How To Stay Paleo-Ish When You're Pregnant

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I'm the girl who makes most of her meals from scratch, simmers bones for 48 hours in her tiny kitchen, and uses coconut oil in and on more things than she'd like to admit. Yep. You guessed it. I am Paleo. And pretty passionate about it. I even have a Paleo food blog and spend part of my week cooking paleo-ish meals for my clients, as a personal chef. Up until a few weeks ago, I was pretty darn good at sticking to my guns.

But then, I found out the news that changed everything: I'm pregnant (insert jumping up and down here)! Excited as I was, I quickly realized that my new body was not quite as eager about the mounds of vegetables and liver meatballs that I had happily eaten before. And suddenly, my cravings for crackers, cookies, and all things carbs shot through the roof.

There are a lot of benefits that can come from eating Paleo while pregnant. It's a diet full of protein, vitamin A, beta carotene, healthy fats, vitamin D, folate, and iron. All nutrients that are vital to a healthy pregnancy. I knew that sticking to this whole food, unprocessed diet was the best thing for my pregnancy. All I had to do was make a few adjustments.

To save you a little time and heartache (and heartburn), I've put together my tips for staying Paleo-ish during pregnancy. Fear not. There will be no finger wagging, pregnant-shaming, or it's-not-organic! accusations here. You've got enough on your plate as it is. Consider this your realistic guide to a healthy, delicious, and totally doable diet during this nine-month roller coaster.

You swore off bread the moment you became Paleo. But pregnant you is not the same as pre-pregnant you. Pregnant you craves nut butters on toast, meaty mile-high sandwiches, crusty cheesy pizza, or simply, a plain piece of bread to settle your ever-queasy stomach.

Guess what? There is good reason to listen to your body on this one. Many people in the Paleo community, including Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac, Laura Schoenfeld, RD, and Paleo researcher Stefanie Ruper, advocate for women who are either trying to conceive, or are already pregnant, to increase their carbohydrate intake. According to Schoenfeld, women need adequate carbohydrates during pregnancy to help with fetal brain development, to ensure adequate growth during a full-term pregnancy.

What's more, a study from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that a diet rich in protein and lower in carbohydrates can greatly improve fertility. This may sound counterintuitive to this argument, but in fact, the study's definition of lower carbohydrate intake is 40% of the diet. For somebody following a Paleo diet, that is actually quite a bit higher than they're used to.

Do a quick search on "healthy diet for pregnancy" and most sources will recommend consuming the opposite of what you eat on a Paleo diet. Eat more dairy. Low-fat is best! Get lots of beans. And more than anything, make sure you have your six to eleven servings of whole grains per day!

Schoenfeld puts it best when she says, "When people say that pregnant women need grains, what they are actually saying is that pregnant women need carbohydrates." And the reason for the dairy? You need calcium to build bones and maintain a healthy blood pressure. Beans are for protein which helps make the building blocks of your baby's cells, and iron which helps carry oxygen to the blood. Of course, whole grains are for those wonderful carbohydrates we just discussed. But just like the whole grains, there are plenty of other (sometimes better) ways to get these nutrients from vegetables, meats, nuts, and seeds.

Consider looking into some alternative prenatal books such as Beautiful Babies: Nutrition for Fertility, Pregnancy, Breast-feeding, and Baby's First Foods by Kristen Michaelis, or The Everything Paleo Pregnancy Book: The All-Natural, Nutritious Plan for a Healthy Pregnancy by Tarah Chieffi. They're both chock full of recipes and wisdom about eating an ancestral diet for optimal fertility. Understand for yourself what your body needs. In fact, forget the labels all together. What's most important is that you feel comfortable with your personal prenatal diet.

This stuff is the magical elixir of the Paleo diet. Bone broth is made from raw animal bones and simmered over a 24 to 48-hour period to allow the water to absorb all of the bones' minerals. There are more benefits for an average person to drink it than I can name. But never has it been so important than when you're growing a baby inside of you. According to the book, How To Conceive Naturally: And Have A Healthy Pregnancy After 30, bone broth contains highly absorbable forms of calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, and sulfur that are essential to a baby's growing bones.

You know how people keep telling you that you need to get enough protein in your diet? But maybe the sound of meat makes you turn green? Your answer might be bone broth. It provides easily digestible protein and packs a lot of nutrients without having to eat a heavy meal. It also supports the immune system (during a time when our immune systems are compromised) and helps digestion (a welcome relief for the common pregnancy constipation).

You're also going to want to make this one ahead. But the great thing is, it's a set-it-and-forget-it type of meal. Here is a good, straightforward recipe to follow, or you might even be able to buy it straight off the shelves at your local Whole Foods. What are you waiting for? Drink up!