Nutritional Revolution Podcast

SPECIAL SARAH STURM MINI-SERIES: PART 1 Fueling Through the First Trimester: Nutrition Tips for Nausea, Constipation, and Energy

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 17:39

Send us Fan Mail

What you're about to listen to is something a little different.

This is not a traditional episode — it's an edited recording of an actual one-on-one coaching check-in with my client, Sarah Sturm, a professional athlete who recently found out she was pregnant.

After getting the news, Sarah approached me with an idea: she wanted to document her experience navigating pregnancy as a competitive athlete in real time, and she wanted to share it. So over five sessions, we hit record.

With Sarah's full approval and participation, we've taken those check-ins and edited them down into a 5 part series of ~20-minute mini episodes so you can follow along with her journey as it actually unfolded — unscripted and unfiltered.

In this series, you'll hear us cover:

  • Nutrition adjustments during early pregnancy for an active athlete
  • Managing performance, energy, and body changes
  • The mental and emotional side of pregnancy as a competitor
  • Real-time problem solving between coach and client

Please note: some portions of the original recordings have been removed for time or privacy. What you're hearing is a curated but authentic look at what real coaching support looks like during one of the most significant transitions an athlete can go through.

Thank you to Sarah for her openness and trust in sharing this with our community. 🤍

In Episode 1 we dive into:

  • The surprising role of blood sugar in managing nausea and fatigue
  • Practical tips for balancing carbs, proteins, and fats to keep energy steady
  • How to use simple, shelf-stable snacks to combat cravings and support growth
  • The key nutrients your body prioritizes during pregnancy — and how to optimize them
  • Why managing body perception and mental health matters just as much as nutrition

Please note that this podcast is created strictly for educational purposes and should never be used for medical diagnosis or treatment.

Mentioned:

