Less You More Profit

small business, done simpler

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Episode 18 Jul 28, 2026

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Supplement overload — figuring this out as I go

I want to talk about something I'm genuinely trying to work through, not something I've figured out.

I have a lot of supplements. And I've accumulated them the same way most of us do — one podcast says magnesium, another says vitamin D, someone else says ashwagandha, and suddenly your counter looks like a health food store exploded on it. I don't know what's working. I don't have a great system. And I'm sharing this because I suspect I'm not alone.

Why an entrepreneur should care about this

Because energy is your input. Not motivation, not discipline — energy. If the thing keeping you from a clean two-hour focus block is that your body is running on empty, no productivity trick will fix it. The stuff you put in your body IS a business decision. That's the frame I'm working from.

I didn't take anything until about two years ago. Then I started paying attention to how I felt during the day, and things snowballed from there. Most of what's on my counter now is a well-intentioned response to a real symptom. What's missing is any actual system for knowing whether any of it is working.

What I learned when I finally looked at my whole stack

I logged everything into Gatherd recently — just a brain dump, rattled them all off. Gatherd pulled the timing recommendations off the labels for me. That's when I realized I was taking several of them at the wrong time. Not wrong by a little. Wrong in ways that apparently affect whether they even absorb properly.

Vitamin D on an empty stomach in the morning. Iron and calcium together. Magnesium at a random time instead of at night.

Nobody caught this. Not even me. I just stacked them all and took them with my morning coffee and assumed that counted.

I've also recently discovered Function Health — a lab testing service where you can actually run bloodwork on hundreds of markers, including nutrient levels. I haven't gone deep on it yet, but it's on my radar as a way to stop guessing and start knowing what I'm actually deficient in. And I'm seriously considering working with a functional medicine doctor — someone who looks at the whole picture instead of just one symptom. I'm not there yet, but I'm leaning toward it.

The accumulation problem

Here's what I think happens. We consume health information in silos.

You hear a sleep podcast — you add magnesium. You hear an energy podcast — you add B12. Inflammation episode — turmeric. None of those hosts know what the others told you. And you never sit down and look at your stack as a whole.

Three questions I've started asking myself for each bottle:

  • What is this actually for? If I can't answer in one sentence, that's a problem.
  • How would I know if it's working? This one stopped me cold. For most of my supplements I had no answer. I was just… taking them and hoping.
  • Did I set a trial window? Most things need 4–12 weeks to show effect. I never set a date to check. So I just kept taking them indefinitely.

I'm not telling you what to do here. I'm telling you what I realized I hadn't been doing.

Timing — the thing I got wrong

This came directly from logging in Gatherd. Please go read your own labels and talk to someone qualified about your specific situation — none of this is medical advice. But here's what I learned about my own stack:

  • Fat-soluble vitamins (D, A, E, K) apparently absorb better with a meal that has fat. I was taking D fasted.
  • Magnesium is commonly recommended at night. I was taking it midday for no reason.
  • Iron and calcium apparently compete for absorption. I was taking them together.
  • B vitamins are energizing. Probably not ideal right before bed.

The labels often say this. I just never read them carefully, or I read them once and forgot. Gatherd surfaced it for me automatically when I logged the bottles in. That's the only reason I caught it.

What I'm building toward

I don't have a perfect system yet. Here's what I'm working toward:

  • An audit. Everything I'm taking, what I think it's for, how long I've had it.
  • A metric for each one. Even a rough one. "I'll know this is helping if X changes."
  • Consistent logging. I track mine alongside sleep and energy in Gatherd. I want enough data to actually see patterns instead of guessing.
  • A 60-day review. Come back to the list. Look at what shifted. Stop the things that clearly aren't doing anything.
  • An actual expert. Function Health for the labs. Potentially a functional medicine doctor for interpretation. That feels like the right next step for me.

The discernment question

I'm sharing this because I think a lot of us are in the same boat — well-intentioned, information-overloaded, and not actually tracking whether any of it is working. If you can only take one thing from this episode, take the middle question:

How would you know if the thing you're taking is working?

If you can't answer it, either build a way to check, or take the bottle out of your morning routine. There's no third option that doesn't waste money and attention.

I'm not a doctor. I'm not giving you a supplement protocol. I'm just a small business owner trying to have enough energy to run my life, and I'm starting to take this more seriously.

If any of this resonated, come find me on Instagram @gatherdmom.

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