May 29, 2021 • 36 mins
An honest convo about the fear of weight gain, thin privilege, and things women think before, during, and while trying to get pregnant (including fertility treatment concerns).
Lisa shares the surprises she’s stumbled upon, and Amy and Lisa call out what you should NEVER say or DO to a pregnant woman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out out weigh everything that
I'm made dope, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and then will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with your hands in the air. She's some
love to the mood. I am there. Let's say good
day and did you and die out Hey outweigh fam
Amy and Lisa here and we have a treat for you.
It's just me and Lisa today. So it's been a
while since we've done just an episode Me and Lisa
(00:47):
the o g Outweigh Girls. We love having guests on,
but we also love just talking about things in our
life that are going on. And in case she didn't know,
or maybe you do know, or you missed it somehow,
but Lisa is with child, she's pregnant, and so we're
dedicating this episode into what Lisa has been experiencing and
(01:08):
you know, food and body type stuff that comes along
with being pregnant. So hey, Lisa, good to see your face.
So good to see your face, and will of course
just want to make mention that you know as I've
been pregnant and spent more time following different types of people,
and we've also become increasingly sensitive to the women out
(01:29):
there that are trying to conceive and having difficulty. So
if for whatever reason, this episode isn't for you right now,
we totally want you to respect what's healthy for you
as we dive into this conversation. We don't want anybody
to feel excluded or made to feel badly as we
talk about this topic. And or it might be something
(01:51):
if you feel like you can listen to it that
you'll have in your back pocket. With some of the
things that are being shared, you can lean into them
later if they come up for you. Or I'll be
sharing some stuff from my side of things, where I
spent many years trying to get pregnant and was never
able to, but I still had certain things pop into
my head about what would happen to my body when
(02:12):
I do get pregnant, and what am I going to
do to make sure that I stayed this size, or
like I already had a plan and I wasn't even pregnant,
or I feared certain fertility treatments that may cause me
to gain weight, and just kind of the thoughts that
were popping into my head that weren't necessarily where I
wanted my head space to be. Yeah, So I think
this episode will just really talk about the unspoken conversations
(02:36):
and fears and thoughts that women are truly having before
they get pregnant, as they're trying to get pregnant, during
fertility treatment, and once they are pregnant. Well, I'm sure
we'll have a follow up to this postpartum. I've seen
so many incredible conversations about postpartum and the journey and
the fourth trimester as they call it, and I'm really
(02:59):
glad these conversations are happening because that's kind of where
you stop caring about the woman. It becomes all about
the baby. But we need to make sure that we're
taking care of ourselves and not allowing a lot of
negative things to become normalized. So that's what we're exposing.
So let's start with you, Amy, and those fears that
you had around maybe fertility treatment or getting pregnant or both. Oh,
(03:21):
I feel like anytime I was at the doctor and
they were talking to me about what we could do
to increase my chances of getting pregnant, the first question
out of my mouth was is it going to make
me gain weight? I mean, it's like all I cared
about when I was trying to figure out a way
to you know, create life and carry it in my
stomach and then you know, grow our family. But yet
(03:45):
the first question I was asking, and maybe that wasn't
like the first thing I was saying out loud to
the doctor, but it was certainly the first question that
I had in my head. I'm sure I was disguising
my disordered thoughts for sure by throwing in some sort
of question that made me sound like a concerned mom
or a concerned person for my body. But then really
(04:05):
at the forefront of my mind was you know, you
hear these stories of oh, I've taken these shots and
I'm taking these pills and it's caused some hormonal changes
and I'm gaining weight, and so naturally that caused a
fear in me of like, oh, I don't know if
I'm gonna be able to do that now. Ultimately, we
decided pursuing fertility treatments beyond cloond, which is basically a
(04:27):
pill you can take that makes your eggs more attractive.
In Layman's terms, but we didn't take it any further
because we decided to pursue adoption and that wasn't because
of body stuff. It just more was the decision that
was going to be best for our family when we
looked at how much we were going to spend on
fertility and then what adoption looks like. And we did
have an interest in older children, and not everybody has
(04:50):
that laid on their heart, and we thought, well, if
we have that on our heart, then yeah, maybe we
don't need a newborn baby. We can take an older
children that need a home. Well, we did go the
domestic adoption route just to clarify we were going to
adopt a newborn domestic baby, but we were still trying
to get pregnant at the same time. And then we
just shifted gears completely. Two older children from Haiti and
(05:13):
now we're parents of two amazing children. And when they
got to America they were seven and ten, and yeah,
I was now a mother of two and they didn't
care about my weight one bit. But you had to
do rapid get your mom stuff together, to learn how
to best show up to almost teenagers to set a
(05:33):
positive example. You know, you're not just doing breastfeeding or formula,
you had to really like fix or begin to heal
your own relationship a lot more rapidly because of their age.
I think that they were a huge reason why I
did finally get on board, because I had been suffering
from eating disorder and disordered eating habits for years, years,
(05:56):
and I had tried all kinds of things. But it's
almost like I had to have the right people in
my life at the right time, and then the commitment
and the determination to really put in the work. But
I feel like, well, Lisa, you were one of the
right people at the right time, But I feel like
Stevenson and Stashier were the right people at the right
time too, because now I had this responsibility and I
(06:16):
could clearly see myself passing my disordered behaviors onto them,
and so I am thankful that I started to get
true healing a year into having them, so that I
didn't project more onto them. And my daughter she's old
enough to see the change. Like she was ten when
she got here, she's fourteen now, and she she knows
(06:37):
the how I was with food when she arrived, and
she knows how I am now, and trust me, she
much prefers the way I am now. They were motivation
to mature in this area and grow and try to
be better, and fertility for me was relatively easy, and
I had no idea what that was that journey was
going to look like. However, just going through it a
(06:59):
little bit allowed me to understand how stressful it is
when you have that one shot per month, which is
twelve times per year, and each time you're not getting pregnant.
The stress that begins to accumulate of is this working?
Is it me? Is it him? Is it us? Is it? What?
Is it? And then throw in okay, we have a
fertility treatment option, but it's going to involve hormones and
(07:23):
body changes. I just want everybody listening who's possibly in
that camp, who's having those same thoughts that you had
Amy is to recognize that you're not alone having those feelings,
and you're not a bad woman or one soon to
be one day mom or anything for really struggling with
will this change my body? And am I okay with that?
(07:44):
And it still doesn't come with the guarantee Even if
you're taking the shots and your body is changing and
you're doing all the right things that you are going
to get the outcome. So I feel like that could
just be really unsettling for a lot of women to say, Okay, well,
is this worth it for me without that guarantee even yeah,
I think some women may struggle with the fertility part,
(08:06):
but is it worth even Maybe you'll get pregnant easily.
Maybe they're not even having to entertain fertility treatments. Maybe
it's just the thought of literally getting pregnant because am
I willing to change my body to give life? And
you know, I think that this this conversation for me
is a little bit interesting, and I want to have
(08:28):
somebody on who is struggling through pregnancy honestly or has
struggled through pregnancy with body image. I think that I'm
having a really enjoyable pregnancy at this point because I
did a lot of that self work where I really
unidentified from my body. Number one, meaning my worth doesn't
(08:49):
come from my body. Therefore I find change exciting. And
Part two, which is really important to acknowledge, is my
own thin privilege in this pregnancy, which is a very
different experience from conversations that I've had with many many
people who either started at an overweight weight or gained
(09:11):
weight rapidly during their pregnancy. So for me, all the
conversations around going to the doctor and outside strangers have
been positive, and there's something to say about that as well.
