Ever since I have been focusing on living a healthy-ish lifestyle, I have become a huge believer in taking vitamins. Yeah, I know, I’m a little late to the vitamin show. Years ago I couldn’t even remember to take the iron pills my doctor instructed me to take; now if I forget to take my vitamins before I leave in the morning, my entire day is thrown off. My mind goes to them in their case marked with the letters for each day of the week with that date’s letter flashing. I currently take seven different vitamins each day, not including two Goli gummies and six collagen tablets. You would think my stomach would feel full all day from all that, but not so much.
When I began this relationship with vitamins, I chose the staples- D, B, Iron, a multi-vitamin. I then added vitamins to my routine as I read about some benefit women my age needed from this vitamin or that vitamin. Vitamins work! (Who knew?!) I feel better now in my 50s than I have ever felt before in my life. I know other lifestyle changes have helped, but I really give a lot of the credit to my vitamins. I don’t like the taste of many vegetables, so I feel like that is okay since I ingest my vitamins in tablet form. Please let me have this one.
I began taking collagen about a year and a half ago. I think I read on some website that collagen would help skin retain its elasticity and help bones stay strong. Hmm. Elastic skin and strong bones? Sign me up. Of course there are many other benefits as well. I did a little more research and discovered that collagen in tablet form (versus powder form) was the way for me to go. There are a lot of different types of collagen out there, so I wanted to make sure I took the type that would provide the most benefits. Collagen that has been hydrolyzed for absorption and contains all five types of collagen I, II, III, V and X is the best to take. So, I went to Costco and bought the biggest bottle I could find- I figured I would be good for a year. Then I read that I needed to take six tablets a day! I decided to split up that half dozen; I take three tablets in the morning and three tablets at night- and they are big like horse pills.
The benefits have been good. My skin does look good, my bones are strong (I guess- they are holding up my body), and I don’t have many aches and pains. However, the best benefit has been it has made my hair grow really fast. I wore my hair in a short hairstyle for almost thirty years. When I was in high school and college in the eighties, I could have been part of any big-hair band. My hair was B-I-G and thick. In my last year of college I began wearing my hair short. I liked it, and it was easy to style. When I turned fifty, I decided I was going to let my hair grow out. I just wanted something new. I didn’t (and still don’t) have a specific length in mind. I figure when I get to that length I will know. The picture on the left is me on my 50th birthday in August 2019. Believe it or not, that was three months after I started growing my hair out. The picture on the right was taken in May of 2021. I am like Rapunzel! Well, maybe not quite, but there has definitely been a lot of growth. I really don’t think my hair would have grown so quickly without my collagen usage. My longer hair is a just a visible benefit. I am sure I am benefitting in many more important ways.
I might be a late learner, in terms of ways to improve my health and stay healthy as I age, but I believe better late than never. I want to live to be a very old woman- with great hair!- so I will continue to search for ways to make that happen.
