~primal/paleo pregnancy~

[moss]

I plan to have a primal pregnancy. Anyone else?

The whole primal/paleo umbrella seems to cover a lot of ground and seems to include different foods for different people depending on which way they lean.

I'm completely grain and dairy free. No coffee. No starchy foods. Very little seed oils. Low carb. I eat stuff like meat, fish, poultry, green leafy veggies, lowcarb veggies, healthy fats (avocado,olive,coconut oils and meat fats like rendered tallow). Not into nuts or seeds right now. Also not into berries at the moment. I'm in ketosis and it's amazing. I should be puking my guts out right now but i feel fantastic.

I take lots of supplements~a really good multi, vite d, cal/mag, antioxidants, vite c. I'm going to be taking a fish or krill oil for the pregnancy, just need to order some.

Anyways, i'd love to hear from other women who plan to stay primal for their pregnancies and hope that this thread can be a placee where we can support each other in our journeys.

[NicMom]

Not primal, but follow a gluten and by default mostly grain free diet based on the Weston Price philosophy - nothing pasteurized, lots of raw, fermented veggies, dairy, etc.  My husband loves that we can still go out for sashimi!  My previous first trimesters have been filled with almost constant nausea unless I eat protein constantly. I would snack on meat and cheese all the time and that helped.

Good luck with the paleo diet.  I think it is definitely doable.  I would just be sure to get plenty of calcium and other minerals since you aren't doing dairy, maybe from homemade bone broths?  I'm trying to get all my nutrients from food and don't plan on taking any supplements other than cod liver oil and maybe a half dose of a raw food based prenatal.  I pulled out the grassfed beef liver last night.  I'll be cutting it down in to bite size pieces that I can swallow raw.  Yumm!

Nicole

[moss]

wow! Raw liver chunks are so hardcore! i'm a fan of organ meats but i don't think i could eat them raw : that's awesome!

my family has been dairyfree for ages (my son has been gfcf since he was 4 for asd). I hear ya on making sure to get enough calcium. I think we do pretty well. When we first went off dairy i consulted with a nutritionist and it turned out that we were getting more bioavailable calcium than people who use dairy. Go figure.

I think it's interesting that you dont take supplements. I see lots of people online who do the same and try to get all their nutrients from food sources (especially the paleo/primal folks). It would be really interesting to run daily menus thru a nutrient program to see how close to hitting all the vite rda's they are. I've read a lot about orthomolecular medicine and i think the current rda's are very low. They're just the bare minimum to prevent diseases like beriberi and scurvy, etc but not designed for optimal health. I feel that i have more energy and get sick less often when i take suplements. With the depleted soils food grow in and amt of pollution we're all exposed to everyday i think it's good insurance to take antioxidants, extra minerals etc

[NicMom]

If you freeze the liver in small chunks and just swallow, it isn't bad at all!  I don't think of nutrition in daily increments.  I feed our dogs raw and try to make sure that they are balanced on a weekly or biweekly basis.  If you tried to balance everything on a daily basis you would go crazy.  If I am traveling to visit family I tend to go heavy on the meats so when I get back, I gorge on veggies for example. 

We eat pretty much everything local, organic, sustainable, grassfed, etc. so it about as nutrient dense as you can get.  Even with that, I know that US soils, even the good ones, are deficient in iodine and magnesium so I supplement with kelp/iodine and take the occasional epsom salt bath.  Even though I live in AZ, I probably don't get enough sun so I take cod liver oil - that also gives me plenty of vitamin A. 

My belief is that if you are eating nutrient dense foods, even if they aren't perfect, you will be getting what you need and will be light years ahead of the general public.  What they put in vitamins (often synthetic, non-available versions that actually make the problem worse) scares me so I try and stay away from them.

[nukedwifey]

I've been thinking about altering my diet to do a primal type diet.  My DH has been on the caveman diet since June and feels great.  He cut out all carbs, starches, and sugars.  He basically eats meat and vegetables.  He did it to lose weight as he was really porking up and it all kind of fell off of him very quickly.  I gained a fair amount of weight with my last pregnancy, 35 pounds, and although I have since lost all of it and then some by simply breastfeeding I would rather be in the position to not have a lot of weight to lose to begin with. :)  I felt awful in the last pregnancy, always tired, which in turn led me to not do much and basically go to bed at like 7 every night barely able to wake up in the morning.  I think that is what led to the weight gain as I wasn't moving much because my diet wasn't any different from my pre-pregnancy diet and i was able to maintain my weight for years on that.  I now have a 2 yo and I need to figure out how to manage this pregnancy better!  I had a healthy pregnancy with no problems but I can't be tired and sleeping all the time.  I had very little MS though and didn't throw up once.  Of course I'd prefer to not be nauseous at all!

Do you have any sources to refer me to?  I'm pretty sure that I know what to do.  My DH said you feel like crap the first week but after that it's all up hill.  I need to start it ASAP as I started getting MS at 6 weeks in my last pregnancy.  I'm in my 4th week now.

NicMom, I ate my placenta that way from my last pregnancy.  I was going to dehydrate it and put it into capsules but decided to just cut it into cubes and pop it in raw.  I felt great immediately after giving birth.  My energy was through the roof and I had no issues with PPD as consuming the plecenta is supposed to aid in that.  It took me like 2 weeks to eat the whole thing, I think, a few cubes each day. 

[moss]

hi nukedwifey

i eat pretty much the same way your husband does. i'll probably be eating more avocado oil/olive oil/tallow to keep my calories up so i'm not losing weight. I have really similar goals to yours actually~i dont want to have 50 lbs to lose at the end of my pregnancy and i dont want to be eating crap lol.

i really like mark sisson's work~he has a couple of books including a cookbook with amazing pictures. And of course his famous blog~marks daily apple. It's the only paleo blog i sub to anymore, he's really upbeat, is dead on with his science and is easy to read.

I've been tired lately but i think i probably need more iron. Planning to pick up some liver for diner. Might have it a bit pinkish in the middle but not sure i could take it raw! I'd have to work up to that! Lol maybe good practice for eating placenta later on? Yumm!

[moss]

i have pcos and it's by eating this way i feel the most healthy. Seriously, it's cleared up so many problems. I probably wouldnt be pregnant in the first place it it wasnt for eating clean meats fats and veggies. If i were to revert to old ways of eating i think i'd be setting myself up for a whole host of complications of pregnancy.

With my first pregnancy when i took the glucose tolerance test i had really bad rebound hypoglycemia indicating insulin resistance/borderline gestational diabetes. I'm really considering refusing it this time. How can a sugar bolus be a good idea? I've read that other pregnant women have asked for the hg a13 instead but that in paleo eaters red blood cells can live a lot longer than in sad eaters so the results look skewed. Robb wolf suggested asking for fructosamine levels instead. My first baby was huge~10 1/2lbs. I'm sure it was because of my insulin resistance and all of the sugars and starches and crap i was eating then. I remember drinking a mcd's xl shake once and then feeling so dizzy that i couldnt drive~i had to get my husband to drive. I felt the same way after the gtt too. Anyways, i know that staying away from sugars and easy carbs is going to be a really good thing for both me and this baby.

I also dont want to set myself up for pregnancy induced hypertension. With my first i had horrible pitting edema, couldnt wear shoes it was so bad. My bp was on the high side. Right now my bp is great~like 110/70. Id like to keep it there!

anyways those are my thoughts this morning.

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

FYI, rebound hypoglycemia in the GTT is indicative of a very low risk of GD. I have mild PCOS and had some seriously hypoglycemia when they gave me that glucola crap last pregnancy. I did not develop GD.

[NicMom]

Moss,

I'm not sure how you are getting your calcium but please beware if you are relying on leafy greens or other phytic acid containing foods as they can actually strip calcium out of your body instead of allowing you to absorb it. 

In the context of a diet rich in calcium, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin C, good fats and lacto-fermented foods, most people will do fine on an estimated 400-800 mg phytate per day. For those suffering from tooth decay, bone loss or mineral deficiencies, total estimated phytate content of 150-400 mg would be advised. For children under age six, pregnant women or those with serious illnesses, it is best to consume a diet as low in phytic acid as possible.

http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/living-with-phytic-acid

The best way to reduce phytic acid is to boil your greens and toss the water, especially spinach.  Drink lots of homemade bone broths!

[moss]

thanks nicmom i'm aware of the effects of phytates,oxalates, phosphorus etc on calcium absorption. I've been reading up on this stuff for years. Dont know if you've ever looked thru any of the dan! literature but it is extrememly well researched and exhaustive. I've probably studied nutrition more thoroughly than most nutritionists. ~shrug~ I eat bones and bone broth and a myriad of green leafies especially the low oxalate ones (hardly ever spinach but lots of interesting heritage varieties), i take bioavailable calcium and magnesium and vite d supplements just in case. Hell i even made my own calcium citrate from free ranged eggshells and lemon juice to take. My diet is extremely alkaline which is important because in an acidic body calcium will be leached from the bones as a buffer. And according to this article on mda, the antioxidants in all the fresh veggies i eat are also protective. www.marksdailyapple.com/calcium-for-women/ i firmly believe that not only is dairy not a good source of calcium that it is detrimental to my health and my baby's for many reasons including my strong family history of autism. I had undiagnosed allergies (allergenic shiners/earaches) to milk (and i grew up on fresh raw milk and cream from my grandpas pastured cows) and feel a million times better when i stay away from it. Anyways thanks for your concern, i know it comes from a place of love and that you mean well. i hope that we can continue to support each other on this thread.

Ps to the other poster, rebound hypoglycemia and insulin resistance are huge warning signs that diabetes is looming just around the corner. Take care and ~be well~

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

Moss, no it's not. I actually got into a friendly argument with Navelgazing Midwife over this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15932839

"CONCLUSION:

The incidence of reactive hypoglycemia during the 100-g oral glucose tolerance test in our population is 6.3%. Women who experience hypoglycemia during the test have a significantly lower incidence of gestational diabetes and neonatal birth weights."

Though I wonder how they don't have neonatal birth weights.....

[moss]

hm that's interesting. I meant diabetes in general in my last post. There seems to be a diabesity epidemic going on and there are lots of people who think that it begins in the womb. Right now i'm doing my best to eat the healthiest way i know of.

They're also linking high maternal testosterone levels to autism spectrum. As a pcoser i know that when i eat a sad diet my testosterone is high. So for me, i feel best doing this. My moods are stable, i have no morning sickness, my pcos is under control, i feel good.

I'm not trying to convert anyone to paleo, i started this thread for support for other mamas on the same path i'm on.

During pregnancy most women eat like they have a free pass to put anything into their bodies regardless of nutritional value and god knows ive been there. I dont want to do that this time but i could care less if someone else wants to eat hoho's and hotdogs all day long. that's none of my business. I dont pretend to be perfect either. Lol i figure i'll probably slip up once in a while but im okay with that

today i ate: eggs, chicken schmaltz, a big juicy pork chop, fresh local green beans with coconut oil, fresh lemon cukes from my garden, some sardines, liters of clean water (no chlorine or flouride or any of that crap) and my usual supplements.

Yesterday i had: eggs cooked in home rendered lard, Green salad with lots of fresh local greens, homemade salad drsg made with avocado and olive oil, wild alaskan salmon, local hormone and abx free liver & onions and swiss chard with coconut oil. Plus vites of course

i'm proud of myself that i'm getting in so many veggies and healhty fats and proteins. My diet in my first trimester when i was eating sad was crap. I was so nauseous and i was eating junk constantly.

I have to go veggie shopping twice a week because we go thru so many. I love it!

[NicMom]

Moss, sounds like you got everything under control.  I just hate to see people think they are getting lots of vitamins from spinach and the like.  I've been tested for gluten, casein and albumin and only the gluten came back positive, thankfully.  If I had to give up the milk I don't know what I'd do!  I have given it up for a month or two just to see if there was any difference and I really did not notice anything.  My diet is mostly meats, eggs, healthy fats (coconut, animal, etc.), vegetables and milk.  I'll make the occasional pot of beans but grains are just too much work.  Why would you spend all that time soaking, sprouting and cooking just to have a side dish when you can cook up another veggie in 10 minutes

[moss]

i know what you mean about soaking grains~before we went off of gluten, a million years ago, i used to make a really time consuming sourdough bread. Sooo labour intensive! If i dont eat foods that are laden with antinutrients in the first place i dont have to deal with countering them. I cant think of a single nutrient in grains that isnt found in veggies. My guys still eat rice sometimes but im not too worried about it. And once in a while i make my son gf bread but its so rarely i dont go to any fuss about soaking etc.