MORE NR

CONNECT 

TRUSTED RESOURCES 

Hello everybody and welcome back to our mini series with Sarah Sturm during her first trimester of pregnancy. This is episode two of five and today we are diving into the mental and emotional side of first trimester body changes as an athlete and we get into how it can feel when you see your body changing quickly, where early pregnancy weight gain is actually coming from, whether calorie intake needs to shift in the first trimester and how hydration needs may change as well. If pregnancy has brought up body image challenges or questions around feeling, this is a really important conversation. are you feeling? last time we checked in, you had your ultrasound after our check in. Everything. yes, Well, everything that we know is great. So we know that the baby has a heartbeat and it was crazy to like see that on a screen. Cause to this point, it's just sort of felt like a little alien invader and not so much like a baby. Well, it wasn't a baby, it was like an embryo. And now I think today I'm at 11 weeks. So it's officially a fetus, I would say my my nausea, and tiredness is more stretched out. So I'll have a few more good days than bad. But yeah, I've been trying my best to update training peaks and I was doing a really good job in chronometer but honestly like my diet has not been fabulous. It's basically just been carbs and That's all that sounds good these days. I'm trying to get as much protein as possible, but It's a lot of pasta and a lot of toast. I mean a lot of sourdough toast. I mainly it's been like those Goodles Do you know that brand? They're like, it's like Chickpea. Well, I did take your advice and I'm trying to do more Chickpea pasta. So that's been helpful. But yeah, they're basically easy mac and cheese, but they're Chickpea. Yes. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. And it should have a good amount of fiber too to help with like any constipation. yeah, totally. And I tried, I tried the prunes. um And actually, I am less constipated, for sure, which is nice. this is maybe TMI, but I had, eating beets is helpful to see how slow your digestion is. Because I'm like, my god, three days later and my poop is still pink. Because normally it's the next day and, but Yeah, my digestion just really, it's because of the relaxin that is in the hormones. So it just relaxes everything and pretty much all the issues that you have as a pregnant person is hormones. And this HCG hormone when you're in your first trimester is just so savage. Yeah. Yeah. gosh. So you're saying if you have beets they're not exiting your system until about three days later. Yeah. that's weird. yeah. but I would say everything is like actually kind of tapering off in terms of the the bad, the, you know, that sort of stuff. I now I can like poop once a day, which is nice. ah Yeah, the small wins. um But Yeah, my ride, it's hard to say because it's just been crappy weather here. And then when you feel shitty and it's crappy weather, you're like, I don't really need to go ride. So. Okay. I saw, was it last week you got in some runs, some strength sessions? That's great. All right. I'm trying, like, I'm just doing my best here with what I've got, but yeah, it's hard. I got some genetic I had some blood work, but they see me at my doctor's office, and so they make you stand on the scale, and I was like, I don't wanna know, and they're like, totally understand. And then they like, had me get on the scale and then they'd have you look over your information to make sure it's all correct. But then my weight was on there and I saw it and I was like, my God, full disclosure, super fucking hard. And I don't feel huge, I totally, I have more boobs than I've ever had in my life. And I have hips. Mm-hmm. hips and like that I was not expecting. Like my hips grew. But to be fair, I didn't have very much hip action before. But it's just hard. my body is totally changing. And as someone who works pretty hard to keep everything really consistent. that that is part of the process. I mean, when you're talking about the digestion and bowel movement frequency, if food is staying in you for two days longer, there's that much more volume to going through the digestive tract that's still in the body. working its its way through. But yeah, I think the hips well, the hip bones literally have to move and it is a fascinating thing. I do remember way back from my undergrad, they talked about body composition but when the bodies change, which is yes, obviously when you're pregnant, the body changes, from a survival mechanism and a fat cell production, there's two points in a woman's life. where the number of fat cells in the body changes and it's puberty and pregnancy. And so your body will, because of the hormones and again, survival for the baby and making sure you're making breast milk and have enough fat stores to make breast milk to feed the baby, there are these times where the body will potentially alter the, I mean, you're seeing the hips and stuff maybe, mean, the bones themselves are moving. likely, also like the adipose tissue around the body is doing that for survival mechanism to make sure there's enough stores for the baby. yeah, that's so crazy. And then I'm just so curious, what goes back afterwards? are you permanently changed or do things go back-ish to normal? yeah, everybody is different. You absolutely can go back to quote unquote normal. with regards to adipose changes, you're born with so many fat cells on your body when you're born. And those fat cells can only max out to a certain size. I should say there's one caveat to what I just said, which was puberty and pregnancy. But if we max out all our existing fat cells, then that sends a signal to the body that needs to create more fat cells to accommodate more of the body fat. And so once we have that many fat cells, usually the fat cells themselves don't go away, but they all can shrink back down in size. And the breastfeeding process, I have a couple clients right now that are actually post-pregnancy breastfeeding and And we're in this balance of making sure we're giving them enough nutrition, but they want to move back to a healthy body weight and all that stuff while they're starting to add in movement, but make sure that the breast milk supply is still present. so yeah, because are they limiting caloric intake? We are moving in a little bit and so they're just keeping me looped in on their individual. Like I had one of them was, one of them we were working through and we had her like in the basically maintenance for breastfeeding. So that's an increased demand on top of your maintenance and then we have to allocate for movement. Like