61- Navigating Picky Eating and Maternal Nutrition with Dr. Megan Bragg

Welcome to the MilesFromHerView podcast, powered by KatFit Strength. Host Kat, a seasoned strength trainer and mom, discusses genuine solutions for women balancing fitness, motherhood, and life. In this episode, Dr. Megan Bragg, a registered dietitian nutritionist specializing in maternal and child nutrition, shares insights into picky eating, debunking dietary myths, and the importance of prenatal nutrition. Dr. Bragg emphasizes a balanced and intuitive approach to eating, highlighting the significance of breaking the cycle of perfectionism surrounding diet. Kat and Megan offer practical advice for creating a stress-free environment around food and maintaining a healthy relationship with it. Tune in for expert tips on nourishing yourself and your family amidst the daily chaos.

Get in touch with Megan: 

🛜 www.familycenterednutritionscience.com

📩mbragg@familycenterednutritionscience.com

00:00 Introduction to MilesFromHerView

00:48 Meet Dr. Megan Bragg: Expert in Maternal and Child Nutrition

02:02 Understanding Picky Eating in Children

06:30 Addressing Common Myths and Fears About Picky Eating

11:10 The Role of Language in Shaping Healthy Eating Habits

17:56 Maternal Nutrition: Impact on Early Life and Pregnancy

20:53 Postpartum Nutrition and Self-Care for New Moms

22:45 Prioritizing Nutrition Postpartum

23:32 The Myth of Perfection in Diets

24:41 Understanding Healthy Eating

29:48 Intuitive Eating and Hunger Cues

36:50 Challenges of Nutrition Research

41:13 Encouragement for Moms on Nutrition

43:39 Conclusion and Resources

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Transcript

Kat: 0:00

Welcome to MilesFromHerView, the podcast powered by KatFit Strength, where busy women like you find practical solutions to fuel your fitness journey with authenticity and resilience. I'm Kat, your host, a mom of two active boys, a business owner, and an ultra marathon runner and a strength trainer in her forties with nearly two decades of experience. I'm here to help you cut through the noise of fads, hacks, and quick fixes. This is a space where we celebrate womanhood and motherhood. All while building strength and resilience and reconnecting with you from a place of self-compassion and worthiness. Whether you're lacing up your running shoes to go out for a run, driving your kids to practice or squeezing in a moment for yourself, I'm right here in the trenches with you. Let's dive in. Dr. Megan Bragg is a registered dietician nutritionist with a PhD in nutritional biology. Megan received her RDN credential in 2015 before beginning a research career focused on maternal slash child nutrition. Over the past 10 years, she's published studies ranging from the role of choline in. For growth and development among children in Malawi to the impact of maternal diet during pregnancy on children's autism development. As the owner of Family-Centered Nutrition Science, Megan has recently been using the information she's learned to provide evidence-based nutrition counseling for moms. Children and families. She currently offers telehealth sessions related to reproductive nutrition, fertility, prenatal, and postnatal children nutrition, introduction to of solids picky eating and women's health PCOS to Menopause for families in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. When she's not learning or talking about nutrition, Megan likes to spend time outdoors with her husband and her two sweet kiddos. Welcome. I'm super excited to have you here and have this conversation. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here too. Let's jump in with picky eating because this is one I hear a lot and I'm this most people who have been following this podcast, Noah, I'm a mama of two boys, and picky eating. To me as a mom, I see it evolve throughout the stages where, it was different when they were little to now my kids are 10 and 13, as a parent, we all stress. We want our kids to eat and we want mealtime to be. I. Less battles, less of a headache. Maybe fun. We want it to be fun too. I would love to start with a picky eating where should we be concerned? Where should we not

