Mama's Cup of Ambition

Nourishing Motherhood: Pregnancy and Family Nutrition with Taryn of Aubergine & Olive

• Rachel Mae | Taryn Firkser • Season 2 • Episode 74

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Ever wondered how to best nourish your body during every stage of motherhood? Longing to bust through the myths of pregnancy nutrition? Then this episode is for you.  Today's guest, Taryn, a holistic nutritionist and the brain behind Aubergine and Olive, will serve up some helpful guidance to start nourishing your whole family.

Whether you’re considering starting a family, already pregnant or navigating the  journey of motherhood, this episode is packed with insightful information to help you prioritize wellness.

So, tune in, and let’s journey towards healthier motherhood together.

Connect with Today's Guest:
Taryn's Website
Aubergine and Olive on IG

Let's Connect On Instagram:
connect with the Show (@mamascupofambition)
connect with Rachel Mae (@rachelmaemusic)

May your dreams be ambitious and may your coffee be strong! xoxo -Rachel Mae

Rachel Mae:

Hey, I'm Rachel Mae, Country Singer, Songwriter and host of Mamas Cup of Ambition, the podcast for ambitious mamas with big dreams and little kids. Or maybe your kids aren't so little anymore, but your dreams are still just as big as ever. Wherever you find yourself in your motherhood journey, if you've got ambitious goals that you're longing to achieve and you're looking to spark inspiration, cultivate motivation and develop community with like-minded mamas, you're in the right place. As a new mama myself, I created this show as a place for honest and empowering conversations about motherhood, entrepreneurship and dream chasing. So grab a notebook, top off that cup of coffee and let's turn our goals into action plans and our dreams into reality together. Now let's jump in to today's episode.

Rachel Mae:

Hello, hello and welcome to Mamas Cup of Ambition. Today, I have the great privilege of being joined by a guest expert named Taryn. She's a holistic nutritionist and the founder of Aubergine and Olive, and we had such a great conversation about the role that nutrition plays at every stage of our pregnancy, starting from conception and taking us all the way through postpartum. Terrin brought so much knowledge and actionable tips and tricks for us, and I just know that this conversation is going to serve you well, whether you're pregnant or not. So let's get into my conversation with Taryn. I would love to jump in by having you just start with a little introduction to who you are and what you do.

Taryn Firkser:

Okay, sure. So I'm Taryn and I am a holistic nutritionist with Aubergine and Olive, and I offer women nutrition and wellness support before, during and after pregnancy. So I like to support women throughout their pregnancy journey, from the point where they're even starting to think about you know how conception or planning a family throughout the whole pregnancy and postpartum period and beyond. That's really what I feel passionate about. So I have virtual one-on-one consultations, I do workshops and really do my best to provide women with a whole bunch of information and resources so that they feel empowered to make the best decisions for themselves and their babies.

Rachel Mae:

Love that it's so good, you used to have a life in the corporate world, right? So how did you make the transition from corporate world to what you're doing now, and how has that impacted your life and your family?

Taryn Firkser:

Yeah, I did have a big transition not too long ago Not quite corporate, actually. I was in the public sector. I used to work for the government, so I was a diplomat. Okay, I did that for 15 years. It had a very corporate feel to it, for sure, and it was, you know, a fun, exciting lifestyle. We lived all over the world. We also traveled, did a whole bunch of interesting things, but it was like nine to you know, six or seven, go, go, go.

Taryn Firkser:

My priority was expected to be my work all the time, even outside of work hours, just like a super busy environment.

Taryn Firkser:

That was I really enjoyed in the beginning, but after a while I just felt like a lack of inspiration and a lack of passion for it and a lack of drive behind it and just felt like there must be a different way to go about this.

Taryn Firkser:

Every once I started having my babies, when all I wanted to do was spend time with them but, like work kept pulling and pulling and there was this struggle between work and life and trying to maintain a balance between the two, when in the end, I just felt like I was doing neither of them very well and I knew that this was unsustainable. There was no way I could keep going like this. And when, once that idea was planted, it kind of stuck. And a few years later I kind of had some inspiration about what I did feel passionate about, which was nutrition and wellness. And once I had that passion and inspiration set, it was just go. I retrained, I got my diploma in natural nutrition and I started pulling back from work and starting that transition. And we're now about a year ago from when I officially made that break from my cushy office job into owning my own business and running my holistic nutrition practice.

Rachel Mae:

That's so great and bravo for listening to that pull and leaning into it and saying, yes, like I'm going to go back and go to school and get trained in something that I'm passionate about and start a whole new course. I think so many of us get tripped up at that point, and so I always love hearing these stories where people make that pivot from something that they've been doing for a long time, but it's no longer serving them or their families and they take that leap into a new direction. So it sounds like you're very aligned.

