Giving Blood and eating more?

Valqis

I just got done donating blood, and I know that you are supposed to drink an extra 32 oz of water to help replenish the blood, but are you also supposed to eat more (other than the cookies and juice that they provide you when you are finished)? I was just curious.

aippolito1

I'm interested to see answers to this 'cause I need to give blood soon!

CharityD

Good for you!
Drinking lots of water is the most important thing, but you can eat some leafy greens and/or meat today to replenish the iron you have lost.

jennbarrette

Here is a quote I found - Mayo clinic says that 650 calories are "burned" through giving a pint of blood.

Valqis

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... if it is an extra 650 "burned", how do you log that on exercise so you don't go over on calories?

firegirlred

You definitely need to eat more iron-I recommend spinach or a bowl of life cereal. Eating 650 calories to replace what you've given in blood? You're cheating yourself. I would definitely consider eating more while remaining under your maintenance calories, but those calories are burned over a longer period of time than a day. Your body will make up that fluid lost in about 24 hours, but it may take up to eight weeks to replace the blood cells. That's why you can't donate more often than eight weeks. If it took less time than that, you'd be able to give blood more often.

http://www.querycat.com/question/9b83a606b9900b78f98332d4560ab4d1

OddSquid

Forget that entire line of donating blood equaling 650 free calories for the day. It's absolutely faulty reasoning -- I just saw the same claims on another message board but no actual evidence to back it up. Just a bunch of people claiming they saw it on the Mayo Clinic site (which doesn't carry that piece of information, BTW).

The info sheet they gave you for aftercare should explain everything about exercising and eating after donating.

courtney_love2001

Just eat more iron. I would definitely not eat 650 extra calories...They are encouraging you to eat more so you can quickly replenish iron stores so you don't develop transient anemia.