The Best Supplements for Women

Our nutritional needs evolve as we move through different stages of life—age, environment, hormonal shifts, stress, and physical activity all play a role in what our bodies require to function at their best.

As a woman over 50, I’m particularly focused on understanding what truly are the best supplements for women. While it can be overwhelming to know where to start, understanding how each supplement contributes to our health can make the process less chaotic and more intentional.

Your supplement choices will naturally ebb and flow with the hormonal changes that come with age, among other factors. But starting a supplement regimen is a great opportunity to check in with yourself and assess what YOU need to best support your overall health.

At The Ready State, we know there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness, but there are guidelines and research-backed insights that can help guide you.

So, let’s dive into what I consider to be the heavy hitters when it comes to the best supplements for women.

Creatine: A Must-Have on Your Supplement Short List

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound made of amino acids found in red meat and fish. It plays a crucial role in helping our muscles flex and contract, storing energy in our muscles for high-intensity activities like lifting and sprinting.

While a traditional diet only provides small amounts of creatine, supplementation can give your muscles a helpful boost before a workout.

How?

Creatine assists with the conversion of stored energy, it can actually help the body lead to better training adaptations. Research has shown that creatine supplements can help enhance physical performance, improve muscle tone (it actually super hydrates muscles), and strengthen muscle mass and bone health.

Besides the benefit of also helping you feel less fatigued during your workouts, creatine supplements can also help with muscle recovery and regulate body temperature.

Creatine is one of the more extensively researched supplements which has shown no health risks and minimal side effects. We had Dr. Darren Candow on The Ready State Podcast and he described creatine as the safest, most effective dietary supplement.

When it comes to dosage, typically 5 grams a day is great for those simply looking to enhance performance and recovery (though vegetarians might benefit from a higher dosage since their diet will contain minimal amounts of creatine).

For women over 50, creatine has benefits beyond muscle power—it’s a whole-body supplement that can improve muscle mass, which is vital for preventing age-related diseases like sarcopenia. Dr. Candow also cites a study about an increase in bone strength in postmenopausal women who took 10g a day everyday for 2 years.

Regular exercise really is key for optimizing our body’s response to creatine consumption. I like to take Dr. Candow’s advice: if you want to get greater amounts of creatine in the body, exercise.

Take your caffeine before you work out and creatine after.

Why Protein is One of the Best Supplements for Women at Any Age (But Especially As We Age)

We all need protein in our diet, and particularly as we age, women need to pay extra attention to their protein intake. If your diet alone is not enough to meet the demands of your body making sure you are finding the right supplements is key.

Protein is essential for bone health, muscle mass, hormone production, immune system support, metabolism, mental health, tissue repair… to name a few.

I consider protein one of the best supplements for women because of how it can function as a preventative for sarcopenia, a condition when muscle mass, strength, and performance decrease with age as a result of a lack of protein and Vitamin D (more on the latter further down).

Managing this is important for lifespan health.

As a woman over 50 who is still extremely active, I am a huge proponent of supplementing my diet with protein to support my hormonal balance. (I go with the recommended dose of .7g to 1g per pound of body weight.) Getting protein from whole foods is of course our priority, but supplementation with protein powder really helps us get the right amount and enough.

While in the perfect world we would rely on our diet alone, recognizing the physiological shifts that happen as we age is critical for us to respond to so we can continue to do and genuinely enjoy all the activities we love.

Collagen: More Than Just an Anti-Aging Supplement

Collagen is one of those proteins often associated with “anti-aging.” And while that’s valid… What does that really mean?

This potent protein has the potential to improve our skin’s elasticity and hydration (and may also help prevent hair thinning and hair loss, since collagen makes up a large percentage of the layer of skin that contains our hair follicles).

Rather than posit this as an “anti-aging” supplement, I truly believe that we’re better suited to think about collagen’s role in maintaining resiliency in our dermal layers.

And while the skin layer is certainly important, collagen is also one of the major building blocks for our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones. Incorporating collagen into your supplement routine may help slow the process of bone density loss.

One of the reasons why I consider this one of the best supplements for women (and, honestly, everyone – Kelly will vouch for this) has to do with the fact that collagen is already naturally occurring in much of our body’s joints, fascia, and skin. But these levels decrease as we age. Collagen is intimately tied to our ability to move, and healthy collagen is paramount for functional fitness and overall health (your gut needs it!).

