The Keto Diet Podcast Ep. #030: Experience Going Keto II

April 23, 2017 By Leanne Vogel August 8, 2018

Interview with Deanna Fike, keto enthusiast in her third trimester, chatting about how keto supported her goal in getting pregnant, how her keto approach has changed since becoming pregnant, and more.

For podcast transcript, scroll down.

**Deanna is aware that many women had more questions about the specifics of eating Fat Fueled while being pregnant, and so she wanted to add the following statement:

“I have had a lot of people asking about weight gain during pregnancy on keto… I just wanted to say it has been very manageable and I get told all the time how I look so small at 7 months, and I totally believe it’s because I eat this way. I’m still wearing clothing I wore before pregnanc because my weight gain is all belly and nowhere else. I eat tons of food when I’m hungry, and gain what I need for the baby’s health and no more.

Also, typical issues like bloating, edema, mood swings and food cravings are incredibly under control or absent. My blood pressure is perfect. I’ve had no issues with joint or back pain, water retention or anything like that.”

Show Notes & Links

• Feel awesome on your keto diet with The Keto Bundle
• Get my free 7-day keto meal plan
• Subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app
• Use #ketodietbook and win
• Review the book here or here
• Listen to my pregnancy and keto podcast
• Try this RFL recipe
• Get more info on the Daily Fat Burner Profile in Fat Fueled
• Make my flaxseed focaccia recipe

Timestamps

• Steps to starting whole food keto (15:14)
• Keto compliance while pregnant (21:04)
• Preparing for keto pregnancy (34:43)

Partners of The Keto Diet Podcast

Transcript

Leanne Vogel: You’re listening to episode #30 of The Keto Diet Podcast. Today we’re chatting about steps to starting a whole food ketogenic diet, the process of becoming pregnant on keto, the mental state that come when you’re ketogenic diet needs to be adjusted while you’re pregnant, lessons learned while on a ketogenic diet, and so much more. So stay tuned.

Hey. I’m Leanne from HealthfulPursuit.com and this is The Keto Diet Podcast where we’re busting through the restrictive mentality of a traditional ketogenic diet to uncover the life you crave. What’s keto? Keto is a low-carb, high fat diet where we’re switching from a sugar burning state to becoming fat burning machines. If you’re in need of keto recipe food prep inspiration, I’ve prepped a free seven-day keto meal plan exclusive for podcast listeners. The plan is complete with a shopping list and everything you need to chow down on Keto for seven whole days. Download your free copy at healthfulpursuit.com/ketomeal. Let’s get this party started.

Hey guys, happy Sunday, April 23rd. Oh, my goodness. Where does time go, right? I hope you’re having a wonderful spring and you’re up to something really awesome this Sunday. The show notes and full transcript for today’s episode can be found at healthfulpursuit.com/podcast/e30. The transcript is added to the post about three to five days following the initial air date of this episode, and let’s hear from one of our awesome partners.

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If you have an idea for a podcast episode or want to submit praise over and above the review which can leave by going to healthfulpursuit.com/review you can reach me at mailto:info@ketodietpodcast.com. So, we have three announcements really quick before we get started with today’s episode. The first is, if you got a copy of my book, The Keto Diet, you can use the hashtag, the number sign is the hashtag, #ketodietbook all one word, when you make recipes from the book, take pictures of yourself with the book, and you can be entered to win a jar of Epic Provision’s cooking oils or Kasandrinos Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

So, all you gotta do is use that hashtag when you’re making the recipes, use it on social media whether that be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, anywhere you have social media, use that hashtag and you’ll be instantly entered to win one of the two prizes and we’re going to be selecting two random winners every week from April 11th to June 20th. So, you have twenty chances to win. All you have to do is use the #ketodietbook on any social media and you’ll be entered to win instantly. The giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents, and you can visit healthfulpursuit.com/ketodietbookgiveaway for more details.

