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I finally got the test results back from the doc

NuttgirlNuttgirl Raw Newbie

and I am still no closer to finding out why my hair is falling out and really dry. I had a blood test done last week and it came back ok. I don’t have any thyroid troubles and it doesn’t show any iron deficiency either. The only thing that is a little troublesome is that my sugar count is a little high. I really have to watch what I eat because diabetes and high blood pressure run in my family.

I feel so helpless. I am taking enough vitamins so there shouldn’t be any kind of deficiency. I’ve been eating more greens and nuts too. I started eating more seaweed as well. Ugh..

What else do I do?

Comments

  • If you eat the typical raw food diet like many others reading this board do, you probably eat (way) too much fat. If you go to one of the nutritional sites like nutridiary.com or fitday.com and input an average day’s foods then see your total fat percentage. If it is in the 30% or higher range you are best off lowering your fat intake. It’s the fat that causes diabetes and not the sugar. BTW taking supplements in absolutely no way can assure that you are getting enough vitamins and / or minerals. Most (if not all) are single nutrient based and our body was not designed to consume vitamins that way. In fact science doesn’t even understand the complexities of vitamins and minerals, using supplements is just a waste of money and possibly a health risk (IMO).

  • are you getting enough good plant fats? maybe you’re eating too much?

    are you getting enough good plant protein?? maybe too much?

    Do you do any drugs or drink alcohol?

    Do you get regular exercise?

    how is the water where you live? [that which you’d be showering in..]

    What quality/quantity of supplements do you use? Supplements aren’t always a definite solution when deficient. I stopped taking vitamins a while ago and just started eating different varieties of foods..

    Could you provide a few days worth of intake so we know a little bit about what you’re eating?

  • NuttgirlNuttgirl Raw Newbie

    I actually do not eat a lot of fat. I only have a handful of nuts day and maybe 1 avocado a week. I do use olive oil a few times a week though. See below for my typical diet.

    I do not do any drugs, medicinal or recreational nor do I drink.

    As far as supplements I take 2 Viactiv chews a day, 1 chromium picolinate pill a day, 1 B12 pill a day, 1 iron pill a day, and 3 Biotin pills a day. I’ve tried taking some MSM but it wreaks complete havoc with my stomach.

    I am not 100% raw. My typical food intake is something like this:

    Morning: I’m usually in a rush in the a.m. so I usually just eat some fruit.

    Mid Afternoon: Green Smoothie (greens, banana, some other fruit like strawberries,flax seed oil, and water.) I usually do at least 50% greens. I just bought some maca powder so I am going to start adding that into my smoothies too!

    Lunch: Hummus, which is store bought and veggies. More fruit and sometimes some vegan soup.

    Late Snack: Fruit or sometimes raw flax seed crackers.

    Dinner: A big bowl of green salad with veggies and a handful of nuts. Sometimes I use commerical vegan dressing and sometimes I make my own. I also have some cut up veggies usually with some spices and olive oil.

    Snack: Fruit

    Late Snack: Another Green Smoothie

  • pianissimapianissima Raw Newbie

    do you sleep on a full stomach then?

    fruit after dinner isn’t usually a good idea because you would want to eat fruit on an empty stomach (i’m not totally innocent here, but i’m just trying to suggest things that come to mind). maybe you could try proper food combining. it really isn’t as complicated as all those charts. read the section on food combining in the raw food detox diet, if you haven’t already. she makes it pretty down to earth.

    also, maybe you are consuming more fat than you think if you are eating a lot of hummus for lunch. i.e. tahini. OR have you checked to see what kind of oil they use? it might be something like canola oil, which i would avoid at all costs.

    also, i know this is a risky topic to bring up, but i don’t think the human body can digest vitamins in pill form.

    one suggestion would be to keep a journal of everything you do and eat and how you felt for a week and try and notice any patterns from that.

    i hope this gets better…

  • Raw_ChocoholicRaw_Chocoholic Raw Newbie

    I agree with pianissima, if the hummus has canola oil in it, ditch ASAP!

