27 Lily Nichols, Author of REAL FOOD FOR PREGNANCY, on Her Birth Story and Healthy Diet for Mom

Pregnancy nutrition expert Lily Nichols sits down with Heidi to discuss her books Real Food for Pregnancy and Real Food For Gestational Diabetes, which are honest and entertaining step-by-step educational resources for all of mom’s nutrition-related questions. Lily addresses caffeine intake, how to add more protein to your diet when your morning sickness lasts the whole day, to exactly what your prenatal vitamins do for you. Lily's favorite baby product is the Vitamix blender.

Looking for a Virtual Doula to create a custom birthing experience and guide you through your journey to parenthood in the United States? Contact Heidi at www.mydoulaheidi.com

For additional free birth education resources and to purchase Heidi’s book, Birth Story: Pregnancy Guidebook + Journal, visit www.birthstory.com.

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TRANSCRIPTION

What does a contraction feel like? How do I know if I'm in labor and what does the day of labor look like? Wait, is this normal? Hey, I'm Heidi. My best friends. Call me hides. I'm a certified birth doula host of this podcast and author of birth story and interactive pregnancy guidebook. I have supported hundreds of women through their labor and deliveries, and I believe every one of them and you deserves a microphone and a stage.

So here we are within each week to get answers to these tough questions, birth story, where we talk about pregnancy, labor deliveries. Where we tell our stories and share our feelings and of course chat about our favorite baby products and mother. Good. And because I'm passionate about burnout comes, you will hear from some of the top experts in labor and delivery, whether you are pregnant, trying desperately to get pregnant, or you just love a good birth story.

I hope you will stick around and be part of this birth story family. Welcome Lily Nichols to the birth story podcast. I'm very excited to have you today. And I sorta feel like I should roll out the red carpet for you because my doula world, you are just pretty famous. And I say that because the way that I originally found you is because my doula clients were all.

Reading your book. And they're like, have you read this book? And I said, Oh no. What is the name of the book? He said, real food for pregnancy. And they were like, it's incredible. It talks about everything. And not even a week later, I received a copy of your book in the mail. What would Kelsey's title be that works with you?

She helps me with outreach and connecting with, uh, connecting with likeminded people who work in the birth and prenatal space to let them know about my book. Yeah, it was perfect. So it reiterated it. And now in my private Facebook communities that I have, or all reading your book, just kind of learning so much.

So I wanted to start with a couple of things on why Lily. Is on the birth story podcast. One of the things I'm committed to on this podcast is not just telling birth stories, but doing us, you know, storytelling and education with all things, pregnancy to help moms become more informed and more educated and more empowered.

And that's everything Lily that your book stands for. And right now the market is very confusing with food, right? Like to S to soy or not to soy, I mean, to caffeinate or not to caffeinate that is red wine. Okay. Or not. Okay. Moms are getting really mixed messages. So we're here to kind of just dig it. Yeah.

All out of Lily Nichols. And so Lily, why don't you take the stage and just tell us a little bit more about. Like your certifications, who you are, the two books that you've written and, and maybe a little personal too. Sure. Yeah. And that's really cool by the way that so many of your doula clients have read my book.

It's it's always awesome to hear. Um, How, how broadly it has gotten in its reach. Um, just reaching so many people. So I really appreciate hearing that. Um, as far as my background, I have specialized in prenatal nutritionist. Most of, for most of my career as a registered dietician nutritionist. And a certified diabetes educator prior to putting out real food for pregnancy.

Most people actually knew me for my work with gestational diabetes, which is the type of diabetes that's either first diagnosed or first recognized during pregnancy. I've worked in a prenatal nutrition field and a lot closely with gestational diabetes in. Many different capacities, which I think is something.

The thing that, um, is, is unique for someone, somebody with my credential background, cause many people who are dieticians, they just work only in clinical practice or only in one place. But I've worked in public policy with the state of California on their gestational diabetes policies. I've worked in clinical practice, extensively consulting, research projects, and of course a lot of writing.

And so I've been able to see. Prenatal nutrition, dietary advice, and a lot of different capacities. I've seen it from the research perspective, from the public policy perspective and all the bureaucracy that goes along with setting the guidelines from the science. That's used to set them from the science that is left out when considering setting the guidelines to how those guidelines actually work.

In real life with pregnant people, um, with a variety of complications in pregnancy. And I mean, ultimately all of this has brought me to a place where I don't see the prenatal nutrition guidelines as being, you know, set in stone or gospel. You know, I think there something that we need to question we need to reevaluate.