As far as dosage, you can safely take 2.5-15 grams of collagen peptides per day to assist your skin, joint, and muscle health.

Beyond the Big Three: Other Key Supplements

Once you’ve got the heavy hitters—creatine, protein, and collagen—in your regimen, there are a few other supplements worth highlighting:

Magnesium:

About 60% of the magnesium occurring in the body is in the bone (the rest is found in muscles, soft tissue, and fluids, like our blood). Magnesium is considered a “helper molecule” and it’s involved in hundreds of chemical reactions in the body, such as protein formation, converting food into usable energy, neurotransmitter regulation, and muscle movements (to name a few).

Magnesium can also assist with improving bone health, boosting our mood and exercise performance, improving our sleep, helping us feel more relaxed, regulating blood sugar and heart health, and can even function as an anti-flammatory.

Magnesium supplements CAN have some side effects like nausea, diarrhea, cramps. The recommended dose for women over 30 is 320mg a day, but as with all things we introduce to our bodies, it’s about observing and seeing how you as an individual respond and adjust accordingly.

High-Quality Omega-3’s:

Those omegas are important supplements for women over 40 because they are the building blocks of a healthy body and mind.

Specifically, certain omega-3’s have been shown to be essential lipids in brain tissue and have significant roles in brain growth and function, particularly in midlife and older adults. When we consider that fact that the amount of gray matter in a woman’s brain starts to change during menopause, inviting supplements that stave off the decrease of gray matter is essential for long-term cognitive function.

Omega 3’s also support cardiovascular health, aid in muscle and joint recovery, and reduce exercise-induced inflammation.

While you can get some high quality omegas from foods like flax seed and nuts, supplementing goes a long way. As far as dosage, most health organizations suggest 250-500mg of combined EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) for optimal daily health.

Vitamin D:

It’s estimated that humans get 80% of their Vitamin D from the sun, and 20% from their diet (however, we know that socioculturally, we are collectively spending more time inside than out).

I’m including Vitamin D (which is now defined as a prohormone) as one of the best supplements for women because it can be influential to our hormonal health. It can affect estrogen and progesterone levels, which can impact menstrual regularity, fertility, and pregnancy.

Optimizing our Vitamin D levels can also play a part in nervous system development (something to keep in mind during pregnancy), mood and mental health (think: seasonal affect disorder), and bone health as it’s been found to help the body absorb calcium (especially important for women after menopause when bone density decreases).

As far as weight management, Vitamin D helps with altering storage and formation of fat cells and can also help increase testosterone and serotonin levels. (And, speaking for myself, I know when I am happier, I am more prone to physical activity… which continues to boost that positive mood – the sort of vicioius cycle we are absolutely here for at The Ready State!)

Vitamin D has also been found to help support the immune system, particularly a healthy respiratory system and for fending off infection (and has more recently been found to have a positive effect on cancer).

How much Vitamin D you should be supplementing into your diet really depends on a number of factors, like what you already eat and how much time you are spending absorbing the sunshine. (You can actually test to see what your Vitamin D levels are and then pursue a course of supplementation based on your levels.)

Remember: No Supplement Regimen Is a One-Size-Fits-All

Your supplement needs are unique to you. Whether you’re focusing on boosting protein, collagen, or another nutrient, it’s important to listen to your body and respond accordingly.

You might already have an incredibly rich, protein-heavy diet and maybe you don’t go through as many high intensity workouts. Which would mean you’re not needing to replace protein in your body as much as someone else.

It could be that you know you need more of a collagen boost or you’re looking for better ways to boost your mood, so you’re reaching for Vitamin D.

Supplements have immense potential, but they’re most effective when combined with a balanced diet, regular exercise, and a holistic approach to wellness. Understanding your own needs is key to making the most of what supplements have to offer.

When it comes to our health and long-term wellness, nothing is a cure-all, but rather, a holistic systems approach.

The best part? You get to make it your own, and it is such a worthwhile journey in understanding the self and just how incredible our bodies and brains are.

Where Should I Source My Supplements?

I personally buy my supplements from Momentous because all of their products are backed by scientific research, they only include the essentials (aka you’re only going to find the most high quality ingredients there) and they are NSF certified (this means they are third party tested – so you KNOW you are getting what you paid for – which is not true for so many supplements!).

I feel confident knowing I am only putting something in my body that has been rigorously tested and doesn’t have anything hiding in the fine print!