Erika: Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I just wanna take a moment to remind you to subscribe if you’re not already, that just means you are essentially following this podcast and you’ll never miss a new episode. If you have one extra minute, I’d be so, so grateful. If you left me a review, it would mean so much to me.
Erika: On today’s episode of the Babe Skills Podcast, we chat with Sarah Baker, who is a board certified holistic health practitioner and certified integrative nutrition coach, and I just so happen to be working with her. This is gonna be part one of what I think will be a multi-part series because there’s just so much valuable information. If you’ve ever had a baby, listen up. Today’s episode is for you. We get into how the body changes, and Sarah shares all the wisdom you need but won’t receive from your conventional postpartum checkups. We get into health before and after, baby.
[00:01:00]Erika: A little about my personal struggles, and then we finish off with some small lifestyle shifts you can make to majorly support your health, your detox pathways, and all your lymphatic lymphatic systems. It’s a super juicy episode, and with that, let’s welcome Sarah to the podcast. Welcome Sarah to the podcast. This has been a long time coming while Sarah was a podcast guest, I think during the Pandemic or right before the pandemic.
Sarah: And it’s like we weren’t working together at that point. We were just, I think like internet friends for a very long time, DM besties. And now I had to, I’m so lucky that I met you online because Sarah works as a board certified holistic health practitioner and an integrative nutritionist.
[00:02:00]Erika: And I’ve been having some issues post, uh, postpartum and you’ve been amazing, like a wealth of knowledge and all of my friends are asking like what I’m doing and I’m like, you know what? I just need to get her on the podcast because I think a lot of this information applies to a lot of the listeners who, um, are new moms and kind of navigating their health after baby, during and after baby.
Erika: I just thought, let’s go to the source, let’s bring you on. And I’m probably gonna do a solo episode with like, Things that are specific to me so we can follow up on that later. But anyways, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being a guest again, and let’s just let’s just jump right in.
Erika: So, I came to you because with these issues, I was exhausted, which is to be ex expected after you have a baby. But it was to a different level. I could not lose a single pound of weight. And I was doing all the things, like all my old tricks, like eating clean. I was trying to do intermittent fasting, which I later found out is not good because I have cortisol issues.
[00:03:00]Erika: So, you really got me on board with the just test, don’t guess. And we did a lot of testing to find out what’s going on with me. So, let’s just jump right in. Maybe you can talk about things we go through during pregnancy and then postpartum and how we can start to heal.
Sarah: So, there are so many mamas that have your same issues. Like I was one of those mamas, especially having my second baby during covid times of very high stress, the stress levels. Super, super impact what already can be going wrong in your body. So, it’s really common, unfortunately, that there are so many mamas that either are experiencing hormone imbalances, thyroid issues, adrenal issues, gut issues, you know, stealth infections, viruses, things that kind of are dormant and then pop up during that postpartum period.
[00:04:00]Sarah: And it’s not even postpartum. I mean moms can experience this, even when your kiddo is like a big kid, you know, like six, seven years old. Because sometimes if you’re not addressing what goes wrong, your body kind of just like works with what she gave it. So, when you start to feel this level of fatigue, which is, as you said, you know, more than just, oh, I’m a mom, I’m tired.
Sarah: Right? Like, you can tell when something is off, that is a for sure sign. That your body is trying to tell you that something is out of whack, but what is out of whack? That’s where, you know, all this testing goes on. So, we first wanna kind of understand. Why do so many health challenges happen when we’re postpartum or when we’re moms?
[00:05:00]Sarah: We first need to understand what goes on when we’re pregnant. There’s so many of us that go into our pregnancy, and especially with our second kiddo already depleted, right? Like we don’t fully understand what our nutrient status is. When we’ve had one kid or two kid, right? And then we get pregnant again and maybe we’re already depleted.
Sarah: And so going into a pregnancy depleted and when depleted, I mean, you are deficient in certain vitamins and minerals that can make you even worse off when you are postpartum. So, what happens when you are pregnant? Right. So, the first things first is all of our nutrients go to our baby. And our babies get all of their vitamins and minerals from our reserves.
Sarah: That’s why our doctors say, take your prenatal. But I can go off on a whole other tangent about prenatals because not every prenatal is good for you, but you know, shelf that for another discussion. So, babies, they will take some of our most vital nutrients, zinc, b12, iron, iodine, calcium, folate, selenium. These are all super important.