But it's really important to recognize that a lot of
women are going to the doctor and their doctors are
cautioning them to not gain too much weight or to
(09:33):
slow down the waking, and those aren't really conversations that
are helping the mother really returned to her highest power
and her deep knowing of what she needs and when
she needs it. So for anybody out there that is
having a negative experience, I just want to let you
know that you're seen, and even if your doctor is
having these weight conversations with you which are making you
(09:54):
feel really shameful, I hope that you can take a
second to recognize that as the mother, you know what
your body needs and no one knows how much that is.
And there's no perfect weight gain formula. Yes we have
recommendations of what we should gain per week or whatever,
but you've got to trust that your body and your
signs are working for you and really try hard to
(10:20):
And I know it's hard. You shouldn't have to try hard,
but to know that you're doing something freaking amazing, and
any moment that's being robbed from you because of either
outside comments or inside comments is stolen time away from
what I have found to be a really powerful way
to connect to a really deep sense of knowing and
(10:41):
female power. And so I know you're talking about what
people might hear from their doctors, but I think we
should tie in what people hear from just either coworkers,
other people, family members. I feel like we could carry over,
you know how we try to encourage people not to
just comment on people's bodies. Well, that includes pregnant women,
because I think you can find other things to say
(11:02):
to them if you want to acknowledge where they are.
But I think sometimes it can be like WHOA, when
are you do or you're huge? Or you having twins
or I mean, I don't know, insert whatever comment it
could be. And really the person doesn't mean any harm,
because clearly you know you're pregnant, and you may know
that your belly is wherever wherever it is sticking. But
(11:24):
I mean, people just have comments, and I think that
we need to start eliminating those from our hundred and
ten percent. And I remember the first time somebody said
to me, oh, are you pregnant? And even though it
came with some sense of excitement for me, it was
also a little bit surprising because I haven't had somebody
(11:47):
comment on my body so bravely in years. It used
to happen a lot to me when I was really
disordered and I was super hyper focused on fitness, and
you know, it's really proud of my muscles and my
definition and all these things. People would say, Wow, you're
so fit, and that really was quote unquote validating to
me that I was on the right track of those things.
(12:08):
You know, since then, so much has changed where I
really don't get validation from body comments, and I've worked
hard to disassemble that. But when anybody commenting on my body,
positive or negative, it just takes me a second. And
I've had to I wouldn't say learned, because I haven't
quite figured it out yet, but I haven't figured out
(12:28):
the best response to people commenting on my own personal body.
So even just hearing somebody say oh, when are you
do was just like, oh, okay, Like you're looking at
my body in a way that is I don't know,
like you're just you're looking at my body and you've
taken information and you know something about me that I
haven't told you, like I don't I don't know how
(12:49):
to like explain it. And it was very very early on,
but it was kind of just like, Okay, this this
is interesting. How is this making me feel? What do
I want to take away from that? And Evan and
I my husband. I remember I saw my brother and
my brother said, wow, you know, you look really pregnant,
and Evan I left his house and I said, it's
just so weird to have my brother comment on my body.
(13:11):
And I know that it's to nothing sentence, it has
no meaning to it, but it's still for me is like,
can we just say nothing? Can we just say you
look radiant? You know, how do you feel? Can we
actually turn it into a question maybe so that we
aren't just projecting you look glowing even on somebody might
not feel so good when they feel like they're going
(13:32):
to throw up or they feel like they're having a
bad body image day. So I think feel like the
best tip we can kind of give here, even just
to like not say anything, would just be bring curiosity
into it, but not with the assumption by the way
that somebody is pregnant, because there are many times that
somebody says, when are you expecting and somebody's not. I
never want to put myself in that situation. So, yeah,
(13:54):
I'm just eliminating that from I don't think I would
ever just randomly ask somebody that. But you know what's happened,
and you probably know someone that's happened too. It's just
not cool. But but even if you're enquiring if they're
pregnant or not, maybe you full on know that they
are pregnant, but you're making a comment on their size
or the size of their belly or whatever. I just
want to make sure that we put that under the
(14:16):
umbrella of like that is still commenting on someone's body,
even though it's very aware, you're very aware, or they're
very aware that yes, they look very pregnant. They don't
need you to remind them. Yeah, And whether that's are
you carrying twins or um, you're right, or are you
carrying you're carrying high, you're carrying low. I mean, there's
(14:36):
all these things that personally have made me feel uncomfortable
for really no reason other than stop it, Like just
just stop it, Like I don't need your assessment of
how I'm carrying. You know, maybe this this has nothing
to do with weight but gender, where you may say
to someone, oh, you're carrying low, it must be a boy,
(15:00):
or you're doing caring this way, you're going to have
a girl, when really you don't know at all. You
have no clue, and you don't know what someone else
might be processing when they hear that. What if they
really are hoping for a girl and now you've brought
up that it's a boy, and you don't know the
reason for wanting it to be a girl. And I'm
sure they're going to love their child no matter what,
(15:20):
but you don't know their whole story. For the sake
of this, I could just make something up where it's
like maybe they had lost a child before that was
a girl and they really want another little girl, or
they already have five boys and they're really hoping for
a little girl. Like you never know someone's whole story.
And the one thing that I wish I knew about
pregnancy before, honestly, Amy, is that I thought, once you're pregnant,
(15:42):
like you're golden, like all my friends who have been
pregnant before. I thought it was you know, after you
make your way out of the first trimester, you're having
a baby period, like your life is going to change.
And for the mother, I assume that that comes with
excitement and assurance and really just only looking into the
future positively. But really, from the second you are possibly pregnant,
(16:05):
that you pe on that stick, from the second you
p on that stick and it says positive, you are
filled with anxiety, doubt, fear, there's a high chance of miscarrying,
maybe you've miscarried in the past, and there's not one
moment in pregnancy where you feel secure that the baby safe.
And it's a really strange thing because I just again
(16:27):
thought that it's just like you're pregnant or you're not,
not that you're always carrying this fear that something could
happen to the baby along the way. And again I
think that that's something that we don't realize, that moms
are soon to be moms. I don't call myself a
mom um. I know some people do, but that expecting moms,
we don't realize all the anxiety that they are carrying
(16:49):
and the burden that enters their mind every single day
of is this going to be real? And I don't
know for me personally, Like I just thought once you're pregnant,
you're good, and then you know, you're just kind of
happy and pregnancy, but there's so much mentally that happens.
Another topic I wanted to bring up is the touching
of bellies without permission. I'm an offender, so I want
(17:12):
to first admit that the first thing I would do.
I think pregnant bellies are beautiful. I always have And
the first thing I've always done when I see a
pregnant woman is like, oh, can I touch it? I
don't even know why. I'm not even a baby person.
So we'll see how that goes. When to have my baby.
By the way, I don't know if you want to
come over in babysit amy um, if you're good with babies,
maybe okay, I'm like not good with babies at all.
(17:33):
I'm hoping this baby comes out like at three years
old and just knows how to walk and talk and
take care of itself. But I was, I was an
offender of that, and now that it's my body, I
will say that I don't mind people touching my belly
the way I thought that I would, because before pregnancy
that's always like my safe place, Like that's a very
protected area, you know, even with a significant other. It's
(17:54):
just I think for a lot of women that belly
carries a lot of tension, anxiety history. I will say
when people do touch my belly, personally, I don't mind it. However,
I think that we should un normalize touching people's bellies
because we don't know how each woman feels the trauma
that they've experienced. It's a very difficult thing to say
(18:16):
please don't touch me, or know if somebody asks, even
if it's a family member. So the one thing that
I've really not liked about pregnancy is that I feel
like other people lost respect over my autonomy, that this
is still my body, my choices, my physical being, And
in order to restore that, we really need to recognize
(18:38):
that the pregnant person is not just carrying the baby.