Megan: 2:38

sure. Absolutely. Great question. Really important one. I think a lot of parents are surprised when maybe their infant is eating a lot of amazing foods, all kinds. And then as the kid gets older, they actually start refusing foods they used to eat as infants. The fact is that actually infants are usually less picky than toddlers and preschoolers, which is why it's great to introduce as many foods as possible in that first year. But once they move into toddlerhood, you know, picky eating is kind of par for the course. And what it might look like is meals where they don't eat very much. Parents joke about their toddlers, preschoolers, kindergartners just having days when they're just living on air and like puffs, and that's kind of within the realm of normal. On the other hand, sometimes they'll have food jags or they just love a food, they wanna eat it all the time. They may have limited acceptance of new foods or new textures is a huge one. New flavors they may refuse. Foods they used to like, and all of this is. Kind of to be expected, at least, you know, to some extent or less. And especially with new foods, it can often take seven or more exposures for a kid to really try and enjoy a food so they're not eating it the first time. You know, that's, that's kind of within the realm of normal, honestly. And for the most part, it's okay. You know, kids, especially young kids can generally eat what they need to live. Their, their body signals are such that they, they know how much they kind of need to eat. Others are a slower rate of growth than infants. So they may be eating a little bit less, or at least it may be looking like they're eating a little less. I recommend thinking over the entire day, instead of meal by meal can be a way to help kind of understand what they're getting in overall and if it's enough. And the good news is that many kids grow out of this more intense, picky eating without any intervention or any, any real, you know. Team healthcare work. Mm-hmm. But when it becomes more of a concern, I'd say, is when the child's not growing well. So your pediatrician's telling you they're falling off the growth curve, they're skyrocketing above the growth curve. You know, that's, that's a concern. If they're avoiding entire food groups, I'd also be a little concerned about nutrient deficiencies. So if they're not having any dairy or, you know, dairy substitute, whatever that is for your family, if they're not having any fruits or veggies, any, you know, protein foods, then it might be you know, time to talk to a healthcare provider. And those are kind of the medical concerns. But I'd also say. You know, if it's a problem for you, like it's a problem. So if it's affecting your family's quality of life, if every meal is just like a battle, if you're just dreading that's the least favorite part of your day, then, you know, talk to someone, see if you can get some help to, to help it, you know, decrease a little bit or to, to under at least change your understanding of kind of what it is and if it is a problem. So, you know, talk to a healthcare provider, talk to a dietician. Some kids do have diagnosable feeding difficulties like avoidant resistant food intake disorder. And these kids obviously can really benefit from a team of providers to help them improve intake too.

Kat: 5:50

That was very good. That like, I think just thinking back to when my kids were. Toddlers and both my kids were polar opposite kids. That was the, the silly part of my older one, like ate everything except meat. The pediatrician wasn't bothered. He was really enjoying other protein plant-based items. So like, to your point, he wasn't. Avoiding all of'em, yeah. But it was, it was one of those that it was like, is he ever going to eat meat? I know you touched on this and I thought this was really good. If it's a problem for you in disrupting home, definitely talk to individual like experts, professional doctors, and registered dieticians like yourself who are experienced in this. But what are things that you're like, I wish this fear or myth would just go away to help ease parents, to aid them in more of like, it's okay, this is normal. In their development. What are those common myths and fears

Megan: 6:46

one, I think that can be really painful to parents is the idea that either their parent, their kid is a picky eater and nothing they can do about it. Or that they cause this picky eating. This is their fault. And I'd love to just kind of help parents feel better about, about how they feel about their kids' picky eating. And there was a really good study in 2020 that I can share with you that looked at both nature and nurture. Like what do we know about the causes of picky eating? And the, what they found was that it's both. So if you're the parent who's thinking like, there's nothing I can do. There are some things that you can do to help if you, if you're pregnant or have a younger kid to help prevent picky eating. And if you already have a picky eater, some things you can do to help reduce their pickiness. And on the other hand, if you already have a picky eater, then some of it is out of your control. Some of it is genetic actually. So there's evidence that kids have different abilities to taste bitter foods and these kids that are genetically predisposed, tasting bitter foods. They are more likely to be picky. Nothing you did, nothing anyone did. There's also, of course, developmental diagnoses like autism that could influence children's picky eating. Again, nothing to do with, the things that you've done, but I think the, the takeaway feeling that some of it is out of your control and that some of it you can make small changes things like. Lots of early exposure in that first year of life, and babies actually can taste flavors in the amniotic fluid during pregnancy. So even before the baby's born, you can be getting in lots of different flavors that you'd want them to be more accustomed to. Parenting practices. We can do like child-centered practices based on encouragement, praise instead of, you know, guilt or rules or forcing. Modeling food intake, creating a stress-free meal environment or a lower stress, at least a meal environment. All these things are things we can do to reduce kind of any genetic background or any other things that are out of our control and try to get to the least picky that we can get within that level.

Kat: 9:02

I just find eating. The way I talk to my clients is eating is so intimate with like, and personalized.

9:11

Mm-hmm.

Kat: 9:11

And you wanna get excited about what you eat because it should be good. And we should also be curious about other foods. And it's okay to articulate maybe why. You may not like it, et cetera. Or like, one in my household what is it, edamame, my kids and my husband love edamame. I don't always like it, but I'm like, it's okay. I'll leave it. You know? And they're like, not my favorite. No. It's just not my, I don't know why I am, like, I like want to love it. Mm-hmm. Sure. Don't like, I appreciate the nutrition factor of it, but I'm like, eh. If I don't have to eat this, I wouldn't eat it. It wouldn't be my top choice, but Right. I like that. They like it, so, right.

Megan: 9:56

And allowing them that freedom that there's things they probably don't, it's not their favorite, you know? And that's okay. Not everything's gonna be their favorite.

Kat: 10:02

Yeah. It was funny. We love Brussel Sprout. Well, my youngest doesn't love brussel sprouts in my house, but the other three of us loved Russell Sprouts and he had said one day he is like. Mom, not a fan of Brussels sprouts, but they're on my plate and I know they will help me. So I'll have a few, but can I not? Finish all'em. Can I leave too? Sure. that's totally fine. Like you don't, to me, you don't have to finish your plate. I always ask my kids, and I would love to hear wording on this. I always say like, is your belly comfortable? Do you feel like you could eat a little bit more? Or you know,'cause I know there's that natural inkling, I mean, I'm human too, where I'm like, oh, if there's a big chocolate cake over there. Maybe I'm not gonna finish my,, more nutrient dense meal and just skip to the cake. And it's like, but wait, let's make sure we eat the nutrient dense. And then still it's okay to have, or less nutrient dense foods. I'd be curious to even just language around eating and especially with young kids and yourself too, is important. How do you advise parents with that? Especially with picky eaters too?

Megan: 11:13

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think language is important. Even before that, I think one thing I wanna talk about that you mentioned before, this whole idea of. I'll put it out there and we'll see what they do. So we say like in the child feeding area, that it's the parent's responsibility to decide what and when is served. So what types of foods. When they're put out there, you decide what's for dinner and when basically, and that's the limit of your responsibility. That's the limit of your control. And the kids' responsibility is to decide if they want to eat it. And how much. Mm-hmm. This can help reduce a lot of parent stress to know that at the end of the day, like unless you are shoving foods in their mouth, which I cannot recommend, you can lead a kid to the kitchen, but you can't make them eat right. Like it is not your responsibility that they put something in their mouth and chew it and swallow it and eat it. So it's your responsibility to put it out there and to create an environment where they can test it and try it and feel comfortable. Potentially trying new foods or eating foods that they've had in the past as well. Kind of trusting your kid and letting it go. As for the language, I do try to, I have younger kids, right? So the language was probably gonna be a little bit different, but I try to talk about the, the maybe the uses of the food, the fact, the descriptions of the food. Try to leave out the value of the food, right? So instead of, this is healthy, so please eat it. This is unhealthy, we're not gonna eat it. I'll say, this has lots of protein. It's gonna make your body so strong. Like these have lots of vitamins and minerals, like your body's gonna feel so happy after you eat these. Or on the flip side, you know, this has more sugar than we really need. So if you eat a lot, your tummy's gonna feel sick, but we can eat it right now. It's fun to eat these things on birthdays, you know, things like that. So I think using these languages, using this language that tries to take the, the value, the fear or positive value, the good and bad out of foods can be really useful.'cause as a dietician, I believe there are no good or bad foods. Every food has a place. And I think as a, as a parent, part of our job is to offer a variety of food. Kids will encounter in their real life, whether in your house, in school, you know, in birthday parties and, and help them kind of find their relationship with that food and understand what it might do for them or how it might make them feel and help kind of ask, teaching them to ask questions like that as well.

Kat: 13:48

I like how you said it's. Taking the value out of the food. And it, it, I think that's huge when we put too much value and worth on food, it develops a mistrust in the relationship of eating the food. And I can't stand the, is this good or bad? Well, it's, it's neither. It's, it is what it is. I don't know if it's still on Netflix, but when my kids were little, there was a show called Story Bots, and they did, I'll have to have to find this. I'm sure it's on YouTube. They did an episode on food. And I was a little skeptical. I was like, okay, how are they gonna present food? Because too often it's good food, bad food. That's how it's presented. And I prefer, well, there's more nutrient dense foods and a little less nutrient dense foods. They all have their place, but we wanna make sure we're really eating more nutrient dense foods. That's the base, that's a good foundation of our food. Mm-hmm. And the less nutrient dense foods can all fit in there. Yeah. It's totally fine. But the way they did this was to your point of. Illustrating on the terms of the kid level of. The energy process of the food. Mm-hmm. And kind of in a party atmosphere. They were like at a dance party they talked about how fun it was to eat the candies and how vegetables, they didn't say it wasn't fun, but the story about characters were like, oh, we're gonna gravitate towards the. The sugary sweet treats because it's gonna give us energy faster. Where the ones that ate the vegetables had energy longer and more sustainable, and they went in and broke it down on those terms. My kids were so enthralled by that episode and I was impressed how they did it on a way that was very. Neutral with the language on educational to your point of like, this is gonna provide you really good energy. This is gonna help build those muscles. This is gonna help build the bones. This is why we eat these things. And they also didn't negate eating the candies and the chocolates and the cookies and that. It was just they can be there too. I was like, wow, good on them, that this is really entertaining and really well done. So my kids from there, when it would be like holiday would be like, oh, that gave, and I forget the character's names, but said story about a tummy ache, uhhuh. I know I can eat this, but I don't wanna eat too much.'cause sugar will make you a little not feel so good. And so I thought that was cool that for them it brought it back to reality. All the things like how I talk about food, that they see it in. They're like, oh, this makes sense. So. Yeah, I'll have to find that and send that to you. Yeah, I want that. Yeah. Yeah. And listeners, if I find it on YouTube, I'll put it in the show notes. It's not, it's Story Bots also a really great entertaining show that's not annoying.

Megan: 16:41

I know, I agree. It, it's your chance as a parent to not only model a healthy diet, but a healthy relationship with food. Right? Yeah. This is so great, and if you don't have a healthy relationship with food, this is your chance to, try to get there, talk to a dietician or a mental health professional or a friend, and try to figure out what your understandings and beliefs are about foods and, you know, if you can do this work, then maybe your kids won't have to. And that's, that's a great gift to have. Right?

Kat: 17:09

Yeah, I hear it from my clients too. They're like, well, I don't wanna pass down my. Poor relationship with food or exercise. And that's why I'm like, to your point, work with a registered dietician who is qualified to help you decode the stories, work with a therapist, because like you said, it's, that's how it's going to stop. If you. And the language around it, like you're gonna identify, you're gonna become aware. And I feel they're, and I stress this with my clients, that it's not, you shouldn't feel guilt or shame around it. And when you're working through it, it's huge. You're working on healing yourself and you're gonna be stronger for it. And it's also gonna help your kids. So there's no guilt or shame and, we grew up in the diet era, like the raging diet era,

Megan: 17:55

absolutely.

Kat: 17:56

I'd love to kind of dive into that, the maternal. Nutrition because I think that is something so interesting

Megan: 18:03

yeah. It's so interesting how what we eat in early life impacts our, our kids, and, and we're finding more and more of the different ways that it can. And you know, for the most part they're smaller effects. So I don't wanna scare anyone who couldn't eat very much during pregnancy, felt like they didn't eat very healthy during pregnancy. You know, your kid will be absolutely fine, but if you, if you are in a position where you are becoming pregnant or your, your kid is early in life. There is a lot of evidence that eating a general healthy diet with plenty of fruits, veggies, whole grains, you know, protein, foods, everything in moderation, these helpful diet patterns are associated with improved you know, development, whether it's cognitive development, improved growth, and on the flip side, not getting enough of certain nutrients of course can also impact growth. I think one thing that a lot of parents don't know maybe is the importance of nutrition even before you become pregnancy or in very early pregnancy. And so they actually, a lot of scientific experts, including the American College of OBGYNs, obstetricians and Gynecologists mm-hmm. Suggest taking a prenatal vitamin before you even become pregnant. And I think that message isn't always there, especially because sometimes we don't see our OB GYN until, you know, week 9, 10, 11. And we're learning that it's really important to come into pregnancy already nourished with that, with that kind of bank of nutrients there.'cause it's hard to build that up again even when you're taking a prenatal vitamin. And because some of these critical windows are very early in pregnancy, like folic acid, which is why we put folic acid in the foods right. And it helps reduce our risk of. Neural tube defects. So if you, if you have listeners who maybe are already had a kid, maybe they're going to have another, maybe they're in their first pregnancy, you know and maybe considering another, just, just really getting that nutrition on board if you can, before you even become pregnant is a, is a great tip as well.

Kat: 20:00

I had several clients go through IVF they've. Asked for registered dieticians because nutrition is a huge part. Pregnancy takes a lot from a woman's body. And as I tell my clients, we want to make sure on from the strength training and cardio and mobility side that we're working on giving back to the body that we shouldn't be in a process, especially in those first 24 months of looking to be in such a caloric deficit and doing such intense workouts because hormonally, our bodies are repairing itself, Makes perfect sense, especially like getting that foundational benefit there for the nutrition so that you're, you're really set up for great success in that regard. Yes.

Megan: 20:47

Yeah, I love that. Love the exercise as well. I mean, they go together, obviously hand in hand, nutrition exercise, so,

Kat: 20:53

So one of the things that I know I struggled with, especially'cause postpartum is such a highly pressurized time. I wanna hear your thoughts on this, like when client's what should I be eating right now so I can lose the baby weight? Like, I'm like, I just want you to eat right enough. Eat more than you think. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I always share the story with them. I remember so like my younger one was, he was a preemie and my had a almost 3-year-old. The younger one was in the NICU and it was a lot of back and forth of going to the nicu. Then, you know, being at home with my other toddler. So I remember, and I tell my clients, I said, look, I said, sometimes you just literally need to stand in your kitchen eating animal crackers while your child is building blocks on the kitchen floor because. You've realized to a point, I never want you to get to this point that you had not eaten all day and you've been going, so are animal crackers the most nutrient dense? Well, if you wanna get granular about it, probably not. But at that moment, I'll never forget, it was actually a really nice core memory. Not the fact that I wasn't, had not eaten, but I'll never forget my kid building, building blocks and talking in the story and just eating animal crackers and them being the best thing ever. So eat when you can.

Megan: 22:04

Yes. I feel like so many moms, or new moms, any mom, parents, everyone, they're just really motivated to feed their kids in the healthiest way possible. And sometimes they forget about themselves, right? So they're doing all this hard work at the expense of their own health and their own energy. Like, I know I've eaten meals that are just like my kids' leftovers. Like, that's, that's the meal, you know, like it's me too. It's everyone. But it's just like on an airplane, right? Like you need to secure your own mask before securing someone else's. And when you are fueled well, then you can be the best parent that you can be. And for breastfeeding moms especially, you know, your, your needs are higher than they were during pregnancy. And so you're exhausted. You have a million things to do, try to prioritize getting some, some meals in, whether it's, having someone who can help you. You know, making sure there's someone on deck for you who can help prepare meals, whether that person is you a few months ago during pregnancy, like making the meals, freezing them, getting them ready. Like try to go in with a plan if you can and some help because if you're not fueled well then you know, you can't be the best mom you can be. And I think also when moms prioritize their own health, in addition to the kids' health it, it models healthy eating habits and healthy boundary setting and healthy, self-care. And so I do think it's so important and so challenging to do that, especially at postpartum.

Kat: 24:44

Challenging is, I like how you threw in there. It is challenging because it's, life is messy and I always talk and I talk a lot on this podcast. We're not striving for perfection in any of this. I see. Too much in the little, like whatever, nine by 16 boxes on Instagram are steeped in perfe perfection and whatever influencer out there is talking about how they have. Homemade and pretty much ground up their own wheat from field in the backyard Yeah. To prepare this amazing meal. That's not the reality it's, it can set you up for failure or feel like you're always falling behind. I'd love. To hear your thoughts fighting that perfection and how to find a, again, going back to like a stress-free eating environment that I know we all struggle with. I mean, I, there are times where I struggle with it, where I'm like, oh, I should, and as soon as that should work comes, I'm like, stop. Yes. There's no shoulding, like, you're human. So yeah, just hearing from, you know. That, that would be, I know my listeners love that.

Megan: 25:52

Yes. Oh, so important. I think a lot of us are really driven, and we definitely have that basis can have that basis in perfectionism. Right. And I mean, I am a registered dietician nutritionist, I'm a PhD, I'm a mom, I'm an expert. And I'm telling you, and all your listeners, no one eats a perfect diet. Like, not me, not anyone that I work with. No one you, you and your kids. Will not cannot and do not have to eat a perfect diet. In fact, like as a nutrition researcher, I honestly couldn't tell you like, this is what a perfect diet is. I don't think nutrition research is there yet. We can tell you that diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and protein foods, all in moderation over many, many years of, you know, more generally eating like that, that dietary pattern that's been associated with reduced risk of disease. Improve child development in most studies, but not all. Mm-hmm. And honestly, that's about it. I think in nutrition there's a lot of confusion about like how critical it is to eat healthy and what healthy eating even means. I think there's like one camp that says, it's not important. It's, it's all about your genes or it is what it is, or you can't change what you eat, so don't worry about it. And then there's another side where people aren't saying. If they could just eat right, like if they could just eat perfectly. If they ate the right amount of A, B, and C and they avoided X, Y, Z, then like they would be healthy. There'd be no disease risk, they'd be happy and whatever it is, their goal. And like most things, right, the truth is somewhere in the middle. So we know that eating generally healthy most days associated with benefits. That's about it, you know, so, so again, this is like mom's chance to break some generational cycles, talking about your own understanding of what's a perfect diet, talk about your own food beliefs, your own need to, achieve goodness,, through food and, and talk with a professional, whether it's a dietician or a mental health counselor or a good friend, and. Try to break those cycles because no one can eat perfect. It's impossible. It doesn't exist.

Kat: 27:59

No one can eat perfect and anyone can make anything look perfect, especially on an Instagram story or Instagram 30 seconds post. Yeah, it's, it's just. I feel like if you try to, there would be too many restrictions and it's just not possible. I do genuinely love it when my family we're on the go a lot, or if we're traveling a lot and we're eating more meals out than we normally do. I love it when my kids can articulate, like, oh, I can't wait to go home and eat. This makes my body feel so much better. Then it leads to a good conversation because I'm like, good. You understand? That doesn't mean that eating out is bad at all. It is a necessity. It is great. It is a luxury, it's a, treat whatever you wanna classify it as. But when they feel the effects of like, it's been too much i'm excited too to come home to eat our own food For me, and this is just my interjection here, I feel like really helping my kids articulate. How food feels in their body Yeah. Helps them. Yeah. And I think it breaks down that good and bad. Mm-hmm. I love what you said about, it's like there's just no perfection in it and, and that, clearing the air with the research eating a, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is. Overtime is gonna help. I know in my field a lot of clients and come im being I want, my macros and my calorie and we want, and there's that safety there. We want this very cookie cutter response. Mm-hmm.

29:37

But

Kat: 29:38

What do you say to clients when they come in where they're like, I just really want to know this cut and dry number. Hit that every day, you know, day in, day out, you know. How, how do you help someone through that like, and kind of breaking down those, I'm gonna say myths that it's like if you don't hit this, you know you're failing, so to speak. Right.

Megan: 29:59

Well first of all, I think thinking about why you want that number, right? It's a safety thing. It's a way of making yourself feel like you can do it. You're safe, you're doing what you need to do, and like acknowledging that that's a human thing. Like that's, that makes sense that you want that. I get it. And, thinking about how long term could this work for you, right? So these rules can bring safety and they can also bring a lot of restriction and challenges and long term, you know, how is that gonna work for your life forever when there's these challenges, whether it's becoming a parent or traveling or whatever it is for you. And then if you can't reach those goals, you feel bad, right? And so can we get back to, instead of needing a checking a box, getting back to like what it feels like to be nourished. And a lot of us have this complicated relationship with food and it goes so far back that it's hard to even remember. Like, what does it feel like to be nourished? Like what does that feel like in your body? And so intuitive eating is a huge topic right now in the nutrition world and kind of outside of it. And the idea is to help us,, to get back in touch with our hunger cues, recognizing what it feels like in our body to give ourselves permission to eat unconditionally based on what our body needs and how it feels, and like how, you know, it will feel afterwards. So if people are interested in that, I recommend the book. It's just literally called Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tripoli. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. And Elise Rush, and they're both dietician nutritionists and so it can kind of help you see if that's something that you're interested in as a way to kind of give back to maybe not rules, but other ways that you can find out if you are feeling good, other ways to succeed at eating. If you want to kind of put it in that terms. Interestingly. You mentioned this I think before, babies are intuitive eaters. Little kids, they know when they're hungry and they tell you by yelling, and then they know when they're full because they stop. Right? And then as we and the world introduce these expectations and these biases, even well-meaning rules and and advice, then it gets harder for them to rely on their body cues, to tell them when they're hungry, and then how much to eat. And the last point I was gonna say here is that I actually feel like pregnancy and postpartum is a really great time to reconnect with your body and kind of get back in touch with that. For one, I think it's sometimes easier to recognize hunger cues because they're like screaming at you sometimes during pregnancy, right? You're like, I'm so hungry, I'm going to eat you. Like whoever's in my way. So you may be feeling hunger cues the first time that you have in a while, and if you do miss hunger cue, you feel like crap, right? You're probably nauseous, you feel miserable. And so really strong signals from your body at this time period in the, and many people feel a little bit more comfortable with the idea of eating more in these time periods, you know, as they should. You don't have to eat for two, but eating more is necessary to fuel your growth and the baby's growth. And some people feel a little bit more. Liberal, like liberalization, I guess, here to feel like they're allowed to eat food. And you may be more in touch with your body or at least thinking of it more about your body and its function and how it feels. And so I do think like pregnancy, motherhood, postpartum, it's, it's so transformative. It's a great time to get back into our relationship with food and, and our body. Yeah.

Kat: 33:33

Like you said there, babies and kids are very intuitive. And then it's the world starts to dictate when and how you can eat. Like I think about my older son who has 20 minutes in the cafeteria to eat, and it's quickly inhale, eat, he's 13, he's a growing child. That's not enough time for you to actually eat. So, and then with sports right after school, you need to make sure you have more of a snack right before sports and then a snack after sports, mm-hmm. And so I always stress my clients, there's, if you're generally hungry, you need to eat. And to your point, I like that about like in pregnancy, I was thinking back, I'm like, man, yeah, I remember when I was hungry, it was like, get me some food. Like. I find myself like, well, it's 10 30 and I just ate breakfast. Oftentimes it's at like 6 45. And I'm like, that's a long gap. So I'm like, it's 10 30, I shouldn't be hungry. And it's like, no, no, no. Your body can be hungry at different times a day. And I use a hunger scale with my clients of kind of red, yellow, green. We don't wanna get to the red zone ever, right? We know we've nourished our body. And then it's like timing wise, if we can go two hours post a meal, still feeling full, but at the two and a half hour, three hour mark. You might get some inklings and you know, I stress with clients every day is gonna be dependent. And if you've had, and I myself am guilty of this and I know some of my clients found this trap. If you have a day where you're really preoccupied with meetings, kids life, you are going to be disconnected and it is gonna hit you like a ton of bricks when you come out of that. Focus time so be prepared with food. I always say there's a thing about having your emergency food there because. You, you don't wanna be hangry and your body likes to stay fed. Mm-hmm. I said, we don't want peaks and valleys with our hunger. We want small undulations.

35:31

Mm-hmm.

Kat: 35:31

You know, peaks and valleys for a day because it happens is okay, but if we're constantly in peaks and valleys, our body's not gonna like that. And for. My clients were, were really trying to maintain that muscle mass and that strength. We want food in the body. We don't wanna exercise in a very hungry state. You're just not, you're not gonna feel like you can push the weight or put that effort there. You're actually gonna feel worse. And some clients are like, I feel sick after I work out. And I said, because you have no food in your system, your body needs those glycogen stores to be filled with food. Mm-hmm. So you have. Energy. Mm-hmm. So, but yeah, it is, I'm always don't get married to the time you eat If you're hungry, eat right. Celebrate that. You can

Megan: 36:16

feel those hunger cues and, and you can listen to your body. It's great. It's amazing that your body can tell you when it needs food like that. It's amazing.

Kat: 36:23

It is. It is so, so amazing. I know for myself when I'm in like a high. High week, a peak week of training, like right now, I'm in a peak training block. After, if I'm not hungry after a high demand for a long time, I know I probably did not feel the best the day before. Maybe for me, like with endurance running on the run, I maybe didn't feel as well because my body is like in a bit of a suppressed state. It got too stressed. So it's understanding, that's not a good thing. It doesn't mean like, oh, yay, I am not being, it's, we need to make sure that we. Or feel your body there. And also that when you start to become more of an intuitive eater tuning into those, it can take a while for your body to adjust, for you to kind of understand it's not a overnight process.

Megan: 37:12

So Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, it took you how many years to get into the state where you are, you know, relying on these outside cues, and so it'll take some time to, to unlearn them and to learn new cues and mm-hmm. Hopefully,, sometimes things that take a little bit of time means that they'll also stick around longer, yeah. It's not just a bad diet where you just. Just do it and then a week later you're done with it. It's kind of a, a change, a lifestyle change.

Kat: 37:36

Yeah, exactly. So one thing kind of going into fed diets, not a whole can of worms, right?'cause that's a whole, that's a whole other thing. Yeah. If you had a magic wand Oh yeah. What would you just see? Social media, online, what would you just be like, this is the one thing, maybe it's a little bit of a host of things that you could be like, I just want this out. It would be so much simpler and less frustrating.

Megan: 38:02

Yes. Well, I couldn't pick just like one fad diet thing, but the, the, the overall, like, I love to change this, maybe educate about it, is the idea that. You see like a study, a single study that says one thing, like coffee is good, and then sometimes you'll see another study that says coffee is bad, and, and people will say, nutrition's fake or nutrition, someone's lying to you. Someone's whatever it is. So I would love if people stopped relying on single studies because nutrition research is just really, really tricky. Right. In other fields, like if you wanna know something, you do a randomized trial, you randomize people to take drug A or drug B, and you see what happens. Mm-hmm. With like nutrition, you could never randomized someone to do a diet. Really, you Not many people would agree. If I flip a coin and I say, you have to eat. A cheeseburger every single day, then you have to do it or you don't get to eat them ever again. Right? Like most people would not agree to be in a study like that and they would not do it very well. They would probably sneak cheeseburgers or not eat a cheeseburger that day'cause they didn't feel like it, whatever it is. So we rely on studies that aren't as strong as randomized trials. So we look at associations. Sometimes we're looking at really small effect sizes. We're dealing with people who are misreporting their diet, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. When they're, when they're, when they're in our studies, we may be asking slightly different questions. So the study might be, is coffee good for blood pressure or any other studies? Is coffee good for reducing the risk of heart disease? If you have diabetes or you know, whatever it is, the questions might be slightly different, which is the devil in the details and which is why I say in general. Stop looking at single studies. If you can stop reading the Instagram stories that are about single studies for the most part, and then look for consensus statements. So these are advice from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. You know, they hire experts who can look at all of the studies, not just one, and put it in the context of the full body of research, and then they can give you advice that. You know, is a little safer than these one-off studies that you hear about on Instagram or TikTok or wherever.

