Written by Neil Edward Levin, CCN, DANLA

NOW® Senior Nutrition Education Manager and product formulator

Summer is here and a goal for some may be to look and feel their best in summer clothes, bathing suits, and exercise gear. When considering various wellness goals, including weight management and body composition strategies, it’s important to know how certain dietary supplements may help.

Many of us know that the percentage of our body weight consisting of ‘lean body mass’ — everything except fat — is an important factor in how healthy we are and our actual body’s shape. A healthy range is between about 70% and 90%; higher in men than women.

When thinking about adding dietary supplements to achieve your summer wellness goals, here are three to consider:

CLA

CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) is a class of fatty acids that’s naturally found in beef and dairy products, mainly as a result of ruminant animals digesting grasses after grazing, so grain-fed animals produce far less. Though it’s beneficial to human health, we can’t produce CLA internally and it’s only available from food and supplements.

In long-term experiements, CLA helps maintain a proper lean body composition, with significantly lower weight than controls.* Taking conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) orally seems to promote optimal body composition in some patients who are overweight; decreasing their body fat mass and increasing lean body mass, while reducing waist and hip circumference.* Unlike CLA, which has successful long-term clinical studies, few weight management products have good results past a few weeks or months; probably because most people typically adhere to most restricted diet regimens for only a limited time.

Now® CLA supplements are derived from non-GMO safflower oil. Our CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid) 800mg Softgels are easier to swallow than tablets of the same size would be. Other than eating meat and milk from grazing animals, this is the best option to consume this unusual fatty acid that helps us to support our body goals.*

WATER OUT

Body composition also includes water. According to the U.S. Geological Survery, up to 60% of an adult body is water; with bones containing 31% water, skin 64%, the brain and heart 73%, our lungs about 83%, and our kidneys about 79%. Obviously, maintaining a healthy balance of water in our tissues and fluids is a dynamic process and a complicated task for our bodies. Most of us are familiar with electrolyte minerals that play a large part of this process. But there are other options for balancing our water and helping our kidneys properly manage that body resource.*

Now^® Water Out™ is a blend of complementary herbs and nutrients formulated to support healthy urinary tract function and proper bodily fluid balance.* Water Out™ features dandelion leaf, which has been traditionally used to support the maintenance of water equilibrium in the body, as well as uva ursi and juniper, which have been used historically to support a healthy urinary tract.* Also providing the essential nutrients vitamin B₆ and potassium, Water Out™ helps to support proper urinary tract function and helps to maintain the proper balance of water in the body.*

THYROID ENERGY

Thyroid horomones affect the function of every cell in the body. Our thyroid gland both makes and stores hormones that help regulate our heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and our metabolic rate; the rate at which the foods (and their calories) we eat is converted into energy. The thyroid requires specific nutrients for proper functioning to support an optimal metabolic rate.

NOW® Thyroid Energy™ is a comprehensive nutritional supplement formulated to support a healthy thyroid gland.* We’ve included iodine and tyrosine for their important roles in producing thyroid hormones, as well as selenium, zinc, and copper as cofactors needed for normal thyroid function.* While this formula does not contain or provide actual thyroid hormones, it does include the essential nutrients needed by the thyroid to manufacture our own hormones.* This helps assure that a limited supply of nutrients needed by that gland doesn’t reduce our metabolic rate to affect body temperature and the burning of calories for energy.*