    Thin hair is something I’ve been doing research into lately, so this is what I’ve found:

    You could try eating more garlic, onions, radishes, or arugula for sulfur since you can’t take MSM. Sulfur and fat help digest each other, so eating these with a salad and some dressing would be great.

    Also, be sure to massage your scalp very well, and use rosemary in a hair rinse. Rosemary is very good at stimulating circulation to your scalp.

    Try to eliminate as much unnecessary stress as possible, and/or work on the emotional issues behind them.

    Stinging Nettle tea/juice is rich in iron and silcon (oats are also great for silicon). Nettle leaves are supposed to help clean out the mucous in the colon also.

    Perhaps add some unwashed wild greens to your salads. They’re much higher in minerals and beneficial microbes. Just make sure they haven’t been sprayed.

    Coconut oil should help with stabilizing the blood sugar. Cinnamon is also good.

    I would also recommend reading Eating for Beauty. David Wolf has a hair building salad that I’ve been meaning to try. It’s rich in vit A & zinc. Those vitamins, and sulfur as supposed to work in synergy to create healthy hair.

    Hair-Building Salad Dressing

    ~ 2T poppy seeds (soaked 6h, then drained)

    ~ 2T pumpkin seeds (soaked 6h, then drained)

    ~ 1C water

    ~ 1/2C parsley (chopped)

    ~ 1/2T sea/kelp salt

    ~ 1 lemon (juice of)

    Blend until smooth

    Hair-Building Salad

    ~ 1 pound arugula

    ~ 1 pound watercress

    Optional: garnish with parsley, celery leaves, sliced black radish, red bell peppers, and sprinkle with unsoaked poppy and pumpkin seeds.

    Serves 4.

    Good luck! Hope something in there helps!

    Have you tried testing for allergies?

  • I’d try adding sprouted grains and lentils to your diet.

  • Morning: I

  • NuttgirlNuttgirl Raw Newbie

    I am not contradicting myself at all. Lets not confuse heart healthy fats with unhealthy fats like saturated fats and trans fats. The body needs “good” fats in order to be healthy..ie. nutrient absorption, cell health,etc.. To exclude fat completely from your diet is foolish and very very unhealthy.

    Flax seed oil is a very healthy heart choice. It contains omega-3 ,omega-6 and omega-9 fatty acids and is also wonderful nutrient for your skin, hair, and nails. I can’t imagine any person not taking it, whether they eat raw or otherwise. I prefer to combine it with my smoothies for optimal digestion. I don’t buy into the whole food combining theory so I am not sure why you would say it is not healthy to take it with a banana. It doesn’t upset my stomach at all.

    As far as the hummus I buy it only contains chickpeas, olive oil, tahini, and spices. It’s pretty basic but good. I find that a small amount is filling.

    I did input my diet into fitday and according to it I am in fact eating a low fat diet however I am not consuming enough calories.

    Out of curiosity Socal what is your typical daily diet?

  • What is a heart healthy fat? How can any diet with 70% fat be healthy nomatter what kind of fat it is? (I don’t mean your diet but some people eat that much or more fat)

    You seem to have been taught the misinformation that many people were taught. If you do some research you will find that the amount of covert fats in the vegetables we eat are more than enough fats and in the exact right forms and ratios to be healthy. I don’t want to tell you that you are right or wrong but I just want to show you another viewpoint. Especially if you are concerned about diabetes you really should look at other’s views. If you entered all of the foods in Fitday (including the so called “good” fats) then what was the percentage of fat in your diet?

    Check out the other thread: http://goneraw.com/forums/5/topics/2039

  • NuttgirlNuttgirl Raw Newbie

    I’ve looked into Graham’s 80/10/10 diet but read more negative things than positive about it. He advocates mostly a fruitarian diet with little emphasis on greens. I think his diet is ok for short term use especially if one is very obese. However, from everything I have read about the 80/10/10 diet it doesn’t seem practical or balanced for longterm use. While I do agree with you that a low fat diet is essential for optimal health I think 10% fat intake is very low and very restrictive. That’s like saying you are only allowed 1 teaspoon of olive oil for the day and you can longer eat anything else that might contain fat. Personally, I could never be on such a restrictive diet. But hey, to each his own.

