what's up guys it's Nicole a can to keep vegan and today I'm going to be sharing my vegan blood test results this is a really requested video after I showed some vitamin supplements that I take in a recent what I ate today video so I thought I would share my results with you guys and show you whether or not being vegan is scientifically proven to be healthy or not I really want this video to be as helpful as
possible for you guys so in addition to just sharing my blood test results I'm also going to be showing you what foods I eat as a vegan that help keep me nourishing and keep my blood nutrient levels really high and I'm also going to be answering questions that I get all the time about blood test results and where to get them and what to ask for as well as supplements that I take and recommend and most of my blood test results are really good so I'm excited to share that with you but there were also places that
I could definitely improve upon which I'm going to be really honest with you and show you what my levels were and what I'm doing now to improve so I hope you guys are excited and let's get started my doctor I asked her to do a blood test and I told her I was vegan and that I wanted to really double check
my vitamin b12 my vitamin D and I wanted to make sure that I had enough protein and all those different kinds of things so I basically said everything that can be tested please go ahead and test that I think that's an important thing to point out because I've also had blood work done in the past where they didn't test something like vitamin D or vitamin b12 sometimes you do have to ask it depends on what
your insurance covers and it depends on what you're there for the doctor for they don't automatically test everything so it's just really important to be really clear about what you want and why you want it and if you tell them you're vegan and you want to get all of your things checked out they'll probably
check all the little boxes for you so that's great the process is just the same as any other time that you've gotten blood work it's not any different I didn't have to get more blood drawn and after about a week I just got emails and my blood results I printed them out and I'm going to share them with you guys
healthy range is 6.0 to 8.3 and I was at a 6.4 this does fluctuate depending on the day and this was all while I was fasting I had to fast before doing this blood test for like 12 hours or something like that so it definitely knows fluctuate but as long as it's in that range you're golden so the number one way that I get plant protein is with beans and lentils I really love making Mexican food out of beans just because
you can really kind of make it different every single time with different spices and you can play around with textures here I'm making my chili lime chickpea tacos and I will put all of the recipes that you see in these clips in the description box you can check that out but these are delicious and really flavorful way to add some protein to your diet I also love the black bean enchiladas and I also really like lentils and I use lentils and tacos and burritos but also in sauces like I really love my soup that I make it's
lasagna soup and that has lentils and you would never know what they totally blend in and speaking of blending you can also blend up feeds I know a lot of people don't like the texture so you can blend them into hum muses and bean dips and use them as a sandwich spread or I also have a recipe on this channel form white bean guacamole that's really high in protein and also iron and other things that legumes give
you as well and if you're not into beans and lentils youkan also do tempeh or tofu those are really great dense sources of plant-based protein here I'm showing you my teriyaki tempeh it's one of my like10-minute go-to recipes super easy to make and you can use it for a number of different things here I'm doing it in kind of like a sushi bowl so again I will link this down below my calcium levels almost as
much as I get asked about where I get my protein people assume that if you don't drink cow's milk that you just can't get enough calcium and that's just totally not true my calcium levels are really good so the normal range is eight point three to ten point five and mine was nine point nine so definitely on the
higher end of normal but still in that healthy normal range and a ways that Alike to get my calcium as lots of lea dark leafy greens I eat a lot of mixed greens I eat a lot of spinach I do sometimes do kale although it's a little bit hard on my digestion so I don't do like excessive amounts but also foods like book choy are very high in calcium and things like tahini and different nuts and seeds you're going to
get a lot of good calcium I also drink fortified a plant milk it's usually almond milk but sometimes it's soy sometimes it's hemp sometimes it's hazelnut I'm kind of like in a phase right now or I like to try different plant milks and like use them indifferent ways for recipes and stuff everyone has cholesterol in their body and everyone has good cholesterol and bad cholesterol and a lot of the times bad cholesterol is considered to be genetic and I have a lot of high cholesterol levels in my family particularly on my
dad's side of the family and almost everyone of that immediate side of the family has passed away from heart disease knowing that that's my family history it definitely motivates me to stay on plant-based diet so I've been touched it all throughout my life for my cholesterol levels and when I was in the fifth grade
I actually had high cholesterol and had to go on a low-fat diet I think I was like 11 wasn't on adieu to lose weight but I had to really kind of cut out a lot of rich especially like dairy type foods back then because my cholesterol levels were high so what's really cool to see is that my cholesterol levels are really good and within a healthy range because obviously I'm not eating animals and that is the biggest source of extra cholesterol in the body so a healthy range for cholesterol is 135 to 200 and mine was
154 so that's on the lower end which is really good I'm very pleased with that if you're not a vegan and you're watching this or if you have family member or friend who is not vegan who has high cholesterol definitely make sure that you know or that they know that shellfish things like lobster and crab and shrimp are actually pretty high in cholesterol people think that seafood is like healthier meat to eat and
