the bossbabe podcast - 216. Your Essential Guide To Prenatal Nutrition

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

So many women and moms-to-be stress about their diet. Katie Dewhurst is the bossbabe behind Hello Balance. Using her knowledge of functional medicine, she’s on a mission to help close the 2-3 decade gap that exists between nutritional guidelines and what the latest research shows.  There’s so much pressure surrounding what we eat – especially during pregnancy. We can completely overthink things and create unnecessary stress – but what if there was a better way?  Katie has a few simple tricks designed to help add extra nutrition to your diet without completely changing everything. She’s also an expert on managing blood sugar spikes, which is incredibly important knowledge to have. Rooted in the knowledge and success of a private practice and cookbook, Katie and her brand are trusted leaders in the world of nutrition and diet. Pregnant or not, there are so many amazing health and wellness takeaways this week that anyone can put to use. Tune in! Highlights: Bossbabe CEO, Natalie Ellis’s journey with nutrition through pregnancy + why following her intuition has been the biggest help. Why there’s SO much pressure surrounding what we eat during pregnancy + what you should be doing instead.  What you can do today to add extra nutrition for your diet and optimize your vitamin intake. The simple trick to help you introduce cleaner alternative products to your lifestyle without making drastic changes. Links: Hello Balance Find out more about Hello Balance at the official website. Join The Hello Baby Prenatal Nutrition Course! Sign up for the Hello Baby prenatal nutrition course to learn everything you need to know to stack the deck in your baby’s favor. Use code “bossbabe” and get $50 off!  Your Ultimate Roadmap To Making Six Figures In 2022 The only six steps you need to take to get unstuck + make more money doing what you love in 2022. The Société Join our private, online community of female entrepreneurs where you can connect, build and grow. Follow: bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Danielle Canty: @daniellecanty Hello Baby Prenatal Nutrition: @hellobabynutrition YouTube: bossbabe: subscribe 

I'm a one-man show over here, one-woman show. So I had to book the videographer and put a down payment down. And that's like, okay, we're going to get this done because things are on the line now. And that forces you to really get it done. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise. Keep going and fighting on.

She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to bounce it all. I'm your host, Natalie Ellis. And for this episode, we've got something a little bit different for you guys. So as you know, I am currently pregnant and one of my big focuses throughout my pregnancy has been nutrition and doing it in a way that feels intuitive and non-restrictive. And I've really, really loved taking the Hello Baby prenatal course. It's been so good.

And Katie Dewhurst, the author of the program, she does a lot around both nutrition for fertility and nutrition while you're currently pregnant. So I really wanted to get her on the podcast and ask for her simple rules, do's and don'ts, how you can manage blood sugar, what we should and shouldn't care about, what kind of supplements we should be taking, as well as asking her how she's been able to

build her business. She's built a really successful business through online programs, recipe books, and I wanted to know how she did that so that she can share it with you from the ground up. So we kind of go everywhere in this episode from nutrition to business building. I think you're really, really going to love it. Even if you're not thinking about getting pregnant or you're not currently pregnant, there's a lot in here around blood sugar balance and female hormones and the things that we get to think about. So I think you're really, really going to love it. And as always, tag me on Instagram at IamNatalie and let me know what you think. Katie, welcome to the Bossway Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So for anyone that is not familiar with you and your work, can you give us a bit of background into you and how you got into what you do right now? Sure. So my background started a little unconventional. I went the finance and marketing route in school and I went to New York for a few years and pursued that. And then I had the opportunity to move to Singapore. And that's where I really had a chance to reflect and really think about what I'm really passionate about and what I want to do with my life and my career. And I love nutrition. I was always trying to figure it out for myself. So I went back to school and I actually studied functional medicine, female health, prenatal nutrition, the science of how to balance your

blood sugar. And from there, I started my private health coaching practice in Singapore. The business has evolved into a cookbook and into a prenatal nutrition course, which I know we're going to dive into today. So it's really been a journey and I'm just so excited to be here and to dive into all of it with you. Wow. And so what is different about your approach to prenatal nutrition and what made you specifically want to go into prenatal nutrition? when you're in that first trimester, there's just so much fear generated around what not to eat. I think you're just kind of left Googling everything and you're just trying to figure out what am I not supposed to be eating? And there's so much fear around harming the baby. I'm really looking at what is the current research telling us to optimize the development of your baby? So I'm