Taryn Firkser:

It's a scary thing to do, but I really feel that we shouldn't let fear stop us from doing things, especially things that are important to us. You kind of just have to jump right. It is a leap, and I don't regret it. I'm so happy that I made that leap.

Rachel Mae:

Well, I couldn't get into this conversation without asking you about that, because this is Mama's Cup of Ambition and we love to talk about dreams and motherhood and the intersection, and so I always love to hear kind of how people got to where they are. But let's pivot now and start talking a little bit about nutrition and specifically how it relates to pregnancy. So my first question for you is what are some of the biggest misconceptions around nutrition and pregnancy, and what are the foods or the areas that women should be prioritizing and focusing on to support a healthy pregnancy?

Taryn Firkser:

So, when it comes to misconceptions, there are two that drive me crazy. So I'm so happy that you're asking this, because then I get to talk about them. So the first one is like the standard line that many women get for their doctor about eating for two. Right, oh no, now you're pregnant, so now you know you're eating for two. I think many of us are kind of wise and enough to know that it doesn't mean like, okay, well, now we should double our calories and double the amount of food we eat. So we're not quite like eating for two people, but I think that we still have this idea that we should focus on eating for two in terms of, like, the quantity of food we're eating, whereas in my nutrition practice I really prioritize with my clients nourishing for two. So we're not looking at the quantity, the amount of food, but we're looking at the quality of the food Okay, so that you're actually getting the nutrients that you need to grow your baby and feel good while you do, regardless of like the actual amount of food you're eating, making sure that you're getting that quality. And so, nourishing for two, overeating for two, absolutely.

Taryn Firkser:

The other thing that I think about quite often is prenatal supplements and this idea that if you take a prenatal you're fine, then you can go and eat whatever you want and you've got your nutrition bases covered, and I think this is a complete myth.

Taryn Firkser:

Prenatals maybe do have a role to play when it can be challenging to get all the nutrients that you need from food, but I feel that it should be looked at as an insurance policy, something you take just in case you happen to be missing something Like, for example, you have terrible morning sickness and you just can't get all that nourishment in you. Then you have that as kind of a backup, but eating your food first and getting your nutrients from your food first and then having your prenatal as a backup. Because, I mean, the sad fact is that prenatals aren't created equal. There's no standard formula, so you're not guaranteed that you're getting everything you need anyways, and oftentimes you're getting a bunch of stuff that you don't really want as well along with your prenatal. So, food first, get what you need from food, and then have that as your backup if you need it, yeah.

Rachel Mae:

So what foods should we be focusing on in terms of trying to prioritize meeting those nutritional needs so that we're nourishing for two? Like, what are your go-to sort of recommendations? When we're looking at our plate, what should we be trying to fill it up with so that we're nourishing for two?

Taryn Firkser:

So I know we're all busy. We have a million things going on, so I don't like to give like the list of eat these, you know, specific foods. Avoid these specific foods. I have a much simpler way of going about it and this is how I talk to my kids about it as well Eat real food. So how I explain to my kids.

Taryn Firkser:

When you have a food and you're wondering, is this real food or not, you ask yourself was this made by nature or was it made in a factory? And the closer it is to the nature side, the more of like a real food it is, and the closer it's to the factory side, the more of like it's a processed food, like product. So the more food you can eat on the real side, the better you're going to do for yourself and your baby, because those foods are the ones that often what we call nutrient dense, which means you're getting a lot of bang for your buck in terms of calories. You're getting a whole bunch of different vitamins and minerals from one food or from one serving of food, versus a lot of processed foods, when you're getting a bunch of calories but you're not really getting a whole lot nutrition wise from it. So if I were to have like a short list of foods that I would recommend, it would be real foods that are nutrient dense. Things like nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, especially like your leafy greens and like your cruciferous veggies, like your broccoli and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, and things like that. Looking at pasture raised meat and dairy grain fed eggs and chicken. So things like that that are like in its natural form and there isn't a whole lot that's being done to change it from how nature made it.

Rachel Mae:

Yeah, so let's circle back a little bit and talk about conception and preconception and the role that nutrition plays in that stage of pregnancy. Can you talk about the role of nutrition in conception and how important it is for us to be focusing on our nutrition at that stage as well?

