Posts tagged ‘iron’

May 15th, 2013

Nutrient Breakdown WIAW

by Tiff

As you know, it’s time for another What I Ate Wednesday {WIAW} post.  Woohoo!  Anyone else like checking out everyone’s eats?  If so, be sure to check out the other foodie posts at Peas & Crayons.

For this WIAW, I want to highlight a few of the nutrients upon which I have been focusing.  This is by no means a comprehensive list, just a few fun highlights for ya.  The nutrients aren’t just for preggos; they’re great for everyone to work into their diet.

Pre-Workout: prenatal vitamin with DHA and salt-free rice cake (DHA helps with baby’s brain development)

Post-Workout: TeeChia super seed cereal (one item in the Bestowed box – if you haven’t entered my Bestowed giveaway, you can do so HERE), plain nonfat yogurt, and blackberries (blackberries have 7.6g fiber per cup; yogurt adds calcium, which is important though preggos don’t need much more than other women ages 18-50)

teechia

Snack: Larabar Uber Cherry Cobbler (also from my Bestowed box, it contains nuts with “good” fats to help baby’s brain and eye development)

uber

Lunch: green smoothie filled with baby spinach, blueberries, a banana, unsweetened original almond milk, and vanilla whey protein (spinach is high in folic acid, a B vitamin that helps prevent neural tube defects, preggos need at least 600 mcg daily & the banana is great for both potassium and B6)

smoothie

Snack: a hearty handful of KIND granola (unpictured) along with baby carrots and a hard boiled egg (the egg alone is a nutritional powerhouse including goodies like pantothenic acid, which is essential for hormone and cholesterol production and for baby’s metabolism, and choline, which helps brain cells develop while also helping to prevent neural tube defects)

snack

Dinner: baked jerk chicken breasts with red bell pepper, black beans, brown rice, and a side of sliced mango (chicken provides a boost of iron and zinc, both of which are most easily absorbed through meat/seafood, and a woman’s need for both iron and zinc increases significantly in pregnancy, the vitamin c in the pepper helps the body absorb the iron and it strengthens the body’s membranes, including amniotic membranes)

chicken

Dessert: ice cream! (depression is bad for baby, and ice cream makes me happy, therefore ice cream is good for baby… right???)

ice cream

For more information about pregnancy nutrition and “super foods,” you can see these links.  There’s a ton of info out there, and perhaps I’ll do another nutrient breakdown WIAW in the future.

  1. Super Foods + Smart Advice = The Best Prenatal Diet
  2. Pregnant? Omega-3 Essential for Baby’s Brain
  3. Tell Me What to Eat by FitPregnancy
  4. Legumes in Your Pregnancy Diet
  5. Pregnancy Nutrients You Need to Help Your Baby Grow <– good one
  • Do you focus on certain nutrients from time to time?
March 6th, 2013

Ironing Out This WIAW

by Tiff

It’s that time again, time for another What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW).  Head over to Peas & Crayons to check out other blogger meal ideas and recipes.

I’m really ironing it out this week.  Given my dizzy spell and exhaustion, I figured a little extra iron might do my body good.  Heck, it couldn’t hurt, right?

1st Breakfast – rice cake & peanut butter

2nd Breakfast – Red River Cereal, oats, blueberries, and a dash of cinnamon (The Red River Original All Natural Hot Cereal is something my dad recommended.  Here’s the ingredients list: cracked wheat, cracked rye, and flax seeds.  Winner!)

overflow    breakfast

Be sure to keep an eye on your microwave with this stuff!

