Raising Healthy Mothers – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This week on Raising Healthy Mothers, I talk to Kimberly Espinel, an award-winning food photographer, best selling author, Instagram influencer and podcaster.   It's no exaggeration to say Kimberly is one of the most influential food content creators on Instagram in the UK. But when she started out over 10 years ago, she was a mum of a young boy, completely unenthusiastic about returning to her previous 9 to 5 job that had her barely spending anytime with her son.   Craving the freedom to spend motherhood on her own terms, she spent the next few years re-training and building new skills and ultimately created an incredible business that has taken her down unexpected avenues.   So I invited her on to the podcast to talk about building her business and how she fits it into family life, and the lessons she has learnt along the way.   In the episode we discuss...

• How Instagram has evolved over the years and how Kimberly has levereged it
• The opportunities that running your own business through Instagram can afford the can come unexpectedly
• The hustle needed to build your own business in the early days, and the rewards you get out of it
• How to use Instagram as a service provider (like me!)
• Top tips for a mum thinking about starting a creative business but not sure where to start

This was an enriching conversation – very realistic on the intense effort needed to build a business, and yet incredibly encouraging when seen on the backdrop of the life of freedom she has built while working on something she became passionate about quite by accident.   Resources mentioned: Kimberly's Books: How to Make Your Food Famous | Creative Food Photography Free cheat sheet: 6 Essential Free Tools for Instagram   Find Kimberly: Instagram - @thelittleplantation | Podcast - Eat Capture Share | Website - The Little Plantation  

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tashadcruz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tashadcruznutrition
Website: https://tashadcruz.com/podcast

Loved this episode? Leave a review and rating on Apple Podcast.

You can now watch this episode on YouTube. Subscribe to my channel @tashadcruz.

  Say goodbye to your cooking rut and hello to effortless meal planning. Download my template meal plan guide at tashadcruz.com/template.

#raisinghealthymothers

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on tashadcruz.com is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you may have heard on the podcast or on the website. I may earn commission on shopping links to external sites, e.g. Amazon. This doesn't change the price you pay but gives me a small commission which goes back into keeping the podcast running.

 

This week I welcome Keris Marsden onto the show. Keris is a nutritional therapist, personal trainer and yoga teacher and she is probably the person that completely inspired my journey to becoming a nutritional therapist.   I invited Keris on to talk about perimenopause after she experienced early menopause in her late 30s and went on a journey of discovery around her health and wellbeing to uncover the best way to manage her symptoms so she could thrive instead of just surviving.   In this episode we discuss...

• What perimenopause is and what else it can be confused for
• The role of nutrition and lifestyle in improving symptoms of perimenopause and menopause
• HRT and body identical hormones – and how to know whether you need it
• The essential health practitioners that can support a healthy menopause
• The Empowered Menopause Hub - how Keris has taken her experience and knowledge to build the ultimate guide through your menopause

This was one of those discussions that could have gone on for 3 hours if we'd been able to! I have admired Keris's practical approach for years and feel so honoured to have finally had a chance to have her on the show.   I have had a sneak peek into the Empowered Menopause Hub and it's incredibly comprehensive so if you're ready to learn how to thrive through your menopause, then I highly recommend joining.   Resources mentioned:

• Newson Clinic
• Aura App for meditation
• Spiced Pear Health

Find Keris:

The Empowered Menopause Hub (affiliate link) Instagram | Facebook | Website | Fitter Food

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tashadcruz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tashadcruznutrition
Website: https://tashadcruz.com/podcast

Loved this episode? Leave a review and rating on Apple Podcast.

You can now watch this episode on YouTube. Subscribe to my channel @tashadcruz

Say goodbye to your cooking rut and hello to effortless meal planning. Download my template meal plan guide at tashadcruz.com/template.

#raisinghealthymothers

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on tashadcruz.com is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you may have heard on the podcast or on the website. I may earn commission on shopping links to external sites, e.g. Amazon. This doesn't change the price you pay but gives me a small commission which goes back into keeping the podcast running.

 

Does the idea of having therapy scare you?   I've always struggled with the concept. As a very private person with people pleasing tendencies, admitting I need help feels like failure.   And then the worry of finding the right therapy with the right person and knowing whether I'm going to get what I need out of it. Feels. So. Exhausting.   But I've always known that most of that is a personal prejudice and that in fact I would probably massively benefit from having therapy. As would most mothers.   So after 11 seasons and over 130 episodes, I have finally plucked up the courage to get the lowdown on therapy, what it looks like and why everyone should consider it.   And I couldn't ask for a better guest. Marci Carroll is a Psychotherapist who specialises in supporting mothers to find a way through the overwhelm so they can be more confident, at ease and joyful in their motherhood. Couldn't be more aligned with me and my mission!   In this episode we discussed...