[00:06:00]Sarah: Guess what? For our thyroid function, and our thyroid is literally the master gland of how our entire body operates. And so, when we are going into a pregnancy depleted and then our baby stops all those nutrients up and we’re not properly restoring them while we’re pregnant, then ugh, even more can go wrong when we’re postpartum.
Sarah: In addition to that, our babies take our omega threes from us, our essential fat stores that goes to our baby through the placenta. Especially near the end of our pregnancy, and that’s why so many moms experience brain fog, memory issues, extra fatigue because our baby has sucked. Our brain’s like a lemon, right?
Sarah: Like so mom brain is like a factual thing. It is a factual thing. So, when you have mom brain as a mama, there are ways to restore your cognitive health, and a lot of it could be an essential, you know, fatty acid deficiency. An other issue, not really issue, this happens naturally while we’re pregnant, is we become naturally insulin resistant, meaning that our insulin receptors aren’t as sensitive to glucose.
[00:07:00]Sarah: So when we get those pregnancy cravings like carbs and sugar, That could cause us to stay insulin resistant when we’re postpartum, which can contribute to, you know, not being able to lose weight or even contribute to hormone imbalances like PCOS. Um, so that could be a whole other category of, you know, a root cause to what’s going on when you’re postpartum.
Sarah: And then in addition to that, it’s just all those hormonal changes and then everything that kind of shifts within us, our blood pressure, the increased volume, there’s so many changes that if we aren’t going into our pregnancy in tip top nutrient shape, girl, there could be some problems on the horizon.
[00:08:00]Erika: So, what I was gonna ask you is like, what are the chances that a woman comes out of a pregnancy completely unscathed. And before this, because all of to my knowledge is after I had a baby six weeks later, I go see the doctor they check you out and they’re like, you’re good to go. So, first baby, I’m like, okay, I’m good to go.
Erika: But now knowing what I know now, I feel like the chances are pretty slim that a woman comes out. Needing nothing, needing no extra support. And why don’t we have that support? Why isn’t that offered through our, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like I had to seek this out myself and thank God I found someone like you and Dr. Galena and have a wonderful team. But like I had to advocate for myself.
Sarah: Yeah, so that is one of the downsides to the conventional medicine system because they don’t do like comprehensive labs that assess your full nutrient status and even maybe like your toxic load, if you have any environmental toxins, if you have gut dysbiosis or candida or anything like that, they do just the basic labs to show you like, okay, there’s nothing seriously wrong with you, you’re good to go.
[00:09:00]Sarah: And they’ll, they may do labs when you’re postpartum. That’s why you need to prepare for pregnancy before you’re pregnant, by making sure that you’re really nourishing yourself. And unfortunately, during pregnancy, even though you have cravings and all, you just wanna eat eat eat. You still need to be very strategic about what you’re consuming, and that doesn’t mean salads and smoothies, right?
Sarah: The most nutrient dense foods are actually animal proteins and full fat foods like dairy. But you know, you need to be really, really careful how you’re sourcing your dairy. Of course, again, that’s bio-individual. There are still individuals that have dairy sensitivities or dairy you know, causes something in them to flare up where they would still not wanna consume that.
[00:10:00]Sarah: But people think like eating clean meat means going on like a juice cleanse or going vegan. But when we’re talking about fertility, pregnancy, and hormones specifically, you need those fat soluble vitamins and amino acids from animal proteins.
Sarah: It’s just you know, superior from a nutrition standpoint. That doesn’t mean if you’re vegan, you’re doomed. Right? You can supplement with an amino acid complex. You can eat specific foods that have higher doses of a certain amino acids that will nourish your body while you’re pregnant. You can still keep yourself nourished, but a lot of the nutrition information that is out there, or like the trends, right, or the perceptions of here’s how to eat healthy to nourish myself when I’m pregnant, is outdated and just not rooted on facts.
[00:11:00]Erika: That’s funny you say that this year more than ever, there are a couple like plant-based people, I follow that, or I guess that’s, I don’t know if that’s the correct word, that have completely like flip flopped and have changed their stance and there’s like a couple people in my personal life that have done the same. It’s just interesting, sort of what’s happening. But I do wanna say, I think you said smoothies and salad, that was me. Before I tested, I was eating like a smoothie for breakfast, a salad. And that’s because I’m obsessed with salad is my favorite food. And I’ve kind of had to change my mind set a little bit where I’m eating now more than ever throughout the day.
