The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Migraine Misunderstood: The Truth About Postpartum Headaches with Susannah Juteau
In this weeks episode I bring you the interview I did with Susannah Juteau
Susannah Juteau, MSc, CLT, RD, is a registered dietitian who specializes in headache and migraine nutrition for women. She has a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and a Master’s in Nutrition and Dietetics from McGill so she definitely is the person to listen to!
We are talking about many things;
The difference between headaches and migraines.
How a migraine is MUCH more than
How common post-partum migraines really are (MUCH more common than you might think)
Why "15 minutes sitting in the dark" really isn't the solution.
The impact of diet on migraines.
What to eat to help prevent migraines.
And much, MUCH more.
Check out Susannah's very handy 5-minute quiz to help you find YOUR Migraine Root Cause - and what you can do about it!
https://bit.ly/MigraineRootCause
You can also find her on
Her website
Instagram
Facebook
In the news this week; Does the time of day you exercise at really impact the results you get? And is that different for men and women? This BBC article, based on this study, claims it does. But just how seriously should you take this study when determining your training times?
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Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, will be me. This is the podcast for the 6th of July 2025. And from the vault this week, I have a wonderful episode that I did with Susanna Juteau about migraine headaches and how common they are, postpartum and all that sort of stuff and how to prevent them and how to recover from them and all that type of stuff.
Peter:Susanna is a registered dietitian who specializes in headache and migraine nutrition for women. She has a bachelor's degree in neuroscience and a master's in nutrition and dietetics from McGill, so you know why would you listen to anyone else? Right? We're talking about many, many things the difference between the headache and migraines, how a migraine is, you know much more than a headache. How ridiculously common postpartum migraines really are. Much, much more common. You think, uh, why is sitting in the dark for 15 minutes isn't the solution? Uh, and the impact on diet, of diet on migraines. That's the big one. And what to eat to help prevent, uh, migraines. And we're talking a lot, lot more than that. But, like I said, I originally did this in 2023. This is a wonderful episode. So, without further ado, with the first one, what is the difference between a migraine and a normal headache?
Susanna:Yes, okay. So this is important because a lot of people don't realize that they're dealing with migraine or yeah, the language is different because so a migraine would be it's kind of an all encompassing you really can't function. It's often one sided, it might switch to two sides, and there are a smaller group of people that would deal with a headache on both sides, like the headache component.
Susanna:I mean the head pain component and then a migraine. So we see a migraine attack and a migraine attack can involve, like gastrointestinal distress where someone might feel nauseous and vomiting. That can be a part of a migraine. It can be dizziness like, like balance issues. It can like there there's, everyone experiences that head pain and, sorry, not everyone experiences that head pain either. There's vestibular vestibular migraine, where it doesn't include head pain at all, but all the other types of migraine include a head pain component and, yeah, a lot of light sensitivity that would be or noise sensitivity. Those are all migraine symptoms. So yeah, it's kind of comparing like light rain to a tornado it's like a tornado will really like floor you.
Susanna:You really you need to sleep it off. And then there's different degrees of a migraine attack or a headache as well. But in my, with my work with people, I find that a large group of people actually deal with both. And sometimes if someone is dealing with something like a chronic headache, where they're getting it every single day, then that can be just as debilitating as a migraine attack where it's still really you know it's really affecting your, your whole, your whole presence and joy in life. It's that you're constantly thinking. You're thinking about the foods that you're eating, you're thinking about wanting to feel more joy and wanting to play with your kids and all those things that if you're dealing with a daily headache, then that's problematic.
Susanna:Another difference is often we think of as a headache. We can often take something and the headache will go away. So take so, for instance, you take an Advil, the headache will go away that. So, for instance, you take an Advil, the headache will go away. That's more of a headache, whereas a migraine you can take multiple different medications and it might not help you feel any better. Migraine also has a post-migraine period where you just feel lots of brain fog and you're recovering from that whole period where you were feeling really awful. So that's kind of the overall differences. Technically, all migraine conditions are lumped under a headache condition, so there's over 100 different types of headache and migraine conditions that people can be diagnosed with.
Peter:Because, for those of us who don't experience migraines, whenever we hear and when we don't really know someone dealing with migraines so say, you're stuck in an office and one of your colleagues falls in sick with a migraine or something like that what we tend to think is um, no, but you just go sit in a dark room for 15, 20 minutes and after that we'll be fine.
Susanna:Right, because that's what hollywood taught us the migraine right, right, and that's what's so frustrating for people is that there's very little, not like empathy around it. People, if you've never had a migraine attack, you don't understand. And even those who maybe experienced them in the past, they, you know you forget, pain a lot, that you feel that, oh, why don't you just drink more water or why don't you just take something for it? And it's not that simple. And also it's not that simple If you're dealing with something every day. You can't take a medication every day. Your, your gut will get destroyed. So it's it's a very frustrating battle.
Susanna:People go to the doctor and the only solution is another medication to try, so they just get stuck on this medical hamster wheel that often taking these medications actually makes things worse. In many cases they don't act. They don't actually reverse any migraine condition, so at most they'll just be a band-aid fix and cover it up, might feel good for a year, and then the next year you're back to the cycle of trying to find something that will work for you. So it's a very, very frustrating process. You almost never hear of holistic approaches. Doctors just are not prepared. 18% of females deal with a migraine condition, while only 8% of males do much more female driven condition and because we we may look fine you to the outside eye, it's just very hard to understand like, oh, why are they canceling again? Or you know they must not be good friends or they're making up an excuse, when really you get completely floored when you have a migraine attack yeah, because that that is exactly that, that excuse example that you gave that is kind of what?