We need to look at the science and weigh what the new research is saying compared to what the guidelines say. And I really in my work want to help empower moms and moms to be expecting parents, to, you know, take a proactive role in their food and lifestyle choices, because it really can shape the trajectory of their pregnancy.

Their options or recommended options for birth, their postpartum recovery, their feeding, or nursing journey, and even their child future health. And I've seen that firsthand in both of my pregnancies. I have a toddler and I'm pregnant with my second right now. And, you know, pregnancy is hard. Postpartum is hard.

And all that we can do is really, you know, stack the deck in our favor to make this whole cycle in our life, be as easy and maybe perhaps a little bit enjoyable as possible. And a lot of that comes down to what we eat, how we move our body, how we sleep and all of these lifestyle factors. Yeah, well, I'm going to chime in here too, because one of the reasons I really wanted to have you on the podcast also is that for my listeners know, I kind of love to throw out radical ideas and opinions, especially with people that are willing.

To kind of advocate and fight for change instead of just going with the status quo. Right. So there is a part of the very beginning of your book and I was just going to read it if that's okay with you. But it said needless to say, I respectfully disagree with the conventional prenatal nutrition guidelines, and I cannot in good conscience recommend their sample meal plan to pregnant women.

Depriving a mother's growing baby of the key nutrients needed for things like brain development. Goes against the first do no harm principle that central to ethical medical care across the globe. And I just wanted to say Bravo Lily, because that was like you, I was reading your intro. And I was like, yes, she you're.

First of all, you're a beautiful writer. You break it down. This book so easily for moms, but you're not afraid to say. I'm really smart. I'm super educated. I'm an advocate. And I'm here to tell you what I think are my opinions that are valid and why change is necessary. So I just applaud you and so many ways, and I'm really excited that today, or just going to get a little taste of some of your.

Um, education and hopefully everyone listening will also go and get all the rest that they need by buying your book, real food for pregnancy. And if anyone has gestational diabetes, of course, picking up a copy of real food for gestational diabetes. So I wonder Lily at the very beginning. We could argue that proper nutrition starts in our fertility journeys and preparing our body for pregnancy.

But typically when a mom finds out she's pregnant and she goes to the doctor for that very first, um, you know, either confirmation test and she's nervous and she's excited, but also so motivated, like the most motivated she's probably ever been in her life. To take care of her body and her baby, and she wants to devour information.

And the very first thing that she's told and given as a prescription for a prenatal vitamin. And so I thought that would be a really good place for you to start and unpack your book from everything that I read. And maybe give us a little chat on why. Maybe the differences, I guess, between conventional eating and ancestral eating, and then also kind of the take home point of there really is no replacement for nutrient rich food.

So I would love to hear your opinions on prenatal vitamins and kind of, and fueling our body from what we're hearing on day one at our provider's offices. Right. Yeah. And I have to agree that. There is, uh, no more motivated, uh, clientele than the pregnant people. So I've really had the fortune of working with so many people that are pregnant and really my job as a dietician is way easier when someone's pregnant compared to like somebody who's maybe.

In their late middle age and they have like diabetes and they're not really interested in changing their lifestyle because it's like, well, why, I mean, everyone's going to die. You know, pregnant women tend to be really motivated and they're really wonderful group of people work with, um, as far as the advice that you'll get on nutrition from.

Your provider, you might get some, or you might get none, or you might only get advice, some things to avoid, or, or just take a prenatal vitamin and quote, eat healthy, whatever that means. So there's a lot left up to interpretation. Uh, oftentimes if you do get nutrition advice that tends to be. Just a rehash of whatever the conventional guidelines are, which I can't blame practitioners for giving out that information because that's, that's why guidelines exist, right.

Is to make our job easier as practitioners. And we want to rely on those as with the expectation that they are evidence-based. Unfortunately, there are a lot of holes in the conventional guidelines that can actually. As you read from the introduction results and mother's not getting enough essential nutrients because they're really, there's a lot of areas for improvement on the information that's provided in there.

So when it comes to, you know, what are the conventional guidelines and how is real food different? I mean, the conventional guidelines are just a, a version of the general dietary guidelines that are given out. To everybody, you know, I'm in the United States. So I'm speaking for the United States, dietary guidelines, but many other countries that have guidelines, follow a very similar approach, which is limit your intake of fat and saturated fat limit.

