By far, the most asked questions from my audience, here is a podcast talking allll about what supplements we should take and what blood tests to order as a Nutritarian or just as a vegan.
And visit this post for some helpful PDFs that you can download as well. http://www.nourishyourlifestyle.com/blood or just visit the Cheatsheets Archives if you already know the password http://www.nourishyourlifestyle.com/cheatsheet-archives
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YouTube auto-generated transcript:
if i had to name the most
asked question that i get from my audience members
it’s definitely the one that we’re
talking about today
the blood test one and the supplement
one what should i supplement with what
blood test should i get so we’re going
to dive into this today i’m going to
give you everything you need to know in
a very brief overview and you’re going
to take it from there
hi i’m cheri alberts and this is the
watering mouth podcast and i’m going to
teach you to eat to live lose the weight
and love the process for good
episode eight
[Music]
okay let’s talk about blood tests and
supplementing today i get this question
so much and i’m so excited to finally
create a resource for you that you can
use and refer to now first of course i
have to tell you i’m not a medical
professional by any means so
don’t take what i’m saying is medical
advice you know consult your doctor your
healthcare provider for things that have
to do with your health in the case of
this podcast but any podcast that i
record in the future any youtube video i’ve ever done
consult your doctor okay so these are
some things that i’ve read
and used myself over the past eight nine
years that i’ve been doing the eight to
live diet this is personal experience
i’m going to give you that today as well
as some guidelines that you can use that
i have found on dr fuhrman’s
materials over the years as well so
let’s jump into it this question i get all the time is
we’re going to talk about both these
things first of all
what supplements should i take and for
those who are a little bit in the know
what blood tests should i order for my
doctor now let’s talk about why we need
to know these things
so number one we need to know these
things first we want to know where we
are right now i’ve talked about this
before with this idea of it’s kind of
like your health is kind of like your
bank account right how much money do you
have what is your current health status
you can’t know that you can’t know how
much money you have unless you actually
like look at your bank account right and
if you’re spending willy-nilly all over
the place you have no idea where you’re at
same thing with our blood tests and our
you know our blood tests are really good
resource for us to understand a little
bit about how our body is doing right now so
you know when i first started seeing my
current doctor i started seeing her about a year
just over a year ago and i knew that i
liked her because all the blood tests
she ordered when we first started
working together and so i’m going to
give you a list of those today
a blood test that i have ordered myself
in the past so when i started my eat to live journey
i did it for probably a year or two
before i started to get any blood tests
but i i’d recommend that folks do this
on a yearly basis get some you know good
blood tests that kind of give you
markers as far as where you are so you
can compare from year to year how things
are going now you definitely want to get
this done in the very very beginning as
soon as you even hear about the idea of getting blood tests
get this done because it will give you
that snapshot of where you are right now
and then you can see where you go after that
this relates to the supplement question
because when someone asked me what
supplements i should take my answer is i have no idea
i don’t know what your blood looks like
i don’t know what you might be deficient
in or what you might be getting too much
of or where you might be just in the
right range so that’s why you want to
order a blood test so you can kind of
see where you are and then supplement
based on that so you could never just
ask somebody what supplements i should
take it it needs to sort of be
personalized just for you
so the first thing that you can do when
you start this lifestyle go see your
primary care doctor ask for you know and
when you do this and maybe you have like
a yearly wellness check or whatever a
lot of the times that’s included in your
health insurance plan especially well i
mean if you’re in the us right so i’m only speaking for
united states here but
if you have a health a standard health
insurance plan a one-year
rotation of this will be included
basically so they’ll you know they’ll do
some blood tests see where you’re at and
it will all be included in your health
insurance now if it’s been a while i
mean maybe you don’t do that yearly
wellness visit or maybe you just don’t
see the doctor often or whatever that
might be i still recommend everyone do
this just to kind of see where you’re at
so wherever you’re starting from if you
haven’t done it in a while if it’s been
over a year since you’ve had your blood tested get it tested
just go see your doctor ask them if they
can you know set up an appointment just
for this so you can talk about which
blood tests you want they will give you
the order and then they will send you to
one of the labs to get it done typically
lab core you know quest you might have
to fast i mean you’re definitely going
to have to fast if you do all the ones
that i’m going to tell you about
beforehand get those done get your
results and then you have your baseline
now a lot of people don’t like to do
this kind of stuff because they don’t