Peter:what we've always been shown. Migraines are like oh, it's handy, just tell them you have a migraine. I don't feel like going to that. Just tell them you have one of your migraines and and we'll be fine. We then don't need to go out. So what actually caught? What really causes migraines, then? Because, from my understanding and again all hollywood driven and, to be fair, bbc driven as well, but it's um, we seem to be told it's stress, uh, stressful days at work cause migraines and uh, or you're just unlucky, it's just one of those days. You just wake up with a migraine today and that's you kind of done for today. So what, in your opinion, really causes the migraines?
Susanna:yes. So what's key here is that it's multifactorial, it's there's never just one thing, it's all if you think here is that it's multifactorial. There's never just one thing, it's all. If you think of a bucket, it's all different triggers in our environment. So it could be environment itself is the trigger, it could be sunlight is a trigger, it could be toxins in our environment, different foods that we eat, could be stress, as you mentioned. It could be lack of sleep. So all these different triggers go into that headache trigger bucket.
Susanna:And once you are close to the brim, close to the follis, then that's usually when someone would get a headache and then, if it's an overflow, that's a migraine attack. So it's never just one thing. And yet you know society wise, we're often looking at okay, what was the last thing I ate? But it's a really, it's really all it's triggers are stacking together and causing it. But on top of that, if we take that headache bucket, analogy again is that the average population has a very large headache bucket. They might get a headache here and there if they drank too much, if they didn't sleep the night before, but it's usually resolved with taking something or you know, one day you might be out, but you're fine the next day. In the migraine population, their headache bucket is much smaller, so it fills up really quickly, and that's usually due to genetics and that's usually due to genetics. In other cases, though, it could be a very stressful, traumatic event that caused a lot of gut distress and that caused that bucket to shrink to a small size.
Susanna:It could be a surgery. So in my case it was a brain surgery that caused that bucket to shrink. It could be a car accident, could be, you know, childhood trauma, any very stressful event on the body can cause that to happen. And then people develop migraine for the rest of their lives and it is reversible, but it's always there, it's reversible, it's not curable, but it's always there, it's reversible, it's not curable. And yeah, so that's kind of that's the work that I do with people is really addressing gut health, because there's this very strong gut brain connection. So if your gut needs any kind of repair and 70 of people need um could, could use some work there uh, if your gut is off, your brain health is going to be off.
Susanna:So I actually like to use an analogy there, because if you think of a tree and all the roots in the tree, that's kind of like your gut. So it's these, because the small intestine, the large intestine, that's the roots, that's where food is coming in, that's where nutrients and hydration are absorbed, and then it's up the trunk. So that's our vagus nerve. The vagus nerve links the stomach and the brain together. So it goes up the trunk, travels to the brain and the brain is the trees, the leaves, the branches. Not trees, but the branches and the leaves. That's brain. That's all kinds of action is happening there.
Susanna:But if the roots are damaged, broken, uh, inflamed, red and like furious and not, then they're not able to absorb the nutrients that that we need. And even in our gut, bacteria starts being released because it's going through the gut wall when it shouldn't, causing inflammation. That inflammation travels up to the branches and the tree becomes sickly. So, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of factors that contribute and I'm of the belief that nutrition can really always. It takes a lot of work, it takes three to six months for gut healing, but, um, following a holistic path can can really reverse.
Peter:Can reverse a migraine or a headache condition you know that's great because I've had several people, um, for people listening who are new to the podcast.
Peter:I've said I've had several people for people listening who are new to the podcast. I've had several people on with like PhDs and like the microbiome and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, episodes with Dr Joep Varma that I did a while ago. Like I said, the guy's held a PhD in this stuff for 15, 20 years and he too, he just says there's a very clear connection between gut health and overall health, including brain health. Just that, there's a very clear connection between gut health and overall health, including brain health.
Peter:It is just relatively, as a scientific field, it's relatively new, right, and the human body is ridiculously complex and therefore all these things that tend to sound well, that tend to sound crunchy, for lack of a better word. I've had a client that has been taking kefir and kombucha and all that sort of stuff for for the past, I don't know 10 years, and 10 years ago I mean that was her growing her own kefir, right, that she had her own culture and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, you say nice, 10 years ago everybody thought she was out of her mind.
Susanna:I can imagine it's like why, why are you going back to?
Peter:you know, we used to, we used to eat that way, but why people just didn't, didn't really grasp that when and whenever she said, no, this is for my gut health, people just looked at her like she lost the plot. Um oh yeah, and I think the science is very quickly catching up with the idea that gut health is is all important and it's fundamental yeah absolutely, and you know it makes sense, right?
Peter:if you drive a supercar, you can't put really crappy petrol in it. Everybody accepts that. That is the way it goes with cars, but with the human body we tend to, let's say, not be quite as respectful of our engine. So where do you start with diet then? Because it's always. Everybody always says, you know, diet can fix it. Yeah, but how?
Susanna:Yeah, yeah, so it takes. It's a lot of work, and I think the tricky part is that a healthy diet doesn't mean a migraine free diet, and that's where it's easy to get. That's a good start.
