Pre-Pregnancy, Prenatal, and Postpartum on Herbalife: What I Ate

BABY TALK! I get a lot of emails and messages from women asking me about how and what I ate throughout my pregnancy. This is an in-depth reveal of my nutrition consumption before, during, and after pregnancy.

*DISCLAIMER* I am sharing what worked for me and what I decided to do for myself. Always consult your health care provider concerning your health. You should consult with your doctor before consuming products while pregnant. Herbalife products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Now, let’s get to it!

Pre-pregnancy

Because Luka and I live a healthy lifestyle, I didn’t adjust much when I wanted to have a baby. I just continued on my regular meal plan, which includes healthy meals, Herbalife nutrition, and staying physically active. This means I ate every 2-3 hours and had at least 2 shakes per day, vitamins, 2 healthy meals, and 2-3 snacks, which totaled about 1,400-1,600 calories. I continued this during pregnancy. To get an idea of the kind of meals we eat you can take a look at the Recipes page, but my meals always consist of lean meats or plant-based protein, complex carbs, veggies, and healthy fats.

Prenatal

Once I got pregnant I needed to jump on that folic acid. At my 8 week doctor’s appointment, my doctor told me I needed to start taking folic acid. After a conversation with my doctor, it occurred to me that he didn’t care one iota what kind of vitamin I used as long as I was ingesting some form of the almighty folic acid. What?! There are so many brands out there that aren’t any good at all! I could go to the store or pharmacy and find a dozen prenatal vitamins. How am I supposed to know which one is the best? Or even if it’s good? When it comes to vitamins and supplements, if it’s cheap and comes in large quantities it is low quality and if it’s low quality your body won’t absorb it. You can literally be taking the recommended amount of folic acid and yet it passes through your body without being absorbed by your cells and therefore profits your developing baby nothing. Folic acid, in general, is found in green leafy veggies so in addition to my vitamins, I ate as much of those veggies as possible, which we should all be doing anyway even if we are not pregnant. Here is a look at my daily diet:

Wake up and within 30 minutes drink aloe and shake.

Herbalife Herbal Aloe Concentrate

Herbalife Nature’s Raw Guarana Tea

Herbalife Shake + Vitamins- 2 scoops of PDM and 2 scoops of shake made in water

Healthy Snack – Herbalife protein bar, fruit, raw veggies, nuts, rice cakes, Herbalife Active Fiber, Herbalife F1 Bar, or a combo of 2 of these

Healthy Meal + Vitamins – I followed a rough caloric guideline consisting of 40% complex carbs, 30% protein, and 30% healthy fats, but mostly kept it simple. A typical meal was something like brown rice or quinoa, chicken breast, steamed veggies or salad with pumpkin seed oil and balsamic vinegar.

Healthy Snack – something like the above snack

Healthy Meal + Vitamins – something like above meal

Herbalife Shake – 2 scoops of PDM and 2 scoops of Shake made in water

These were all the vitamins I took:

Multivitamin

Cell Activator

Minerals(EU)/Cell U Loss(US)

Herbalifeline (omegas)

For me, high quality Omega was essential. Studies from the NCBI have shown Omega 3 is crucial for brain development, can lead to better skill development, and is generally fantastic for a developing baby and a pregnant woman. Making sure that my developing baby got every nutrient possible to knit together her tiny parts was my quintessential goal.

I also get asked a lot about the tea because it contains caffeine. I switched to the Nature’s Raw Guarana (NRG) tea when I got pregnant. The herbal thermogenic tea has 85mg of caffeine per serving, coffee has 95mg per serving (if you have a medium latte with two shots it’s 128mg), and the NRG has only 40mg per serving. My doctor had told me that it’s okay to have a cup of coffee per day so if it was okay to have that much caffeine I would rather have lower amounts from a healthier source. How you feel drinking the tea versus coffee? Big difference! It feels better, energy lasts longer, you never get the shakes, and NO CRASH!

When I got into my third trimester my digestion needed some help (you know, from all your organs being jammed up to your throat). I used the Herbalife Active Fiber, which is an excellent source of soluble and insoluble fiber that promotes regularity and minimizes bloating*. That and the Herbal Aloe Concentrate were my best friends. The Aloe soothes the stomach, supports healthy digestion, relieves occasional indigestion, and supports nutrient absorption and intestinal health*. All important things!

For the first and second trimester I didn’t need to increase my calories. In the third trimester I began to increase my calories, but not by much. About 300 calories. To clarify, I ate about 1,700-2,000 calories per day on average. The idea that you are eating for two does not mean two adults. A 5-8 pound baby does not need 1,000 calories. Very few calories for the baby, but mostly they were for my increased need due to carrying that extra weight. Since I knew I was eating a healthy diet I just let my body tell me how much I needed to eat. If I was hungry, I ate and I ate healthy meals. It’s hard to overeat when you are eating brown rice and broccoli.

