Post-menopausal women, besides taking estrogen as an essential condition for absorbing calcium, should increase calcium even more with pill supplements. This is to prevent progressive osteoporosis. Iron, at 18 mg. per day, should be at least tripled for pregnancy. Prenatal vitamins have done a nice job in raising these amounts to the recommended levels for pregnant women. In fact, the best labors occur in women who have achieved cardiovascular fitness before, and maintained it during, pregnancy.
Mental health completes the triad of well-being.
Even when things conspire to depress us, everyone finds that being in good physical condition, through good nutrition and cardiovascular fitness, lessens the blows that psychodynamics may deal us when we're confronted with the bad events that come periodically. We can't do anything to prevent all of them, but we can hedge our bets by maintaining the other two aspects of the triad, nutrition and exercise. I'm pretty dizzy by all of the about faces I've done regarding diet pills. My first position was that diet pills didn't work. This was because, at the time, diet pills meant amphetamine-like substances.