Your intake of salt consume plenty of carbohydrates, you know, approximately half of your diet or 45 to 65% of calories should be coming from carbohydrates. If vegetables eat fruit, you know, we meet low fat dairy. It's like the same thing that we've been hearing since the 1980s. That all sounds well and good until really start digging into the details and see, especially when you start looking at micronutrients, there are, and micronutrients, by the way, refers to vitamins and minerals and fatty acids primarily versus.

Macronutrients is where we get our energy and those come from fat carbs and protein. So when you're looking at micronutrients, you can see that if you follow those guidelines to a T yeah, you actually are more likely to be nutrient deficient than if you. Maybe take a more informed approach to applying those guidelines where you don't throw up everything.

I mean, vegetables and fruits are great. Protein is important, you know, um, however, maybe not half of our diet coming from carbohydrates. So we have more room for foods that have the micronutrients most lacking in pregnant women's diets, which includes. Iron and B12 and vitamin a and Coleen. Maybe we should, don't go so far as to recommend low fat.

Yeah. Because you're going to end up limiting your intake of a lot of the foods that have many of the micronutrients that I just mentioned. Um, and maybe, maybe we should consider how did traditional cultures approach. Food, especially food for fertility, preconception, pregnancy, breastfeeding infancy. And toddlerhood like early, early development of a human being.

The foods that they recommended were oftentimes things that our dietary guidelines would push us not to eat because they have too much fat. Or cholesterol or they're from animal source foods. And those are precisely the foods that you want to make sure that you include at least to some degree in your diet so that you don't end up nutrient deficient.

Thank you for kind of explaining the difference between the conventional and the ancestral. And one of the things I think is really important that you get from reading your book, um, so that if anyone wants to dig deeper into that, it's a really not just Lilly. Isn't just saying, you know, if you don't eat these certain ways, you may, or if you eat this certain way, you may end up nutrient dense.

She kind of goes into the book, like, does that mean for your baby? What does that mean for your baby's development? What does that mean for your toddler or your adult child? So when all of these things are critical for in uterine development, we're talking about not just our baby, but once our child is born and, and sort of setting up their DNA and their roadmap inside of their bodies or the healthiest life possible.

So that was some of the key takeaways I took from your book. Lily was the why behind some of the, um, the guidelines that I think is really beautiful. And we're not going to give everything away. Everybody's got to buy your buck, but I really liked learning about what foods to eat while you're pregnant, but then the why behind them as well.

And I wish I could give away the whole book in an hour interview, but even the audio book is I think it's 12 and a half hours. There's a lot to tell. I know I did see the Kindle edition was nine 99 on Amazon. So I did see that too. So you've got an audio, a Kindle and a paper back that's um, really beautiful.

It's done really well. So yeah. Well, I need a list in combination with my doula clients that have read your book. So we kind of went over like the top question marks that we think people listening are confused about. And I thought we might kind of navigate this. And so the first one is really simple, but it's just the need for fluids and electrolytes and kind of understanding how much to drink and what types of things to drink besides just water.

To stay hydrated, especially like during, I mean, it's really year round, but the hot humid months, and then like the dry cold months also all across the world, really wherever you live or whatever climate, but fluid is so important. So I thought maybe I'd ask you to touch on that a little bit things to drink besides just water and how much to drink.

Yeah. So, you know, when you're pregnant, your fluid needs do go up. You know, of course you have the amniotic fluid in your uterus, but also your blood volume increases significantly. That actually starts to increase in the first trimester. So you need more fluids. We need it for good circulation helps bring nutrients to the baby and removes waste products.

It's just. Important to drink enough fluid. The recommendation generally for pregnancy is to aim for about a hundred ounces per day. Can you think of a typical glass of water being eight ounces? You can do the math. Um, keep it mind that things like tea or bull soup, um, or even really watery fruits and vegetables like you cumber and watermelon, like that's that technically counts towards your fluid means.

So it doesn't all have to be water. As far as what to drink. Of course water is like the original beverage. So I'm a big fan of people getting used to actually drinking water, but you can do 'em infused water to make it a little more delicious. So adding cut up fruits and veggies to the water can be good.

So like cucumber and lime or strawberries in your water, or just a squeeze of citrus, like orange lemon, lime grapefruit, some mint leaves in there. Press ginger slices in your water. Sometimes that's enough to make it more delicious. And in fact, you're getting a little bit of electrolytes when you're adding, um, some fruit to your water as well.