Kat: 40:17

I couldn't agree more with the studies and the one-off studies. I will just add, dig deeper into the population size. I see this a lot in the fitness aspect to where especially the, special seasons of life, like pregnancy and postpartum and perimenopause. It is extremely small population size. To even some studies where there's more men in this study on something that is like female related than and it's like, no, that you can't extrapolate that or it's done on rats and not humans. So, so that is one where I'm dig deeper and see if multiple studies come up with the same thing versus just a one small population size thing and who's paying for the study because that influencer is then pedaling a product and the product sponsored the study will, of course, it may not. Be very clear.

Megan: 41:14

Yes, big red flag is something, is an absolute right. It's all good or it's all bad. That's a huge red flag. Stop, stop reading that. Take a second. A hundred percent.

Kat: 41:24

That's the thing is there's no, don't wanna be so absolute with the absolutisms, but like, like look into it if someone's screaming that this is the only end all. Be all. Yes. Then dig deeper. Yeah. Especially in fitness and new nutrition, because if that were the case then someone would've bought the rights, patented it, and they would be the whole people capitalizing off of it. To wrap up, like what would be, maybe not the one, we don't wanna go into Olms, but like mm-hmm. Engagement to offer to moms. Just navigating nutrition for themselves and families. I know, I feel overwhelmed as well. Like, I mean, we're, we're all, we're human, right? It can be overwhelming, but just that woman out there who's like, okay, I really wanna. Get, I want to solve this challenge for me so that it's no longer a big challenge for me. What would be that encouragement?

Megan: 42:25

Yeah. I'd say at first I'd remind moms and parents that there are a million ways to feed your kids, right? And over the millennia there's been million, millions of ways to feed their kids, and there is no one right way. Just kind of like we were just talking about, the best way is the way that works for you and works for your family. And, you know, I believe that people make the best choices that they can with what they have, with what they know, with kind of the optimization of, of their life. So, try to relax, enjoy your food, enjoy your kids. If you do have an issue that is troubling, you do that research through these more repeatable sources like the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics you know, the college acog, right?. And then talk to a professional if you need to. So there's dieticians out there, there's mental health practice nurse, there's pediatricians, there's ob gyn, there's people whose job it is to weed through all that junk so that you don't have to, right. And then they can help you find ways to help make eating healthy work for you instead of you doing all this work to try to make eating healthy work for your family. Yeah,

Kat: 43:28

So, I would say they can reach out to you. They can find you at family center nutrition science.com if they have questions. And we'll have your website linked in the show notes as a resource there, even if you can't help that, I'm sure you're very well connected to help them. Yes.

43:46

Happy to refer. Yes.

Kat: 43:47

There are qualified therapists who understand, food challenges as well as disordered eating and I think it's, it's amazing. I yeah. And quick plug. I'm

Megan: 43:59

currently actually contracting through a mental health. Practice Oak Grove Counseling. It's in Delaware and they do have perinatal, certified mental health therapists as well.

Kat: 44:09

Okay, perfect. I highly recommend. Yep. And we'll put that in the show notes as well. But this was awesome. I hope, I mean, I got a lot out of this too. I was like, Ooh, this is really good. Hopefully everybody else got something out of this and feels more confident, but the biggest thing I would say is just like you said,. Keep putting the food out there. Allow the child to explore. Allow yourself to explore too. Be curious and that there are so many different ways to eat nutritiously. And I think that is huge in a world where it's so loud that it's one day, don't eat this the next day, don't eat that. And you feel like, what do I only eat water? Like, is that it? Right. But thank you so much for coming on Megan. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromHerView, powered by KatFit Strength. If this podcast inspires you, don't keep it for yourself. Hit follow or subscribe to stay updated on the new episodes, and leave us a review to help more women and moms discover this space. Your feedback fuels this podcast and I'd love to hear what's working for you or what topics you want to dive into Next. You can connect with me on Instagram at KatFit Strength, or share this episode. With a friend who is ready to embrace her strength. Remember, fitness isn't about perfection. It's about showing up for yourself and finding strength in every step of your journey. Until next time, keep moving forward one mile at a time.