What You Eat While Pregnant Could Program Your Baby’s Future (Eat More of THIS!) - Jessie Inchauspé

The studies show that when a baby is born with high glucose levels, his risk of diabetes as a child, a teenager, and an adult is higher. His risk of obesity also higher. Now, when you're pregnant, whenever you have a glucose spike, guess what? Your baby also has a glucose spike. — It's connected. Your baby needs very little glucose, about 70 g of it at the very end of the third trimester when it's really big and about to be born, and much less early on in pregnancy. So I wrote a book during pregnancy which was hardcore and then I finished it postpartum which was even more hardcore. — So what are the big levers? — The four biggest levers which I'm talking about in the book are one — those are the things that I'm chasing every day and I'm not a pregnant woman. — Exactly. The science was saying that I had all these powers that if I ate certain things I could positively set up my baby for life. You do have to increase your carb intake throughout pregnancy to support your baby but you should try to get those from starches versus sugars already. So like rice, potatoes, etc. will be a better source of glucose than let's say ice cream. Protein during pregnancy is also very important because as we were saying, you're a real bodybuilder during pregnancy. The failure to provide choline during pregnancy and the first two years of life could result in lifelong brain deficits in babies that cannot be compensated for later. Choline builds the part of your brain that has to do with learning, memory, and attention. And the problem is nobody tells moms this. And 90% of moms are not getting the recommended amount of cooling during pregnancy. 90%. And this is true across the world.

— Jesse and Jaspie, what's going on? — Wow, you said my name right. Well, I've known you at this point. Yes. — Well, who doesn't know how to Well, I guess you're known primarily as the glucose goddess here. Bajillion followers across social media, but — I'm very impressed. You get — Yes. Well, we actually know each other. — We do go way back at this point. We had our first uh interview together was remote and then we did it in person at the old studio and we've hung out offline a couple times. — We're like best friends — beyond that. We're like BFFs in we're foot soldiers — in the fight to make people healthier. — Yeah. I like to think about it as like in the fight to reveal to people the power that you have but are not aware of. — Yeah. — You like that? Like the revealing is something that I really connect with that word. — It's crucially important. — And now you're talking about like future generations even. — Yes, I am. about setting up the next generation to be slightly healthier than our own. — And why did you write this? Because you just had your own little — I had Well, last time I saw you, I was very pregnant. And yeah, I had my son who's now seven months old, almost eight months. And when I became pregnant, I just asked questions. — Is he already wearing a CGM? — Of course. No. — At baby CGM. — No, not yet. But I can tell you his glucose is very steady. — Is it? — Yes. I make sure of it. Well, I became pregnant and you know that's what I do. do I do scientific research? Like that's what I do all day. So I started looking in the data. Is there anything I could do during pregnancy to positively influence my baby? And I was shook to my core. It's a huge field of science, huge, huge field. But I had never heard about it. And then when I compared what I was reading in the studies to what my doctor, my OB/GYN was telling me, he was just saying, "Take folate. Take a folate supplement and relax. " But the science was saying that I had all these powers. That if I ate certain things, I could positively set up my baby for life. That I was epigenetically programming my baby's DNA with my diet during pregnancy. That I was not just an oven. You know that saying, the bun in the oven? — Mhm. — I thought I was an oven, but actually I'm way cooler than an oven because an oven does nothing but heat — and time. — And actually with your diet during pregnancy, you're influencing what kind of baby comes out. Like DNA is one thing, but depending on what you eat and don't eat, you have a different child. — Different bun. — Absolutely. Different bun. Yeah. You either have like an ancient grain hardy whole grain bun or a cinnabon. — Exactly. Pretty much. And so I was just incredibly fascinated by the data. So at first I was like, I'm not going to write a book. Like I'm pregnant. Like come on. You know, I have other things to do. But then after telling all my friends about it and seeing how shocked they were and then empowered and then I had my little to-do list every day what to eat and I started sending it to a friend on WhatsApp and it became this like WhatsApp thread sending it to hundreds of people. So I said, "Okay, I have to put this in a book. It's too important. It's too simple and too important to not share it. " So I wrote a book during pregnancy which was hardcore and then I finished it postpartum which was even more hardcore. But I'm happy that it's here and I hope it's going to help people. — I hope so too. So what are the big

levers? Because yeah, as you mentioned, I mean, like as a well, as a guy, you know, we don't hear that much, but as women, I mean, you know, there's like the prenatal, take some folic acid, like um but that's generally the gist of things. Yeah. Is what I'm what I've gleaned. — Yes. It's like chill out, wait, take your supplements. So the big levers, what I've done in the book is I've transformed all of the data in the studies into four steps because when you're pregnant, you don't have a lot of head space to think about stuff. You want to know what are the things I need to do biggest bang for my buck. You don't have time to do many things. So the four biggest levers which I'm talking about in the book are one surprise blood sugar glucose we meet again very important topic number two choline which is in eggs and animal foods which builds your baby's brain and we can talk about that number three protein and we were just talking about this offline but when you're pregnant you are building another human's body you are the OG bodybuilder not like you at the gym like we do real bodybuilding, — real hardcore — hardcore bodybuilding. And then number four is omega-3s. So DHA, which is a specific type of omega-3 that also builds your baby's brain. So those are the four steps that if you follow them, you're going to be able to help your baby have the best setup in an easy way. Hm. Okay. I want to get into each of those. But before we get to that, how did you as a pregnant woman — reconcile your the knowledge that you had about these necessary and important nutrients with like