The Food Medic - S2 E6 - Pre and post-natal nutrition and exercise

Episode Date: January 30, 2019

In this episode, Dr Hazel is joined by Charlie Launder, a pre & post natal personal trainer and founder of Bumps and Burpees’, and Charlotte Stirling-Reed, a Registered Public Health Nutritionist, focusing mainly on maternal, infant and toddler nutrition. They discuss what to eat and how to safely exercise before, during, and after pregnancy. This is a great episode - even if you’re not quite ready for babies just yet! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Hi team, and welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Hazel Wallace,

qualified medical doctor and founder of The Food Medic. The Food Medic is a platform where we bridge the gap between the latest thoughts and developments in nutrition and lifestyle with medicine. So we've come to the end of January. We have survived the doom and gloom month. But I hope for you guys it hasn't been too difficult and that you've enjoyed the last few episodes that we've been putting out to help you get through January in a healthy and fun way. I know I really enjoyed last week's episode with Laura Thomas on intuitive eating and also Rangan's episode on stress that's really helped me throughout this month. Today's topic is on pre and postnatal nutrition and training which is super important even if you're not ready for babies just yet but you're thinking about it and that includes our male listeners also. So today I'm joined by Charlie Launder who is a pre and post natal personal trainer and founder of Bumps and

Burpees and Charlotte Sterling-Reed who is a registered public health nutritionist focusing mainly on maternal infant and toddler nutrition but make sure to keep listening until the end when we give you a teaser for our next episode and share this week's challenge welcome to the show thank you thank you thank you for having us i'm gonna let you both introduce yourself separately so charlie do you want to take it away? Yep so I'm Charlie and I am the founder of Bumps and Burpees. It's a personal training and health company that helps women through their pregnancy and postnatal so I like to keep them safe, active, strong throughout their pregnancy and all the way into motherhood. It started off in a gym. Now it's based in people's homes. So it's mobile.

We're trying to make it easier for mums to access this sort of active lifestyle and not feel like it's something they can't do with a baby. So we're trying to bring the healthy lifestyle to them and make it as easy as possible for them. Wonderful. Hi, I'm Charlotte Sterling-Reed. I'm a registered nutritionist and I run a consultancy company called SR Nutrition. And the focus of SR Nutrition is really around maternal, infant and toddler nutrition. It's an area that I absolutely love. And one of the main things I'm trying to do is just basically bust the myths and try and make sure that parents and pregnant women have access to reliable information about what they should eat, what they should feed their kids, you know, without it getting confusing and without all of the things that we read about every day that can really add

to things being confused, basically. Yeah, absolutely. So I think I've got the perfect duo for this topic. Because pregnancy is such an exciting time. But I think it's also quite terrifying for people. And when I put out on my Instagram page that you guys were coming in I had so many questions and there was I guess a lot of confusion like you said and a lot of fear around can I exercise what should I eat what shouldn't I eat so Charlotte let's discuss pre-pregnancy why is it important we start thinking about nutrition early i.ee. before we actually get pregnant. Okay, so I think this is such an important topic. And it's a topic that is just not discussed anywhere near enough. Ultimately, the nutritional status that we go into pregnancy with matters a lot. It matters because actually during pregnancy, we need lots of vitamins, minerals to help build

the foundations of a baby. And actually, if we're going into pregnancy quite deficient, this can have a real negative impact on the long term health of a baby. So people don't often think about their nutrition before they become pregnant, but actually, it really matters. The diet of young women, and especially teenagers, is actually one of the worst across the board, especially when you look at micronutrients. And when you think that this is the generation that's going to carry the next generation it is actually quite a concern and I think we need to talk so much more about pre-pregnancy nutrition. Absolutely so what are the key nutrients that we need to be aware of particularly if we are planning on getting pregnant say in the next couple of months? So the main thing that you'll probably read a lot about is folic acid.