• What psychotherapy is (and isn't)
• How motherhood changes a woman's identity and the pressure that society puts on mothers to return to their pre-baby state
• What matrescence means and why it's a vital piece of the puzzle to accepting the new identity of motherhood
• The three steps to self-compassion and why it's particularly important in motherhood
• What a typical therapy session looks like
• How to know whether you need therapy

And so much more! As always, this is an episode jam packed with compassion and beautiful insights that help reveal the enormity of the work still to be done to help a mother feel fully supported.   If you feel called to find a therapist, start with the BACP (in the UK) or IAHIP / IACP (in Ireland).   Find Marci: Website | Instagram Download her Wheel of Motherhood to get clear on your next steps to reduce the overwhelm and find joy.

Connect with me: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tashadcruz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tashadcruznutrition
Website: https://tashadcruz.com/podcast

Loved this episode? Leave a review and rating on Apple Podcast.

You can now watch this episode on YouTube. Subscribe to my channel @tashadcruz.

To download your free guide to more energy in 10 days, head to www.tashadcruz.com/more-energy.

#raisinghealthymothers

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on tashadcruz.com is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you may have heard on the podcast or on the website. I may earn commission on shopping links to external sites, e.g. Amazon. This doesn't change the price you pay but gives me a small commission which goes back into keeping the podcast running.

 

This week on Raising Healthy Mothers I'm talking to Francesca Mastrojanni, a fellow nutritional therapist who also works for Functional DX, a leading functional medicine blood testing and analysis lab. We dive into blood testing and why we use it in practice as nutritional therapists and how it can help us to understand our clients's symptoms and help focus on a plan.   In the episode we discuss:

• Postnatal recovery and healing food
• What bloods can tell us about our health
• Common symptoms that are often dismissed as normal, but may be a nutrient depletion
• How and when to get your bloods tested and how to get help with the results
• Why mums often notice symptoms popping up at around 9 months postpartum

As usual when I talk to another nutritional therapist, we got a bit geeky, and I loved getting my teeth into this with someone else who also supports mums in the postpartum period.

Find Francesca:

Instagram | Functional DX

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Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide

Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book

Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.

Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads

Follow me on Instagram

#raisinghealthymothers

Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better! 

This week on Raising Healthy Mothers I'm talking about supplements and whether you should consider supplements beyond pregnancy and into motherhood. In the episode I discuss:

• The place of of nutritional supplements within a larger picture of health and wellbeing
• Why we might need supplements, and specific circumstances when they might be helpful
• Choosing good quality brands
• The basic foundation that most mums need

I often get asked whether mums should continue taking supplements beyond the first trimester, so this episode will help you understand why I do think it can be helpful. ---

Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide

Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book

Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.

Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads

Follow me on Instagram

#raisinghealthymothers

Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better! 

This week on Raising Healthy Mothers I'm talking about all things tea with the fab Bethan Thomas of HotTea Mama. After moving to China, Bethan fell in love with all things tea and started a lifelong obsession with it, culminating in founding a tea company making functional teas specifically for mums and womanhood.

In this episode we talk about:

• The poor quality of our bog-standard builders teabag, and why standard herbal teas rarely taste as good as they smell

• How she noticed a gap in the market for delicious, functional teas for mums in motherhood

• The science behind tea and how it can help during the different phases of motherhood

• The difficulties of unpicking the scientific evidence for what is and isn't safe in pregnancy

• How Bethan chooses her specific blends and the scientific base behind their safety and how they help at specific times of motherhood

This was a fascinating discussion that had us both geeking out about nutrition science and getting our teeth into the ins and outs of proper, functional teas for motherhood.

Find HotTea Mama:

Website | Instagram | Facebook

The Tommy's caffeine calculator: https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/calculators-tools-resources/check-your-caffeine-intake-pregnancy

Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide

Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book

Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.

Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads

Follow me on Instagram

#raisinghealthymothers

Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better! 

This week on Raising Healthy Mothers, I'm speaking to Bec Milligan, a fellow nutritional therapist with a special interest in supporting women with stress resilience and self-care. Bec has additional training in restorative yoga, emotional freedom technique and breathwork to offer a holistic approach to building resilience for women juggling it all through life's transitions.