The second is, if you haven’t already done so, please, please, please go to ketodietbook.com/amazon or ketodietbook.com/bn to leave your honest review for the book. Those two URLs will take you directly to the Amazon page and the Barnes and Noble page, and you can just leave a couple of words about what you thought of my paperback. It’s super important that we get lots of reviews in these first couple of weeks of the book launching. That way we can try to hit some best seller lists and get rocking and share the keto message with more people that maybe don’t even know that it exists yet, but could totally benefit for the message I have in the book.

So, if you’ve already got the book with you, definitely take a moment to go to ketodietbook.com/amazon and ketodietbook.com/bn and it’ll direct you to those pages where you can leave a review. And if you haven’t picked up a copy yet, feel free to do so at your favorite bookstore. Bookstore sales now are really important to getting onto those best seller lists and I’m really hoping that we can get on a couple. That’s my hope anyway, just so we can help more people, and that’s really why I wrote this book is to connect to people that I couldn’t online.

The third and final thing is that I will be at Paleo f(x) this year in Austin. So, if you’re going, I’d love to meet you on the floor, and if you didn’t get a chance to meet with me on the book tour, perhaps you don’t live in Austin or you couldn’t make it work, bring your book along with you and I will sign it. So that is the Memorial Day long weekend. I’ll be at Paleo f(x). It’s at the Palmer Convention Center. You can definitely Google Paleo f(x) 2017 to see. I’ll be on the floor, guaranteed, on Saturday. That’s kind of what we’re shooting for, but yeah, it would be really great to see you either again or for the first time.

So, today’s guest, her name is Deanna. She’s a thirty-four-year-old graphic designer from Philadelphia working from home as a production manager for a magazine. She and her husband also own a wedding photo booth and invitation business called Lovebirds Philly. After a roller coaster of restrictive eating and binging since she was a young teen, taxing her adrenals, training for half-marathons while simultaneously killing herself in HIIT workouts, and all of the while starving her body of the fuel it so desperately needed, she’s finally found balance through my Fat Fueled way of living. She’s been keto since April 2016 and Fat Fueled since June 2016, and is currently pregnant with what will be their first child, navigating her way through pregnancy with a Fat Fueled mentality.

You guys, if you’re part of our Facebook group for all of my different digital programs, then you know Deanna. She is one of our admins. She is such a great supporter of our community. I mean, we wouldn’t be able to have our Facebook group without people like Deanna just making it happen and crushing life and really helping out the community, and Deanna’s such a great voice for listening to your body and being kind within the ketogenic space, so I’m really excited to share this interview with you. So, let’s cut over to it.

Hey, Deanna. How’s it going?

Deanna Fike: Hey, Leanne. I am so excited to be talking to you today. It’s going pretty well. How about you?

Leanne Vogel: I’m doing really well. I feel like right before we started recording, I was like “I feel like I know this girl already” because you’ve been …

Deanna Fike: I know.

Leanne Vogel: … such an active person in our community forever.

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh. I love the … like it’s seriously, my husband’s always like “What, talking to your keto people?” Like all the time because … it’s just like, I don’t know, like that’s just my, I guess, like his downtime is reading or he’s playing some kind of NFL game, and my downtime is chatting with keto peeps. So, it’s like, yeah, I love it, I really do and it’s just so fun to learn from everyone, and once I get into something like that, I’m totally in it, so … yeah, I love the group. They’re awesome.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, they’re so great and you make it even better just by supporting so many people, so …

Deanna Fike: Oh, thank you.

Leanne Vogel: … thank you for that and keeping everything so positive and uplifting. Why don’t we start at the very beginning by kind of talking about how you found keto?

Deanna Fike: Okay. Well, I guess it depends on how far you want me to go back. But I guess, so my whole life I’ve been dieting. It’s just like I feel like I’ve been fighting my body ever since I was probably like nine years old. I remember my doctor telling my mom that I was overweight because, you know, BMI charts, so …

Leanne Vogel: Super accurate.