We do need folic acid before we become pregnant to make sure that we can basically grow the baby successfully. There's something called a neural tube defect that can happen in mothers who are deficient in folate. So making sure that mum takes a supplement of folic acid as soon as they start trying for a baby and throughout the first 12 weeks of pregnancy as well is key. But actually there's other nutrients as well that don't get talked about as much. So for example, vitamin D is something that parents should start to think about, again, to make sure that

they've got the right reserves and the right stores. Aside from that, it's just a healthy balanced diet. So it's making sure that you're eating foods from all of the right food groups, which will help you to make sure you've got enough vitamins, minerals to carry and grow a healthy baby, basically. And what about dad's nutrition? So again, yeah, dads aren't off the hook, whereas actually we do tend to somewhat ignore the diet of fathers. But certainly in terms of fertility and producing healthy sperm diet is incredibly important so some of the things that we need to pay attention with men is definitely having a healthy weight which can actually help with fertility but also again making sure they're having a balanced diet and they're

getting all of those micronutrients in because for example nutrients such as zinc and selenium are really important in producing healthy sperm yeah and where can we get these nutrients like zinc and selenium? Good question. I think ultimately, if a person is having a well-rounded diet, so let's say, you know, they're having whole grains, they're having all of their fruits and vegetables, so you're five plus fruits and vegetables a day. They're having some meat or meat alternatives. They're having some dairy or dairy alternatives. they are likely to be getting enough in the way of those nutrients so you know I've mentioned things like iron which certainly comes from meat but if you're vegan or vegetarian you can be getting iron from plant-based sources like lentils beans pulses nuts and seeds I've also mentioned zinc which again comes from dairy and

meat products as well and selenium, you can get in nuts, seeds. But again, it's all about balance and context. So for most people having a healthy balanced diet, they should be getting enough. Yeah, instead of just getting focused in or bogged down on particular nutrients. Exactly, or thinking I've got to, you know, take spirulina or supplements or, you know,

smoothies with things added in. It is just about that general healthy balanced diet. Yeah, absolutely. And then when we get pregnant, how does the diet change? And should we be thinking about supplements? I know that we spoke about folic acid and you continue that up until 12 weeks of pregnancy. Absolutely. As soon as we do become pregnant, we again, you know, back to that same old message of

healthy balanced diet. But yes, we do need to be taking folic acid and also need to be taking a supplement of vitamin d so around about 10 micrograms of vitamin d throughout pregnancy and throughout breastfeeding there definitely are other nutrients that are important so for example some things that we don't necessarily think about are omega-3 fatty acids which are incredibly important in the third trimester they're important in other trimesters as well but specifically in the third trimester. They're important in other trimesters as well, but specifically in that last trimester, really important for baby's brain development. Also iodine. There's been a lot of studies looking at females and pregnant women showing actually there seems to be mild to moderate iodine deficiency throughout the UK. You know,

if people are going to think about a vegan diet, This is important to take notice of if and when they become pregnant because there certainly are things like iodine, like B vitamins, like iron that they could be missing out on if they're not planning their diet efficiently. Yeah, and we get iodine in dairy and milk and things like that and fish really. So that's the reason that if you're plant-based or vegan, you might be getting it yeah you can get some milks fortify some plant milks fortify but you really do have to check the label because not many do completely it's actually not great because it's really not consistent and i've been working on a couple of campaigns around this actually where we're trying to get a bit more consistency with some of those plant milks because as you said some

of them have got iodine in but others of them haven't and for most people they don't know that they need iodine if they're on a plant-based diet because it's never spoken about no it's one of those um nutrients that we just don't really talk about it's so important so for guys at home iodine is important for making thyroid hormones so they're the hormones that kind of control our metabolism but not just the things that would come to mind but all of the processes that go on in our body so it's really important that you know not just pregnant women but all of us are getting enough iodine yeah if they're cutting out milk or on a plant-based diet they could be at quite a lot of risk of being deficient simply because milk is our main source of iodine in the UK diet so if you're not having cow's milk

you do really need to look at your sources and pregnant women do need a little bit more as well. Yeah. And speaking of getting more nutrients, what's the whole truth behind eating for two when you're pregnant? Yes. Not true, unfortunately. Do you know, one of the things I find so fascinating about pregnancy is that the human body is fascinating. It changes so much. So it will absorb much more efficiently. So when you're eating foods, your gastrointestinal system will actually absorb your nutrients much more efficiently. You also have more blood flow, you also have a little bit more of an appetite, so you're likely to eat a little bit more.

