I'm What?

This ends the 4th week since I've made a conscious effort to eliminate sugar from my diet. It's getting a bit easier to get used to they way foods, like coffee and oatmeal, taste without sugar. Although, I still use creamer in my coffee. It does contain a little sugar (vanilla silk creamer has 3g), but I refuse to give up my creamer!

Last week, I went to the doctor. Since my old doctor retired, I saw someone else. Seeing someone new always causes me great anxiety. Doctors are not my favorite people. It seems that, although, the industry has certain consistent standards, there is such a huge spectrum of philosophies within the profession. Not to mention some pretty strong personalities. When I find a doctor I like, (easy going, promotes a natural method for staying healthy instead of a chemical method), I am extremely loyal. Anyway, I saw someone new. I liked her straight away. Since she had never seen me before, she ordered a full panel of lab work, just to get a baseline.

Earlier this week, the nurse called me with my lab results. Diabetes and hypothyroidism runs in my family, so I'm always nervous that lab work will show a problem in those areas. Well, she said everything was fine, except that I was very deficient in vitamin D. Um, excuse me? How is that possible? I don't live in London or Seattle...She said that it was more common than people think. Since a number of adults work indoors a majority of the day, they don't absorb enough vitamin D from sun exposure. I thought about it for a minute; I am a firm believer in sunscreen. It's rare that any part of my skin that's exposed, isn't protected by sunscreen. I stopped drinking (dairy) milk about 6 years ago and eat very little dairy. And during the winter months, I'm inside at work shortly after the sun rises and coming home just after the sun sets.

As soon as I got off the phone with the nurse, I immediately started reading about vitamin D. How could I recognize if I'm deficient in the future? I found this article that gives a pretty good overview, in layman's terms. Fatigue - yes, moodiness - yes, always in the winter time (I loathe the winter), more body fat? Hmmm. I also read on another site, that people who experience difficulty in losing weight and/or notice a tendency to distribute fat in the abdomen, should have their vitamin D levels checked. Well, who knew?

It will be interesting to see how supplementing my diet with 2,000 I.U. (international units) of vitamin D will affect my energy level and weight loss. This week, I'm down 2 more pounds. I've been feeling like I'm catching a cold, so I haven't really exercised much this week. Hopefully, I'll get back into my routine next week.