the cravings that I know pregnant women like it's like part of the process, right? — Yes. So, first trimester I was Oh, okay. So, the story goes my mom had told me, "Honey, when I was my mom had three kids. Honey, when I was pregnant, I had no nausea. Don't worry, you're probably gonna have the same thing. So, here I was thinking I was the glucose goddess, gonna have the perfect pregnancy, no nausea. Uh-uh. I was extremely nauseous. I was throwing up and everything for the first trimester. So, that was hardcore. So, my good food habits started at month four of pregnancy. The first three and a half months were me eating and puka all day. So, you know, the first trimester is very difficult for many women. If you're the lucky one and you don't have nausea, like, please feel free to start this stuff early. But I just had to wait it out. Like the nausea was so strong and so deep in my brain that I could not overcome it. This is not the nausea that you can sort of brush aside. This is the deep like I want to cry cuz I'm so nauseous kind of thing 24/7. Whoa. — It's horrible. It was awful. So, I did what I can and we can do some stuff to help with the nausea. Like actually being on a blood sugar roller coaster can make nausea worse. So when I could, as soon as I woke up, I would have some almonds next to my bed and I would eat some almonds before getting up and that kind of helped a little bit. And then sometimes I just had to eat 10 quas and that's all I could eat. So you know, I don't have many tips for that. It's just a difficult period. And then the cravings are different. I think you're talking about like some moms have cravings for pickles and stuff like that, — like weird foods that they never craved before. — Yeah. So, the theory goes that you crave these weird foods because your body is trying to tell you something. So, the cravings for salty stuff could be because you're lacking iodine, which is an important nutrient during pregnancy. I was just craving red meat and kiwis. — Whoa. — So, who knows? — So interesting. — So interesting, right? Yeah. — So, I would say first time nausea, do what you can and then the cravings you have later on. I mean, even if you're craving something, you can still apply these tools. It doesn't take away from them. — Fascinating. — Yeah. — Okay. So, blood sugar, — choline, protein, and omega-3s. — Yeah. — Love it. — I mean, those are the things that I'm chasing every day, and I'm not a pregnant woman. — Exactly. — Yeah. But let's start with Okay. Yeah.

So, the blood sugar thing is super interesting. — Well, as you know, and this has been my work for many years, keeping your blood sugar levels steady when you're adult is very important, right? And if you give your body too much glucose, which is blood sugar, you can register some consequences. So, how do you give your body too much glucose? By eating too many carbs. So, too many starches like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats, or sugars from an apple to a chocolate cake. You get what's called a glucose spike. And this leads to inflammation and also fat storage as your body takes this extra glucose and puts it into your fat cells. And that's one of the ways that we gain fat on our body. Now, when you're pregnant, you have this little baby inside your uterus. And your baby is actually connected to your bloodstream. The placenta is the or are you aware of the placenta? The — I mean like vaguely — vaguely. Okay. So, basically there's the uterus, which is like the big balloon. The baby's inside and then inside the uterus, there's an organ called the placenta. And the placenta connects your baby, his belly button to the umbilical cord. And then on the other side, the mom's bloodstream. And so the two bloodstreams come in very close contact to exchange nutrients and waste. Okay? The placenta is actually not like a filter. The placenta kind of trusts that whatever is in the mom's bloodstream belongs in the baby's bloodstream. That's why if you take drugs or something during pregnancy, your baby will be affected. Now, when you're pregnant, whenever you have a glucose spike, guess what? Your baby also has a glucose spike. — It's connected. The placenta is not filtering out excess glucose. Your baby needs very little glucose, about 70 grams of it at the very end of the third trimester when it's really big and about to be born and much less early on in pregnancy. Okay? So 70 grams, that's the amount of glucose in like a cup and a half of rice. It's not much. Yet there's this other myth which is when you're pregnant, you should eat for two. Have you heard that before? — Heard it. — Yeah. Okay. So you don't actually have to eat for two. You have to eat very little extra glucose. So when your baby spikes after you have a glucose spike, he also has to manage that glucose spike because he also registers inflammation in his little developing body from that glucose spike and he also tries to grab the excess glucose and stores it away as fat — in the womb. Which is why we see this unequivocally. The higher a mom's glucose levels during pregnancy, the higher the baby's fat mass at birth. — Interesting. — Yes. Because fat mass is an indicator, one of the indicators that the baby had to adapt to this high glucose environment and transforms it into fat. So you might think, okay, well, once the baby's born, he's fine, right? This is where it gets really interesting. The studies show that when a baby is born with high glucose levels, his risk of diabetes as a child, a teenager, and an adult is higher. His risk of obesity also higher. So something is going on during pregnancy where the high glucose level is making a baby more vulnerable to getting diabetes later in life. — Okay, — does that make sense? It it's all very interesting. — How much does this depend on chronically elevated blood sugar versus like acute blood sugar spikes? Like are we're not saying that like you eat a bowl of berries and your blood sugar goes up, which is physiologically normal after eating a bowl of blueberries. — That's not creating inflammation or fat storage in the baby. Right? We're talking about the spectrum from gestational diabetes, which is the very high chronically elevated glucose level to a normal pregnant mom having normal fluctuations. So the data shows that if the mom has gestational diabetes, which means like very high glucose levels, you see more of this risk for the baby throughout his lifetime. Okay? So if you don't have gestational diabetes and you're eating a normal amount of carbs, you don't have to worry about it. But if you're thinking, if you've heard that since you're pregnant and you're gonna, you know, gain fat anyway, you should just eat as much sugar as you want, that's bad advice because too much sugar during pregnancy is going to impact your baby's glucose levels.