You could always opt for sparkling water. If you want something a little more fun, uh, to use would be fine. Um, tea from the tea plant, meaning like black, green oolong or white tea would be fine. As far as caffeine, they usually don't have enough unless you're drinking a ton of tea or like only tea that you're going to exceed a caffeine, a safe caffeine intake with tea.

So those would be fine if you're doing, um, herbal tea, you might want to check with your healthcare provider on what's safe. I do have a section on, on herbs in the book, if you want to look at that, but in general, things like mint tea, ginger tea, tea. Red raspberry leaf tea, at least in the latter half of pregnancy.

Um, those would be absolutely fine to drink. If you're a dairy drinker, you can do yeah. Milk. You could do any of like the nut milk alternatives, like almond milk or coconut milk, for example. Keifer would be also excellent. You can do, you know, dairy Kiefer. They also make coconut Keifer and water Kiefer.

Those are a great way to get electrolytes in there's there's really a wide range of, of beverages that you could drink. You also might consider, like I said, soups can count towards your fluid intake. I'm a big fan of bone broth for a lot of the nutritional benefits that it has. So if you're doing soup or a bone broth, that would be another.

Fantastic source of fluids and nutrients. And in addition, you tend to salt your soups and bone broth, which helps you get your electrolytes in cause actually salt needs increase during pregnancy as well. So you don't, especially if you're hot and sweating a lot, you don't just want to be drinking plain water.

You want to make sure that you're having enough salt, which may come in through your diet. Naturally, but if you're like restricting yourself for some reason, and then you're also sweating a lot, and then you're also pregnant. Like you can be setting yourself up for going low on electrolytes. So if you're feeling like headachy, if you're feeling puffy, I know it sounds opposite from what everybody tells you, but you're getting kind of swollen.

That's actually a sign that you might not have enough salt on board. So you need the salt and the fluids together. Now we're going to take a short break to just share a few things with you. Thanks for listening to the birth story podcast. I am so excited to announce the launch of my book. Birth story, a 42 week guide for your pregnancy, a collection of these birth stories, a ton of doula advice and journaling prompts.

You can order a copy today@birthstory.com. It also will mean the world to me, if you'll spread the word about this podcast, so on Stitcher or on iTunes, just leave it right. Thanks. This is is huge. So many people get really confused about this when they, when they hear this hundred ounces and they think just water, what are, what are, so you just brought it home.

On in your foods, you're getting fluid, but making sure to focus on that salt in those electrolyte, that it's not just drinking water, it's like a whole circle of, um, all different types of fluids. And then I loved what you said about the infusing the water. So of course getting those, would they be micronutrients from like the ginger and the mint and stuff?

Beginning a tiny amount. You're just getting a little flavor. It's more like you're getting a little bit of flavor, most of all, but if you're doing. Squeeze of lemon juice. For example, you're getting a little bit of electrolytes in there as well, and can be really helpful if you're like kinda nauseous to that little bit of sour can be helpful.

Yeah. It's not adding significantly to your, to your nutrient intake, to put some fruit in your water. It's just delicious. Here's a good idea at the end, instead of just throwing it down the drain, then how about taking that ginger and the mint and the strawberries and the lemon and throwing them into your blender and making an afternoon smoothie.

So you talk a lot in your book about. Um, smoothies. And so I wanted to see if we could touch on that a little bit, maybe even some ideas for recipes, but especially in the first trimester where we're trying to encourage moms to get high protein in and a lot of different varieties of colorful fruits and vegetables and herbs.

And I know that sometimes when you're nauseous. Yes. A really easy way to get this down is through a smoothie. And a lot of moms are really jumped on Pinterest with some different recipes, but I wanted to ask you what some of your favorite smoothie recipes are including recommend anything to add, uh, like a protein, any types of protein, powders, collagen, different things to add to your smoothie.

I mean you're right. First trimester is often when the nausea and vomiting and just feeling awful food aversions kind of come in and it's challenging to get enough protein in I'm actually not personally a big smoothie or protein shake person myself. But I do think that there is a time and a place to bring those in.

If you need to, if you're not able to get. Much food down or that's like the only thing that sounds good, you know, better that you have a smoothie than to have nothing. Um, I think you, we just need to be cautious with smoothies and that the way that most people approach making smoothies is making them with like, Mostly fruit sometimes with juice, they're just can be really, really high in sugar.

And you know, when you're super nauseous and you can't keep anything down, like that's probably like the least of your concerns if a smoothie stays down. Great. Yeah, but it can be helpful to try to add in. A little fat and protein. So you have a little more staying power, have less of a blood sugar spike and just to moderate the amount or even the type of fruit that goes into a smoothie.