They're still an individual. And I feel like that has
been lost And that was a really big struggle for
me and continues to be a big struggle as I
get unsolicited advice as every pregnant woman seems to get. Yeah,
(18:58):
once you're pregnant, you open your self of for everybody
telling you all the things. For sure. There's someone that
you encouraged me to follow a while back, and it's
Sarah that at the Bird's Papaya. And just in case
people aren't following her, she just went through the whole
journey of being pregnant, giving birth and now she's on
(19:20):
the other side of that, and she's a very open
book and sharing a lot of her experience and things
she's been through. So I'm just going to throw that
out as an account to follow on Instagram if you're
ever looking for, you know, people that are in your
a similar space as you are right now. And then
obviously Lisa is still on her journey She's not on
the other side of it yet. She hasn't given birth yet,
(19:43):
but you can follow Lisa to which is just at
Lisa Hame and Sarah the Bird Papaya. I think has
been such a great example of she she still doesn't
call herself plus sized, I don't believe, but she is
a much more real example of a woman going through pregnancy.
This is her third, her fourth pregnancy, and I too,
have really taken to heart what she said about people
(20:06):
really applauding once you're pregnant and your bellies round and beautiful,
and then how that applaud really dies down in the
fourth trimester postpartum when it's like, when are you going
to lose that weight? And I would love to have
someone on to really discuss that challenge that I think
a lot of women feel alone with. Yeah, which Bird's
(20:27):
Papaya would be goals. So if anybody else listening, I
did reach out to her before the baby, and she
was getting ready for the baby, and I haven't followed
up since then, so maybe we could circle back with that. Yeah,
it would be awesome to have her on. And then
speaking about people on Instagram and being moms, I saw
jen Hatmaker put up this post. Some of you may
(20:49):
or may not know who she is, but the Bird's
Papaya had commented on it, which is why I saw it.
But I wanted to read what was put up, but
then also talk about the conversation that was happening in
the comments, which allowed Jennifer to go back and add something.
So she had posted, I do not want to see
a hundred and five pound model in a swimsuit ad
(21:11):
to market. To me, nobody looks like that in a swimsuit.
Normal bodies in ads forty six year olds with five
kids normal, And then a lot of people landed in
the comments of like, wait, but what's normal? I have
kids and I'm a hundred pounds, so now I'm not
acceptable and I'm not normal. And so then Jen went
(21:32):
into her caption and said, adding to my naturally skinny friends,
that is your body, your home. It is wonderful and
the chosen template to set the curve. Most of us
are above it. Quote normal was a bad word choice.
What I really meant was average. I'm sorry. So how
about just more diversity, more representation, more age ranges, more inclusivity,
(21:55):
swimsuits for everyone, which I don't know. This isn't This
isn't Jen's lane at all. She's the author and speaker
on other things, so I think she was just she
put something up and then she took from the comments
like oh yeah, what is normal? There's no normal, Like
we just want all kinds of bodies. Maybe you enter
your pregnancy one type of body and you come out
(22:16):
on the other side another type of body. Your body
is still an awesome body. It's still your body. It's
your It's done amazing things. And the bird's papaya back
to that. I think she posted something recently like she
was do part of a swimsuit line or something that's
coming out to to offer that confidence to people. So
(22:36):
I don't know. I was just thinking of because Jen's
a mom of five, but you know your your body
is going to be changing no matter if you're pregnant
or not. We're constantly flowing in and out. I don't know.
I don't weigh myself anymore. At least I don't even
know if I've gotten to tell you this yet because
we haven't talked about it whenever we were talking with
Jennifer Roland, did I tell you that I went to
the doctor and I weighed and I didn't I asked
(22:57):
her to not weigh me, But then the nurse was
a little confused by it, and I didn't really use
my whole voice and just say, well, no, actually you
don't have to weigh me. But she suggested, what if
you just turned the other way and don't look at
the scale. So I ended up just getting on the
scale but turning away. And then I was like, oh,
you know, I I didn't speak up for myself, but
still I didn't let it trigger me. I was able
(23:18):
to turn around, but for some people, the simple act
of stepping on the scale might be triggering, whether you
see the number or not. I so I halfway used
my voice at the doctor. One of our That's fantastic,
and one of our listeners actually sent me a picture
of a card that she got and I didn't take
a picture of it. I regret that right now. But
it's a card that you hand to your healthcare provider
(23:39):
that says, basically, I prefer to not be weighed at
this appointment. And I really love that because I have
found and speaking to friends and through this whole pregnancy,
I have found that it's really easy to lose your
voice when you get to the doctor. There is a
lot of intimidation, not because the doctor has done anything wrong,
(24:00):
but I think the general nature of a doctor's office,
you know, you want to be respectful, you want them
to hear your complaints loudly, so you're a little bit
more maybe compliant, is that you are afraid to speak
up even when you know what you want. And I've
experienced this in pregnancy. I've had friends that have experienced
it in labor, and having something written with you, a
(24:22):
card to hand is just a nice little tool. Amy.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you seen this?
I have not, no, but I'm like, I wanna get them. Yes,
I need to find that message and share it on
my story for you guys to see what what it
is about. But I think that it's really easy to
lose your voice and your connection to self at the doctor,
(24:44):
pregnant or not, and it's really helpful to do something
every single day that connects you to your knowing. On
my podcast, I had Serena Diron with a book she
came out with called The Knowing, and that word has
just been like stuck my mind. So shout out to Serena.
But the one thing I have found with heightened anxiety,
(25:05):
heightened other people telling me what I should and shouldn't do,
inability to articulate my needs at the doctor, all these
different things, is that all people, But if you're pregnant,
take a few minutes every day to connect to yourself
and to the baby in your belly and connect to
that deep sense of knowing of exactly what you need
(25:27):
that day. And I know it might sound like something
you don't want to do, something you resist, like meditation,
but I truly believe that every single day you need
to reset that intention so that you can continue to
protect yourself as you enter the world of all the
noise that's going to come at you, from what you
(25:49):
should be eating, to what you should be wearing, to
what you should be you know, all of that, and
it's just really helpful to take that moment to check
in with yourself so that you feel really confident in
not losing your voice, and amy even for you to
like even for you to check in, like how you
kind of lost your voice at the doctor for a moment.
You said, if you were so connected to this is
(26:10):
what I need today, you would have had an easier
time activating that in the scary moment. Yeah, And I
think I caught her off guard. She said, no one
has ever said that to her before ever, so she
didn't really know what to do. And I thought, oh, wow,
you know, yeah, we just kind of march right in
and they say something and we do it because it's like, well,
we trust them. But really it wasn't a necessary thing
(26:33):
that didn't have to happen. And I had my voice
for a minute, and then I questioned my voice because
nobody else had ever said that to her. And so
I went along with the program. I just did it
a little differently, yep. And that's a great way to
do it. You can always get way backwards. That's totally
acceptable in any health care setting. And I'm going to
(26:53):
try and find that card and post that on my
story so that everyone can see that and we can
maybe try and find where to find that as well,
because I'm not sure where she got that. And the
last thing that I just wanted to share about it
was that I found out I was pregnant in December,
and it was around the same time I was launching
for the Noise, Hunger and Fullness for the first time,
and I was so confident in my material. The course
(27:15):
helps you hone in on the sensations that guide you
too and away from food and so much more. And
as I was launching that course, I started to experience
something in my body that I had never experienced before,
which is not knowing how to best feed myself. And
it was such a great teaching moment to really recognize
(27:37):
that at every life phase comes new obstacles and that
doesn't mean that you for me, you know, it doesn't
mean that I'm not going to be a good teacher.
