How / What I Eat While Nursing

Happy Monday Friends!!

I hope everyone’s Memorial Day weekend was a blast and if the celebration is still going, I hope there’s lots of sunshine and family time. We enjoyed the lake, boat racing and weeding the garden.

I had a recent request to share what my diet while nursing is like. Some women may find it hard to increase their milk flow or keep it going strong, while eating healthy and running or working out. It may be hard to have enough milk while trying to loose weight at the same time, post baby. I hope that my secrets can help!!

It may be hard for someone to completely follow my regime, because I think I have the genes of my mother. She had a heavy milk flow and was engorged the first couple weeks post baby, as I was. I think it’s easy for me to keep my milk supply adequate, thankfully.

Drinking lots of water is highly important while nursing. At least 8 glasses a day. I would suggest more than that when working out or running. Hydration will help with a milk flow for sure. There are certain herbs that are helpful for milk flow such as fenugreek, nettle, fennel, and red raspberry leaf. You can drink them in tea form.

My diet is pretty diverse. I focus on lots of vegetables in my diet. From spinach, mixed greens, kale, and chard to the more colorful vegetables such as bell peppers, carrots, snap peas, tomatoes, and cabbage. While breast feeding some women may have to limit the amount of broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and cabbage they eat, as this may be hard on the baby, especially those with colic.

Studies have shown breastfed babies whose mothers eat fruits and vegetables are more likely to have a taste for those fruits and vegetables as well.

I love adding quinoa to my salads for extra protein and sometimes a little feta cheese. Now that radishes are in season, I love to have these roasted or on my salad. Also, avocados are a must for me!! I love them in my smoothies, on salads, as a basil pesto, on toast, etc. Avocados supply healthy amounts of fats that are essential for baby’s growth and for your health. Greens have been shown to help increase milk flow, and add vital nutrients to your diet.

The following is my diet broken down by meal, in order to help you better see what I consume on a regular basis. I try to focus on eating fruits and vegetables that are in season in order to reduce my carbon footprint and get the most out of the produce. Local, in season produce has more vitamins and minerals.

Breakfast:

• Overnight Oats or Chia Seeds (nuts & cinnamon)
• Smoothies: with fruits (frozen banana, frozen tart cherries, berries, frozen peaches,frozen mango*, etc), avocado, power greens (chard, kale, spinach), ground flaxseed, and protein powder. *A lot of my fruit was frozen from last season
• Oatmeal w/ cinnamon, almond milk, chia seeds & maybe a fruit
• GF Toast w/ Avocado & hemp seeds (coconut oil as butter)
• Pancakes or Waffles (after long runs)

Morning Snack:

• Svelte Protein Shake
• Mixed Nuts or Trail Mix
• GF Toast with Avocado & hemp seeds
• Smoothie
• Small bowl of Love Grown or Barbara’s GF Certeal
• Rice Cake w/ Almond Butter or Sweet Spreads
• Quesadilla
• Healthy Bites

Lunch: 

• Big Salad (Mixed Greens) w/ quinoa & lots of colorful vegetables, occasionally feta, avocado & kalamata olives and beans
• Left over’s from dinner
• PB&J or Almond Butter Sandwich
• Wrap w/ lots of veggies and avocado spread
• Vegetable Soups

Snack:

• Dried Apple (We dehydrated a lot of fruit last summer) w/ nuts
• Apricots
• Rice Cake w/ Nut Butter
• Orange
• Picky Bar or Larabar
• Trail Mix or Mixed Nuts
• Healthy Bites (lots of great recipes here)

Dinner:

• Spinach & Avocado Stuffed Sweet Potato
• Cilantro Lime Sweet Potato Bowl
• GF Pasta w/ fresh veggies (olive oil, basil dressing)
• Avocado Pesto Pasta
• Taco Salad
• Veggie Black Bean Burgers w/ baked Sweet Potato fries
• Veggie Casseroles (I have many recipes here)
• Enchilada’s 
• Salads (recipes here)

Desserts: 

• Chocolate Avocado Pudding
• Chia Pudding (Banana & Coconut)
• Frozen Grapes (when in season)
• Frozen Fruit Kabobs
• Muffins (recipes here)

As you may have noticed I snack a lot throughout the day and I am always drinking water. I eat lots of calories because nursing takes 300-500 calories to make food, and I am marathon training on top of this. Your schedule may not be as rigorous as mine, so you may not need to have a morning snack. I do eat large portions throughout the day.

Now that spring is in full bloom and summer is approaching. My diet will be a little different, as far as the fruits and vegetables I eat. I do make a lot of summer pasta salads, lots of fruit salads, and lots of fresh cucumber tomato salads and caprese salads. During the winter it is a lot of winter root vegetables and squash.

You can check out my recipe page for some great ideas!!

Until Next Time Be Whole and Be Fit