Becoming a mother is a transformative journey that brings about numerous changes, both emotionally and physically. As a mom, your well-being is crucial not only for your own sake but also for the health and happiness of your family. Targeted functional nutrition for moms offers a holistic approach to nourishing your body and mind, supporting you on this incredible journey of motherhood.
Understanding Functional Nutrition for Moms
Functional nutrition goes beyond the traditional focus on individual nutrients; it looks at the body as a whole, considering the interconnectedness of various systems. The goal is to optimize health by addressing the root causes of imbalances and promoting overall well-being. True, transformative, functional support for moms is not just testing and supplement protocols. It is whole person healing, body, mind, and spirit.
REVIVE: Tailoring Nutrition to Motherhood
Motherhood comes with its unique set of challenges and demands. It’s easy for moms to not prioritize their own nutrition because they’re focused on their children and family first. Functional nutrition for moms starts with self-care. But self-care is not just bubble baths and manicures without someone climbing on you or crying for you. Self-care is giving yourself the nourishment and resources your body needs to feel your best every single day.
This means sitting down to a meal instead of shoving leftovers from kids plates into your mouth as you stand over the sink. This means also packing yourself water and a snack when you pack your kids up for an outing. This means allowing yourself to rest during nap time instead of catching up on your to-do list. This means putting yourself to sleep on time instead of staying up late to have some peace and quiet after the kids go to bed.
These things matter because your bodies need to have enough nourishment and resources to feel safe enough to function properly. As a mom, you cannot keep asking more of yourself as you pour everything you have into your kids, without also giving yourself the fuel it needs to actually give out of yourself well. You must also fill your own cup. You matter just as much as your children do.
Reviving the soil means to give it the nutrients it needs before anything is planted so that things can grow. This is what you need to start with as a mom when it comes to taking care of yourself.
CULTIVATE: Gut Health for Moms
The gut plays a vital role in functional nutrition for moms, influencing overall health, influencing digestion, immune function, and even mental well-being. After you give your bodies the nourishment it needs, you need to make sure that your bodies can digest, break down, and absorb the nutrients out of the food you give it. If there is a break down in any part of the digestive process, from the brain gut connection, to chewing and swallowing, to stomach acid production to physically break things down in the small intestine, to removing waste effectively through the colon, you will see a cascade of problems in the rest of the body.
Gut health is more than probiotics. A probiotic will often only band-aid a deeper issue, not solve it. And just as you don’t want to be on prescription medications forever, you also don’t want to be on functional nutrition supplements forever either. Probiotics can be effective for specific, targeted interventions for a short time frame. But lasting gut health relies on enough nutrition, blood sugar balance, meal hygiene, and nervous system support. This is where functional nutrition for moms truly shines.
Cultivating new growth means tending to the soil and preparing for new growth. It’s nurturing what you want to grow. The gut microbiome is the body’s physical source of growth, whether it’s beneficial bacteria that strengthens the immune system, supports hormone regulation, and leads to a flourishing mind or it’s an overgrowth of pathogens from weakened defenses and inadequate resources. This is where you identify the physical root causes of symptoms and ailments and work to repair and strengthen the body.
FLOURISH: Managing Stress through Nutrition
Motherhood often brings about stress, and functional nutrition for moms acknowledges the connection between what you eat and your stress levels.
Once the body has enough nourishment and support to have the energy and resources to strengthen itself physically, it’s time to flourish in mind and spirit.
Stress management is more than eliminating stressors. Life is going to come with stress. You WANT stressors – they can be beneficial and continue to strengthen our body, mind, and spirit. But you want a resilient nervous system that can handle these stressors and then recover well.
Your mind and emotions, how you think about situations and the way you view them determines how you react to the stressor and how well your body will be able to respond.
The status of your gut also affects your ability to think clearly and have a more growth oriented mindset toward the situations you find ourselves in.
Stress also directly affects your thyroid and metabolism. When the body feels threatened or unsafe, it diverts resources from digestion and energy production to fighting off that threat. This is why you need enough nourishment and a healthy gut so that you can physically handle stressful situations without long term effects on your body.
Flourishing in the garden is growth as a result of a favorable environment. When you have a resilient mind and nervous system, you can more easily adapt and handle what comes at you because you have built an environment that is supportive of your healing and growth.
BLOOM: Balancing Hormones Naturally
Pregnancy and postpartum bring significant hormonal changes. Functional nutrition for moms emphasizes balancing hormones naturally through targeted nutrient support, optimizing gut health, and managing stress levels so that hormone levels can shift appropriately through the month with minimal symptoms and life disruption.
Your periods should not be painful. PMS is not just a part of life. Mom rage doesn’t have to be a think we suffer through. It is possible to regulate hormones in such a way that they work with our lives and not derail them.
Bloom in terms of nature means a season of rapid growth. This is where you see the fruit of all of your work. Where you mature into your potential and thrive in your motherhood because you have given yourself the resources and nourishment it needs to not just grow but blossom.
You run and chase our kids with ease. You feel comfortable and confident in your own skin. You think about the future and what goals you might actually be able to achieve and make a plan to chase them. You train for marathons and lift heavy weights and build relationships and set new achievements at work.
This is fueling your best life with the help of whole person functional nutrition for moms.
Functional nutrition for moms provides a comprehensive approach to nourishing motherhood, recognizing the unique needs and challenges that come with motherhood. By embracing enough nourishment, strengthening the gut and nervous system, and regulating hormone levels, moms can support their physical and mental well-being, foster a healthy and happy family life, and chase their big, secret, scary life goals that always felt too much before. Remember, taking care of yourself is an essential part of being not just the best mom you can be but the best self you can be.
Further Resources for Functional Nutrition for Moms
- What happens to your body when you skip breakfast
- Cardio & Weight Loss for Moms
- Fuel Your Best Life with Whole Person Functional Nutrition
- Empowered Nourishment: A Guide to Women’s Nutrition
Want help working on each of the pillars so you can get closer to reaching your health and fitness goals? These are the exact foundations covered in Fuel Your Best Life. This program includes personalized testing and education to get you the answers and results you’re after. Learn more and register HERE.