— What causes gestational diabetes? Like for somebody who's not who's non-diabetic, like normoglycemic, like how does that come about? — Well, we used to think that gestational diabetes sort of happened randomly to some moms and that their body was just having this weird reaction. Now what the data says is that gestational diabetes is often a consequence of a mom already having slightly elevated glucose levels that just get higher and exacerbated during pregnancy. So during pregnancy naturally you have increased insulin resistance and that's a normal physiological part of pregnancy — and you also get tested your glucose levels get tested. So often a mom will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes. She already had high glucose levels before, but she didn't know. They weren't being tested. So, I think it's about 70% of the cases of GD, gestational diabetes, can be linked to a mom having earlier higher glucose levels without knowing it. — Wow. — Yeah. — Now, this uh this might be a stupid question, but — there are no stupid questions. What if somebody has gestational diabetes after they uh give birth? Does that go away? — No. So often what happens is if you've had gestational diabetes, now you're being monitored and you will continue to have pre-diabetes or type two diabetes, meaning higher glucose levels than normal because now you're being followed and monitored. — So you might have had a pre-existing condition before pregnancy, but you just didn't know about it. — Wow. Interesting. Yeah. And blood sugar issues are very common today. — Very common. Yeah. I think in the world it's one billion people have pre-diabetes or type two diabetes. Wow. And chronically elevated blood sugar is like — uh lagging marker of insulin resistance, isn't it? — Absolutely. Your insulin levels increase 10 years before your glucose levels increase. So, one tip I would give to all of my friends who are pregnant is don't wait until they test you for gestational diabetes in third trimester. As soon as you know you're pregnant, go have your fasting insulin and fasting glucose levels tested to see where you stand. because that way you'll have a good idea of is everything normal or actually maybe my insulin is already pretty high. I should probably be careful with my carbs during pregnancy so I don't tip the scale too far. That's a top tip I'm giving to all of my friends. — I love it. Okay, but we don't want to we

— I love it. Okay, but we don't want to sell carb fear. So like what are the like and carbs are are carbohydrate rich foods can be super healthy and satiating. So like — what are the right carbs to prioritize? You do have to increase your carb intake throughout pregnancy to support your baby. But you should try to get those from starches versus sugars already. So like rice, potatoes, etc. will be a better source of glucose than let's say ice cream because ice cream and sugars also contain fructose and your baby doesn't need any fructose and too much can be damaging. So get it from starches, get it from uh fruit, from whole grains, no problem. — Nice. Oatmeal. — Totally oatmeal. And I think sugar is really the big issue here. So starches in themselves are fine, but too much sugar is a problem. And there's actually this crazy thing that happened in the UK. Um, between 1940 and 1953 during the war, the government did a sugar ration on the whole population. Meaning that the government limited the amount of sugar every single citizen could have to 40 grams of sugar per day. That's 10 sugar cubes. And they did this because the resources were limited and they had to make sure everybody was getting an equal amount. So all of a sudden the entire population of the UK went from eating about 80 grams of sugar to 40 grams. And this lasted 13 years. — Whoa. — Isn't that cool? Well, cool. This is a cool experiment, natural experiment. And then at the end of the ration, boom, it went back up to 80 grams for everybody. This included pregnant moms. For 13 years, all pregnant moms had half the amount of sugar intake than right before and right after. Interesting natural experiment, right? Yeah. So, in the early 2000s, scientists reached out to 60,000 babies that had been born right before the end of the sugar ration and right after to see if this small change had an impact on their health. And guess what they found? They found that the babies who were developing in the womb of their moms during the sugar ration had a 15% decrease lifetime risk of diabetes. — Whoa. — Compared to their peers who were developing just after. — So just by cutting sugar intake in half, we're not even talking about carbs generally in starches, just the added sugar, these babies had been protected and less vulnerable to type two diabetes in their lives because what happens in the womb can set you up for life. So true. Isn't that cool? — So cool. — I mean, I there have been studies that I've seen that like what the mother is eating like influences the pallet of the child. — It's so freaking cool. — It's so cool. — So, is it primarily like added sugar or are we talking about like fruit and stuff like that? I think the best way to go is to say, okay, the World Health Organization says you should limit added sugar intake to 25 grams a day. And this means all sugar that doesn't come from whole fruit. So, we're talking fruit juice, we're talking ice cream, candy, desserts, fruit smoothies, etc. Keep that under 25 grams a day. I think this is a very, very good idea. And today's surveys show that most moms eat more sugar during pregnancy than when they're not pregnant. And they're about they're at about 85 grams of sugar per day of added sugar per day. Wow. — During pregnancy. So, let's go to the WHO recommendation and make sure everybody understands what 25 gram actually is. It adds up pretty quickly actually. 25 grams. 25 grams is like one large glass of orange juice, — one cookie. And in the book, I have a whole table where you can see like how much sugar is in stuff. And this is a very important moment in your life to do this because you're programming your baby. So, I would say 25 gram tops, less if you can. Eat as much whole fruit as you want. If you want something sweet on the palette, but this is a very good goal. — That's pretty reasonable. I mean, 25 gram of added sugar, that's like, correct me if I'm wrong, that's like six teaspoons of pure sugar. Like, just visualize that, right? — Exactly. — A teaspoon is four grams of sugar — or a little sugar cube, you know? — Yeah. So, it's pretty reasonable, but you need to learn about what sugar is because for example, you know, honey counts as added sugar. Even the most healthylook like unrefined brown coconut sugar that makes you think it's really healthy for you, that's also added sugar. So, you have to learn about this stuff. Um, and think about the fact that the amount of sugar you're eating is having an influence on your baby's DNA epigenetic