Incorporating a Plant-Based Lifestyle During Pregnancy and Beyond [Episode #442]

This week’s topic is: Incorporating Plant-Based Lifestyle During Pregnancy and Beyond

I am super excited for our topic today, which is Incorporating a Plant-Based Lifestyle During Pregnancy and Beyond. And this is super exciting for me to talk about right now because I am pregnant with my second baby and I am feeling good right now. I’m in my second trimester. I was not feeling so great in my first, but I love this topic.

I feel very passionately about this topic and about fertility and pregnancy. I hear a lot of women struggling to get pregnant. I say with compassion, as I’m sure you do as well. And I would love nothing more than to help support mamas to be everywhere in this beautiful cycle, this beautiful experience of getting pregnant.

Today we’re going to cover a lot of tips and information about a plant-based lifestyle which I think is a very powerful way to promote fertility and healthy pregnancy that’s lower in toxins and high in antioxidants and nutrients.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question and 3 more sent in by Beauties just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Questions Answered]

Sara –  California

I read the Beauty Detox Solution years ago and recently came across your podcast and I’m binge listening. Thank you for creating this beautiful community. I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and plant based for seven. My husband and I are starting to work on a family and I’m interested in any tips for plant-based pregnancy including any supplements you may recommend.

Tabitha – Richardson, Texas

What are your tips for getting a good night’s rest while in my third trimester? I’m having a hard time and not sure if it’s heart-burn or that I can no longer sleep on my stomach.

Megan – Seattle, Washington

I am plant based and I’m trying to get pregnant. I’m getting a lot of negative feedback from people telling me that I’m going to need to eat meat to have a healthy pregnancy. What are your thoughts?

Stacy – New York, New York

I am 37 years old and I’ve been trying to conceive with my husband for a year. I’ve been having trouble and I feel like a failure and that my dream of being a mother will never come true. Do you have any suggestions?

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[RESOURCES]

• How to Have a Healthy Vegan Pregnancy
• My Pregnancy Supplement Routine
• My Top Tips For Restful Sleep Using An Evening Routine
• Plant-Based Pregnancy Nutrition
• What Foods You Should Eat (and Not Eat) When Pregnant
• Probiotics
• Detoxy
• Digestive Enzymes  
• Feel Good Starter Kit
• FREE Gift: 7-Day Meditation Series (DIGITAL COURSE)
• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
• Be a part of the community Join the Feel Good Circle
• Kimberly Snyder’s Books
• Four Cornerstones FREE PDF: Text to 555888 + text the word: feelgood
• Additional resources in transcript

Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• Pregnancy & Breastfeeding With Jennifer Davidson & Is Cardio Bad For You?
• Breastfeeding Insights With Dr. Jay Gordon & BD Foods For Nursing
• Female Anatomy & Fitness with Brianne Grogan and Pregnancy Nutrition
• On Air With Ella & Tips To Boost Your Mood!

Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: Hey Beauties. Welcome back to our Thursday Q and A podcast. I am super excited for our topic today, which is Incorporating a Plant-Based Lifestyle During Pregnancy and Beyong. And this is super exciting for me to talk about right now because I am pregnant with my second baby, my second little babe, and I am feeling good right now. I’m in my second trimester. I was not feeling so great in my first, but I love this topic. I feel very passionately about this topic and about fertility and pregnancy. I hear a lot of women struggling to get pregnant. I say with compassion, as I’m sure you do as well. And I would love nothing more than to help support mamas to be everywhere in this beautiful cycle, this beautiful experience of getting pregnant. Today we’re going to cover a lot of tips and information about plant based. A plant based way, which I think is a very powerful way to promote fertility and healthy pregnancy that’s lower in toxins and high in antioxidants and nutrients.

Kimberly: We’re going to get into all of that. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I am super excited to share and I will also share that personally I’ve been plant based for now over 12 years and in both of my pregnancies I was very lucky. I’m very grateful. I know this, there’s many factors when it comes to getting pregnant, but I was able to get, I was able to conceive on the first try both times and I don’t think I’m a superhuman, but I think that there’s a lot to do with lifestyle and foods. Again, there’s a lot of factors that are not in our control, but there are a lot that are and it’s very empowering when the more that we learn about these and incorporate them.