Taryn Firkser:

Yeah, I do think it's really important, if you're able to, to start thinking about nutrition and your overall health and wellness preconception, if that's possible. So if you imagine your body like kind of like a storage area and you have like these like silos or containers inside for each like vitamin and nutrients, so you need a whole bunch of these in order to make your baby. And if you go into pregnancy and you're like half on this one, a little bit low on this one, this one's okay, this one's empty, you don't have that material to make your baby. So you basically want to go into pregnancy with like your full stores. All your containers, all your silos are like filled to the brim.

Taryn Firkser:

You got everything you need, not just for a baby but for yourself as well, because you're going to need it and you're going to go through it faster than you can replenish it, not just during pregnancy but postpartum as well, and you want to make sure that you have enough to recover from growing that human and going through like labor and birth as well.

Taryn Firkser:

So starting from the beginning, when you haven't even started the building process, is the best opportunity to make sure you're going in with everything ready to go. But then, beyond that, looking at kind of other lifestyle factors like stress and sleep and movement, you want your body to be in the best place you possibly can, because you're about to ask a tremendous task of it, right? So you want to make sure that your stress levels are low, that you're getting quality sleep, that you have some kind of regular movement built into your day, that you're removing or reducing your environmental toxins, that you're addressing any kind of health issues that you might have, so that, like you're good to go, you're ready to do the super, super important work.

Rachel Mae:

Yeah, that's so great. So you mentioned postpartum and I'd like to touch on that as well, like what are some ways that we can support ourselves and give ourselves like a fighting chance in postpartum at feeling well and sort of? I know hormones are, they're going to do their thing in the postpartum season, but what can we do to kind of support and nurture that part of our pregnancy and make ourselves feel good and nourished and cared for?

Taryn Firkser:

So I think the first thing is just what you said right there about how postpartum it's still part of your pregnancy. Yeah, you don't give birth and then you're done with your pregnancy. It continues for weeks, months, even years. You're still on that pregnancy journey. So understanding that you're not done, is on the end of the process is really a key step. The other key step, I think, is to prepare before baby's born, because once baby's there, you have other priorities. Yeah.

Taryn Firkser:

So the more preparation you can do in advance to get ready, the better you'll be able to kind of hit the ground running and support yourself. So things like stocking your freezer with nutritious meals and snacks. I know for me, when I was in my last trimester, I got this cooking fever and I just wanted to cook all the soups and stews and muffins and everything. Yeah. So it was great because then I could cook all that and we obviously couldn't eat it all, so I would freeze it and then I had this freezer stocked with food, so there was stuff to eat. I didn't have to worry about the grocery shopping and the making, the food and everything. So if you're able to do that, you'll be ahead of the game for sure. I think it's also important to have support on standby in case you need it. So friends and family who can step in, hold the baby while you shower, go get diapers, cook you something, take your other kids to the park, whatever kind of help you need. But then also another kind of just in case support, like a lactation consultant or a postpartum doula or other people like that. If you need that kind of support, you're not starting to like Google and figure out where to find these people, so you can get the number that you can just call and reach out to and you can get the help that you need.

Taryn Firkser:

During postpartum. It's so tough to actually do it, but if you can, I think the best thing is to prioritize your rest and recovery, which is tough when you have this new baby and they become your priority. But it's so interesting that, like in our culture, it's kind of expected that we give birth and we're good to go, we're back on our feet and we're just pick up where we left off. But in a lot of other cultures, especially in traditional cultures, they have this long period of like recovery. So I lived in China for a while and I remember talking with my Chinese mom friends there, but they have this period called sitting with the moon, I think it translates to I love that and it's a nice long, month, long period where they don't do anything, they lie in bed and recover and bond with their baby and they are taken care of and they come out of that feeling nourished, feeling like physically well, but also mentally and emotionally well, because they've had that chance to revitalize and I think we do ourselves a big disservice when we just jump right up and get back in it.

Taryn Firkser:

So, as much as you can, to really just rest and recover and you can still take care of your baby from bed. I mean, they're not going anywhere, they don't need any stimulation. So, yeah, I find if you can do that and if you have support that can help you do that, it will really help you with your recovery.

Rachel Mae:

What a beautiful concept and, yes, something that I feel is very lacking in our culture these days but very much needed, I feel like, especially for a big portion of my audience. I feel like had babies right at the peak of the pandemic, and so there's a lot of folks in my audience who were like I'm one of them, with baby right at 2020. And all of the support that I thought I was going to have all of a sudden was just removed, and I don't have a huge support network in terms of like family nearby that can help, but what a huge difference of night and day between my two pregnancies, just having being able to have people come over and, like you said, hold the baby and interact or entertain my toddler so that I could just have that time with my newborn and not feel like I was trying to be pulled in so many different directions. So, yeah, that's such a great point.