when you're initially in the first several weeks, right? It was like. a lot of water your uterus is shrinking back down in size there's all these other things that maybe aren't even necessarily body fat your body is em of it actually isn't body fat is what I've learned. Like lot of it's like blood volume and milk and breast tissue and the baby and yeah, amniotic fluid is a ton of weight. Yeah. It's really amazing. yeah, it's not a lot of body fat. So we feel these things. But yeah, you're like, think there's some stat I remember hearing about like your blood volume, think it doubles or triples or something like that. And I mean, that's in and of itself is wild. And you're just producing all those more red blood cells and your body's busy, busy usually like in the first trimester, we say there's not necessarily an increased energy demand to come in necessarily because the amount of energy being expended isn't that great. But then once we get into the second and third trimester, yes, then we want to start pumping up and you're pretty much there, right? So we want to think about that. totally. If you are feeling like super fatigued and they should already be testing this, but certainly as an endurance athlete, really do make sure they're monitoring your iron levels because that's one of the big things. I mean, they do watch for like anemia during pregnancy and then because your body's trying to make so much more blood, but if it gets behind, that's when we can experience that. certainly yes, there's like a normal amount of fatigue that you will feel going through pregnancy. But if it's pretty extreme or certainly you feel like more difficulty, breathing, it's like, I really am huffing and puffing trying to do this workout. That could be an iron thing. um I would say I noticed mostly my breathing. Mm hmm. Yeah. usually the heart has to work harder if there's not enough iron. So it has to pump the heart more because there's not enough oxygen on the red blood cell molecules because there's not enough red blood cell molecules to carry enough oxygen. So has to work harder. Or if we are dehydrated, we will see more I need for some air right? think the last couple weeks I've been pretty bad. It's weird, water does not sound very good. And adding drink mix in has not been hitting either. especially when I'm nauseous, the last thing I want to do is drink water. So I think I am a bit dehydrated for sure. And we're trying to add in some more red meat this week for sure. cause I... I was wondering about that, and I don't eat, normally I don't eat a ton of red meat, we're sort of making the exception with pregnancy. How do people do this, when they're vegan? Because my friend has had two children and she's strict, has been vegan her whole life. Yeah, you definitely have to be really on it, like even more so dialed, right? Because there's just essentially more opportunities to miss micronutrients because we're restricting entire food groups. So yeah, probably a consistent multivitamin would be my guess. then you can get iron from plant-based sources. It's a different type of iron. They call it non-heme iron and it's not quite as bioavailable. like spinach has some iron. You can get some iron from chia seeds, things like that will have bits of iron. But the amount of iron in it, the amount that we can convert to actual heme iron that we utilize, the conversion is just so much smaller than taking straight heme iron from an animal based source and implementing it right into our body. Yeah. So yeah, you got to be a little bit more careful. my diet is pretty much in for breakfast, I'm either doing sourdough toast with peanut butter and bananas. And then yogurt, like a yogurt chia berry bowl, or um a smoothie with like a scoop of whey or whey isolate. and chia seeds and berries. So it's two of those three things. Like usually I do toast with one of those things. I just need to like start tracking again in chronometer. Because it is actually helpful for me too to see which nutrients I'm missing. That's Yeah, I love that. think, yeah, if we can get a couple days of journaling and just open our eyes to maybe where we might be missing the mark and then kind of try and implement that if you are doing smoothies, I would say try and throw a handful of a leafy green in there if it's at all appealing. So that could be pre-cut up rinsed kale. It could be spinach. Any of those are easy, just a handful. And again, that'll give you some sources of iron, but it's also rich in calcium, which is one of the big things we want to make sure we're also supporting the bone health. So I would give that a go too with that. But yeah, the breakfast sound good. There's, you know, healthy fats, proteins, carbs, like love that. Yeah, pretty much just like, try to snack all day because I notice that I feel better if I do just like small snacky meals throughout the day. And it's sort of like some combination of cottage cheese with crackers or real cheese. And there actually has been quite a few pizza nights. I've been hitting the pizza extra hard at night. it's weird. I would say some days I get like really bad morning sickness and really bad evening sickness. shoot. it's so annoying. yeah, so like last night we just had the Goodles the mac and cheese for dinner. Cause I was like the thought of a steak last night, I couldn't do it. I know the weight gain thing is going to be tough. oh, I wanted to ask you about this. Cause like that, that sticker shock of seeing my weight, And I'm just curious if it's more common for athletes to gain more in their first trimester and then carry that through the pregnancy Yeah, so usually what we see is people who are leaner, um starting their like when they get pregnant, gain, and it's safe to gain more weight than someone who starts off and maybe they're 40 % body fat or something like that. Then the weight that they gain throughout the pregnancy actually should be from a health lens should be much lower. So we do actually see that like that there is typically a little bit more gain and total gain. Great. Yeah. Because when you think of composition of the population of the world, right? you're starting out way more lean than like gen pop, like getting pregnant, right? And so with that being said, a lot of the science recommendations are not. from athletes and athlete body composition. They're from gen pop and these individuals are already starting out in a much higher body fat percentage. I think a lot of it has to do again, kind of like with the like primal state of it is like the body probably wants to be at a comfort level with fat stores to be able to supply breast milk and energy source to be able to make breast milk for the