Iron ?

Aimee_PD

I just added iron to my food diary and i've only eaten breakfast so far and it says im already negative in that? I dont know how much I should be getting a day, any help?

nehtaeh

My multivitamin has 18mg as 100%. It really is a personal thing as well though. I take an additional iron supplement on top of the multivitamin and the food I eat.

ETA - my supplement is an additional 27mg.

emmerrs

Approximately 18mg is what women should aim for.

What did you have for breakfast??

ZacFields

I don't have a real good answer for that, but Iron is a vitamin I believe so I think you're okay if you have more than 100% of your DV. Kind of like Vitamin C, Calcium, etc.... MFP makes it look like you're doing something wrong by making the negative number red and all that, but if I understand how our metabolism works, if your body takes too many vitamins, all that generally happens is that it just comes out the other end.

There are exceptions to that, I think. I have had a doctor tell me before (when I was a kid) to stop taking vitamins. I believe it was because my white blood cell count was too high but I can't remember exactly.

MisdemeanorM

Iron if it's one of your showing micronutrients is based on 100% not 100 of a certain amount (a default setting like the amt in a multivitamin where it reads BLANK amt or units is 100%). You may need to go into the settings to change what that 100% equals, but unless what you ate for breakfast has 100% iron in it... maybe it's logged incorrectly in the entry? Does it read "100" under iron for that listing for breakfast? Also, do you log a multivitamin?

Aimee_PD

I had 2 slices of Natures own 9 grain bread and 1 whole egg and 1 egg white...
.
i do log a multivitamin....i think my log is showing -16 (from my breakfast) already. and i just didnt understand it..alot of the deficit things im still foggy on.

edit: and i do have a history of anemia..so maybe i shouldnt be concerned about it? i havent had it checked in a couple years though

emmerrs

There are exceptions to that, I think. I have had a doctor tell me before (when I was a kid) to stop taking vitamins. I believe it was because my white blood cell count was too high but I can't remember exactly.

Some vitamins are fat-soluble rather than water-soluble, (vitamin D, E, A, and K) which means you don't just pee them out, they can stay in your body and if you are taking in excessive amounts of these nutrients everyday they an accumulate and cause damage to your body. However, if you go over the recommended amount for a day its not going to be harmful.

You can have too high iron content in your blood as well, but I'm pretty sure its the same as vitamins, you would have to be consuming well above the recommended amount regularly to have any problems result

emmerrs

I had 2 slices of Natures own 9 grain bread and 1 whole egg and 1 egg white...
.
i do log a multivitamin....i think my log is showing -16 (from my breakfast) already. and i just didnt understand it..alot of the deficit things im still foggy on.

Well I don't know the specifics of your vitamins but eggs contain approx. 1mg of iron each, if you already got 100% or close to the recommended amount for iron from your multivitamin then that could be what put you over for the day.

If your multivitamin doesn't have that much iron in each one though, the goals from MFP might be off and you can change them in the goals section.

If you are only over by a few mg i wouldn't worry about it. (Even though seeing those red minus signs is just SO disappointing )

MisdemeanorM

I had 2 slices of Natures own 9 grain bread and 1 whole egg and 1 egg white...
.
i do log a multivitamin....i think my log is showing -16 (from my breakfast) already. and i just didnt understand it..alot of the deficit things im still foggy on.

edit: and i do have a history of anemia..so maybe i shouldnt be concerned about it? i havent had it checked in a couple years though

Ah. so your multivitamin has 100% of your daily "needed" iron intake (i use quotes because it's a general # made to fit the entire population... we know those are not totally accurate). Then you get some iron from your food too. So, if you are at -16 you are at 116% of our daily "needed" iron intake. (Like someone else said, your body is not absorbing ALL of this iron so it's not like that is how much you are ACTUALLY getting, and especially for someone who runs anemic even 200% of your daily intake is not bad , plus people need different amounts. (personally, I need a multi vitamin, iron in my food, and an occasional iron supplement as well) The iron from the food will be best absorbed and the iron from the supplement can be considered "insurance" that you are getting enough.)

The program on the site is just formated in a way that makes it red and negative. The results or what that means needs to be interpreted a little. Like being "over" on fiber or protein is not bad - it is just reaching a minimum recommended amount.

If you know what your own PERSONAL iron goal should be - like maybe 150% of the daily suggested level (I dont know if MFP is set for the recommended amt for women or men...) but you can go into the GOALS option and select manual and you can change the % to your personal goal so that the number won't be negative anymore.

Aimee_PD

thank you all for your help!
slowly but surely i will figure out all these numbers :-) THATS the challenging part!