You know GNC for its best-in-class supplements and knowledgeable, friendly coaches, but we also want to make sure you understand why we do what we do to help you obtain the healthiest, happiest version of you.

GNC relies on its 85-plus years of wellness and health experience to make sure we’re working with you on establishing foundational health every day.

So, what is foundational health?

Foundational health is achieved when you build and maintain those habits that you need to thrive in all areas of your life and achieve your peak performance. This investment compounds over time, enriching all that you do.

Every strong foundation requires a solid framework. Our pillars of foundational health set the tone for a better, healthier you. The foundational health pillars are:

• Food and Nutrition


• Movement and Activity


• Quality Sleep


• Relationships and Connection


• Stress Management and Mental Health

In order to help you achieve Foundational health, GNC’s Science and Nutrition team has tapped into their collective health expertise to assemble a range of expert-led Routines that address our members’ most pressing needs.

Routines help you build foundational health. Good health happens as a direct action of what we do most days when we establish a routine.

Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, the Foundational Health pillars are all connected. Taking good care of yourself makes everything better. When one pillar is out of sync, the rest can suffer.

For example, when you’re stressed and busy, the stress hormone, cortisol, surges through your body and can make you want to eat comfort foods, like sweets and decadent carbs. You might be more likely to skip your workout because you think you have too much to do. Then, you could find yourself tossing and turning at night instead of getting quality sleep because you have too much on your mind. The next day, fatigue and a food hangover could make you feel low and you might even have a shorter fuse with your loved ones.

Alternatively, when you’re feeling well and in a healthy state of mind, you’re probably more likely to stick to your workout. That in turn perpetuates more feel-good hormones so you’ll likely feel less stressed, have more energy, and be in a better mood for a few hours. You’ll probably be more likely to stick to your goals of eating a healthy meal or snack which will also help keep blood sugar levels stable and energy levels high. Exercise can also help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep so you’ll have a better chance of getting a good night’s rest.

When you’re neglecting one pillar, it’s easy for the others to languish.

Here are the five pillars of foundational health and why you should focus on them.


Foundational Health Pillar: Food and Nutrition

You are what you eat (and drink). This cliché encapsulates the concept that health, wellbeing, and even your mood are inextricably linked to what you eat. Simply put, when you eat well, you tend to feel well.

That’s because the food you eat eventually nourishes the cells that comprise your body, provides energy to fuel life, and supports the hormones and chemical compounds inside your body. What you put into your body needs to be the best it can be.

Nourishing your body should be viewed as highly personal as each person's needs vary based on height, optimal weight, age, and gender.

There are a few basic guidelines that you should consider when it comes to your diet:

1. Strive for at least 2 cups of vegetables and 1½ cups of fruit every day. Fruits and vegetables are bursting with fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but they also provide phytonutrients which are compounds that are naturally occurring in plant foods that have additional health benefits. Only 12% of American adults consume the recommended amounts of fruits each day. Even worse, just 9% eat the recommended amounts of vegetables.¹ Don’t fall into this trap and make sure to get plenty of these nutritional powerhouse foods in your diet each day!


2. Whether you eat meat or are vegan; focus on lean sources of protein from a variety of sources. If you’re not vegan, things like lean chicken, fish, shellfish, lean pork, and beef, etc. are great. If you’re vegan; pulses (like lentils, chickpeas, edamame, and kidney beans), tofu, tempeh, and seitan are your go-to protein foods.


3. Keep your digestive system healthy by getting lots of fiber—at least 25 grams each day. Fiber is satiating (it keeps you feeling full longer), keeps things moving properly through your digestive system, and also feeds the healthy microbes that live in your intestinal tract. You can find fiber in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.


4. Fat is not the enemy it was once made out to be, but when you eat fats, focus on healthy ones. The fats that come from olive oil, nuts, seeds, and fatty fish are important for cell structure, brain function, and heart health.


5. Variety, balance, and moderation are of the utmost importance in choosing your diet routine. By choosing a variety of foods, you can harness the nutritional power of many foods plus it keeps things interesting—and delicious! Balance and moderation are key to avoiding overdoing it on any one type of food. For example, French fries are delicious and fine to eat, but if they are the only thing that you eat, you’re missing out on lots of important nutrients that can be found in other foods. Fruits and vegetables are delicious and important to eat, but if you’re eating nothing but broccoli and sweet potatoes, you’ll miss out on important nutrients that your body needs from protein sources.


