Summer means carefree unstructured living, while the fall brings changes and adjustments as we settle back into regular routines. Back to school for parents can mean a schedule jam-packed full of work, kids’ extracurricular activities, eating on the run and increased stress levels. If you’re single with a busy lifestyle, you’re juggling your own mix of career, friends, family and activities. Renewed stress and not eating the way you should can mean you aren’t getting all the nutrients you need for optimal health. “In the summer, people are often on vacation and there is less structure and less stress. In the fall when you’re stressed you’re going through more resources or the nutrients aren’t in your diet in the first place,” says board-certified gastroenterologist,Dr. Joseph Brasco. Cooler weather also brings people inside for activities making exposure to pathogens more likely along with less vitamin D from the sun. For a lot of reasons, your body is definitely under more stress at this time of year.”

Fill in the Gaps with a Whole Food Multivitamin

To make sure our immune systems are tip-top, ideally, everyone would eat an organic diet full of nutritious foods but with today’s 24-7 on the go culture, this if often unrealistic. A good multivitamin is one way to help make sure your nutritional needs are met. “It’s one of the best ways to fill in the gap that stress and improper eating creates,” says Dr. Brasco, who is also co-director of The Colon and Digestive Disease Center of Huntsville, Alabama and co-author of the book Restoring Your Digestive Health. But not all multivitamins are created equal. “Most vitamins are synthetic. It’s better to derive vitamins from a whole foods source so you get the vitamin with its co-factors which are accessory nutrients that accompany a vitamin in its natural state.”

Garden of Life’s Vitamin Code Family Formula is a whole food based vitamin and mineral supplement that contains a blend of antioxidant–rich ingredients derived from naturally grown and organic fruits, vegetables, tonic mushrooms, sea vegetables, and botanicals, plus trace minerals that supply nutrients important to support overall health and well-being.† It’s made with Living Nutrients™ that contain cofactors that assist proper absorption and utilization by the body, including amino acids, antioxidants, probiotics, prebiotics and organic acids. The Vitamin Code products are the only multivitamins that provide Living Nutrients.

Better for Your Body

The Living Nutrients™, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants come in body-ready whole food form, created by Garden of Life’s proprietary Poten-Zyme™ fermentation process. Fermentation is a process that helps liberate the nutrients from the foods so that they are more bioavailable and puts them in a more digestible state that the body can better absorb and utilize them.† Garden of Life’s advanced fermentation process uses living probiotic organisms including Lactobacillus plantarum, normally found in the human gut, and their enzymes to pre-digest nutrients into forms that your body can easily digest and absorb. They’re better for your body because they are more like food than isolated vitamins.

Mega Benefit

When nutrients are highly absorbable, they provide a mega benefit without a mega dose. “More is not necessarily better. It’s better to take a vitamin at a physiological level,” says Dr. Brasco. “Obtaining nutrients with their co-factors in a highly utilizable form as if you were eating an ideal, pristine diet is more important than mega doses. A little goes a long way.”

76 Whole Foods

Garden of Life’sVitamin Code Family Formula provides at least 100% of recommended Daily Values of key vitamins A, C, E and B and its new upgraded formula now has 76 whole food based ingredients when it previously had 62. It features a rich blend of antioxidants derived from naturally grown and organic fruits such as pomegranates and vegetables, that contain carotenoids, such as lutein and lycopene to support eye health. Garden of Life’s Poten-Zyme™ Veggie Juice Blend features sprouted seeds rich in enzymes and other nutrients. The Antioxidant Beverage & Spice blend contains extracts of white tea, green tea, coffee, rosemary, rhododendron, marigold, turmeric, ginger and thyme. The new Vitamin Code Family has a more concentrated nutrient content, which makes them smaller and much easier to swallow.

Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

Always remember that a multivitamin should be in addition to a healthy diet. “A multivitamin is a supplement,” says Dr. Brasco. “That means it’s an addition to something and that something is a healthy lifestyle. This includes modifying stress, exercising regularly and eating a healthy diet.”