want to know where they are right it can
be like a little bit of nerve wracking
to see is my cholesterol okay do i have
enough iron this kind of stuff right but
this is all part of just being a healthy
adult let’s just you know rip off the
band-aid find out where we are it’s like
checking that bank account after a while
let’s just see where we are better to
know where we are now so we can start to
improve then find out in a few years
that we were deficient or had too much
of something for a long time and then it
created a lot of negative effects all right so
here’s what we’re going to do
when we first start the eat to live
lifestyle get a blood test or whenever
like even if you’re not doing eat to
live you’re not fully nutritarian that
you should always kind of have a handle
on this no matter how you eat or how you
want to eat all right so get your blood
tested find out where you are and then
do that every six months for a little
while like maybe a year or two as you’re
getting things in the right range then
go to every year after say that first
year or two then do every year just
yearly checkup and you can just keep an
eye on that okay so that’s what i recommend there
now the i want to talk about the basic
concept of blood testing in general why
do we do this because we don’t want to
be deficient in anything right and i
think that’s what people are normally
scared of they’re afraid that they’re
not getting enough of something because
that’s that like a scarcity lack mentality right
but on the other hand we want to be
really really careful that we’re not
getting too much of something and this
is the concept that people don’t usually
think about but this is so this is just
as important as being deficient in
something as having too much right so
you know these um kind of multivitamins
that you can buy at the store that have
thousands and thousands of percent of
different things not a good idea you
don’t want to be having thousands and
thousands percent of stuff because
maybe the side effects of of having this
single vitamin
supplement that’s you know thousands
over what the recommended daily intake
is doesn’t maybe the effects of that
don’t show up right now
but years and years down the line how
does that show up that’s why we want to
be really careful and we’re not trying
to be like scared it’s not a place of
fear it’s just we just want to be like
judicious we want to use these these
supplements and the things that we put
into our body we want to be judicious
about that and make sure that we’re
doing it we’re not going overboard and
we’re not going underboard if that’s a
word as well okay so that’s the first
point i want to make make sure
start to adopt a mentality of i just
want to be in the right range right like
you don’t want to be too high you don’t
want to be low you want to just try to
get in the right range so that’s what
we’re going to be supplementing for and
we don’t know what to supplement with if
we haven’t had our blood test done right
then we’re just kind of like throwing
spaghetti at the wall and you know
wonder hoping it it’s working or
whatever but so if we get our blood test
and if there’s some reason why you can’t
get your blood tested
you know very soon then yeah start a
sensible multivitamin and make for sure
some vitamin d because most people even
no matter if you’re a meat eater or not
or you know if you’ve been a nutritarian
for a long time most people are going to be
deficient in vitamin d i know i was when
i first came to the lifestyle we’re
going to talk more about the specifics
of these vitamins and minerals
supplements in just a moment here
so keeping in mind that it’s important
not to be deficient
and not to have access those are you
know they’re equally something you want
to watch out for now we’re going to talk
about which blood test should i order
and then after that we’ll talk about
what supplements we want to be looking
into so i’m i am creating a blog post on
my website and it’s at the
wateringmouth.com blood so you can just
go there and you will be able to
download all the resources i’m talking
about it’s kind of like the show notes
but i’m going to actually give you a
place to be able to download a couple of
pdfs that i’m making for you special
just for this podcast episode that i’m
actually taking from the eat to live
academy i’ve had this information in the
academy for a long time but i’m going to
be using this same stuff so that you can
have it as a resource to download so go
to the wateringmouth.com blood you can
get that or you can check the show notes
and there will be a link for that in there as well okay
so what test should i order now when i’m
giving you a list of what test to order
i’m getting this from my own personal
experience i’ve when i started ordering
blood tests for myself on a regular
basis to check my levels i took them
from dr fuhrman’s website and from the
member forum and member
only information that he’s given in the
past like there’s a um a nutrital like a
call that he did with
from a while back about him and dr
benson were talking about which blood
test order and things like that so i’ve
researched a bunch of this stuff and
this is what i’ve come up with so there
certainly could be some things i’m
missing but i’m taking this straight
from dr fuhrman so the blood test that i
have ordered in the past number one you
start off with a comprehensive metabolic
panel so that’s going to give you just
as it sounds right comprehensive look at
things and along with that you order a
lipid panel which is your cholesterol
then you order the cbc with differential now that is
i’m just looking at wikipedia here while i tell you this
complete blood count so it provides
information about the cells in a
