5 Signs You Might Be Vitamin Deficient

Do you ever feel like your body is trying to tell you something? Like when you’re feeling a little tired, you may be a bit grumpy or teary eyed. Or when you know you may be on the verge of catching a cold or winter flu, you start feeling sort of lethargic and perhaps get a funny feeling in the back of your throat? Body signals work in ways to do just that – let you know when body functions are there highest and best function, but also give you sign when something is a little off. Staying in tune with your body is essential for keeping everything in top form – from muscles to organs and even your mind. And, being sure you’re getting all the vitamins and nutrients you need is half the battle when it comes to staying in tip top shape. Here’s a look at how your body signals that you’re vitamin deficient – signs to look out for and how to combat with healthy choices and vitamin supplements, if necessary. 

1. Do you find yourself getting bad muscle cramps in spots like your toes, the backs of your legs or even the arches of your feet? This could mean you may be lacking in potassium, calcium or even magnesium.  Adding almonds, cherries, apples, hazelnuts, squash, leafy greens, bananas and broccoli just might do the trick.

2. Getting the tingles in your feet and hands? It’s pretty wild, but this can be related to a deficiency in B vitamins. Try loading up on pinto, black and kidney beans, while also mixing it up with asparagus, oysters, mussels, eggs and spinach.

3. How about little white or red bumps – often on your buttocks, arms and cheeks? Seems odd, right? You may be a bit deficient in vitamins A, D and perhaps need to increase your essential fatty acid intake. Adding more healthy fats to your diet – found in things like sardines, salmon, walnuts, flax, chia and almonds can easily up the essential fatty acids necessary for staying on top of your game. Leafy greens, bright colored veggies (like bell peppers and carrots) are loaded with vitamin A and often, vitamin D deficiencies can be easily solved with a supplement (talk to your doc about this one).

4. Have you noticed a whole heap of things going a little off with your body? Like dry hair and skin, mood swings and even joint and muscle aches. Any combo of these symptoms could signal a deficiency in vitamin C. From supplements to dietary additions, getting a bit more vitamin C in your diet is pretty easy. Of course, the common citrus fruit (oranges and lemons) are a great source, but vitamin C can also be found in guava, red bell peppers, kiwi, Brussels sprouts and even cantaloupe.

5. Are you noticing little cracks at the corners of your mouth? Well, believe it or not – that may be your body telling you it’s time to get a little more iron and maybe even some zinc and B vitamins. This is an easy fix by switching up your diet just a bit. Try eating more salmon, eggs, tuna and poultry. Adding in some kale, swiss chard, broccoli and bell peppers will even help your body absorb that iron a little better.

No matter what, paying attention to your body is absolutely essential when it comes to staying healthy – you are the only one who knows exactly when something is off or just isn’t quite right. Got questions about these symptoms and how to solve? Definitely talk to your doctor.

10 Fat-Burning Foods to Add to Your Shopping List

Fight fat with food simply by picking the right snacks and ingredients. Peta Bee shows you how

Want to lose weight but don’t have the time or the energy to do more at the gym? Then the solution could be to fill your shopping basket with the right fat-burning foods. Here we reveal the top ten foods that are guaranteed to give you a head start in the fat-loss stakes:

GRAPEFRUIT

Remember the grapefruit diet of the 1980s? Well, it wasn’t as faddy as you might think. A study, published in Nutrition & Metabolism showed that a pre-meal snack of grapefruit or grapefruit juice really can boost weight loss. Researchers at Vanderbilt University found that obese adults who consumed half a grapefruit or a glass of 100 per cent grapefruit juice before their three main reduced calorie meals, lost an average 7.1 percent of their body weight - or 15 pounds per person - in 14 weeks.

BLACK PEPPER

When you are asked if you want black pepper sprinkled onto your food, you should always answer ‘yes’. Why? Because Korean scientists reporting in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that piperine - the flavoursome substance that gives black pepper its characteristic taste - can block the formation of new fat cells in the body.