Deanna Fike: Yeah, exactly. And I’m like 5’9″ and I’m German and I have big bones and I’ve always been, not like muscular, but, you know, I’ve just always been a bigger person, and my whole life, everyone’s been kind of telling me “You’re overweight, you’re overweight, you’re overweight” and when I look back at pictures, I really wasn’t overweight. Like I look back when I thought I was so huge in high school, and I’m like “God, I looked awesome. Why couldn’t I just appreciate it?” So, I guess, just with that in mind, I’ve just been looking for things, I guess you could say, my entire life, just trying to figure out, I guess, where food fit in with a comfortable lifestyle without constantly feeling as though I was having to concentrate on that, I guess you could say.

So, I guess, college I went away and ate whatever I wanted because I was coming from a lifestyle at home where it was like “Okay, you’re overweight. You need to watch what you’re eating”, so eventually I had gotten up to being pretty overweight for my size. I think I was about 235 pounds, and then fast forward into my thirties and I was completely opposite, where I was running and training for half-marathons and doing Orange Theory Fitness two to three times a week and kickboxing and, of course, low calorie diet throughout all of that.

And then it took me tearing my rotator cuff, which I don’t even know how I did it, that’s how hard I was pushing myself in workouts. Like I don’t even remember tearing my rotator cuff. And when I was having that pain, I went to a chiropractor first to get adjusted, and it actually worked awesomely, and that chiropractor was just getting into Keto OS. This was last March, so of course, he got me so super excited about Keto OS and thinking it was this magical drink that I could just drink and go into fat burning mode. And it worked for a little while for me, but it wasn’t for me, but that’s how I got introduced into ketogenic eating. I was following the lifestyle that they kind of give you which is still focused on low calorie and still kind of restrictive, but that’s how I found regular keto. It wasn’t until a few months later that I found Leanne’s version of keto, which I feel has just brought everything together for me, I guess you could say.

Leanne Vogel: Oh, wow, that’s cool. So, you started off with Keto OS. What was your experience with that? I always like asking people what their thoughts are on it.

Deanna Fike: Okay, so my chiropractor is like … oh, my gosh, he’s insane about the keto, he loves it. And that’s great if he loves it and it works for him, that’s awesome. For me, I bought two canisters two separate times, and each time I ended up returning it because one had caffeine, the other … and I couldn’t have too much of it at once, or the other one just tasted really terrible, and I was never getting that mental clarity that everyone kept talking about with it, and I didn’t lose any weight because at the same time that I was doing that, I was restricting my calories because I was told “You have to restrict your calories in order to force your body into ketosis,” and so really, it was just more like I wanted it to work, and it just didn’t for me. I know that it works for some people, but for me personally, it wasn’t something that I needed. Once I got into eating the way I should be eating, I feel like the whole foods approach is just so much better.

Leanne Vogel: And when you started with that whole foods approach, what was kind of your experience with … did you find like you had to readapt, or just pick up where you left off, or what was that like?

Deanna Fike: Well, I guess I kind of had like a roller coaster in the beginning and I think a lot of people go through that when they’re discovering keto, because there’s so much information out there, and I guess I was having trouble because of, I guess, of the restriction, I would be binging on the weekends, and not really allowing my body to get to where it needed to be. And I can’t say binging, but I was having things that quote-unquote weren’t on the diet, so all of that, kind of coupled together once I found Fat Fueled and started doing … like I consider Fat Fueled different from keto because, for me, it just feels so much different. It’s not restrictive and it’s not an all-or-nothing thing. It’s awesome. Once I started that, I don’t really feel as though I had to start over. I did make it a point at the time to follow the idea to get fat-adapted again, and to kind of reset a little bit because I felt like I was on a little bit of a roller coaster from before.

And I was also having some major issues with my hair falling out, and adrenal fatigue because at the same time I went keto, I also went off birth control. And a couple months in, I figured out that my asthma was under control, and I stopped taking my corticosteroid inhalers, so all of that coupled together, I guess, my HAP axis was kind of like shot, and I was, I don’t know, I felt like I was falling apart. It was like a mess.

So, yeah, you can say once I actually started feeding my body properly, it did take me a little while just to get used to that, as like a non-restrictive type healing mentality, instead of a weight loss mentality, which I had been on for so long.

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Leanne Vogel: And to go from like HAP axis craziness to now being in your third trimester, how has that been for you, like what was the process of trying to get pregnant? Was it pretty easy, were you eating keto? Tell me the things.