person’s blood so we’ll tell you things
about like anemia iron deficiency b12 deficiency
viral bacterial parasitic infections etc
so when you kind of get that blood
result just of how the blood count is
doing that will give you some
information about things that might be
going on you also want to get your b12
tested as well as folate you want to get
your ferritin with iron so it’s going to
tell you all about your iron levels you
might want to get your thyroid tested as
well that’s something that my doctor
ordered when i first started seeing her
and it can tell a lot about what’s going
on vitamin d and you want to get the 25
hydroxy test you want to get your zinc
tested if possible and you can also add
on a fatty acid profile as well so
that’s going to tell you how your omega-3s are doing
now i know from experience that
like some of these tests are not like
included i feel like i’m trying to
remember i think it was the zinc and for
sure the fatty acid tests are not just
something that doctors are used to so
here i just want to talk a little bit
about going to see your doctor about
this in the first place because
doctors are not used to their patients
being like kind of on top of stuff you
know so when you go and you’re like hey
i want to get all these blood tests your
doctor is probably going to look at you
weird especially if you have an older
doctor who’s been doing this for a long
time and maybe doesn’t really know much
about eat to live or nutrition or anything like that
you might get a weird look right so just be be
aware of that because the doctor that i
had previously who ended up retiring
it looked at me like i had two heads
when i first asked for blood tests okay
and especially the certain tests that i
asked for because i told him i was a
vegan and he didn’t understand really what that meant
and so he had no idea what i could be
deficient in so i had to tell him what
tests i wanted okay so just understand
that it’s likely your doctor is not
going to really understand what’s going
on and you will have to school them and
you might get some weird looks but that’s okay
so ask for these tests now to be clear the fatty acid
analysis can be a little tough to get
you want to make sure you’re getting the
right one and i actually i don’t know
which one to tell you to get i just know
that my doctor understood which one when
i asked her for it but um there is like
a little box they can check that’s a
fatty acid test that’s going to tell you
how your omega-3s are doing
dha epa that kind of a thing so
but i do happen to know that dr fuhrman
has this available on his website fatty
acid analysis test and you’re gonna i
remember paying around like a hundred
hundred fifty dollars for this test when
i got it done before and you pay a
hundred and thirty dollars and ninety
five cents a time of recording of this
podcast uh on dr fuhrman’s website as
well so that’s just something that you can do at home
which is very convenient so you order
those blood tests get those done you get
the results your doctor will probably
call you back in to discuss them you’ll
find out how your cholesterol is doing
how your iron is how your folate levels
are b12 you know everything else that
you need to know it will give you a
really good kind of profile of where
you’re at right now i want you to
consider blood tests are just a snapshot right so
whatever you see there don’t freak out
right all this stuff can be fixed all
this stuff can be worked through and you
can start to supplement
and start to change your diet a little
bit to see where you are and that’s a
really important point i want to make
this is about being aware this is about
learning what you need specifically and
then taking steps to improve all right
so if you see for instance that your
cholesterol is a little high or you see
that your iron is a little low or your
vitamin d is quite low or whatever that
might might be now your doctor’s going
to help you find out how much of what to
take and dr fuhrman also has a vitamin
advisor on his website as well so i’m
going to put links for all this stuff in
the show notes and in that blog post i’m
going to put up the watermelon.com blood
so all of this is going to be in there
you can go to that vitamin advisor find
out where you are especially like for
your iron levels especially are you a
pregnant woman are you looking to get
pregnant that sort of a thing and you
can find out exactly how much you need
to take to get yourself back up there
and what dr fuhrman recommends this is
another important point i’m going to
make what dr fuhrman recommends as far
as what where you should be in that
level because your primary care doctor
especially if they’re not a nutritarian
will be giving you different
recommendations as well on what is the best level for you to be at
and of course you should be listening to
your own doctor but if you want to be
more on the nutritarian side dr fuhrman
has recommendations as well and you can
decide which doctor you want to listen
to right of course that’s not my place
to tell you who to listen to but you can
certainly check that out and get that
information for yourself based on the
links that i give you in the show notes all right
i’m also going to link to a
blog post that dr fuhrman has about why
take a multivitamin so i’m going to tell
you a little bit about this stuff and
you can go and read the rest of this
from what’s in the show notes here i’m
also going to give you in that blog post
a little infographic that i saw on dr
fuhrman’s website about
supplementing so i’m just going to read
off the ones that he has in this
infographic and then you can use this
for reference this infographic i’ll give you
so um it says most multivitamins contain
ingredients that can be harmful to your