Kimberly: I’m excited to share all that I know with you about this topic and I’ll also say that this is such a big topic that we’re actually doing a whole plant based fertility and pregnancy course that we’re going to be launching in May. If you’re interested in this topic, if you’re thinking about getting pregnant, if you’re trying to get pregnant now or down the road, this course will be something you definitely don’t want to miss. Stay tuned, get on our mailing list and you will get all the information.

Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes

Kimberly: All that being said, I just want to give you a quick reminder to please leave us a review on iTunes, which is a great free, easy way to support the show and help other beauties like yourself find this information which could possibly truly change and benefit their lives. And also please be sure to subscribe to our show and that way you don’t miss out on any information that could change your life.

Kimberly: We have our amazing Katelyn on the line with us who has gathered the questions. She has been with me from the beginning. Kay I cannot believe how this has gone on for some years and we are still trucking along and I still feel like there are infinite things for us to talk about.

Katelyn: I know. When we first started the show I thought, how are we going to keep this going? And now it’s been a few years. I believe 2014 was when we kicked it off. It’s definitely been a journey. I’m always happy to be a part of the conversation. Especially grateful to be here today with you to talk about fertility and pregnancy, which is such a huge topic for so many women and just to dig in and get some questions answered here.

Kimberly: Exactly.

Question 1: I read the Beauty Detox Solution years ago and recently came across your podcast and I’m binge listening. Thank you for creating this beautiful community. I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and plant based for seven. My husband and I are starting to work on a family and I’m interested in any tips for plant based pregnancy including any supplements you may recommend.

Katelyn: All right, let’s jump right in. Sarah from California, “I read the Beauty Detox Solution years ago and recently came across your podcast and I’m binge listening. Thank you for creating this beautiful community. I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years and plant based for seven. My husband and I are starting to work on a family and I’m interested in any tips for plant based pregnancy including any supplements you may recommend.”

Kimberly: Sarah, thank you so much for your question. Glad you like BDS, my first book baby and congratulations on working on starting your family. What I say to clients and to readers, typically in an ideal world is you would start preparing your body and here’s the important and, partner’s body. There’s a lot of pressure on women, but the morphology, the health and the shape of sperm is super important in conception. Both people would start to prepare their body at least four months in advance. And why this is important is because when you think about conception, you want to put the healthiest seed, so to speak, into the healthiest, most fertile garden, so to speak. It takes two to make a baby and you want that time to prepare.

Kimberly: Now I’ve read statistics that say about 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. Again, this isn’t an ideal world, but if you are listening to this and you are even thinking about someday I may want to get pregnant. I never think, I think that it’s never too early to start. Not just for fertility and pregnancy, but just to keep your body healthy and to keep yourself in the best possible vitality and shape. Couple months out, what you want to start doing is you want to start even more bulking up on nutrient dense plant foods. Now I want to start this whole podcast off by saying that the reason I’m so passionate about plant based for fertility and pregnancy is because first of all, fiber is only found in plant foods. Fiber sweeps out toxins, but fiber has a very important normalizing effect on hormones.

Kimberly: And this is something that Dr. Neal Barnard gets into in his latest book, which is called Your Body in Balance. I highly recommend it. I think his podcast episode airs in the next weeks, couple weeks here. We just taped it. But as he talks about, and there’s a lot of studies that back this up, when there’s estrogens that are circulating in your system, we can have too many, we can have too few, but there are a lot of reasons that women’s hormones start to get out of whack and fiber has the effect of binding to excess estrogens and helping to escort them out of the body. And that’s really important when you’re working to normalize your hormones, when you’re working towards conception. All the more reason to have a all or largely all plant based diet, you’re not going to get fiber from meat, eggs, dairy, fish, any animal products.

Kimberly: Secondly, when we’re working to conceive and create a healthy body, there’s a lot of micronutrients that are at play. There’s a lot of cofactors that work together to increase the absorption of certain microfactors, micronutrients. It’s a very complex system that nature has designed. But just like T. Colin Campbell says, “When you eat plant based, your body does the math for you.” I think when you eat plant based, you’re eating a wide variety of these incredibly intelligent plant foods that nature has created. You don’t have to worry and obsess and count. You just know that naturally you’re getting a lot of folate and B vitamins and iron and zinc and vitamin A and all these important nutrients, which are especially important when you’re working to get pregnant.