Deanna Fike: Well, I guess once I discovered Fat Fueled and really started focusing on healing my body, it didn’t really take me too long for the hair loss to subside. I’d say it was about two months but it was only really bad for a couple weeks, and then it started to ease up. I started doing my coconut oil trick where I was just feeding myself coconut oil at least five times a day, just trying to get as many calories and just really put all the good stuff that I could possibly put into my body. So, it probably was around that same time that we started trying to get pregnant, and it only took me two months. I’m very lucky in that, I guess, I didn’t have any type of fertility issues.

And so yeah, it was like two months after finding Fat Fueled that I ended up pregnant, and then for the first trimester, at first I was like “This is awesome. I can totally do this. I’m going to be keto forever,” and that was for maybe like a week. And then the nausea and the food aversions hit and it just, I mean, it put me on my butt. I couldn’t believe how crappy I felt. I mean, it’s really … like if I could go back and you could be “Would you want to be pregnant again?” I’d be like “Well, let me just sit back and maybe enjoy not being sick for a little bit” because I wasn’t expecting it to be as controlling of my life, I guess you could say, as it was because I actually didn’t have morning sickness.

I had pretty much all day sickness, and then, which sometimes in the morning I had a good spurt of feeling okay for an hour or two, so I always took advantage of that first hour or two and tried to eat keto as much as I could, and got the stuff done around the house because I knew that by eleven or twelve o’clock, I was going to be sick and craving carbohydrates, and just not being able to really focus on myself as much, so the first trimester was a little bit on the rough side. I did listen to several podcasts with Lily Nichols recently.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, she’s good.

Deanna Fike: And she’s so awesome. And it made me feel so much better about, you know, kind of like just following my body at that point because I could not eat anything that was like meat or fat or vegetable. It was just my body was just telling me it needed carbs and I felt so guilty at the time, but Lily on several of her podcasts had said that “if your body’s craving carbs, maybe that’s what it needed at that time for that stage in development.” She thinks that sometimes in the first trimester that’s why women crave carbohydrates is because that might be what it needs at the time, so that made me feel a little bit better about not necessarily being able to eat Fat Fueled during my first trimester.

Leanne Vogel: And what was that process like for you, coming from more disordered eating or restrictive eating to then find this eating style that’s so perfect, I’m going to eat if for the rest of my life, and then, whahn, whahn, a week later like “Nah.” How did you deal with that mentally?

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh, I was miserable. I can’t even candy coat it. I was so miserable because I feel like after so many years of the restrictive and the calorie counting or portion counting and all of that stuff, like to be able to finally just breathe and not have to worry about it, and then all of a sudden, we’re back to “I can’t control what I’m putting in my mouth”, and I just hated that feeling of not having that control. And also, when you’re eating that stuff, you feel so crappy when you can’t get the food that your body needs.

You just feel like you’re just … I don’t know, it’s just like how anyone feels when they eat too much of a bad thing, but I was feeling awful anyway, so it was kind of like “Oh, well. I feel like crap and I really want a bagel, but I’m going to feel like crap if I eat it, but I feel like crap anyway.” So that was the kind of thing that went through my mind, but at the time it was hard. But I did what I could to get through it, and I really focused on the times that I was feeling good, and the times that I was feeling good I wanted to make the most out of it.

So that’s what I did, and by week twelve I was seeing a little bit of a let-up in the nausea and the aversion, so I really just took advantage of every chance I had to eat wholesome foods, and I would tell myself “You’re eating eggs and bacon this morning and an RFL, and if an hour later you want a bowl of cereal, fine, but for right now, you’re eating keto, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

So, by week fourteen I think, I was completely back to eating my high fat, low-carb, all the veggies, all the meats, except for chicken, for some reason chicken was not a big thing for me for a couple months, but so yeah, it was just mainly I was miserable but I tried to focus on those moments that I had to really feed my body. And I think that really helped me get back into it overall, because the more you eat better, the more you feel better and just gradually over those two weeks, I guess, really helped me out in getting back to Fat Fueled.

