Thread: Experience with Vitamin D and weight loss?

I'm having a hard time losing weight (need to lose about 140 pounds) and I know my Vitamin D levels are low - according to my rheumatologist they are at about 21 which he said was pretty low. I'll see my diabetes doc next week and he is supposed to address the low Vit D. As of today I had lost 2 pounds in a month. I've been gaining and losing 2-3 pounds the entire time. Today I'm cutting back on cards even more to the Berstein levels of 6-12-12 and I'm going to see what happens now. But I was wondering if anyone has any experience with low vit D and its affect on their weight loss.

thanks so much for the article Virginia

Good article, thanks!

Wow I guess my D level at 21 is pretty low then and I'm certainly having a hard time with losing the weight. If it every stops raining and snowing I'm going to sit outside for 15 minutes every day.

Originally Posted by Terese

I take a lot of Vit D. my last blood test in Dec, i was at 130 ng/mL

The test "flagged" it as high, but my DOC was pleased saying i should be over 100.

the caplets i have are 10,000IU

so if i remember to take all my vitamins in a day, i get 21,000 IU of VitD3.

like i said, it's a lot.

Is it helping with my weight loss... i have no idea. But i do know, when i wasn't losing [the past 8 yrs] I was not taking any and my VitD count was very low. Coincidence -- maybe.....

I just looked back in my records... and i can not find any VitD readings on any of the blood tests.
I guess I did not get any copies from the past year. Just 7/09 and 12/10

all the other blood test, that were about every 6-8 weeks was VitD and Thyriod - not full blood panel.

I wish i knew the counts, so i could have known how low i was before... buy my Doc has been testing me for about a yr now.

Here is a sight that has an interesting article about Vit. D

Normally vitamin D wasn't tested until recently when studies showed how huge an impact it had on general health, especially the "diseases of civilization" . It had always been assumed that 400 IU daily was enough, and it was enough for bone development. The studies showed that Vitamin D played a big role in how your body mends itself and fights/recovers from inflammation. Here in Canada they tested people for it for a while, then stopped, now they only test if you ARE taking vit D to make sure levels are high enough, if you aren't taking the vitamin, instead of testing, your doctor tells you to take it, no need to test for what you already know. If you live in Canada it's a given you will have low vitamin D as the sun isn't high enough in the sky to provide it from October to March and the human body doesn't store this vitamin. The Canadian Cancer Society recommends Vitamin D supplements for everyone especially during those months. Not all of Canada is as far north as you might think. The area around the Great Lakes is where the vast majority of Canadians live and is further south than most of New York state, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts most of Michigan, and most of Wisconsin west through Washington states so this applies to a lot of Americans as well. As for sitting outside for 15 minutes a day, you need 10 to 15 minutes of full body exposure (no sunscreen) to the sun around midday 3 times a week, I forget how far south you need to be for that. Like I said, where most of us live the sun isn't high enough for half the year to make any Vitamin D. The recommendation is 2000 IU daily. Also, Vitamin D needs to be taken with a fat, as it's fat soluable (which is why it was added to dairy and margarine) to be most effective. A good way to make sure your body can access the vitamin is to take it with a good quality fish oil capsule. We take ours with fish oil sourced from either seal or wild fish...salmon, mackerel, etc. Vitamin D is hard to find in food although synthetic forms have been added to dairy products, margarine, etc. for years. I think canned salmon is one of the best food sources.

Vitamin D is probably linked to maintaining a healthy body weight, according to research carried out at the Medical College of Georgia, USA.

It may be an important way to arm the immune system against disorders like the common cold, say scientists from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston.

Vitamin D may have a key role in helping the brain to keep working well in later life, according to a study of 3000 European men between the ages of 40 and 79.

It can reduce the severity and frequency of asthma symptoms, and also the likelihood of hospitalizations due to asthma, researchers from Harvard Medical School found after monitoring 616 children in Costa Rica.

It has been shown to reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis in women.

Various studies have shown that people with adequate levels of vitamin D have a significantly lower risk of developing cancer, compared to people with lower levels. Vitamin D deficiency was found to be prevalent in cancer patients regardless of nutritional status, in a study carried out by Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

I've been very lax on taking my VitD ... and I have to go in for blood work very soon... i'm sure that will be an issue with him, if my count is low.