Erika: And when I’m eating, like you said, I’m mindful of choosing what I’m eating. And it’s, you know, things we’ve, we’ve discussed like hard boiled egg, or not eating like full fledged meals, like six meals a day, you know, I’m able to lose the weight. I feel better. And it’s crazy it’s like what we’ve learned in society to this point, it’s counterintuitive. Eat more and you’re gonna feel better and you know, maybe be able to take off that weight. I had to wrap my mind around that. And it took a while, but.
[00:12:00]Sarah: Yeah. And there’s so much dogma around nutrition. Like, I’m not saying go carnivore, because that’s, you know, another nutrition approach. I’m just saying don’t be afraid to incorporate high quality animal proteins into your diet. That means organic grass fed beef, pasture raised organic poultry, pastured eggs, wild cup seafood. You don’t have to have like a steak for dinner every. But just don’t fear it. You know, people think like, oh, I need to, you know, I’m gonna be healthy by being vegan.
Sarah: I was vegan for four years. I was vegetarian for like seven years, and then when I got pregnant, my body was like, nope. You need a burger. Like the cravings were so severe that I gave in and I never looked back.
Erika: That’s so amazing. You listened to yourself and didn’t just say, I have this thing in my head, this label that I need to stick to.
[00:13:00]Erika: And even though I feel that I want this, I, I think that’s amazing.
Sarah: And now that I look back, I had more issues when I was vegan slash vegetarian than what I am now. And I’m just, you know, a general healthy eater. I don’t have any sort of, you know how people like to categorize themselves and put them in boxes of I’m paleo, I’m keto, I’m this and that.
Sarah: You don’t have to be any of that. Your diet should be specific for your bio individuality, you know? So, but when I was vegan and vegetarian, I had really bad cystic acne, like really bad where I had to go on medication temporarily for it. Um, you know, more gut issues. I probably was, I probably had a very like subclinical hypothyroid issue just because I wasn’t nourishing myself enough.
Sarah: And I was living on like nut milks and nut butters and a lot like nuts, right?
Erika: That was another one of my main issues. So, I kept a food diary for like a week or two and she was like, whoa, girl, we gotta rainin it in on the nuts because it adds up. You don’t think about it. Like, I put nut butter in my smoothie.
[00:14:00]Erika: I drink, you know, use nut milk in a recipe. I have a handful of nuts for a stack. And it’s like, whoa. It’s like way too much nuts, girl.
Sarah: Yeah. And, and when you are a mom, your number one goal is, okay, how can I restore my metabolism? How can I have my energy? How can I start to feel like myself again? And of course, that’s going to include, I wanna drop some weight that’s normal.
Sarah: No one should ever feel ashamed for wanting to, you know, lose some weight and feel good in their skin. I hate how social media makes it seem like, oh, you’re trying to promote skinny culture by losing weight. It’s like, no, you just wanna feel good.
Erika: And it’s not a number on the scale for me. I don’t expect to even fit into certain clothes anymore. But like, I just wanna feel better in my clothes. I wanna feel better going through life. I wasn’t feeling good, which was the number one thing, you know? Yeah. But, um, I do wanna sorta go back to the pregnancy thing and kind of wrap that up a little bit.
[00:15:00]Erika: If you could give like a couple generalized things that someone who’s listening as pregnant could be doing, maybe. Okay. So, you know, they maybe didn’t prepare their selves going into it, but nutrition wise or mineral wise, is there something they can be doing during their pregnancy to set them up to maybe not have, um, a ton of issues coming out postpartum?
Sarah: Definitely. Yeah. So, the number one thing you want to do when you are pregnant is focus on your minerals, because that is what really will get depleted while you’re pregnant and then especially if you are breastfeeding. So, the one thing you wanna do is look at your prenatal and see if there’s iodine included in it, because iodine is one of those really essential, essential minerals that your thyroid essentially runs on, and I have seen so many thyroid issues in my new mama clients because they are deficient in iodine. So, you wanna make sure that you are having iodine in your prenatal vitamin. You also want to add mineral drops to your water.
[00:16:00]Sarah: And so there is this brand, it’s like super cheap. You can get it on Amazon. It’s called Trace Minerals. You add like five to seven drops in your glass of water. You could have up to 40 drops a day, but I tell mamas don’t do 40 drops in like one glass because it’s sourced from sea water. So, it’ll taste like you’re drinking the ocean, which is, you know, not a great taste.