baby. So there's a survival, the higher survival rate, right. And so we don't want to go into postpartum and not be able to produce breast milk. I mean, depending on your personal preference, of course, but like from a primal lens, like we, the body is like designed to do that. And if we are too lean, kind of the same thing with like relative energy deficiency in sport, right? If we're too lean, we're not having a menstrual cycle. we're too lean, we might not be able to make breast milk. We might not be able to make a healthy baby or be able to provide those nutrients. is to, and I want to be so clear, I very much understand, like there's a greater good here, but I'm going to be real. Like it's a really hard part of pregnancy for, think most women in general, but certainly athletes. Cause you know, we're like, my mentality has had to totally shift in the last three months. You know, I went from. the full opposite end of the spectrum of highly, highly regimented, performance based nutrition only. And this is a different type of performance, but there are just some days that you don't even feel in control of your body. But I still know that I need to get nutrition in because one, I feel really terrible if I don't. And two, I know I'm growing, you know, a baby. So, but it's really hard. It's hard to find the balance. So trying to do it healthily where I feel better. what I will say is any weight that comes on and from a composition lens, like it's for the health of the baby and from an athlete lens, once the postpartum all of that stuff, it can all be from a diet and a movement, like it can all go back to like. I'm, I'm like, okay, long game here is healthy pregnancy, healthy baby, healthy breastfeeding, you know, if everything goes well, that healthy delivery. Those are my goals. And I know that it's like, nine or 10 months really is a very short blip in time in the long in the long run, but Yeah, you start getting in your head and you're like, my God, all I'm craving is the cheesy Texas taco from Sirius Texas. And I've done zero activity today, but you're like, I guess this is the time that I do that? Yes. Yeah. I mean, from what you're eating and what you're craving, it does sound like to me, there's a lot of things that are very high sodium. And so when we think about your body's trying to make so much more blood volume and it's to keep your blood volume up and keep water in the blood, we need sodium and we need glucose to keep that blood plasma volume elevated, right? If the body is craving these very salty things, it might be because it's trying to increase that blood volume and pull more water into the blood. so again, trying to stay on top of that hydration might help that a little bit. yeah, how many, how much should I be drinking a day? Do you feel like you're sweating much when you are training? Mm-mm. with get that little thing that you sent me. Yes. The sweat test? Awesome. So I have my sample in here. um So with this, this is monitoring hydration status and sodium loss on a longer term scale. So if you are doing a longer session, this is something we could use as a tool to see. It would be very interesting to use this now and then post pregnancy to see. since today is so cold out, I actually, and I'm not feeling like I'm gonna die. I was like, maybe I do a little trainer workout today. yeah. So there is a calibration test that I recommend you do first But um what it looks like it's like if you didn't open the box yet, it's just like little guy. um And this is the sensor on the back. And then they give you like this armband strap to where some athletes wear them on their heart rate monitor too, like along their back. they have different calculations based off of the sweat rate on different areas, like commonly of people's bodies. And then that's how they interpret. the calculation like based off how it's coming out. So what I will say is any data is good data And then we will note okay, you ran and it was 12 degrees. It's still helpful to know how much you might be losing. And oftentimes we actually are losing more than we realize when it's cold and we do have... uh quite a fluid demand actually in the dry, like at altitude environments. So yeah. So any data is good data. feel like at a minimum we would want to drink the minimum for non-pregnant is half your body weight in ounces. would be like the bare minimum. But if you're starting to sweat, we certainly want to be above that. And then with the amount of blood volume your body's trying to produce, probably want to be slightly above that. um And typically we say like with fluid goals for the day, it can account for any fluids. So if you're drinking a cup of decaf coffee, well, that counts as fluids. If you're having a tea, you put almond milk in your smoothie, that counts as at minimum you want to hit half of your body weight and then if you're doing any activity, then that obviously changes that. See, and that's what like is hard for me cause I'm like, yeah, some days I'm not active at all. But like today, like I went to weights this morning and I actually did sweat quite a bit. Um, so I'm like, okay, I need to drink half my body weight times two. So my body weight. would do, yeah. So the recommendation is half your body weight ounces per day minimum up to one ounce per pound of body weight per day. So that's can be a big range. And then you layer on fluid loss from exercise on top of that. um what I would do, like you can wear the H drop. The coolest thing about the H drop is that you can wear it as many times as you want in all the scenarios. battery lasts a long time. You don't need to have your phone right there. Like it works in low internet, like low wifi cell signal settings and then can upload it. Like you could wear it to strength. Yeah. And see, and it'll tell you like, it'll say like, you know, you lost 24 ounces of fluid, right? And so then, know, like, okay, I have my baseline. Then I'm going to consume an additional 24 ounces on top of that today, um, to stay hydrated. Of course, you can also always look at urine color and then, but in like how many times are you peeing? Um, do you feel like you're peeing a lot yet or? am. Yes, that was like, that was very apparent on my travels. Yeah. I mean, yeah, again, you're, can just imagine when I think about an athlete to prepping for a race, trying to do a hyper hydration protocol, there can be like a five pound gain just from water, water weight. and so I mean, your body's producing so much blood volume. And the fact that you're craving sodium, again, I think just says your body's really trying to keep that blood volume up. interesting. think you're so right. Like, I pretty much don't crave