Vegan for 1 month...lightheaded and dizzy

Jules

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Aug 31, 2015
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  1. Vegan newbie
Hi folks,

I have just found and joined this forum - hello!

I have been vegan for approx 1 month now and over the past 2 weeks I have been feeling very dizzy, lightheaded and tired, particularly in the mornings. My typical diet is as below:

Breakfast - Oats with soy milk and strawberries (fresh) and cup of fresh orange juice
Snacks - handful of almonds and 1 trek protein bar, popcorn
Lunch - Veg fingers and spinach and hummus in wholemeal wrap(2), crisps
Dinner - Brown rice, mushroom and vegan sausage and bean bolognese, chips
I also drink about 4 glasses of water and x3 coffee and soy milk

Supplements I take daily are a multivitamin, liquid iron, B12 nugget...

If anyone can advise on any thing missing or has any suggestions it would be appreciated!
 
Hi. It would help to know what diet you kept to before you tried a month of veganism. Were you omnivorous, vegetarian (lacto, ovo?)? Are you meeting your daily caloric needs? Vegan foods tend to be less calorie-dense.

One mineral that tends to trip up vegan newbies is iodine. I had this issue too. Vegan sources of iodine are sea vegetables. Crispy seaweed, seaweed rolls (sushi), samphire, or kelp tablets all help. Also, if you are female, does your being light-headed coincide with your menstrual cycle? You might find that veganism changes your cycle a bit. In fact, I would recommended coming off oral contraception (if you take it) for the first few months of being vegan so that you can keep an eye on what your period is doing (often a good barometer of overall health if you are of a fertile age). When you feel comfortable about it, you can go back to taking the pill.

Your body might not be used to having so many complex carbohydrates and sugars at first - veganism is generally a diet higher in natural fructose etc.. People who do not exercise often report 'sugar comas'. I always drink ginger tea when I feel dizzy in the mornings.

I would say that your sample diet for a day seems to be low in leafy greens (I would say one dose of spinach is not enough), and leafy greens are full of all the minerals required for good blood and cardiac function. Lastly, coffee and caffeinated drinks are not a good source of hydration as they are diuretics. That means they promote the excretion of water, rather than hydrate the body. Four cups of water is not enough, and artificially stimulating the body with caffeine, on any diet, is not going to help you in the long term.

Hope this helps!
 
Hello my friend, I have been vegan for 6 month and I'm feeling perfectly with a lot more energy than before. But I also had a few problems at the beginning. One month is nothing, your body is still in the middle of a big change, feeling not at 100% is normal when you do a big change like that. Your diet is not bad so just keep going and don't worry too much. When there is a big change in your lifestyle your body try to adapt and you may feel tired those days.
For example when a smoker stops smoking he starts coughing a lot and expels a lot of mucus in the following days. That's not a good reason to say...hey I was feeling better before when I was smoking!!, lets start smoking again!!
Hope this may help you.
bye :)