Staying active was also an essential part of having a healthy pregnancy. I walked or hiked more than an hour every day and also did some exercise at home that included squats and pushups and things like that. I did a little pregnancy yoga. I did a little of everything. I knew labor would be physically intensive work so I wanted to keep my muscles strong.

*This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Labor

When contractions started I began to chug the Herbalife24 Prolong. Prolong is a drink with the consistency of water that has carbohydrates, just a bit of protein, and bioavailable electrolytes. It is designed to replenish the body during long endurance sports and high intensity physical activities. I wanted to build up my energy reserves because I knew that labor would require a lot of energy and I may not want to eat later. I also ate meals up until I went to the birth center and at that point I was 5cm dilated with contractions coming every 3-6 minutes. At that point I didn’t want to eat anymore and the taste of Prolong was repulsive, but I continued to drink Aloe until birth. The Aloe was really refreshing to drink in between contractions when my throat was dry from breathing hard.

Postpartum

Within 30 minutes after birth I was STARVING! Luka made me a shake (2 scoops F1 + 2 scoops PDM) right then and there in the labor room. It was incredibly refreshing. After lying skin-to-skin for 2 hours, getting stitched, showering, and getting back to my room, I had Restore, Aloe, and Active Fiber. Let me just say this, after pushing out a baby you don’t want to push anything else out. Thankfully, my digestion was perfect and not at all painful. For the few days I was in the birth center recovering, in addition to the vitamins I was already having, I took:

Herbalife24 Restore

Herbal Aloe Concentrate

Active Fiber

I drank so much water and was AMAZED at how long I could go without the need to pee. I was also having 2 shakes per day and 1-2 protein bars per day, which I was so thankful for! I was served three great meals per day, but only three! I need at least 6-7! For breakfast I was served something like a roll of white bread, butter, honey, coffee or warm milk, and a pot of tea for nursing. Simple carbs, fat, sugar, and no protein! Lunch and dinner were always great and delicious, hearty meals; perfect for postpartum recovery, but I’m glad I had my Herbalife with me.

Since I was recovering and could sleep whenever I wanted to, I didn’t need extra energy so I didn’t have much tea. After a couple weeks had gone by and I needed that kick from the sleepless nights I started using the NRG tea. I always breastfed Olivia and then had the tea immediately afterwards to provide a gap so that she wouldn’t get any possible effects from the caffeine. It was usually about 2-3 hours before she nursed again and she never had trouble sleeping so I stayed with that routine.

Breastfeeding

During breastfeeding I continued with all the Herbalife products and healthy meals as stated above. I only timed the tea, but everything else I took whenever I ate. Olivia was strictly only breastfed until she began to have solid foods around 5-6 months old. After birth I had good cholostrom then about 3-4 days after birth my milk came in and I was pretty heavily engorged for about 5-7 days. I wanted my body to regulate itself so I didn’t pump and I had a great supply of milk. In the beginning, Olivia nursed every 2-3 hours. She quickly put on weight after birth, did excellently on all her checkups, and has always been a healthy, happy child.

Summary

This is a summary of the products I used regularly:

Formula 1 Shake

Protein Drink Mix

Herbal Aloe Concentrate

NRG Tea

Active Fiber

Multivitamin/Minerals(CellULoss)/Cell Activator/Herbalifeline/Restore

Snacks: F1 Bars, Protein Bars, Roasted Soy Nuts

Thanks to a healthy lifestyle I had a phenomenal pregnancy. At my last check up, on my due date, I had gained almost 30 pounds. I lost all that in the first month postpartum and have been getting back to a sexy body ever since. I went to the doctor for regular checkups and had regular blood and urine tests. Towards the end of my pregnancy, the senior nurse looked at my chart and said to me,

“I’ve never seen such consistently healthy results.”

At that moment I felt very proud of myself. Sure, I had been craving chocolate fudge ice cream and big, fat burgers every single day, but I stuck it out and resisted for the most part (I indulged about once or twice per trimester and always thoroughly enjoyed it!). I strongly believe that eating well and living a healthy lifestyle was the best gift I could give to my developing baby. The fibers of her being, her heart, brain, liver, skin, nerves, are all being formed for the first time and they will sustain her for the rest of her life and I made a contribution towards that with my choices of food and nutrition. It’s an amazing feeling. I’m so grateful to Luka for being supportive and showing me the way to live a healthy life and to Herbalife for the nutrition products that makes it so much easier.

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Our first kisses

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Our first family photo moments after birth

I hope this has been helpful for you! If you have any questions or are interested in using products I would love to coach you and help you in any way I can. Personalized nutrition plans are tailor-made for YOU. Feel free to contact me and let’s do it! You can also visit my GoHerbalife page here.

 

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