Susanna:That's a good start to just, you know, change to eating better, having a lot more fiber. Change to eating better, having a lot more fiber, increasing vegetable intake, getting lots of antioxidants, anti-inflammatory foods to bring down that inflammation, that inflammation that's traveling from the roots to the tree. All of those approaches can be effective, but often that's not enough. So a lot of people will do that step and then say, oh, it's not nutrition that has to do with it, uh, but the, because the gut is so complex we don't know what's going on inside, because we can't see into our gut unless you're getting a colonoscopy, which I don't think anyone wants to do. But, uh, there are some really great gut tests available where you're measuring the stool, checking different levels of bacteria, the good, the healthy bacteria, versus the less healthy bacteria that tends to just over, overwhelm and overtake the good bacteria. Checking if you have any parasites, checking that those inflammatory markers that are in your body, and all those can be brought down with the, with specific protocols based on the individual. So that's the work that I do. Um, in the meantime and for some people it's, it's a problem, but not necessarily a priority problem especially with your population group, you with new babies and everything it's gonna. It's, it's uh, you know, our our self-care may fall by the wayside for a little bit. So there are certainly a lot of steps to be done in the meantime. So something like taking ginger root and turmeric are very anti-inflammatory foods. Taking ginger root and turmeric are very anti-inflammatory foods and and those two foods can can be great to take on a daily basis, because there's lots of studies showing the benefit of them for decreasing pain, for bringing down, for preventing nausea, for bringing down inflammation. And having a teaspoon of ginger root every day can be very helpful to just ward off the headaches and then, when you do get a headache, putting some ginger under the tongue. The ginger under the tongue is absorbed through the capillaries under the tongue and that way it avoids the digestive tract, because what's often happening is that our digestive tract it just isn't absorbing nutrients. That causes a whole cycle of of inflammation. Uh, so that's one thing that that people can start with, and and also just increasing vegetable intake overall is extremely beneficial.
Susanna:So always thinking half a plate of vegetables at your lunch and your dinner meal and trying to get some in that breakfast too, or at least some fruits. Berries are great anti-inflammatory foods. And another important thing to think about are seeds. So seeds have lots of magnesium and actually I'll talk about magnesium in a second. But seeds have magnesium and protein are something really great just to add on to, on. To say, you're having oatmeal in the morning, add some seeds on top. Or it's a great place to just throw on any food that you're eating. And I would say the last anti-inflammatory food to really focus on would be fatty fish, so salmon at least twice a week and that's really great for brain health. So those are some foods to include a lot more of with your population group.
Susanna:The key there is to really do what you can and have some easy sources on hand. So something like frozen broccoli is great to you. Just heat it up a bit in the microwave, put some salt on it and you can eat it straight like that. Or put some nutritional yeast is a great source of b vitamins and and uh, some other vegetables, just making sure you have some in the freezer so that you can always add in that for the vegetable intake. Often postpartum or we're low in hydration. So really being on top of your hydration, adding in smoothies to help with that hydration, but also getting berries in with the smoothies. Yogurt with the probiotics will really help, and even that can be a place to hide some vegetables too. So throw in some spinach or some canned pumpkin and there's some ways to get some vegetables in the breakfast too, and actually so. An interesting stat for your group is one in four women will experience migraine within it will experience a migraine attack within two weeks of delivery, and nearly half will have migraine attacks within the first month.
Susanna:So, this is a major, major issue is that you're stressed with the new baby.
Susanna:You've got so much going on, you're tracking so many things, you're not getting enough sleep, your hormones are all over the place, you're trying to figure out breastfeeding.
Susanna:There's so much going on, and yet that's when you're most likely to get a migraine attack too. So it's really important to communicate with those around you, communicate with your partner and say, hey, I really need this extra support right now and I'm going to need some extra sleep, and really cause we try to do it all right. We say, okay, well, I'm a new mom, I should be able to do everything. And we, we feel like we can do it all, and then we can't, so because you get hit by a migraine attack. So it's really important to think especially anyone who has had a migraine in the past means you're that much more likely to get one in that postpartum period and to really like be proactive on that, saying, okay, I'm going to reach out to friends and say I actually do want those meals that you said, oh, I can bring over a meal. And you say, oh, no, no, I'm doing fine.
Susanna:We want to show everyone that we're doing fine, right, but say like, yeah, yeah, I'd love that, and just you know, getting sleep in when you can, rather than saying, oh, I better clean the kitchen and I'll wait and sleep later. Just really be proactive on getting everything that you can. Sleep and stress are definitely two of the biggest triggers for a migraine attack. So, and then the hormones the drop in the estrogen levels especially will be, will be a big factor see, this is all.
Peter:it's all fascinating stuff, because I again and I'll link it back to those who knew I did an interview about the Chinese custom called sitting the month, and so you what's it?
Peter:called Sitting the month. Okay, so, so, yes, in Chinese I did an interview with GM with one thing, with the, who literally wrote the book on it Okay, they say that for the first month postpartum the mother is not supposed to do anything other than time with the baby. So that means people will move in the house and uh, but if that's family, then great. But otherwise you can. You can hire someone to basically spend a month living in your house taking care of everything that is cooking, that is washing and all that sort of stuff and all you do is focus on your baby right yeah, focus on your health, focus on your baby.
