How to get magnesium right from the start

*Listen to the podcast episode of this post right HERE.

Magnesium. I could say it's my favorite mineral. It's the mineral that brought me back to life as well as to this amazing work I get to do. It's truly magical to me.

It's power is profound and deep. It's not just something to dabble with. If you want the fullest effect of this magical mineral, you have to dive deep.

If you don’t get magnesium right you get a lot of other things wrong, so let’s get it right from the start.

I spent years not getting it right dabbling, trying to intellectualize and then also feel my way through implementing it.

The first step for me was; I was DESPERATE for relief to change my life and health. My anxiety, insomnia and muscle tension was out of this world. As a single mom with four young kids I needed massive relief from all of those things and fast!

The second step was; voraciously consuming every morsel of information on magnesium as I possibly could. Imagine me as ravenous and starving, gorging at a buffet ... shoveling fast to satiate the ache of hunger.

The third step was to RUN, literally speed in my car to my nearest health food store and buy some magnesium. Then proceed to start taking it, so I could hurry up and heal already. I'm talking, I wanted ON DEMAND instant results.

Before I got to step 4, I had to actually experience some things for a bit before I could realize I was missing CRUCIAL info. I actually skipped over some steps in my hurry, which was, finding the right magnesium form and dose for my body and my state of health (at the time).

I didn’t have all the information I needed back then. I only had preliminary insight. I didn’t have deeper insight because I was a newbie who was desperate and not trusting a bigger process.

I didn’t understand what that process even was because I was in such a rush.
I love myself for my passion and even when I’m missing steps, I learn through doing. Sometimes quickly, sometimes not. However, you can learn from my mistakes.

Remineralizing your body is a marathon, not a sprint.

So, I starting taking the shittiest form of magnesium for optimal absorption (back in the summer of 2009) and to top that off, I took WAY TOO MUCH. Double whammy!

Why? Well, because I had the mindset that if some is good more is better. ER, WRONG-O!

I proceeded to take 1200 mg… BAD BAD PLAN!

My lack of magnesium clearly was impairing my better judgement.

One day as I was watching an educational DVD while my kids were napping, I found myself literally keeling over on the couch finding it hard to hold myself up and stay awake. I literally tried to snap myself out of it but just could not. I  knew this was not my normal state of fatigue, something was different. I did a bit of quick research and realized I had over-magged myself. Meaning, I had taken way too much all at once. To the point of detriment.

NEVER did I ever make that mistake again.

Now, I didn’t realize the form of my magnesium was shitty, until I eventually (years later) got the actual shits.

You see, certain forms of magnesium (oxide and citrate) have a laxative effect. You may be thinking; "well I’m constipated so sign me up for that please." Yeah, I was too back then… BUT, but but but the problem is the form that helps you purge your bowels is not a form that is well absorbed for other uses in your body. Like getting inside your cells, supporting your heart to run properly and SO MUCH more.

So I had spent years only focused on one aspect of magnesium which was simply just TAKING it consistently. I guess I thought, "yeah I know I need magnesium, I’m convinced"... and that was good enough for me after also figuring out a high dose wasn’t the answer.

But in reality, it was not good enough.

The next step was finally at my doorstep when I realized my bodies tolerance for the purgative form was no longer the same. I couldn’t take the same dose of that form without getting loose bowels.

The pendulum had finally swung fully in the other direction and that wasn't fun either. That's what happens when you miss steps, you don't get where you really want to go. When you don't get where you want to go, you get frustrated and tempted to quit. Luckily, I was not ready to quit.

Eventually, I entered the mineral balancing world 5 years after I learned the magic of magnesium and that’s when I started to dig deeper. Taking the next best step at the time for me was actually the step I now realize would have been best taken FIRST.

To TEST, so I no longer had to guess. As well as to more fully assess how magnesium works with other things in my body to allow me to function optimally.

I began to SEE how magnesium interacted and played a role in the function of other minerals. I learned how easy it is to burn through magnesium on a daily basis. I found out that magnesium has several co-factor nutrients to help my body use and hold on to it. As well as how my body had to be up to par to absorb it fully in the first place, so it would actually get restored in my body.

So to sum it all up,  quantity, quality/form, co-factor nutrients as well as helping my digestion and gut with assimilation and absorption with TESTING became the fuller picture and sequence of steps I had been missing in the beginning.

Why the eff is it so complex you ask?

I get it. It’s potentially annoying at first. Reason #1 being we live in a world that strips things from their natural setting and tries to isolate things that never should be.
Meaning: single nutrient supplementation is just a way to put a band-aid on. It misses out on the fact that we are missing nutrients (minerals) from our water, soil and food - so now we have to hack our way back to whole health.

Once you accept this, even though at first it may make you mad, annoyed, frustrated and even tempted to just say "eff this I wish I never went down this rabbit hole"… you can embrace that you are in for a whole new way of life if you want the actual benefits of WHOLENESS.

It’s not just enough to jump on the magnesium bandwagon or the any one single nutrient/supplement bandwagon. You’ll fall off eventually,  I promise you that. Feeling bad about yourself when you do certainly won’t help either. It’s not YOU! It’s a faulty paradigm to begin with. It’s time for a reframe.

