Organising a supplement routine that survives a normal week

A supplement routine starts simple and accretes. One thing for sleep, one a friend recommended, two your doctor suggested after a blood test, a multivitamin you've taken for years. By the time there are eight, the routine stops being a routine and becomes a thing you do inconsistently while feeling mildly guilty.

There's also a real organisational wrinkle that most people never find out about: some combinations compete for absorption, some need food and some don't, and taking everything at once in a single handful at breakfast is a common way to get less out of an expensive routine than you think.

This page is about the organising. It does not tell you what to take or how much - that depends on you, your bloodwork and anything else you're on, which is a conversation for a doctor or pharmacist, not a web page.

Split the stack into slots, not one handful

Most stacks divide naturally into three or four moments: on waking, with a main meal, later in the day, and before bed. Assigning each item to a slot converts an eight-decision problem into a four-decision one, which is the difference between a routine that holds and one that doesn't.

Work from the label of each product. Where a label says with food, or on an empty stomach, or at night, that's your slot - the manufacturer has already answered the question.

The spacing rules worth knowing about

These are widely documented and general. They are not advice about your particular routine, and anything your doctor or pharmacist has told you overrides all of it.

• Fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) are generally taken with a meal containing some fat. Taken on an empty stomach, absorption is typically poorer.
• Iron and calcium are commonly advised to be spaced apart rather than taken together, since they compete for absorption. Pregnancy routines in particular often separate them for this reason.
• Magnesium is often placed in the evening, partly for tolerance and partly because people find it easier to attach to a bedtime routine.
• Some minerals can interfere with prescription medicines - thyroid medication is a frequently cited example. If you take anything prescribed, this is specifically worth asking your pharmacist about.
• Caffeine-containing pre-workout products have an obvious placement constraint if you train in the evening.

Build the routine around anchors you already have

The routine that survives is the one attached to something that happens anyway. Coffee, the commute, the gym bag, brushing your teeth. A routine anchored to intention alone reliably decays in the second week.

Put each slot's items physically where the anchor happens. The evening magnesium lives by the bed, not in the kitchen cupboard with everything else.

1. List everything you currently take, with the dose on the label.
2. Read each label for a food or timing instruction and note it.
3. Group them into three or four slots.
4. Attach each slot to something you already do daily.
5. Write it down. A stack you can only hold in your head is a stack you'll drift out of.

Know what you're actually taking

Multi-ingredient products overlap more often than people expect - a pre-workout, a greens powder and a multivitamin can all contain the same things. Writing the full list out is how most people discover they're taking one ingredient from three different tubs.

It's also the list to take to a doctor. "Some vitamins" is not a useful answer when you're asked what you're on, and a written list gets you a meaningfully better appointment.

Questions people ask