Sarah: You can also add it into your smoothies, but you know, people get advice all the time of hydrate while you’re pregnant. You need to hydrate. But guess what? If you’re doing nothing but just chugging down water, you may actually be dehydrating yourself because you’re flushing out more minerals and you know, bad things you wanna flush out too, but you wanna make sure your water is mineralized so that when you’re consuming the water, your water is being utilized to its best capacity within your body because it’s paired with those minerals and it’s really electrolytes, which keeps you hydrated.
[00:17:00]Sarah: So that’s why I would also recommend depending on your situation is the adrenal cocktail while you’re pregnant, because those have, the adrenal cocktail has the minerals and the electrolytes, the potassium, sodium and you could add a little bit of magnesium if you use one of like the magnesium drops and then you get the vitamin C and other minerals, which is really, really great kind of to nourish yourself.
Sarah: If you have blood sugar issues, I would not recommend drinking that because you were on it for a little bit, Erika, but you didn’t really have any, you know, your like hemoglobin a1c was okay, which is, you know, indicates if you are insulin resistant or not.
Erika: So yeah, I loved, I love it. I still have it occasionally it’s on my Instagram. I have a reel I did with like the whole recipe, Sarah’s recipe. It’s amazing I actually like craved it. It takes like a dreamsicle or a creamsicle, whatever.
[00:18:00]Erika: The whole time you’re talking, I’m thinking, listen up, Stanley Cup girlies. We gotta be adding minerals to it.
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Am I old now? I don’t even know what this whole Stanley Cup thing is all about.
Erika: Yes. It’s like, okay. The, the whole gente quo is that it can fit in your cup holder, you know, like I have a big hydro flask, but it’s like annoying that it can’t fit my cup holder, and I’m like on the go all the time. So it’s like perfectly fits in there. So, so worth a 60 bucks or whatever.
Sarah: Geez, Louise. 60 bucks.
Erika: Why didn’t we invent that?
Sarah: No, that better be non-toxic. It’s all I know.
Erika: Yes, it’s, um, well, it’s stainless steel. Well, those, okay, so the two take the mineralizing your water, the electrolytes. Is there anything else?
[00:19:00]Sarah: Yes, I have a very other important tip. You need to have protein, high protein, breakfast and lunch. And if you’re going to be consuming grains, you wanna consume them in the afternoon. So, if you’re pregnant and you’re listening to this and you’re like, what? I have to cut out grains.
Sarah: Oh my goodness. Am I going low carb? No, because carbohydrates are abundant in fruits and vegetables and legumes. So, by going by, and also this can apply for anybody to not just pregnancy, but it’s very important in pregnancy because of, you know, blood sugar regulation that you need to focus on when you’re pregnant.
Sarah: By consuming more protein for breakfast and lunch and shifting your grain consumption to the afternoon, you are helping yourself have way more energy. You are stabilizing your blood sugar at a much better rate, and you’re just helping yourself just feel generally better while you’re pregnant. I have a good handful of pregnant clients right now who we’re dealing. A lot of fatigue and just kind of feeling weak and unmotivated.
[00:20:00]Sarah: And they were having oatmeal for breakfast and like a salad with, you know, crackers or whatever for lunch. And I had them switch to pastured chicken sausage eggs and like a clementine for breakfast or like a side of sauteed greens.
Sarah: Cause you also wanna get that fiber in there that will help balance your blood sugar and then something cooked for lunch. And if you’re vegetarian, you know that that may be like lentils with your stew or whatnot. But keeping the grains for the afternoon and just that shift can make you feel so much better throughout your pregnancy because you know, you feel generally tired during your pregnancy.
Erika: Yeah, for sure. Well, I love that. I mean, I feel like I’ve kind of even been making that shift in with postpartum. And maybe we can switch gears and talk about, so obviously in a perfect world, after you have a baby and you’re breastfeeding and you’re done with that, you would get tested to see, and when is there in like an ideal window, like do you need to wait six months after you’re done breastfeeding?
[00:21:00]Sarah: Yeah, so I, you know, I do have some breastfeeding clients. The only thing that we can’t do in your breastfeeding is if we discover that you have like candida or heavy metal toxicity or something going on that requires some more heavy duty protocols. You have to be very gentle when you’re nursing. But you can still get, I think it would be very wise and important to get a nutrient assessment, like test.
Sarah: Um, there’s this Nutra eval and metabolomic from Genova Labs. I’m not sure if you took one of those tests, did you? I don’t think so. No, I think that would be really important to, to take when you’ve, I mean, that’s important to take if you are trying to conceive if you’re pregnant or when you’re postpartum, just because that gives you an overview of your nutrient levels.