Leanne Vogel: Amazing. And there are two things that you mentioned. The first is I’ll include a link in the show notes with the interview that I did with Lily Nichols on this podcast, and then you also said RFL. So, for people that don’t know what an RFL is …

Deanna Fike: Oh, yeah.

Leanne Vogel: … it’s a Rocket Fuel Latte. I’ll also include a link in the show notes for that if you’re like “I like rockets and I like being fueled.” How do you deal or have you had to deal with judgment from people that are like “You shouldn’t … fat on … pregnancy fat? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh.

Leanne Vogel: Thoughts?

Deanna Fike: Well, luckily I haven’t run into too much of it because I think I’ve learned … like when I first discovered keto, I told everyone I knew, like “You guys have to try this. It’s amazing.” There’s so much science behind it that I love so much and I did so much research, and then everyone thought I was crazy. So, especially my in-laws. Oh, my God. They like, oh, my gosh. So, I kind of keep it to myself as much as possible. I have, of course, my close friends and family who I talk to about it, and I think that they’ve known, I guess, the process that I’ve been through, so they’re kind of used to it by now, and they’re used to me like yapping about nutrition and stuff, so they haven’t given me any negative feedback about it.

And working from home, I don’t go into an office and have people seeing what I’m eating all the time, but most of the time how I’ve dealt with it, and this is what a lot of girls in … I’m in a couple keto pregnancy groups on Facebook, we just tell our doctor or whoever that we eat a lot of vegetables and healthy fats and proteins, and we try to limit our sugar intake, and we don’t eat grains or dairy, so when you put it like that it sounds a lot better than “Oh, I eat ketogenically. I try to have ketones in my blood”,  because the second a doctor hears that they’re going to freak out, if they are not very informed about it. And when I did actually bring it up, at the time I had an OB, I switched to a midwife, I did bring it up to an OB and I said it in that way, and they were like “Great.”

So, at that time, I guess, that one was fine, but there are some people I’ve seen in other groups who have had a lot of issues with people telling them that they’re going to hurt their baby, and that’s just awful to me because if they did their research and they actually a little more informed about it, they would know that these women are not hurting their babies. They’re not going to kill them, or like, you know, it’s just kind of crazy the type of things that people will say to people.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, that’s really scary. I know I’ve had doctors say that to me as well, but I think it’s different when you’re carrying another human life.

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh, yes.

Leanne Vogel: Everything is just so much more intense.

Deanna Fike: They’re like “Am I going to hurt … ” Yeah, it’s oh, my gosh, these poor women, and they’re like “Am I really going to hurt my baby? What do I do? I don’t want to be … ” They’re like “I feel amazing, but then they want me to add a hundred carbs a day to my diet, on top of my already, like carb intake.” But to me it’s like if you feel amazing, your baby’s probably doing awesome. Your body would tell you if you were doing something that wasn’t good for your child. It would definitely backfire. When I eat gluten or dairy, I get cramping and spotting. And when I don’t eat that stuff, I feel amazing, so to me, it’s like your body’s going to tell you if you’re doing something wrong. And if you feel that great when you’re pregnant, there’s a reason for it.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah. And what other things have you … like have you learned stuff about your body since you got pregnant? Because I know keto has helped me learn a ton about my body …

Deanna Fike: Oh, yeah.

Leanne Vogel: … and I’m sure with you, too, coupled with pregnancy …

Deanna Fike: Yes.

Leanne Vogel: … what does that look like now?

Deanna Fike: More than ever, I’ve realized how sensitive I am to things, to different changes. Even before pregnancy, I had trouble getting my electrolytes under control. My body is so sensitive to my electrolyte balance and to this day, I have trouble controlling my electrolytes. Around, I guess you could say, maybe around like twenty-six weeks, or actually no, it’s probably been longer than that, but halfway through my second trimester, so I had to increase my carb intake because I was finding that when I was eating my normal keto foods, I don’t count macros so I was just eating my greens and my protein and my eggs and my bacon, but I wasn’t, I actually wasn’t eating enough carbs and I didn’t even realize it.