Kimberly: You want to clean up your diet, you want to cut out excess sugar, alcohol, caffeine. You want to work towards whole food based. This is where I recommend you try out a couple recipes that you get real comfortable with and you cook more at home just to make sure you’re cutting out any unhealthy oils, excess sodium, additives, so on and so forth that happen when you just eat out every meal. And that way you can make sure that you’re eating organic.

Kimberly: Now another reason to eat heavily plant based is because we’ve all heard that pregnant women should give up fish, large fish especially because of the mercury. Well guess what? Those sorts of toxins are in all animal products, which bioaccumulate as you go up the food chain. There’s roxarsone for instance, which is administered to chickens. It’s a type of antibiotic and can disrupt hormones. There are dioxin, all sorts of environmental toxins that bioaccumulate in cows and pigs, chickens, just because they’re larger, more advanced nervous systems they’re just much more complex beings. They’re outside for years and years, whether they’re grass fed and organic or factory farmed, they’re going to have a lot more toxicity in them. And so when you eat plant based, you lower your toxicity levels overall, which is super powerful.

Kimberly: And there was even studies on vegan mothers’ breast milk versus non-vegan mothers and there’s research that shows it’s just a tiny fraction. Again, don’t quote me on this because I don’t have the study at hand, but it was something like 2% of the toxicity in the vegan mother’s breast milk. It was such a small amount compared, comparatively speaking because of all that that’s flushing through. I’m very passionate. Sometimes people say, “Oh, is it safe to be plant based when you’re pregnant?” And I say, “Oh my gosh, to me, is it safe to eat meat when you’re pregnant?” When you think about all the toxicity levels. Again, just you and hubby both should start really eating, cleaning up your diet. This is an important time to give up dairy if you have not yet. Dr. Neal Bernard’s new book, has an interesting study on dairy showing how it can adversely affect ovulation and also the morphology of sperm. If you’re looking for hard science, his book has a lot of research around this.

Kimberly: Supplement wise, I recommend right away getting on a good whole food based prenatal vitamin and also taking a algae based DHA EPA supplement. It’s very important that you get this type of omega fat, which is important for baby’s brain development. When you’re even thinking about conceiving, you want to start to get those vitamins and supplements in your body. And then I would also recommend making sure you get your gut health in order. It’s going to play a huge part in optimal fertility. Make sure you’re taking our Feel Good probiotics every day as I have for years and I give credit. I think that’s one of the reasons it was so easy for me to get pregnant was because of this lifestyle and because I had done so much work on healing my very dysfunctional gut, by the way. It took some time. But I definitely recommend getting your digestion in check as an important part of fertility as well.

Katelyn: Yeah, it’s so great that we’re diving into this topic because there really as a lack of resources in this department and as you mention, we are working on our course, which will have so much, so many resources and so much information so beauties, don’t fret, there’ll be more to come. We’ll put some resources in the show notes today for some of the things Kim was mentioning for Sarah’s question, but I know you may want to dig in more as people often do when they’re looking to conceive and fertility, they want to dig in deeply. We’ll go ahead and link to some of those books and podcasts in the show notes.

Kimberly: Awesome, Kay. Yeah, there’s so much on this topic.

Katelyn: Yeah, there’s a lot.

Kimberly: We’re going to cover a lot here. But again, if you’re looking to conceive and have the healthiest baby, which I think is for a lot of us, do yourself a favor, just get the information because it can only help.

Question 3: What are your tips for getting a good night’s rest while in my third trimester? I’m having a hard time and I’m not sure if it’s the heartburn or that I can no longer sleep on my stomach.

Katelyn: Yes, exactly. All right. Let’s see where we can go a little bit deeper here. We have Tabitha living in Richardson, Texas. What are your tips for getting a good night’s rest while in my third trimester? I’m having a hard time and I’m not sure if it’s the heartburn or that I can no longer sleep on my stomach.