health check the label to see if your
supplement is doing more harm than good
this is right on dr fuhrman’s website so
do not take supplements that include vitamin e
can increase the risk of heart failure
and all cause mortality beta-carotene
can absorb interfere with the absorption of other carotenoids
and increase the chances of lung cancer etc vitamin a
can cause a loss of calcium in the urine
weaker bones increased hip fracture etc
and folic acid synthetic compound made from petroleum
folate is the actual natural form of it
which you would find in green vegetables
and beans but avoid folic acid as it’s
associated with increased risks of
breast prostate and colorectal cancers etc
now be careful if you are supplementing
with these minerals selenium which can
help regulate metabolism but too much is
linked to diabetes elevated cholesterol
prostate cancer and cardiovascular
disease be careful if it’s got copper in
it higher intake leaked linked to
increased cancer alzheimer’s etc iron
it’s the same thing and iron for women
needs vary widely among women and intake
is best individualized according to
ferritin levels pregnant women need
sufficient iron for the baby but levels
too high or too low can increase risk of
low birth rate etc so that’s why you
know this is why this cut in a sweet
spot you want to find that sweet spot
for yourself personally and then he goes
on to say in this infographic to make
sure your multivitamin contains these
ingredients vitamin b12 zinc
iodine vitamin d and k2 okay so those
are some guidelines for you all these
are going to be available in the blog
post that i’m giving you
those are the ones that you want to
the blood test that you want to take and
the types of supplements you want to
take now this question comes up a lot well i
you know i don’t take dr fuhrman’s
multivitamin but i do take this one
that’s over the counter and it has
vitamin a in it this is at your own risk
right um dr fuhrman’s job is just to
give you the information and it’s your
job to decide what you want to put into your body so
if it’s a budgetary issue right so for
for me personally what do i take so i
take dr fuhrman’s um gentle prenatal
vitamin not because i’m looking to get
pregnant but because it has added iron
in it so it’s just like the women’s
multi but it has extra iron so i take
that one because i’m i’ve always been
deficient in iron i also take an extra
iron supplement based on what my blood
tests were and i’ve just discontinued
that for for iron level reasons right
like the way my body is i also take
vitamin d and i take a lot because i was
after my twin pregnancy i was very
deficient and i was down to like a 23
and dr fuhrman wants us to be at least
at a 30. so i started supplementing
quite heavily and i will get my blood
test again very soon to find out and of
course i’ll put those results up on
youtube like i always do so i take a lot
of vitamin d i also take his dha and epa
supplement so i always take things that
dr fuhrman has when possible so his
multivitamin his dha epa supplement and
as far as dha and epa goes you know the
omega omega-3 fatty acids you can and
i’ve heard him say this before you can
take a supplement from fish oil if it’s
a good high quality fish oil and you’ll
kind of know especially like the problem
with fish oil is that typically you know
it’s coming from fish so there could be
some mercury heavy metal type stuff but
also because they tend to go rancid
really quickly and so you don’t want to
be taking a supplement that’s just low
quality maybe it’s been sitting on the
shelf for a long time and you wouldn’t
know unless you actually broke it open
and smelled that pill
but what happens is a lot of the times
you will get these fishy burps and it
it’s not a very pleasant thing but it’s
actually because the supplement itself
went rancid the oil in there went rancid
and that’s no good so you want to make
sure you have a really high quality one
and i know that dr fuhrman they take
great care to refrigerate the supplement
and when you get it and you bring it
home you refrigerate as well i’ve never
had a problem if unless i’ve stored it
improperly then it will go rancid but
that’s the way it’s supposed to go right
it is a natural product
so i prefer that supplement it’s a vegan
supplement and it comes from algae
instead of coming from fish but you can
find other algae-based vegan supplements
on the market today as well or you know
just get dr fuhrman’s
i do find that his supplements tend to
be on the maybe expensive side but i
prefer to take his i just trust him i’m
going to put some links for the ones um
some affiliate links down below if you
aren’t interested in checking them out
but um you know feel free to make those
calls based on what your budget is as a
matter of some a couple other things
that i take so i take um
amla as well which is a it’s a indian gooseberry amla
it’s a supplement that dr greger talks
about a lot as well which is supposed to
be good for cholesterol and we shall see
how that goes i’ve been taking it for
about six months we’ll see how that goes
and then i also take dr fuhrman’s um more kind of
expensive but i think very useful
supplements as far as getting like
turmeric and things like that and
mushroom extract so he has ultra cell biotech and
immune biotech so i take those he has some other
supplements as well for osteoporosis for cholesterol he has
probiotics and all that mood balance
calm glucose etc a lot of really really
great products and personally i take
them because i just you know i’m a
nutritarian and i trust his judgment and
i trust his packaging and his sourcing
of materials so feel free to do what you
like with your own budget but i do want
to talk a bit about budget this idea of
