The Journal
The science of a body that keeps changing.
Notes on adaptive nutrition, the ingredients we formulate with, and what shifts as your body does. Written by the team behind your Formula.
Daily PracticeWhen to Take Your Supplements (Chronobiology)This question gets asked more than almost any other, and it usually gets answered badly, either with a shrug or with an elaborate schedule that nobody could keep for a fortnight.Daily PracticeWhat to Expect in Your First 30 DaysMost companies write this piece as a countdown to a transformation. I would rather tell you what actually happens, because the alternative is that you spend a month waiting for something, do not get it, and reasonably conclude the whole thing was nonsense.Bodies in TransitionWhich Supplements Are Actually Safe to Take With OzempicYou did the sensible thing. Before adding anything to the mix, you went looking for a straight answer: which supplements are safe to take with Ozempic. That instinct is exactly right. The frustrating part is that the simple list you were hoping for does not really exist, and the honest reason why is worth understanding before you buy anything.Bodies in TransitionWhat to Expect Nutritionally in Your First Months on OzempicYou are about to start, or have just started, a GLP-1 medication, Ozempic being the name most people have heard, and you want to know what is coming. That is a sensible instinct, and it is the right question to ask early rather than three months in. Here is the one thing to hold in your head as you begin: rapid weight loss on a GLP-1 is also rapid nutritional change. Muscle, B12, iron, electrolytes. If you know the arc in advance, none of it needs to catch you out.Bodies in TransitionPostpartum Hair LossA few months after having your baby, your hair is coming out in handfuls. It is in the shower drain, on the pillow, wound around your fingers when you wash it. If nobody warned you this was coming, it is frightening, and reading about it at eleven at night with a sleeping baby nearby does not help.Bodies in TransitionPerimenopause Brain Fog: What It Is, What Else It Could Be, and What Actually HelpsYou walked into the kitchen and forgot why. Mid-sentence, the word you wanted simply was not there. You have started writing down things you never used to forget, and if you are honest, you have quietly googled whether this is how dementia starts.Bodies in TransitionPerimenopause and SleepPerimenopause is wrecking your sleep and you want to know what actually helps, not another product with the word "sleep" on the front. So let me take the disruption seriously and then split the job honestly, because the truthful answer is that the strongest levers here are mostly not nutritional ones, and I would rather tell you that than sell you past it.Bodies in TransitionMetformin and Vitamin B12You take metformin, you have heard something about it and vitamin B12, and you want to know whether this is something to worry about. The short version is calming: there is no need to be alarmed, but there is a simple, sensible thing worth doing, and it is worth understanding why.Bodies in TransitionHRT and Nutrition: What It Covers, and What It Was Never Meant ToYou have started HRT, or you are close to it, and it is helping, or you are hopeful it will. Now you are trying to do the rest right. Which supplements support what you are doing, and which ones should you be careful with. It is a sensible question, and a surprisingly hard one to get a straight answer to, because most of what is written about it is either vague or written to sell you something.Bodies in TransitionHow to Keep Your Muscle While You Lose Weight on a GLP-1The weight is coming off. That part is working. But lately your legs feel like jelly on the stairs, your strength in the gym has quietly dropped, and somewhere a worry has taken hold that you cannot shake: what if some of what I am losing is muscle.Bodies in TransitionGLP-1 and Your Other MedicationsYou are on a GLP-1, you take other things as well, whether that is prescription medicines or supplements, and you have started to wonder whether the GLP-1 changes how any of it works. It is a sensible question to be asking, and the most useful thing I can do is be clear about which parts of the answer belong to whom, because some of it is firmly your prescriber's and pharmacist's territory, and only a narrower part of it is mine.Bodies in TransitionGLP-1 and Hair Loss: Why It Happens, and Why It Usually StopsYou noticed it in the shower first, the hair gathering at the drain. Then the ponytail felt thinner, and more came away in the brush than used to. If you have been losing weight on a GLP-1 and feeling like nothing you try makes a difference to your hair, you are not imagining it, and you are far from alone.Bodies in TransitionCoQ10 and StatinsYou are on a statin, you have heard somewhere that you might need to take CoQ10 alongside it, and you would like a straight answer from someone who is not about to sell you a tub of it on the way past. Here is the honest version, and it starts with the most important thing, which is also the most reassuring: keep taking your statin.Adaptive NutritionThe Last Independent Supplement BrandsIf you have taken supplements for any length of time, you probably have a brand you settled on years ago. You did the reading once, you liked what you found, and you have bought the same thing since without going back to check.Adaptive NutritionWhat Adaptive Nutrition Actually MeansMost personalisation in this business is routing rather than reformulation. You answer some questions, and an algorithm sends you to a ready-made formula, or assembles one from a fixed menu of options. That is a real improvement on selling one product to everyone. It takes work to build, and the people who build it are not cynics.