Vitamin D

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Have you tried sun exposure? You might start out with exposing as much of your body as you're comfortable with to 15 minutes of direct sunlight on one side, then turn and do 15 minutes the other, weather conditions permitting. If it's chilly, you might just expose your arms and face and cover everything else with a blanket. I don't know how you can remain deficient if you're taking large doses, but that sounds dangerous because vitamin D can hurt you if you get too much of it. If you're having trouble absorbing it, then sunlight might be just the thing for you because your skin will make megadoses of the stuff in one sitting if you're deficient, but if you've got too much your skin will also destroy it, so you won't overdose that way.

Vitamin D is fat-soluble, as opposed to water soluble, which easily gets broken down and filtered. So be careful that you don't go in the other direction and take too many supplements. It can be toxic if your body can't break down the higher concentrations. It's best to check with a doctor or nutritionist.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's an absorption issue for me, so getting more sun would probably work better. I'll definitely try that as soon as we have some sun to get.

My dosage was prescribed by my doctor, but I'm kind of annoyed that she just keeps upping the dosage instead of trying to figure out why I'm deficient.

In the summer I will be going for long runs in the sun. No wind will stop me.

I eat a lot of veggies, eggs, and mushrooms (usually how I start a typical day for breakfast). I also started cooking everything with lard, which is supposed to be jam packed with vitamin D (as long as the pigs it came from get regular sunlight).

LARD?

According to this One Egg, on average should contain 25 IU of Vitamin D

http://www.ehow.com/facts_4827358_vitam ... foods.html

So even if you eat half a dozen a day you are getting a relatively low dosage since it should perhaps be between 4000-8000 IU per day.

Sunlight is your friend but you need a lot of it and need to be walking about practically naked if you are as far north as a little bit up Europe, or America.

Yes, made the old fashioned way, by melting down pig fat at home and draining/filtering it off into liquid form. It's what our grandparents did, well mine did anyway.

FWIW, lard is surprisingly health neutral. It's mostly monounsaturated fat (good for you) and the bulk of the saturated fat is stearic acid, which has no effect on blood cholesterol levels.

Interesting talk here about the effects of animal fats on the body:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uDwq_DyiTM

The medical community has learned sooooooo much more since the mid 80's. That was a time when it seemed like a fantastic idea to replace butter with margarine and lard with things like Crisco, supposedly to get healthier. It turns out that the replacements were FAR worse than what we started with, as both were loaded with trans faty acids, which we've only recently come to discover are horrendously bad for us - raising LDL (raising both LDL-A and the deadly LDL-B, and neither was known about in the 80's), lowering the good HDL, and spiking triglycerides.

We also cut out eggs in the 80's for some unknown reason, when it was known a long time ago that dietary cholesterol has very little impact on blood cholesterol (ie less than 10%). That was also a time that we adopted high fructose corn syrup as a mass replacement of cane sugar, though that was done more for economic reasons, but we're seeing today what that's done to our food supply and how much sugar/HFCS the average american consumes (160 lbs per year).

Now experts from the American Dietetics Association are doing a 180, saying that it's likely that the low fat diet is what is causing heart disease, due to increasing the level of carbohydrates that are consumed (again, the replacement is worse that what was there originally). See http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Scienc ... on-experts

This doctor knows what he is talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x38WyAVTvYk

We all need fat but it is best sources from seeds, nuts and raw oils, plus maybe eggs and milk if they are raw organic.

That's funny, I was just looking at something on his website today. He's dead on right about the idea of packing as much vitamins and minerals per calorie, which has been going down with mass produced factory farming, for both fruits/veggies and most meats. The fat in the cows that are corn fed in CAFO's is empty fat calories, while grass fed cows get nutrients from the grass and store it in their fat (and grass fed cows are naturally much leaner than artificially fattened cows). When it comes to the meats we eat, what THEY eat is important because we are what WE eat. If the things we eat lack vitamins and minerals, we have to eat much more of them to get what we need, and that's just adding unneeded calories into our diet.

The thing about olive oil being bad in the info block is true too. Too much polyunsaturated fat can reverse the positive effects of olive oil, and make your HDL levels fall. That's just pure EVOO. The lesser grades of olive oil used for cooking are highly susceptible to rancidity and oxidation, even before you apply heat to them. Their smoke point is much lower than compared to natural animal fat products like lard and tallow.

In total agreement with you there.

I use extra virgin olive oil but really need to start using less because i think i eat too much nuts for my own good. they are too more-ish.

A guy sent me this website about what is wrong with milk. very very detailed and worth a bookmark for future reference.
http://notmilk.com/

At home I have wheatgrass powder which is extremely nutrient dense. Just stick a tea spoon of it in water once a day. I also eat Maca powder which is a hormone adaptogen meaning that is balances low or high hormones.

Another often over looked thing as well is the body PH level. We should all aim to be well Alkalised, as the majority of disease forms due to Acidic body conditions. Lots of Garlic and Ginger for me.
http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/a ... _list.html