So my recommendation, it would be first of all, if you're, if you're going yeah. To do a protein powder, make sure that it is an unsweetened variety. Um, and also check the ingredients because sometimes protein powders have all sorts of weird stuff in it. You know, if it's like some. Specialized formula.

That's supposed to give you energy. Like there could be caffeine in there. There could be some weird herbs in there. There could be excessive amounts of vitamin supplements, which you, you just want to make sure if you're also taking a prenatal vitamin that you're not like overdosing on certain nutrients.

So just check what's in there. I just prefer like a plain. Unsweetened pure protein. It should just be the protein teen ingredient and nothing else. So like aggressive that way, protein and organic rice protein, or sometimes there's combo formulas that have like rice protein with other plant protein. It's like a rice and a pea protein blend.

For example, those would be more my choice. Or you could also look at getting your protein in from. Adding Greek yogurt as a base for the smoothie. That's just really high in protein or even cottage cheese, considering that butters, you're not going to have quite as high of a concentration of, of protein from adding in a few tablespoons of nut butter as you would a protein powder, but you're getting some, and you're getting fat in there as well.

Um, and then I'm also a big fan of grass fed collagen protein as well, but supplies, some special amino acids that you need in higher amounts. In pregnancy. So that would be another option then to that you want to consider, you know, how are you going to make it taste good? So what flavor combo are you going to go for?

Uh, usually when you're nauseous doing something fruity is going to be, um, you know, far more delicious and well tolerated than like a. Chocolate, any kind of smoothie, but like who knows you do you for whatever's working out at the time. I highly recommend berries as your source of fruit, as they tend to be higher in micronutrients, higher in fiber and lower in sugar overall, they also taste good and they turn into a nice color.

So that's always enjoyable. So take your pick, you know, maybe half cup to one cup of fruit in the smoothie and you could also choose from other fruits. Of course, I just, I have a preference towards berries and then, uh, make sure there's some fat in there. So if you've done a pure protein powder, There's no fat in there.

So you want to add something in, so nut butter, tablespoon of coconut oil, or avocado oil, even chunks of avocado, if you want, or whole nuts that as long as you have a high powered blender, you can grind them up in there. And those would be fantastic. You need the staying power. I mean, adding just, you know, pure protein powder and fruit is just not going to be enough calories, keep you full for very long.

So know you do want to make this something substantial. Finally your liquid, so that typically you can do, you know, any kind of milk, whether it's dairy milk or nondairy milk, like almond or coconut milk or cashew milk or anything like that, but opting for an unsweetened variety. So you're not packing in the sugar again, and then blend it up, you know, and anything else really is extra.

If you want to add. Ginger to it. Great. If you want to add cocoa powder to it. Great. If you want to add some cinnamon to it, you know, do whatever you want to add to it just yeah. Have fun. So I started kind of a smoothie regimen when I was pregnant with my first. And I had that first trimester morning sickness and really was having a hard time getting like the protein and stuff and such N and it was a really easy ritual for me to get a variety of greens and, and, and I can.

Continued this practice, um, through, you know, delivering my children and now there are five and three and I find it is the most beautiful way my children have no idea what breakfast is. So since they were eight months old and yeah, still nursing, we started introducing, um, protein. Or not really even protein shakes, but more vegetable shakes and to their diets.

So I just wanted to say too, this is something as fraught from pregnancy, this type of nutrition that Lily is talking about really isn't just for pregnancy, it carries over into your postpartum body, but also into how you nourish and feed. I'm near children as the baby grows too. So love that every single morning my kids get beat greens, carrots, carrot, greens, celery, parsley.

I mean, you name it, the herbs and the vegetable. I throw it in there. We sweeten it up. With maybe like a half a banana, a tiny bit of honey, but like you said, trying to keep the sugar down and then the vegetables high, we do tons of spinach and kale and they are none the wiser and above all the greens.

The spinach has like the least flavor. If people are feeling kind of averse to that, That flavor in the first trimester greens can be like tough to get down, but spinach is pretty mild as far as hiding it in a smoothie. So, yeah, that's a really great, yeah. So I was going to ask you too, like on the soup and the broth and the smoothies, do you have a favorite blender?

Anything that you recommend? It depends on how it depends on which ingredients are going in your smoothie smoothie. You can use like, just, I love my immersion blender, if it's just like. Easily, um, pureed items like, you know, berries and yogurt and fluid and protein powder, like then, uh, an immersion blender.