And at that time, we were having a lot of discussions on the Facebook feed about needing more carbs sometimes on keto, and being super low carb all the time isn’t always necessarily great for you, so it wasn’t until I increased by carbs to like fifty or eighty a day, like I counted for a couple of days just to get a feel for it. But it wasn’t until then that I finally figured out the electrolyte thing, because if your electrolytes get low when you’re pregnant, you can go into labor. So I was getting cramping and all kinds of stuff from having low potassium. I was waking up in the middle of the night from low potassium or low sodium. It was just a mess. So adding those extra carbs in to try and keep those carb stores in was really essential for me.

And before I was pregnant, I don’t think I knew the extent at how sensitive my body is to changes like that. I guess you could also say like other things that I learned were, after I had gone back to being low-carb, because I had counted the one day when I was maybe like fifteen carbs and that’s just not, for me that doesn’t work for my body, but I was just on autopilot at that point. And I was feeling really good. I wasn’t gaining any weight anymore, so I was just going with it, but it wasn’t until that electrolyte thing and I stopped sleeping. I was waking up every three hours.

I also put on about six pounds in two weeks and even though I was sticking to my low-carb thing, and I was like “Well, that’s not right.” I also was having crazy mood swings and low energy, so that’s when I made the decision to up the carbs and it solved all of those problems for me. I sleep so much better now and the weight gain slowed back down, and my mood, like my craziness kind of went away a little bit. You can only be so not crazy when you’re pregnant, but I was even more crazy, and then I was less crazy. But my husband definitely appreciated that. So yeah, I guess those are some of the things that I’ve learned along the way with my body.

Even actually yesterday, I learned more things. It’s like every day. I was at a wedding on Sunday, and I decided I wanted to dance, and I’d been walking around in heels all day. And like, you’re almost seven-and-a-half months pregnant, maybe that’s probably not the best idea, but I felt good, so I decided to go do some dancing and stuff. And then yesterday I was having Braxton Hicks contractions all day. It was constant, and I was getting worried because I was trying to put in the electrolytes. I was trying to lay down. So I learned that all of that activity really aggravates my body still, and so now I have to limit that because they just wouldn’t stop. It was like all day long. It was so annoying.

Leanne Vogel: Wow. That’s crazy.

Deanna Fike: Yeah. That’s crazy.

Leanne Vogel: So interesting.

Deanna Fike: Today’s better.

Leanne Vogel: Awesome.

Deanna Fike: Yeah, it’s so weird. But you’re probably interviewing the one person in the world who has the most weird issues that they could possibly ever have when they’re pregnant. Other girls who I’ve talked to who are keto and pregnant, they’re like “Oh, twenty-five carbs the whole time. I was awesome. No problems.” And they’re like “No problems whatsoever.” With me it’s every day, there’s something that I’m learning that I need to adjust, so maybe by the time I’m nine months, I’ll have figured it out.

Leanne Vogel: Here’s hoping, right?

Deanna Fike: Yeah, really.

Leanne Vogel: Now you’ve mentioned a couple of times, like “up the carbs.” How do you do that? What’s your strategy, are you eating carbs all day? Are you eating them at night? Are you doing carb-ups? What’s your deal?

Deanna Fike: Well, when I decided that I needed to add them, I didn’t want to count. I really … I love the fact that I can follow this lifestyle and not have to worry about numbers. So the first thing I started doing, and it was funny because like I don’t have any cravings, and I do attribute that to being Fat Fueled. For some reason I just really wanted bananas. Out of all the things I could crave, I was craving bananas, which was fine, because I guess it could be worse. So I just let myself have a banana a day, and that’s what, I think they’re life forty-five total carbs or something. So that, and combined with my vegetables and my blueberries or whatever I might have in my, like I have keto smoothies in the morning now, and so that combination allowed me to up my carbs to between fifty and eighty a day randomly. I didn’t count it. It was just like having that banana usually put me in that zone which was awesome.

