Three Health Checks Worth Doing Before You Go Vegetarian

Three Indicators Worth Checking

• A complete blood count (with attention to hemoglobin): to see whether you're already leaning toward anemia
• Vitamin D levels: both vegetarians and non-vegetarians can run low, so it helps to know ahead of time so you can supplement specifically
• Baseline weight and body fat: as a starting point to compare against after the transition

Why Check in Advance

A lot of the “discomfort” people notice after going vegetarian actually traces back to issues that existed before the transition but simply hadn't been caught yet—mild anemia, for instance. Knowing your baseline in advance helps you figure out whether any changes you notice after going vegetarian are actually caused by the diet change.

No Need to Overthink It

Most of these checks are already included in standard physical exam packages and don't cost much. There's no need to arrange complicated testing just because you're going vegetarian.

Advice for Beginners

Treat the checkup as a chance to learn about your own body, not as a “test you have to pass before you're allowed to eat vegetarian.” Most healthy adults don't need any special clearance to try a vegetarian diet. And if the results show a certain indicator is near the borderline, that's not a reason to abandon the idea either—treat it as a heads-up, and pay closer attention to that particular nutrient as you adjust your diet. It's worth holding on to your test results so you can compare them when you get checked again in six months or a year, to see what real changes your diet has brought about.