thinking more like, what can we add into your diet to develop a really healthy baby? So the science is actually telling us we can play a direct impact on your baby's development based on what you eat before and during pregnancy. So you think about, you're actually able to affect your baby's cognitive development based on what you eat. And when I say cognitive development, what does that even mean? That means you think about your child, your future child, how they're sitting in class maybe, and their ability to emotionally regulate. It's how they experience and interact with the world. It's their IQ. It's the difference between 10 points on an IQ test based on

things we're including in our diet. It's their social skills, their motor skills, their creativity, their focus. So that gets me super excited because there's all this new research coming out about what we can do to really start to optimize our nutrient status during pregnancy to have those really positive outcomes on brain development. When we think what else we can affect through food, we can actually, you know, have a positive impact on our baby's genetic expression. So genetic expression is, it's kind of like if you think like a dimmer switch up, if you will, it's kind of like our DNA is set in stone, but we have the opportunity to start to kind of dim the lights on genes that we might not want to be expressed or turn up the volume on genes we

want that are healthy genes. So this is kind of thinking like, you know, your propensity to develop high blood pressure or insulin resistance or type two diabetes, that is kind of how our genes are, they're being read. So there's, there's new different nutrient cofactors that are needed for a process called methylation, which we don't have to get into, but knowing when you know better, you can do better. And so when you know these are the nutrients needed for healthy genetic expression, even four months before I get pregnant, then you can get excited about adding those things into your diet. And not only genetic expression, we can also influence their metabolic health. So we now know 88% of Americans have one marker for a metabolic dysfunction. We're not a super healthy nation.

That's obviously no surprise. But thinking about how we can start to stack the deck in your baby's future for healthy metabolism, that all is happening in utero. So for me, I just get super passionate and excited about telling women, this is the things we can start adding into your diet to help stack the deck and set them up for health and success. And we want to build, of course, every mom wants to build the healthiest, smartest little baby possible. So that's the information I'm really trying to share. And I think it's important to remember that there's a 20 to 30 year gap between what current

guidelines are sharing. And so this is kind of some of the information you might find in pregnancy kind of textbooks or the information you're finding online. there's a really big lag, 20 to 30 years between that information compared to what we're seeing in the current research. So that's really the gap I'm trying to fill with the Hello Baby prenatal nutrition course. And then also it's really important to me that women feel empowered by this information, but they're still able to use their intuition. And I know, Natalie, you've been so good at that throughout your entire pregnancy about, okay, I know the science, but I also want to honor my body's cravings and what it's communicating to me. So then you can start to pick and choose the tools that work for you and make it your own.

Yeah, I know. And that's really why I was drawn to what you do because I felt like in my first trimester, I picked up a bunch of books and I was seeing a ton of resources on Instagram and they were all, you should eat this, you should be doing this. And for me, my first trimester was really difficult and I was nauseous 24-7. I didn't feel great. And for me, if I was just getting calories in, I was happy. And of course, I was staying away from the things that I know are really harmful, those bad oils and things like that. But I was just like, if I can get some good nutrition,

just in any form, any calories, that feels good. And what I found with your course going through it from the beginning, it was really empowering and it kind of, it let me honor my intuition. So I've had real aversions to vegetables this entire pregnancy. I just can't stomach them. Same with fish. I just can't stomach it. Even, you know, I loved it before and now I can't, and I really honor that. And I look at the things the things okay what are the things that I can be doing what are things that I can be stomaching because you can get your nutrition from so many different sources so I've been really leaning on that and that's worked so well for me and that's that's I think just such a great approach it's your body is feeling these

inversions for a reason you're you're wanting certain foods for a reason. So are you still getting all the nutrition that you need and your baby needs? Do you feel good about the food you're eating? Because when you're in that cycle of, this is bad for me, I'm sure it does even more harm than if you're like, you know what? This is what I need. This is what my baby needs right now. I'm good.