sweets at all. And it's pretty much just been salty. So I wonder, yeah, I wonder how much of that I just am needing. Like if it's trying to get my blood volume up, does that mean that I'm just dehydrated? It could mean that your blood volume is low and or your body's trying to build it up. So maybe it's like, this is what it is for Sarah normally, but Sarah pregnant, we got to quadruple this or whatever it is. ah But it'd be interesting to see your sweat sodium losses with the hDrop too. Cause if you're losing a lot more salt now too, then your body certainly needs to replace that. em So yeah, that would. you know, make sense and give you an idea of where we want to be with that. I seem to be doing just fine on getting sodium in my diet, like I haven't really been hitting electrolytes in my water. that something, like if I go on a ride, I'll do a bottle with electrolytes, but it's honestly been so cold that I am not drinking that much water on my rides. I just try to drink a lot before. Yeah, it sounds to me like your body's making up for any sodium that you're not getting on a ride by craving salty stuff. So you might not need it, and especially if the sessions are, you know, sub two hours and it's pretty cold and maybe the intensity is not super high, you likely don't need a whole lot of electrolytes in there. I hope to like start feeling better, more consistently. uh But I can't really tell like if, if like my activity level actually affects my fatigue the next day, or if it's just like hormonal, if that makes sense. hormones bouncing around. Yeah. And the different demands and stages of the pregnancy. mean, there's, yeah, the hormones are kind of like all over the place. it is an interesting area, right? Cause you think about hormones when you're having a natural menstrual cycle. And in most women, in that high hormone phase, the same workout that they could have done two weeks prior in their low hormone phase, the fatigue feels greater. Right. when the hormones are elevated. yeah. I would say the best way that I can explain first trimester is it is if you're hungover in your luteal phase for three months, that's what it feels like. Like a hungover luteal. Yeah, so anyone who's listening who wants to get pregnant, just think about that before you take your IUD out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the luteal phase itself already is you're all emotional and you're not sleeping great and yeah. Oh man. Like it's a different type of toughness that I saw someone talking about this. They're like you can't out discipline your pregnancy. I think that's really valid and so true and such a different mentality. than being an athlete, because we push through a lot, to a fault too, right? Some athletes, myself included, I struggle with you're not actually moving the needle if you're not rested and whatever, not recovered. You can't just suffer everything out. And certainly in pregnancy, you kind of just don't have control. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you don't, your body's changing, it's going. It's like the clock has started. Yeah. leaching calcium from my body if I don't eat enough of it, which I'm like, I think I have been because I do eat a lot of yogurt and cottage cheese and dairy. from the moment you find out you're pregnant and probably for a lot before that you feel different you are totally different. Your life is totally different day to day right now, even though nothing is happening. My life is totally totally different and I think for a lot, especially with athletes, there's a big identity piece that you are mourning and losing and it's changing. And I think if anyone tries to tell you, but it's so beautiful, it is, but it doesn't replace the fact that you are, and both parents, not just the mother, but you're sacrificing everything that you have been and are and have created to that point. for a new creation and a new project. It's just a massive change. in some ways I'm like, 10 months isn't enough time to like deal with that before. I'm sure so many of your clients can relate to this, but yeah, your life has always been focused so, so much on me and what's going on with my body and my performance. And especially with me and Dylan, it's how we earn our money. And now it's such a different focus all of a sudden. Yeah. um and you're like, everything's different and you don't even know. That moment. Yeah, that is wild. Yeah, it's a lot. That is a lot to process and change you're already doing great. Yes, exactly. nutrition is such a huge part because it is a thing that you actually, to a certain extent, you can control it. And I do think I think it's okay. I haven't really eaten fast food, but I have not been eating as healthy. So sometimes your cravings, you're just like, I need this one thing. And you just have to get the thing. But I would say like, It is nice to feel like you're getting the nutrients that your body needs, that the baby needs, and it's the thing that you can control, which is kind of nice, and setting yourself up. sure. all of this is going to result in a healthy, nutrient availability for the baby, all that good stuff. So yeah, yeah. And then so we'll do some journaling to see where we're at. I want to get a feel to like, how does that level of intake feel for you? Do you feel hungry? Are you really full? Are you feeling burpy? And then we can also dive into micronutrients, but we can kind of start to determine if we want to start increasing uh needs going into the second trimester or can we hold and wait till the third trimester? And then definitely send me the ferritin levels. So the ferritin, we'll to check on it for pregnancy, but I think it's the endocrinology society just changed the cutoff for the minimum of ferritin. So before I think the cutoff was, I want to say it was like 10 or 15, which is very low if you're an athlete. Like you are certainly having compromised performance if your ferritin is And so literature for endurance athletes will say ferritin minimum 60. So during pregnancy, and I think the cutoff just got changed to a minimum of 40 by the endocrinology society, believe. yeah, to go from 10 to 40, because we were realizing so many people were close to anemia or not feeling good, obviously when their levels were that low. So for an athlete and Let's see. Okay, so they're saying anything above 30, which I'd say anything about 40 because the levels just got changed. 70 to 100 for optimal range. All right, well, you take it easy, get those fluids in. Let me know if you have any questions about the H drop stuff. uh And then yeah, curious to hear how that all goes. Awesome. All right, bye, Sarah.

Head Shot

Kyla Channell, MS

Host