I mentioned last week that I had blood work done just as a check. It had been years since I’d been thoroughly tested and given my recent activity level and diet I thought it was a good idea. I received a call from the nurse today that everything looked great but I am vitamin D deficient.
The first thoughts that crossed my mind were “how?” and “what does this mean?” I always associated vitamin D with exposure to the sun and I’m always running and spending time outside. After talking with the nurse and some online research, here’s where things stand.
Vitamin D is essential in helping your body absorb calcium. Being vitamin D deficient = absorbing less calcium and that is not good for bone health. I’m not really sure how this deficiency happened and it takes months to build. There is some research that attributes low meat and dairy intake to low vitamin D and I have reduced my intake of these two things over the last couple years.
Moving forward, I will be taking supplements and purchasing more vitamin D fortified foods. This is not a major issue right now but I definitely want to be mindful of bone health because I need this body to keep me active for many, many more years!
Moving along…
I started my day with ashtanga. I have a very, very sore left upper hamstring so I had to be pretty conservative with my practice this morning but I still enjoyed every minute! I especially loved backbends today. I got to work on some deeper backbends and had a lot of fun with it.
We stopped by Great Harvest on our way home for lunch. I made a veggie sandwich on Dakota.
Hummus, cherry tomatoes, spinach, red pepper and avocado. So healthy, delicious and satisfying.
After work I took Sullie out for an easy run. We ran three miles at around a 10-minute mile pace. It was pretty challenging to go that slow but it really had great benefits for my body. When I started my run everything was creaking and talking to me but when I got to the end of the run I felt awesome and like I could keep going and going. I think it did its job of helping my body recover.
Dinner tonight was a random veggie mix from my farmer’s market trip last Saturday.
Roasted okra, squash and eggplant with quinoa. I drizzled the veggies with olive oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt and Dizzy Pig Shaking the Tree. I topped my mix with a little full fat Greek yogurt (an accidental but lovely purchase at Trader Joe’s) and Siracha.
I posted the Hummingbird Cake recipe on Bakin’ and Eggs. Check it out!
I would be cautious about that Vitamin D-defiency diagnosis. It seems like EVERYONE is getting diagnosed with that (my mother, other friends, etc.). While I don’t think it’s bad to try and eat more fortified foods, it seems to be a very popular diagnosis at the moment, and it may be part of the health-industrial complex “creating” a defiency in a way to get you to buy Vitamin D capsules, etc. Just my 2 cents!
Kira – thank you so much for your comment! I talked a friend who’s a doctor after I read it because I was concerned! He said that the diagnosis frequency has increased recently because they just developed a more reliable test a few years ago. He said that it certainly can’t hurt for me to take supplements for a little while and that it is especially important for women to pay attention to a possible deficiency due to bone health. I’m going to request a paper copy of all of my lab results so that I can see just how “deficient” I am.
Again, thank you for your comment. I ALWAYS appreciate encouragement to stop and think about something!
I was just recently diagnosed with low vitamin D levels, I was extremely low. I took a pill to help get my numbers up and sat outside more, which all helped. My numbers did improve. I am not there yet, but I plan to continue to take a small dosage of vitamin D supplement now and try to get outside more. Good luck!