Christina Anthis | March 2018

Last year was a tough year for me and my being human and all, I found myself going through a period of time where I let a lot of things in my life go, including my nutritional care for myself. We’ve all been there, where we let things in our lives slide because we just don’t want to deal anymore. Incidentally, when I started to crawl out of my hole, my body didn’t want to join me. I was feeling lethargic and my muscles were constantly tired. When I stood up I would feel dizzy and I couldn’t seem to shake the daily headaches. I was worried, so I decided to make an appointment with my doctor.

Doctor, doctor…give me the news

At the Doctor’s office, they tested my blood and asked me all the requisite questions, then left me to wait for the requisite lengthy period of time before the Doctor finally came in to give me the news…my poor eating habits had caused me develop iron deficiency. He told me that I would need to increase my iron intake through diet and supplements, then proceeded to write me a prescription for iron pills and sent me on my way.

I need more iron…doctor’s orders!

As per Doctor’s orders, I had to increase my iron levels to get back on track. One of the first steps to increasing iron is, of course, through diet, I asked myself what plant-based food sources provide a good source of iron? I made a list of all the foods that I knew contained iron and decided I would make an effort to include some of these foods into all of my meals, daily. These are some of the plant-based food sources that contain iron that I ate:

• Grains – quinoa, fortified cereals, brown rice, oatmeal
• Legumes – lentils, soybeans, tofu, tempeh
• Nuts and Seeds – pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, pine nuts, pistachios, sunflower seeds, cashews, sesame seeds
• Vegetables – beetroot, tomato sauce/paste, most dark leafy greens, swiss chard, collard greens, mushrooms
• Other – blackstrap molasses, dried apricots

Blood Builder to the rescue

While diet is the main place we look for nutrition, it’s not as easy to get what we need from food these days, so supplementing was my second step to increase my iron levels. I don’t know about you, but I tend to get nauseous when I take most vitamins or supplements. This was one of the first reasons I fell in love with MegaFood supplements! Their supplements are made with fruits, vegetables, and herbs making it easier for your body to digest the supplements and giving your body its money’s worth in nutrients!* Not a single one of their supplements have made me nauseous or throw up, ever! (That’s important!) As soon as I got home from the Doctor’s office, I went online and ordered myself a bottle of MegaFood’s Blood Builder®, their iron-supporting supplement that has been clinically shown to increase iron levels!*† Lookout world…here I come with energy galore!

The sun is shining and I am ready to go outside!

Now that I have willed myself back to my healthy lifestyle and started taking proper care of myself, I am feeling a million times better. I even had so much energy and drive that I literally spring cleaned my home from top to bottom this week! Seriously…it needed it BAD! I am feeling back to normal again and with spring upon us, I am ready to get back outside and go on more outdoor adventures! See you out in the wild, Hippy lovers!

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†D’Adamo, C., Berman, B., Chen, K., & Novick, J. (2016). Effects of a commercially-available, low-dose iron supplement (Blood Builder®) on markers of iron status among premenopausal and nonanemic iron-deficient women. (Manuscript submitted for publication.)