[00:22:00]Sarah: It gives you a good overview of everything besides like vitamin D and iodine, which can easily be ordered through your PCP or your midwife or your obgyn, just like you know, in your regular lab work. But getting an in-depth test like that can assess all your amino acids, all your B vitamins, all the antioxidants in your body, like vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C, like those levels, uh, all minerals.
Sarah: And then it also can test heavy metal exposure, which is way more common than one would think that can contribute to a lot of issues. Um, your gut status, it, it can test for some like organic acid markers to see if you have any sort of gut dysbiosis. And that essentially means is your gut flora, okay? If it’s not, that could cause mal-absorption issues.
[00:23:00]Sarah: So, you may be eating healthy, but you may not be feeling great, and that could be because you have something going on in your gut that is preventing you from actually assimilating and taking the nutrients from the food you’re consuming. So, the big question is when should I get more of these like comprehensive tests when I’m postpartum?
Sarah: I would recommend to wait until you’re at least three months postpartum, just because during those first initial months, your body is going through again so many hormonal changes. That I wouldn’t even suggest like testing hormones until you’re closer to six months postpartum. Just because so much can happen within that window, that doesn’t mean you know, oh, there’s nothing you can do the first six months.
Sarah: You wanna set a really good foundation. If something feels very off, then test your hormone levels. When you’re three months, definitely test your thyroid. A full thyroid panel. Your three months postpartum as well, because Hashimotos and hypothyroidism can get triggered and pop up postpartum. And there’s also a window between like I think three and eight months postpartum where you’re very susceptible to viruses and pathogens infiltrating your system.
[00:24:00]Sarah: It has something to do with just how your immune system is modulated throughout that time and a lot of the other internal changes that go on in your body. And if you have like dormant EBV or even like Lyme, that is undetected, that can pop up too throughout the postpartum period as well, just because you’re so vulnerable.
Sarah: Because childbirth, even though childbirth can be a very positive experience, and you could have had like I had an amazing birth. Your body is still going through a huge physiological stressor. And if you are not properly healing those first three months, and by healing I mean slowing down significantly.
Sarah: Staying in bed, at least the first 30 days, really nourishing yourself. And a lot of us just don’t do that, right? We’re really leaving ourselves susceptible. So, I would, and you know, it’s, it’s also like a case by case basis. It kind of depends on what are your presenting symptoms, what’s going on with you right now.
[00:25:00]Sarah: Maybe you do wanna get more tests done at three months postpartum, or even two months postpartum. It’s really, you know, again, individualized, but postpartum, that’s a period that other factors can really contribute to health issues, especially chronic sleep deprivation. I mean, like my second baby, he was up every half hour for the first four months of life, and I was so sleep deprived.
Sarah: I literally felt like I was dying every day and tha like threw my body into a tail spin and I was living in an environment that had mold. So also like your environment can also contribute to your health issues when you’re postpartum. You’re just super vulnerable when you’re postpartum that you know, like your hormones go through another shift.
[00:26:00]Sarah: If you’re breastfeeding, the baby takes even more nutrient stores from you and we can just be super susceptible to health challenges popping up.
Erika: Yeah, it’s just wild. And like I said my eyes have been open because I experienced an issue, and if I never did I mean, I don’t know you can just be going on through life with things lurking under the surface that might not affect you right now, but they could pop up later. The other thing I wanna say that I feel like I really enjoyed, I enjoy working with you is because, um, sometimes people will say like, oh, are you on a bunch of supplements or something like that. And really you have, you really try to like supplement through food a lot of the times. Which I thought think is really cool.
Erika: Like, I am on a handful of supplements, which I can tell have made a difference, but most of the time we’re trying to fix things through food and getting minerals that way. And nutrients, which I think is really, really cool.
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I have actually had a lot of clients that have come to me from other like naturopathic doctors or even some like integrative MDs who were like, I was on 19 supplements.
[00:27:00]Sarah: And I still don’t feel good like I don’t even know what to do. And that’s because nobody set a foundation for them. I mean, you can’t just take supplements and then not sleep well, have a crazy, chaotic stressful life. Not have any knowledge of eating strategically because there’s a lot that goes into nutrition that people don’t realize.
Sarah: For example, everybody thinks they have to intermittent fast until noon every day. And that’s actually gonna make your symptoms worse if you are a mama because every mama I know is stressed out. And if you are stressed out, the last thing you wanna do is fast until like 11 or noon and be running on coffee because that will impair your thyroid function.