Peter:So you eat and you eat special foods again uh, very much linked to when you exactly what you're talking about. You're getting your vegetables in, you're getting your probiotics in. Uh, they drink a lot of bone broth sort of sort of stuff, because it's chock full of nutrients and all that sort of thing. It is all to help the body deal with the traumatic event that labor really is. And and I know that and my listeners will know that this is my feeling I'm not trying to piss anybody off by saying this but having a baby, the, the labor process is has been sold. The pregnancy and labor has been sold as it's all sunshine and unicorns, right, and that is really all. You give birth and it'll be amazing. You'll have this amazing child and everything will be wonderful from there on it. And people don't realize what's an incredibly uh, our frame is nice and they just say an incredibly difficult period for the human body. That really really is and, um, it is traumatic, it's uh, basically it's it's like a car crash. It is. It is huge the impact giving.
Susanna:Yeah, it felt like a car crash it is.
Peter:It is huge the impact giving felt like a car crash, yes, I'm sure. And and there is real if temporary, but maybe temporary, but there is real damage being done to the body in during that labor process that you need to recover from. And then, indeed, if you then add, uh, the hormonal changes and all that sort of stuff, then, and if you're breastfeeding, then obviously you have the prolactin and all that sort of stuff still coursing through your body as well. Your hormone levels are all over the shop and for everything to settle down takes time and if you don't add a lot of stress to it by, indeed, like what you're saying oh, the baby's asleep, I better put a load of washing on, or I better do this, I better cook and I better do xyz. Yeah, that, that bucket that you spoke about. The bucket's already close to overflowing just by having given birth yes, absolutely right.
Susanna:And then you add on anything, any other additional trigger and you're, you're, yeah, you're suffering, for sure there's. We have such expectation, especially in the western world, that we can just bounce back. And because you hear, you know, celebrities say, oh, the next day they're out socializing and stuff, and it's just not practical. But thinking of that month where and and it's multiple different cultures that do that where it's a whole month and they're not even supposed to leave the house, people can come visit them but they don't go anywhere. Even if you have an older toddler and stuff, they're not supposed to go to the park and it's really just rest time and having that support is really amazing. But uh, yeah, I think overall we, we think we won't need it.
Susanna:You know, you don't know what you're you don't know what you're getting into and it's only in hindsight. I look back I'm like, oh, I could have. I could have definitely asked for more support. I could have, you know, taken people up on the offer instead of pretending that you know I've got this figured out. Don't worry, I've read all the books. You know I'm set. But, yeah, having extra support is really beneficial.
Peter:Yeah, and, like you said, it's a good way to prevent that, that initial migraine that you were spoken about. And you say 25 of all women, uh, postpartum women have a migraine within the first month.
Susanna:Well, also that's you know, 50 within the first month.
Peter:Sorry, 50 within the first month, yeah, so so that's, that's yeah, and there's a lot of stuff, uh, and I obviously deal with a lot of like diastasis, recti and all that sort of stuff. Um, most postpartum things are not tremendously well covered by your health care providers, let me put it that way oh, I know, yes, and the reason for that is understandable and I always say it.
Peter:You know you can't go to a general practitioner who maybe sees 4,000 people a year but only sees five pregnant people a year and expect them to have the level of expertise that you need. It's just not going to happen. It's not their fault, it is just. That is just the way. It is Right. You need to deal with people that kind of know what they're talking about and, unfortunately, a lot of the research and the scientific research in postpartum stuff. We all know about medical bias, don't we? I mean, like what you were saying, 18% of women experience migraines, 8% of men. I'm betting almost every dollar that I've got that most of the migraine research has been done on men because men are much easier to study right, then they don't have to deal with the hormones.
Susanna:Hormones, that's often the fundamental and yeah, and just the conditions that are more, that are more female dominated conditions. Just don't get the research dollars either. That's the reality, unfortunately, is that no one's even looking into um methods of reversing something like migraine conditions, especially because the human body.
Peter:Like we were saying earlier, the human body is complex and we don't necessarily understand it all yet. And the female body, with all its fluctuating hormones, is significantly more complex than my middle-aged white guy body. That just has testosterone and it's declining, and by the time I'm 80 you know there's less of it. But the female body is all is all over the shop. So if I wanted to do medical research, I too would start on myself, simply because of that. Well, this guy will be easier to look at then than it would be, unfortunately, the doing.
Peter:That leads to solutions that might work for me but don't necessarily work for you, and that's where Advil and that's where the medication comes in. That isn't the standard migraine medication. Might well work on me, it might not, but it might well work on me. Let's say, the chances of it working on me is significantly higher than they are of them working on you. Yes, and therefore the solutions that we quite often have to implement to really heal these things, really fix them, like the holistic approach that you're talking to, are significantly it's almost they're, they're unbalanced compared to the solutions that I have to implement as a guy getting migraines I take a pill and I'm fine you take a pill, it does nothing.
Peter:You have to change your diet, you have to change your stress levels, you have to change your sleep pattern and all that sort of stuff. However, um, your solution is only real solution I?
Susanna:I'm of the opinion. Yes, because what's what's?
Susanna:I think the medical route is the first route to go to rule out that it's not something more serious, that there aren't any red flags and that your doctor can really determine that, and then maybe even get a medication to control those acute attacks. And then from there we need to be proactive with that next step, because a lot of people stop there. They say, ok, well, I've got something that when I have an attack I can take that and I'll feel fine. But things get worse, like it's a cycle. Then you may be getting more frequent attacks each month.