programming. And let's unpack that for people for a second. So when you conceive a baby, the DNA of the baby is set the moment the sperm meets the egg, right? Half from the mom, half from the dad. The DNA will never change. However, what can change is the epigenetic programming, meaning these tiny little switches that turn genes more on or more off. And these are very, very important because they influence how your DNA is actually used by your body. And for example, in studies in rats, they show that if a mom, if a rat mom eats a lot of sugar during pregnancy, even if she does not have gestational diabetes, her babies will have genes linked to fat storage. So genes linked to having more fat on the body, epigenetically activated, meaning they're sort of programmed from the start of their life to have more fat mass on their body. M — and when I was learning about all this stuff, I was like, "Wow, it's so interesting when I think about my friend group. I can think of people who have pretty similar diets, pretty similar exercise routines, but one just has more fat on their body, even though they're doing the same stuff as somebody else. We're not equal, right? Two people can have the exact same routine, but have different outcomes. " And that has to do with lots of stuff, but also with epigenetics. So, imagine that when you're pregnant, you can help shift the odds a little bit for your baby. And then I thought about my mom and I called her. I was like, "It's everything's your fault. " But when I was 25 years old, I was on the cusp of pre-diabetes. Even though I wasn't eating that poorly, I was able to reverse that. But I was wondering as I was reading this research, maybe it had to do with the fact that my mom only ate special K with a mountain of sugar and juice when she was pregnant with me. Like, who knows? — Who knows? Where was she? Was she in France? — In France. Yeah. But it was the '9s, you I know it was lowfat craze cereal in the morning. Yeah. — Yeah, man. No, super important. Also knowing that like what you're eating is setting your baby up for a lifetime. I mean, as you say, right, like in the title of your book, Nine Months That Count Forever, like you're literally setting up your baby's — preferences. You're like installing like software, — preferences in terms of like what your baby's going to gravitate to food-wise for the rest of their lives potentially. — Yes. And in on the topic of sugar, there's so many studies on animals and we can't do many studies on pregnant moms for obvious reasons. It's not ethical, but scientists can do lots of studies on animals. And they find every single time that when a mom eats a lot of sugar during pregnancy, her baby is more likely to crave sugar afterwards, after they're born. So, it's pretty daunting. It's a big responsibility, but I think people need to know this stuff. — Yeah. I mean, m moms, there's so much pressure that moms are under. — A lot of pressure, a lot of guilt. And I don't think we can take away that pressure. Like, you're building a new human. It's sort of inherent pressure. But it's confusing and complicated to navigate because you hear stuff from everywhere. And I'm hoping this book is just going to give moms a better, easier way to navigate that pressure. — You see what I mean? — Yeah. Amen.

— Let's talk about choline. I'm a huge fan of choline. — Oh, you are? Yeah, — tell me more. — Well, it was originally designated as a B vitamin, which I'm sure you know. It's no longer considered a B vitamin, but it is really important for brain health. It's the backbone to acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory. It provides the backbone molecule that forms your phospholipid membranes, your the phospholipid billayer that's so important for cellto cell communication. Um, it's crucially important and then I am aware of some of the epidemiologic literature linking higher choline intake during pregnancy to having smarter babies. — Yeah, exactly. I mean, you said it. So, choline builds the part of your brain that has to do with learning, memory, and attention. And the problem is nobody tells moms this and 90% of moms are not getting the recommended amount of choline during pregnancy. 90%. And this is true across the world. in Germany, in France, in Brazil, in India, in Japan, in the United States, in Brazil, all throughout the world today, mostly because we're not eating organ meats anymore. — We're eating muscle uh which has very little choline. We have a huge problem of choline deficiency. And so much so that the American Association of Pediatrics, they uh issued a statement saying that the failure to provide choline during pregnancy and the first two years of life could result in lifelong brain deficits in babies that could not be what's the word compensated for later. So people are talking about this. We have the American Association of Pediatrics saying this loud and clear. Why is this not something my doctor tells me the moment I go for my first ultrasound? What's going on, you guys? We have a problem. So, anyway, choline is super important. We need 450 milligrams of it per day. And one of the easiest ways to get that is through eggs. One egg is 125 milligrams. So, what I did is I just had four eggs every day. — Amazing. — Very easy. Yeah. — Think about all the decades during which eggs were demonized. — Yes. And think about the people for whom today like eggs are still like a looming question mark. — When I told my midwife I was having four eggs a day, she almost like passed out. She's like, "What? " Like, "Don't worry, it's okay. Eggs are fine. " — Wow. — Yeah. So, choline is key. And if you don't eat eggs, you have other ways of getting that choline uh through animal foods. There's a little bit of choline in plant foods, but one thing I've discovered in this research is that if you're vegan, it's very hard to get everything your baby needs. You have to be like incredibly wealthy and spend a lot of money on supplements — to get all the nutrients your baby needs. — Yeah. — What do you say to uh to people listening who are either, you know, meat avoidant or they themselves are vegan or vegetarian and they are, you know, at the point in life in which they're considering conception. — Uh buy my book. And I'm not saying this to plug it. You really need to understand how to get what your baby needs if you're not eating any animal foods. You can't it's not you can't just it's not guesswork. Like you have to be diligent and say, "Okay, I need X pounds of broccoli and soybeans which are high in choline per week. I need this supplement and that supplement. " It's hard. And there are many reasons people don't eat animal foods. But if you're doing it because you think it's better for your health, like I would reconsider that. If you're doing it for other reasons, then I would make sure you have all the information that you need. And you alluded to the studies, but I just