I was really thankful that I'm going through this because
it's going to make me a greater teacher. And what
I mean by that is in the first trimester, oftentimes
you have to eat way before you're hungry in order
(27:57):
to avoid nausea and eve. And though you technically don't
need more food they say, or more calories per day
in your first trimester, the fact is eating was the
only thing that made me feel like I wasn't going
to get sick, and I had to take a lot
of preemptive measures, which isn't necessarily quote unquote listening to
my body or eating when I was hungry, But being
(28:18):
my best caretaker meant getting ahead of the hunger, like
that was the biggest nausea trigger for me. And it
also meant throwing a lot of what I talked about
in my courses, that outer wisdom out the door. You know,
there was a week or two weeks or maybe three
weeks where I didn't even touch a green vegetable. You know,
it didn't matter. Food just became whatever I could keep
(28:39):
down to just feel okay for a minute, and that
was totally fine, right, Like I think we also put
a lot of pressure on ourselves that in pregnancy we
have to have this perfectly well round diet. Of course
we want to eat lots of whole foods, but give
yourself the most grace in the first trimester when it
comes to this, and just folks us on surviving, putting
(29:02):
one foot in front of the other and keeping anything down.
That's the most important thing. And as I make my
way through each of these trimesters right now I'm in
the second, I'm continuing to learn eating frequency, eating amounts,
and my life, my eating schedule quote unquote just looks
so drastically different than what it did before. And it
(29:24):
looks different also day to day. I don't track anything,
I don't write things down, but I think that it's
really interesting to allow myself to be so flexible without judgment,
to bring non judgmental curiosity into Oh that's so interesting
today you need a little bit more for breakfast where
yesterday like you were good from something a little bit smaller,
a little bit less filling, whatever it is. And to
(29:47):
just continue to show up to every moment with the
ability to nourish and take care of yourself and food
has also become a little bit more fun for me. Too,
because with that increased sense of hunger or take sometimes
comes a desire to want to make things more delicious,
which I haven't really had in a in a long
time for me, So I feel like it's actually allowed
(30:09):
me to reconnect to food and reconnect to my body
with those grounding principles every day, taking time when I
wake up to not go on my phone five minutes
to just put my hand on my belly and just
connect to something else has been really positive for me. Yeah. Well,
I think that's some wisdom, whether people listening right now
are pregnant or not. Like all of that stuff that
(30:31):
you just said, and maternity clothes another thing that I
just wanted to share. I feel like I could go
either way on this. For the most part, I feel
like you don't need to waste your money on clothing
that's gonna last you nine months. There's plenty of things
you can wear during pregnancy. And after that being said,
if you wear something every single day and you're just
avoiding getting the right clothing that actually fits your body,
(30:53):
I do suggest getting maternity So for me, I wear
leggings every day. Switching to maternity in my first trimester,
it was the best choice that I made because these
fit my growing body and have allowed me to feel
good in them and show up every day feeling good.
If you work in a more formal environment, maybe getting
a you know, a skirt or a pair of pants,
(31:14):
or a few pairs of pants that again support you.
Because I think that clothing is an expression of how
we feel and it can shape our confidence, and a
lot of women avoid getting that maternity clothing or waiting
until a certain trimester to get it. I'm all for
if you're going to be wearing something every day or frequently,
(31:34):
that's a source of pride. You've got to feel good
in what you're what you're wearing. And if that means
investing in a few pieces, I personally have found and
believe that it's definitely worth it. Well before we wrap,
is there any piece of advice Lisa that you would
offer someone that's pregnant right now? The one piece of
advice that I would offer to anybody who is pregnant
is to just know that you are the one living
(31:57):
in your own body and that makes you the math
stir of it, the one that knows the most about it,
and in those moments where you feel shaky about it.
I want you to just remember that you're the only
person living and feeling and knowing your body and your
baby's deep needs and the other thing which is a
little bit unrelated to body image and food. There's one
(32:19):
piece of advice that has just been so comforting to
me that I just want to offer to you, which
is it's okay to change your mind. There's a lot
of decisions that you need to make, there's a lot
of ideas about what's right and wrong, and whatever you choose,
I want you to know that you can continue to
change your mind as you get to the different stages
of it. And for me, that has just been having
(32:41):
that permission has really allowed me to stay present but
also move forward. This does involve quite a bit of planning. Again,
another piece of advice that I think could flow into
somebody listening right now that may not be pregnant. Just
giving yourself that permission that we're constantly growing and changing
and you can detour if that's what is gonna serve
(33:03):
you best. And then at that point it's no longer
a detour, it's what was right for you. Have you
ever read that book Obstacle is the Way completely not
related to pregnancy, but talks a lot about obstacles. Obviously,
the title gives the what the book is about a way.
The obstacle is the way you can either see something
as an obstacle or when you don't look at it
(33:23):
that way any longer, it's now the way because that's
the way you're going. And so, for to what you're saying, Lisa,
when you're on this journey and you hit those different stages,
something may come up and you can either look at
is like a wrestle with it of like, oh, this
wasn't what I had planned. I but I really feel
like I need to go this way. Well, then just
go that way and now it's your new way. So
(33:44):
and I also want to urge anybody who is pregnant
to check in with themselves with either thoughts in their
head or verbal thoughts that come out that are self
critical about your body words like I'm fat, I'm disgusting,
I a whale. I think that all this language that
you allow allows other people to perpetuate it, and it
(34:08):
really steals from the beauty of what's happening. So if
you have those types of thoughts, not that you're not
entitled to have those thoughts, but can you check back
in and return to a positive affirmation. I am growing
a beautiful baby, change is beautiful, I am carrying magic
within my body. Whatever it is, just really take a
moment to un normalize a lot of the language. I've
(34:31):
personally heard that thrown around from pregnant women before, even
before I was pregnant, I found it triggering. Amy, I
don't know about you. I've always found that really triggering,
especially because whenever I've seen a pregnant body, I see beauty.
So don't give other people permission to speak about bodies
that way, and begin to challenge yourself and the voice
(34:52):
in your head that is speaking so critically. Doesn't mean
that all days are going to be easy. They're physically
uncomfortable days. There are emotionally uncomfortable days. But every moment
is a chance to check in with yourself, reconnect, and
reinvite a different type of energy into your body. Love that,
and I will use all of those as reminders for
myself once a month when I get my period, because
(35:15):
I have been guilty of saying I feel like a whale,
and now I'm going to be like and whales are beautiful. Yeah,
they are beautiful creatures. So thank you Lisa for leading
us in this discussion, and we hope it's helpful to
some of you out there. For sure. We love to
hear from you, so make sure you email us, Lisa,
can you give them that our emails Hello at outweighth
(35:36):
podcast dot com. And we love hearing from you, and
we love getting your d m s. And your shares
on social media are the absolute best because that's how
you help us share our amazing guest stories who are
putting such good information out there into the universe. Yeah,
and if you want to make sure that you're following
our podcast, it's no longer subscribe. I think it's a
(35:56):
follow button, So just make sure you look for that
follow button and hit that, and then episodes will automatically
download for you every Saturday when they go up, and
then you can rate and review. That's always another super
helpful thing that we appreciate. So until next Saturday, we'll
see it then
I won't let my body out out weigh everything that
I'm made dope, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and then will always out way if you
(00:24):
feel it with your hands in the air. She's some
love to the mood. I am there. Let's say good
day and did you and die out Hey outweigh fam
Amy and Lisa here and we have a treat for you.