And there's loads of adaptations that go on in the body to make sure that you're absorbing your food and your nutrients. So you don't actually really need to think about eating that much more because your body will do all the work for you but in the third trimester you may need a little bit more in terms of calories so around about 200 calories a day extra in the third trimester and other than that it's just about thinking eating quite normally but trying to focus on a healthy balanced diet throughout. Yeah absolutely. Okay so food's obviously important now Charlie why is it important that we stay active when we're pregnant? Well just as you said about pregnancy being fascinating with the body changing the body needs some help too on the outside so you know you're gaining some excess weight your posture's going to change because of the way the bump grows

there's all these different changes to your ligaments becoming a bit softer from a release of a hormone called relaxin and you need to give your body a helping hand in trying to just keep you upright all day so you know if suddenly you gained 10 kilos and you hadn't gained any more strength and you know you'd really struggle and that's why people commonly say oh your how's your back your back's going to struggle because it will if you don't give your body a helping hand your muscles aren't going to be able to cope with the changes so your core as the baby grows the bump will start growing and your core cannot stay all the way together because your baby won't be able to fit so of course it's got to separate and which you know it's not going to be as efficient as it was before doesn't mean it's going to turn off completely because if you didn't have any core

strength you were standing up properly so you have got some core strength but it's slightly different and if you aren't maintaining a good level of strength surrounding your bump you're going to be in real pain you're going to struggle your hips are going to hurt your back's going to hurt and it's a nine month thing that you have to try and work with your body and try and help it along so it's not only important from the aesthetic side of things and you know you don't want to gain excess body weight other than the baby it's also really really vital that you stay on top of your strength because otherwise you're really not going to enjoy your pregnancy one bit no but i think a lot of women are afraid to exercise when they're pregnant because they don't want to hurt the baby.

No, of course. So what advice do you give to women and what can they or can't they do? Well, you're right. People are so confused because there's loads of information, but also not that much information online. So they can keep searching and searching and there's no sort of final answer. They can keep going until they find what they want to hear. And the answer is your body

will tell you if it's not right so if you're doing something you don't quite feel comfortable with it then don't do it or change what you're doing because everybody's different so there's you know some rules of thumb which I'll go through a couple things you really can't do but everybody is so different so something that I might feel comfortable doing might not be what you feel comfortable doing for example if you were a runner and you got pregnant and you still felt okay to run and your body was very used to running then there's you know there's nothing to say that you can't carry on running but I would say if you were not a runner and you become pregnant now is not the time to start running and be like oh my friend also runs while she's pregnant I'm going to do it

so as I said before I think it's not only okay to exercise. I think it's important to exercise. You should exercise. But what you should do is get the appropriate help. If you've never exercised before, find someone who's qualified or find a class that's specific for pregnancy. There's no really right answer as to what type of exercise you should be doing. But what I will say is think about

why you're doing it so don't just exercise for the sake of it you want to be building up strength surrounding your joints and your groin bump something that's going to help build up your muscles and your strength in the right positions okay and what were those rules of thumb that you mentioned that women should be aware of that kind of definitely don't do? You definitely don't want to be doing crunching ab exercises. So you can work your core, but it's going to be in a very different way to how you've been working it before. So at the very beginning, you can actually do things like crunches and your bump isn't growing so fast that it's physically impossible. But like I said before, think why you're doing it. People who do crunches, they're doing it so they can gain that six pack or that, you know,

that shredded look. You're not going to get that with pregnancy because your bump is going to be in the way. And you want to give your outside abdominal muscles a bit of a break. So you don't want to put too much pressure on them. So therefore, the three things that I say not to do is crunching exercises, full plank movements. So that includes holding a plank, mountain climbers, press-ups, anything in that full plank position because it's a lot of pressure from the inside to your abdominals, which will just encourage it to push apart. And the last thing is lifting both legs at the same time. So double leg lifts, lying down, you know, V-sits, things like that.

Because again, that puts a lot of pressure from the from the abdominals so what you can do is make them slightly easier for your body so put your knees down in your plank or mountain climbers with your hands on a box you know take off the pressure because you're only going to make it harder for you postnatally because your abdominals are going to separate a bit more i'm encouraged to push them apart apart from those three everything else is dependent on you so you've got this increased amount of relaxing in your body the hormone that you need because it will help your body to expand in order to push the baby out so you want it there but it also softens all ligaments so you know your knees your ankles and you're more susceptible for injury to twist your ankle or things like that at this point so be very mindful of lots of high impact work

so running might become a bit uncomfortable for you even if you are a runner so then I would say take it to a treadmill so that it's a bit of softer on your knees and your ankles HIIT classes I'd be mindful of something like that if there's a lot of jumping around you're not going to feel comfortable doing that as your bump grows so it's good to get into the right habits at the beginning and i think probably the number one question i get asked through social media is can i still do hit workouts and there's a time and a place for all this but pregnancy is not really that okay okay cool and you just mentioned some hormones that change throughout pregnancy. You know, there's so many other hormones that are affected by pregnancy, things like progesterone. There's another hormone called HC constipation, lots of lovely side effects. Is there anything we can do like with our diet or lifestyle to help alleviate some of these symptoms?

Yeah, I think it's exactly as you were saying with exercise, it's very variable from person to person. So actually, it is somewhat about working out what works for you. And you know, quite a lot of the time, you can hear anecdotal evidence that, you know, let's say ginger tea really helped to alleviate morning sickness in some people. There's not massive amounts of conclusive evidence around ginger. So actually, I'd recommend not taking any supplements and actually avoiding kind of herbal supplements to some degree, because we just don't know enough about them. But I would say that, you know, work out what works for you. So if ginger tea is helping you to reduce your morning sickness in the morning brilliant go for it trying to go for maybe more plain foods rather than really heavily flavored or spiced because certainly spiced foods can have an impact

on you know acid reflux and feeling a bit overwhelmed or sickness so plain foods little and often making sure you're just keeping yourself super hydrated as much as you can you know for some people it can be really severe as well so I'd say sure you're just keeping yourself super hydrated as much as you can. You know, for some people, it can be really severe as well. So I'd say if you're past the first trimester, and it's just not going away, definitely be seeking some medical help because some people do have it quite severely. And you might need to get some extra support to get some of those nutrients in. But yeah, as I said, whatever works for you. So you know, for some people, it might be a herbal tea for some people, it might be, you know, certain foods trigger it and just keeping wary about not eating those,

but trying to still have as much variety in your diet. I'm a massive fan of, instead of us focusing on all the things we don't like or we don't want to include, writing a list of all the things that don't trigger your problem and just making sure you're rotating through those all the time and including as much variety in your diet as you can yeah love that and then during pregnancy there's certain foods that we probably should be more aware of in terms of what we're eating and things like caffeine and alcohol what are the foods that we should exclude throughout our pregnancy okay it's quite a long list so again i do like to encourage people to not just focus on this focus on all the foods that you can and should be including in your diet in plentiful amounts so think about that first of

all but yes there are some things so for example soft ripened cheeses blue cheeses you need to be wary of those oily fish is really important to include in the diet but actually we should be having no more than about two portions of oily fish in the diet when we are pregnant or breastfeeding also there's limitations on things like canned tuna so no more than about four tins of canned tuna over a week and also shouldn't be consuming liver or pate or anything with vitamin A. So make sure you're not taking vitamin A supplements during pregnancy. And on top of that, shark, swordfish, marlin are fish that everybody says to me,

I wasn't considering eating shark, but don't do it if you are pregnant because they have high amounts of mercury in them. Other than that, I think raw or undercooked meat and shellfish are not recommended. Anything that could potentially have bacteria in, so unpasteurized dairy, again, is not really advised. And it's really just the risk of food poisoning is a lot worse if you're pregnant and could potentially be harmful to baby. So those are the main foods to avoid. And of course, you mentioned caffeine so caffeine we're recommended to keep our intake below 200 milligrams a day and alcohol guidelines are now basically the

safest option is just to not drink throughout pregnancy yeah i get asked that all the time can i have a little bit and i'm like really just try not to drink for the next nine months yeah and i know that people hate to hear that. But just going back to caffeine, one of the things that I found really interesting when speaking to someone who was pregnant, we were discussing how much caffeine's in coffee and things like that. And she was very like up to date on that.

But what she wasn't taking into consideration is some teas, like lots of teas, even the herbal teas have caffeine in them and chocolate has caffeine in it. So be mindful that caffeine isn't just in coffee and what advice would you give to people when it comes to that in terms of say cups of coffee yeah on a limit okay so 200 milligrams is roughly about either two coffees or three or four cups of tea a day so not a huge amount for people who maybe do drink quite a lot you have to be

really wary about ones when you are going to kind of coffee shop chains as well because sometimes the amount of caffeine is so variable and they did actually do some research a couple of years ago which showed that you can get almost your whole entire day's recommendation in one hit in some of those coffee shops so you do have to check labels ask questions be really aware but the main thing I'd say is when it comes to your teas and coffees just think variety so if you are having a coffee a tea some decaf tea a couple of herbal teas some water maybe a smoothie maybe some juice you're going to be absolutely fine so just think about variety with your drink choices as you would hopefully do as well with your diet and also there are restrictions on herbal teas so really really recommendation is to have no more than about four cups of herbal tea a day during pregnancy,

which most people have no idea about. But again, if you're just varying the types of herbal tea you're having, if you're having a bit of decaf tea and maybe a coffee a day, you're going to be fine. Just think variety. Yeah, wonderful. Okay, now we're progressing through the pregnancy we're getting bigger we're starting to feel very tired charlie what do we do in terms of how do we stay not motivated but yes motivated to stay active and i don't mean doing three barry's classes a week but how can we have some gentle exercise as we progress through well i think I think that's a good thing to say about energy is that you're feeling so tired. You don't feel sick anymore, hopefully, but you do start to feel tired. And of course you do.

You're carrying around extra kilos that you never had to carry around before. And, you know, I'll put some ankle weights on a client for 10 minutes and I get all the complaints. So no wonder you start feeling tired. So I think the main thing to remember is that exercise doesn't have to be in the traditional sense of you know a workout like you know getting your exercise stuff on it could just be getting outside and going for a half an hour walk putting on a good podcast and you know just getting your height rate up a little bit and getting some fresh air and that can either motivate you to do something else when you get home or it could just be that that's your exercise for the day and if that's all you're

doing then that's okay. Everybody's very different like we've been saying the whole time. You cannot judge your own pregnancy on someone else's and the biggest thing that I hate to see is people making themselves feel so bad but you will find that your energy comes in peaks and troughs throughout the pregnancy. Some people say that the second trimester it comes back. you find that yeah oh god it comes back energy yeah and then third trimester it goes away yeah it goes away again so you know it's a phase right so as with everything when it comes to motherhood is that it's not going to last forever so if you're

having a bit of a slow week and you're not feeling great definitely do something because you're not going to feel better for sitting down and you know staying inside all day definitely get out of the house and it could be you're just going to go to the shop and get yourself your one coffee that you're allowed a day so it could be that but I'd say just move a little bit and you're usually going to sort of spike your motivation I mean that goes for everybody it does for everyone but I think in pregnancy you can so often give yourself the sort of oh when I'm pregnant I must relax and look after myself and that is true but not all the time every single day yeah that's true okay and you definitely feel better when you move anyway I think so even for 10 minutes yeah okay

so babies arrived and one of the questions that I always get is how soon after delivery can I start exercising again and I know this varies for C-section or vaginal birth. What advice would you give Charlie there? Well, the main thing I would say to people is don't underestimate the recovery time. It's so important. And when you might feel okay from the outside, you have to remember what your body's just been through.

It's quite the trauma for the body, even if your birth was actually okay. Things need to shrink back to their original sizes. need to recover mentally you need to recover you need to get some sleep but also enjoy this time with your baby so six weeks is when you're going to have your checkup from the doctor i would also advocate that everybody goes and seeks out help if they can from a woman's health physio and book in an MOT because what the doctors don't have time to do is physically check you I mean correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of the doctors are there to check that the baby's okay and also check that you're not at risk of post

natal depression and they want to know that you're okay but often they'll say okay you can go back to the gym but you haven't had enough time with them to explain exactly what that means for you. You could be like a rock climber and you're like, okay, off I go back to my climbing. And you haven't been checked physically. So what I'd say is the best money you'll ever spend is to book in for one appointment with a physio who can check internally your pelvic floor. They can scan often. They can ultrasound your abdominals and really give you or your PT or somebody the report so that you know exactly where you're starting from. But I'd say definitely dose that exercise in four, six weeks. That doesn't mean that you can't be active.

So I'd say as soon as you feel able to, walking, getting out of the house every day, definitely do that because you're going to start to get the blood flowing again and help the swelling come down but don't be booking in 20 classes or trying to do too many squats and things like this at home just let your body recover and I know it feels like a long time but six weeks is really nothing in the grand scheme of things and is that the same for c-section c-section is generally a bit longer than that so the general rule is c-section would be about eight to ten weeks but your surgeon will give you a guideline of when they think you should exercise and it depends if you know if you're going to go back too early that scar could rupture there's all sorts of

things and actually you'll set yourself back way further this is probably the only time in your life that you are not allowed to exercise so enjoy it you know take that rest time enjoy your time with your baby and your family yeah absolutely i've worked in surgery and we'd always say eight weeks for any abdominal surgery but that doesn't mean that you can't do some gentle walking it's anything that's going to cause you to increase the pressure in your abdomen like crunches or squatting or anything like that so gentle walking for sure but i would say wait eight weeks when it comes to C-section. But I also think if you'd had an abdominal surgery that wasn't a baby,

you would listen. But for some reason, when you have a baby, you think you're invincible. And oh, you know, my friend on Instagram got back in this many weeks. But I think the media has a part to play there because we look in magazines

and there's women bouncing back in three days and they're like on set and they look like Angelina Jolie and like Tomb Raider. That's not okay. So I always talk with my clients about unfollowing people that aren't making you feel good about yourself. Because you're probably more likely to be scrolling through Instagram a bit more in those first six weeks. Because you are sitting down feeding your baby for long hours. You're up at three o'clock in the morning.

And if you're constantly scrolling through and looking at supermodels and you know people that aren't making you feel good about yourself unfollow them even just for the time being it's just not it's not good for any of us to be feeling like that and as a new mum your hormones are running crazy aren't they and you're just not going to digest that information very well and it's not going to help you whatsoever with feeling good about yourself. No. And Charlotte, I wanted to speak to you about that because there's a huge amount of pressure on women to lose their baby weight, you know, like instantly. But throughout your pregnancy, the weight that you gain isn't just fat mass.

You know, there's a huge amount. Let's talk a little bit about where that weight comes from and also why it's important to not drastically go on you know some restrictive diet especially if you're breastfeeding yeah definitely so yeah so during pregnancy i mean you have to think about the weight gainers you're literally growing a baby so you've got a baby you've got a placenta you've got masses amount more tissues you've got a much larger uterus and you've got excess blood you've've got amniotic fluids. You've got extra fluids going through your body as well. So and obviously your boobs get much bigger.

Your bum sometimes gets much bigger. And that's just laying down fat stores in order for you to be able to breastfeed your baby. Completely normal. And actually, it's essential for the survival of you and your baby during this whole time. So I think, you know, we need to give ourselves a little bit of a break and just say, I've literally just grown a baby. That is okay that I have put some weight on. And just remember as well that all of that stuff is not just going to disappear the moment that your baby comes out, you know. So it takes time. The human body doesn't work instantaneously. It's all about slow, gradual and taking care of yourself. And Charlie, I can't agree with you more. I mean, those first six weeks after giving birth, it is the craziest time and thing you will ever

experience in your life. You know, I think give yourself some time, just wait and just look after yourself, look after your baby, look after your mental health, because it is a real struggle during it. And like you said, hormones hormones up and down you're feeling awful one day and completely elated the next day so just slow down remember that it's all natural normal and remember that a lot of the excess weight that you may still have after baby is there for a reason breastfeeding massively helps it makes a difference to your your weight and your health but actually it's really important to make sure that we are getting enough in the way of nutrients so it's again still eating a really well balanced diet and eating enough calories. Because if you're producing this milk, which is pretty constant in those first

weeks, you need to have enough energy in order to be able to make the food that is literally going to fuel your baby. So definitely not a time to be thinking about dieting, cutting out food groups, getting your body back. I mean, it's mad to think about it like that, because it really isn not a time to be thinking about dieting, cutting out food groups, getting your body back. I mean, it's mad to think about it like that because it really isn't a time for that. No. And how does your nutrition change when you're breastfeeding? So actually not much. I'm still taking vitamin D supplements recommended. And again, still focusing on that, you know, eating a well-balanced diet because most of the nutrients that you're eating, most of the flavors even of the diet that you're eating are going to be going through to your milk

and then to feed your baby. So actually, it's a really great way to introduce baby to lots of different flavors and tastes as well. There are still some things that are restricted. So for example, you still need to only have one portion of something like shark, sawfish or marlin. You still need to be limiting the amount of caffeine that you're having. And it's not ideal to drink much in the way of alcohol. And if you do want to drink a little bit of alcohol, you need to try and time it with your feeds because alcohol and caffeine will go through your breast milk to baby. For me, it is about also thinking about all of the nutrients you're putting into your body will go to feed your baby. And it's important to know that it's not just, you know, vitamins and minerals that go through the breast milk but also like proteins for the immune system

which is why we're really big on promoting breastfeeding here and it's for the first exclusively for the first six months and then complementary feeding up to two years yeah absolutely yeah so yeah so you can um you know the world health organization advises breastfeeding exclusively six months and then you can carry on feeding for up to two years and beyond if you like to. So it's really about an individual approach and what you want. But definitely starting to introduce solid foods around about six months of age because that's when babies starting to need more in the way of nutrients that they can't just get from milk. So, yeah, one of my favorite topics is introducing solids.

Yeah. And you talk a lot about that over on your instagram with your lovely baby raffy he's not really a baby anymore though it's terrifying it's a year and a half now he's an actual toddler and that is terrifying but it goes so quickly so you know make make the most of those six weeks and nothing really are they well they felt like it then i'll tell you yeah i love that though i you know there's a lot of bloggers now who have just had a baby like nick's nutrition carly rowena and they're sharing the very honest the very normal portrayal of what it takes to have a healthy pregnancy but also everything that goes on behind the scenes and what really happens it was previously sugar-coated

wasn't it it was no one told me this was going to happen and all of a sudden it's like actually we are finding out ahead of time what it's going to be like and i think that's helpful well i found that with breastfeeding i mean i i was in for such a shock and one of the reasons why the first six weeks was so hard for me was because i had no idea breastfeeding was going to be that hard and painful and painful i just thought oh you know obviously it's natural maybe it'll take me a little while to get him to latch. My gosh, you know, six weeks later, and I just had got over the kind of almost constant crying and really, really sore nipples. And nobody spoke to me about that.

Not one person said, this is going to take a long time to get used to and you might be in pain and you might feel exhausted and you might cry every time you feed. Don't talk about it. And one of the things I did post-pregnancy was write a blog called the truth about breastfeeding because i was like we need to get this information out there because

more mums might be more likely to do it if they have got a bit more information so yeah because like if you're not latching you know that and you feel like you're the failure and if you don't have support it's very easy to give up completely because you're supported all the way through your pregnancy in all these antenatal classes and then you have a baby and you're literally just sent home and i think you're not qualified to look after baby there's no course you know all that kind of thing so you're suddenly dropped in the deep end completely so your blog post will be super helpful and you're yeah and you question everything you're doing you're thinking am i am i failing at this am i getting it right am i getting wrong i don't have a clue what I'm doing and I think the more honest information we can get out of it

no one has a clue exactly yeah well guys I think we literally covered everything from pre, intra and post pregnancy

but before you go what would be your three top tips for a healthy pregnancy Charlie you can go first three for me my first tip

would be to not compare yourself to anybody else you're on your own journey. And especially in terms of physical shape, you're doing it by yourself and don't compare even to your sister because you're not going to have the same. The second one would be keep moving. And the third one is to remember that part of the fitness side of things is recovery. So as much as we're talking about motivation some people don't struggle with that and they are keen to push push push push all the way through but remember

you do need a bit more time when you're pregnant to rest and recover and if you're feeling very tired one day take that rest day cancel your class or you know listen to your body and um rest is no bad thing wonderful um so for me i guess guess the number one would be to think about all the wonderful foods that you can include in your diet instead of always thinking about, I can't have this, I can't have that. So, you know, think about that and try and get a real varied amount of food from doing that. The other thing I would say is consider a pregnancy multivitamin. Now, the reason for this is that yes, we need folic acid. Yes, we need vitamin D. But actually, for some people, if they're not getting their portion of oily fish and fish a week, they might be at risk of maybe not having enough omega-3

or maybe they're not getting enough in the way of iodine. Specifically, if you are having a plant-based vegetarian or vegan diet, you might be at risk. So it might be worthwhile talking to your healthcare professional about having a pregnancy multivitamin. And then last but not least, I absolutely love during my pregnancy, I did myself a checklist, which sounds a bit mad, but actually it was brilliant because at the end of the day, I was able to go, have I ticked off all my food groups? Have I been drinking enough water and fluid? And have I got a little bit of exercise? And it was just a really easy way to go, do you know what? I'm doing all fine. And you don't need to think about it every minute.

But at the end of the day, you could think about it. And if you didn't, then the next day, maybe I'll go for a short walk or maybe I'll include a bit more oily fish in my diet. So the checklist really, really worked for me. I absolutely loved it. Oh, wonderful. They're so good. I'm feeling so like brooding now.

Oh, no. Don't do it okay so guys before you go can you share with everyone where to find you on social media or your websites and things like that yeah so i've actually got two so at bumps and burpees is where you'll find all the pregnancy specific stuff and actually at charlie launder i do talk about it quite a lot as well. In January, by now, you should be able to download an ebook from Bumps and Burpees, which is a four week plan of really short sort of 20 to 30 minute exercise workouts that you can do at home. You don't need any equipment or anything. You can even do it in your pajamas. And it's just to try and get people moving at home and to realize that it's not so difficult. So you can find me and you can give it a go. Yeah. So for me, I am at SR underscore nutrition on Instagram and Twitter. And you can find me on my website, which is www.srnutrition.co.uk.

And I also have a few helpful fact sheets for post-birth at littlefoodie.org, which I started with another nutritionistist colleague of mine and that's gone down really well actually I think parents are loving those fact sheets for when they're getting into that weaning stage yeah I will probably have to get you back on to talk about baby nutrition but that's all for today so thank you to everyone for tuning in and I'll see you again next time okay guys so that was a bit of a bumper packed episode with Charlie and Charlotte but I'm sure you guys have learned a lot because I know I did

before we go I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who joined in on last week's challenge of the week it's really exciting and really inspiring to see you guys sharing your photos with me on social media and using the hashtag the food medic challenge. So this week's challenge, I'm challenging you guys to have a veg of the week. So as a general rule, the more diverse the diet, the more diverse and healthy will be your good gut bacteria. So there are over 250 to 300,000 known edible plant species. But despite this, 70% of the world's food comes from only 12 plant species and five animal species. So this week, I'm challenging you guys to be more adventurous and try a new veg. So try to think

outside of the box, go for something you wouldn't usually cook it could be a butternut squash it could be you know purple carrots anything that you're not used to cooking with and if you don't know how to cook it just youtube it or ask me and we can figure it out together I also have loads of recipes over on the website and also on my instagram page if you're looking for a little bit of inspo so make sure to check it out on www.thefoodmedic.co.uk that's all from me guys this week but make sure to tune in next time where we're here from a public health nutritionist and we're going to talk about all of the public health campaigns that came out last year the thinking behind them what it means for you and talking about things like the sugar tax and potentially the meat tax so make sure to subscribe so you're the first to hear about any new episodes leave me a

review and a rating five stars if you're loving it and I'll see you again next time