So I love that you do that. One thing you said, which really surprised me was there's a 20 to 30 year lag, that is crazy to me. What kind of things are they saying in kind of these textbooks that really is like aged information and gets to be updated? What are those gaps you're seeing? Yeah, it just, it's, it takes such a long time to change public policy So that's why there's such a big gap but I think I can go back to even sharing like why I even started this course and it really came back to

One of my clients who was vegetarian And she would eat eggs dairy and fish before pregnancy But then she eliminated them during pregnancy. And I asked her why. I go, why are we eliminating those foods now? And she had read online that fish, 12 ounce maximum that we're supposed to be hitting because there's that mercury toxicity effect that she was worried about. And then she was worried about foodborne illnesses from eggs and dairy. And so we kind of just started to go through, it's like, okay, well, what is the actual risk associated? We really need to start putting that in perspective and actually understanding, do we actually need to fear these foods? I think we need

to question that a lot more than we do. And then also what are the health benefits of those foods, especially from a vegetarian where that is going to be their best sources of DHA, iodine, all their B vitamins? So for me, I'm thinking, well, I want to pack as many nutrients into her diet as possible. And I think the risk associated is so low. So we're seeing a fear around adding eggs sometimes. I have clients that are like, well, what about salmonella? We should be worried about that, right? Well, actually, you're seven to eight times more likely to get a foodborne illness from eating salad, right? So we don't have to worry quite as much as we do during pregnancy about harming the baby, especially if you're cooking your eggs properly, you're sourcing good quality eggs. It's about one in 30,000 eggs that are infected with salmonella. So the risk is very, very low. Our food and safety standards have gotten so much better. And then when we look at the positive benefits that you can get from eggs,

I think of them as like a multivitamin for pregnancy. You start to look at all of the things that you need during pregnancy and eggs are kind of ticking the box on almost everything. 94% of women aren't getting enough choline and choline is a nutrient that maybe a lot of us haven't heard of, but we've definitely heard of folic acid and folate, and we can definitely get into the differences between those, but choline is just as important for pregnancy as folate. And a lot of us aren't getting enough of it. And eggs are the number one source, number one food source in the American diet. So if we're removing those completely, we're probably starting to see some nutrient deficiencies.

If you can't tolerate eggs, of course, I always offer different ways to get your choline in your diet. Grass-fed liver is actually the other best place to get it from a real food source. But of course, you can always supplement. So we're always looking at what do you feel comfortable with, what feels good for you and your diet, but then still meeting all of your nutrient needs. But I would say those are kind of the big gaps I'm seeing is there's still a lot of fear around eating nutrient-dense foods like protein, dairy, fish. There was actually two systematic reviews of 44 publications that looked at fish consumption. So this is a big body of research, a lot of mother-child pairings, and they looked at IQ specifically in the moms who ate fish or the most fish,

which I know you can't stomach fish right now, but you're still probably getting your omega-3, your DHA. So you're checking that box in the way that works for you. But the moms who did eat the most fish, those children had the best IQ scores compared to no fish. And that's despite any mercury toxicity. So we have to start letting go of that fear, you know, and we can start to choose low mercury fish options, which we go over in the course. Salmon and sardines are going to be your best low mercury fish options. So they're going to be super high in DHA, which we know is a brain building nutrient. Yeah. And I love your approach to like hiding foods if you can't stomach them. Like one thing

that you've shared is mixing eggs in with avocado and kind of hiding it. And it really helps. So then my first trimester I was the same. I just couldn't stomach it. And now one thing that I do is my husband really can't stand liver or heart and I love it. And what I do now, obviously always organic breastfed, I mix it in with ground beef. And so he has no idea that it's in there. Yeah. And it's so good. And I remember, you know, my first trimester being told that I need to take so many supplements and try all these things. And I couldn't get all these supplements down because I was so nauseous. It wasn't a thing. And I had so much guilt around, oh my God, I'm not taking all of these supplements that I'm getting told to take.

But I followed my intuition. I ate the things that I knew were real nutrient powerhouses. And I've been really consistently getting my blood work, taking my entire pregnancy. My doctor's really on top of that. And he consistently looks at me and he's like, whatever you're doing, whatever supplements you're taking, it's freaking working because your levels are incredible. Your iron is just off the charts. Everything's amazing. And every time I'm like, I'm not taking any supplements. I'm just getting things in my diet.