So now I’ve branched out a little bit from bananas and have gone to some plantains or sweet potatoes or beets or something, so most of the time I stick with the whole Daily Fat Burner/carb-up style where I focus mainly on having them in the evening. If I have my banana, it’s going to be after dinner as a part of some sort of dessert type thing. I have smaller carby type things throughout the day if I … like the blueberries or maybe some extra tomatoes or something on my salad, I don’t know, but most of the time it’s like I concentrate getting my carbs, and at night to limit any blood sugar roller coasters that I may get.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, and what about … we added a little bit about energy in different pieces. Can we just go over kind of what your energy’s been like from before you were keto to kind of now in the different phases of your pregnancy of your energy level, so people can kind of map that out in their own runs?

Deanna Fike: Yeah, yeah. The first trimester, of course, was like, I think my fatigue was the worst then. And I think that that had a lot to do with what I was eating, and also when you’re first pregnant, you’re exhausted. I think that that’s pretty much, you know, for everyone. Once I was able to get back to eating Fat Fueled, I felt so much better. I had amazing energy. I was still, like I still do kickboxing once a week, but modified for a preggo body type kickboxing. So I had more energy for that, I was walking more and I felt really good. And then, I guess right around the time that I had discovered that I needed to include more carbs, was about the time that I saw a dip in my energy, and that was I guess, I think it was probably around twenty-two to twenty-four weeks.

And then the energy, it came back but not as fully as it was in the beginning of the second trimester, but typically they say that the second trimester is when you feel more like yourself again. And that’s totally true for me. Especially because I was able to eat how I wanted to eat. Now that the third trimester hit, I’ve definitely noticed another dip in the energy again, and I think it’s just because you’re carrying around a lot of extra weight, and you’re blood volume increases by like forty to sixty percent or something like that, so even just that alone, plus the belly and your chest might get bigger and stuff, like you’re just carrying around a lot more and using a lot more energy just to exist.

So, yeah. So I’ve definitely felt a big dip in my energy there, so I’m in bed a lot or like just sitting a lot, but I miss being able to move around. But I make sure that I make it a point to do some things. But yeah, energy definitely, like it goes low then high and then low again.

Leanne Vogel: Ugh, frustrating, but also cool that you’re so in touch with your body. I feel like if I were to be pregnant, my experience would be like yours. Just like always seeking for something else and your body surprising you at every turn, and just rolling with the punches and just kind of seeing where it takes you.

Now, we’ve chatted a lot about pregnancy. I want to rewind just a little bit for people that are maybe interested in becoming pregnant on keto, and you know, they’re eating keto and wanting to become pregnant. You mentioned that it was a pretty effortless process for you which is amazing, like just blows my mind. That’s so cool. I mean, it doesn’t blow my mind because I’m so fertile. If I look at my husband the right way, I’m sure I would become pregnant. So, got to be watching that.

More on my interview with Deanna Fike after this message from one of our podcast partners.

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Leanne Vogel: What was really … like I’m sure when you first started, and I know you see in our Facebook group concerns with cholesterol, and a lot of doctors say “You need to have your cholesterol balanced out before you get pregnant” and how did you navigate preparing for pregnancy on a ketogenic diet?

Deanna Fike: Okay, well I’ve never had … I haven’t had my cholesterol tested, at least to the point where I was made aware that there was anything wrong or anything like that. I had my cholesterol tested before keto and it was fine. And then I think they may test it when you first go in, they do all kinds … I mean they take like, I think they took seven vials of blood for blood work I went into testing, so I’m sure that they had tested for cholesterol then. I’m sorry that I had don’t have those numbers, but …

Leanne Vogel: That’s okay.

Deanna Fike: … yeah, but like to the best of my knowledge there was nothing wrong because I feel like they would have told me, but as far as preparing, I really focused on getting as much variety of food that I could in, really focused on folate. I have a prenatal vitamin that has methylated folate in it and is all from natural whole foods instead of synthetic vitamins because I do not react well to synthetic vitamins at all.