It's just me and Lisa today. So it's been a
while since we've done just an episode Me and Lisa
(00:47):
the o g Outweigh Girls. We love having guests on,
but we also love just talking about things in our
life that are going on. And in case she didn't know,
or maybe you do know, or you missed it somehow,
but Lisa is with child, she's pregnant, and so we're
dedicating this episode into what Lisa has been experiencing and
(01:08):
you know, food and body type stuff that comes along
with being pregnant. So hey, Lisa, good to see your face.
So good to see your face, and will of course
just want to make mention that you know as I've
been pregnant and spent more time following different types of people,
and we've also become increasingly sensitive to the women out
(01:29):
there that are trying to conceive and having difficulty. So
if for whatever reason, this episode isn't for you right now,
we totally want you to respect what's healthy for you
as we dive into this conversation. We don't want anybody
to feel excluded or made to feel badly as we
talk about this topic. And or it might be something
(01:51):
if you feel like you can listen to it that
you'll have in your back pocket. With some of the
things that are being shared, you can lean into them
later if they come up for you. Or I'll be
sharing some stuff from my side of things, where I
spent many years trying to get pregnant and was never
able to, but I still had certain things pop into
my head about what would happen to my body when
(02:12):
I do get pregnant, and what am I going to
do to make sure that I stayed this size, or
like I already had a plan and I wasn't even pregnant,
or I feared certain fertility treatments that may cause me
to gain weight, and just kind of the thoughts that
were popping into my head that weren't necessarily where I
wanted my head space to be. Yeah, So I think
this episode will just really talk about the unspoken conversations
(02:36):
and fears and thoughts that women are truly having before
they get pregnant, as they're trying to get pregnant, during
fertility treatment, and once they are pregnant. Well, I'm sure
we'll have a follow up to this postpartum. I've seen
so many incredible conversations about postpartum and the journey and
the fourth trimester as they call it, and I'm really
(02:59):
glad these conversations are happening because that's kind of where
you stop caring about the woman. It becomes all about
the baby. But we need to make sure that we're
taking care of ourselves and not allowing a lot of
negative things to become normalized. So that's what we're exposing.
So let's start with you, Amy, and those fears that
you had around maybe fertility treatment or getting pregnant or both. Oh,
(03:21):
I feel like anytime I was at the doctor and
they were talking to me about what we could do
to increase my chances of getting pregnant, the first question
out of my mouth was is it going to make
me gain weight? I mean, it's like all I cared
about when I was trying to figure out a way
to you know, create life and carry it in my
stomach and then you know, grow our family. But yet
(03:45):
the first question I was asking, and maybe that wasn't
like the first thing I was saying out loud to
the doctor, but it was certainly the first question that
I had in my head. I'm sure I was disguising
my disordered thoughts for sure by throwing in some sort
of question that made me sound like a concerned mom
or a concerned person for my body. But then really
(04:05):
at the forefront of my mind was you know, you
hear these stories of oh, I've taken these shots and
I'm taking these pills and it's caused some hormonal changes
and I'm gaining weight, and so naturally that caused a
fear in me of like, oh, I don't know if
I'm gonna be able to do that now. Ultimately, we
decided pursuing fertility treatments beyond cloond, which is basically a
(04:27):
pill you can take that makes your eggs more attractive.
In Layman's terms, but we didn't take it any further
because we decided to pursue adoption and that wasn't because
of body stuff. It just more was the decision that
was going to be best for our family when we
looked at how much we were going to spend on
fertility and then what adoption looks like. And we did
have an interest in older children, and not everybody has
(04:50):
that laid on their heart, and we thought, well, if
we have that on our heart, then yeah, maybe we
don't need a newborn baby. We can take an older
children that need a home. Well, we did go the
domestic adoption route just to clarify we were going to
adopt a newborn domestic baby, but we were still trying
to get pregnant at the same time. And then we
just shifted gears completely. Two older children from Haiti and
(05:13):
now we're parents of two amazing children. And when they
got to America they were seven and ten, and yeah,
I was now a mother of two and they didn't
care about my weight one bit. But you had to
do rapid get your mom stuff together, to learn how
to best show up to almost teenagers to set a
(05:33):
positive example. You know, you're not just doing breastfeeding or formula,
you had to really like fix or begin to heal
your own relationship a lot more rapidly because of their age.
I think that they were a huge reason why I
did finally get on board, because I had been suffering
from eating disorder and disordered eating habits for years, years,
(05:56):
and I had tried all kinds of things. But it's
almost like I had to have the right people in
my life at the right time, and then the commitment
and the determination to really put in the work. But
I feel like, well, Lisa, you were one of the
right people at the right time, But I feel like
Stevenson and Stashier were the right people at the right
time too, because now I had this responsibility and I
(06:16):
could clearly see myself passing my disordered behaviors onto them,
and so I am thankful that I started to get
true healing a year into having them, so that I
didn't project more onto them. And my daughter she's old
enough to see the change. Like she was ten when
she got here, she's fourteen now, and she she knows
(06:37):
the how I was with food when she arrived, and
she knows how I am now, and trust me, she
much prefers the way I am now. They were motivation
to mature in this area and grow and try to
be better, and fertility for me was relatively easy, and
I had no idea what that was that journey was
going to look like. However, just going through it a
(06:59):
little bit allowed me to understand how stressful it is
when you have that one shot per month, which is
twelve times per year, and each time you're not getting pregnant.
The stress that begins to accumulate of is this working?
Is it me? Is it him? Is it us? Is it? What?
Is it? And then throw in okay, we have a
fertility treatment option, but it's going to involve hormones and
(07:23):
body changes. I just want everybody listening who's possibly in
that camp, who's having those same thoughts that you had
Amy is to recognize that you're not alone having those feelings,
and you're not a bad woman or one soon to
be one day mom or anything for really struggling with
will this change my body? And am I okay with that?
(07:44):
And it still doesn't come with the guarantee Even if
you're taking the shots and your body is changing and
you're doing all the right things that you are going
to get the outcome. So I feel like that could
just be really unsettling for a lot of women to say, Okay, well,
is this worth it for me without that guarantee even yeah,
I think some women may struggle with the fertility part,
(08:06):
but is it worth even Maybe you'll get pregnant easily.
Maybe they're not even having to entertain fertility treatments. Maybe
it's just the thought of literally getting pregnant because am
I willing to change my body to give life? And
you know, I think that this this conversation for me
is a little bit interesting, and I want to have
(08:28):
somebody on who is struggling through pregnancy honestly or has
struggled through pregnancy with body image. I think that I'm
having a really enjoyable pregnancy at this point because I
did a lot of that self work where I really
unidentified from my body. Number one, meaning my worth doesn't
(08:49):
come from my body. Therefore I find change exciting. And
Part two, which is really important to acknowledge, is my
own thin privilege in this pregnancy, which is a very
different experience from conversations that I've had with many many
people who either started at an overweight weight or gained
(09:11):
weight rapidly during their pregnancy. So for me, all the
conversations around going to the doctor and outside strangers have
been positive, and there's something to say about that as well.
