Micronutrient Deficiency—sounds scary, doesn’t it!  Well, if you are not currently taking steps to avoid it, then maybe you should be a little frightened.  That’s because any time your body isn’t getting enough of the essential micronutrients, (vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids) it can’t perform optimally.  Maybe at first it is just a few sleepless nights or poor nail or hair strength. However, when these deficiencies are not corrected, over a period of time, these same gaps in your vitamins and minerals can lead to the numerous health conditions and lifestyle diseases plaguing America today including cancer, obesity, diabetes, or osteoporosis (which I was diagnosed with back at age 30 and reversed in only 2 years.)

Here are 5 reasons you may be deficient:

1: Statistics say you are!

That’s right!  The USDA actually reports that statistically speaking you have a greater than 90% chance of being deficient in your vitamins and minerals.

2. You Exercise.

While it is true that exercise is good for the body, it is also important to know that vigorous exercise depletes the body of essential micronutrients (think Gatorade pouring out through pores of athletes in those commercials.) The electrolytes (a fancy name for micronutrients) are depleted rapidly while antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, E, CoQ10 and alpha lipoic acid are utilized faster in order to reduce the cellular oxidative damage caused by exercise.

3. You Follow a Diet Plan.

Did you know that while most diet programs, even bestselling programs written by MDs and famous nutritionists, succeed at getting you to lose weight, they also have the potential to leave you more micronutrient deficient than before you started them? So, while you succeed at losing a pant size or two you may be increasing your risk of a deficiency-induced slower metabolism, increased food cravings, or even a heart condition or diabetes. Our recently published study in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition revealed that 4 popular diet plans, even when followed and analyzed down to the last grain of salt, leave dieters on average 56% deficient in their essential vitamins and minerals. And if programs written by world-renowned nutrition specialists can’t fill your micronutrient needs, then what do you think the chances are that you fill them without even trying?  Not good.

4. You Crave Salty or Sweet Foods.

Does that little voice in your head ever call out for a sweet or salty treat? Well, the Crave Cycle may be to blame! When you eat something sweet and sugar goes into your body the sugar blocks the absorption of essential minerals, including calcium and magnesium. And scientific studies have proven that a deficiency in these two micronutrients actually causes sugar cravings! That's right, the act of eating sugar literally makes you want more sugar. And if your body cries out for salty snacks over sweet ones, research shows that salt cravings are often due to a calcium deficiency. When you eat something salty the sodium temporarily increases calcium in the blood, which tricks your body into thinking the calcium deficiency is over. However, while this may temporarily satisfy your salt craving, the secreted bone calcium leads to an exacerbated calcium deficiency and further salt cravings. This viscous Crave Cycle is a definitely a deficiency indicator. (Watch a video on the crave cycle here.)

5. Life Can Be Stressful.

Stress is something that most, if not all, of us have in our lives more often than we would like. As it turns out, stress depletes the body’s resources of water-soluble micronutrients such as the B vitamins, vitamin C and all of the minerals.

Do any of those 5 factors affect your life?  If they do, and they likely do, then you may well be falling deficient in some of your essential micronutrients.  Improving your diet, changing a few lifestyle habits and taking a properly formulated multivitamin would be a very wise solution so that these nutritional gaps don’t create lifestyle conditions and diseases in your body. To find out more, we suggest you take our FREE 50 questions Micronutrient Sufficiency Assessment Quiz.  Knowing whether or not your body is getting the essential micronutrients it needs to perform optimally is the first step towards becoming the vital, vivacious, healthiest you that you can be! What are you waiting for? Take your FREE assessment here now!