CINNAMON

Add a sprinkle of this spice to your breakfast cereal and coffee every day and you could offset some of the ‘fat’ calories you consume. That was the outcome of a study conducted by Penn State University researchers who showed that cinnamon and turmeric reduces the body’s negative responses to high-fat meals. “Normally, when you eat a high-fat meal, you end up with high levels of triglycerides, a type of fat, in your blood,” said Sheila West, associate professor of biobehavioral health, who led the study. “We found that adding spices to a high-fat meal reduced triglyceride response by about 30 percent.”

EGGS

Long derided as unhealthy, eggs have transformed their image in recent years and are now among the foods most widely accepted to help you shift body fat. Last year, experts at the University of Missouri found that a breakfast rich in protein, such as eggs, significantly improves appetite control and reduces unhealthy snacking on high-fat or high-sugar foods in the evening. Being low in calories (an egg contains only around 75), an egg or two is a great way to fill up without packing on the pounds.

APPLES

When you eat apples, always keep the peel on. Why? Because it is an excellent source of a substance called ‘ursolic acid’ that has been shown to aid fat-burning. Trials on obese rats have shown that those fed ursolic acid (also found in cranberries, rosemary, lavender and prunes) were able to eat more than their counterparts who weren’t given the substance but still lose more weight and gain a greater amount of lean muscle tissue.

GREEN TEA

There have long been rumours that green tea aids weight loss by triggering the body to burn abdominal fat, but can they really be true? Many scientists think so thanks to specific tphytochemicals in green tea called catechins. In 2013 a group of Korean scientists showed how extract of green tea not only aided weight control, but improved symptoms of Type 2 diabetes. Effects were amplified when the green tea was consumed with a compound called polyethylene glycol and researchers said you could easily drink your way to good health by sipping several cups a day.

BLUEBERRIES

Blueberries for health

They are packed with beneficial antioxidant vitamins, but that’s not all you get from eating blueberries regularly. Scientists at the University of Michigan showed that obese rats given meals enriched with blueberries lost fat from their stomachs and, they say, the same could be true for humans. In the study, researchers used freeze-dried blueberries crushed into a powder and added two per cent of the preparation to the animals’ meals. ( try Isotonix Orac or Isotonix OPC-3 ) After 90 days, they had less abdominal fat and lower cholesterol. Benefits were linked to the high level of phytochemicals - naturally occurring antioxidants - contained in the fruit. Why not try Vicki Edgson’s blueberry and almond milk smoothie recipe?

ALMONDS

If you have a snack attack, then you could do worse than opt for some almonds. A team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University looked at the effects of consuming a small handful (30 grams) of almonds compared with a calorie-matched, high carbohydrate snack on body weight in 52 adults with raised cholesterol. After 6 weeks, weight loss did not differ between the two groups, but the almond diet proved to be a fat-buster, reducing overall abdominal fat, and waist circumference compared to the other snack.

CHILLIS

Eating chilli peppers, or even milder red peppers to your menu can actually increase your body’s consumption of calories and “oxidise” layers of body fat, found researchers at the University of California. The ‘heat’ in peppers comes from an active ingredient called capsaicin - the hotter the peppers, the more of it you get. Other trials have shown that capsaicnoids in peppers not only boost fat burning but also trigger the stores of ‘good brown fat’, which gobbles calories, into action.

COFFEE

Marley Coffee - 100% Organic

As long as you take it black, then your coffee could aid fat-burning. But so could cola or another caffeinated drink. Sport scientists have previously shown that caffeine consumption prior to exercise can help the body to utilise fat stores before relying on carbohydrate (glycogen) for fuel. And last year, a paper in PLOS One journal that analysed how cyclists responded to a java jolt found those who drank caffeine or coffee moved almost 5 per cent quicker during a workout than those who hadn’t taken the caffeinated beverage. A greater workout output translates to greater calories burned, so it’s a double winner on the fat-burning front.