Sarah: AKA your metabolism, and then your metabolism slows down even more. And then everybody wonders why they’re not losing weight and why they’re tired and why they’re not feeling good.
Erika: And that you guys is my life story until I started working out.
Sarah: So it’s like you can’t just throw a bunch of supplements at yourself and just like supplement your way to good health.
[00:28:00]Sarah: You need to set foundations, you need nutritional foundations. You need specific at-home therapies that you can follow. You need certain lifestyle. I mean, you gotta open up your drainage pathways. That’s like a whole other topic, but there’s a lot to be done before you even start doing like heavy duty supplement protocols.
Erika: Right. Well that’s the other thing too, in working with you. So just to recap, I work with Dr. Galena and Sarah and Tandem. So Dr. Galena is a naturopath. Is that, is that her the correct.
Sarah: Yeah, so Dr. Galena is the naturopathic doctor at my practice. It is she and I right now. And she is able to order blood work. Like full panels of anything that you want through Quest Labs or like a pretty, you know, common laboratory, I assume. And then we’re also able to order a lot of functional labs, so, gut tests, hormonal tests, adrenal tests to, you know, assess your stress levels, how stress is impacting your endocrine in your hormone system.
[00:29:00]Sarah: You know, all sorts of different tests. And then together she and I create the protocols. She does more supplementation. I do kind of everything else.
Erika: Yeah, so it’s like this perfect marriage because like you said, some people go, they just get on all these supplements and they’re not getting the foundation, which where like you’re not getting the nutrition support, the lifestyle support.
Erika: So you just think you can take all these magic pills and feel better. So what I really love is like, You’ve got this amazing team, and I feel like my bases are covered. A couple things, uh, when I got my testing done, and I think maybe we can do like another episode with what my findings were and what, like sort of my protocol is and like how people can work with you. But one thing that was interesting was I suspected maybe something was wrong with my thyroid because I couldn’t lose the weight. And it turned out that I had like a sluggish thyroid. But what’s interesting is that you’re being tested against everyone else who tested at Quest, and the general population is not healthy. So my sluggish thyroid is probably like much more sluggish than it appears.
[00:30:00]Sarah: Yeah. So, when you are looking at markers on like conventional tests that average. The population average. They’re not, they’re not testing what is optimal function. So that’s why a lot of people come to me because they have been to their regular doctor, and the regular doctor said, oh, your labs are within a range. You’re just a stressed mom. But then they still have symptoms of, you know, hypothyroidism or sluggish thyroid, and that’s because they’re not getting functional labs. So functional versus conventional, functional, you know, analysis of lab ranges are, is this specific marker working optimally or not? So, for like TSH example, optimal levels, and again, like every test is different.
[00:31:00]Sarah: So it could look, it could look different, um, are usually at or below. You wanna get them below like 2.5 So for some clients they’re at like four and above, which can signal that they are, you know, for sure, hypothyroid. But even if you don’t have like true clinical hypothyroidism, you can have a sluggish thyroid, which can create symptoms that are similar to hypothyroidism, which can be constipation, your hands and feet are cold all the time. You can’t lose any weight. You are really tired upon waking. You may have some sleep issues. You may have more anxiety or stress like imbalanced mood a little bit more.
Sarah: I mean, your thyroid actually is what drives your entire metabolism. So it’s a very, very important, you know, system of the body.
Erika: Yeah, so that, I found that like super interesting because like you said, had I gone to a conventional doctor, they would probably be like, you’re fine. Like your thyroid’s fine.
[00:32:00]Erika: But there are so many things that we’re doing to support my thyroid function, which I think has been a huge help. Um, so I kind of, before like we wrapped this podcast up, we’re definitely gonna need a part two. I kind of wanted to talk about maybe like is there something, anyone who’s listening who hasn’t tested yet they can like take or do through supplementation, um, any foods you recommend. And then just really quickly, if we could touch on some of the lifestyle stuff that we’ve been working through in terms of supporting the drainage pathways, and meditation and just supporting your stress levels and helping with, you know, I’m pretty sure probably every mama has a cortisol issue.
Erika: So. I know that’s like loaded question because that those are three very long like things, but maybe we can just give some key takeaways and get into this next episode for sure. Cause I kind of wanna delve into what my issues were and what we’re specifically doing because I do think a lot can help people just general.
[00:33:00]Sarah: Yeah, definitely. So, when it comes from a nutrition standpoint and you’re a mama, you most likely wanna replenish specific nutrients that will help bring balance back to your body. Number one would be DHA omega-3 from fatty fish like salmon, sardines, and macole, or taking a really high quality cod liver oil supplement.