This new frame puts you on a path that, yes includes numerous steps, but once integrated gets results and becomes sustainable. Not only that but begins to iron out some of the kinks in your health. Which is the real reason you sought out the magnesium in the first place, am I right?

It was a great start to learn about magnesium and take some, but now it’s time to take things all the way.

Unless you are content to only splash in the first few feet of waves only because you are scared of the effort/risk and unknown.

However, if you want radically vibrant health, then come along - let’s dive into the deep.

Here is the new frame that will allow you to more fully and deeply benefit from not just magnesium, but all minerals.

Step one: TEST

If you skip this, you will have to start by guessing.
Guessing at first could be ok but it won’t be for long.
So plan on testing ASAP.

The two best tests to start with are:

Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis
RBC Magnesium (not serum)

Once you get the information from both tests, you will have a starting point to work from. A baseline to build on. Magnesium doesn't work on it's own.

So test, to assess, so you don't have to guess and make a mess!

Step two: Assess your current demand for magnesium and how fast you use it up

I won't go into this in full here, but let me just say magnesium has many enemies. In light of that, restoration becomes a bit more complex. However, when you know better, you can do better.

Step three: Assess your current ability to digest and absorb your nutrition

You can't absorb what you can't digest. Ever noticed all the aisles with excessive digestive meds and acids blockers? Yeah, those have only grown since I was a kid. That means collectively our digestion is getting worse not better. But most people never know how to get to the root. They just end up on acid blockers trying to hack the problem. The good news is, step 1 helps you address this too. Digestion is something I help every client with.

You also can't absorb and retain your nutrition when your internal terrain (aka: environment) is not optimally healthy. Absorption of nutrition requires a healthy gut lining. Modern day has not been kind to the human gut lining for many many reasons. It's important to know how to support yours.

Step four: Learn a full spectrum integrative approach.

Not only so you can maximize your magnesium levels,  but to also address your complete mineral balance. Minerals literally plug you in and turn you on. So, you cannot skip assessing your bio-individual mineral needs if you want to thrive while you are alive on this planet.

This takes time. Years in fact. If you do it right from the start you are in for a 2 year learning immersion and implementation (minimum).

That’s actually short compared to the almost decade it took me and others I’ve in my field. Not to mention it will be 2 years of implementation and retesting without all the wishy-washy guess work and stress. In the grand scheme, a couple years is a blink of an eye.

Now let me be clear, I'm specifically talking about the time it will take to get to know your body and optimize it's ability to hold onto to magnesium for starters. It can take many months to bring levels of just one mineral up and then years to make sure it stays up to snuff. Not to mention, that you are balancing all your minerals so you don't throw your body further off track.

With that in mind, why are you wasting time and waiting?

It’s important to start to understand how your body works. It’s a steep learning curve, so accept that you may need a guide who is both trained and has a lot of experience. The guide will not likely be your medical doctor unless he/she has specifically studied this on their own in a more in depth way (such as a functional medicine doctor). You are both worthy and deserving of the support to get you on a faster trajectory to vibrant health.

Step five: RETEST

You cannot improve, what you do not measure. Now you can say; "but Lydia, I feel better just taking magnesium I’ll wait to test or retest until I feel like something isn’t working."

My reply is, would you treat your car like that? NO!

You take your car in for oil changes on a schedule so it doesn’t just one day BLOW UP. You read your gas gauge every time you get in your car so you know it's actually going to get you where you want to go. You get it inspected annually so you know what’s going on to prevent future problems. Potential big scary AF problems.

So, why not give your body, your human frame, your home at least the same amount of care and consideration?

Step six: Maintain & Don’t quit

After you go through steps 1-5 it's easier to maintain and sustain.

Quit only if you want to go back to feeling the way you did.

Otherwise, stay the course. You are alive on this planet which is currently also tox-sick and not at it's optimal health.  If you can't accept this as fact, and press on anyway, you will waffle in your mission.

And let’s get something clear, the right environment is what allows you to have amazing health. Here’s a quick example: if you put a fish in a fish tank you can’t expect it to be healthy if the water and environment are not healthy. My oldest son kept 2 kinds of fish tanks for awhile. He took GREAT measures to create the perfect environment for them to thrive in. When one fish got sick, he didn’t just give them a band-aid of one nutrient. NOPE. He assessed the whole tank to see what was at the root and addressed it. How did he assess it? He tested it. What did he test first? The WATER. Healthy water is the first place and then he went from there.

My son took better care of his fish tank than most people take of their own health. The same is true with cars. Most of us, intellectually GET that cars need preventative measures so we are assured the whole infrastructure of the car is working optimally so future disasters do not happen. Or at least are far less likely to. No one wants to drive a car that's falling apart. It's not safe, comfortable or wise.

You certainly could do that and just wait until you run it into the ground and then get it fixed but that will cost you a great deal and then you'll need a new car while the old one is getting fixed. Here's the rub; Cars are replaceable, your human body is not.

The terrain or environment you live in is EVERYTHING if you want vibrant health.

The same thing is true, when it comes to optimizing your magnesium and minerals. The reason you do both, is so you can stay plugged in and turned on with vibrant health!

That all shared -if you know you want to get started with a magnesium supplement my top recommendation and favorite product is ReMag Ionic Magnesium. This product comes with dosing and titration instructions and is easy to absorb. You can save 10% on your first order with this CODE HERE.