What Supplements Do You Suggest for My Not-Perfect Nutrition Regimen?
15 Dec 2025 · 11 min
Podcast episode by JJ Virgin answering a listener question about supplements for a "not-perfect" diet. JJ emphasizes diet swaps first but recommends a foundational multivitamin/mineral/antioxidant packet (with essential fatty acids), vitamin D with K (test 25-hydroxy vitamin D and target 25(OH)D 50–80 ng/mL), additional magnesium (~300 mg/day), digestive enzymes (for those over ~35 or under stress), and EPA/DHA fish oil. Episode also contains several sponsor ad reads (Earth Breeze, Wayfair, Monarch, Pacifico) and closing promos.
Questions this episode answers
A 25-hydroxy vitamin D test (25(OH)D).
50–80 ng/mL.
About 10,000 IU daily for a couple months, then down to 5,000 IU.
Approximately 300 mg per day.
EPA and DHA from fish oil.
Chapters
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I'm looking for overall supplements for my not perfect nutrition regimen. What would you suggest? This is JJ Virginia, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and fitness hall of famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. All right, Melinda emailed. Hey jj, I'm looking for overall supplements to my not perfect nutrition regimen. What would you suggest? All right, Melinda, I've definitely got some ideas. I'll be right back with some suggestions.
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Okay, Melinda, so, you know, I have to at least say, could we, could we. If you are getting a C on your nutrition regimen, could we just even work on doing some swap ups? Trading up to get to a. So that's the first thing that I would recommend. And what I did was write both the virgin diet and the sugar impact diet to take you through a process of doing healthy swaps to help you figure out in the virgin diet which foods work for you and which foods don't. In the sugar impact diet, really where you should be in terms of carbs and sugar, but the whole thing's based on swapping in healthier options that you'll probably like even better. So that's the first thing. I just got to throw it out there.
I can't help myself.
But as far as this goes, you know, I remember I always said, hey, supplements are named supplements for a reason. You can't supplement your way out of a bad diet. And then I read this study where they gave people who were eating at McDonald's an antioxidant after the meal and lowered the inflammation, it lowered the inflammatory.
Response to the meal.
And I'm like, oh, well, maybe you can. So here's my rule of thumb. Obviously, I think supplements should supplement a good diet. But no matter where you are now, with everything from soil demineralization to, you know, transit time for food, to the toxins in our environment, to leaky gut to lower digestive enzymes, blah, blah, blah, we need supplements. And I believe that kind of your health assurance policy is a good multivitamin, mineral and antioxidant formula. I think that's kind of the foundation thing that you must have. And that is not a one a day pill. You. You could not possibly pack in all the stuff that you need in one pill. And when I look at a good multivitamin, multimineral antioxidant formula, and by the way, it's also gonna include essential fatty acids. That is a packet. And I make one called daily essential packets that I created that you could take one a day of. Now, depending on where you're at in your crappy diet or not so crappy diet, you might wanna take two a day. To me, if someone's got a great diet and they're doing one of my wanted all in one smoothies each day too, that also has some extra nutrition in it and getting good, good protein in there. Then they can do one packet of this a day. But let's say that your diet's a C, I'd probably go with two. Now you want to check some things to make sure that you're getting like methylated B vitamins that are going to be better absorbed, that your minerals are chelated well so you can absorb them. So a high quality type, professional grade type of supplements and that you're getting therapeutic doses of the different nutrients as well. And what I'll tell you is this is even with doing that, getting that multivitamin, multimineral antioxidant, and I love things like resveratrol and curcumin and green tea ecg, things like that, you're likely going to need to take two more nutrients on top of that. And that is a vitamin D with K. And this is one where you test, don't guess, you go to the doctor, you get a 25 hydroxy vitamin D test, you see where your levels are and you supplement to get your levels to be ranging between 50 and 80 ngs per ML. If you're super low, you'll probably have to take 10,000 IUs of vitamin D and again in concert with K1 and 2 for a couple months and then back down to 5,000. I personally have a genetic issue and I have to take 10,000 IUs a day every day to keep my levels where they need to be. The other thing you'll probably have to add in there is magnesium because you're probably not going to get the amount of magnesium you need in a multi pack. And I find most people do better if they add another, you know, 300 milligrams of magnesium in a day. Now in my packet I also have essential fatty acids that the other thing I want to make sure that you take. And specifically in there I'm looking at omega 3s and specifically EPA and DHA from fish oil because we tend to be out of balance and low in our omega threes relative to omega 6s, which puts us into more of an inflammatory state than anti inflammatory states. So that's another piece I push. And depending on what's going on with you, we might have to push that a little bit more with some extra fish oil. The one other thing that I would look at, there are enzymes because if.
You'Re over the age of 35 or.
Under any kind of stress, and I think I just listed everybody right, you may be low in stomach acid. And you may also have trouble digesting fat. And so if you have something that can help you really break down those proteins especially it can help you break down some of the proteins you might be sensitive to, like gluten or dairy.
Or eggs or soy.
So it can lower your food intolerance issues. You still want to avoid the foods that are hurting you, but enzymes can be amazing game changer for helping you break down those proteins. So those are the key ones that I would say that you know would be Overall Daily Essential Packet Depending on if you're doing one of my loaded smoothies or not, go to 2 adding in vitamin D with K and doing that test. Probably adding a little extra magnesium at night can help you with sleeping and then some enzymes, my digestive enzymes and potentially a little extra fish oil. All right, there you go. But again, I just have to say it one more time, Melinda, swap up. Swap up on your diet. Continue to look at how you can improve. And remember, like with all of us, it's like we're always looking to pick. One thing that you want to focus on right now is getting in the great supplements. Next thing will be like, huh, can I go through the virgin diet and do some swaps and and see which foods work for me and which foods don't and just take my diet maybe to a B? All right, thanks for the question. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I answer your questions weekly. Plus I interview the top experts in health and wellness. So make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojj.com Yep, it's that easy. I'll see you next time.
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