want to say them again because they're very interesting. So, I said 450 milligrams is the bare minimum. And scientists asked the question, well, what if we gave a baby more than that? Would that actually help their long-term brain formation? And there's one study from Cornell where they took pregnant moms, okay, and there's this test that scientists do to measure a baby's quote unquote intelligence. What they do is they put the baby in front of a screen within the first year of life and they flash these images on the screen and they look at how quickly the baby reacts and moves his eyes, right? And the reason they do this is because it's correlated to adult IQ. So it's not a random test. It's like proper it's a proper a verified test. And so in this study at Cornell, they took two groups of pregnant moms in their third trimester. One group got 480, so a little bit above the minimum milligrams of choline per day in supplement. The other group got almost a gram per day. So almost double every day during the third trimester. They brought the babies in throughout the first year of life and they did this computer test and what did they find find? They found that the babies in the high choline group had 10% higher faster reaction time to this test. Meaning and I want to make sure people understand what this means. Meaning that the amount of choline available during pregnancy was potentially helping the baby's brain develop in a more optimal way, which led to a measurable increase in this random freaking test. — Wow. — And imagine all the stuff we cannot measure, — right? — Like how does it feel to be in your brain, Max? — Feels pretty good. Okay. — Well, for some people it doesn't feel so good to be in their brain. Maybe if their mom had a slightly higher choline levels during pregnancy, maybe they would feel a bit — more like me. Yeah. — More like you. — Yeah. No, that's the goal. — Everybody needs to feel like Max. That's the goal. — No, I'm kidding. But uh no, I definitely have like, you know, up and down days, but no, generally I feel like um yeah, I feel pretty cognitively on point. But yeah, choline is super important. Like I just can't even imagine. Like now I feel like people are coming around, but there were decades where eggs were considered this like almost like an indulgence, you know, like — one a week. — Like I remember when my mom f served me my first fried egg. — She was like, "Don't eat these very often. They're going to clog your little arteries. " Like you want to be really careful. — And I'm feeding eggs to my baby every single day. — They're amazing. — Well, like a nervous system is the first structure like in a baby chicken. Yeah. — So, an egg yolk literally contains everything that nature has deemed important to grow a brain. Like a chicken brain, but still like if you look at what's in an egg yolk, there's like a little bit of everything required to grow a healthy brain. — Which is why we have studies that show that if a mom has low choline levels, she's more like the embryo is more likely to have brain um malf formations that can end in miscarriage. — Whoa. — Yeah, that's something that we don't talk about enough. We talk a lot about folic acid and folate being really important to prevent miscarriage, but choline is almost as important. Did you take a prenatal like? — Yeah, I did. And it actually contained choline in it, too, but I was trying to get everything from whole foods, right? I didn't want to just focus and rely on the supplements alone. — Yeah, — that makes sense. Um, protein. Let's

talk about protein. Do you see the new our new dietary guidelines? — I did. What do you think? — I did. I think it's great that people don't think that they have to eat eight servings of carbs every single day. I'm very happy about that. Yeah, it's very cool. — Yeah, grains were demoted. I mean, I still think whole grains are great, but like uh — they are not the foundation of — They're not the foundation. No, — I'm cur I'm very curious to see what this is going to do to like kids um meals at schools. Hospital food. I hope this impacts hospital food. — That's the hope. — Yeah, that's the hope. Do you think it's going to happen? — Well, people were always like, but nobody follows the dietary guidelines. That doesn't mean that they're not influential. they imp impact all of these different like you know whether it's uh public school lunches um hospitals and whatnot. I am optimistic. I mean I have no idea how things are going to pan out but like just visually just look at the food pyramid. I mean it is such a rebuke of like you know the my plate the old food pyramid. I mean to me it just looks like I mean they couldn't have said it better. eat real food. — What a concept. And they jacked up the protein recommendation. So the RDA for protein hasn't been changed in decades. And now it's finally, you know, at least 50% more than what it was. — Yeah, — that's great. — And actually protein during pregnancy is also very important — because as we were saying, you're a real bodybuilder during pregnancy. — How much were you trying to get? So the new studies are saying 1. 5 grams per kilo per day in the second and third trimester. In the first trimester, it's like 1. 2 minimum. These are minimums. And then what's interesting is that during breastfeeding, you need 1. 9. — Really? — Yes. Because when you're breastfeeding, your milk is giving your body all the your baby all the amino acids that he needs. And he's much bigger than when he was in your uterus. So protein is super important. And I think the most interesting studies that I found on this have to do again with animals because we have a lot of studies on animals in pregnancy. So rats, okay, two group two groups of rats. One group of rat moms are pregnant. They get all the protein they need. The other group is protein restricted, meaning they get about 40% less than the optimal protein levels. Here's what the scientists find. They find that do you know the what's the what the AR pathway is? I mean — A no. Yeah, it's the amino acid response pathway. It's when you have a low protein diet, it's sort of your body's low protein alert mode and it starts breaking down your muscle to free amino acids for important things. — Whoa. — Yeah. So, that's the AAR pathway. They find that in the moms on the low protein diet during pregnancy, the AAR pathway is activated nor that makes sense. Their muscle starts breaking down to feed their baby the protein that he needs in the womb. And also they find that this pathway is epigenetically activated in the baby. Meaning that when a mom is on a low protein diet during pregnancy, her baby is programmed to have also smaller muscles. — And this setting in these animal studies stays with the animal babies for life. So again, back to us. Two people at the gym, my friend Gabriel, my friend Max, they do the same gym routine. They eat the same amount of protein. One of them