But it's really important to recognize that a lot of
women are going to the doctor and their doctors are
cautioning them to not gain too much weight or to
(09:33):
slow down the waking, and those aren't really conversations that
are helping the mother really returned to her highest power
and her deep knowing of what she needs and when
she needs it. So for anybody out there that is
having a negative experience, I just want to let you
know that you're seen, and even if your doctor is
having these weight conversations with you which are making you
(09:54):
feel really shameful, I hope that you can take a
second to recognize that as the mother, you know what
your body needs and no one knows how much that is.
And there's no perfect weight gain formula. Yes we have
recommendations of what we should gain per week or whatever,
but you've got to trust that your body and your
signs are working for you and really try hard to
(10:20):
And I know it's hard. You shouldn't have to try hard,
but to know that you're doing something freaking amazing, and
any moment that's being robbed from you because of either
outside comments or inside comments is stolen time away from
what I have found to be a really powerful way
to connect to a really deep sense of knowing and
(10:41):
female power. And so I know you're talking about what
people might hear from their doctors, but I think we
should tie in what people hear from just either coworkers,
other people, family members. I feel like we could carry over,
you know how we try to encourage people not to
just comment on people's bodies. Well, that includes pregnant women,
because I think you can find other things to say
(11:02):
to them if you want to acknowledge where they are.
But I think sometimes it can be like WHOA, when
are you do or you're huge? Or you having twins
or I mean, I don't know, insert whatever comment it
could be. And really the person doesn't mean any harm,
because clearly you know you're pregnant, and you may know
that your belly is wherever wherever it is sticking. But
(11:24):
I mean, people just have comments, and I think that
we need to start eliminating those from our hundred and
ten percent. And I remember the first time somebody said
to me, oh, are you pregnant? And even though it
came with some sense of excitement for me, it was
also a little bit surprising because I haven't had somebody
(11:47):
comment on my body so bravely in years. It used
to happen a lot to me when I was really
disordered and I was super hyper focused on fitness, and
you know, it's really proud of my muscles and my
definition and all these things. People would say, Wow, you're
so fit, and that really was quote unquote validating to
me that I was on the right track of those things.
(12:08):
You know, since then, so much has changed where I
really don't get validation from body comments, and I've worked
hard to disassemble that. But when anybody commenting on my body,
positive or negative, it just takes me a second. And
I've had to I wouldn't say learned, because I haven't
quite figured it out yet, but I haven't figured out
(12:28):
the best response to people commenting on my own personal body.
So even just hearing somebody say oh, when are you
do was just like, oh, okay, Like you're looking at
my body in a way that is I don't know,
like you're just you're looking at my body and you've
taken information and you know something about me that I
haven't told you, like I don't I don't know how
(12:49):
to like explain it. And it was very very early on,
but it was kind of just like, Okay, this this
is interesting. How is this making me feel? What do
I want to take away from that? And Evan and
I my husband. I remember I saw my brother and
my brother said, wow, you know, you look really pregnant,
and Evan I left his house and I said, it's
just so weird to have my brother comment on my body.
(13:11):
And I know that it's to nothing sentence, it has
no meaning to it, but it's still for me is like,
can we just say nothing? Can we just say you
look radiant? You know, how do you feel? Can we
actually turn it into a question maybe so that we
aren't just projecting you look glowing even on somebody might
not feel so good when they feel like they're going
(13:32):
to throw up or they feel like they're having a
bad body image day. So I think feel like the
best tip we can kind of give here, even just
to like not say anything, would just be bring curiosity
into it, but not with the assumption by the way
that somebody is pregnant, because there are many times that
somebody says, when are you expecting and somebody's not. I
never want to put myself in that situation. So, yeah,
(13:54):
I'm just eliminating that from I don't think I would
ever just randomly ask somebody that. But you know what's happened,
and you probably know someone that's happened too. It's just
not cool. But but even if you're enquiring if they're
pregnant or not, maybe you full on know that they
are pregnant, but you're making a comment on their size
or the size of their belly or whatever. I just
want to make sure that we put that under the
(14:16):
umbrella of like that is still commenting on someone's body,
even though it's very aware, you're very aware, or they're
very aware that yes, they look very pregnant. They don't
need you to remind them. Yeah, And whether that's are
you carrying twins or um, you're right, or are you
carrying you're carrying high, you're carrying low. I mean, there's
(14:36):
all these things that personally have made me feel uncomfortable
for really no reason other than stop it, Like just
just stop it, Like I don't need your assessment of
how I'm carrying. You know, maybe this this has nothing
to do with weight but gender, where you may say
to someone, oh, you're carrying low, it must be a boy,
(15:00):
or you're doing caring this way, you're going to have
a girl, when really you don't know at all. You
have no clue, and you don't know what someone else
might be processing when they hear that. What if they
really are hoping for a girl and now you've brought
up that it's a boy, and you don't know the
reason for wanting it to be a girl. And I'm
sure they're going to love their child no matter what,
(15:20):
but you don't know their whole story. For the sake
of this, I could just make something up where it's
like maybe they had lost a child before that was
a girl and they really want another little girl, or
they already have five boys and they're really hoping for
a little girl. Like you never know someone's whole story.
And the one thing that I wish I knew about
pregnancy before, honestly, Amy, is that I thought, once you're pregnant,
(15:42):
like you're golden, like all my friends who have been
pregnant before. I thought it was you know, after you
make your way out of the first trimester, you're having
a baby period, like your life is going to change.
And for the mother, I assume that that comes with
excitement and assurance and really just only looking into the
future positively. But really, from the second you are possibly pregnant,
(16:05):
that you pe on that stick, from the second you
p on that stick and it says positive, you are
filled with anxiety, doubt, fear, there's a high chance of miscarrying,
maybe you've miscarried in the past, and there's not one
moment in pregnancy where you feel secure that the baby safe.
And it's a really strange thing because I just again
(16:27):
thought that it's just like you're pregnant or you're not,
not that you're always carrying this fear that something could
happen to the baby along the way. And again I
think that that's something that we don't realize, that moms
are soon to be moms. I don't call myself a
mom um. I know some people do, but that expecting moms,
we don't realize all the anxiety that they are carrying
(16:49):
and the burden that enters their mind every single day
of is this going to be real? And I don't
know for me personally, Like I just thought once you're pregnant,
you're good, and then you know, you're just kind of
happy and pregnancy, but there's so much mentally that happens.
Another topic I wanted to bring up is the touching
of bellies without permission. I'm an offender, so I want
(17:12):
to first admit that the first thing I would do.
I think pregnant bellies are beautiful. I always have And
the first thing I've always done when I see a
pregnant woman is like, oh, can I touch it? I
don't even know why. I'm not even a baby person.
So we'll see how that goes. When to have my baby.
By the way, I don't know if you want to
come over in babysit amy um, if you're good with babies,
maybe okay, I'm like not good with babies at all.
(17:33):
I'm hoping this baby comes out like at three years
old and just knows how to walk and talk and
take care of itself. But I was, I was an
offender of that, and now that it's my body, I
will say that I don't mind people touching my belly
the way I thought that I would, because before pregnancy
that's always like my safe place, Like that's a very
protected area, you know, even with a significant other. It's
(17:54):
just I think for a lot of women that belly
carries a lot of tension, anxiety history. I will say
when people do touch my belly, personally, I don't mind it. However,
I think that we should un normalize touching people's bellies
because we don't know how each woman feels the trauma
that they've experienced. It's a very difficult thing to say
(18:16):
please don't touch me, or know if somebody asks, even
if it's a family member. So the one thing that
I've really not liked about pregnancy is that I feel
like other people lost respect over my autonomy, that this
is still my body, my choices, my physical being, And
in order to restore that, we really need to recognize
(18:38):
that the pregnant person is not just carrying the baby.
