30 / What Should You Be Eating When Pregnant? w/ Lily Nichols

Every soon-to-be mom wants to grow a healthy baby. It’s a scary and daunting process and there are so many parts of pregnancy that are just out of your hands. However, you can still get a handle of the parts that are within your control. Perhaps most importantly, this means eating well and getting the nutrients you and your baby need most.

Lily Nichols is a registered dietician and nutritionist specializing in gestational health. She’s a certified diabetes educator, researcher, and author Real Food for Pregnancy (which I’ve read twice!) and Real Food for Gestational Diabetes. These books are incredibly well-researched and full of actionable steps for their readers. Lily is an evangelist for a more holistic approach to nutrition which has been helping countless women live more healthfully.

Today, Lily and I sit down and discuss some of the common misconceptions surrounding good gestational nutrition, the types of foods you should be focusing your diet on, and how to take care of yourself and your baby. Lily debunks some a whole slew of myths and explains how you can eat mindfully in order to help your baby be healthy before it’s even born.

Did you make changes to your diet when pregnant? What influenced those changes? Leave a comment on the episode page!

 

In This Episode

• Foods to eat that have the nutrients needed to support a healthy pregnancy
• Why eggs should not be completely avoided during pregnancy and, in fact, contain some very crucial nutrients
• High-risk foods that pregnant women should avoid
• The importance of getting enough vitamin D during pregnancy and all the positive effects it can have
• How what you eat during pregnancy can determine the genes in your baby that do or don’t get activated
• What to look for in thyroid health when pregnant
• Foods and supplements that may help with nausea

 

Quotes

“We really have to reverse engineer where we’re going to get most of our nutrients from and try to focus on that. Then we look at what are the foods that traditional cultures tend to really emphasize during pregnancy, what nutrients are found in those.” [9:50]

“Women get pregnant and the first question they ask is, ‘what can’t I eat?’ instead of asking ‘what should I eat more of?’. I think these risks of getting sick from food are way overblown.” [13:57]

“You really have to take a step back mindestwise from trying to be ridiculously in control of everything during this time.” [38:38]

 

Links

Find Lily Nichols Online

Follow Lily Nichols on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

Women’s Health Nutrition Academy

 

Real Food for Pregnancy by Lily Nichols

Real Food for Gestational Diabetes by Lily Nichols

 

Check out the full show notes for this episode here

Urban Wellness Clinic

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