Sarah: I prefer cod liver oil versues like omega-3 fish oil because the cod liver oil also has really nice doses of vitamin A, which is a very crucial fat soluble vitamin for hormone and thyroid health, which is, you know, every mama needs to prioritize. And it also has natural levels of vitamin D, which we all need more of too.
[00:34:00]Sarah: So, cod liver oil.
Erika: Do you have a brand you like or, um, man.
Sarah: Nordic Naturals and Rosita’s Cod liver oil. Those are probably two that I would recommend. And then you wanna eat foods that are naturally containing levels of iodine in them. So that could be like the seaweed snacks that are common. You wanna make sure that those have are made with sesame oil or olive oil instead of canola oil. Cause a lot of them are made with canola oil. And then fish, shrimp, eggs, all these sources have iodine in it. You also wanna make sure that you are consuming a lot of zinc. You can get zinc, the highest level of zinc if you ladies like doing like oyster bars and whatnot. Oysters are literally like nature’s multivitamin, highest source of zinc.
Sarah: It also has b12, so if you’re like pescatarian, oysters are your best friend. I even take desiccated oyster supplements just so that I can get it’s lit. Another like nature’s multi vitamin. So I would say instead of reaching for like a prenatal when you’re a mom or synthetic forms of vitamin, do like desiccated beef, liver and desiccated oyster, and you are getting all your minerals and nutrients from food-based sources.
[00:35:00]Erika: Wow. Yeah. That’s incredible. And I’ve been eating the smoked oysters from Trader Joe’s. I love them. I crave them. They taste so good. I know they’re not as bougie as like going out with your girls and getting oysters on ice, but. Amazing.
Sarah: You could make like a super good oyster spread too with like cream cheese or something, right?
Erika: I mean, I love them I eat them right off the can. They’re so good.
Sarah: Yeah, so do my boys. Isn’t that funny? Like my two year old, he loves it. He’ll eat a whole can.
Erika: That’s amazing. I should try and see what my kids will.
Sarah: Yeah, maybe. Um, but then you also wanna make sure you’re getting vitamin D. That’s an important one.
Sarah: Uh, I, this is one where you can get it from some foods. There’s vitamin D and. Um, again, in the cod liver oil in salmon, also a little like tip is if you have mushrooms and you set them out on a window sill, they will absorb vitamin D and then you can consume the vitamin D mushroom. So that’s like a cool little trick.
[00:36:00]Sarah: Um, and then you just wanna have your fat soluble vitamins. So like vitamin A, D, E, K. Those are all very important just for hormones, thyroids, general health, so that could be found like grass fed butter. I mean, moral of the story is here. You don’t have to starve yourself and eat smoothies and salads to feel good.
Sarah: You can have butter. You can have, I always recommend raw dairy and over conventional dairy. You can have, you know, but again, don’t eat like a whole block of it in one thing, like be realistic, you know, incorporate it. You can, you can still enjoy all the foods you like and all the flavors you like because you know, like a burger on a lettuce wrap or whatever can taste yummy. Satisfy your cravings.
Erika: That’s what I had last night.
Sarah: And that will give you protein, amino acids, nutrients, like so much goodness that your body just needs. Um, okay. What was the other thing that you wanted?
Erika: The last thing was just like the lifestyle stuff.
[00:37:00]Sarah: Yes. Lifestyle stuff for all the mamas out there. We already talked about this, but I have to say it again, is the don’t do intermittent fasting. What you can do if you want to do practice intermittent fasting, is eat your dinner earlier in the evening, say like five or five 30. And then start like your 14 or 16 hour fast after dinner time.
Sarah: That is a lot more efficient and better on your hormones than having a later dinner and then pushing your first meal of the day later in the day. And by having an earlier dinner that could also improve the quality of your sleep as well. So that’s a really great lifestyle shift. And then something in general, but this is like a very loaded topic, is supporting all your body’s different drainage pathways.
[00:38:00]Sarah: So your ability to detox because a lot of environmental toxins are in our environment now. It just is, you know, because like if we’re not having glass tupperware, depending on our cooking utensils, our beauty products, what we put in our laundry, what we clean our house with, if we have, you know, mold, hidden mold in the house somewhere.
Sarah: Like just life now there’s just more environmental toxins around. So you wanna nourish all your drainage pathways, that’s your colon, your lymphatic system, your liver, your lymphatic system, which is a lymphatic system in your brain. That’s why quality sleep is so important.
