Ever since I was told by my doctors that I am severely anemic (reading of 6 g/dL), I have been pumping iron rich foods into my body. Every. single. day. I feel like I am on a blood chase marathon where time is limited and I have to stuff myself with iron rich foods to build up red blood cells before my next menstrual cycle begins! The days are ticking away and I have only a few days left before the next war of blood begins. I don’t feel woozy actually and only short of breath when I run. Brisk walking, swimming and shopping for 10 hours don’t make me breathless though 😀 And my heart flutters too. That’s because red blood cells (RBC) carry oxygen to the rest of the body and being short of RBC, I have a feeling that I lack oxygen when I exert myself physically. It is also highly dangerous when the RCB drops to a very low level as my heart may fail me!
My breakfast would consist of an egg each day now. I used to eat an egg a day (sometimes two) but have since stopped when blood works showed an elevated cholesterol level a year ago. Now that my cholesterol level has dropped to 4.9, I have the ‘allowance’ to indulge in an egg a day again 🙂
I add a teaspoon of organic and unsulphured blackstrap molasses to my egg as blackstrap molasses is rich in iron. This gooey liquid is not the tastiest of food and I cannot bring myself to down in with a glass of water. Think swallowing a spoonful of dark soy sauce. Yup, that’s how it actually tastes. I need savory food to help mask the texture and taste of the molasses. Or mix it with a bowl of plain vermicelli.
I try to include beef in my diet each week, though beef is not my favorite type of meat. And lots of spinach too.
My diet these days make me feel like I am in confinement😊 The smell of boiling red dates water wafting in the air at home each day reminds me of my confinement days. My mil would boil red dates soup with chicken or a plain concoction of red dates + black dates water everyday. On some days, she would double boil chicken essence for me. Bless her for all her TLC 🙂
I would also chew about 2-3 organic dried red dates each day.
And chew on organic goji berries too. Goji berries or wolfberries or gei jie is rich in iron and are good for the eyes too.
As well as graze on nori seaweed sheets (plain ones with no salt, no sugar and no oil) like a cow. Did you know that not only is nori high in iodin, calcium, protein and fiber, it is also high in iron and your bones love it?Nori lowers cholesterol too.
With such rich and nutritious food pumped into my body for the past one week, I feel more energetic, my lips are starting to turn reddish again and my heart has stopped fluttering. Oh and I forgot to mention that I pop 2 Sangobion iron tabs each day.
Ladies, if you feel like you lack stamina, feel tired, have heart palpitations and have heavy menstruation, it’s good that you have a total blood count done. It can be life saving.
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