gains a lot of muscle. The other one doesn't. Could this have to do with something happening in the womb during pregnancy? Perhaps. — We don't know. Maybe it's part of it. In the animal studies, it's very clear. And when a mom is protein restricted during pregnancy, her baby is always born smaller in the animal studies and more vulnerable to disease. Now in human moms, we know that about 70% of moms are not getting the adequate amount of protein during pregnancy. Does this mean all of these babies are going to be born smaller and more vulnerable to disease? Perhaps. Does this mean human babies will also get the AR switch activated? Perhaps. Anyway, we just need to talk about this more. Because being on a low protein diet is not usually a choice. It's just that you don't have the information about how much protein you need. Like it's not difficult to find protein. You see what I mean? We just need to make sure that moms have the info. — Well, I mean going back to vegan and vegetarian diets. — Oh, sure. Yeah. — I mean, there are studies like you can definitely get enough protein on a vegan and vegetarian diet. You just have to be like very diligent about doing that. which is to say that not everybody who's on a vegan not every mom and vegetarian diet necessarily is as diligent as they should be to get adequate protein over the course of the day. And there have been studies, I mean, you know, I off the top of my head, I can't cite a specific one, but that look at like, for example, birth weight, and they compare that to like diets and vegan and vegetarian diets, if I recall correctly, um, is often associated — with a lower birth weight and higher risk of what's called IUGR, which is intrauterine growth restriction, which is that's the extreme case where your baby is really not growing as much as he should. And it's more common in moms who are vegan potentially because of the low protein. — Yeah. — It's crazy. — Yeah. I mean, muscle is like it's so important, but it's not, you know, like protein builds the organism. Like you are protein. Like your protein is important for everything from like the enzymes that make up your body to your bones to the hormones to whatever. And muscle is kind of expendable. Like it's not as necessary for survival. In fact, it's metabolic metabolically expensive. So, if you don't have enough protein to go around, your body's going to triage what is available to building the structure — and the immune system and the skin and the organs, all the important stuff. Totally. And this is also happening in the baby. — Wild. — I know. — Um, so were you, so how much of a of like an effort did you find that you had to make to hit your protein target every day? I designed this um this big cheat code. So I made this thing called my favorite snack which gave me 80 grams of protein and I had it almost every day. So it was a big serving of skier yogurt. Skir skirt I said skier yogurt. So which is high in protein. That's about 40 grams if you get like cup and a half two cups. Then I would add um two scoops of my whey protein powder. That's another 40 grams. So 80 grams of protein. nice yogurt based protein powder that blends in perfectly, some fruit, some nuts. Boom. I had that every day, 80 grams. So, I always hit my protein target thanks to that snack. But I had to think about what do I need to do? It was not automatic. If I hadn't done anything, I'd probably be at like 75 grams of protein per day probably because I ate four eggs in the morning, but that's not that much protein, you know? That's like 30 grams of protein. So, I had to be intentional like you have to think about this stuff. I have a little calculation table in my book to help you figure out how much protein you need. — But um I find that for a lot of these things, even me, who I consider had a good healthy diet, I needed to put effort into these four hacks, into these four tools to make sure I was hitting them every day. — Wow. Do you find that women tend to underconume protein? — In my friend group, yes. I can't speak for everybody, but definitely my family, my friends, like it's a topic. I think people naturally get to 70 grams a day pretty easily, but then if you want to get more than that, which most of us need, you have to think about it. — And um when it comes to protein sources, like what are some of your favorite protein sources — in terms of whole fruits? — Yeah. — Uh meat, red meat, chicken, fish. Fish is great because it also contains omega-3s, which we'll talk about. Um, meat is great. It has a lot of choline. I love dairy. I love parmesan. It's one of my favorite foods. — High pro. Good source of protein. Yeah. — I have parmesan every single day. I'm like addicted. — So good. — Fully. Yeah. — No, Parmesan's great. — Yeah. So, listen. Animal foods, eggs, dairy, parmesan. — I'm not a big like lentils, pulses person. Just prefer to have a nice piece of salmon. — Yeah. — What about you? — Uh, no. I'm right there with you. I mean, I love whey protein. Um, but I also eat a lot of red meat. I eggs. I also eat uh I eat whole eggs and then I also will jack up my the protein of my scramles with like egg whites. — Nice. — Um, yeah. — The egg yolks have the choline. You know that, right? — That's true. That is true. Yeah. You want to, if you're optimizing for choline, you do not want to skimp on the cholesterolin egg yolks. Don't worry, for not an issue. Mhm. — Um trying to think of like what other we also like I think it's like important to acknowledge like we live in a time where yeah the environment has mutated in a way such that it's very easy to become overweight and to over consume foods but it's also we live in like one of the easiest times ever to hit your protein to meet your protein needs — right like cuz now I mean there are so many like even ultrarocessed foods foods. Like everything now has a high protein halo on it. — Like I got downstairs, I've got like these protein gummies that are really good. There's protein sodas now on the market. There's protein — protein water. — Yeah. Like protein's everywhere. — Yeah. — And I think it's actually a good thing. Like I don't think that this is like a fat. Like I don't think it's like the grapefruit diet but with better branding. I think like protein is like I think it's here to stay because it's incredibly valuable and the more optionality that we have for consumers like the better. So, if you're not hitting your protein target, like — what are you doing? — Yeah. You almost have to be doing something wrong today. — I don't know, man. Because I think the pregnancy protein targets are pretty high. Like, I think you still have to think about it. — Yeah. Absolutely. — Protein soda, though. — Protein soda kind of crazy. — Yeah. And I just invented protein coffee. So, I mean, — it's badass. — I'm right there with you. — No, it's badass. Yeah, cuz I mean like that coffee ritual like that's important for a lot of people.

— Um, — all right. Omega-3s. Like omega-3s. Yeah. — Do you supplement with omega-3s? — I do. — Yeah. High quality fish oil. Triglyceride fish oil. Shout out to Pori, one of our brand partners here. But like they make a great IOS certified super high quality fish oil. — Nice. — Yes. — Well, one thing to know is that by the time a baby is born, most of his 100 billion neurons, so the brain cells that process information are built and are in place and will remain the same ones for life. Your neurons don't get replaced and regenerated. You have the ones you're born with and then they're just kind of soldier on until they die. So, what happens in the womb forms your baby's neurons. And DHA, this omega-3 fat, is very important. And it's very important to help your neurons connect with each other. So, it kind of guides the long arms of the neurons so that they can connect and form connections so that information can move around in your baby's brain. Super super key. Now again, we're in a situation where 70% of moms are not eating enough omega-3s during pregnancy. The recommendation is 300 milligrams per week, and that works out to fish about twice a week. But just like with choline max, studies show that if you go higher than that, it has a beneficial impact on your baby's brain. Notably, one study that supplemented moms with 1. 2 two grams of omega-3s per day during pregnancy compared to placebo. And they tested the IQ of the babies at four years old. Omega-3 group plus four points of IQ at four years old. — Whoa. — Crazy, right? — Yeah, — it's crazy. And in animals, if you deprive a mom of omega-3s in rats, again, the babies take three times as long to solve a maze and find the exit of a maze. Like, this has a profound impact on how the brain functions. My mom didn't take any omega-3s and she was pregnant with me. Like, imagine how smart I would be if she had. — Crazy. — Be amazing. — I mean, you're already a sharp cookie. — Could be much better, though. So, that's another key one. And I mean, there's so many crazy stats. Like, I don't want to overwhelm you with all this stuff, but I'm just very passionate about this topic. One other thing I want to say is that omega-3s reduce inflammation, okay, in your body and in your baby's body. When moms supplement with omega-3s during pregnancy, their kid has 30% less likelihood of eczema, of asthma, and of food allergies because having high inflammation during pregnancy seems to make the baby's immune system a little bit overactive and we want to keep it chill. So, omega-3s are very, very important. — Damn. For pumping the brakes on that inflammatory cascade. How concerned are you or were you about um — mercury? — Yes, environmental toxins. — Listen, in the studies, it's pretty clear like the benefits of omega-3s on the baby outweigh the risk of mercury toxicity. I still try to get my omega-3s from things like sardines and anchovies, like smaller fish, you can skip the tuna. Some people even say that the mercury toxicity is not even a big deal. I don't know. I feel like the studies are not clear enough yet for us to be able to say that. But you should supplement with omega-3s and eat fish — even if there's this risk. It's so important for your baby. — Yeah. Yeah, I remember I went down this rabbit hole at a certain point and um yeah, a lot of the early uh and I'm not saying that pregnant women should not be mindful of their mercury intake, but a lot of the early studies looking at like fish intake specifically and mercury toxicity were um when people were consuming fish that had extremely high levels of mercury and not enough selenium. — Yes, it's all about the selenium. Yeah. The selenium mercury. Yeah. — You want to know something else that's crazy? — Tell me. — Okay. So, since 1980, the rates of pre-term birth, meaning a baby born too early, have gone up 30%. Since 1980, 30% more babies are born pre-term. And this has probably to do with inflammation levels because the process of labor and birth is an inflammatory process. When your body is like, "Okay, it's go time. Your baby is gonna be born. " It creates an inflammatory cascade. It creates prostaglandins from omega-6s. And that starts the contractions and the dilation and the labor. And so scientists believe that the reason we're getting more pre-term birth, one of the reasons is that people have higher inflammation levels now. So, this cascade happens too early, which is why it is so clear across all the data that when you supplement with omega-3s, you reduce the risk of pre-term birth, which is so important because the last month of pregnancy is when all the omega-3s get transferred to your baby's brain. That last month is crucial, and if you miss that time in the womb, it can have some long-term impacts on your health. — What about taking omega-3s through uh breastfeeding? — Yeah, I did that, too. — Absolutely. I mean, cuz there's like a small but s still significant, I think, amount of omega-3s in — Oh, it's very significant. It continues to pass through the breast milk for a baby's brain. And that's why in a lot of formulas, you see some omega-3s. The problem is, so choline and omega-3s are not mandatory in formula in the United States. They're recommended, but check your formula because sometimes they don't have either. So, you want a formula with choline and omega-3s if you can. And if you're breastfeeding, you want to make sure you're keeping your levels up. And the demand is actually higher than during pregnancy because your baby's bigger and needs more. — Have you looked at some of the baby formulas on the market? — Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, I breastfed exclusively for seven months and now I've switched to formula. I found a Dutch one that has choline and DHA in it, but many of them don't. So, it took me a while. I was like, "Okay, let's look at the ingredients online. " It was like a day of research, but in my book, I show you like how to look through that. But, yes, it's an issue. — Yeah. I mean, like fed is best. It's like you want your baby to be fed, right? But like still a lot of formulas, at least in the United States on the market that I've seen, I mean, they're just some slurry of like, you know, various syrups and seed oils and things like that. And, you know, I'm not saying that they're bad, but like just like doesn't take a scientist or a dietitian to look at the back and see like this kind of just like an ultrarocessed food that I'm like now feeding the most precious thing I've ever created. — It is. It is a processed food. But the problem is like I have friends who they really wanted to breastfeed but their body was just not making any milk. They couldn't. There's so many barriers. So I just want to like be very cautious about this because sometimes you really want to breastfeed and you can't. — Yeah. — So the good thing about formula is that it's highly regulated. So you know that your baby's getting the base nutrition that he needs always and that's great. But then there's varying degrees of quality and of choline and omega-3s. That's the main thing you want to look out for. Make sure you take one that has both — choline and omega-3s. — You know what's interesting? I actually um I think that I was entirely formulafed. — And I'm pretty sure that my mom fed whatever was around like that, you know, especially in the 80s like — yeah, — there was not the level of nutrition insight and it certainly wasn't like mainstream as it is now. — And look at you, you're fine. — And I'm fine. — Which is also an important message, right? Even if you do none of this stuff, your baby will be fine. It's just like the we're talking about small optimizations that if you know about them, why not try them? Like you and I were both born in a time where I was also formulafed and our moms didn't know anything about choline and like we're mostly fine, right? Apart from a few existential crises and a joint obsession with cats, we're mostly normal. — Yeah. Most — mostly normal. But when you know more, it's cool to be able to do more for the next generation. Like imagine at a population level those studies where I mentioned like 10% faster reaction time like four points in IQ. What if the entire next generation had these very small but measurable differences? Like how different would the world be? We don't know. — Massively. — It's a cool thing to think about. — Exactly. — And if they all had 15% less likelihood of diabetes, the entire next generation. — Yeah, — that'd be great. — Yeah, that would be great. What's like

