Do You Really Need All Those Supplements?

Jun 16, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Jun 29, 2025

What your body might be asking for instead.

Supplements can be incredibly useful. They can correct deficiencies, support healing, and bridge short-term gaps.

But they were never meant to be the whole strategy.

Not because they don’t work. Many do. Some are life-changing. Some are life-saving.

But most of the time, what I see are good people trying to treat deep, layered, biological needs with a drawer full of capsules, without quite knowing why they’re taking them, or what’s actually working.

We’ve turned nutritional support into a side hustle. And we’re tired.

The Supplement Spiral

It often starts with a symptom: fatigue, brain fog, stress, sleep issues, skin flares.

You try magnesium. Then B12. Then adaptogens. Then a gut powder. Then a methylated multi that makes you feel wired, so you add L-theanine to calm it down.

And somehow, you’re still tired.

This isn’t failure. It’s a sign that your biology isn’t looking for individual ingredients. It’s looking for context.

The Body Doesn’t Work in Ingredients

You’re not a spreadsheet of deficiencies. You’re a living system of relationships: nutrients, hormones, enzymes, microbes, neurotransmitters, tissues, timing.

When one piece goes off track, others overcompensate. Symptoms show up. We panic. We Google. We start layering interventions.

But healing isn’t always about adding more. Sometimes, it’s about listening first.

When Supplements Help

Supplements absolutely have their place:

To correct a known deficiency (iron, B12, vitamin D, iodine)
To support genetic variations that may increase your needs (hello, MTHFR, COMT, PEMT, NQO1)
During acute or high-demand times (infection, pregnancy, travel, perimenopause)
As part of a strategy—not the whole strategy

But they only help if your body can actually absorb, use, and regulate them.

And that depends on foundational things: digestion, liver function, stress response, microbial health, inflammation.

It’s not about the supplement. It’s about the terrain it lands in.

More Isn’t Smarter

The smartest supplement strategy is actually quite boring. Not flashy. Not overstuffed. Not curated to look impressive on your shelf.

Just enough. For you. Right now.

That’s where testing, experience, and clinical insight come in. But even before all that? We can often get closer by focusing on food, rhythm, and clarity.

Your Needs Will Change

Supplements aren’t a forever plan. They’re a right-now support.

Just because I recommend something at one point in your health journey doesn’t mean it’s meant for the long haul. We might use a B complex while we work on methylation. Or magnesium while your nervous system resets. Or a gut formula to calm things down temporarily.

That doesn’t mean you’re committing to it for years.

The goal isn’t to be supplement-reliant. It’s to support the system while it rebuilds capacity, then reassess. This is where functional testing, feedback, and actual conversation come in.

Your biology changes. Your environment changes. So your supplement needs should too.

Why This Matters

Because I see too many people doing everything "right" on paper, but still feeling off. Because I’ve been the person adding in, adding in, adding in, and not feeling better.

Because your biology doesn’t need you to hack it. It needs you to support it.

Because supplements can give you a sense of control when everything feels uncertain, and sometimes, that’s valuable. But over time, they can also become a distraction from the bigger picture: the food you’re not eating, the rest you’re not getting, the stress that never lets up.

Because symptom-chasing doesn’t always lead to healing. And because constantly tweaking your protocol can become its own kind of stress.

Because the best results I’ve seen, clinically and personally, come from simplifying, not stacking. From making food work better, not disappearing into another product cycle.

Because the point isn’t to add more. The point is to build trust with your body again.