I'm not restricting anything and I'm following my intuition. And I just say to anyone that asks me, like approach to this is women have been doing this since the beginning of time and there's something to be said for the way in which your body feels during pregnancy and the things that you crave and perhaps the things that you are averted to if that's a word and is that something you think too like Do you think there's something in the food evasions? To me, I'm very curious why I'm not able to stomach certain foods, but I'm so drawn to other foods like red meat I can't get enough of. Yeah. There's definitely something to it. And I don't think this can always be explained by the science. I think it's more nuanced than that. I have a vegetarian client actually in the course right

now and we jumped call the other day and she's like, I'm craving a burger. And I'm like, well, you might be deficient in some certain nutrients just from being a vegetarian in the past 17 years. And it's your body's way of communicating with you that there might be something missing. So we need to figure out, do we need to add some more iron into your diet? Do we need some B12? You need B12. We need three times more B12 than the current RDAs are suggesting. So science, for example, we're really at the tip of the iceberg. We don't know everything. So we have to realize the RDAs are not a perfect science and our intuition is probably going to give us even better information than making sure that we're getting

100% of every RDA on the back of our supplements. We actually need to get things through food. That's really important. I think with the aversions, I think it's a one way of our bodies protecting us from certain foodborne illnesses or things that maybe how we evolved, those foods might've spoiled faster. So before refrigerators, we didn't have the ability to keep meat for a long period of time. So something that maybe doesn't seem as fresh to you or your senses potentially maybe are more averted to that food. But I think we just have to kind of like throughout our pregnancy, really check in with ourselves. We know what are the most nutrient dense foods and then just check in. If we can only handle toast and crackers for

a time, we don't need to stress out about it because especially in that first trimester, the baby's relying on your nutrient stores. This is really cool because our bodies are so smart. They have the ability to store nutrients for future use. So your baby is kind of the priority and it's sucking all of your nutrients out of you, which is why you feel so bad in that first trimester. But at least we know the baby's not missing out on anything. And as soon as we're able to start incorporating some protein rich animal sources back in or some vegetables or some fruit, we can start doing that. If all we can do is toast for a little bit, that's fine. I'm always going to kind of push you to say, okay, well, can we slap some almond butter onto that? Can we put some avocado onto that? The more we

can do to kind of add things in while still meeting our cravings, we're probably going to add more nutrients into our diet and then we're really meeting our cravings, we're probably going to add more nutrients into our diet. And then we're really meeting our needs. Yeah, so true. And another thing that I really want to talk about when it comes to food pairings and what you eat in a day as a whole is blood sugar. And for everyone listening, you'll know my relationship with blood sugar. If you have not already listened to our episode that I recorded with Dr. Casey Means, CMO of Levels, because in there we talk a lot about blood sugar and the importance of it. And for me, I got diagnosed with PCOS a few years ago. Insulin resistance was an issue. I've been working on healing my blood sugar, doing everything that I possibly can. And when it came to my pregnancy, I was very, very nervous

about what my blood sugar would look like, given that I'd been told I had insulin resistance. And I've been able to really work on healing that when I passed my glucose test, it was with flying colors. Again, the doctor was like, whatever you're doing, it's really working. And you also give me some tips for what to do after my glucose test. That really, really helped because I was so nervous. For anyone that's listening, who doesn't know what it is, you wake up. For me, I had to wake up. I wasn't allowed to have breakfast, which is basically torture for a pregnant woman. And you drink 50 grams of sugar. Now I took my own and it was called the fresh test because I didn't want to drink the one that they gave me, which was full of chemicals. You drink 50 grams of sugar. You have your blood taken before and after one hour

and they track your blood sugar and see where you're at. And I was like, oh my God, is this going to ruin my entire day? Starting my day with 50 grams of sugar, no carbs, no protein. And am I going to be exhausted? And I actually felt incredible afterwards. I did all of the things that you told me to do, which included, I took a protein shake with me that was low in sugar. And I drank that as soon as I had my blood taken after the second hour. And then I went on a walk and I was going up and down the stairs to like burn off the glucose and it really worked. So can you share a few more tips on managing blood sugar spikes that are going to happen, whether it's your glucose test or your baby shower, or you just want that

slice of cake, which you get to have and what it looks like to really balance that. Because I can, I really can attest to that being a needle mover. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a

bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's Kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Yeah, I think it's absolutely important for everyone that's listening. So whether you're pregnant or not, or you're just trying to conceive, or you've even passed your glucose tolerance test, you're not off the hook. We all need to start to think a little bit more about balancing our blood sugar.

