testing for free. You do not have to subscribe to see the results of those tests. They show the brand names of the drugs tested (i.e. Vitamin World, Nature Made, CVS Pharmacy brand) and whether they passed the tests or not.

If you want exact measurements and all the full details, they have a one-year subscription to their website for $24, with savings for multiple-year subscriptions. Thirty-day access to one test is $9. I was able to find out a lot from just the summary report.

Check out the Nutrition Bar Testing to find the bars that actually contain what they say they do. To find the ones that contain more carbs than they actually do, you have to pay for the full report. Might as well just stick with the ones that are what they say they are.

When I first started Weight Watchers, it was strickly to lose weight. I was willing to do whatever they told me baring surgery or pill-popping. My only focus was getting my butt smaller. I had a dim glimmer in the back of my mind that maybe my stomach would feel better if I ate correctly, but I didn’t have high hopes for that. The thought of doing it strictly to get more healthy or to “see what I could achieve” never crossed my mind.

• About.com – Real People, Real Results – by Paige Waehner

This article is a compilation of comments from those people who have been living healthy for years and enjoying exercise along the way. They have learned, as I have, that weight loss has many benefits. My stomach is much less troublesome now. I can hike up mountains and trek around the city without losing steam. I try new forms of exercise just to see what I can achieve. There are so many benefits to having a stronger and healthier body that I want to shout it out to the world, but then, that tends to make me seem annoying…