Susanna:I mean, the medication is really just covering it up, so it's a good first point solution, but then we need to be proactive and what can I do to reverse the condition and what can I do to get off that medication? Uh, is really important. So that's where food comes in, that's where nutrition comes in. And really working with someone who's a headache specialist, so because, as I said earlier, like a healthy diet is not the same thing as the headache free diet. And then, but there's also the stress aspect of things too, that's another route, ideally doing both at the same time. Not everyone has the funds to do both at the same time. So just choosing one or the other that you can kind of approach and target and really focus on because they're going that route can also be very effective. So getting lots of meditation there's restorative yoga that can be really helpful and getting that downtime and deep breathing. So, especially for the new mom, I think that step can be really effective as well yeah and and for uh, very mild there.
Peter:Of course, there's tons of youtube channels with who have perfectly decent guided meditations. You don't need to necessarily spend 10 pounds or 10 a month on headspace if you can't afford it. Alternatives are available.
Susanna:You just need to do a bit of a google search, um yeah, yeah, working it and and finding someone who can kind of hold you accountable, because we're so busy with new, like new babies, oh god, that we all have great, great intentions, right? Oh, okay, I'm gonna do restorative yoga next tomorrow and I mean life gets in the way, so. But really prioritizing some of these steps to to make sure and that's why food can be a really good approach too is that, you know, having ginger every day. That's something that you can just add in, can get some minced ginger to make it a bit easier, or even powdered ginger, or taking a ginger supplement. Oh, and I I said I was going to talk about magnesium.
Peter:Yeahium yeah.
Susanna:Yeah, magnesium is one of the supplements that the headache population is most deficient in, and especially when we're stressed we use up more magnesium. So magnesium is a pretty safe supplement to add in, because a lot of people are only getting 200 to 300 through food on average when I'm working with people, and so you want to boost that up to at least 600 per day. So adding a supplement can be really helpful. But you can also get magnesium through food. So some of the top sources are cooked spinach, so not raw spinach cause you end up eating a lot more of the cooked. Cooked spinach, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate and beans so especially pinto beans are all very high in magnesium. So choosing those foods at least one of those every day to get magnesium through food Nutrients are always better absorbed through food than a supplement and then topping that off with a supplement and now there's a gazillion different types of magnesium supplements out there, so you don't want to just like grab one off the shelf, but some to look for would be a magnesium citrate. If you if often postpartum we're dealing with some constipation or some poor bowel movements, a magnesium citrate would be great because it helps push things through and it's a well-absorbed magnesium. For anyone who's dealing with the opposite problem, then you want to stay away from magnesium citrate, and magnesium glycinate would be a better choice.
Susanna:Glycinate would be a better choice and that's also helpful for anyone who's dealing with some sleep issues and can't fall asleep Even when you are lying down trying to. Magnesium glycinate can help with sleep a little bit as well. And then there's a third type of magnesium magnesium taurate or threonate. So either of those cross the blood brain barrier and get into the neurons a lot easier. So if you're dealing with brain fog, a lot of fatigue, then taking some magnesium 3 and 8 or Tori in the mornings can really help with that. So it can be helpful to mix up the supplements too, but magnesium would be one to really focus on. There's a few nutrients that people with headache conditions are more likely to be deficient in, so magnesium is number one, coq10 is another one. B2, omega-3 so getting your fish twice a week is really important and vitamin d vitamin d is huge as well we're talking a lot of um.
Peter:There's a lot of people I know that are taking magnesium, taken for sleep trouble and all that sort of stuff already. Anyways, it is um, I, I personally, obviously it's exactly like what you said and what all the dietitians had on before before you. Uh, over the past few x amount of shows, um, they all say you know you take your food first but you always, always, always supplement, as in. I was always raised because I'm 47 and therefore I'm old.
Peter:Uh, I was always raised with the idea that vitamin supplements are colossal waste of time because if you have a healthy diet you don't need it um currently what they're saying is that, yeah, but because of soil depletion and all that sort of stuff, just take the vitamin supplement, just find the supplement, especially postpartum, because, as I've written about before, your baby and I'm sure you love your baby but your baby is a parasite. Your baby gets its nutrients from you. If you don't have enough, you will be the one that ends up depleted. The baby will find a way.
Peter:Breast milk is a phenomenal, phenomenal thing, but the supplements have to. The micron, micronutrients or vitamins and minerals that go into it have to come from somewhere, and they come from you. And this is why we find a lot of women who are breastfeeding and they don't. They look almost like they are and it's not like they are older than what they actually are, right as in uh. And that is not because they're not sleeping well or they're much more stressed. It's because they're lacking certain basic nutrients that even though their diet overall would be quite healthy, because you're feeding some someone else.
Susanna:So supplementation is actually, is actually quite, quite a big deal there yeah, I think something else to mention on top of that is, um well, one, if you're dealing with a chronic condition, then that you're trying to reverse the condition, so something like supplementation can really help you achieve those goals. But in addition to that, I would say, to make sure that we're eating enough. It's time and time again when I'm working with women they're not eating enough, and that's most of the time. It's not a postpartum mom that I'm working with and women just are notorious for under eating and thinking that they're eating enough. So, and then it's that much more intense postpartum is you. You need to eat another 500 calories for breastfeeding, and if you're not eating enough in the first place, you're just not getting enough nutrients through food.