And we can do that in a way where we're still able to go enjoy the dessert table at the baby shower. That's really exciting, but there's little hacks that we can start to implement. So leading up to your glucose tolerance test, making sure that you get really good sleep the night before, making sure you're staying super hydrated. If our fluids and our blood volume is dehydrated, that's kind of increasing the concentration of sugar and it makes it a little bit harder for our bodies to deal with that big amount of sugar in one sitting. So staying super hydrated, getting that little workout in either before or after that's really going to start to help balance you back out because the muscle contracting is actually basically it's helping

you make room in your muscles for more sugar. So if you want to kind of bookend both ends of the glucose tolerance test with a walk or a little mini workout walking the stairs, that's going to be really helpful for kind of getting you off that blood sugar rollercoaster because then your muscles are kind of like sponges to soak up that extra sugar and able to deal with it a lot better. I think for people that are really unsure of what their blood sugar levels look like, I think it is a really nice experiment to do something like a levels, which is a continuous glucose monitor for two weeks before pregnancy, during pregnancy, whenever. I'm not pregnant yet, but I'm looking to get pregnant

within the next year. And this is something I'm really doing to help prepare my body for pregnancy because you can manage your blood sugar. So if anyone tells you, you have insulin resistance and there's nothing you can do about it, that's a complete lie. I've had women go through the course that had PCOS and they were also like you, pretty fearful and they were worried, but they got pregnant. They passed the glucose tolerance test with flying colors and they had healthy babies. So this is not something that we can't manage.

We have control over it, which makes me feel excited because there's so much out of our control that we need to let go of during pregnancy. But balancing our blood sugar is something that we can actually make a real impact on. And that starts with just little choices. So trying to avoid naked carbs. So instead of going into the baby shower with just eating a banana for breakfast. We really want to do something that's going to balance our blood sugar before we get there. So having maybe an egg scramble with some avocado, that's going to be setting us up for success once we get there. Because if you go into the baby shower with high blood sugar, it's going to compound on itself. And it's

just, it gets that blood sugar rollercoaster going even further and farther. So the crashes are much more intense. So I would say go and do it with balanced blood sugar. Enjoy the dessert table for sure. Try to get some protein, fiber, some healthy fat while you're there. And then after the baby shower, I would say grab a few girlfriends and go for a little walk around the block that's going to help start to stunt and mute that crash that you're going to that you're going to feel when you come back down and it's going to kind of start to level things out which is really helpful because then you kind of are starting to not feel all those those really bad side effects of coming down from a crash,

which is going to feel like anxious, cravings, tired, you're just going to feel super lethargic. So those are some of my few little tips for starting to balance your blood sugar and learn more about it. Yeah. And again, it's moving away from the fear, right? Because the fear is, you know, people telling you all over Instagram that you need to be doing X, Y, Z because they're selling things that help you do X, Y, Z. And they put so much fear in. I know I can speak to that

when I had PCOS, they put so much fear in how difficult it might be to get pregnant, how difficult it might be to balance your blood sugar. And your approach is, no, it's manageable. There are definitely things that you can do and you've seen different things happen. And that's what I want anyone listening to get out of this podcast is that you have the choice and you can look on the optimistic side and know that you have tons

of options. There are so many different things that you can do and everyone's journey is different. But I hope people take away from mine that just because the doctor said one thing or coach on Instagram said another doesn't mean that's your truth. And if you can find someone that you really resonate with, that you can learn from who does have that optimistic point of view, it makes a big, big difference. So speaking of getting pregnant know, getting pregnant and all the work that kind of goes in beforehand, can we talk a little bit about what kind of things someone could be doing before they get pregnant to set themselves up for success? That was something

that I was trying to be really, really conscious of before I got pregnant is my diet, things I was putting into my body, what I was actually supplementing with. So what would you say for anyone that's in that phase right now? For sure. So I have a 10-part fertility guide on my website. It's totally free and you can go download it. I think that's a really good starting point for kind of starting to check the boxes. But I think anyone that's thinking about trying to conceive in the next year, it's never too early to start making little swaps and start kind of getting your lab work done, seeing where you're at. So when I start working with a client that is looking to prepare and optimize her fertility, I want her to go to her doctor and get a few labs run just so we can