6. Supplements and nutrition products can fill in the gaps and even provide benefits above and beyond traditional foods.

There is no “one size fits all” approach when it comes to proper nourishment for your body. At GNC, we believe food should be enjoyed, savored, and experienced as part of celebrations, cultural practices, and social events. Anything you want to eat is fine, as long as it’s in balance as part of an overall wholesome diet.


Foundational Health Pillar: Movement and Activity

The human body is made to move and move often. Movement, or exercise, has benefits that we can see outside the body but is also beneficial right down to the cellular level, even offering anti-aging and neuroprotective benefits.² Physical activity has immediate benefits like helping to improve your mood and short-term cognitive abilities, but the long-term benefits are even more incredible. When physical activity becomes part of your routine, the benefits include strengthening your bones and muscles, reducing the risk of chronic disease, and even a chance to live a longer life. Getting your body moving through a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or training each week is all you need to actualize the health benefits of movement³.

Pick the types of movement you love—hiking, biking, mowing the lawn, walking your dog, group exercise classes, lifting weights, yoga, running on a treadmill at the gym—and try to do them most days. The activity that you love to do is the one you’ll be most likely to stick with—and turn into a fitness routine.

Keep boredom at bay by shaking up your regimen, working on aerobic fitness some days and muscle-strengthening activities on others for maximum whole-body benefits.


Foundational Health Pillar: Quality Sleep

Good quality sleep protects your physical health, mental health, quality of life, and even your safety. During sleep, the body heals and detoxifies itself. The brain processes the day's events, forms new connections to promote learning, and gets ready for the next day. It is crucial for the recovery of the body and mind. Over time, poor sleep is linked to a higher risk of obesity, mental illnesses like anxiety and depression, heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes—to name a few. Poor sleep can lead to difficulty staying alert and reacting quickly, like when you're behind the wheel of your car.⁴

Think of sleep as maintenance time. In an office building, they wait until the employees have gone home to remove the trash and clean because it is more efficient. In the same way, our body takes advantage of the downtime to clean up and get ready for the next day.

Put simply; your body cannot possibly function at its best without sleep—ideally, you’re getting 7 to 9 hours per night.⁵

Getting this many hours of sleep each night may seem like a daunting task, but here are a few tactics you can incorporate into your routine to help to get more sleep:

1. Be consistent with physical activity. In addition to the other health benefits of exercise, research shows that those who exercise regularly also sleep better.


2. Stick to a consistent bedtime routine—around the same time each night, dim the lights, put on pajamas, brush your teeth, read a book, and settle in for a good night’s rest.


3. If you’re having difficulty going to bed earlier so you achieve the ideal amount of sleep, do it gradually in 15-minute increments. A sleep supplement containing melatonin can be useful in your quest to get more rest.

Foundational Health Pillar: Relationships and Connection

Humans are social beings, and our relationships and social connections influence many health outcomes—including mental health, physical health, and health habits. High levels of social connection have been linked to decreased risk of many health conditions like heart disease, cancer, and wound healing. Scientific research has even shown that people with the lowest level of involvement in social relationships are more likely to die than those with high participation in social relationships.⁶ People who report feeling that they have social support and connection are more likely to have a healthy body mass index, better blood sugar control, improved cancer survival, and decreased symptoms of depression.⁷ Perhaps that’s because the habits that are good for their mental health lead them to reduce their risk of unhealthy behaviors.

While the reasons for the association between health outcomes and social connections are not entirely clear, leaning into your social side is undeniably essential for health and wellbeing. Some psychiatrists even say that social relationships are as vital as water and food to our bodies. So, next time you attend a party or have lunch with a friend, remember, you are doing something good for your health!


Foundational Health Pillar: Stress Management and Mental Health

Mental health describes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It can affect how we feel, think, act and interact with those around us. Mental health can impact all foundational areas of health, so when you ignore your mental health, you may experience difficulty sleeping, challenges with your relationships, difficulty coping with stress, and so on.

In some ways, we accept stress as a part of everyday life, but living in a state of elevated stress can negatively impact health over the long term. Many of the negative long-term impacts of stress result from a hormone called cortisol. This is an important hormone that helps regulate our body's sleep/wake cycles and helps us mount a response to threats and danger. However, long-term stress and the accompanying elevation in cortisol are linked to blood glucose dysregulation, weight gain⁸, gastrointestinal problems⁹, immune system suppression⁹, heart disease¹⁰, and other ill effects. To avoid these negative repercussions of long-term elevated stress, you must prioritize mental health and stress management. You can accomplish stress reduction and mental health management through things like therapy, yoga, journaling, a gratitude practice, meditation, physical exercise, and quality sleep.