3 Nutrients You Need (and 3 Foods to Ditch)

As a new mom, you need to nourish your body. She (ahem, your bod) is very likely depleted in nutrients, and you need to replenish them, stat! Not only might you experience some not-nice symptoms because of this nutrient deficiency, but if you’re breastfeeding, you’ll want to super-nourish that milk.

And right along with making sure you’re getting enough of some key nutrients is ensuring you’re reducing your intake of certain, well, crappy foods. Because girl, they will just Drag. You. Down. You’re likely already feeling like you could use more energy (am I right?), and you might even feel achy, unmotivated and just, ugh. Well, these particular foods can bring you down further and either way, won’t bring you back up, that’s for sure.

Let’s start with the nutrients.

3 Nutrients You Need

Even though we need many nutrients (all of which real food will provide), we’re going to focus on just 3 today. I feel these ones are just that important for all of us mamas that they deserve to be mentioned here. Not that there aren’t other important ones that also deserve to be mentioned (it was actually really hard to narrow it down), but I chose to focus on these because of their myriad health benefits.

#1 Magnesium

Mama, I can almost guarantee you need more magnesium. In fact, it’s been named one of the biggest mineral deficiencies in North America, and for good reason. It has over 300 jobs in the body – over 300! It is a vital part of so many cell processes and enzymatic reactions, and there are many symptoms of deficiency (headaches, anxiety, insomnia, muscle cramps and sugar cravings, to name a cool few). I like to think of magnesium as the anti-stress and pro-sleep mineral… it is so very important for both.

Magnesium is found in some delish foods: leafy greens, nuts and seeds (brazil nuts, almonds and cashews, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, sunflower and sesame seeds), bone broth, seaweed, unrefined sea or rock salt, legumes (lentils, beans, peas), unsweetened cacao/cocoa powder, dark chocolate, and even some herbs (chives, cilantro, parsley, mint, dill, sage and basil).

Like I said, delish.

You can also get magnesium in supplement form, and this is personally something I take on the daily, simply because it is so important and deficiency is super common. As a fun side note (or not), there are some things that deplete our magnesium, such as caffeine, sugar and stress. I know, and I’m sorry.

#2 Omega-3

Brain development, healthy blood flow, anti-inflammation, good vision, and happy mood… all things heavily impacted by our intake (or lack thereof) of omega-3. This is a family of fatty acids that are essential to our bods – meaning we need them to function, and yet we’re not able to make them… and therefore we must get them from food.

The food sources of omega-3 are, in my opinion, just as delish as magnesium: cold-water fatty fish (salmon, sardines, anchovies, mackerel, herring), grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, flax oil, walnuts and chia seeds, and hemp hearts.

Omega-3 is also something that I supplement with, again because of its huge importance and range of functions and benefits. I love me some cod liver oil since it’s also a source of vitamins A and D, but you can get fish oil, too. Both awesome.

#3 Collagen and Gelatin

Have you heard these buzzwords lately? I must say, I hear about collagen and gelatin all the time these days, which I actually frickin love. When I hear people talking about nutrition and foods or ingredients that will make them healthier, uhhh, it just floats my boat!

Basically, gelatin is the cooked form of collagen and thus they both have the same benefits.

Collagen is a hugely important protein in the body (it’s the most abundant one!), and it connects our bones, muscles and skin… think connective tissue. Tearing and stretching during birth requires lots of protein to heal those tissues… specifically, glycine and proline are the amino acids found in protein that our body uses to make collagen. You can find those amino acids in high amounts in the bones, skin and connective tissue of animals (hence the suggestion to make bone broth below).

Glycine is very gut-healing and excellent for digestion. Collagen and gelatin themselves are great for reducing inflammation, strengthening immunity, and improving skin, joint and bone health.

You can get collagen powder in supplement form, and it dissolves really well into hold or cold liquids (also great in a smoothie). And for gelatin, make some bone broth, baby! It’s one of my favourite drinks (and now Ellie’s too. Seriously, I put it in her sippy cup and she guzzles it). Bone broth can (and should) also be used when making sauces and gravies. Double yum.

Alright, let’s move it on over to those foods to say buh-bye to.

3 Foods To Ditch

#1 Margarine

Also known as a freakish, spreadable, butter-like substance that doesn’t really ever go bad and that even fruit flies know better than to consume it.