Susanna:So, making sure that you're eating enough and like really going with hunger because, especially postpartum you're you're looking to return to your pre-baby weight and looking to lose weight, and then often we're just cutting calories too much. Um, and if you find you're having a lot of cravings, that's probably it's often a sign that you're just not eating enough overall. So making sure that you're getting bigger size meals, having that half a plate of vegetables, getting enough fiber and then having a couple of snacks in there to really help with the that, that act of producing the breast milk, all of that is is really important. But to get enough food and I highly doubt anyone wants to add tracking onto onto things but if you have any sense of what you ate before you, you need to bump that up a lot more. And in our society we're just notorious for not eating enough. So so don't look next to you know. Don't look to your friend and see what they're eating. Or or compare yourself and say I'm eating more than them.
Peter:You're probably still not eating enough for hormones, for hormone balancing oh for sure, and especially when it comes to, uh, postpartum, when you're like you said, if you're needing to consume an extra 500 calories a day, that's a significant amount of food. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, because it's roughly what's in a big mac meal or something like that, or. But when we're talking about eating relatively healthy, adding another 25 percent and, like you said, most women under eat, right, I know in in the uk, recommended daily calorie intake for the average woman is around about 2 000 calories a day. So even if you hit that and that is easier said than done if you uh, yeah, eating like an adult if you and by eating like an adult is exactly what you're saying I was always raised with that half your plate is vegetables and then there's a chunk of carbs and then there's a chunk of of protein on there, but, but the vegetables are the most important bit.
Peter:Eating another 25 percent of that is is is a solid amount of of of calories to consume. It's a solid amount of food. So it's much easier said than done and it's like exactly because if you don't add exercise into it or you add lack of sleep onto it. Um, because, as you know, dr uh prologo, who I had on a while ago, who was like a weight management sort of uh specialist. Um, not weight loss, weight management. There is a difference. Um, as he was saying, the body doesn't know necessarily why you are stressed and lack of food increases your stress levels yes, it's contributing right.
Peter:So you have to make sure eating a sufficient amount, especially getting getting your micronutrients in. Just make sure that, yeah, just, it doesn't all have to be salad. If you need to top up with 300 calories of something other, have a glass of milk or something like that, if you can stomach milk I know some people can't, but I'm dutch and therefore we were raised on this um, so, have a glass of milk and you'll find you're almost there. It's not difficult to do that way, but it's difficult to do with salad. So don't start thinking that, yes, a better shove, another. Well, what is it?
Susanna:five pannards of strawberries is also around about 300 calories or something, I think I mean that, that's it'd be hard to get your your additional 500 calories that way.
Peter:Yeah exactly so. So don't go overboard with the, with the clean eating is. Is is trying trying to say Getting your calories really really matters, especially postpartum.
Susanna:Yeah, for sure, because, yeah, I mean, a breakfast meal is usually in the 400-calorie range, so it's almost like having another. You know, it's usually another breakfast or two healthy snacks and balancing that out as much as possible Cool.
Peter:So because we've covered a tremendous amount, I take it, not you, because it is the modern world, I take it. You do online consultations and all that sort of fun stuff as well.
Susanna:Yes, I work virtually with clients and it's a three-month program, one-on-one, to really build uh build an action plan and put it into place and and troubleshoot from there.
Peter:So it's more than just nutrition, but nutrition is certainly the focus yeah, of course, because it's, um, everyone, as I keep pointing out on the podcast, everybody's an individual and everybody's fundamentally, their background is different, their diets are different, their lifestyles are different and therefore everybody has different, a different road to get from a to b. Let me put it that way.
Peter:I always point out you know if, um, if I want to get to new york but I'm leaving from glasgow or I'm leaving from london, I'm on a different flight, the the end result is the same. The end result in this particular case being, you know, not having the migraines and headaches and all that sort of stuff anymore. But the way you get there is much easier if you're being guided by someone who knows what they're doing, because it stops you making the mistakes that everybody, everybody else makes, trying to figure stuff out for themselves yeah, yeah, the worst.
Susanna:What I often see is like things just spiral into getting worse and then people ask for help. But it would be ideal if it's rate. You know, as soon as you get control, that's the best time to target nutrition, that's the best time to target gut health and repair and to get off that medication so that you don't have to deal with it again. But really everyone's at a different stage in their journey, so getting support anywhere along the way, wherever you're at is is, is key really, because, yeah, we can't know everything. So I'm going to someone who's been there and I'm I'm three years migraine free now. So I've gone through, gone through everything that others have have gone through and have been able to come out on that other side of being headache free awesome.
Peter:Well, on that happy note, I think that's a goal. Uh, I take it. People can just find you via headache nutritionistcom right yeah, yeah, headache nutritionistcom. Or on instagram same thing headache nutritionist, yeah cool, I'll obviously link to everything in the podcast description. Anyways, I'm not happy.
Susanna:That was anything else you wanted to touch on um, I'm sure there's a lot more, but I think we it's good not to overwhelm as well, exactly focused on a few key nutrition points and some supplementation in there and then some of the stats. So, yeah, that's it. That's a good overview awesome.