there's a lot of reasons why that's not true but also that they are quite high in cholesterol also egg everyone thinks eggs are so healthy but they are really richen cholesterol especially since you hardly ever just eat one egg I would definitely recommend cutting out dairy cutting out foods like red meat and shellfish and cheese and cow's milk products that are going to be really rich in cholesterol because that stuff is just it's not good for you okay now to the good stuff my vitaminb12 levels were within a healthy
range healthy range is anywhere from 193 to980 - so that's a really big range because your body does store vitamin b12mine was 254 so it's going to be in that range in the healthy range my doctor was not concerned about my vitamin b12 but when I talked to her about it and I told her I wasn't supplementing
she said that could go ahead and take a vitamin b12supplement not every single day but few times a week just to make sure that my levels are high and that I kind of get more just like the middle area of that because IMM b12 is extremely important especially for your arteries and also your energy levels if you don't have a lot of energy one thing that you might want to check is your vitamin b12levels because
B vitamins are what helps you convert your carbohydrates into energy fortified plant milks again and also from foods like nutritional yeast and spirulina I like to put spirulina in my smoothies and that has a good amount of vitamin b12 naturally as well so there are definitely natural ways to get it if you and your doctor decide that taking vitamin b12 supplement would be a good idea then I would totally
recommend taking the kind that I take which is the my kind organics from the Garden of Life it is in organic vegan vitamin b12 and I would also recommend looking for the methyl cobalamin versus the Chi know oval Avon it's a lot more absorbable even though it's really hard to say these were not great and this was really eye-opening for me the healthy range for vitamin D is a 30 to 100 and mine was
a15-point to so it's very low deficient is less than 10 and insufficient is 10 to 30 so I was not technically deficient I was insufficient but getting closer to the deficient range insufficient just means that you know you really need to focus on it if you get deficient it can cause like actual health problems my doctor recommended that I take 1000 IU's of vitamin D every day for 3 months so I opted for a vegan
version again from the my kind organics this is a vanilla flavor that I spray under my tongue and have been taking that ever since she recommended it to me and there are also natural ways to get vitamin D the Mainway is from the Sun and you can also get it from fortified foods so things like plant milks that are fortified with vitamin D and also mushrooms you'll see on the package that it'll say sometimes
fortified with vitamin D specifically so definitely seek those out and I like incorporating them into my pastas here's recipe for my creamy pumpkin pasta I also put them on my pizzas and I like making little mushroom caps as appetizers this is a picture from backing the fall time when I was doing my
Thanksgiving recipe series I mean this as an appetizer so I'll link all those down below if you want to find ways to get more mushrooms into your diet ever since I started taking the supplement and also finding natural ways to get vitamin D I have noticed that I've felt so much better but I will say that itis
really important to go to your doctor first because getting too much vitamin Dis also a thing and that can actually be really toxic so check with your doctor see if you need it and if you do I highly recommend supplementing because it's made a huge difference in my overall mood it makes me think they're mine 66 shake these are the only supplements I'm currently taking they're the only ones that I need it to take and that's another question I get asked all the time how do you know what you should supplement and what you should be taking because you hear all these different things and I totally
understand wanting to know like what do I do someone just tell me what to do and the thing is the only way you're going to know is if you got your doctor and you ask for a blood test and when you get those results back you will see where you're doing really well and where you can improve you don't need to feel bad if you aren't perfect to if there's things you can work on there are lots of ways to improve your diet mostly through a whole food plant-based diet but also through really wonderful supplements like
this that are just really going to help you feel the best you can possibly feel and they're going to keep you healthy for a long time and I think it's actually a really wonderful blessing that we have that we can go tithe doctor and get this test done and really find out how we can make ourselves even better I think it's really great so if you've been on the fence about whether or not you should good if it's even worth it
it's a hundred percent worth it I definitely recommend it and it's also just kind of fun like I find that veganism has changed my life in so many ways but one of the ways is that it's kind of this fun hobby to like learn how to take care of myself and that kind of process of learning and experimenting and all that stuff has really infiltrated other areas of my life and really
helped me become proactive person and kind of literally building myself into the person I want to be from the ground up and it's crazy that that starts with food and making afoot related choice I hope this video was helpful for you guys I hope that it inspired you to go get your blood work done I would love to know like what kind of supplements that you take if you take any I just love if you guys would chime
in in the comments below because not only do I find it interesting but you could also really help other people who are watching this video and we can all just kind of share the things that we know and that
we've learned along the way so thank you guys so much for watching I love you so much and I hope you have a really great day bye
