Bring me a steak! Iron deficiency without anaemia.

Welcome everyone to the new year! I do apologise for my lack of content over the last few months but due to a massively hectic university schedule I had to prioritise and concentrate on my studies, but with most of my assignments out of the way for a short while I have taken the opportunity to write a few pieces of interest and hopefully get back to regular posting.

So, no doubt you were all well fed over the Christmas break, indulging in things we shouldn't speak of (myself included). Between work do's, family gatherings, Christmas day, Boxing day we have been very well nourished and im sure plenty of us had out fair share of protein!

PIC

I doubt any of us were deficient in the majority of nutrients but throughout the year we cannot ignore that our diets change back to a mundane, simple, quick-as-you-can regime, often leaning towards the handiest option. This leads to a variety of deficiencies depending on the individual and the foods consumed. Over the next couple of weeks we are going to look at a few different deficiencies, their common symptoms, long-term effects and how to treat them.

Our first in this mini-series is Iron

One of the most commonly recognised conditions in the developed and developing world is anaemia. Although this is not a disease in its own right but rather a plethera of symptoms and markers. It is officially diagnosed once an individuals haemoglobin count falls below 12g/dl for women and 13g/dl for men. Haemoglobin is the iron-based protein that carries oxygen to within the blood, all around your body.

Symptoms of anaemia can vary from person to person but those most commonly recorded are:

• Pale skin
• Shortness of breath
• Weakness
• Fatigue
• Dizziness
• Increased heart rate

"But we know all this" you shout at the screen, assuming I've just copied an information leaflet from the local Doctors practice. Anaemia itself, yes is quite a well-known condition that most individuals know how treat and prevent. Iron deficiency without anaemia however may be totally new to some of you and may actually be significantly effecting your life!

It comes as no surprise that within the nutrition world you may notice that everyone is different. Every single one of us is different to the next one and so is the inner workings of the wonder that is our body. As our iron intake decreases gradually we may develop anaemia, but as stated above this happens when haemoglobin falls below a certain level. But what happens during that fall, you can hardly assumed that the symptoms come over us all of a sudden with a huge BANG! No, certainly not. Instead anaemia creeps up on us, with very subtle symptoms you may not associate with your diet.

Iron deficiency is a much more common condition with many suffered undiagnosed or misdiagnosed which is logically understandable. You, as an athlete or recurrent exerciser, may ingest an adequate amount of iron to withstand teh symptoms of anaemia but not necessarily iron deficiency. 

For example:

1. Have you ever had a day where you don't feel tired or weak but still aren't performing as well as you usually do?
2. Do you ever feel mentally, that you cant push yourself or you suddenly snap due to a terrible performance and lose yourself down a wormhole of poor performance followed unjustifiably harsh criticism.
3. Do you ever say to yourself "ah i'll finish five minutes earlier today," or you may just not be able to physically cope fulfilling a full hour of exercise.

At the time you may not associate these with a lack of iron in your body but they are signs and symptoms of your body not having the optimum stores of iron that it needs. It can be difficult to notice, and rightfully so! Your 55 minutes of training may have been just as taxing as compared to a normal day where you have performed 60 minutes. And sure, whats 5 minutes in the grand scheme o things. 

Wrong!

Its in the final stretch where we are pushing ourselves. Yeah sure you might not find a reduction in speed or strength or power but you'r not going to fulfill your potential. Fulfilling optimum iron stores can prevent such things from occurring. 

The mental state of an athletes mind is a sensitive one, and those who are amateurs, regular exercisers or just trying to lose a few stone before summer know all to well the struggles that go on inside your head when you're not allowed to eat the food you do so desire. Similar mental afflictions can occur when iron deficiency is in place. And again we usually wont associate such symptoms with iron until its too late and we suddenly have full blown anaemia. 

Ensuring you eat enough!

The RDA intake for men is 8mg/day vs. 18mg/day for women. It is a well known fact that women require more iron to replace that which is lost during the menstrual cycle. The upper limit that should not provide any adverse effects in both men and women is 45mg. So we can see there is a lot of wiggle room here. 

The exercising individual will always require an increased amount of iron compared to non-exercising individuals. This is based upon a number of principles:

• Footstrike Haemolysis: A breakdown of red bloodcells causes a release and excretion of iron out of the body within athletes - particularly endurance athletes.
• Increased demand on energy production of which iron is heavily involved, especially within the Electron Transport Chain.
• Mental stressors involved in competition and heavy training schedules.

So what are the best sources of iron (I'm sure you know of red meat, but there are more!) :

• Non-Haem based Iron:

Mushrooms

Grains

Peaches

Coconut

Asparagus

Kale

• Haem-Based Iron:

Meat & Poultry

We have an abundance of sources to chose from when it comes to iron. A varied choice is often the best option. Remember too that the examples listed above are just some of the best sources, others do exist.

Signing out,

E.

The Starvation Response

No one should ever eat like this....

Your body works like a factory, with many thousands of workers and departments all using different resources and producing many different products. Conventionally this factory (your body) runs on energy. Energy is a vital substance delivered everyday and without it, the factory could not run at an optimum level.

Your body...

Let's say for example the factory loses half of it's contracted energy. Production immediately will go down, customers lose faith with the company, workers become disgruntled and agitated. Work ethic and incentive collapses. Sure some customers get their ordered products but they're sub-optimal. Some areas of the factory have to shut and some people subsequently lose their jobs.