spending money on something like this
because it took me a long long time to
start to spend money on stuff like this
and i just think of it like i would
rather spend the money on the
supplements now and feeling good than
waiting until i’m feeling poorly and
you know having to spend the money at
that time because having diabetes having
heart attacks having cancer these things
are expensive right they really actually
are they really do affect your bottom
line would you want to pay for those
later and have a lot of pain and
suffering or do you just take the
supplements now and just eat the really good you know
as organic as possible
you know high nutrient foods do you
prefer to do that now and have the budget cut there
but be putting wonderful things in your
body or deal with it later okay so just
consider that kind of a thing that’s
something that i came to but it
certainly took me a while to get my
mindset wrapped around that and i always
pose these podcast topics to my eat to
live family membership folks
first so that i could answer some
questions that they might have so if you
are considering joining eat to live
family this is a great way where you can
get really individualized support and
get all your questions answered about
this lifestyle so let me get into some
of the questions that the folks from the
eat to live family had and of course
that’s my monthly group coaching
membership so this is this comes from
cass and she’s in the italy family and
she asks when i recently had blood tests
taken i asked my doctor to test my fatty
acids among other things she had no idea
what i was talking about she said my ldl
and hdl that she tested those so i
assumed that’s what i wanted do you know
if that’s correct this is a great
question this is what i was talking
about just a minute ago doctors just
really don’t know they don’t have
nutrition information and they you know
they don’t have the training for it so
no that’s actually not correct right ldl
hdl that refers to cholesterol so that
is the lipid profile that you would have
gotten which is a standard thing to get but as i said the
fatty acid thing is different and it is
a separate test that you would be
ordering and they would have to maybe
make a call or something to find out
which box to check on that forum to know
which one that is but yeah not the same
thing so tell her to do her homework a
little bit more
this question comes from rebecca she
says supplements for toddlers is it okay
to give a toddler a multivitamin
includes vitamin a if she won’t take the
pixie vite or is it better to skip the
multi and just do b12 dha apn vitamin d only
and then they have gummies of course you
know what what other recommended organic
toddler multivitamins are there that
don’t have vitamin a etc and she
mentions an issue with her daughter that
she’s tried crushing the pixie bites or
getting that the powder pixie bites but
the taste of the the sweetener is too
strong for her i totally get it my
daughter has an issue with the vitamins
as well and i haven’t actually
unfortunately i haven’t found a solution
to this and you know i’m not a doctor so
i’m not really sure what to advise i
wouldn’t want to advise on this but i
would love to take comments so if you
have any thoughts about this that you’ve
found something that works for you that
feels very nutritarian let us know in
the comments on the blog post the
wateringmouth.com blood and we can talk
about this and share information okay
great question this question comes from
patrice and she says if i’m low in
vitamin b12 do i need to take a
supplement with the other b vitamins
along with my sublingual b12 supplement
so my advice on this patrice is always
if you’re low in something get the blood
test find out where you are supplement
for a while right so find a b12 you know
you’re doing a sublingual supplement
that’s going to have lots and lots of
percentage but thousands of percents
probably for b12 to get that up bring
that up but keep testing say every six
months to make sure and if you need
anything else go ahead and talk to your
doctor about that and one of our eight
to live family members named butch says
mentions that life extension often
offers a lot of test options so that
might be something to look into but i
personally don’t know anything about
that company all right so i think i’ve
answered all the other questions from
the eat to live family members about the
blood test within this podcast so
hopefully you got your question answered
as well if you have any other questions
feel free to reach out on the comment
section of that that blog post i was
talking about and if you have if you
need any of the resources i was talking
about of course find those on that blog
post or in the show notes and you can download
some pdfs with all the helpful things
that i was telling you about on this
podcast and as always if you’re looking
to join the eat tilla family and you’re
interested in getting some support being in a group of
hundreds of other people who are doing
the same thing as you who want to eat
healthy perhaps lose weight and just
have that camaraderie and that community
support look into joining the eat to live family
with me that’s where i coach it’s a
monthly group coaching membership very
affordable i would love to help you get
to your goals so just check out the
wateringmonth.com family we’d love to see you in there
are you following me on social media yet
make sure you do so you never miss a
beat search for Nourish Your Lifestyle on
instagram facebook and youtube and join
my free and totally private facebook
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nutrient lifestyle we can’t wait to see you there
okay that’s it for now see you soon bye