Peter:On that happy note, I'll press stop record here, and press stop record is exactly what I did. Thanks again to susanna for coming on. I thought it was a wonderful chat. Definitely check out her website at headache nutritionistcom and take that five minute quiz. She was talking about a quick apologies for the sound quality on my end there. I've no idea what happened. I've tidied it up as best I could, um, but I'm afraid this is the best I could do. Um, for some reason zoom was not working properly. Susanna's end took a bit of fixing and my end took a bit more fixing, and this is the best I could come up with. Anyways, let's check out the in the news this week. So actually the in the news this week Is from the 31st of May. I had this one bookmarked For a while, but it took me a little while To get over the study, to get into the study properly and all that BBC article Saying best exercise time May differ for men and women.
Peter:Study suggests and they go over saying exercise is good for you, no matter what. It found women burned more. According to this US study, it found women burned more body fat during morning exercise, whereas evenings counted more for men. So does it really matter? Evenings counted more for men, so does it really matter? So they say, and based on the results, this is what the BBC is saying. Based on the results, women interested in reducing fat around their middle and reducing their blood pressure should aim to exercise in the morning. Is what Dr Arciero, the author of the study, says. He says women trying to improve muscle strength in the upper body, as well as their overall mood and food intake, should take evening exercise. The men in the trial were less sensitive to the time of day they exercised, improving their strength in the morning and the evenings, but evening exercise was found to be ideal for men interested in improving heart and metabolic health, as well as emotional well-being. And then they say it's not clear exactly why women and men's responses to the timing of exercise were so different.
Peter:Now then we look at the study itself, which was published in Frontiers in Physiology Because that's what I do, right, that's what I do for this bit. We'll look behind the news and see what the thing is. So we find that only 30 exercise-trained women and 26 men were used for this study, so it's a small group. So we already have a little bit of an issue with this study here 27 women, 20 men completed the 12-week intervention, so there's only a 12. The study only lasted 12 weeks, which is completely fine. Um, then they come to some conclusions saying that morning exercise reduced abdominal fat and blood pressure and evening exercise enhanced muscular performance in the women, in the men increased fat oxidation and reduced systolic blood pressure and fatigue in the afternoon exercises.
Peter:Therefore, the time of day exercise may be important to optimize individual exercise-induced health and performance outcomes in physically active individuals and may be independent of macronutrient intake, and that's clearly what the BVC copied. Now there's a couple of issues here. Now, of course, we already know that, and the study offers acknowledges, to be fair, that aerobic training, so cardiovascular training and performance, is much less affected by the time of day that you exercise. Resistance training has a clear trend towards more benefits when you do it in the afternoon and evening. Right, we know this from bodybuilders, female as well as male bodybuilders. We know this from bodybuilders, female as well as male bodybuilders. This is kind of why, even if they don't know it, this is why bodybuilders do their cardio in the morning and their heavy lifting in the afternoon and evening. It's just the body responds better. Now think that might be because you're sufficiently awake and all that. So your core temperature is higher and all that sort of stuff. We're not quite sure there's a lot of um, obviously it's very complex as to how the body functions but that's one of the reasons we think might be hormonal response, inflammatory response and all that sort of stuff is different in the evening than it is in the morning. Now in this study, if you read the fine print, they say we report women performing multimodal RISE training. So that's resistance, strength, endurance and all and stretching and all that sort of stuff.
Peter:Training. The protocol that they used drastically reduced total and regional body fat and increased percentage of fat-free mass, regardless of the time of day. So basically they're saying all the people we had really benefited from training every day for 12 weeks, from training every day for 12 weeks. Now the interesting thing here is the following sentence Most compelling women who exercise in the am experience significantly greater reductions in total fat mass and percentage of abdominal fat mass than those exercising in the pm. Perhaps that's the next line. Perhaps overnight fasting, as suggested previously, to increase the relative utilization of fat during aerobic and resistance exercise, repeated over time, may result in greater adaptation and loss of adipose tissue mass, and that's an interesting line because this implies we now need to look at the food. And this is essentially where the study all kind of falls apart a little bit as to whether you should take it seriously. The study itself is fine. It's a small study, so we're not taking it that seriously. Anyway, some more research needs to be done, as the authors will no doubt agree with, basically, what they did with food.
Peter:In short, briefly, women and men participants in both groups were provided meal plans designed by a registered dietitian and instructed to follow the meal plans throughout the 12-week intervention. The registered dietician met with participants weekly for the first two weeks and thereafter, as needed, participants followed a healthy meal plan providing adequate protein 1 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight. Both AM and PM groups were provided equivalent nutritional support as well as total energy and macronutrient distributions through the 12-week intervention. Yeah, what's a healthy meal plan, right? That is the first question. There's no link to what the meal plans for each individual were, so we can't really say anything about that. We also don't know, but we can deduce that the meal plan everyone was in a calorific deficit simply because the amount of fat loss. But they don't say what the calorific deficit was, what the macro breakdown was, you know.
Peter:But if they specify providing adequate protein one to two grams per kilogram of body weight then that almost implies you put them on a calorie-restricted, high-protein, low-carb diet. Right? That is the natural conclusion to take from this, especially, like I said, there's only thing you can do because they didn't specify it. But that's then where the results came from. Over 12 weeks, you gave them enough protein and you lowered their carb intake and then you told them to do resistance training and cardiovascular training and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, they're going to lose fat and they're going to gain muscle mass because they train every day and this is how you told them to eat. So, regardless of the training you do them, that is always going to be the result you get. Right, which is consistent with what they said earlier, where they said everyone is getting good results, right, not just people exercising in the evening. But we really need to see that diet plan that's, otherwise we cannot take this, this, this conclusion, that seriously at all.
