Diet for Breastfeeding
and Pregnancy

Are you looking for a healthy diet for breastfeeding and pregnancy? I get to see lots of people try lots of different diets and some of them crash then yoyo, some of them starve and don't want to keep going and some of them end up on all these supplements and not eating anything real.

In general I find it is not just your genes which determine how your body stores fat or uses sugar, but also the eating habits you have learned from your parents. If you get your diet and lifestyle right now and it's sustainable you will be teaching your children how to be happy, healthy individuals right from the beginning rather than worrying about which diet to try next, or how other's perceive them.

The keys to successful, sustainable diets and healthy eating patterns are:

• Feeling full enough so you don't keep eating
• Enjoying your food
• Having enough of the essential building blocks in your diet so you avoid cravings

If you think about food as your body's fuel source you know that you'll need to have in it everything your body uses.The most important parts to include are good fats, good proteins and healthy types of carbohydrates. If every meal has a balance of all these essential nutrients then your body won't crave extra food to get the bits it missed out on.

For example - Do you crave chocolate? It's quite likely you aren't getting enough good quality fat in your meals and your body's looking for extra food to fulfil this need.

Another example - Do you crave sugary snacks and get highs and lows in energy? Most people who have this profile tend to be using only their sugar metabolism and haven't switched on their fat metabolism. They may be missing both fats and proteins from tier diet.

Think about your food choices as lighting a fire. Your protein acts as the match, the carbohydrate as the kindling sticks and the fat as the long burning log. If you rely only on carbohydrates you have to keep adding more fuel, if you rely on protein and fat you have to burn a lot of protein matches before the fat will ignite and continue burning, so you'll have to use up your store of protein in your muscles because you won't have eaten enough.

When you look at it in this way it's easy to see why you need all three types of fuel in your foods.

Also, Recent research published in April 2012 in the the official online journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that a pregnant mother's metabolic conditions, such as obesity and diabetes, make autism more common.

Check out the breastfeeding diets page for meal suggestions 

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