I thought I was getting enough iron in my diet. Oops. What's the worst that can happen? Well, it wasn't the worst, but between the frequent idiot moments and almost passing out as I walked to pick my daughter up from school, I kind of got a wake up call.
If you're new to the blog (Welcome!), I am a vegetarian. Vegetarians need a bit more iron than meat eaters because obviously we miss the iron supplied by red meat. I haven't eaten red meat (except for one horrendous occasion) in about 4 or 5 years, but I evidently got enough in the chicken or pork I was eating. Not to mention, I wasn't that active, so it didn't matter much.
In March, I will have been a vegetarian for an entire year, yay me! In this time I learned that during certain times during a female cycle, you need to increase your iron intake, obviously. Yeah, yeah TMI, get over it. Compensating for this I took a supplement, in addition to my daily vitamin, the week during and prior (my physician told me to, I'm not a doctor, so check with yours before you listen to my craziness). Up until a couple of weeks ago, this was working with no issues.
What changed?
The weather got a bit nicer (I'm in Southern California) so naturally, the kids and I went outside. Princess also decided she was going to hit the 100 mile mark in her school's running club, so we became more active. During running club we were walking between 2-3 miles, 3 days a week. While the kids were in school I began overhauling our sprinkler system, which involved digging some seriously deep holes. I was also going to the YMCA on the occasional rainy day to bike.
I learned today that a normal woman (before menopause) needs around 18 mg of iron daily (men need only 8-10 mg, but that's probably because they don't lose it on a monthly basis). A vegetarian woman (before menopause) needs to take in about 25 mg because she isn't getting her iron from meat sources. Iron from animals is easier to absorb in our bodies than plant iron.
My vitamin provides 18 mg, plus I was getting a lot from my veggie meals. So why did I feel like crap this week? Well, the information that I was missing is: an ACTIVE woman needs about 33 mg iron.
Since I was being really active (even for myself) I pretty much depleted any iron I had and wasn't replacing it well enough for my activity level. So today when my daughter was walking her 2.5 miles, I barely made it a mile, walking slowly with Little Dude. When Little Dude and I came home, I began working on the sprinklers and noticed that something definitely wasn't right. Did I stop? No.
I have issues with things not being finished.
Later when we were walking the 1/2 mile to Princess' school and I almost passed out, I finally figured out I didn't feel good. I wasn't dehydrated so I guessed it must be my iron level. I went to my go-to iron recipe and started feeling better halfway through drinking my smoothie. Wonderful recipe for a Gingerbread Smoothie here.
Now I know. Now the question is: does my activity level stay the same and I start eating spinach like Popeye or ease up on the gardening insanity?
I like spinach (and kale).
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