Help wanted: Nursing young mother desiring better wellbeing

#1

Hi everyone,
I was active here years ago under a different name. My life has changed greatly since… I married and now have a 7 month old baby.

I’m exclusively breastfeeding, and I have to eat a lot in order to not feel dizzy and bad (probably close to 3000 calories). I gained 25 pounds during my pregnancy, and lost it all in about 4 months without trying. I’m 20 years old, 5’6", 165 lbs.

I certainty wouldn’t mind losing 10 or 15 lbs, but it’s not the main priority. My midwife said it’s normal to be about 10 lbs higher in weight while breastfeeding, too.

I used to be religiously dogmatic that carbs are “the devil”, and cause most diseases. That intermittent fasting was “the way”, and eating more than once a day was some evil, bad thing. Looking back, there was some truth in my opinions, however, I took things too far, and was using health as a cover for disordered eating.

I come now, truly on a “healthful pursuit”. I’ve become too lenient in my dietary habits: too much of a reliance on building my meals around starches (mainly bread, sometimes pasta); buying pre-made and processed items (such as soups, condiments, crackers) with industrialized seed oils (which, I know from an abundance of previous study, are inflammatory and worse than carbs). Lately I’ve been reminded of the latter and switched back to homemade butter mayo, but that’s about the extent of it.

I used to have much time on my hands to dedicate to food preparation, however, now I have a baby who keeps me constantly on my feet. Whenever my husband is at work, I find myself grabbing whatever the easiest, quickest thing is; often, a cheese and ham sandwich, or crackers and cream cheese.

I know a nutrient dense diet consists of primarily animal foods, like eggs; red meat; organ meats; bone broths; fish; shellfish; and (optionally and controversially, but i don’t desire to provoke argument) some plant foods: avocado, berries, maybe some root vegetables.

Personally, I suspect I do better with some carbs in my diet (especially while nursing), like potatoes, plantains, maybe the occasional piece of home-milled sourdough rye bread coated in butter and cheese.

I also have a husband to please; he likes noodles, pizza, and such for lunch; and meat, potatoes, veg for dinner.

In my previous keto endeavors, I lost 70 pounds (and became unhealthy thin-- but that had more to do with disorderly eating behaviours), and then lost half of my hair. It grew back in length after several years.

Though I already had hair on the thinner side after that, I recently postpartum shredded half of my hair, though it seems to have slowed down more now after 7 months. I have uncut thigh length hair, so it’s quite the unwelcome thing to wait for it to grow back. We hope to have several more children, and I don’t look forward to this occurring each time postpartum. I don’t want dietary changes to exacerbate this more.

More importantly, I don’t feel like I’ll be able to manage several more children well with my current health. Not that my health is necessarily “bad”: I don’t have any known medical issues. I just don’t feel as energetic, vibrant, and full of life as I know I ought- especially at 20 years young.

Also, I feel like my teeth are paying for pregnancy, nursing, etc. And my adrenals are paying for several night awakenings- I feel tired… but I know naturally, women in hunter gatherer lifestyles nurse their children very frequently, and enjoy better health, even with extended nursing of several years and night-feedings.

In conclusion, I desire to:

• Progress in the direction of prioritizing a healthful, nutrient dense diet (not necessarily ketogenic, but in a direction with less reliance on empty carbs) for my own wellbeing and ability to mother…
• Without breaking the bank…
• While being able to maintain my high caloric needs, without feeling nauseated (keto had a tendency to make me feel full quick; also, usually I don’t feel like eating in the morning but have to force myself to eat, and to eat more than feels comfortable, otherwise I feel dizzy and weak)…
• Without losing my milk supply…
• Fits into my lifestyle (with a busy young baby and a husband who eats “junk food”), and…
• Improve my health in general for better wellbeing and quality of life.

TLDR: I want to improve my health and wellbeing (particularily for motherhood and everyday life), and I’m looking for help on how to implement a more nutrient dense (though not necessarily ketogenic) diet, with less reliance on carbs, with a somewhat stingy carbivore husband, and a baby who doesn’t give me much spare time.

Any comments are appreciated!

(KM) #2

Welcome back!

For a busy young mother, you’ve certainly done a good job learning and quantifying your needs and beliefs about diet. That’s a great start.

The easiest peace I found in my household was to encourage my husband to choose and eat prepared foods. :hushed: That’s what he actually likes best anyway. It was an exhausting struggle to turn cartwheels about his diet - keto, clean but somehow magically tasting like ultra processed crap anyway, fussing over every ingredient - just to be met with a deflating critique at every meal. I am not his keeper or his dietician. Or his magic genie-mommy. Our relationship is actually less strained since he’ll tell me he wants a (frozen bagged) pasta dish and two frozen rolls for dinner!

Edit: it’s not that I don’t cook for both of us at times. But having the freedom to do that if and when I have time and inclination, rather than having the role of waiter, nutritionist, personal Michelin chef, busboy and dishwasher dumped on me de facto for hours every night as if I were a live-in butler, has been … an improvement.

I usually feed myself a diet that’s clean single ingredients, meat heavy but not carnivore. More or less what you outlined. I keep it as simple as I can, both because it’s easier, because I like celebrating individual curated foods I’ve chosen, and because I can keep closer track of what ingredients are going in my mouth, often preparing something that will last me several days like a roast chicken or homemade jerky that I can pick on as I go.

I have cyclical hair fallout issues too. I am taking a supplement that includes “cynatine” - a type of keratin protein - and using rogaine. I’m never sure if it’s the Stuff that works or just time, but it’s grown back nicely.

Good luck, and congratulations on your new baby!

(Tracy) #3

I don’t have any advice for you, just here to say congratulations

#4

Oh, lucky baby to have breastmilk from a health-conscious mother! :smiley:

I don’t know what a nursing mom must do differently or anything, I just would start with what comes more or less naturally and comfortably. Can’t you just eat a small but super dense breakfast? I can’t have breakfast, I hate it with a passion and I don’t need it - but if I had to, I would eat a few dense bites, that’s easy for me and leaves my stomach comfortably empty. Some fatty protein, I definitely would go for that.

3000 kcal doesn’t seem much to me (but I surely can eat…), at least using enough meals. I can do 5 meals starting at 3pm in need when I get satiated too easily on carnivore (not ideal for me, to put it lightly but I surely get my nutrients without forcing myself to eat).

If your husband depends on carbs, that alone isn’t eating junk food, my SO is very health conscious and always eats a lot of carbs. It’s actually easy to cook for him since I started to eat meat on keto as he can eat that too, just with a lot of carbs on the side and a carby dessert or two (he makes his own). Carbs are super easy to cook, almost no work except bread but I love baking bread so that’s alright once a week. Well he isn’t particularly choosy - but he wouldn’t touch my fattier meats or pure egg sponge cakes for some reason… He does eat most of my carni food. With carbs, obviously… It was way harder without meat (he did high-carb, I did keto… very little common ground, well there were eggs…).

I am on low-carb since ages though, you were a little kid when I started… It’s not always easy but eventually it got better even in off times. You are so young, it’s great to make great changes so early. So, do them, even if not everything will be perfect right away… I am still so far from that, after 1.5 decades… But it’s often good enough (and I don’t have discipline).
It’s not clear for me what diet is your goal and what is your actual one at this point but you seem to have an idea what to do… Don’t be too strict though, that easily backfires and sometimes huge restriction isn’t ideal for us anyway, we should figure out what we can expect from ourselves… I do certain things easily from the beginning, no chance at others and I have something in-between and I train to do better when I am very sure I should. Sometimes I change very gradually but I realized we can change a lot for the better, even without being forceful about it. I couldn’t handle sacrifices so I don’t do them. I love many carby food - but even more low-carb food and try to choose well.
And while I like when I manage OMAD and I suspect I really need it for my goals, it shouldn’t be all the time and it’s quite fine when I eat right using 2 meals… Or 5 when it’s needed.

Good luck!

#5

Congratulations to you! Great that your breastfeeding & giving your baby the best start! I fed my first for a year, the last time he fed he actually waved goodbye to my chest & that was it :joy: I found out I was pregnant with no2 then …I couldn’t feed my 2nd for so long as my milk dried up, felt bad about that for a while but he’s very healthy now!
Just to encourage you that you’re doing a great job, it’s normal to be tired, & take care of yourself mentally as well as physically…
Little & often might be the way to go to keep up your calories, for easy workload & to help your nausea. Cheese, nuts, nut butters, seeds? Veg & hummus, greek yoghurt & some fruit if you’re happy to have those carbs? all healthy and easy, but I don’t know about your budget … Would your hubby eat the fathead pizza? If he would, you could batch cook the pizza base, fairly easy to get out the freezer. Make some soup in big batches for the freezer? If hubby likes chilli again that’s easy to make extra & freeze, if you had it with sweet potato or jacket potato then that’s not empty carbs.
Do you drink enough water? Maybe the dizziness is dehydration rather than lack of calories, just a thought?
I munched on dry cereal & KitKats so I’m not speaking from experience!
Hope you can work out a balance!

(Skip Cody) #6

Welcome back and thanks for sharing! You seem so aware an understand how to eat. A strict Keto diet is not for everyone and we all need to see what works for us. I think you are on the right track in coming back. The dogma can get thick but I belive this community has the best intentions.

You got this!

#7

CONGRATS!

Same here, many of us swap SAD eating dogma for Keto dogma, and it holds us back, sometimes huge. I did the carbs are the devil thing too, that high protein was bad, that calories didn’t matter, that fasting was the “cure” and it all ended with losing a LOT of muscle, lowering my metabolic rate and having to eat at starvation levels to lose anything. Basically dumps ALL of those and totally changed my approach and now doing better than I have been in over a decade, lost a ton of fat, got the muscle back, and bodyfat lower than it’s ever been in my adult life.

Many of us do, many are ashamed to admit it, I do a hybrid of targeted and cyclical keto now, I use the carbs for all their GOOD for, at the right times. Sweet potatoes, white rice, oatmeal etc. I’ll also mention aside from bodyfat being better than it has been in forever, my A1C hasn’t moved since going from strict keto to doing this, because I’m using them, reloaded liver and muscle glycogen, but not eating enough for them to spill over and create trouble.

On the hair, many people both keto and long term low carb and carnivore have noticed thinning hair and impaired Thyroid function. I never once read that on a keto forum or group, yet you hit half the podcasts of health and fitness places and it’s rampant. When I looked back on my thyroid numbers once I heard that, it was steadily dropping the whole time. Many guys also have lowered testosterone levels.

You got to find what works for you, not a predetermined cookie cutter. For me, it’s basically some carbs around workouts to power those and keep glycogen up, a refeed when needed, and then mostly normal keto otherwise. Different people, different solutions.

(B Creighton) #8

Congratulations on your baby. While nursing a baby I feel it is important to heed your cravings for any whole food. My wife is allergic to dairy protein, but began to crave our home-grown grapefruit… Not sure why, but I heavily limed it, and they were delicious. Maybe they provided some of the calcium she needed. I just started my keto winter cycle, and do fairly low carb the rest of the year. Don’t be scared of fats while you are nursing. Babies brains need MCTs from their mother, and their fat is typically high in mitochondria to help them stay warm by “burning” fat.

I get organic grass fed ground beef at Sam’s club for $5/lb… That seems reasonable. I get reasonably fresh wild Pacific salmon there or at Costco at $10/lb or thereabouts. Same with frozen wild shrimp - usually from Argentina. I like Costco’s cold-packed chichen thighs at around $1.79/lb. Snow crab… similar. Also canned sardines are a quick good food - I get either Wild Planet or Seasons at Costco usually for around $1/tin. I get Austraiian or New Zealand lamb from either Costco or Sam’s Club for around $5/lb, and cut it up into 1lb sections. I source hemp hearts now from Costco. I add these to nut mix I make myself, with nuts from Costco, and various bulk food items from local health food stores… like coconut, chopped dates, etc. I mention this because it is a nutrient dense and quick food. Each container I make lasts about 2 weeks. I get pastured eggs at Trader Joe’s for $5/dozen. Sounds expensive, but that is still only a buck something for a very nutrient dense breakfast. I get uncured and unsweetened bacon from Smith’s/Kroger or eat my eggs with sun-dried tomatoes I also get at Costco. Whole olives are not particularly cheap, but are a very quick, easy, and nutricious food. I was too lazy to make a vegetable last night and instead had about 10 giant Spanish olives. I believe these to be beneficial for your DNA as well. Cruciferous vegetables are relatively cheap, and fill out my diet, even when doing keto. I generally season them with grass-fed butter, and Herbamare. Anyway, these food items shouldn’t break the bank, and are nutrient dense and I feel are good for not only you but baby.

If I skipped breakfast, I know I would lose excessive weight… and feel weak, etc

Don’t know how to help you there unless he decides he likes some of your dinners. Sadly, most Americans are habituated to junk foods… which is why Americans have the lowest life expectancy of any developed country. Your desire to eat better is certainly important for your health and the health of your baby.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

While you are breastfeeding, you and the baby both need plenty of protein and fat. Much of what you are eating, is of course going to feed the baby. Protein provides amino acids, which are the building blocks of all tissues, and fat provides the energy for tissue synthesis and growth. Moreover, babies’ brains grow quite a bit over the first few years, and the brain needs ketones in order to make the fat and cholesterol it needs for healthy growth. That is why babies are born in ketosis and easily remain in ketosis (fatty acids and cholesterol are too large to cross the blood-brain barrier, so the brain relies an a good supply of ketones). A diet that is not rich enough in protein and fat will stunt not only the body, but also brain development.

While you are breastfeeding, you should not attempt to fast, and you should eat as much food as you have appetite for. Your body will not let you and the baby starve.

I personally find a carnivore diet easier to manage than even a ketogenic diet with plant foods, because most of the cooking time involves preparing the the grains, vegetables, etc. for cooking, whereas I can grill bacon, a burger, or some other piece of meat for a few minutes on each side with very little effort. It’s worth remembering that most traditional cultures weaned their babies onto meat. It sounds disgusting to modern ears, but mothers would pre-chew the meat for the baby and then put it in the baby’s mouth for further mastication. (This practice also helped build healthy gums, jaws, and teeth.) In any case, however the food is prepared, we know that babies grow best on a diet low in carbohydrate and rich in protein and fat.