Rachel Mae:

I also love that you mentioned stocking the freezer. I think that's great, and we had like a meal train in our first pregnancy and in our second as well, and that was really supportive too, just because we didn't have to think about it. It was like it did make you feel so nourished and so cared for. I think mama's recovering like, yeah, just being able to take something off of your plate and have something nourishing put on is the greatest gift.

Taryn Firkser:

Sometimes it can be hard to accept that kind of help and support because we are kind of expected to be able to do everything and a lot of us have that attitude of being fiercely independent and being able to take care of everything and sometimes for us it can be a challenge to let go and have other people take care of us. But this is really one of those times in your life when it's so important to let people take care of you and support you.

Rachel Mae:

Yeah that's powerful. I love that Well. So I know a big portion of my audience as well. We're busy mamas, we're on the go, we've got toddlers that we're chasing, and most of my audience as well. They're trying to build something in their free time. They're building businesses and creating something of their own while the babies are napping. So do you have any like go to healthy meal or snack ideas for those mamas who are just like on the go? They're kind of short on time but they still want to take time to nourish themselves and nourish their family and eat for energy.

Taryn Firkser:

Yeah, I mean, isn't that everybody? I know that that's totally me that you described. So here's the thing I don't think you can. There's a lot of like necessarily grab and go, or like throw in the microwave, kind of things. I think you need to learn to be strategic.

Taryn Firkser:

So for me, what works really well is meal planning. I sit down once a week and I think, okay, what are we going to eat for the next week? And I make like the actual list of the meals that we're going to have, and then I make my grocery list from that and then that's what I buy at the store. So then when it comes time to cook and to make dinner, I know what I have to make. I don't have to think about it. I have all the ingredients on hand. So there's a much greater chance that we're actually going to eat a healthy, nutritious meal that way.

Taryn Firkser:

The other thing that has helped me out a lot is a little bit of advanced preparation.

Taryn Firkser:

So, unlike on a Sunday to take even half an hour to just wash and chop some veggies, cook a pot of rice, whatever I can do to get ahead of the game.

Taryn Firkser:

So there's stuff that makes it's almost ready to go, so it makes it even easier to put it together when it comes time to cook it. And then also doubling up on recipes so that I have leftovers for lunch the next day, or even leftovers to throw in the freezer, so that if we are stuck one day, I'm not like stopping at McDonald's or ordering pizza, I'm pulling stuff out of the freezer. So that little bit of preparation and that strategic planning can really go a long way. But when it comes to quick and easy meals, things that I like to do that don't take that much time are like sheet pan dinners, where 10 minutes to chop up a bunch of veggies and then they get thrown in the oven and throw in whatever kind of protein, so like some chicken or salmon or tofu, whatever goes in along with it and while that's cooking I can be playing with my kids or cleaning up the kitchen or sending emails or whatever. It doesn't require a lot of attention.

Rachel Mae:

And then, like 30 minutes later, dinner's ready and easy cleanup too, and the cleanup is done.

Taryn Firkser:

The easy cleanup is also key, because who wants to spend time in the kitchen afterwards? And then, when it comes to snacks, we love smoothies and I love them as a mom because I can sneak all kinds of stuff into my kids movies, so like all kinds of seeds and spinach and protein powder, and they have no idea and they eat it. And then we turn it into smoothie popsicles in the summer, so like win, win for all of us. And then, but even things to take on the goal, like nuts and seeds right, you just grab a handful and you go and they're surprisingly filling and there's no preparation required. So another super easy one to do so good.

Rachel Mae:

Yeah, we love the smoothies around here too. I've my oldest son, he's three, but he loves to help me make the smoothies and it's so fun to watch him like stand in his little kitchen tower and he put stuff in there and he's so proud of the smoothie when it's done and wants to drink it because he helped make it. And it's like just watching him throw in, like the hands, bowls of spinach and some him parts and with so much pride, like it's so fun to be able to involve him in that and then watch him enjoy it with so much pride because he had a hand in making it too. So we're I have the smoothie popsicles there. That's a great idea.

Taryn Firkser:

We need to try that out. Yeah, it's fantastic in the summer, and I mean I eat them as well. Awesome, oh my gosh.

Rachel Mae:

Well, I've got like three quick questions that I always wrap up my guest interviews with. But before we get to that, is there anything that you want to add to what we've already touched on here or anything that you feel like we?