It does the job and it's really easy to clean, but if you're throwing in like whole nuts or like rock carrots, or like really, you know, hard things to grind up, then you might want to opt for something like a Vitamix, like one of the high powered. Hardcore expensive blenders. It's it's really how, how into the smoothie thing you are.

Okay, that's good. Do you mind if I link to those in the show notes to the immersion blender, and then maybe one of the Vitamixes. So I, I want to make sure that anyone listening is walking away with not only kind of like what, but maybe how, what that might look like for cooking and such too. So the next thing that I am going to just have you touch on that was came from several of the girls was they wanted to tell you, thank you for all the meal plans.

That are included in your book. I wanted to see if you wanted to tell us about a recommended typical day. So if you were sitting down with a client today and they were telling you that, you know, they were newly pregnant and they were looking for support, you know, what are some of the things that you might recommend for breakfast lunch?

So I'll, I'll preface this by saying. If I'm sitting down with a client who's newly pregnant, they probably aren't going to be able to eat like the optimal, most nutrient dense meal plan out there. So the nausea phase is like it's its own animal. And the first trimester especially is like, Yeah, it's its own animal.

Um, it's really a crapshoot when it comes to nutrition. So it might be more of a man let's talk about nausea and what you can do to get through the day and just some, you know, good snack combinations. Um, because that phases like really tough, but once you're through that, yeah. Phase, then the meal plans in the book might be.

A little more appropriate. So usually like second trimester or mid second trimester on you're able to eat more regular and substantial meals and keep things down. You have less food aversions and all that. So I want to preface it with that. If anyone's listening and they're like, Oh, terribly, it's the first trimester I've ruined this pregnancy.

Don't freak out. It's totally normal. I've I've been there too with both pregnancies. So. You will get to a place where you can eat normal quantities and types of foods and well balanced meals and all that again. So just, you know, get through the early part, don't stress yourself out. But as far as. You know, meal ideas.

Um, usually how I approach meal planning. And I'll just say that I I'm actually not a meal planner myself, so I'm not somebody who sits down and writes out, I'm going to have this for breakfast this day and this for lunch this day and this for dinner this day, and like stick to it. That is, that's not how I roll.

I'm more about sort of  meals with, with a general template of. Let's make sure I'm getting like a balanced and satiating macronutrient balance. Let me make sure it tastes good. And it it's something that I actually want to eat on any given day. So how that looks for me in real life is prioritizing what protein foods I'm going to have at a meal.

You do need more protein when you're pregnant. Far more than the guidelines currently recommend. Um, we found that out from a 2015 study that they way underestimated the protein requirements for pregnancy. So, um, you definitely want to be thinking about where's my protein coming from. If you're past the aversion phase, you'll probably be able to eat some more vegetables, so get some veggies in there.

And then depending on. What's going on with your pregnancy, how active you are, whether or not there's blood sugar issues and just what you're hungry for. Probably some carbs coming in the meal as well, which may be meaning like, you know, you're getting carbs from vegetables, but meaning like an actual, separate, substantial source of carbohydrates, like.

Fruit or sweet potatoes or something like that. So for me, for example, for breakfast, that would often be getting protein in either from eggs, maybe eggs with cheese, maybe a. Like breakfast, like sausage hash sort of situation where there's like sausage and potatoes or sweet potatoes and greens and mushrooms.

If you go over to my, um, Instagram page, which is Lily, Lily Nichols, RDN, you'll see a bunch of different. Meal ideas. There's a lot of breakfasts on there, which are usually for me, some combination of like eggs and vegetables, which tends to be again for me personally, very satiating, but also really nutrient dense.

So definitely look at pro look at breakfast from a standpoint of like, how can I fit in protein? Because most people do not. And then you feel really low energy, really hungry, have crazy sugar cravings. And you're probably going to be experiencing a lot of blood sugar, highs and lows for the rest of the day.

So if your typical breakfast is like cereal or oatmeal or fruit or. Maybe a smoothie that previously did not have significant amount of fat and protein in it, but like loads and loads of fruit, you might want to start looking at how you could beef up the protein for your breakfast. As far as lunches and dinners, um, again, it's following the same sort of template.

So prioritizing where your protein is going to come from. So it might be like some grilled salmon. It might be chicken. It might be. A burger, it might be some sardines. It might be beans. It might be something with nuts or a salad that has hard boiled eggs on it. Um, just where, where are you getting your protein, fitting your veggies and then carbs based on how, how you feel for me in pregnancy.