Kimberly: Tabitha, congratulations on your little baby coming. Third trimester is really interesting. I remember from being pregnant with Bubby, first trimester I was just exhausted, second trimester, I felt great. Third was like, oh, this is still in me. This is still happening. I’m not off the train yet. And you just, for me, I had this weird cough that wasn’t a cough. It was like the acid reflux constantly coming up because your stomach gets pushed all the way up. It’s a bit of an uncomfortable time, but hang in there mama, you’re almost there.

Kimberly: A couple things about sleep. I will say just first of all, try to move up your dinner time an hour or two earlier. You’re right about heartburn. It’s a very real thing with pregnant mamas and the longer time you give your body to digest food between eating dinner and going to bed, it’s really going to help your sleep. I definitely recommend trying out one of those pregnancy pillows. I tried one myself, it was called the Snoogle or something like that. And I think you just want to give support and hug something between your legs to support your hips. And this pillow is long and you can kind of manipulate it. It would put weight underneath your belly so it would kind of gives support so it didn’t feel like it was sagging and pulling your back. Pillows, pillows, pillows I think are essential for third trimester sleep.

Kimberly: And then next I will say that a nice sleep elixir is always going to help. Something with almond milk, which is what I have a lot. I actually had a wonderful elixir last night. I couldn’t sleep. I got up and made it and it helped a lot. It has tryptophan in it, which is a natural way to promote serotonin in your body. Something that’s simple. You don’t want to have too much cinnamon when you’re pregnant, but you could certainly heat up almond milk and just have almond milk or rooibos tea you could add to it or I like ginger, there’s a lot of pretty mild teas out there, herbal of course, that you can have and just a nice sleep elixir is nice.

Kimberly: I also think that massage, self massage, partner massage, prenatal massage, anything you can do in the third trimester is really key to your nervous system, to your body. At this point you want to be giving your belly or rub to help prevent stretch marks and to support your skin and to connect with baby. And you could also rub down your back and your arms and just help yourself feel connected, to feel good, to soothe your nervous system and your body. Again, if your partner can give you a nightly back rub. I’ve been definitely telling my hubby he has to do them every night. I’m like, I’m carrying this baby, you got to do something. A nightly massage is really nice as well.

Kimberly: And watching caffeine levels of course. And then some of the information that we talk about in our sleep course and in our sleep blogs and information about sunlight. I know it’s winter, but if you can get some more sunlight on your skin and with adequate protection of course, but walk outside and see the sunlight before noon, that also helps to promote healthy sleep. It’s like the yin yang. It’s the Solluna, the sun, and the moon. If you want to sleep well at night, you actually need to get enough daylight, let’s say 15 minutes, 30 minutes minimum before noon is going to help promote good sleep as well.

Katelyn: I know sleep is a big topic for everybody, but definitely soon to be mama’s. I know my girlfriends that were recently pregnant were like, I can’t sleep and then baby is going to come and I’m not going to be able to sleep. I think this is so helpful to discuss today so that everybody can get as much sleep as possible before their newborn arrives.

Kimberly: Yes. Exactly.

Katelyn: You know all too well. Okay.

Kimberly: Oh my God. Sleep deprivation was one of the hardest things for me when I had Bubby and still is to this day because we were jet lagged getting back from Thailand and he’s up. Sleep is, I never appreciated how important sleep was until recently I guess because it sucks when you lose your sleep. It really does affect your life.

Break

Katelyn: Yeah, no, it’s definitely good to talk about and acknowledge and know it’s there. That this is part of the journey. With that beauties, we will let Kimberly take a quick break here and then she’ll be back to answer the last two questions.

Kimberly: All right beauties, we are back from our short break and we have two more questions for you guys. I’m so excited. I love to talk about this. I love to talk about everything related to mamahood and pregnancy and I hope that you guys can tell that we feel very positive about this. We know how amazing and strong and intelligent and beautiful your body is. I think there’s a lot of doom and gloom talk when it talks about, when people talk about fertility and oh, that such and such is having a hard time and I’m scared and I’m nervous. We want to offer another perspective, which is that it can be easeful, it can be a beautiful time. There’s a lot you can do to prepare and put yourself in the best possible position and of course going in emotionally less stressed and more positive is only going to benefit the process as well.

Question 3: I am plant based and I’m trying to get pregnant. I’m getting a lot of negative feedback from people telling me that I’m going to need to eat meat to have a healthy pregnancy. What are your thoughts?

