Donate Blood

[Germanjenny]

Can I donate blood while doing the Whole30? I feel absolutely fine and have no side effects from doing the Whole30.

My company offers a blood donation at the end of the month on day 29 of my Whole30. I don't see any concerns. Has someone donated blood while being on a Whole30?

Thank you in advance.

[laura_juggles]

Why wouldn't you be able to donate blood on a Whole30? Just bring something compliant to eat afterwards and drink plenty of water. I donated blood a couple days after my Day 30 (hadn't yet started reintros because I was being lazy about it) and it was fine.  

[Germanjenny]

Perfect. Thank you. I will give it a try then and be prepped with compliant snacks.

 

[kirkor]

Just think, you're going to be donating blood of much higher quality!

[NoMoreCrunchyCravings]

I donated blood after my second Whole 30 (which was only a month after my first Whole 30) and my hematocrit was much higher than it'd been in my adult life, which I can only attribute to the higher quality foods I was eating, especially the high iron containing foods. I tried again in the autumn after eating back to my old habits again (not that healthy at all) for several months and my hematocrit was fairly low, like 33... probably because I'd been eating so much ice cream and chips instead of olives and protein salad! I hope to be able to donate again this winter after I've been eating better again.

[kate.g]

I would say there shouldn't be a huge issue but I donated blood two days ago, 17 days into my first Whole 30, and had some negative effects. I am a 20 year old college student and fairly petite, but figured I weighed 120 or 130 lbs, and didn't even think about weighing myself before donating. I nearly passed out and felt extremely fatigued, and my hemoglobin was on the low end. I stopped Whole 30 immediately and just tried to eat as much as possible, weighed myself the next day and realized I was right on the border of 110, which meant I was very likely under the legal weight limit when donating. My only caution would be to weigh yourself before donating to make sure you haven't accidentally lost a lot of weight - I think I've just been eating a lot less especially since I don't eat meat and it's hard to find Whole 30 approved foods all the time in the dining halls, so I lost more weight than I realized! Other than that, I would say that you would probably be fine, just eat a lot of iron-filled foods before hand and drink a LOT of extra water the day before and day of! (Again, I should have known better, I'm a nursing student...)