  • Sure, olive oil and all other oils do not exist in nature, in fact nearly all oils sold are heated or processed and are not even raw. Oil is surely not meant to be consumed. Nuts take a lot of work to get to and many like cashews are covered with poison, it would take hours to make a meal from nuts if we didn’t have tools to do it. The only kind of fat that would have been accessible to us is from avocado and other fatty fruits. These also contain other nutrients that nuts and oils do not contain. As I noted before every single health organization, heart, cancer, obesity, etc. advocates a low fat diet of less than 15% of calories from fat in order to benefit from the diet. Dr. Graham did not guess at the 10% number but researched it from publications and consensus. His diet strictly contains 2-5% of calories from greens, if you really researched it you would know this, this equals more than 1 pound of greens a day for someone with a 2000 calorie per day diet. Top olympic athletes have been able to beat their personal best records on his diet, even Demi Moore is eating this diet. People can be healthy without it of course but if someone seeks the best of the best in health, the optimum diet for humans, they will eat this way.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    dunno how serious Demi Moore is about it though So Cal. I just read an interview with her and the journalist described her ordering and drinking a normal cafe latte…

  • SocaL, it’s great if you can follow such a diet, but that’s really difficult for ALL raw foodists. I read a comment just a bit ago about how we shouldn’t use any utensils because we’re being violent to our food. I totally give you props for your food intake … but not everyone can do that. We need to lift up people in ALL stages of their diets and lives, as they are growing at different rates and paces, and that’s perfectly fine.

    Nuttgirl, I agree. I can’t follow a super-restrictive diet either. At least not right now. Maybe as I evolve with my food intake, as I already have (a SAD to a veggie diet to a vegan diet to a raw diet in varying degrees, 100% for half a year, now about 70ish%).

    I’ll be honest, I’m a bit concerned with so many posts about women losing their hair! Perhaps it is old hair leaving so better hair can grow in? But it also makes me wonder about nutritional deficiencies. Often people who aren’t eating enough calories (anorexics and bulimics for example) will begin losing their hair. I fail to see how too much fat will cause hair loss – if that were the case, wouldn’t all Americans on the SAD be completely bald? And what about Italians? They eat a diet high in good fats, yet have luxurious hair (for the most part, I know this is kind of a blanket statement). Heck, what about me? I still eat cooked peanut butter by the spoonfuls, albeit natural, but I have a head FULL of thick hair.

    What percent raw are you NuttGirl, and how many calories are you consuming on a daily basis? Do you eat a lot of nuts and seeds and fats, like avocadoes?

  • I have no falling out hair problem on raw diet and my results are fine. However, I also experience a bit of dry hair although I keep using the same products as before. So I asked my raw teacher and she told me that some sort of seaweed should be in my diet every day, she also recommended the Gabriel Cousens superfood mix. I also add a teaspoon of raw coconut oil/butter to my green smoothies every day, grapeseed powder and the powder of another fruit (I don’t know the name in English, sorry, it’s an orange coloured, very sour berry, grows in Hungary) and I experienced an improvement in dry hair. Bitter cucumber might be helpful too (not in season though).

  • Springfairy:
    Maybe you mean sallow thorn (by the orange berries)?

  • Hi Nuttgirl. There is no one answer to this question. Some people have a head full of thick hair throughout their lifetime and eat a poor diet and others will begin losing hair at an early age no matter how healthy their diet is. Other factors including genetics, stress and environment contribute to hair health. My suggestion is to get a hormonal panel blood test done. Hormonal imbalance may be a causative factor in hair loss for both women and men. Also don’t feel bad about taking a nutritional supplement. I have been through this debate before with SoCal and others and I won’t argue about it any further, but for many, a good quality B complex or multi nutrient formula may help and WILL NOT hurt you. I suggest MegaFood, which uses a hydroponic process to manufacture their supplements as ‘food grown’ they are the closest thing to obtaining your micronutrients through food sources. Adding a bit of oil such as flax and coconut may also be a good idea.

