My wife is about to give birth to our 1st child & we’re learning a lot about nutrition from the experience.
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Someone in my nutrition coaching group (for us as coaches) asked about coaching pregnant women
so I gave my 2 cents.
so I gave my 2 cents.Β
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Of course, this experience is new to me, so “absorb what’s useful, reject what isn’t”, as Bruce Lee would say
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For some background, my wife was a very precise macro-counter with very strict targets before this.
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The biggies:
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During the first 3 months she was miserable. So all bets were off. Whatever she wanted, she got.Β
Body image has been hard. Both with weight gain and the change of identity from someone who works out regularly to someone who’s barely wanting to get off the couch.Β
She’s definitely needed a lot of compassionate support through this.
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As she felt better, walks and now light training have been huge helps for herShe bought a training program for pregnancy. I’m not sure what it’s called, but she hopes it’ll make childbirth easier on her bc her muscles will be able to handle the difficulties
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Compared to a lot of complaints we’ve heard from others about the physical toll that pregnancy & childbirth can take, she feels like the training has really paid off so far.
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Not to mention the dopamine she gets from it, which can be a big boost when so much time is spent stuck inside not wanting to move
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She still tracks her eating and her weight but doesn’t try to hit targetsΒ
Pregnant women who restrict calories, especially carbs, can have kids who deal with weight issues. So we’ve made sure to resist the temptation to minimize weight gain and to just trust that she has the tools to work her way back afterwardsΒ
If you’ve never heard of Reverse Dieting, it’s worth looking into. Layne Norton has a really in depth YouTube series on it.Β
It’s basically about eating more food in order to raise your metabolism as high as it’ll go and then cutting calories to lose weight quicker.
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That’s how my wife is vewing this. Right now she’s approaching this 9 months as a metabolic rebuild so that when she’s ready to cut weight again she’ll have a huge headstart.
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There you have it. Those are my best nutrition tips during pregnancy. Please share what tips you have in the comments below!