Taryn Firkser:

missed. Just one quick thing I wanted to mention when it comes to postpartum but really your whole pregnancy is the mental and emotional well-being. So postpartum depression and postpartum mental wellness is a really big issue these days, and I think that a lot of it has to do with nutrition. Countless studies have shown the link between nutrition and mental health, so we know that there is definitely a link both ways, so it's another reason why it's important to eat nutritious food before, during and after pregnancy. You're going to do yourself a big favor, so it's not just in terms of your physical recovery, but your mental and emotional well-being as well, for sure.

Rachel Mae:

So good, I'm glad you added that piece in there, because that's important. So what's your best piece of advice in four words or less?

Taryn Firkser:

I would say do less. When I feel overwhelmed or stressed out, I feel like one part of me wants to do more. If I can just get more done, I'll feel better. But I've learned that if I do the opposite, if I do less, if I pull back and see what I can take off my list, what things actually don't need to be done, I feel so much better and I think that in our culture we are just expected to go, go, go, do as much as we can do more, do more, be more. But I think we're doing ourselves a disservice and if we could pull back and do less, we would have more time to enjoy life.

Rachel Mae:

Sign me up. I'm here for doing less. Especially as mamas, we need to hear that. So for the people in the back do less, give yourself permission. And I think that kind of ties back to what we kind of touched on earlier, too, about learning to ask for help and learning to accept help. I feel like if motherhood has taught me anything, it's that that like I've always kind of been this sort of like oh, I can just do it myself and I'll just bootstrap everything and make things work on my own, and motherhood changed that real quick, because it's like you have to be willing to accept help. So I think like doing less kind of goes hand in hand with like being willing and open to accepting help and being willing to let people take things off of your plate and lend a hand. So that's great, okay, so is there a resource that you love that you would recommend to the ambitious mamas listening? So this could be like a book or a podcast or something related to nutrition.

Taryn Firkser:

So I'm going to step away from nutrition, because there is a book that I love and that, when I read, I found like to be life changing and I don't know if you've talked about it before, but probably everybody's read it. So Glennon Doyle's book. Untamed, that book just transformed the way that I looked at myself and my place in the world and just realizing that, like I don't have to do all these things that I'm told I should do, that there is another way to live and another way that will, like, bring so much more joy and happiness to me and my family. It just, it really changed the way that I think, and I think it's a book that every woman should read, whether or not you like her or agree with her. Just read it and just think about what she's trying to say. I think it will change your perspective. Yeah, so good.

Rachel Mae:

I love that book. Okay, so what fills your cup, both literally and figuratively?

Taryn Firkser:

So literally it's probably water, so filtered water. But I think that we could all do with more water. So I mean, I aim for, you know, my two, three liters a day and I'm not a fan of tap water when I am because of we drink like municipal water that has chlorine and fluoride and all kinds of stuff in it. So my filtered water is what's literally in there. Figuratively that sounds cheesy, but my kids, they fill not just my cup but they fill my heart. They are so wonderful and every day I look at them and think like I can't believe I made you. There are these little miracles and you know they just burst with love and then I just burst right back at them. So yeah, my cup is overflowing with the love from my kids, for sure.

Rachel Mae:

That's not cheesy at all. I think that's so great. I think sometimes it's so easy to get focused on the hard aspects of motherhood and some of the challenges or struggles that we experience, and I often feel that way too Like when I stop and just sort of look like I cannot believe that I get to do life with you. Like this is just unreal. So I don't think that's a cheesy answer at all. I think that is such a great answer. Well, taryn, this has been so incredible. I'm so happy that our paths crossed and that you agreed to come on the podcast and share just your wealth of knowledge and experience with us. I know it's going to be such a great resource for the Mamas listening, pregnant or not, and I'd love for you to just share with us where people can connect with you, if you work virtually with clients, where they can get together with you to work with you and share all the all the ways that folks can come and follow your work. Sure.

Taryn Firkser:

So my holistic nutrition practice is called Aubergine and Olive and my website is Aubergineandolivecom and I'm on Instagram at Aubergine and Olive, and I do offer virtual consultations worldwide. So if anyone would be interested in working with me, they can find all the information about my services on my website and how to get in touch with me there.

Rachel Mae:

Perfect, and I'll make sure to link to all of that in the show description so it's super easy to find. Thank you so much for having me on Awesome Taryn. Thank you so much. If you got something out of today's episode and you know somebody who you think would just love this episode as well, please consider sharing it with them. Or if you're feeling extra generous and you feel like leaving a rating and review for the show. That would truly mean so much to me as well. So that's it for today, but until next time, Mama, may your dreams be ambitious. May your coffee be strong. I'll talk to you soon.

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