In this episode we discuss:

• Bec's journey from a fast-paced TV executive to a nutritional therapist and EFT practitioner specialising in stress resilience

• Motherhood as a transition from one person to another

• Our body's natural stress response - and why we often get sick on holiday after a stressful period at work

• Stress patterns of neural wiring learned throughout our life and how to cut ties of old emotional stressors

• How to build resilience through diet, lifestyle and with a toolkit to re-programme how we respond to stress

This was a brilliant conversation, where we also discussed guilt around how we end up giving birth and breastfeeding contributes to the stress of motherhood. I love Bec's story through her experience of fight/fight/flop and how it informed her trajectory through work and motherhood.

In the episode Bec talks through how emotional freedom technique works and walks us through a short session, which you can find to watch in the shownotes on my website:

www.tashadcruz.com/podcast/building-stress-resilience

Find Bec:

Website | Instagram | Facebook

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Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide

Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book

Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.

Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads

Follow me on Instagram

#raisinghealthymothers

Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better! 

Today on Raising Healthy Mothers I'm introducing the concept of the Wheel of Motherhood as a means to prioritise yourself as a mother. This is a tool I often use for my clients and for myself too, to work out the areas of life that need to be prioritised to bring some balance in life.   Often mums find themselves at the bottom of the list of priorities, a shift that often happens as soon as baby is born - and doesn't shift back. As a result you might find yourself becoming resentful, notice your ability to cope is reduced, your resilience to face challenges is worse and you have difficulty making decisions. This can have a knock on effect on sleep, maintaining a healthy weight or hormonal balance. And over time this can lead to more serious concerns such as depression, anxiety and other serious chronic diseases.   In this episode I'm going to talk about:

• The 8 sections of the Wheel of Motherhood
• Why each is important
• How and when to use this tool

To download the Wheel of Motherhood and a worksheet to guide you, wheel-of-motherhood. I encourage you to use this tool periodically and regularly to assess your priorities and work out what you need to work on next. Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide   Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book   Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.   Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads Follow me on Instagram #raisinghealthymothers   Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better! 

On this week's episode I'm talking to Sophie Messager, a doula and perinatal educator and healer, best known recently for her fantastic book 'Why Postnatal Recovery Matters'.   In this episode we cover Sophie's 4 pillars of postnatal recovery and talk at great length about each one and why they're so important. We covered:

• Postnatal recovery traditions around the world
• Why mums often blame themselves for feeling exhausted (when it's not their fault!)
• What's missing from our Western culture
• How visitors can be actually helpful in the early days
• The importance of bodywork in the first few days and weeks after giving birth - and why we don't need to wait for the 6 week check to have it done

This ended up being a wide-ranging discussion and I particularly loved Sophie's tireless work to promote the importance of full, holistic postnatal recovery. I truly believe this is one of the key missing pieces in a joyful, happy motherhood and hope this episode can help plug the gap just a little bit. ---

Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide

Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book

Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.

Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads

Follow me on Instagram

#raisinghealthymothers

Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better! 

Today on Raising Healthy Mothers I'm busting 8 common breastfeeding myths. These are the sort of things I hear so often and it breaks my heart how many mums are stopped in their track just because of old wives tales and outdated advise circulating from friends and family, and even sometimes from healthcare professionals!   So in this episode I've picked out the 8 most common ones and busted them. I hope that by the end of the episode you'll feel more confident in knowing that:

• Breastfeeding doesn't have to (and shouldn't!) hurt
• Breastfeeding may not come naturally - you need to be proactive in learning about it!
• A fussy baby doesn't necessarily mean you're not feeding enough
• You probably will produce enough milk, as long as your baby effectively removes it
• Your partner can bond with baby in many ways other than feeding them with a bottle
• Fed is minimum rather than best...

  The best leg up you can give yourself if you're planning to breastfeed is to educate yourself as much as possible and find out what support is available to you - BEFORE you give birth. Hoping to breastfeed but winging it is not going to give you the best chance; finding out how breastfeeding actually works during pregnancy is best way to start preparing for breastfeeding.   There are many more myths about breastfeeding that I haven't mentioned here. I'm on a mission to give as many women as much support as I can during pregnancy and the early days. As a mindful breastfeeding supporter I offer antenatal education around breastfeeding and postnatal assessment of latch and position and troubleshooting issues. I also help mums through guided relaxations, breathwork and affirmations so they have the tools to remain calm and confident, despite the challenges. ---

Busy Mum? Download my free 5-day Family Friendly Meal Plan and Prep Guide

Soon to give birth? Download my Guide to Eating During Labour and Postnatal Healing Recipes e-Book

Want more energy? Get my 7-day Mini Course straight to your inbox - for all mums whether you’re pregnant, recently given birth or running around after a toddler.

Sign up for my newsletter and free downloads

Follow me on Instagram

#raisinghealthymothers

Did you love this episode? Please leave a rating and review to help reach more people, and share it with a friend who needs it. The more mums we can reach the better!