A lot of times that's fruit, fruit is just like really delicious to me. So it's like a really easy, uh, stand in for. For my source of carbohydrates. And then of course, you know, pregnancy is full of changes in the way that you eat. If you were somebody who maybe felt good eating, you know, three square meals, and now you're feeling like I can't eat quite as much at meals or I'm really hungry between meals.

You probably want to have some snacks. And so I do build into my meal plan, snack ideas as well. So that. You know, a, you, you have permission to eat snacks. You have permission to eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full and, and whatnot. Um, but if we plan out what your snacks might be, you can make more nutrient dense choices.

So you can do, you know, an Apple and almond butter or peanut butter. So you're getting like the carbs and the fat and protein together. So you stay fuller longer than just having the Apple on its own. Or you could have. Um, you know, some planting chips with guacamole. Again, you're pairing the carbs with the fat.

Um, you could have some cheese with, um, olives and cherry tomatoes. You could have, you know, a hard boiled egg, just sort of thinking about what might you eat between meals. If you get hungry, can be helpful so that you're not stuck in this bind of like, I'm starving and you, and you go straight for the chips or something.

Just thinking about having a little more balanced there for your snacks, as well as you're talking, I'm just remembering to let everyone know Lily's book. Really outlines, super easy. These meal plans for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and desserts, which is really neat. But then especially in the snacks section, I just wanted to say thank you because as a mom over here, and a busy mom, and especially when you're pregnant, Especially if you have kids and you're pregnant, your snacks section and your snack ideas basically have become a shopping list.

So it's a really easy to just, um, you know, read through your book and then screenshot. Okay, well now I'm headed to the grocery store and in Lily's book things that she identifies as really good, easy snacks are now on my shopping list. So. I mean, I just couldn't give this book any more kudos and credit I wanted to ask.

That's good to hear. Yeah. I mean, I really, I don't know how many books you've sold so far, Lily, but I hope that it's a million soon or more. If it's not already, are there things that just commonly come up right. Moms immediately talk about caffeine and alcohol. Those are just two things. And one of the things that you beautifully said.

In your book about alcohol was about, um, and I wanted you to touch on this is that it's not, you know, whether or not we know alcohol in large quantities is not. Good as studied some of the other research, uh, for lower quantities of alcohol. It seems to be a little bit mixed, but I wanted to see if you would touch a little bit on what, how your body breaks down alcohol and how that takes away the energy and effort that you might need to be giving to your baby.

That was something that was really touching to me in your book. Yeah. And actually there's some more studies that have come out since I've written the book that kind of corroborate my, um, conclusions on alcohol. Uh, but essentially what you said that your summary of the research is correct. There, there is sort of a trend from the research that low amounts of alcohol are probably not going to cause problems or at least less likely to cause problems in large amounts of alcohol.

Whereas we know like binge drinking, four or more drinks at a time. Is bad. Okay. Don't do that. But they're the researchers really, haven't been able to come up with a consensus on, you know, what amount of alcohol might be guaranteed harmless. They can't make that guarantee. So there's still this sort of like, you know, there's trepidation around changing the guidelines on that from my personal opinion on it, you know, we all have differences in our ability to metabolize.

Alcohol, you know, some people would call themselves lightweights. They can't like process a whole lot of alcohol. Even if you think you handle alcohol really well, it, alcohol does need to be detoxified by your liver. And that pulls from your micronutrient pool to do that. So this includes pulling from your stores of B vitamins, which includes full late, um, and Coleen your vitamin, a glycine, selenium, zinc.

They're all nutrients that are involved in the detoxification processes that your liver has to do to get rid of the alcohol. These are also nutrients that you need in higher amounts in pregnancy, particularly Coleen. So you kind of have to make the choice. Do you want to be partitioning those nutrients towards detoxifying alcohol, or might it be better for those nutrients to go towards.

Supporting your baby's development. Moreover, if you are going to have a little bit of alcohol, maybe you want to think about how can I boost my intake of some of these other nutrients so I can do toxify this well, because really, as you, you know, continually. Or if you're continually taking in small amounts of alcohol, it's just this, like, it's like a slow leak of your micronutrients being, you know, taken away from the important work of, of growing a baby.

So while I don't think there's considerable harm to having like, uh, an occasional, you know, half glass of wine or a sip of your husband's beer or something like that. I can't advise it as being something that is. Healthy. So if that makes sense. Yeah. It's a very well said, Lily very well said about. How your body needs those nutrients and not to be detoxing the alcohol.