This is exactly what happens with us when we decide to drastically cut our food intake.

But...who can blame us. We got the size we are by overindulging in foods only ever meant for a once in a blue-moon treat. Logically, anyone would assume that to lose the same weight again, you would simply not eat as much? Oh if only it was so simple!!

If we turn back to our factory analogy; energy doesn't enter into the factory  and come out the other end as a product without undergoing other processes. In the same way when we take food into our bodies we don't immediately undergo the desired movement. Food undergoes a million different processes before the subsequent energy reaches the final goal. If we compare to the factory again and immediately cut our food intake in half and expect ourselves to perform at the same level. Yeah right! Like that'll happen. Instead, like the factory, certain parts of your body shut down, your can't perform to the same standard. At this stage you start to lose a few pounds and everything is going great!!

As usually in this industry people generally have unrealistic goals in that they want to 5 stone, have a six pack, a perfect ass and 0% bodyfat. So when they drastically cut out food they in some instances can lose 7lbs, maybe even a stone within a month...then....BANG. They hit a plateau! No more weight comes off. They become annoyed with themselves, depress themselves with negative thoughts and give up of leading a healthy lifestyle.

But why does this happen? 

To the factory....!

As we said earlier, if energy supplies are halved, the factory performs at a sub-optimal level (like us). But each time some energy is delivered it's stored specially so that it can be used when it's most important. 

This happens with our bodies as well. Our body thinks to itself "oh no i'm getting barely any food at the minute, look how poorly i'm performing." It then begins a procedure called the starvation response. Any food that touches your lips within this period is prioritised to head towards your fat stores! This is to enable your body to help spread out the energy consumed over a longer period. Your body will remain in this state for as long as you continue this 'sparrow-eating.' The ironic thing about eating like this is that most people end up in the long run putting on even more weight than usual as their body's metabolism has slowed down so much. In actual fact, some individuals who diet like this over many years can actually destroy their metabolism beyond repair. 

Eating like a sparrow if for sparrows!!

So in total an individual maybe loses 7-14lbs by dieting like this, they reach their goal for the desired event (usually a wedding, formal etc.) afterwards they eat as normal and put on 7-14lbs plus more! Restricting calories should never be your first step in trying to lose weight. Many, many other steps come before this should ever be considered. 

If anything is removed from someones diet, something healthy should immediately replace it.

Thanks for reading guys!

Ethan

Why is bread so addictive?

Everyone, and I mean everyone who has ever tried to limit or cut carbs from their diet has screamed this at the bread bin in the kitchen! But who can blame us! Who doesn't love a nice crusty loaf cut into beautifully thick slices followed by the wonder of ingredients you can place in between these two tasty components and the application of an equally addictive sauce.

Pure Bliss...

The "School Lunch Box Survey: 2004" took data on the content of school lunch boxes UK wide. They found that 69% contained a white bread sandwich. It's the naturally progression of life. You drink breast milk, move onto baby food followed by your first sandwich. Then for the next 11 years you probably had at least one per day. But lunch time isn't the only time bread makes an appearance. It's eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper and snacks. 

So what?! It's only bread! I'll just eat something else! It can't be that hard! 

These are usually statement we tell ourselves when we set ourselves the challenge of cutting out bread. But within days, even hours sometimes, we experience varying degrees of:

• Fatigue
• Hunger
• Mood swings
• Decreased performance at work or home
• Depression

But why? 

Why? Why?!WHY!!!

If everyday since your were; lets say 4 years old someone injected you with heroin but one day when your 30 something and decide you want to be healthy, live an active lifestyle and get into shape. You need to stop using heroin and live drug free. To live drug free you decide to just destroy all your stash and never go near heroin ever again. Many of us would hazard the obvious guess that it's not so simple.

For a brief moment this addict lives in a pure utopia of bliss!

But what does this have to do with bread? Heroin is a derivative of opium, the same stuff used to make morphine. 

Bread is sourced from the very popular grain called wheat. Wheat is subsequently made up of many components but most importantly it contains gluten. Now, I can hear you thinking; "This guy isn't going to try and tell us wheat is bad for us?" Well you'd be wrong, but that is for another blog. 

Zioudrou et al. (1979), Teschemacher, (2003) and Fanciulli et al. (2005), plus many more studies have found that the exposure of gluten to a diet causes direct stimulation of morphine receptors within the brain. Lets swing back to the heroin addict, heroin stimulates the exact same morphine receptors. You must remember however that each of us have been designed totally unique and so to one person a simple slice of bread can be their daily fix, for others who have a lower tolerance and a well established bread addiction a larger dose of bread is required to satisfy these strange desires!

What am I saying? Basically we're all heroin addicts. And I'm not joking. To expect someone to just give up bread after eating it for decades is as ludicrous as expecting a heroin addict to give up using after decades. That's why so many of us fail to keep away from breads. We give in so easily. To enable us to give up bread/wheat we need to gradually reduce our exposure, switching to wholegrain is the first step definitely not the end goal. Wholegrain bread still contains gluten and so therefore addictive but it's a stepping stone. Gradually ween yourself down and simultaneously replace with a wheat-free source of carbohydrates: for example: potatoes, rice or even gluten free breads.

Soon the desire to devour a ham sandwich will be forever a distant memory and you will be on the road towards a healthy lifestyle.

Stay tuned to discover why wheat is so bad for you besides it's addictive qualities!

Thanks for reading,

Ethan