start to make any necessary changes. If you get a Genova NutriEval, that's going to give you a really comprehensive look at your nutrient status. And then we can correct things before we even go into pregnancy, which in my mind, I'm thinking that's going to help you hopefully have a few less of those uncomfortable symptoms in the first trimester. So if we can go into it feeling like we've really optimized your nutrient stores, that's a great place to be. Specifically, I want to look at vitamin D. Vitamin D is really important for egg quality. It's important for ovulation. It's important for hormonal balance. It's important for ovulation. It's important for hormonal balance. It's important for healthy fetal development and preventing miscarriage.

So I want to make sure your levels are at an optimal level, which would be the 40 nanograms per milliliter. So something above that, that's a really good base point. That's something we want to correct before pregnancy if we can. If we can't, it's totally fine. We can correct it during pregnancy as well. But that's something a lot of women are deficient in vitamin D and not getting enough because we're all sitting inside. We all have sunscreen on. We're not living on the equator probably. So that's really easy to correct before pregnancy. Another thing I would like to look at is probably get a comprehensive look at your thyroid panel. This isn't going to affect every woman, but if you do have overt hypothyroidism that's not being treated, that's also a risk factor for miscarriage. So I'm looking at trying to prevent these things ahead of pregnancy when we can. The other thing I would think about is maybe as soon as things start running out, like if your lotion bottle runs out, can we start to replace things with

cleaner alternatives? This is going to help support your hormonal balance. We know there's a lot of toxins and things in our environment and we can't protect ourselves from everything, but we can control the little things that we're putting on our skin. If we think about our skin and why these toxins and chemicals can actually enter the bloodstream, you have to think like a nicotine patch, for example. If you put that on your arm, the nicotine actually gets into your bloodstream. So our skin absorbs and those toxins can get into our bloodstream. So it's not to generate fear. It's more just to give you the information so that you can start to swap things out as they run out. I never want someone to think, oh my gosh, I have to get rid of everything in my house and replace all the plastic right away. It's more like, okay, let's just,

as things run out, we start making choices that are a little bit more elevated, a little bit more clean. And this is going to support you throughout your entire pregnancy. And even once your baby enters the world, like I know for you, Natalie, a big priority was getting the water filter. That's just an example of little things you can start to shift ahead of pregnancy to set yourself up. I love that approach of when something runs out, go replace it. This is going by all of these new things, go and stress about it. I love that you said when it runs out, start replacing it. That is such a good approach to take. And it takes the fear again, completely out of it where there's just so much of it going

around. So I really, really love that. Let's talk a little bit about your course. And I also want to pick your brain from a business owner perspective on scaling a course because you've done that so, so well. But can you tell people a bit about your course? Obviously, I'm doing it. I've been doing it for a really long time. I've shared it like a million times with people because I've really loved it. And again, it has helped me navigate. And I'm not the kind of person that follows things very linear, like in a linear way, like going in and doing it week by week. What I've really been doing is going in and seeing what's alive for me this week, what I really want to learn about. And so I completed it a lot faster that way, but I was focusing on, okay, right now I feel like I need to focus on my blood sugar or this

week I want to learn about protein. I'm feeling called to learn about protein. So can you tell people a little bit about the program and what they can expect from it? Yeah. So you can definitely go through the course in that way. And I think whether you're pregnant or you're really just thinking about fertility, because I was just thinking about fertility because we just talked about that, really the same nutrients apply to optimize your fertility. So even though I'm kind of talking to someone that's pregnant in the course, you can definitely take the course and start preparing yourself for pregnancy if you're in that phase of life. But when you start taking the course, it's a video-based course and you're able to go through it online, self-paced. So it's super easy. You can kind of learn as you go. There's a PDF guide so that you can start to

go back and reflect on things. It's clickable. So then there's links of... If I'm recommending a better cracker brand or a better lotion or a better water filter or pan that's not using Teflon, for example, you can start to go shop the things that I'm recommending, especially... I think what's been helpful for people is the supplement guide so that they can really start to feel confident that they're choosing the right prenatal supplements because a lot of the cute ones on Instagram or the ones that you have these big marketing budgets aren't always the best quality from a functional dosage and form perspective. So I'm kind of giving you all the tools to start implementing things. I provide a lot of recipes so that it's fun that you can