They're still an individual. And I feel like that has
been lost And that was a really big struggle for
me and continues to be a big struggle as I
get unsolicited advice as every pregnant woman seems to get. Yeah,
(18:58):
once you're pregnant, you open your self of for everybody
telling you all the things. For sure. There's someone that
you encouraged me to follow a while back, and it's
Sarah that at the Bird's Papaya. And just in case
people aren't following her, she just went through the whole
journey of being pregnant, giving birth and now she's on
(19:20):
the other side of that, and she's a very open
book and sharing a lot of her experience and things
she's been through. So I'm just going to throw that
out as an account to follow on Instagram if you're
ever looking for, you know, people that are in your
a similar space as you are right now. And then
obviously Lisa is still on her journey She's not on
the other side of it yet. She hasn't given birth yet,
(19:43):
but you can follow Lisa to which is just at
Lisa Hame and Sarah the Bird Papaya. I think has
been such a great example of she she still doesn't
call herself plus sized, I don't believe, but she is
a much more real example of a woman going through pregnancy.
This is her third, her fourth pregnancy, and I too,
have really taken to heart what she said about people
(20:06):
really applauding once you're pregnant and your bellies round and beautiful,
and then how that applaud really dies down in the
fourth trimester postpartum when it's like, when are you going
to lose that weight? And I would love to have
someone on to really discuss that challenge that I think
a lot of women feel alone with. Yeah, which Bird's
(20:27):
Papaya would be goals. So if anybody else listening, I
did reach out to her before the baby, and she
was getting ready for the baby, and I haven't followed
up since then, so maybe we could circle back with that. Yeah,
it would be awesome to have her on. And then
speaking about people on Instagram and being moms, I saw
jen Hatmaker put up this post. Some of you may
(20:49):
or may not know who she is, but the Bird's
Papaya had commented on it, which is why I saw it.
But I wanted to read what was put up, but
then also talk about the conversation that was happening in
the comments, which allowed Jennifer to go back and add something.
So she had posted, I do not want to see
a hundred and five pound model in a swimsuit ad
(21:11):
to market. To me, nobody looks like that in a swimsuit.
Normal bodies in ads forty six year olds with five
kids normal, And then a lot of people landed in
the comments of like, wait, but what's normal? I have
kids and I'm a hundred pounds, so now I'm not
acceptable and I'm not normal. And so then Jen went
(21:32):
into her caption and said, adding to my naturally skinny friends,
that is your body, your home. It is wonderful and
the chosen template to set the curve. Most of us
are above it. Quote normal was a bad word choice.
What I really meant was average. I'm sorry. So how
about just more diversity, more representation, more age ranges, more inclusivity,
(21:55):
swimsuits for everyone, which I don't know. This isn't This
isn't Jen's lane at all. She's the author and speaker
on other things, so I think she was just she
put something up and then she took from the comments
like oh yeah, what is normal? There's no normal, Like
we just want all kinds of bodies. Maybe you enter
your pregnancy one type of body and you come out
(22:16):
on the other side another type of body. Your body
is still an awesome body. It's still your body. It's
your It's done amazing things. And the bird's papaya back
to that. I think she posted something recently like she
was do part of a swimsuit line or something that's
coming out to to offer that confidence to people. So
(22:36):
I don't know. I was just thinking of because Jen's
a mom of five, but you know your your body
is going to be changing no matter if you're pregnant
or not. We're constantly flowing in and out. I don't know.
I don't weigh myself anymore. At least I don't even
know if I've gotten to tell you this yet because
we haven't talked about it whenever we were talking with
Jennifer Roland, did I tell you that I went to
the doctor and I weighed and I didn't I asked
(22:57):
her to not weigh me, But then the nurse was
a little confused by it, and I didn't really use
my whole voice and just say, well, no, actually you
don't have to weigh me. But she suggested, what if
you just turned the other way and don't look at
the scale. So I ended up just getting on the
scale but turning away. And then I was like, oh,
you know, I I didn't speak up for myself, but
still I didn't let it trigger me. I was able
(23:18):
to turn around, but for some people, the simple act
of stepping on the scale might be triggering, whether you
see the number or not. I so I halfway used
my voice at the doctor. One of our That's fantastic,
and one of our listeners actually sent me a picture
of a card that she got and I didn't take
a picture of it. I regret that right now. But
it's a card that you hand to your healthcare provider
(23:39):
that says, basically, I prefer to not be weighed at
this appointment. And I really love that because I have
found and speaking to friends and through this whole pregnancy,
I have found that it's really easy to lose your
voice when you get to the doctor. There is a
lot of intimidation, not because the doctor has done anything wrong,
(24:00):
but I think the general nature of a doctor's office,
you know, you want to be respectful, you want them
to hear your complaints loudly, so you're a little bit
more maybe compliant, is that you are afraid to speak
up even when you know what you want. And I've
experienced this in pregnancy. I've had friends that have experienced
it in labor, and having something written with you, a
(24:22):
card to hand is just a nice little tool. Amy.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you seen this?
I have not, no, but I'm like, I wanna get them. Yes,
I need to find that message and share it on
my story for you guys to see what what it
is about. But I think that it's really easy to
lose your voice and your connection to self at the doctor,
(24:44):
pregnant or not, and it's really helpful to do something
every single day that connects you to your knowing. On
my podcast, I had Serena Diron with a book she
came out with called The Knowing, and that word has
just been like stuck my mind. So shout out to Serena.
But the one thing I have found with heightened anxiety,
(25:05):
heightened other people telling me what I should and shouldn't do,
inability to articulate my needs at the doctor, all these
different things, is that all people, But if you're pregnant,
take a few minutes every day to connect to yourself
and to the baby in your belly and connect to
that deep sense of knowing of exactly what you need
(25:27):
that day. And I know it might sound like something
you don't want to do, something you resist, like meditation,
but I truly believe that every single day you need
to reset that intention so that you can continue to
protect yourself as you enter the world of all the
noise that's going to come at you, from what you
(25:49):
should be eating, to what you should be wearing, to
what you should be you know, all of that, and
it's just really helpful to take that moment to check
in with yourself so that you feel really confident in
not losing your voice, and amy even for you to
like even for you to check in, like how you
kind of lost your voice at the doctor for a moment.
You said, if you were so connected to this is
(26:10):
what I need today, you would have had an easier
time activating that in the scary moment. Yeah, And I
think I caught her off guard. She said, no one
has ever said that to her before ever, so she
didn't really know what to do. And I thought, oh, wow,
you know, yeah, we just kind of march right in
and they say something and we do it because it's like, well,
we trust them. But really it wasn't a necessary thing
(26:33):
that didn't have to happen. And I had my voice
for a minute, and then I questioned my voice because
nobody else had ever said that to her. And so
I went along with the program. I just did it
a little differently, yep. And that's a great way to
do it. You can always get way backwards. That's totally
acceptable in any health care setting. And I'm going to
(26:53):
try and find that card and post that on my
story so that everyone can see that and we can
maybe try and find where to find that as well,
because I'm not sure where she got that. And the
last thing that I just wanted to share about it
was that I found out I was pregnant in December,
and it was around the same time I was launching
for the Noise, Hunger and Fullness for the first time,
and I was so confident in my material. The course
(27:15):
helps you hone in on the sensations that guide you
too and away from food and so much more. And
as I was launching that course, I started to experience
something in my body that I had never experienced before,
which is not knowing how to best feed myself. And
it was such a great teaching moment to really recognize
(27:37):
that at every life phase comes new obstacles and that
doesn't mean that you for me, you know, it doesn't
mean that I'm not going to be a good teacher.
