I recently switched insurance companies and was able to go back to my preferred Doctor in the city, which is so exciting because I hated my previous insurance so I tried to avoid the doctor like a plague!
I went for a normal check up and he wanted to do a blood work so he could check all of the usual stuff. The results came back and it turns out I am slightly anemic. I wasn’t super surprised because I have dealt with this on and off throughout my life, like when I was around 10 or so and I fainted right in church, during kneeling prayer time (the joy of catholic schools right?), I remember my sight went all blurry like when a tv used to lose signal back in the day, i saw a bunch of little dots, some sparkly and some just gray, and then it went black, I woke up and my classmates were surrounding my body and looking at me, and there was a nun too… the first thing I did was put my hands over my uniform skirt to make sure I wasn’t showing anything inappropriate… 🙈ayy so silly!
Also, about 2 years ago I had some almost fainting episodes and my mom said I should go to the doctor, but because I had the horrible insurance carrier then I didn’t. I would only go if I was feeling really really sick and those fainting spells were brief and would pass fast, thankfully! Still, of course the signs were not good and I should have checked. Instead I just agreed with my mom and started taking iron as a supplement, and this seemed to be sufficient as the fainting went away and I thought I was all good.
Well, fast forward to today, a year and a half later and I am here facing the true facts from the blood test that I am not all good, and that my current diet is not very good for me. You see, I am not very good at cooking. It doesn’t come naturally to me, I don’t really enjoy it, although I enjoy baking… and in the last 2 months I have baked about 4 times, which is pretty unusual but maybe is a good omen…humm.
Maybe there is a little hope after all. Honestly I feel kind of embarrassed to say that I am on my early 40’s and I just tried cooking lentils for the first time ever, 🤭, lentils are full of iron! Yay! I do like them, but I never thought of making them…🤷♀️ I shrug, I shrug. The thing is I have been eating very basic stuff, and because it’s easy and I don’t have to think much about it this basic food became staple food and I was overdoing it, repeating the same thing in the morning and the same thing in the evening. A lot of rice and chicken, and a lot of eggs and chocolate milk. I mean, it all tastes good too, but it’s so simple, I need variety, I need colors, I need to diversify and not put all of my eggs in the one basket, literally!
Also, I don’t usually crave read meat, not sure why but I don’t, but guess what!?! I just went to this huge super market where they sell everything in big bulk sizes, and bought red ground beef for the first time in god knows how long! I haven’t cooked it yet but I will very soon and I am only praying to all the saints and all the cooking gods and goddess, the master chefs and the grandma from the movie like water for chocolate, that is at least edible and that I can get enough iron from it. I also got some spinach and I have been doing smoothies, and I love those! Also, a great finding is that dark chocolate has iron as well and this is like music to my ears! I am doing my homework, I got some pumpkin seeds as well, and I read tofu is also a good one, but I didn’t get that one yet.. I have to take baby steps.
This baby steps also means that I need to make friends with the kitchen, i usually want to spend the least amount of time there, but I need to make it my friend for this to work. I also need to make friends with the store and the big huge super market, because it seems I need this or that ingredient and I don’t know if this becomes easier as you go, but I feel I am always needing to get some other ingredient I wasn’t aware of… UGH! Also, a part that is fascinating is the times and the heat… this is definitely more interesting to crack, but I don’t have my hopes too high because like most things I predict a lot of trial and error on this very winding path for me into better nutrition, but like the title of my post, Tengo FE! Which means I have faith, but also FE is the symbol of iron! 🤓
If you dear reader have any tips or recipes, please send them my way! I would so appreciate it. Thanks for reading too! 🤗
Brownie! 