Snack: Think Thin Crunch, apple cranberry flavor (ohmygoshgobuythisnow… yeah, it’s that good)

thinkthin

Lunch: iron bowl (trimmed, skinless chicken thigh, spinach, kidney beans, and white mushrooms – I added about 2 TBS salt-free tomato sauce as an after thought so that the little bit of vitamin C from the tomatoes would help my body absorb the iron, though spinach does have some C of its own.  Also, chicken thighs have more iron and zinc than breasts, but there is also more fat to look out for.)

iron

Snack: apple & Oikos Greek yogurt (this vanilla one is good, but it doesn’t compare to their awesome caramel flavor)

snack

Dinner: sweet potato, part of a baked chicken breast, broccoli, and parmmmmmm… good

dinner

Dessert:  I know, I know… it’s a lotta food, but what the belly wants, the belly gets.  Insert 1/2 c ice cream and some ginger thins here!

dessert

 

  • What’s your favorite Greek yogurt flavor?  I’m normally into plain, but I tell ya, that caramel is awesome.
  • Do you ever focus on certain nutrients at a time?
October 25th, 2011

Hardcore with Harbinger

by Tiff

You guys know how much I love packages, right? Of course you do! Well I got a pretty sweet package in the mail this weekend. Harbinger was kind enough to send me a pair of lifting gloves to review. You all know how much I love my old pair; you can see them in these posts:

Sadly, they have seen better days. (I’m pretty sure I got these in my senior year of high school. They’ve been to the gym many times, and they’ve been through the wash a few times too.)

harbinger 007

So these new one will replace the old. Notice how cute yet hardcore they look! It’s like, “Hey, I’m tough, but I’m still pink.” Harbinger sent the pink gloves for breast cancer awareness month. There’s a link to them here.

harbinger 003

I use gloves for one reason, to protect my hands from pain and ugly callouses. (Ignore my dork-ness, please.) They work well, but vegans may not like the leather grips.

harbinger 005

However… I love gloves because they fire me up for a hard workout. When I ran cross country, I waited until the last minute to throw on my lucky socks and racing spikes. When I played soccer, I waited until game time to throw on my jersey. Now I throw on my gloves right before lifting.

harbinger 006

Do you have any pre-race/game/workout rituals that help you perform harder/faster/longer?

On a side note, check out my yummy dinner! I paired my egg/spinach/cheese wrap with a couple crackers & cheese, half a cup of green beans, and an orange for dessert. The orange’s vitamin C helped my body absorb the iron from the wrap and the spinach… and it was delicious.

harbinger 011

September 12th, 2011

Iron Woman

by Tiff

Who had a good weekend? I did! It wasn’t the best ever, but no weekend is a “bad” weekend. Clemson sure could have played better, but let’s not get into that…

Go Tigers!

I had a relatively healthy Friday, but that went right out the window on Saturday. It could have been much worse, and I don’t feel guilty at all. Kev and I split quesadillas for snack/dinner while watching football, and we split this frozen pizza for a late dinner after the GA vs. USC game.

Beer n' Pizza

I don’t generally like thin pizzas or white pizzas, and this was both. However, we agreed that it was pretty darn good for the price.

Pizza may not be the healthiest option, but you know what is healthy? Iron. (Sweet transition, right?) I purchased lots of spinach, sprouts, salmon, and beef at the store Sunday, so it got me thinking about this vital nutrient.

Women’s Health Magazine said that iron eliminates free radicals from the body “and helps protect against heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.” Iron also strengthens your immune system and keeps your thyroid running smoothly.

Stella Lucia Volpe, PhD, RD, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, told Fitness Magazine, “Only heme iron — found in animal foods like beef, lamb, or poultry — is directly absorbed into the body… Vegetable iron isn’t absorbed as efficiently.”

Spinach Salad (Only Part of Dinner)

No matter your diet (carnivore, flexitarian, or vegetarian/vegan), you can boost absorption by consuming iron-rich foods along with Vitamin C. According to Fitness Magazine, calcium interferes with iron absorption. I guess fortified cereal doesn’t help so much with milk!

We should get 18 milligrams of iron per day, but that can be difficult – especially on a plant based diet. Up to 62 percent of women fail to meet the recommended minimum.

To check the iron levels in common foods, check out these handy lists from FitSugar and WebMD. A few of the listed entries are:

  • Half a cup of cooked chickpeas = 3.4 mg
  • Half a cup of steamed kale = 2 mg
  • 3 oz of steak = 4 mg
How was your weekend? Did you catch any great football games? Do you keep track of your iron intake?