All the Diet and Exercise in the World

It's frighteningly easy to overlook very important factors when trying to find the diet and exercise plan that works for you. Those notorious sites push concepts like macros, calorie counting and time spent working out and, followed strictly, people often fail time and again or give up altogether.

Because we're not all the same. Women and men often have rather specific nutritional needs. When you factor in disease, genetics, and what our bodies are actually using or storing, then the real square one should be this.

Get your blood tested.

Your insurance, or lack thereof, may not be friendly enough to cover a nutritional or personal trainer, but you absolutely need to know if there are certain food or deficiencies standing in the way of finding a balanced diet.

The food pyramids of the 80s were garbage. Low fat diets were proved to train our bodies to store MORE fat. Some of us need less carbs or to ditch simple carbs for complex carbs. Some of us don't process wheat or digest grains well at all. Digestive issues can make raw veggies a painful choice while red meat churns too long in our gut. Some people benefit from organ meat, eggs, dairy, or white meats and seafood. Intolerances for soy or lactose can be roadblocks, not just to our wellness, but for our social life (you do not want to be in the same room as me if I eat anything with soy in it).

I'm not up to speed on what men process, but women tend to naturally be deficient in iron and calcium, which is why it's higher dose in our multivitamins. This is largely due to the way we develop--menstruating women lose blood and iron monthly and we develop shorter yet wider bones. Menopause only makes calcium more scarce, bones more brittle.

There are factors such as race and origin that factor in too. Sickle Cell Anemia is only carried in certain African genes and Ashkenazi Jews can pass on the horrifying Tay Sachs to their child. This is why it's also important to understand what you've inherited from your ancestors, to give up the fantasy of having a love child because testing exists that can prevent new life from misery before it's ever conceived. I'm not going to break into a lecture about marriage or morals because I'm neutral when it comes to choices, but it should be said that genetics are no longer a blind roulette.

In any case, I discovered that I, like an alarming percentage of Americans (we're talking over 40%, people), have a Vitamin D insufficiency that could very well be the not-so-mysterious factor in my declining health over the past decade. It shouldn't be a surprise to me since my skin is photosensitive so I avoid direct sunlight due to the blistery itchy rashes it can cause. I didn't think much of vitamins because I blindly believed that taking multivitamins (a daily ritual since childhood) would pick up any slack in nutrition. I'm not a super active person so eating loads of nutrient-packed food never crossed my mind. Keep in mind, I said insufficient, and the one thing saving my butt from deficiency is the fact that I love seafood and take a multivitamin with D in it.

It just wasn't enough apparently.

So here's a few facts. If you are deficient, they may put you on a booster pill of about 15,000 IU of Vitamin D. For insufficiency, they just recommend an added D3 supplement that you can get over the counter. 1000-4000 IU is recommended daily. Since my MV has 1000, I currently take an additional 2000, knowing I'll still get some from my diet and trips outdoors. You can get vitamin D from sunlight but it takes exposing large areas of skin to UVB rays, at least 30 minutes a day for several days a week. I don't need to tell you that you risk skin irritation, sunburn and skin cancer from sun exposure but you may not absorb enough or any of the vitamin wearing sunscreen either. People of color are actually at higher risk of the deficiency rather than those with paler skin types. The only way to get it in your natural diet is through animal products like cod liver oil, salmon, and tuna, although egg yolks also have a small amount as well.

For some Americans, sunlight isn't all that healthy and a seafood diet is not cheap (especially true of inland states where the freshest fish is frozen). 

Another common deficiency is magnesium. While I didn't look up as many facts, I did decide to add a low dose supplement to my daily intake since I don't often eat any of the foods that occurs in naturally either. What I did find is that it can attribute to quality of sleep, mood issues like depression and anxiety and it does help you absorb D vitamins better. 

Another energy boosting vitamin worth looking at is B-Complex. This actually involves a number of B vitamins and is not as difficult to obtain from a regular diet and MV. 

However, this is why I emphasized getting a blood test. Before you risk frustration and plateaus, understand that healthy eating and exercise is sometimes not enough. Sometimes, you need to start balancing your body's levels, to naturally boost which chemicals your body should be working with to function. Already, two weeks into supplements, I deal with less anxiety and less injury. It may take a few more weeks or longer to really restore some function, but I am eager to continue getting regular check ups and keeping it an important part of my health journey.

Don't guess or suppose. The internet overlooks a lot of what you need to know for your situation. Some people may make it look easy, but being fit doesn't mean their success is healthy. Olympic athletes often end up crippled with issues after their short careers are spent, so the lengths they go to set records is anything but healthy, even though we can't help but be awed by that sort of discipline.

I can't tell everyone to change their bodies for the right reasons. For some people, it's all about the bikini body and that's their choice. However, real health is not simple for everyone and we have to consider our environment, our budgets and our needs with the decisions to be made.

It's just my hope that this encourages people to do the research if health is their priority.