the most surprising finding like over the course of I mean even your own subjective experience with pregnancy like what was like something that truly blew your mind? — Just how humbling it is. — I thought I was the You know I'm the glucose goddess. I was like I'm going to be this like gorgeous goddess pregnant and it was just not at all the reality. It's very hard and it's very humbling and it was very good for me. So that was the biggest realization. I thought I had it all figured out. Yeah, have a baby and then we'll see how you feel. — What about the couple months after like the the complete and utter lack of sleep? — Oh, it is the most hardcore thing that I've ever been through. Like it is so intense. It like I almost have PTSD from postpartum. It is hardcore. It's hard on you. It's hard on your couple. sleep, on your body, on your stress levels. All of a sudden, you're thrown into, okay, I'm 100% of my brain space is dedicated to this little human that I don't understand how he works yet. I have to keep him alive and I'm not sleeping and he's crying and I'm not eating and I have no idea what's going on. Like, it is very, very hard. It's very hard. But then you get through it and now, you know, he's seven months and I'm I feel more normal again. — But it's very very hard. Like I would say if you're not 100% sure you want to have a kid, like don't force yourself. You need to really want it to get through that, I think. — No, I love it. — Do you want kids? — Uh, no. I I go back and forth. I mean, I think I do, but also my little brother has like two babies. Like one is like almost not seven months, maybe a little bit older, like a year. And then uh Oh, no. Like a like two and three. But then they've got another one on the way. So they're about to have another one. — And no, it's a they're monsters and it's like a complete Yeah, it's a it is a show, — for lack of a better term. — Mhm. — And then birth is a whole thing. — That's I'm so glad I'm through that. not, you know, because when you're personally when I was pregnant, I was so stressed out about birth and the planning and the stuff and it's a whole rabbit hole and the internet rabbit hole and just ph I'm glad I'm glad I'm through. You're not there yet, but like how do you anticipate like when you have like when they have some degree of autonomy and they're like in, you know, school and whatever and they're being fed like left and right different things that you're not necessarily like able to oversee. How do you anticipate instilling your baby — with uh your you know your guidance and wisdom? — I think I'll do I mean I think it has to do a lot with what you do at home. So I think children learn from their parents. So I don't have fruit juice at home. I don't have processed foods eat cereal in the morning. So I feel like as long as he's at home 80% of the time for his food and he gets those core habits, then okay, 20% he's birthday parties eating cake, like whatever, you know? — Yeah. — Um but I'm sure it's going to be a whole thing. I'll come back in a few years and be like my toddler only eats cookies. Well, no, but it's crucial like what you said like to at the end of the day, you know, we were raised in a way that was like way more uh loosey goosey than, you know, than how parents are raising their kids today and yet we turned out fine. So, — and then there's a whole social media thing, right? Like Facebook arrived and I was probably 15, but today you're eight years old and you're already on social media. So, that's a whole other topic. I think it's really going to be really interesting. But I'm hopeful that our generation like you're a millennial. — Yeah. — Like the millennials who are going to have kids like we are hopefully going to be a little bit strict about all this stuff. And I think if multiple parents in a for example in a classroom say no phones or no cookies at school hopefully we can group together and try to make a little change. — Yeah. So what is uh so your new book I

mean obviously it's written for people who are you know at that stage in life. Um, is it like a uh is it a plan broken down by trimester, broken down by nutrient? Like what what's the plan? — It's a trimester by trimester plan. That's the way it's broken down with all the recipes that I used. I mean to me honestly this book should be prescribed the moment you have a positive pregnancy test. Like everybody needs this information. I hope it becomes completely useless and that all this info is part of standard medical care that you get. So, tri tr trimester by trimester plan with all the information on the four building blocks, glucose, choline, protein, and DHA. Lots of recipes, lots of tables where you can see where you stand because just telling somebody, "Oh, you need 450 milligrams of choline, good luck," is not so useful. So, I'm in there with you to help you understand from day one what you can do. So, it's for people who are pregnant, who are thinking they want to conceive at some point. It's also for all the parents who have kids now who are going to have kids. Like get this book for your kids if they're going to have kids. — Um and um yeah, it's really important stuff and moms have way more power than they think. — What do you have to say to new parents who are just feel overwhelmed and buried by just the glut of information available to them today? — It's hardcore. And I think just stay off Instagram. Like especially when you get into the pregnancy stage, I feel like the algorithm just knows you're in that mode and will serve you so much fear-mongering stuff. So much information. What I did is I tried to a little bit like stop my scrolling during pregnancy because it was just it was gnarly. And to look at the science and the studies. It doesn't have to be complicated. fear-mongering. These are four simple steps that have a scientifically proven positive impact on your baby. Get off your phone, get this book, read it calmly, and you'll have a good plan forward. — I love it. Well, yeah, the emphasis on protein, choline, omega-3s, I mean, completely aligns with like everything that I know about, you know, what the brain needs to thrive through the life course. So, I mean, I can only imagine the the breadth of information that you've laid out in your book in terms of how that is going to benefit the the neonate. I mean, it just, you know, makes perfect sense. And um — and I also wrote this with a lot of love and it has all my personal story. I had a very late miscarriage in my first pregnancy. So my second pregnancy was, you know, was filled with anxiety. I talk about that. I talk about all the birth process, the stuff I learned that was really helpful what I did. So yes, it's a science book, but it's also there's a lot of heart and love in here. So if you read it during pregnancy, just know you're not going to feel scared. guilty. like I'll hold your hand and be there with you because I know it's a complicated moment. — Word. Well, thanks for coming out. So fun. — Thanks, Max. — Yeah. Where can people pick it up?

— Uh anywhere books are sold. Nine months that count forever. — Love it. — And on Instagram, I am Glucose Goddess. — And your baby's the glucose — baby. — The glucose baby. — Glucose baby. Yeah, So fun. Thanks for coming out. You're the best. — Thanks, Max. — Thank you guys. Share this episode with people in your life that may benefit from it and uh I will catch you on the next episode. Peace. — Hey, if you like that video, you need to check out this one here and I'll see you there.