I was really thankful that I'm going through this because
it's going to make me a greater teacher. And what
I mean by that is in the first trimester, oftentimes
you have to eat way before you're hungry in order
(27:57):
to avoid nausea and eve. And though you technically don't
need more food they say, or more calories per day
in your first trimester, the fact is eating was the
only thing that made me feel like I wasn't going
to get sick, and I had to take a lot
of preemptive measures, which isn't necessarily quote unquote listening to
my body or eating when I was hungry, But being
(28:18):
my best caretaker meant getting ahead of the hunger, like
that was the biggest nausea trigger for me. And it
also meant throwing a lot of what I talked about
in my courses, that outer wisdom out the door. You know,
there was a week or two weeks or maybe three
weeks where I didn't even touch a green vegetable. You know,
it didn't matter. Food just became whatever I could keep
(28:39):
down to just feel okay for a minute, and that
was totally fine, right, Like I think we also put
a lot of pressure on ourselves that in pregnancy we
have to have this perfectly well round diet. Of course
we want to eat lots of whole foods, but give
yourself the most grace in the first trimester when it
comes to this, and just folks us on surviving, putting
(29:02):
one foot in front of the other and keeping anything down.
That's the most important thing. And as I make my
way through each of these trimesters right now I'm in
the second, I'm continuing to learn eating frequency, eating amounts,
and my life, my eating schedule quote unquote just looks
so drastically different than what it did before. And it
(29:24):
looks different also day to day. I don't track anything,
I don't write things down, but I think that it's
really interesting to allow myself to be so flexible without judgment,
to bring non judgmental curiosity into Oh that's so interesting
today you need a little bit more for breakfast where
yesterday like you were good from something a little bit smaller,
a little bit less filling, whatever it is. And to
(29:47):
just continue to show up to every moment with the
ability to nourish and take care of yourself and food
has also become a little bit more fun for me. Too,
because with that increased sense of hunger or take sometimes
comes a desire to want to make things more delicious,
which I haven't really had in a in a long
time for me, So I feel like it's actually allowed
(30:09):
me to reconnect to food and reconnect to my body
with those grounding principles every day, taking time when I
wake up to not go on my phone five minutes
to just put my hand on my belly and just
connect to something else has been really positive for me. Yeah. Well,
I think that's some wisdom, whether people listening right now
are pregnant or not. Like all of that stuff that
(30:31):
you just said, and maternity clothes another thing that I
just wanted to share. I feel like I could go
either way on this. For the most part, I feel
like you don't need to waste your money on clothing
that's gonna last you nine months. There's plenty of things
you can wear during pregnancy. And after that being said,
if you wear something every single day and you're just
avoiding getting the right clothing that actually fits your body,
(30:53):
I do suggest getting maternity So for me, I wear
leggings every day. Switching to maternity in my first trimester,
it was the best choice that I made because these
fit my growing body and have allowed me to feel
good in them and show up every day feeling good.
If you work in a more formal environment, maybe getting
a you know, a skirt or a pair of pants,
(31:14):
or a few pairs of pants that again support you.
Because I think that clothing is an expression of how
we feel and it can shape our confidence, and a
lot of women avoid getting that maternity clothing or waiting
until a certain trimester to get it. I'm all for
if you're going to be wearing something every day or frequently,
(31:34):
that's a source of pride. You've got to feel good
in what you're what you're wearing. And if that means
investing in a few pieces, I personally have found and
believe that it's definitely worth it. Well before we wrap,
is there any piece of advice Lisa that you would
offer someone that's pregnant right now? The one piece of
advice that I would offer to anybody who is pregnant
is to just know that you are the one living
(31:57):
in your own body and that makes you the math
stir of it, the one that knows the most about it,
and in those moments where you feel shaky about it.
I want you to just remember that you're the only
person living and feeling and knowing your body and your
baby's deep needs and the other thing which is a
little bit unrelated to body image and food. There's one
(32:19):
piece of advice that has just been so comforting to
me that I just want to offer to you, which
is it's okay to change your mind. There's a lot
of decisions that you need to make, there's a lot
of ideas about what's right and wrong, and whatever you choose,
I want you to know that you can continue to
change your mind as you get to the different stages
of it. And for me, that has just been having
(32:41):
that permission has really allowed me to stay present but
also move forward. This does involve quite a bit of planning. Again,
another piece of advice that I think could flow into
somebody listening right now that may not be pregnant. Just
giving yourself that permission that we're constantly growing and changing
and you can detour if that's what is gonna serve
(33:03):
you best. And then at that point it's no longer
a detour, it's what was right for you. Have you
ever read that book Obstacle is the Way completely not
related to pregnancy, but talks a lot about obstacles. Obviously,
the title gives the what the book is about a way.
The obstacle is the way you can either see something
as an obstacle or when you don't look at it
(33:23):
that way any longer, it's now the way because that's
the way you're going. And so, for to what you're saying, Lisa,
when you're on this journey and you hit those different stages,
something may come up and you can either look at
is like a wrestle with it of like, oh, this
wasn't what I had planned. I but I really feel
like I need to go this way. Well, then just
go that way and now it's your new way. So
(33:44):
and I also want to urge anybody who is pregnant
to check in with themselves with either thoughts in their
head or verbal thoughts that come out that are self
critical about your body words like I'm fat, I'm disgusting,
I a whale. I think that all this language that
you allow allows other people to perpetuate it, and it
(34:08):
really steals from the beauty of what's happening. So if
you have those types of thoughts, not that you're not
entitled to have those thoughts, but can you check back
in and return to a positive affirmation. I am growing
a beautiful baby, change is beautiful, I am carrying magic
within my body. Whatever it is, just really take a
moment to un normalize a lot of the language. I've
(34:31):
personally heard that thrown around from pregnant women before, even
before I was pregnant, I found it triggering. Amy, I
don't know about you. I've always found that really triggering,
especially because whenever I've seen a pregnant body, I see beauty.
So don't give other people permission to speak about bodies
that way, and begin to challenge yourself and the voice
(34:52):
in your head that is speaking so critically. Doesn't mean
that all days are going to be easy. They're physically
uncomfortable days. There are emotionally uncomfortable days. But every moment
is a chance to check in with yourself, reconnect, and
reinvite a different type of energy into your body. Love that,
and I will use all of those as reminders for
myself once a month when I get my period, because
(35:15):
I have been guilty of saying I feel like a whale,
and now I'm going to be like and whales are beautiful. Yeah,
they are beautiful creatures. So thank you Lisa for leading
us in this discussion, and we hope it's helpful to
some of you out there. For sure. We love to
hear from you, so make sure you email us, Lisa,
can you give them that our emails Hello at outweighth
(35:36):
podcast dot com. And we love hearing from you, and
we love getting your d m s. And your shares
on social media are the absolute best because that's how
you help us share our amazing guest stories who are
putting such good information out there into the universe. Yeah,
and if you want to make sure that you're following
our podcast, it's no longer subscribe. I think it's a
(35:56):
follow button, So just make sure you look for that
follow button and hit that, and then episodes will automatically
download for you every Saturday when they go up, and
then you can rate and review. That's always another super
helpful thing that we appreciate. So until next Saturday, we'll
see it then
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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