Not to suggest that you should believe everything (anything?) you read in your Facebook feed, but I was intrigued by a note posted by a former boss of mine last week about vitamin D. She claimed that she had been diagnosed with a vitamin D deficiency, and because D is tied to thyroid function, it was messing with her weight. Once she started taking vitamin D supplements, she dropped twenty pounds. No other effort needed.
Hmmm.
Point 1: My family, both maternal and paternal, has a history of its female line suffering from hypothyroidism, which of course does a number on the metabolism. I haven’t been diagnosed with this issue as yet, BUT I understand that doctors can differ widely in what data cutoffs they use to diagnose the malady.
Point 2: I have a personal history of freaking out about my weight, obsessing over my weight, and essentially letting my weight dominate my life. I’ve come a long way from my lowest point, but I still wonder – if there’s nothing really wrong with me, should I be looking for solutions to problems that don’t exist? I mean, sure, I could drop some weight, but I don’t NEED to.
Anyway. I bought a bottle of vitamin D supplements. I figure it can’t hurt, right? But I thought I’d open it up to the forum: do you have a vitamin regimen, and if so, do you find it makes a noticeable difference in how you feel? Have you had any negative vitamin or similar supplement experiences? How do you know when to leave well enough alone?
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I'm one of those people who should probably take some kind of supplement given the lack of meat/dairy I consume, but my cheapness combined with my general distrust of vitamins as a legitimate way to accomplish anything healthwise keeps me from taking them.
Plus, weight wise, I think you're good enough to leave it alone.
I've been putting packets of EmergenC in my smoothies. Sure, it's more expensive than a regular vitamin pill, but the orange flavor really eradicates the last vestiges of spinach flavor.
When I was at my lowest weight, I had a bunch of weird health issues crop up. They all went away once I started eating and exercising normally, of course, but in the meantime I went to the doctor because some of my symptoms were strange and of course WebMD told me I could have cancer so I freaked out. My doctor ran a bunch of tests, and when nothing definitive came up, put me on a megadose of vitamin D. Like, prescription-level dose. Like 2000 percent of your daily recommended intake.
I mean, I was already scary-thin, and I didn't get any thinner. I did feel a bit more energetic, but that's probably from putting ANYTHING ADDITIONAL into my body at the time. Once I started "being normal" again, my doctor ran blood tests again and said I didn't need the prescription dose anymore and that I could just take a normal multivitamin. (I now eat Women's One-A-Day VitaCraves Gummies because GUMMIES.)
While I'm sure vitamin D genuinely helps some people's actual medical conditions, my aunt is a nurse and said that prescribing/recommending megadoses of vitamin D is sort of a fad in the medical scene right now as a sort of catch-all, but there are no long-term studies on how much you actually benefit from it.
AHA! So this is like eggs, is it? I hear we can eat the yolks again.
It sounds like there'll be "STOP TAKING SO MUCH VITAMIN D" articles in like two years. Though I must say I kinda felt like a badass getting vitamins from the pharmacy during the few months I was on a prescription D regimen. And they were small and tasteless capsules, unlike most gigantic OTC vitamins and supplements.
Haha, probably! Well, I'll finish my bottle and if I don't feel any different then never mind.
I'm trying to avoid any supplements, but I do take fish oil and one of my son's flintstone vitamins when I remember, LOL. I'm suspecting I have some kind of hormone imbalance but I live in Florida and get lots of sun so I doubt Vitamin D is my issue! Good luck with your experiment!
You live in Florida, eh? You have a basement you want to rent out? 😉