Sarah: And then your cellular health, your mitochondrial health, that’s like a whole, I could do like a whole one hour class on that, but you wanna make sure you’re pooping everyday. You’re sweating as much as you can. You are supporting your lymphatic system, your lymphatic system, and your hormone system. Were so intricately connected and you wanna support your liver.
Sarah: Cause a big thing I see in postpartum women is estrogen dominance and all they need to do is support their liver by, and again, this is very bio individual because for somebody that has a really sluggish leather liver, I’d say go lower on the fat. So, don’t as much dairy, don’t do as much butter. So we wanna go, see, this is why you have to test.
[00:39:00]Sarah: Don’t guess. This is why you have to test. Yes. And this is why I hate it when people just create so much dogma around nutrition of like, this is the way to eat when every single person has their own unique way of eating. Right. You could have a vegetarian that has vibrant health, even though they’re a vegetarian.
Sarah: You could have, you know, a paleo person where that’s working for them. But then, you know, paleo can work for Mary, but then Stacy tries it and Stacy feels like crap. It’s just like you need to understand what’s going on in your body so that you know what specific foods will help your situation.
Erika: Makes perfect sense. I mean, we’re all also different. Why wouldn’t the way we eat, nurture our bodies can be different. But I wanted to talk some of the takeaways or things you gave me to do that I think were good for anybody, whether they’re. Picture of health or not? Yeah. Is um, you mentioned sweating, so like getting an a sauna or an infrared sauna.
Erika: Ideally infrared sauna. Um, and then like dry brushing, which I love and I crave my body craves. I leave it outside my shower. So like you don’t need to like go get a lymphatic drain massage, although highly recommend. Amazing. You can do things like in your daily life. Um, meditation, which you all know I’m obsessed with. Whether it’s five minutes or 30, I do it no matter what. Whether it happens in the morning or night, I would say six out of seven days I’m doing that and that’s a huge thing for me in my life. Um, so some of those things I think that you taught me were, you know, really do make a difference. They’re not just like a beauty trend, like lymphatic drainage, dry brushing, you know, or to look skinny. They really, really internally help
[00:41:00]Sarah:. Yeah, just, just because when you are working on detoxing an excess of a hormone or if you have something going on with your gut, or even if you have something going on with your thyroid, there’s a lot of like underlying root causes which impair our ability to detox or where supporting our natural abilities to detox can significantly help improve.
Sarah: And so, that’s why you wanna support all those systems. And that’s why when we, when we do like dry body brushing, don’t just do it once a week. Like try to do it every day before you take a shower and it only takes five minutes. And then even when you’re in the shower, like you can manually like scrub all the areas of your body where you’re lymphatic nodules are most condensed. So that’s, you know, under your armpits, by your armpits, on either side of your groin, like right where your like hip crease is. There’s a lot of lymph nodes there. Throughout your stomach, there’s a ton of lymph nodes in your stomach and then also throughout your back, and then obviously you know on your face and your neck.
[00:42:00]Sarah: So when you’re taking a shower, just like make sure you’re rubbing them a little extra to stimulate that because our lymphatic system doesn’t have a pump. So there’s a lot of free, simple things you can do.
Erika: Yeah, I, and I think that’s great. Like I’ve never had a care team that is like, are you meditating? Are you, uh, dry brushing in the shower? Like, so it’s amazing to have like all these pieces put together and let’s please do part two. I feel like we have so much we need to talk about but let everybody know how they can connect with you. Like how they get involved with you and work with you.
Sarah: Yeah. Yes. So, um, I try to share entertaining educational info on Instagram that is Sarah Baker Health, Sarah with an H. And then, um, my private practice is called Women’s wellness chicago.com. That’s where you can find information about Dr. Galena and i’s our program. And then I’m also providing an online course with one of my favorite functional medical doctors on a restorative program for moms.
[00:43:00]Sarah: Not amazing postpartum, but for moms. That’s coming out soon. Um, so I would say if you wanna know, like everything that’s going on, head to Instagram, join my email list and that’s, you know where you will announcements.
Erika: Yeah, yeah. I’ll link your website, your Instagram, and please come back for part two.
Sarah: This, I feel like we’re far from done.
Erika: Yeah, we got some juicy stuff to cover. Well, thank you so much and look forward to having you back and I’ll chat with you soon. Sarah: Thank you, my dear. It was a pleasure.
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