Lily Nichols: Is The Low Carb High Fat Diet Safe During Pregnancy?

Listen to US registered dietitian & certified diabetes educator Lily Nichols share the latest well-researched advice on eating a low carb high fat diet during pregnancy.

#nutrition #bookreview #biohackerslab

If you know someone who has problems with gestational diabetes, hypertension or preeclampsia or just any woman who is pregnant & interested in making sure she's getting optimal nutrition, this interview is for them.

I enjoyed this interview immensely and after speaking with Lily, I have a much better understanding of the different factors that affect women's health during and after pregnancy. Lily helped clarify some of the misinformation that's based on outdated concepts and guidelines and provided lots of great fact-based tips for pregnant ladies.

I really enjoyed this interview with Lily Nichols and I'm sure you will, too.

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[marilynr]

Late reply, but ever since my pregnancy I’ve been craving fatty meat, whole full cream milk butter etc. I feel so much better when I’ve had food high in fat.

[emmiwemmy]

This has been super helpful.. I did keto and intermittent fasting + exercise (ddpyoga) and I've become pregnant after just three months (I have pcos and am obese and have been trying for years to conceive). I just found out about being pregnant and I am considering how to change my eating. I was expecting to be able to conceive perhaps next year or after reaching my goal weight, so I was a little shocked it happened so fast. Because I'm still obese I feel that I'm not giving my baby the optimum start that I could have if I'd gotten further on my journey. But I've decided to do everything that I can to optimize all other factors under my control. I will start to eat more frequently and focus on real food, nutrient dense. This was a lot of useful information and I'm buying the book today. Great interview, thanks!!

[lanabear]

Thank you both so much for this video. I have been Keto for just over a year and I have loved this journey. So much healing through my low carb diet has happened in my thyroid and adrenal glands. I didn’t want to give up Keto during this pregnancy as I truly love eating high nutrition foods. This video has given me a much more well rounded thinking pattern on IM fasting and Keto during pregnancy.

[patriciamachado]

great interview! so rare to hear a nutrition professional who knows what she's saying!

[DaisyJane]

This is such refreshing messages to Mom's around the world! Thank you!!

[shieh.]

Great talk. I’m a gestational diabetes mom here. I had it in my first pregnancy and already at 22 weeks I have higher than I’d like fasting numbers. I’m an older mom (ages 36, now 39) for my pregnancies, but am otherwise healthy and generally fit. I follow a low carb (but not keto) diet and started both pregnancies at a good weight. That said, even on a low carb diet while pregnant I do struggle with weight gain. It makes sense to think that mom should not be gaining any weight. All weight gain should be baby, amniotic fluid, increased blood volume and increased breast tissue.

[cocosilkworm]

I just wanted to post another comment in case anyone reading the comments is curious about another person's experience. I'm now 35 weeks pregnant with gestational diabetes and my nightly insulin was increased from 6 units originally to 22 units now, morning fasting glucose was stubbornly sitting between 5.1 and 5.6 mmol but they want it under 5.1 mmol. The last few days I ate really low carb and started waking up with 4.4 and 4.5 mmol fasting levels finally, so I checked my ketones (in urine) and they were between 1.5 - 4.0 mmol (The say up to 1.5 mmol is plenty for nutritional ketosis at least for non-pregnant people). I'm noticing it only takes a day or day and a half of pretty low carb eating to go into ketosis. In fact, I think it's pretty common to wake up with trace ketones in pregnancy, but if you spend just a day or more eating very low carb, you might find yourself in deeper ketosis yet - I had one reading of between 4.0 - 8.0 mmol a few weeks ago. I didn't want to stay in that deep and it changed within the hour once I ate a small amount of carbs again so even with the gestational diabetes, I don't think I was in danger of ketoacidosis, but I didn't want to experiment by staying at that level. The other thing I've noticed, and I've read some studies, is that eating low carb makes you even more insulin resistant. But then again, so probably does late pregnancy. But I dared to eat a small amount of pasta after a day and a half of very limited carbs and I was stuck with a blood glucose level of 8.5 mmol two hours after that meal. (Target is below 6.7mmol). So it seems I can hardly touch carbs now if I don't want spikes at the 2 hour mark. But as for most pregnant women, I feel pressure to eat at least some carbs still. I think I can safely and be in light ketosis. I just have to choose the right carbs. Pasta and rice are not right for me as they give me bigger spikes, but I can get away with a half slice of my husband's homemade sourdough rye bread, even with some raspberries or a quarter of a small apple on the side and have my 2 hour post meal blood glucose back to 6.7 mmol. Low carb eating for anyone worried about gestational diabetes makes a lot more sense than eating more carbs and having to take more insulin anyway.