Most margarine starts out with omega-6-rich oils such as soybean, corn, canola and cottonseed (often just labeled “vegetable oil”). These types of omega-6 oils tend to be inflammatory, meaning that they cause inflammation and pain. The oils are then heated to extremely high temperatures during the refining process, which damages them, thereby creating damaged fat. Our cells cannot use this damaged fat the same way it can the healthy stuff, and it can be detrimental.

By the by, this heavy refining process also removes most, if not all, of any nutrients that the oils may once have contained, leaving it nutritionally devoid.

P.S. Most of these oils are from genetically modified (GMO) crops which have been artificially manipulated and tampered with. GMO foods are not the way nature intended, and our bodies were not designed to deal with them. Enough said. For now. 🙂

Finally, margarine does not contain fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, and K2). No way, no how. You’ll learn about these in a little bit, but for now, know that we need these and definitely aren’t gettin’ any from margarine!

What To Have Instead:

Butter. You’ll get those fat-soluble vitamins (especially from the grass-fed version) and a dose of that good-for-you saturated fat and cholesterol. What? Oh, you’ll learn about their goodness soon, too. Butter is also real, which makes it 100% better in my books.

#2 Diet Pop

Here’s the thing. I’d rather you drink regular pop over diet. BUT, that doesn’t mean that you should go out and buy a 24-pack and feel good about it simply because it’s not the diet version. The regular stuff’s pretty awful too because of the astronomical amounts of sugar as well as the other crappy ingredients that are also in diet pop. So you should really avoid that one, too.

So, why all the fuss over diet pop?

Because it contains artificial sweeteners. And THOSE, my friends, were not manufactured with health in mind. They’re processed, manmade chemicals that simply don’t belong in our bodies. They’ve been linked to neurological issues (they’re deemed a neurotoxin), diabetes, and weight gain. Yes, weight GAIN. Just, what?

What To Have Instead:

Try kombucha. It’s a fermented tea beverage and it tastes delicious. It gives you the fizziness of pop as well as the yummy flavours (and there are many different ones to try). Since it’s fermented, you’ll get digestive and immune benefits from the probiotics it contains. Bonus!

If you’re looking for a direct pop alternative that pretty much tastes exactly like pop, try Zevia. It’s a fizzy drink sweetened with stevia. Yum!

#3 Low-fat, sweetened yogurt

A lower fat content in yogurt usually means a higher carb content. And in the case of sweetened yogurt, the carb content is most definitely high. And where our blood sugar level is concerned, this is a bad thing. Fat actually slows down the release of sugar into our bloodstream, thereby preventing the blood sugar roller coaster (and the cravings, fatigue, mood swings, and low energy that go with it) as well as keeping us more steady throughout the day.

And there’s another, hugely important, thing about fat.

We need it.

Yes, even the saturated stuff. You see, we have so much fat in our bodies, fat that makes up our brain, our eyes, our nerves, our cell membranes. And we have trillions of cells, each one surrounded by a membrane, one that contains fat. If that fat was strictly unsaturated, our cells would be too elastic and fluid; we need some saturated fat to provide structure and stability. We also need cholesterol for this reason (and many more, too).

Animal fats also provide fat-soluble vitamins including A, D, and K2 (varying amounts of these are found in different foods). These vitamins and nutrients are much harder to obtain compared to their water-soluble sisters (such as vitamin C and the B vitamins), since we tend to think we’re supposed to avoid the animal fats that contain them. Well I’m telling you we don’t have to. In fact, we shouldn’t. Fat-soluble vitamins help us absorb our minerals, and they have a myriad of health benefits of their own.

We should not be afraid of fat. Even the saturated stuff. Instead, we should make sure we eat foods that contain them. They are that important.

What To Have Instead:

Ideally, yogurt should be plain or unflavoured (meaning unsweetened), with the highest fat content you can find. Sweeten it yourself if you so desire using any of the following: berries, stevia, raw honey, or maple syrup. Yum yum yum. Yum.

Okay, mama, now that you’re armed with a whole bunch of nutrition information, I hope that you find ways to incorporate those needed nutrients into your life, while throwing those crappy foods out the window. Not literally, of course. Okay maybe literally.

Which nutrients would you add to the above? How about foods you’d put on the ditch list? Lemme know in the comments.