  • itouristitourist Raw Newbie

    When odd things are happening to your body, it is telling you something is wrong.

    I took a lot of supplements when I first went raw. My face had nasty breakouts for a year until I quit the supplements…and I quit consuming nuts daily (mold in nuts not good).

    Most of the omega 3 fats can go rancid on you. I was probably eating “expensive” package as high quality but actually low quality junk (flax seed oil, cod liver oil, B12).

    God put all the vitamins you need in the fruits and vegetables. My eyebrows got thicker and my hair returned to shiny when I learned how to do “raw” correctly. Raw means raw, not something you happened to buy at the health food store, not pasteurized, bottled juices.

    The only supplement I do take is twice a day I take one tablespoon of extra virgin coconut oil. And I don’t drink coconut milk through out the day like some raw people appear to do.

  • itouristitourist Raw Newbie

    More (after reading through some of the comments above)

    I do eat my own seaweed salad 4 times a week.
    I get dried packs for 99 cents (about 4 servings per pack) at the oriental store. To it I add cut parsley and green onions. I drizzle ev olive oil on it and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before I eat it.

    Seaweed pull out the bad stuff in addition to providing good stuff.

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    So many things to comment on! There are many threads on hair lately.

    I just want to say to keep this in mind – Many people seem to use the hair of SAD eaters as a perfect example of what everyones hair should be like. If we are raw foodists. whose hair grown on our heads is grown from a completley different nutritional intake than the SAD eater, why should our hair ever be the same as theirs? We are different from them so we should not have the same results. Don;t forget too that those people who are on the SAD diets consume over 5 times the amount of protein needed by the body – hair is one of the last places to get nutrition – I believe all that extra protein goes to forming their hair which might be one possible explanation of why some have so much hair. Keep in mind too – if these people went raw vegan – they might start shedding hair by the loads – their bodies never get to detox at all!

    We have always been told to think that if our hair is falling out – there is something wrong with us – it means we need vitamins and such to fix the problem. I think our bodies know what to do. Just eat foods that are good for the hair and be patient and the rest will be taken care of. It is stressful, yes, to lose the hair because we were always told that the thick, shiney head of hair is the image of perfect health. Is it? Are all those SAD eaters with great looking hair healthy?

    I will admit that I love having that nice thick fluffy head of hair too (which is not really the case for me – my hair isn’t really thick or anything) and I do stress out a bit when it starts to seem thinner or I see more hairs shedding out. But than I remind myself how the hair and body works and I don’t feel as stressed about it.

    I would be interesting to have a study done comparing the hair of SAD eaters to raw vegan eaters. I am wondering if the structure or chemical makeup of the hair (analysis under a microscope and maybe some other tests) would show a big difference in what makes up the hair? Right now, they say hair is mostly protein – would it show a big percentage of protein if it were the hair of a long time raw vegan foodie?

    Also, another point to ponder is whether or not the hair on our heads was really meant to be very thick at all. If everyone evolved eating a raw vegan diet, the hair on our heads might be very different and nothing like the head of hair we all want so badly that we consider to be the perfect head of hair.

    I think one of the thing I might start doing is to “give” some of my hair back to nature. For now on, I am going to take all those hairs that come out in my comb and brush and throw them outside instead of in the garbage. I am thinking that birds might be able to use my hairs to help weave their nests! :) (I used to work with birds so I know what sort of bizarre things they use to make their nests! It is amazing!)

    Just some “thinking outside the box” thoughts that we might want to consider pondering when our hair starts getting thiner….:)

  • stibizi, thanks, i think it’s sallow thorn. :) I love it as juice and i love the taste of the powder as well.

