When I was a kid, my iron levels were very low and I was
considered anemic. My mom fed me cod liver
oil, and back then it was in a liquid form, and tasted disgusting. She tried to get me to eat liver, but
everyone has their limits. I used to regularly
have to get blood tests to have my iron levels checked. So frequent in fact that getting blood taken
and needles have become no big deal. As
I got a little older, my iron levels seemed to have straightened out. My mom stopped force feeding me cod liver oil;
she stopped pushing the liver and all seemed to be well. I never thought about liver and cod liver
oil again.
That is until recently.
As many of us do as we get older (for me mid 20’s) you begin to get the
idea that you may be fat. You start
dieting, and start following all sorts of skinny guru’s you tell you to eat
like a rabbit. You start to follow all
sorts of restrictive diets. This all
starts off fine, you lose the weight, and it all seems good. Plus we all know we should be eating more
fruits and vegetables and less meat – right?
Well maybe think again.
A few symptoms of iron deficiency:
Feeling tired and weak
Decreased cognitive performance and ability
Difficulty maintaining body temperature (do you always feel cold)
Decreased immune function
But it does not stop there.
If your iron levels are low… this also greatly affects your
thyroid. For those who are a little bit
older…. Do you have the above symptoms and thyroid deficiency as well?
A few symptoms of a sluggish functioning thyroid:
Difficulty losing weight, or even weight gain
Difficulty maintaining body temperature
Dry skin
Slowed heart rate
Memory does not work as good
Feeling tired and weak
Muscle weakness
Thinner hair
Heavier than
normal or irregular menstrual periods
Elevated blood cholesterol level
This you could be suffering from because you are following
those crazy diets. Or if you have been
suffering from the above symptoms and don’t know why, you may want to check
your iron and thyroid levels. I won’t go
into how you can downward spiral from the symptoms listed above and how things
can get worse from there. I want to
focus on what you can do to reverse those symptoms.
You need to eat more meat – red meat. Now I know this is controversial. But quickest way to turn this all around is
to get more iron intake. And by the way
I don’t suggest iron supplements, because those are very hard on your
liver. We want a highly functioning body
with as few drugs as possible that could be interfering with other functioning
parts of our body. I suggest finding
organic grass fed beef if possible. You
may have to do a little searching.
But here is why I suggest beef – it has more iron that is
absorbable that iron in other sources.
There is heme Iron and non-heme iron. Heme iron is more absorbable by the body and
sources of heme iron are animal meat and fish.
By the way red meat is higher in iron that white meat. Non-heme iron sources are from breads,
grains, vegetables. The body absorbs up to
35 percent of the iron from animal sources and as little as 2 percent from
plant sources.
Now I’m not saying to go crazy and consume meat like crazy,
but if you are on a meat reduced eating plan, you may want to re-look at
increasing your meat intake a little.
Now if you are a vegetarian and have not researched your
foods well, it is very likely your iron levels are low. You may notice dark circles under your eyes –
or others may have noticed them. That is
a very good sign that your iron levels may be low. But there is hope for those who don’t eat
meat as well. You can increase the iron absorption
in vegetable by increasing your vitamin C intake along with those meals.
So to sum up, don’t just blindly follow any diet or eating
plan that comes along. We have so many ‘guru’s’
saying eat this, don’t eat that. The
bottom line is you have a unique body that is an individual and different from
everyone else. What may be working for
one person, may not work for you. You
need to do research on dietary changes, to make sure that those changes are in
your body’s best interest.
Now go…… look at those symptoms – do you need to increase your
iron levels… I know I do.