start to get in the kitchen and get excited about meal planning and make really nutrient-dense recipes that are going to help boost your nutrient status overall. And then a new feature we just launched is monthly coaching calls, which is really exciting. And it's a lot like this conversation. It's a lot about, okay, well, I do have an intolerance to eggs or I'm in another country. Where do you get this prenatal? And I can start giving people a little bit more personalized approach. It's a group coaching call, but you can always just kind of ask your personal questions and then I can really be there to support you through every stage. And I also debrief you on the latest research because I'm getting all the latest studies week by week in my email and there's a lot of new research coming out

all the time. So I'm trying to stay on top of that for women. Yeah, I love that. And one thing I also really like that I always love to point out from course creators, because we are big advocates of doing this at Boss Babe, is it's shot and recorded really, really well. It's so high quality. And at Boss Babe, we kind of got fed up of seeing all of those courses that were so low budget. There's nothing wrong with starting like that. But it makes it a lot harder to engage with and complete a course because for a lot of people, completing a course is really, really difficult in the first place. And so when something is shot with the consumer in mind, and it's high production, and it's high quality, and it's constantly upgraded and updated,

it makes it a lot easier to go through. And so I've personally loved that. So I wanted to call that out because I know as a course creator myself, how much work goes into that. And let's talk a little bit about from a business perspective, when did you launch this course and what have you really found to be helpful for scaling it? Because you've done incredible with that. Thank you so much. So we launched it last year and I have to say, I think that is something that I've really thought about when I went to go develop this course. I didn't want to cut any corners. And I think for all the women listening, I have to say, I am kind of the Boss Babe podcast audience myself. I started listening to Boss Babe podcast six years ago when I was building my brand from scratch and bootstrapping it. And I was

trying to figure it all out for myself. And I'm a society member as well. So I've gotten a lot of value from your podcast, from the society. And I think that's a really good place to start if you're starting to build a course from scratch. But for me, I think what set me apart and what made me feel excited about developing it is that I knew I wasn't going to cut any corners. And to feel really good about selling it, I had to get obsessed with the topic and providing value to the consumer. So if you have imposter syndrome or you're afraid of selling something, then it's probably inside of you, you think it's not good enough. And for me, I'm not going to do anything unless I think this is the best on the market. And I know my course is the best on the market because I put everything I had into it.

I've seen all my competitors and I want to go above and beyond and provide more value and care more than anyone else. So if you care the most, then you can feel really good about putting yourself out there and creating a course, whatever your niche is. I would say from a getting it done perspective, booking the videographer was huge for me because that kept me accountable. I'm a one-man show over here, one-woman show. So I had to book the videographer and put a down payment down. And that's like, okay, we're going to get this done because things are on the line now and that forces you to really get it done.

What about when it comes to selling it? So I totally relate when you put the money down, you're like, okay, we are doing this. We're doing it properly. We're going to go all in. And when you do that and you record it all before you start selling it, there's a lot of nerves that rack up. What if no one buys it? What if I can't find clients? What's been really effective for you in being able to get your messaging out there and actually make sales on your course? I think one thing that maybe a little hack that people don't realize is you have to come from the approach of it's not just about selling and the revenue, but it's really about the woman on the other side of the computer that you're helping.

So I try to think before I get on Instagram, it's like, who is this message for? I want to envision that woman cooking in her kitchen, maybe feeling really nauseous, but then implementing one of the tips that are in the course and then feeling a lot better. So that's really what drives me. That's my why. And I feel so passionate about this information that women need this. But I think one little hack would be if you're on Instagram, if you get a new follower, you should DM them. So I don't think a lot of people do this, but I always try to come from the approach of caring the most. I'm always interacting with my course members and emailing them and asking them what they think, how I can make the course better, how I can help them.