[coraboser]

You are both endearing to listen to. I love the smiles and laughter. This talk was very informative and inspiring... but also very reassuring for those of us suffering from food aversions during early pregnancy. Thank You!

[cocosilkworm]

That's an interesting point on the "foods to avoid in pregnancy" topic. I think the blanket warning is because it's probably hard to police how food is handled and the standards can vary widely from store to store and food venue to food venue depending on who is working there. If I were to go to a top Japanese restaurant, or knew the owner of a sushi store where immigrants regularly ate and knew that people trusted them, I would expect there to be no problem eating their sushi. On the other hand, I once saw flies eggs on the sushi (and a fly) inside the food display area behind the counter of a small takeaway venue, which just had a few young people as staff. So eating sushi from that type of takeaway store probably would pose a risk, so if that's the only place in town where you know you can find sushi - skip it! And the same probably goes for the deli meats and cheeses. You have to know who is selling it and that they have good hygiene when handling it. As far as raw milk goes, I'm not sure how different it is to buy raw milk straight from a farm, straight out of a cow, but in my experience of drinking raw milk from health food stores in Australia, and even in Slovenia from vending machines where you can find ice cold raw milk filled straight from the farmers, I always found the small amount of bacteria present in raw milk does upset my stomach at least a little where I would be bloated and have a bit of diarrhoea. Not a full blown illness but uncomfortable enough that I prefer to cook my milk a little beforehand. However, that same fresh raw milk that we had in Slovenia, we also learned that if you put it on the windowsill overnight covered with a tea towel and let it rest at room temperature, it makes a delightful naturally fermented yoghurt with the natural bacteria, and I never had any problems after eating that as far as I can remember.

[cocosilkworm]

Lily, I'd love to know in your experience of working with women who have Gestational Diabetes, do those who manage to convert to Keto diets later in pregnancy after being diagnosed around the 28 week mark, does Keto lower the morning fasting levels effectively or does it only help with daytime postprandial levels? I'm 32 weeks today and was diagnosed between 28 and 29 weeks so it's only been about 3 weeks that I have been experimenting with my diet and I've only managed 2 full days recently where I hardly ate any carbs other than one half slice of a homemade sourdough rye, a nectarine and a handful of raspberries, and I filled up on meat, fish, vegetables, milk, yoghurt, cheese and nuts for the rest of my meals. It's still a challenge to stick to this and my diabetes counsellor thinks I need to eat more carbs than what I ate on my "keto" type meal days. I've been given insulin to take at night and it's only been 3 days at the smallest dose so far and the morning levels have not come down yet. I'm wondering if all I can expect is that I will have to take more insulin for my fasting levels, or whether to try and stick to a more "keto" style diet for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy if that will also help lower my morning fasting levels. Or with only 6 weeks to go, how much does it matter if my fasting levels are slightly elevated? (I'm talking between 5.3 - 5.6 (once 5.9)mmol / L. ( 95 - 105mg/dl) . Is insulin the only way to go?

[tuesdaytaylor]

Thank you for posting! This was so informative. I just ordered your book. I’ve been trying to decide between keto or paleo (I just found out I’m pregnant and I’ve been mostly keto for a few months now). I’ve been carbing up every day since I suspected pregnancy and it feels awful, so I’ve backed off and have been experimenting with paleo rather than keto until I figure this out. Thank you:)

[mvelenagarcia]

From an parasitology point of view... You could actually eat raw fish, if it has been frozen for 3 days at -180°C...