Let's Talk Supplements

my ex said these don't work but he was WRONG

One of the few newsletters that reads like an actual email to a friend! I love it.

- Anna, paid subscriber

👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hiya! I’m Laura, bestselling author of 17 books and writer of one of Substack’s bestselling newsletters too. I believe you don’t change your life by becoming someone else - you change it by telling the truth about who you already are. How to Build a Life is where I do that, in real time, twice a week, to thousands of readers all over the world. Thank you for being here!!

psssst! I’m doing a book event in Nottingham on Wednesday June 3rd! £6 entry! With Rosie Walsh and Kirsty Greenwood! You should come!

I got the idea for this letter when I was scrolling Substack notes and saw this:

I read it and thought: that’s what I take!! I’ve won supplements! This is how my brain works. It responds well to being told ‘good job, you did this right’, even if the thing I did ‘right’ is e.g. getting to inbox zero, or being early enough to school to get ‘my’ car parking spot, or in this case not being bamboozled by starry celebrity-led supplement stuff that doesn’t work and being quite sensible about the extra things I spend money on and imbibe. The scientist said my stuff works!! Yasssss!!

This is especially vindicating because my ex-boyfriend took the piss out of me supplementing my diet at all, raising a wry eyebrow and being all God, what does all of that cost? It can’t be worth it, etc etc. But the joke is on him because I just costed this all out and it’s pennies. Did I let him make me feel bad about it, ashamed that I was a silly women buying silly things? Yup! Honestly, I still can’t figure last summer out. Who was that version of Laura, the one who so readily outsourced her sense of self? Baffling. Truly baffling.

Anyway, it is true that when I am fully stocked on pills and potions you could use me as a maraca there’s that much rattling around inside of me. My ex’s comment made me reflect huh, maybe I don’t need all this stuff??? and I stopped taking it all for a bit because apparently I have a very weak sense of self that collapses in on itself when trying to please a man. Again, yes, I am still working through my confusion, it still really, really bothers me that I didn’t tell him to do one earlier. So I stopped with it all for a bit (pathetic) and then when I had a cupboard clear-out and saw the discarded tubs I decided to get a pill holder (this one, and I know you probably don’t care but what if you do??) and use them all up. Genuinely, I do feel better for being back on them. And do you know what I forgot? I was guided by a qualified nutritionist on what supplements to be on in the first place! When I went to my fancy gym! Ultimately that’s why I decided to share today. You do the research on what’s good for you, because I did the research on what’s good for me, but urm, hello! I did do the research!!

I was going to share all these at the weekend as part of my Joy Dump! but decided they needed their own letter so I could explain why I take them, as well as where I get them (spoiler, mostly Amazon tbh) and in what dose.

Emilina the Nutritionist up there ☝🏼 said Magnesium, Omega 3’s, Creatine, which is what my own nutritionist suggested too. (And Emilina said Vitamin D. Should I be on Vitamin D? Everyone says you should but then I saw a woman online say she actually took too much Vitamin D and made herself unwell. But. If I just follow the directions…???)

Also what I want to say is, I don’t necessarily believe in “anti-aging” because… well. Shall we get into it? Sod it. Let’s do it. Okay, so obviously you can’t age in reverse unless you’re that creepy silicon valley guy with the hair transplant, Brian Something??, so I do think the concept of “anti-aging” is a patriarchal construct designed to keep women busy with their own smallness. And I think the patriarchy want women busy with their own smallness because the older a woman gets, the more dangerous she gets. Peri- and post-menopausal women are written off as old crones because they can’t procreate anymore, AND THAT IS WHAT MAKES THEM SO DANGEROUS. If you’re not looking for a man to make a baby with, men have to bring a lot more than sperm to the table - but a woman not looking for the approval of men, the desire of men, is a woman they don’t know what to do with because they’ve spent their whole lives holding the power. Only a man can give you a baby*!! (*Terms and conditions apply). So society/men hold up youth as the prize, without also reminding us that youth is stupid and pliable and amenable because prizing being stupid and pliable and amenable is also to their benefit. Aged folks have experience and wisdom, and that’s inconvenient for the status quo because then the status quo can be challenged. It’s better to tell e.g. young women that e.g. old women are ‘past it’ and ‘irrelevant’ so all that juicy wisdom can’t be passed down, can’t be shared. We literally warn young women about old women in a way we don’t warn young men about their older counterparts. ‘DIVIDE SOCIETY BUT MAKE IT LOL’. I thought older women were a waste of my time for years, and I’m smart. How much smarter I could have been if I had let them guide me!!

All of this to say: if you unconcern yourself with trying to REVERSE age (a wasted endeavour) and focus instead on AGING WELL, well - my oh my are you a weapon. A woman aging well - healthy and sprite and alert? That’s hot.

I quite like the idea of being a weapon, you know.

So my philosophy for a body and mind that ages well - a sort of ‘maintenance is better than a late fix’ mindset, like a bike, or a house particularly affected by the weather - is lubrication. I basically want my insides strong and slick.

(Is that gross?)

My strong and slick sidekicks are: