98- The Postpartum Middle Ground: Weight Loss, Intuitive Eating & Everything In Between

Please note: This episode is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition. Always consult your own healthcare provider for personalized guidance.

If you've ever felt the pull between wanting to lose the baby weight and wanting to be okay in your body, this one's for you.

Kat welcomes back Dr. Megan Bragg, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, PhD in Nutrition, and mom of two, for an honest and nuanced conversation about one of the most common tensions in the postpartum season. There's no tidy answer here, just real talk about what it actually looks like to nourish yourself, navigate your body image, and make peace with the messy middle.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why wanting to lose weight and wanting to love your body aren't necessarily opposites
• How breastfeeding affects weight loss (and why it looks different for everyone)
• The way family dynamics shape our relationship with food and body image — and what we're modeling for our kids
• Practical strategies for feeding yourself well in survival mode: simple meal planning, flexible "good enough" meals, and early postpartum nourishment
• How to push back against "bounce back" culture and all-or-nothing nutrition rules
• Navigating weight conversations with your doctor
• When habits start sliding toward disordered eating — and what to do

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Bragg's blog post: Nourishment Without Perfection

Connect with Dr. Megan Bragg Website: familycenterednutritionscience.com Book a session: fcnutritionscience.clientsecure.me

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Transcript

0:01

Before we dive in, a quick reminder, today's conversation is for informational purposes only, and it is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition. Please work with your own healthcare provider for personalized guidance. If you've ever stood in front of the mirror postpartum and felt two completely contradictory things at the same time, I want to feel like myself again, and I want to love this body that just did something incredible. This episode is for you because that tension, it's real and it's complicated, and honestly, most advice out there isn't touching it. Today's guest. Dr. Megan Bragg reached out with a topic that stopped me on my tracks because she's seeing it play out with her own clients. Right now. Moms in the postpartum season trying to navigate, wanting to lose weight, while wanting to eat intuitively love their bodies, and actually focus on their health long term. She doesn't claim to have all the answers, and honestly, that's exactly why I wanted to have this conversation because I think the most important discussions happen in the middle of the questions. Not at the end of them. Dr. Megan Bragg is a registered dietician nutritionist with a PhD in nutrition and a mom of two. She's the owner of Family-Centered Nutrition Science where she works with moms, kids and families across Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, bringing the evidence-based nutrition together with real life compassion to help families eat well and feel good about how they eat. 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. welcome back to Miles From Her View. I am here with Megan Bragg. She is a second time guest on the show. Maybe it was a year ago or almost a year ago. June, maybe? Something like that. Oh yeah, that's right. It was June.'cause it was warm now or, warmer today than it's been in a while yeah. Better than before. There's still a lot of snow out there, so hopefully there'll be melted soon. Hopefully I keep hearing the melt, go down the gutters, so it's sound. I'm like, is it raining? And I'm like, no. And today I thought it was supposed to be super bright and sunny since it was supposed to be 55 degrees and it's still a little cool out there. I'm ready for spring. Yes. Oh my goodness. I actually had a little side jump before we jump into our topic last night. I dream about planting in my gardens and flowers, so I think I am so ready for spraying. I'm gonna take that as a sign right there, that I'm ready for spring, yes. Literally dreaming about spring. We are ready. So we're gonna dive in today, we're going in a little bit deeper about nutrition and family nutrition some of the things that you've been seeing in your practice to bring to light about more specifically postpartum. Nutrition and eating, and how do we care for ourselves in that time? Let's do it. All right. I said this in the intro you're a background is diverse. You're also a researcher as well as a dietician. And so how does that. Perspective because I feel like it's a dual perspective here. How does that help shape the conversations you have with clients when they come in and they're looking to see these changes in that postpartum time period and with your work with moms, kids and families? I think being a researcher. I get a lot of the background, right? Like the evidence the information, and it, and I could be a lot more maybe confident than someone without the research background that it's, that it is like solid information, that it is high quality, evidence-based information. But if I wasn't also a mom, I think it could be, I guess being a mom like just gives me the fuller context of it. Like I know from the research that you know, this percent of moms returned to their pre-pregnancy weight in 12 months, but as a mom, like I know why that number is like only 25 to 40%. It's like you see it, you're living it. There's these huge shifts in priorities, differences in the time and energy you have available. Breastfeeding sometimes that makes moms, helps moms. Lose weight or gain weight and just so I think seeing it as both a researcher and a mom gives me both like background but also just real life understanding of what's going on. Yeah. Which is, I find that too in my line of work where you have the research and it doesn't mean it doesn't mean anything, but Right. It. Allows, like when you walk the walk, it's this is how we can bring this into reality. I feel it just breathes life into the research a little bit different or helps,'cause with research you have controlled population and an uncontrolled, and sometimes it can be a little skewed because they don't have a very diverse, but population. And so oftentimes when we are on something like social media, information may be cherry picked or a little skewed, and it can be misleading and especially surrounding breastfeeding and weight loss because to your point, it's not true for everyone to see weight loss. I was one of those who did not see weight loss with my first time around. And then the second time I did see some weight loss. So it's cool. I saw both sides of it. Yeah. But the first time it was really mentally frustrating'cause everyone's oh, if you're breastfeeding, I don't know why you wouldn't be losing weight. And I'm like I'm not. And you're the same person second time around and everything's different. Or people finish breastfeeding and then they gain weight or and then they lose weight or it is just. Research is so useful for knowing like the average, right? But it doesn't tell you about every single person and every person's experience. I think that's where like being a mom and meeting with these people, meeting these other moms, like that's where it like adds depth and color to the research. Yeah. No, I love that. And so this is when, where. With postpartum. I always say, it's such a highly pressurized time and it every postpartum time is different too, even though not only just with weight loss, but with your own physical body and within the family system. But how does being postpartum within a family system change that weight and body image conversation, like partner dynamics modeling for kids, et cetera. Yeah it's, if you're in a family, you're not just your own individual all the time anymore. Things have changed. Your priorities have changed and the resources you have and all of that. And I think that modeling for kids. Piece has been huge with the clients I'm working with. So many of the clients I work with remember their moms talking about their body and going on diets and maybe making comments on their, the kid's body, right? And, the clients I talk to, they just, they don't wanna pass that on to their kids, so as much as having kids can make it harder to be healthy in some ways, I think it's also really motivating to want to not only be healthy, but to change your relationship with your body, with food, with your weight. And and for these moms, I tell them like, okay, you don't have to love your body. But can we accept it? Can we celebrate some of the things we d it does, especially, in front of your kids saying go, I'm so glad my legs walked me around the neighborhood today. Or my arms, let me like pick you up.'cause they're really strong. So I think imagine, imagine if your mom had said, I'm so strong versus I'm so fat and what can you pass on to the next generation? So I think being in a family system can really change the priorities as well as, the availability of some time and resources. Yeah, I like that. I also like what you said that. You don't have to love your body. And I think that is such a great message to send because too often it's I must love my body. Or the opposite of, I'll love my body when that goal happens. And I think the way you put it is just, my arms are strong, they picked me up, then my legs got me here. It helps take that emotion out of it. Because there is, it is such a. Change with it. And we need to allow ourselves to have that change and that safe environment of it's okay to not like where you're at postpartum changes your body and it is a tough time. And I'm sure you've seen clients come to you where they may feel they should have come. Several months earlier, but it's really hard to get, it's really hard to take care of yourself, especially in the beginning. And our society does not lend itself to allowing for a good community network for a mom right at the beginning. Yes. Yeah. I tell moms, come when you're ready. Come when you're ready to, and maybe you have a little bit more space, or maybe you have a little bit more, just wanting to make a little bit more time for you. I think sometimes when moms come to me to say, I wanna lose a weight, part of what they want, part of what she wants is a little bit time just to spend on them and their health goals, their individual needs. And so some of that is just finding ways to make that time. Spin a family, which is not always easy. No, it is not easy. And that kind of brings me to this question about, I always feel like there's a tug of war between and we hinted at it with it's okay not to love your body, but don't hate your body and and it is a dichotomy. And then there's also this tug of war of it can be this or that, where it's it can be both. You can be unhappy in your body, not hate it, want to change it. In the context of. A woman coming to you and they wanna lose that weight. You started talking about it, how does it frame into that family? Situation we're not alone anymore when we, bring a child into this world. As I tell my clients all the time, I'm like, you're not a short order cook. It's really tough. It's different when we wanna create that change and it's you and a partner because, you're two adults and the other can essentially care for themselves. But when you have a dependent where you need to care, and there's maybe multiple children, how does that shift and what are ways that, someone listening, and again, we're not here to diagnose or treat, but for informative purposes only. How can she fit the goals into family routine, to relationship her identity as a mom? Yes. That's like the golden question. Like, how do we do this? I feel like we spend, I spend a lot of time in sessions just problem solving this, like brainstorming this what time do you have? What time, what needs to be prioritized? So for a lot of people it is taking the time to create a system for meal planning. What are we gonna eat this week? So it's not, what are we gonna eat in 30 minutes? What are we gonna eat? You're thinking a little bit ahead of time and that makes it a little easier. For some moms, it's. Working through her to get everyone, like you said, kinda on the same menu. So helping, if she has really young kids, helping them start solids, get up to the place where they're eating family foods around a year to 15 months, or if they are in a pickier eating phase, like how can we, help them move towards a family meal? It is getting the family on board. So depending on the relationship with her partner, she has a partner, how old her kids are, all of that comes into play and I think that's where. Working with someone can help you more than maybe scrolling kind of tips on Instagram. Like it's a lot of really individualized problem solving, like how can we make this work? Oh, but for kind of an individualized tip, I just recently made a blog post about this Okay. With a really great therapist named Jess Fry. She is a a counselor mental health counselor who really focuses on. Body positivity and body confidence, especially with neurodivergent women. And we put together a blog post called Nourishment Without Perfection. And it's all about how can busy moms, people with kind of just. Busy brains, like, how can we eat? How can we make sure we get something in us? And how can we give ourselves a grace and compassion to eat, even if it means not putting together a perfect meal, even if it means getting takeout sometimes, even if it means getting, something out of the freezer. And check out that blog post if you're interested. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes and Awesome like what you said. It's about troubleshooting and really looking at your own structure and developing a system around that. There are a lot of great tips on social media but it doesn't always apply to you and your situation. Yes. And I feel meal planning is one of those where an influencer can make it look out to be this complex thing, and it doesn't have to be right. Yes, and it doesn't mean every meal for the week has to be planned, but if you have a few ready to go, if you have a few that are in your rotation that you know are quick to come together, family favorites, like that can be a really good just way to ease some stress out of the whole process. Yeah, I like that. I know for me in my household, when I got down to it and created a system of understanding what each person liked, does not mean they get specifically what they like. But it allowed me, since I am the head of. The meal planning, the shopping, the cooking. It's putting the meal on the table where I know everyone is just going to eat, eases some of the stress and then developing that system. For me, it was like, let me look at my week, let me not try and put a complex meal on a day where everybody's coming and going because we're into the season of sports. So it's what can I do to make it easier on me? That's where I started because I was at my wit's end trying to keep it all together and, yes. I didn't have time to eat out a Tupperware containers or have everything put in Tupperware containers on a Sunday, so I could just pull from the fridge, right? Yes. Yes. And sometimes that works for some people and it doesn't work for others, it's just figuring out what works for you and also what not just works for you as it fits in your schedule, but what feels good for you. So sometimes people are like, I don't wanna make a big batch of food because I don't wanna eat the same thing. Four days in a row, and then maybe we talk about freezing, like making the batch seal, but like putting some portions in the freezer and then you take it out next week, and so the idea is that it's something that you can do for a very long time, not just like 12 weeks of meal prep, like you might see or something, 12 weeks meal prep. It's okay, you have to make food kind of the rest of your life, so how can we make this. Enjoyable. How can we make it sustainable? How can we make sure that like you are not driving yourself crazy? So sometimes it's like giving moms permission to Yes. Sometimes buy the frozen, like pre-cooked meat. Like sometimes buy the frozen pizza. Like some days I'm a dietician, I have a PhD, nutrition. Sometimes we're eating chicken nuggets. Yeah that's real life. And so just giving moms permission sometimes too, sometimes helping a healthy relationship with food means also having flexibility to eat foods that aren't always perfectly, aligned with our nutritional goals. I love that. And I have chicken nuggets in my freezer. I have frozen chicken cutlet breaths in there for a quick pop'em in the air fryer. I have really enjoyed cooking, but I'm like, I don't have the bandwidth and sometimes it's good enough and, it's food on the table. We're all happy and it's, it is what it is. And. It's just the guilt isn't there, which I think that is huge. And I like how you said. Giving them permission that this is okay, as I mentioned before, it is a highly pressurized time period in that postpartum time period. Whether you're going through it the first time, the second time, the third, or any subsequent time, I think yes, some things get a little easier because you're, the second time or the third time you're into your right. Mom reflexes are there, the baby will sleep at some point. Yeah. The older ones are typically helpful with the younger one. But that pressure to bounce back. How does it play in family dynamics from partners in-laws, mom groups? How do you see that come out with nutrition? Yes. Bouncing back. Yeah, I know you know this, and I think you've said this before, multiple times, but there is no going back, no, you can't go back in time. Our bodies and our lives are different than they were five, 10 years ago. Only go forward and I think this pressure to get back into like pre-baby shape, pre-baby size, pre-baby clothes as quickly as possible, regardless of mom's mental and physical health is it is really just another example of weight stigma. It's not fair, it's not particularly productive and it's just not possible for most moms to, go right back to this life. But all of a sudden with all these totally new responsibilities and biological changes, and so that pressure to bounce back, I think of course makes people more interested in nutrition. And then I think part of my job is. Pushing back against that a little bit, yeah. Do you need to bounce back? What is reasonable, what is going to actually lead to your long-term health so that you can meet what, for many moms is their true goal, which is to have energy, right? To be able to play with their kids, to be able to get up and down, run around, hopefully one day to be like maybe the grandma who's getting up and down, running around, like this long-term health. Some of the work I do is also exploring this want to bounce back and pushing back a little bit on it. I totally hear you on that.'cause that's, as you said, I'm like, there's no going back as much as I wish we can just like we, that magic wand and I sometimes feel am I romanticizing the past of what I. Thought I felt like, or am I having the same feelings? But because there was this disruption, quote unquote, with the pregnancy and now postpartum, am I, like I said, romanticizing that past, did I still have these same feelings? But because. I have, I'm gonna see something to blame it on. Whether it be a societal dialogue in my head or there are things, and I do not wanna strip this away. There are things that do change. It's one of those things where it. I always think, is it a romanticization or reality? I, being in the business as a personal trainer, I myself went through that for the longest time,, I'm chasing my past and feeling myself. I don't wanna say haunted in the past, but just that's what I used to do and now I am falling short on it. When I started to realize what I was actually doing, to your earlier point of my legs are strong, they're doing this. My arms are strong, I'm able to do this. It reshaped how I was viewing my own workouts and then helping my clients work through that. And I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to change. I think that's huge. But as you said, like helping clients uncover why, what is the change there? And for me, I see it with my clients that they realize that they're like. I was just chasing that number and it really had no meaning. It was more about how I feel and them seeing how much they can do in the body that they have does not mean that there aren't changes happening, like the energy increases happening, the better sleep is happening as the kids get, baby gets more sleep. Yes. That's, and there's that trust being built with. Okay. Yeah, I can. Grab the chicken nuggets because it doesn't even really need a, an explanation of the baby was up all night or whatnot. It could just be like, I'm grabbing the chicken nuggets because you know what, that's what we feel like. But it's, it is huge to see that shift in clients, because I know from my end. When I see that, I'm like, alright, they are in it for the long haul and this is huge. Yes. This isn't a fad, this isn't a short term thing anymore. And to your point of romanticizing the past, a lot of people will say I'd like to get back to this XX weight that I was maybe at my wedding before I had a kid and. Part of the question of that is how did you feel at that weight? What were you doing to be at that weight? Maybe they went on a pre-wedding diet, maybe they felt really tired at that weight. Maybe they still felt unhappy with their body at that weight, maybe. So sometimes there's some questions around what is the best weight for me? And I like to say it's like when you are eating in a way that is maybe 80%, healthy fruits, veggies, whole grains, et cetera, and 20% like living your life when you're able to go to restaurants and birthdays and. You feel strong you're getting movement and like the weight that your body settled at that time. And that might be different pre and post baby, what your body really settles at. I think that's probably a healthy weight for you, where you're not seeing higher cholesterol, higher, other measures. These markers of chronic disease. I think that's probably a healthy weight for you. And the trouble is that many people haven't had that experience in a long time. So it's hard to know what is. The weight that my body could be the healthiest at. Yeah, I agree. I think that's where sometimes I get so mad at the whole industry of fitness and wellness. That's a whole podcast. More of a venting one. Yeah. But it is to your point, and when you find that it's just you develop this freedom, it's this more confident feeling I liken it to you're more at home in your body. Your body feels that calm. You're no longer holding that tension of, I shouldn't do that. This restrictive like aspect we're only on this earth for a short amount of time. We wanna be healthy and let's look at something more than the number on the scale or the size in your clothing. Because that is gonna be more of a determining of. How much we can do and feel on this earth, I totally agree. And I think there's, when it comes to weight, like there's nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight. I think like weight stigmatization is real and fat phobia is real, and. And for some people who have higher, blood pressure, higher cholesterol, higher risk of, family, heart disease, losing a modest nut, five to 10% of your weight might decrease your risk. And so I. I generally align with more of the intuitive, healthy, intuitive, eating healthy at every size until the point where they say you are wrong for wanting to change your weight. I think weight is one thing that we can change and when clients come to me and say, I wanna lose weight. It is not automatically no, you don't, oh, you shouldn't, like I, I wanna make sure, like I avoid that as well as not putting over too much pressure on weight where it's like you have to be a certain weight in order to be healthy. I don't want to do that either, I agree. I like what you said about intuitive eating and health at every size where there's that miscommunication that it's. An acceptance of being in a larger body and the acceptance of potentially being unhealthy, where that's not the whole cause. It got, really? Really, what's the word I'm looking for? Misconstrued on social media. Yeah. Where it became more about this campaign of I don't need to change to fit into anyone's standards. And I'm like that's true, but Right. If our body isn't healthy and we are having ailments directly related to. Inactivity poor food quality. And I'll take a step back because accessibility to food is not always not everyone has accessibility to nutrient dense foods, right? Yeah. So this is not a everyone should be able to do this. It's not hard. Yeah. It's, understanding that. If we can get more nutrient dense foods, if there is that ability to taking advantage of that and not just solely about what the health and fitness industry drives at in the, the billion dollar aspect of you need to take the 18 supplements in order to be healthy. The cold plunge. The infrared, the, eat this obscure fruit from an far away land and avoid Yeah. What your grocery store like. That's what we're talking about is where that isn't true health and that is really cost prohibit prohibitive. Yes. Where. There's a lot of things that you can do on even a small budget. I know from when I was working in college athletics, a lot of the college athletes, didn't have a good budget or our budget for eating, when we got a stipend when we were traveling as a team, was very small. So it was, how can I eat nutrient dense foods for on at the time, in the early two thousands, it was$20 a day. Well,$20 a day for three meals as an after. Plate. It doesn't go very far. No goodness. Yeah. So we would look at, we would pull our money together, we would go to the grocery store. We're like, okay, what foods can give us the best bang for our buck? And so it might be getting pre-made hard boiled eggs and tuna fish a whole grain bread, oatmeal. Finding those things Yeah. And we survived. We did well. It work. And then intuitive eating, if you wanna go into that a little bit more, because I feel that is another one that gets skewed as to I can eat whatever, and it's yes. But no, Yeah. I like think of it as like it's not eat. Anything you want, whenever you want, is anything you maybe need, understanding that when I eat this, my body's gonna feel really happy, really fueled, really energetic. If I eat this I'm at a birthday, so yeah, I will eat this, but if I eat too much of this cake, I'm not gonna feel very good. So it's not like a a total disconnect. A total focus on pleasure over health. It's the balancing of pleasure and health. And I think that's sometimes where it gets lost in translation where it's really about listening to what your body needs. So a lot of work with intuitive eating is hunger and society. So can you feel hunger before you're hungry? Can you feel full before you're stuffed? And I work with clients and sharpening that, also recognizing that for a lot of people that's. That's just really hard. People with trauma in their body, people who are neurodiverse, people who have food insecurity it's not as simple as, oh, just eat when you're hungry. Eat and don't eat when you're not, it's it can be really challenging to get too intuitive eating and some people really have never had that experience. And helping people get there I think is one of my goals, while also not pushing so far into it that we can't. That we can't challenge ourselves a little bit, that we can't remember that health is not just eating whenever you, whatever you want, whenever you want, it's eating like something that's gonna serve you. And sometimes eating things that are just for fun just to play foods, but often spending that, eating those foods that are gonna give you something I dunno, some energy and some something that feels good. Going back to that newly postpartum stage where it's, you're sleep deprived. We've both experienced multiple times over and you are just like, I remember days so sleep deprived being like, I don't want anyone to touch me. I am just done. I have zero capacity. And someone in that state what do they do where just even the concept of I know I have to go into the kitchen to get some food. That seems like trying to climb up to the top Mount Everest with no help. How do you approach that in that situation? Yes. So challenging. We've been there. So in the best case scenario, maybe I've met with the person in pregnancy and so we've. Aren't even preparing for postpartum. I think a lot of us in pregnancy are very excited for the, for our baby to come and we have the crib and the diapers, but then we forget oh, we're gonna have to continue surviving. So we do a lot of work with, finding your village, who's gonna be there to help you. Asking for help. Hey, if you wanna help me, I'd love to have a casserole I could freeze. Or doing the work yourself maybe. Every week in that last trimester, you're freezing something. Or just at least, buying some snacks having a plan for how you're going to eat ahead of time. If you can, if you're lucky enough to have that space and time and foresight then that, that's, you're starting ahead of the game. And then if you are already postpartum and you are. In the trenches. This is time when, again, we can be asking for help. If that's available to you from a partner, friend, neighbor, mom, mother-in-law, whatever that looks like. Or, and, or this is a time for, survival meals with the goal of eating. To your hunger signals if you can feel them. But if you can't feel them looking for every three to four hours when you're awake, getting something in, something with some carbohydrates, protein, and fat, something that'll power you through because you're not gonna be, your best self if you're hungry, on top of being tired, on top of being frustrated and maybe healing and everything else that goes on in the postpartum. So if you can get, ahead of the game a little bit, even if it's putting out some snacks in the places where you know, you're gonna breastfeed, putting out some snack bars in the place where you know you're gonna be sitting that can just make sure that you're in the best frame of mind. You can be given, everything else that's going on. Yeah. I love that. I remember I was thinking as you're talking, it got easier for me to snack on things the second time around.'cause my older one had snacks and so he'd always have leftover snacks. So I'd be like, oh, I'll take a veggie straw, I'll take some animal crackers. So or if he didn't finish his plate, I was like I'll finish it one of the things I always cringed at is this societal I'm gonna say protocol or like statement of never ever finish your kids' leftovers. Oh my gosh. That infuriates me because I'm like sometimes. That's the only quick nourishment you have before. Yeah. For people who have like toddlers. Any age kids who's like eating on a schedule sometimes if they don't have very strong intuitive eating skills. The mom on the weekends, I'll say just eat when your kids eat. Like kids are a lot more intuitive than we are and they're eating every few hours and we're feeding them every few hours because we know that they need to recharge. So like fall back if you can't feel your hunger and fullness. Just eat when your kids eat.'cause you know that you're, they're gonna have consistent meal times. But also I would go one further, don't just eat their leftovers. If you can sit down and eat with them, like you don't have to eat a whole meal. Sit down and eat with them. You're getting the nutrients they're getting modeling that this is a food that is good and yummy. And mom's eating when she's hungry, that's gonna help them. That's gonna help your family in a lot of ways.'cause we're reducing picky eating, we are making sure mom's getting enough food. We're, increasing like the family dynamics around food. Creating these positive associations obviously it's not easy to always sit down with your kids and eat, but when you can, it doesn't mean every day, every meal, but having that goal to. Five minutes, sit down and eat the same thing that they're eating. Even if you're eating, fish sticks or whatever it is.'Cause if, if you're willing to feed them like. You should be willing to nourish yourself too. You're important. Yeah, I like that. And that's something we need to hear so much. Moms, you're important. You need to take time for you because reality is, if you're not taking time for yourself, no one's gonna help stop you and demand that you take time for yourself. This next question, I'm gonna lumping a couple together because I think they go hand in hand is, oftentimes it's not just the individual that comes up with the idea that they need to change. Or it's a product of a conversation most often with a doctor it can be startling.'cause I do understand not every doctor has the best bedside manners and they're not trained in the understanding of weight loss, nutrition, exercise, yeah. And a mom is probably seeing their OB GY, ob, GYN, or maybe even their PCP at that standpoint. How do you. Navigate that if a client comes in and potentially could be a little distraught and stress out, I'm supposed to lose weight. Maybe the doctor didn't say it in the kindest of bedtime manner. Yeah. And then coupled with that,'cause it can go into this, is when does that concern of postpartum weight loss turn into disordered. Territory of, what kind of red flags are you watching? I know that's a loaded question right there. Yes. I love this.'cause we did talk about, you don't wanna get too far into not intuitive eating that kind of taking intuitive eating in the wrong way where it means we don't care. But also probably more pressure in our life is this pressure to lose weight in a way that's unhealthy, whether it's pressure from your. Doctor with not very good bedside manner, whether it's from your mother-in-law, it from yourself, internalize, which much of it is. And so how can we take that and find the good in it, find what's gonna help us, right? Because your doctor sometimes there's amazing doctors out there who do take the time to understand you and your goals and think about like your holistic health and some doctors they see a number, they know that according to the research, this is gonna reduce your health risk. If you lose weight, I'm just gonna tell you lose weight. Check it off the list. Or maybe they say it even in a way that's less, that's even less sensitive. But just remembering that your. Your weight and your health does not define your value, right? It's like not a moral imperative to be thin, to be healthy, to have a low risk for chronic disease, to avoid getting diabetes. Like it has nothing to do with your value, your worth. That being said, sometimes people could benefit. In terms of reduced risk for chronic health disease or maybe even mobility, pain from potentially modest weight loss. And so can we take this advice, look at it, decide what part of it is useful to us, and then try to release the rest. And, and if we decide that weight loss, is a goal that we have, not just that our doctors have, if it's a goal that we have and we've set an appropriate boundary and we've set appropriate, goals, like how do we do it in a way that doesn't go to disordered eating, right? And so I see so many people. Online who are losing weight. And in theory, maybe it's related to health, but they're doing it in a way that actually makes them less physically and mentally healthy. Restricting whole food groups, losing all those nutrients that they could be eating or spending a lot of time and energy counting calories, weighing their food just in a way that becomes obsessive and unhealthy. And I always try to use things that if we're going to try to lose weight, let's try to do it in a way that improves our health. That's the point, right? So it's it's, getting in touch with your hunger and fullness cues. It's eating maybe a little bit more consistently throughout the day if we're getting really hungry and then eating a lot at night. It's adding in things instead of taking, trying to restrict them, adding in fruits and veggies. All these things, yes, can help you potentially lose weight, but also help your health, which is really hopefully the true underneath goal. And some things that I see that make me think, oh, okay, maybe we're getting towards disordered eating. It's not always an action so much as a believer on the action, right? For some people weighing themselves. Weekly is appropriate and helpful. It helps them monitor their weight and stay within their goals. But for some people weighing themselves, even weekly is just ruins their day. It ruins their week, and that's where the same action might be a little bit more on the disordered side for that person than intuitive. And that's the sliding scale is like intuitive eating. Disordered eating, which is disruptive to your life, but not destructive. Destructive eating would be like diagnosable eating disorder. So as I see it slide from more intuitive to disruptive, that's when it's time to dive in. Talk to a mental health professional. I'm not a mental health professional, so talk to a mental health professional and, start exploring that and making sure we're not making it any worse. And if we are then, changing our techniques, making sure we're really focusing in on health