So I've gotten on the phone with a lot of my course members one-on-one, which isn't part of what I'm selling, but it goes above and beyond. And people are surprised by that. And then they want to recommend it. And then we build a relationship and I can continue to evolve the course and make it better year after year for everyone. Yeah, I can attest to that because we've had a lot of Boss Food members join already. And so many of them come into the site, come into my DMs and tell me how helpful it's been and how nice it's been to have someone that can answer questions. And I think that really, what you said is really

important and it goes for everyone in business, right? Like how can you be the best? How can you stand out? How can you make every single client of yours feel seen and not just like another number? That's something that's always been important to us at Boss Babe. And I think it can sometimes get lost in the online space and the online worlds. And so you really notice the people that don't, and that's been incredible. So tell me a little bit about your business journey then. So how has your business scaled since you decided to jump into it? Since you decided you were going to take the leap, how have things really evolved and what have you learned in that process? Yeah, it's definitely been a journey because I started as a certified functional medicine

health coach six years ago. So I was building my private practice in Singapore and then the business really evolved into a cookbook. So I have my cookbook that you can find on my website and that's all about blood sugar balancing recipes, which has been really fun. That started as an ebook, then it eventually became a physical book. I think that's a really good thing if you ever want to write a cookbook is to start as an ebook and then let it evolve naturally into a cookbook. And then you can invest that money into making it a physical product. It's a nice way to start. And then the course really evolved from there because as I was more passionate about prenatal nutrition, because for myself, I'm trying to prepare my body right now.

This is a passion for me. It's really close to my heart. I, of course, want to do everything in my power, being a nutrition nerd, to set my future baby up for health and success. So I love learning about this. And so I said, there's so much bad information online. I really want to create a place for women to get the best of the best current research, feel really good about it, have all the recipes at their fingertips. And so that's really the evolution of my business. And so now I'm really focused on supporting my course members and building my business from

different perspectives. But at the end of the day, I'm really trying to inspire women to get in the kitchen and get excited about cooking and really take control of their health. I love that so much. Yeah. And I love the idea of if you want to do a cookbook, start with an ebook and see where it goes from there. It kind of goes with everything in business. I just think if you can get an MVP, a minimum viable product out there, and you can see if there's actually demand, if people are interested, that's a really, really good place to start. And you can build from there. But if you start slow, you're not throwing a ton of money at some things. You've not got too much on the line. You can pivot. And I'm sure you learned in the

beginning ways of pivoting, things that really landed, things that didn't. And you got to optimize over time so that when it came that didn't and you got to optimize over time so that when it came to really investing in creating a program you knew how to teach you knew the approach to take yeah for any online coach I think it's nice to start as just a coach for a while so I had probably five years of just working one-on-one with women, diving into the research and really figuring out what works from a scientific approach, but also what works for me and my clients. And then combining those two to deliver it in a way that's going to be the best for most women and having all those different viewpoints of what's worked for this person versus this person and giving more examples

and more tools in your toolkit to make things work for you. I love that so much. So before you go, I want to let everyone know that you're offering $50 off every person that joins your program with the code BOSSBABE.

That's all you need. We'll put the link, everything you need in the description. But can you give everyone the link where they can actually purchase the course and then your Instagram handle as well? Because I feel like on Instagram, you share so much really, really good information. I would love for anyone that's thinking about getting pregnant or is pregnant and wants to learn a little bit more, I would love them to follow you because I've really, really enjoyed following you. And again, it's really empowering. It's not from a scar to your fear place. And that's something that I've

really enjoyed leaning towards in my pregnancy. Yeah. So you can go to my website. It's hellobalance.co, not.com. And there you'll find lots of recipes. You'll be able to find the course, the cookbook. So you can kind of dive into all of the stuff we have there. And then I hang out the most on Instagram. So it's at Hello Baby Nutrition. If you're looking for more prenatal fertility nutrition tips, and then at Hello Balance, if you're just wanting to kind of follow my journey as a health coach and find more blood sugar balancing recipes. I love it. Well, thank you so much. This has been amazing. I love your program. I've loved diving into it. And again,

if anyone's listening and you want to grab $50 off, this code will expire. But for now, it's Boss Babe. I'll put everything you need in the description below. But thank you so much, this was incredible. Thank you so much, Natalie. If you enjoyed this episode, we would love it if you subscribed and left us a review. Let us know what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, and who you'd like to see appear on the show. As a special thanks, we'll send you a copy of our Boss Babe 25. Now this is an awesome resource. It's the 25 essential things that you need for personal and professional growth. We've included everything from must-have products to books to rituals. This guide literally covers it all and I know you're going to love it.

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