So I just really appreciated what you wrote about that in the book book. And you are, you do such a great job in your book of balancing. Well, like here would be one side of the story. Here's the other side of the story, you know, let's talk about both sides of the story, not so black and white with that alcohol consumption.

So. And then the same thing that we taught touched on it a little, a little bit earlier with the caffeine, you know, but, um, we find out we're pregnant and we're like, Oh, every, like we said, we're super motivated. Everything has to change. But we're like, do we have to give up? We're so tired, especially in the first time, the whole time I'm like in the third driver, but really the whole time you get a taxi break, sometimes the second trimester.

But, um, so I just wanted to see if you would lend some advice from a nutritional standpoint about how caffeine can affect the body. Yeah. So the caffeine, same story is another controversial one. And it's, it's ultimately similar to the story on alcohol, whereas, well, there's a permissible amount of caffeine in pregnancy.

They, they set that at about 200 milligrams per day and they don't have enough evidence to. Overturn or change the amount of caffeine that is recommended. But the concern is that, um, you know, the rate at which you eliminate caffeine from your bloodstream does decrease over the course of pregnancy.

They've shown that high maternal levels of caffeine can reduce placental blood flow, which they think might limit nutrient transfer to baby. But really we're talking about like, Pretty high amounts of caffeine. So here's somebody who drinks like four or five plus cups of coffee a day, even three plus cups of coffee a day.

He probably do want to look at reducing it. If you're somebody who is only consuming one cup of coffee in the morning, and that's it. You're probably at AOK. So that 200 milligram limit of caffeine. If you look at like an eight ounce cup of coffee, now keep in mind. Eight ounces is really small. Most of us are drinking like 12 ounce mugs or more of coffee, but for, for reference about eight ounces of coffee has about a hundred milligrams of caffeine.

Assuming you're brewing it too. Regular strength. That depends on the type of coffee, how it's brewed, um, strong you like it and so on. So take that into consideration. And really, as far as whole foods go, it's the coffee that's going to contribute primarily to your caffeine intake. I'm not talking about caffeine that is in supplements or anything like that.

You do want to eliminate those for sure. But if you're just looking at. Like food sources, you know, it's really coffee, tea, and chocolate and tea and chocolate have such minimal amounts of caffeine. I don't even really, it doesn't even really factor in. Um, it really comes down to the amount of coffee. So we're talking one bigger sized cup of coffee or two small cups of coffee is totally fine.

And it's not an, it's not conclusively linked to any sort of issues in pregnancy. I really think the caffeine one is a little overblown and just, it makes people really scared. It's similar to like, you know, the people who had like a few glasses of wine before they found out they're pregnant and they're like, Oh God, I've given my child fetal alcohol syndrome or something.

It's like, no, you probably didn't. It's really like, They're really bad outcomes are linked to binge drinking, right? It's like these small amounts of, of, you know, normal substances that we come across are really. You know, less concerning than we might think. So don't, don't work yourself into a tizzy. If you've still been enjoying your coffee, you're probably fine page advice from a Lily Nichols.

Well, Lily, thank you so much for letting me chat with you today. And so that everyone can learn a little bit more about pregnancy nutrition and your book dives into so much more so of your listening. There are some things we, we need to educate you a little bit deeper on like the B12 and the Coleen and the vitamin a and collagen and quick meals and bone broth, probiotics, prebiotics supplements, um, soy.

So all of this and more is in Lily's buck. And she mentioned already, you can find her on Instagram at, at Lily Nichols RDN you can also purchase her book on Amazon and Barnes and noble. Where else can you get your book globally? Well, there's a lot of libraries that have it. If you just want to borrow it from somebody, borrow it from the library, there's quite a few, um, doulas and midwives that keep it on hand in their practice as part of their lending library.

So definitely ask first, um, if you don't want to purchase, and there's quite a few independent bookstores that have, uh, as well, um, I think the benefit of. Amazon is that, you know, it's always discounted to Amazon and you get free shipping and all that. So that's always like the easiest way to go about it, but definitely check and you know, if a bookstore doesn't have it and you want them to order it, they can definitely order it in and get in stock.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I'll link to everything in the show notes, and I just appreciate your time today, Lily. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to birth story, Michael, if you'll walk away from each episode with a clear picture of how labor and delivery might go and that you will feel empowered by the end of your pregnancy to speak up plan and prepare for the birth you want, no matter what that looks like.