rather than a number on the scale. Yeah, and what you said there is changing techniques what is consistently repeated to us through marketing, through social media, influencers. Doctors, et cetera. And I'm gonna say some old practices, which we're really finding out in the nutrition space and as well as in, in exercise space is that you don't always have to track your macros. You don't have to track your calories. You don't have to measure and weigh your food. You don't have to food journal. You don't have to weigh yourself every day. There are many different ways and. It's understanding what is gonna work for you. And I like how you put it of, how it's gonna benefit you and not be destructive because that's not what we're changing. We want a change. Should be positive. Yes. And it may feel uncomfortable because we are. Learning to trust ourselves. Again, learning to tune into our hunger skills. Maybe even being more free of having that piece of cake at a birthday party where you might have restricted and that can feel un uncomfortable. Maybe it's saying no to a piece of birthday cake because that's what you need to do. I like that. It's just not one size fits all. I also love what you said there, where it's adding things because in a change we're told that it's restrictive, take away. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing wrong inherently with counting calories, counting macros, but if it's causing you. If it's a problem for you, you know if it is causing you mental distress, if it is ruining your day. That's not what we need in our lives. Exactly. Life is too busy as it is. We don't need that. You're busy. Life is too busy and there's other ways we can do it. Or maybe we, take what we've learned and we don't measure every day, but we remember how it felt when we remember what it looked like to have, this percent of your diet being carbs and this percent fat. Remember what it felt like to do macros, but then not stick. To it every single day. Measuring it. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. So what gives you hope about the shift in the conversation around postpartum bodies? Yeah, I think one thing that gives me hope is my clients themselves and the messaging that they're really trying to put out there for their kids. I think so much of what we understand about. Ourselves, our bodies, how bodies work and look and act is, something we learned pretty early. And so I'm really hopeful for this next generation of kids who were raised by moms who are saying like, yes, this is my stomach. Check it out like you used to be in there. Can you believe it? Like that kind of thing is just a different way of talking and thinking and we haven't perfected it clearly, but we're still working towards it. And, that gives me a lot of hope that this next generation is gonna be, from the beginning kind of thinking some of these thoughts and feelings and that at least acceptance, if not maybe body love. What is one thing that you, if you could change about postpartum nutrition and how it's talked about by doctors, influencers, dieticians, like what would it be? Ooh. Good question. No, that's a tough yes. I think one like overarching theme that I think can be really. Challenging, but really helpful is looking for that like black and white, thinking about nutrition, about postpartum and meaning like all or nothing. Thinking if I do this like then I am bad or this food is bad. This way of my body looking is bad. I think. Maybe there's not an influencer. It's like specifically trying to create more of this, but I think sometimes it does get into these short little Instagram clips of this is, five things that a dietician would never eat. Or I would always eat this. You have to eat this, you can't eat this. And I just, if one, there's one thing that I hope people take away. It's like anytime you hear an all or nothing like ding like pause and just. Whether it's coming from you or outside of you, just pause and think about that. Is this the truth? Can I really not ever eat X, Y, Z if I wanna be healthy, can I really, not ever, do I always have to eat X, Y, Z to be healthy? Or does this, is this the only definition of health? I think that flexibility. Is so important, especially in postpartum because there is there are so many changes. Your life is, bigger than yourself right now. And so that flexibility, I think, serves postpartum women on many fronts, including nutrition and the relationship with food. Yeah. I love that. Where can people find you if they wanna work with you or learn more about your approach? Yes. So I have website, www.familycenterednutritionscience.com, and I'm also on Instagram and Facebook at Family centered Nutrition Science. Awesome. And those will all be in the show notes, so you can find that. We'll also put the link to that blog in the show notes so you can read over that. And this was amazing. It. It's always amazing when you come on. I know this is your second time but if anyone has any questions about anything in the podcast, you can definitely message a podcast or you can reach out visit Megan's site and you can ask her questions there and, look forward to having you back at some point. Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromHerView, powered by KatFit Strength. If this podcast inspires you, don't keep it for yourself. 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