Peter:Right, timing of meals was an important component of the current study. Right on resistance and interval training. So the rni in the rice protocol, exercise training. Exercise training days, participants consume the small snack 250 to 300 calories an hour prior to exercise, and on stretching and endurance days they arrive fasted. For the AM group and this is important this really matters. For the early morning exercise group, that means fasted overnight and for pm, fasted for four hours before exercise.
Peter:But that's a completely different beast. That is not the same at all. If you have fasted overnight, so since I don't know eight, nine o'clock in the evening, is that reasonable? If you don't do intermittent fasting, then your body is in that fasted state as you exercise. If you've just not eaten for four hours, your body isn't in a fasted state. That is just not how it works. You cannot do this. So yeah, I don't know it's exhausting. I know why they did it because there's no other way to control it. Otherwise you have to tell these people to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning and have a snack. But if you've had a meal at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you train at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, or you had a meal at 7 o'clock the night before, you exercise at 6 am the following morning, that's a completely different, different beast that we're talking about here. So of course that early morning group is going to lose more fat. You've put them on on the, especially on the strength, stretching and enduring days. You've told them to do so. You've created that condition to do so.
Peter:Participants in the AM exercise consumed breakfast after the exercise routine. So they exercised in a fasted state and the remaining meals were consumed at approximately four-hour intervals throughout the remainder of the day. For PM exercise participants, starting with breakfast at every four hours, three meals were consumed prior to the exercise routines, with the fourth meal consumed within an hour of finishing their evening exercise. So their last meal for the evening exercise group was an hour after they trained, but they had three meals before they exercised. So on one hand, you have a group of people that have three meals before exercise and on the other hand you have a group of people that have no meals before exercise. And then you tell people yeah, you're better off doing stuff for fat loss in the morning. Now it doesn't matter, you can do weights in the morning if you want. I mean, like I said, we know doing weights in the evening is more beneficial because of various other reasons, but it's nothing to do with timing.
Peter:It's a really weird study. It's a really weird way to set up the thing and I kind of get why they had to do it this way. But considering it's a really small study so a total of 56 people, 47 who actually completed it You've messed with their diet. You can't tell us, or you don't tell us, what the healthy meal plan is, whether they're macronutrients, uh, what their breakdown was, what their calorie intake was for, uh, for that 12-week period, and then you've messed around as I hit the mic, apologies. Uh, you've messed around with their meal timings to such an extent that people exercise in the morning haven't had a meal for the best part of 10 hours before they exercise, and the other group hasn't had a meal for four hours, and then you ignore that, that fact. That's a bit exhausting. I can't take it seriously. More research needs to be done, is what they always say, and it's an interesting thing.
Peter:But at the end of the day, whether you apply this to you, as in you, the listener, whether you apply this to yourself, should you take this seriously when planning your training, as in, if you want, uh, should you do your cardio in the morning and um, so you only exercise in the morning as a woman, or should you just do it whenever you can? Just do it whenever you can, but the rest is all horseshit. Pardon my French, it really is. You train when you can. Like I said, if you're training as a bodybuilder, you do your cardio in the morning and your resistance training in the evening. I'm betting almost any money that is much more important than whether you do all your training in the morning or evening, whether you're male or female.
Peter:Diet matters, and we know there's benefits to fasted exercise in the morning. So there's benefits to fasted exercise in the morning, cardio exercise in the morning and then, nicely fed, nicely warmed up, resistance training in the evening. If you are a married couple, then you don't need to say, oh, my wife needs to train in the morning, I need to go in the evening, because that's what the BBC article says or that's what this study says. It is nowhere near robust enough to take this seriously. Yet Right, I'll be nice, I can be a little bit black and white in these things. The study isn't terrible or anything like that. It's just not something that the BBC needs to pick up on. I mean, they have filler, and the BBC journalist that wrote this, just read the summary, ignored the rest and for some reason decided to take it seriously, like I said, you shouldn't.
Peter:Anyways, that's the podcast done for another week, because you know I'm running over the hour now. You have a tremendous week. I should have another interview next week. Again, apologies for the sound quality of the thing. I tried to fix it as best I could. Um, and from now on it shall be better, unless zoom tries to mess with me again. Have a tremendous week, peter. At healthy postnatalbodycom, if you have any questions or comments, just send me an email. Right, thanks very much and see you later. Bye now. Bye now.
Susanna:I'm sinking into you, just like I've always been. Will I ever reach Anywhere anywhere? I don't belong to you. We're only destined. Swimming in the blue, going somewhere. I'm looking down from the radio tower and I see your house. We'll talk for hours. I don't know. Our hearts are gold. I'm sinking into old emotions. Cut me loose. Show me a point of view.
Susanna:Anywhere anywhere, I found a light in you. I think it's something true. You could eclipse the moon. I'm looking out for me to shower and I'm freaking out Cause I want more hours. All I know Is don't let go. All I know Our hearts are gold. Hold your hand. Hold your hand up For all that I've got now. Hold your hand, hold your hand up, cause I'm sinking down, down. Hold you for what you are. We're made of shooting stars Burning up with me Bye. I'm sick of this. I don't know what it's all about. It's the life of the world. I don't know what it's all about. It's the life of the world. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh.