QuestionI am a healthy 24 yr old female 150 lbs, 5'9" (dropped 3 lbs so now about 147), who exercises about 3-4 times weekly. The only diet that works for me is a low carb diet. I just want to make sure i am taking the right supplements and get your opinion on the diet itself. I've been on it for about 3 days now, and have already lost like 3 lbs. (shows you how carb addicted i was). I eat a lot of nuts, peanut butter, meats, cheeses, eggs, and so on. What saves me on this diet is the nuts and peanut butter. I take a multivitamin every other day and i just started taking flax seed oil vitamins when i take the multivitamin so that i dont have to worry about constipation. What i worry about is biotin, my friend got severe on this diet and didn't eat any carbs and she started losing her hair from biotin loss, she went to her dr. and he told her she had like no biotin. So i was thinking about getting an extra biotin supplement since the multivitamin had only 27% of the daily recomended dose. Would you recomend this? What are your thoughts on this anyways? How often am i able to take a break on this diet to eat some bread or ice cream every now and then? I'm actually not craving anything much and i can't believe the weight i've already lost. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! I always feel great when i'm on this diet too! Thx!
AnswerHi Darcie,
Biotin is an essential nutrient and a part of the B-family of vitamins. Low-carb reduced-calorie diets have been known to cause insufficient intake of B-group vitamins along with calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc.
You are right, biotin is necessary for healthy hair, skin and nails and if thiis becomes a problem on your diet, it does make sense to increase its itake by suuplemens. Suggested Daily Value for Biotin: 300 mcg for adults. There is no evidence to know what the effects might be of taking ove-doses of biotin supplements, but there's a recommendation to limit biotin intake by 500 mcg a day. However, the UK advice regarding upper dozes of biotin is 2,000 mcg a day.
Where you get Biotin naturally: Cheese, beef liver, cauliflower, eggs, mushrooms, chicken breast, salmon and spinach. To give you an estimation on how real is to get all necessary biotin from foods: in 1 kg of liver, there's 100 mcg of biotin, in plant-based food, 10 times less.
You might want to read about balancing a low carb diet in my article here: http://www.dietandbody.com/article1055.html
Tanya Zilberter
Contact me at http://www.dietandbody.com/mfeedback.html
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