We eat a lot of our veggies raw anymore~its like the ultimate fast food. Dont even have to wait in line at the drive thru lol. An aquaintance was talking about how much work it is to prepare veggies but i just dont get it. How much easier does it get?

www.primaltoad.com/primal-pregnancy/
i love this blog post and the link and the comments. It's like a breath of fresh air. You would think that with the popularity of paleo in general that there would be a lot more pregnant women writing about it.

I ordered nina planck's book about real food from the library~they didnt have her newest book though. From her website it looks like she's dairy heavy but im interested in reading the rest of what she has to say.

[LaRue]

Moss, just a question on the Krill Oil, I was taking that up until I learned I was pg - the label on the bottle (NOW Brand out of Canada) said it had not been tested for consumption during pregnancy and it was recommended not to take it.  Have you read anything you can share indicating it's safe to consume?  If I can I would love to continue taking it, but otherwise I think I will wait... I figure since I eat Paleo/Low Carb I'll be getting plenty of fish oils from fish and that should suffice. 

[tinyflame]

Hi ladies! I'm new to paleo/primal - only been doing it about two months, but have been reading about it for longer. Now that I am pregnant I have no intention of going back to my old ways, so I am happy to have support from you and to learn from you!

I've never been tested for gluten sensitivity, but I know that it does me no favors. Dairy only bothers me if I have too much of it...so I try to limit myself to some cheese (2 oz or so) every few days.

I eat lots of eggs. Right now they're my favorite - keeping the ms at bay!

[RosieL]

LaRue - I'm taking NOW krill oil religiously.  If you find any information that positively shows there's something wrong with it, let me know! But for now, I know we don't eat as much fish as I'd like (I cook with DH and I both like, and he's only occasionally tolerant of fishy meals), so the krill oil is very important to me. I choose krill over fish for the taste (I have been burping nonstop, which alleviates MS, but would be hell if I was burping fishiness!)

[RosieL]

Oh, and I'd like to add, hard-boiled eggs are the best snack EVER. Small, easy to carry around, ful of protein, and yummy. 

[moss]

i still havent ordered my dha/epa oil yet oops!

Im not sure if krill has enough dha, it seems low. A book i have @ home says to take at least 1000 of dha during pregnancy for the baby's brain and to prevent ppd. On the other hand krill seems to be more bioavailable and is high in astaxanthin.

Chris kresser wrote up a huge long analysis of fish oils, i was thinking about picking one of those and going thru the reviews to see which one reviews best for not having fish burps. I think that the burps mean the oil is rancid. Ive never been able to find fishoil locally that didnt repeat, but im hoping that if i order from a place like iherb that sells a large volume that ill get fresher oil.
chriskresser.com/the-definitive-fish-oil-buyers-guide


larue~i wonder if the krill oil you have has that warning because they just want to cover their butts? Litigious society and all of that? Somone on the prenatal vitamins thread said their prenatals had the same warning lol

Does anyone have a dha source that they like?

[LaRue]

RosieL, I've never come across anything that says it could be harmful, I think I agree with Moss that it's a cover our butts label because it's simply never been tested on pg women so they can't say it's safe.  After re-reading Dr. Eades' blog post on Krill I think I will start taking it again.  I will be my own N-1 experiment :)  Here are a couple passages from what he has to say about it and a link in case anyone else is interested:

"Krill oil, like fish oil, contains both of the omega-3 fats eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA), but hooked together in a different form. In fish oil these omega-3 fatty acids are found in the triglyceride form whereas in krill oil they are hooked up in a double chain phospholipid structure. (The fats in our own cell walls are in the phospholipid form.) Attached to the EPA leg of the phospholipid is a molecule of astaxanthin, an extremely potent anti-oxidant. The phospholipid structure of the EPA and DHA in krill oil makes them much more absorbable and allows for a much easier entrance into the mitochondria and the cellular nucleus. In addition to EPA and DHA krill oil contains a complex phospholipid profile including phosphatidylcholine, a potent source of reductive-stress-reducing choline, which also acts as a natural emulsifier.

Krill oil contains vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin D and canthaxanthin, which is, like astaxanthin, a potent anti-oxidant. The anti-oxidant potency of krill oil is such that when compared to fish oil in tems of ORAC (Oxygen radical absorptance capacity) values it was found to be 48 times more potent than fish oil."

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/inflammation/why-krill-oil/