Earlier in 2014 we both found out we had a Vitamin D deficiency. Makes complete sense really! We’d been working 9-5, 5 days a week in an office… we were starving of sunlight! So of course we were deficient in Vitamin D! Most office workers do in fact have a Vitamin D deficiency.
If you’re deficient in Vitamin D the symptoms are not obvious. They can include things like low moods, low immunity and aching bones. What it can lead to is the scary stuff which includes the flu, depression, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease, weak bones and cancer. Enough of that… all we know is that we want more Vitamin D! But how do we get more Vitamin D?
Since we’ve now quit our office jobs (hallelujah!) and merrymake full time we have control of how we spend our days. So 15-20 minutes of sunlight is easy to add! We pull out the picnic blanket and lie in the sun! While we’re out in the sun we either brainstorm ideas, meditate or listen to music/sing very loud (we swear our neighbours must think we’re bonkers! We’re ok with this!). Don’t worry, we’re sun safe! We use natural sunscreen (like the Eco Tan brand) if we’re outside longer than 20 minutes, otherwise we’d turn into lobsters.
We’ve also introduced a Vitamin D supplement because let’s be honest… sometimes we just don’t make it out in to the sunshine! This way we know we’re getting our daily dose of Vitamin D guaranteed! During our search for the perfect Vitamin D supplement, we found that a lot of them were made from animal sources. They use something called Lanolin which is a waxy substance that comes from the glands in sheep’s skin and is usually heavily chemically treated.
Don’t worry there’s always another option, we just need to look a little harder! A huge WOOHOO to Nature’s Way for creating the Whole Foods supplement range. We first mentioned the Whole Foods supplement range here. It’s a Vitamin range made of real whole plant based food. The Whole Food’s Vitamin D supplement is made from Lichen. Lichen is a nutrient rich green plant source that grows on rocks, trees and other locations in North America, Asia and Scandinavia… and guess what? It’s packed full of Vitamin D3!
Each Nature’s Way Whole Foods Vitamin D3 tablet has 500 IU (this stands for international units) of Vitamin D and the daily recommended dose here in Australia is 200 IU. So take the supplement and boom, you’re done!
Here at Merrymaker HQ we think you can go one step even further by adding Vitamin D rich foods in to your diet (plus… let’s not forget about the sun!).
Sun + supplement + these Vitamin D Rich foods:
- fatty fish like salmon, tuna and trout (try find wild caught) are great sources of Vitamin D plus they’re packed with omega 3s! We love our coconut and macadamia crusted salmon.
- eggs, the yolks in particular are packed with Vitamin D! This makes us super happy, we are huge egg fans!
- MUSHROOMS! Yay! Because we LOVE mushies! Have them for breakfast!
- beef liver. This is on our 2015 goal list, bring on the offal!
Always Merrymaking,
Emma + Carla
We’d like to say a huge thanks to Nature’s Way for supporting The Merrymaker Sisters and mention that this is a sponsored post. We feel so privileged to be able to work with great organistaions like Nature’s Way! Read our full disclosure policy here.