Katelyn: So true. Let’s see what Megan from Seattle, Washington is asking. I am plant based and I’m trying to get pregnant. I’m getting a lot of negative feedback from people telling me that I’m going to need to eat meat to have a healthy pregnancy. What are your thoughts?

Kimberly: Megan, unfortunately, thank you for your question. Unfortunately, we live in the world with a lot of misconceptions and a lot of ideas along these lines and it’s promoted by a lot of fear. Honestly, for the reasons I spoke about earlier. Not only do I believe that meat is not necessary at all, I think women and men in general looking to conceive and have a healthy pregnancy should cut back on meat across the board because of the toxicity levels in meat. Because of the potential environmental toxins and moreover just the lack of micronutrients and the lack of fiber and the high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol and things that clog the body. When you’re working to get pregnant, you want to increase circulation, you’re distributing nutrients, you want to have enough for yourself and you want to have enough for baby and anything that clogs and constricts and is heavy is the opposite energy of that.

Kimberly: Getting protein is so easy from a plant based perspective. You don’t have to stress about that. Of course, you do need adequate amounts. The average woman needs about 46 grams of protein a day when you’re pregnant with a healthy margin built in of safety. But the general recommendation is about 70 grams of protein. And right now I’m having a power protein smoothie every day, which is an easy way to, and I’ll add a scoop and a half, I’ll kind of plump it up, but it’s an easy way to get 25, 27-ish grams of protein right there. And then when you think about all the beans and the lentils and the tempeh and the tofu and quinoa and just the wide variety of foods that are easily available to most all of us, it’s very easy to fulfill your protein requirement.

Kimberly: And again, you’re getting it from a cleaner source with fiber, with micronutrients, with antioxidants, and without all the environmental concerns. Because as I mentioned, unfortunately toxins bioaccumulate as you go up the food chain. By nature of being an animal product, it’s going to have more toxins. And I also want to point out the work of Dan Buettner who we had a couple weeks ago. I’m obsessed with him. Oh, we discovered the blue zones. It’s so funny because John, my hubby is like, he knows that it’s innocent and it’s cute. It’s my little health nerdiness, but he’s like, you’re obsessed with Dan. I just think his work’s brilliant. I love him. You just talk about him so much.

Kimberly: But anyways, what he found in the blue zones was that they eat 90 to a 100% plant based and some of them have some meat, but it’s for weddings and special occasions. And again, just to review the blue zones, are five places in the world that have the highest rate of centenarians, lowest rate of cognitive disorders and many other factors that make them the healthiest people in the world. We apply that to modern day and to motherhood. We can say that it’s not necessary, all of a sudden when you get pregnant or you’re trying to get pregnant to feel like you have to eat meat and you have to stuff yourself with meat. Absolutely that’s not been my case. I’ve been vegan through both of my pregnancies. Bubby is vegan. He’s the healthiest child. So energetic has never been to the doctor except for mandatory checkups.

Kimberly: And so I just want to offer that perspective. It’s beautiful way to stay light and nutrient dense when you’re working to conceive. And I think it actually enables the process because all these disruptors, all these things that disrupt biological function and potentially create reproductive damage and issues in your body can be a large percentage can be avoided by going plant based.

Katelyn: I think it’s so great to share this information because a lot of it is fear as you mentioned when people are trying to get pregnant or are pregnant and they want to have the best pregnancy possible and people are filling their heads with different information. I think that’s why it’s best for us to self educate and go out and get the information that we believe in and that we have the research for. Then whatever anybody says, that’s fine. That’s their opinion. But we know how we feel and what we think and what we believe to be true. And that’s enough for us and we know that we’re getting everything we need. And I think that’s a healthy reminder for anybody who’s plant based because whether you’re pregnant or not, that’s definitely a challenge we can get from time to time from friends and family members and just told your truth and as long as you know what your body’s getting, then it doesn’t really matter what anybody else has to say.

Kimberly: That’s right. Exactly. Knowledge is power in this case, and just remember beauties that a lot of people don’t really have the knowledge, they’re just inheriting beliefs or things they hear on the media and it’s not necessarily founded in truth.

