12% of women ages 12 – 49 are iron deficient, could you be one of them?? The daily drag of life could be weighing you down even more if you’re anemic. Working out and getting healthy gets tossed to the side if you are so tired that you can barely make it through your day. If you’re anemic then find ways to bring your iron levels up and get back to feeling better, getting healthy and building lean muscle mass.
Symptoms of Being Anemic
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- Easy fatigue and loss of energy
- Unusually rapid heart beat, particularly with exercise
- Shortness of breath and headache, particularly with exercise
- Difficulty concentrating
- Dizziness
- Pale skin
- Leg cramps
- Insomnia
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People with anemia may also experience these characteristics
- A hunger for strange substances such as paper, ice, or dirt (a condition called pica)
- Upward curvature of the nails, referred to as koilonychias
- Soreness of the mouth with cracks at the corners
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If after reading through these you find that you may be low in iron, the best thing you can do is go to the doctor and get checked through a blood test. If you think you may be low and you want to try to increase it through nutrition first, try adding the foods below.
10 High Iron Foods
- Red meat
- Beans
- Any Dark Leafy Greens such as spinach, kale, collards greens
- Certain Dried Fruits such as raisins and prunes
- Mollusks – Oysters, clams, and scallops
- Liver
- Artichokes
- Iron enriched cereals and products
- Egg yolks
Don’t let being anemic slow you down! After all, you could experience it many times through out your life. Know the signs and symptoms and print this particular fitness tip out and put it on the fridge or somewhere that you can see it. Being anemic happens monthly for some women due to their menstrual cycles. When you are overly tired, refer back to the list for foods that you can use as an internal “pick me up” so that you can stay strong all month long!
Adria Ali
BS, CES, PES, CPT
sources: anemic stats / webmd.com
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