I Need Me Some Iron!

Last week I had a good old doctors appointment. At my previous appointment I had mentioned to my doc, that I was pretty tired all the time. If you hung out with me in person, you would see that I yawn like every 5 minutes. Any who, so he did some blood work, and called me back in, to have a chat with him. He said that your "iron levels can range from anywhere between 20 and 250, and mine are at like, 22." I don't know if he was using those numbers as an example, or if that's really what it is, but he told be I was borderline anemic. Figures. Now I have lupus, PCOS, low thyroid, rheumatoid arthritis, blood clotting, and "borderline anemia".
Sweet.

Since I'm pretty tired of being tired (hehe) all the time, I'm excited to take action, and get those iron levels up! My doctor told me to take an iron supplement, and to eat more
iron rich foods:

• Clams (eww)
• Pork Liver (eww)
  
• Oysters (eww)
  
• Chicken Liver (eww)
• Mussles (eww)
• Beef Liver (eww)
• Beef (not a big fan)
  
• Shrimp (eh)
  
• Sardines (eww)
• Turkey (finally something I can eat!)
  
• Cooked beans
  
• Lentils
  
• Spinach (so that's why Popeye eats it!;)
  
• Almonds
  
• Dark green leafy vegetables
  
• Dried fruit
  
• Iron-enriched cereals (eh)
  
• Chickpeas
  
• Soybeans
  
• Artichokes
  
• Broccoli (dang!)

In an effort to eat all my iron ;) I'm trying to incorporate more of these foods into my diet. Except the ones that have "eww" next to them. Those foods go against my deliciously healthy beliefs (not that there's anything wrong with them. They just don't get along with my taste buds, and that's a must for me;).

My friend told me about a yummy recipe she got from the Cancer Project, that I had to try! It seemed like an iron rich recipe, so tonight I gave it a go!

Easy 3 Bean Salad:It was delish! Plus it was very quick and easy to make!
And you know how I love that ;)

Aside from being deliciously healthy, it's really quite pretty, wouldn't you say?

Here's what you need:

• light Italian salad dressing
• 1-2 10 ounce bags of spinach
  
• 1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed, or 1 1/2 cups cooked kidney beans
• 1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed, or 1 1/2 cups cooked pinto beans
• 1 15-ounce can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed, or 1 1/2 cups cooked peas
• 1 10-ounce package frozen lima beans, thawed. or 1 1/2 cups cooked lima beans, or 1 1/2 cups cooked green soybeans (shelled edamame)
• 1 cup frozen corn, thawed, or chilled cooked fresh corn.
  
• 1 large diced red bell pepper
  
• 1/2 medium diced red onion
  
• salt and pepper to taste

This is what you do:

• In a bowl, mix kidney beans and next 7 ingredients.
• Serve 1 cup of bean mixture onto individual beds of spinach.
• Drizzle Italian dressing over top.

Here's what I'm thinking:

• Serving size: 10
• Calories per serving: 210

Love it!

***

Today's weigh in had me at 167. That's a 0 pound loss this week. Of course my body is going to play games with me, and stop 1 pound short of me losing 40 pounds! Just to drive me crazy of course. Hopefully next week I can say that I'm 40 pounds lighter!