Katelyn: And you’re not the only one obsessed with Dan. I went to go get his book on Amazon the other day and it was actually sold out. It’s back ordered until the 19th.

Kimberly: Oh my gosh.

Katelyn: Apparently it’s great to see the popularity in his book and that’ll be back in stock soon. But we’ll put a link for you beauties, if you’re looking to check out his new book as well as the podcast he did with Kimberly a couple weeks ago.

Kimberly: Oh yeah, I love it. It’s awesome.

Question 4: I am 37 years old and I’ve been trying to conceive with my husband for a year. I’ve been having trouble and I feel like a failure and that my dream of being a mother will never come true. Do you have any suggestions?

Katelyn: Definitely check that one out. It’s a good one. We’ll put it in the show notes. I don’t remember the number off the top of my head, but it was just a few weeks ago. Let’s dive into our last question from Stacy who’s living in New York, New York. I am 37 years old and I’ve been trying to conceive with my husband for a year. I’ve been having trouble and I feel like a failure and that my dream of being a mother will never come true. Do you have any suggestions?

Kimberly: Stacy, thank you so much for your question. I send you a huge hug and I think this is important topic to bring up, which is the age topic and I think there’s a lot of fear around this as well. I think we live in a complex age for women where we are excited about our careers and about creating in the world and we know a lot of us don’t want to have kids when we’re 23 anymore like some of our grandmothers did. When I was 23 I was still backpacking around the world and having a child was probably the last thing that I ever wanted to do at that point because I was enjoying my freedom and my time for exploration. I will say again, this is an area of fear. This is a place where I think we hear a lot of doom and gloom.

Kimberly: There’s statistics out there, but I will say you don’t have to be a statistic. Those are generalities. Those are based on the average person, which eats a very toxic diet unfortunately, and lives a lifestyle with a lot of toxic exposure, whether it be beauty products, household cleaning products, so on and so forth. I don’t think that we are doomed because of our age and that we only have, there’s certain realities of course. We’re not going to be having babies in our seventies but I know a lot of women that are having beautiful, healthy babies in their thirties and into their forties. Half the moms in my mom’s group here in LA are in their forties. Actually up to 46, 47. Again, I think so much is in our control as I mentioned, when it comes to lifestyle and diet. And I certainly, as I mentioned, was not ready to have a baby at 23, 25 I wanted to live my life, I wanted to write books, I wanted to do things.

Kimberly: And then when I was ready to have children, it was easy for me. And I say that to be hopeful not to rub it in because I say with compassion there’s a lot of women that are struggling and I can only imagine how hard that would be. But I will say that there are a lot of things you can do. If you are struggling, do not give up hope. I think preparing your body’s important, I think there’s herbs that are very helpful. There’s a whole Ayurvedic protocol. We’re actually going to be releasing some herbs. We’ll be talking about herbs more in our course that’s coming out in May that have powerful effect. I think that taking probiotics, getting your gut in health, gut in check is really important. I think that working on hubby slash partner and the pressure isn’t all on you.

Kimberly: We have to make sure hubby’s diet is cleaned up and he’s not having dairy and he’s having a lot of plant foods and he’s taking probiotics too. Remember it takes two to tango. It’s not all on you. I think mindset is really important. I think one of the things for me was I just, I felt confident and I didn’t worry and I didn’t stress and I think that helped me a lot in getting pregnant. I think fear affects our ovaries. It affects ovulation, it affects, it’s a contracting element in the body. When we have fear, our bodies may think, oh, it’s not safe to conceive. It’s not safe to have a baby right now. I think meditating and taking care of yourself and trying to reduce stress and sleeping well are really important, Stacy. You are young and healthy. I wouldn’t get obsessed about your age.

Kimberly: I feel like you have a lot of time but I would make sure that you’re looking at everything and seeing where you can clean up and again looking to hubby as well and I think that’s one of the big missing factors I see with women that are so stressed and they’re worried about what they’re doing and they don’t even think about what their partner’s doing. And I think, oh my gosh Lou, what’s going on over here? What’s going on with his sperm? It’s not all on you honey. And then again another great resource is Dr. Neal Barnard’s book and he talks a lot about this and he has so many reasons to be plant based and he has so many success stories. If you’re looking for positivity beyond my story, he has amazing stories about women that have struggled for years and years in not being able to get pregnant.