  • alpdesignsalpdesigns Raw Newbie

    Nuttgirl, I think that if you have tried seaweed and MSM and are still having problems, I would check to see if you have candida albicans overgrowth. I doubt that a traditional doctor even considers this as a source of illness. Hair follicles can be damaged by parasites/yeast. I posted a link about this on another thread about hair loss. I’ll see if I can find it and I will post it again. It might even be stress related. Lots of things can cause hair loss.

  • NuttgirlNuttgirl Raw Newbie

    Socal, I did research Dr. Graham’s diet before I went raw and like I said I read more negative things about it than good. I find it to be incredibly restrictive and not balanced for long term use. I’m in this for the long haul so to speak. I don’t know many raw foodists who are able to maintain that sort of restrictive diet for a long term basis or even the rest of their life. Oh, just because something does exist in nature that doesn’t mean it is always good for you. I wouldn’t be so quick to decry certain food groups like nuts and oils. They serve an important function when eaten in moderation. As far as Demi Moore I think a butt load of plastic surgery had more affect on her overall appearance than anything! Hey, when you have that kind of disposable income you can afford to look anyway you want.

    As far as the hair issue, well I’m still having it! I used to have such a thick head of hair. Luckily I don’t have any bald spots but I am concerned about that happening with all the hair I am losing. I did make an apt. with a dermatologist in a few weeks. I feel good and I don’t exhibit any signs of being ill but I want to be able to eliminate any underlying disease because that is always a concern.

  • This seems to be said a lot, but I’m not sure if anyone’s addressed it here yet?

    ... Hair needs to detox, like everything else. Our bodies are changing to accommodate a new way of eating. The old hair must fall out for new hair to grow in. Eventually, or so I’ve heard, new hair grows in thicker and better than before.

    My hair also seems to be falling out a little more than normal… I’m really not concerned about it. I figure, if hair is falling out, its either a sign of detox or its a sign of something far more serious going on in the body. I don’t think hair loss is a problem, but more of a symptom.

    Eh. I’m not sure that post was helpful, lol.

  • The easiest way for a human out-and-about in the woods to get a good meal is to eat carrion, pick bugs off the bottom of a log, steal eggs from nests, pick lice off your neighbor, or hit the neighbor over the head and eat him. I do not think this “doctrin of signatures” type diet put together by Graham really understands our pre-history at all. Fruit is a very seasonal food over most of our range, and ‘oily fruits’ such as olives and avocados are, in nature, rare and highly regional. Nuts, however, are almost global, and anyone with a rock and no aesthetics can crush and eat a few pounds at a sitting. African chimpanzees still do it this way. The now extinct California Indian tribes ate sweet acorns as the main staple of their diet for thousands of years. (The overwhelming plenty of this food was the main reason they did not know warfare, and why they were so easily crushed by… us.) I am surprised a California girl didn’t know this.
    Soooo… what did we eat when there was no fruit?
    I myself cannot live on ‘tender leaves’ alone for 3 or 4 months, while waiting for the fruit to ripen. Especially when most tender wild plants are very bitter.
    Have you ever had dandelion? Wild mustard? Wild lettuce? They are seasonal plants, and their bitterness increases with age. You would need to eat constantly, because these plants are mostly water and fiber, almost no calories. Now imagine eating nothing else for just one whole day. Ugh.
    There is also the transport issue. Greens have to be eaten on the spot. They don’t pack well.
    I am sorry, but I am a scientist. I have not read this book, as I am not really into ‘fad’ diets and ‘cure all’ claims.
    Does Graham advocate eating bugs?

  • I do agree with forestlyone- It could be hormonal (are you 40-ish, by chance?), or it could be your parentage. Did BOTH of your parents have georgeous hair at your age? If not, it may simply be your lot in life to have hair like mine. I also agree with some of what itourist says. Although I am very fond of nuts, I have noticed my hair and skin improve dramatically when I eat avocado regularly. Unfortunately, avocado is insanely expensive in Alaska, so I have to be content with what I’ve got… nuts.

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