Kimberly: And then they go plant based and they make certain changes in their lifestyle and they do conceive easily and naturally. Again, I don’t think by any means I’m special a superhuman, my body. I think that I’ve reduced toxicity and eating a nutrient dense diet. And I think that’s an important advice for any woman that’s looking to conceive naturally and healthily. And we can do that by eating plant based, by all these things we’ve talked about. Clean up your beauty routine, clean up your household cleaning products, everything in your space just make it natural and clean. I think visualization is great. I think that affirmations, positivity, support groups, community, find your tribe, stay away from negative media, don’t obsess. Stay off sites that are doom and gloom and anything that’s really negative around this topic because I think that we do very much have great power and our bodies are powerful and intelligent and yeah, I think that we don’t have to be statistics.

Katelyn: Yeah, I think that’s such a great way to end the show today for that positive support that we have a great community here. That nobody listening as we always say is you’re not alone. There’s resources and a great community that we have built here at Solluna for to tap into and talk to about these topics as you go through them.

Kimberly: Exactly, exactly. And I just want to give an extra big hug to any mama to be who is struggling, who has struggled with conceiving. We are here, we have a lot of resources. We have designed this course for you in May specifically to help. I send you a huge hug. Hang in there, don’t lose hope. Remember that miracles and shifts and changes happen every day and there’s so many amazing success stories about women that have struggled and have gone on to have beautiful healthy pregnancies and sometimes multiple pregnancies. There was one story in Dr. Barnard’s book about this woman. She was in a study because it was, I can’t remember what it was, but she was like, oh don’t worry, I can’t get pregnant. And then she tried for years and then when she changed her diet, she ended up having three children after that.

Katelyn: Wow.

Kimberly: Anyways, there is success that happens every day. I just want to remind you to stay hopeful and again, positive and miracles happen, beauty is created, you are strong and amazing. There you have it.

Thought of the Week

Katelyn: What an amazing way to end the show. And do you have any final thoughts for us K, for to wrap up?

Kimberly: Yeah, I do. This is an affirmation that I want to leave you for all women for this topic specifically, but you could really use this affirmation in all areas of your life. But I thought about this when I was getting ready to conceive. This is a simple affirmation, powerful. It says, “I am powerful and I create my own reality. I am powerful and I create my own reality.” I want you to visualize yourself being pregnant. I want to visualize yourself, if that’s your goal of course. Pregnant and happy and just able to achieve what you want. Everything I learned about manifestation talks about this idea if you focus on wanting, I want to be pregnant, you actually get what you ask for, which is wanting. It creates a psychic distance between you having.

Kimberly: I want you to actually get past the wanting and imagine that you are created your reality, you are pregnant already and just feel what that is like and revel and spend time in those feelings every day and call that into your reality and take the steps like we said, to clean up your diet and do practical things. But I think visualization and affirmations and focusing on creating in a positive way is really going to help as well.

Katelyn: Beautiful. Thank you K. I’m so glad we talked about this topic for the beauties and we’re going to dig in more as it is such an important topic for women’s health and family development and just to have this resource for plant based living is essential. Glad we started the talk today. As always, beauties. I just want to remind you, we would like to keep receiving your questions. Head over to mysolluna.com/askkimberly, fill out the form there where I will review the questions as always and we will put them on the show and remember you build the show, they’re your questions, they’re the topics you want to hear about. You’re important so we want to just keep the questions coming in. I know there’s sometimes patience because we do get thousands of questions so it might take a little time for your question to be on the show but we are looking at them.

Kimberly: Amazing. Thank you so much Kay for gathering the questions and thank you so much beauties for being part of our community. As Kay mentioned, we’re always listening, we’re always here, so anything that’s on your mind, other beauties probably have it on their mind too, so keep it coming. This is a big topic in particular and I’m so excited to offer more resources for you mamas to be in the upcoming months. We will be back here Monday for our next interview podcast. Until then, take great care of yourself. See you soon, and sending you lots and lots of love.

The post Incorporating a Plant-Based Lifestyle During Pregnancy and Beyond [Episode #442] appeared first on Kimberly Snyder.