So I was taking them for a good long time, but I guess as far as just preparing on keto, I already felt like I was really fueling and feeding my body to the best way that I could. So I think the only thing I really changed was, my periods had gotten a little bit off and I think it was left over from that whole HPA axis deal with the hair loss going on, and like having gone off birth control, was I started, I found I was spotting a couple days before my period started so I wanting to lengthen my luteal phase a little bit, so I started just doing like very low does progesterone cream, like natural progesterone, just to get through those like couple days of my body kind of like wondering if it should get its period or not, because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold on to the pregnancy.

And that fear came from having had a miscarriage last year when I was not keto, and it wasn’t anything like, it was just like one of those things that happens. And I was so paranoid I guess from that, that I was willing to do anything I could to make sure that he was staying in there. So that was the one thing that I changed right before we decided to try, was I wanted to make sure that my period was as regulated as possible just to make sure that it hung on to the pregnancy if we got it right.

Leanne Vogel: And hey, you got it right and …

Deanna Fike: Yeah.

Leanne Vogel: … things are going really well.

Deanna Fike: Yeah. Yeah.

Leanne Vogel: That’s awesome.

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh, with the anxiety from that …

Leanne Vogel: I’m sure.

Deanna Fike: … like I know a lot of girls who have lost pregnancies and then gone on and had successful pregnancies, and most women do go on to have successful pregnancies afterwards, and it’s always in the back of our minds and it can be very stressful. It wasn’t until, I think, I started feeling him move around all the time that I finally was able to be like “Okay. We’re good.” But before that it was always like “I’m I going to hear a heartbeat this time?” Like, oh, my gosh …

Leanne Vogel: Yeah.

Deanna Fike: … I had so much anxiety surrounding those appointments, but thankfully my husband always went with me and because I told him he was not allowed to NOT go with me … to hold his hand while they were looking for that heartbeat.

Leanne Vogel: Totally. I can imagine that being such a traumatic experience and then reliving that every time until a certain period, and it’s …

Deanna Fike: Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

Leanne Vogel: I couldn’t …

Deanna Fike: I feel as though I take things in stride. It wasn’t something that, you know, like … it was very hard at the time but it wasn’t something that I feel as though, you know, ruined my life or anything like that, but I know that there are some people who just are so traumatized by that, and just having that little bit of worry every time can be a little bit stressful. But I really do think that the measures I’ve taken as far as my nutrition have really helped my body in general just be a really good, I guess, host for my kid.

Leanne Vogel: I like that. A nice comfy home that’s, you know …

Deanna Fike: Yeah, he’s pretty comfy in there, so …

Leanne Vogel: And do you have any plans for once you have him, kind of … have you chatted with your husband about how you’ll raise him with nutrition and food and has that come up?

Deanna Fike: Absolutely, yeah. And my husband’s great, like he knows how much I look into things, and he said “If you think that that’s the best thing, then that’s what we’re going to do.” Like, he just knows how much I look into things before I do them and how much research I do. So, it’s kind of like a balancing act because you don’t want to give him things that you know are just awful. I just think that there are certain foods that humans should not be eating, and I don’t want to give them to my kid. But then I know eventually he’s going to be in school, and they’re going to be like “Well, why don’t you eat bread?”

Or like, you know, so I feel like it’s going to be a lot of … kind of like a balancing act to allow him to fit in normally, like I don’t want him to go to a birthday party and not be able to eat the cake, or not be able to eat the ice cream and things like that, or at least give him the option, like okay, you know, like when he’s old enough, if you want to eat this, that’s fine, but you might get a stomach ache or something like that.

So most of the time in my house, we’re going to be eating Fat Fueled, and we do all the time now. My husband is one hundred percent on board with it. He actually started eating meat again because of keto, because he was a pescatarian before and his hair was falling out and I was like “You need fat and protein.” So I fully plan on following that in the household and just trying to instill as many possible good habits into him as possible before he’s at school and has the option of buying things from a vending machine or something like that.

Hopefully, by the time he gets to that point he’ll just be making the decisions naturally for himself, but as far as what I’ll be feeding him, I know I’m going to be cooking a lot of maybe like SAD diet imitations, like I would probably do a lot of flax focaccia so that he has some bread. Just kind of getting creative, I think, with my meals just so that I still feel as though he’s fulfilled as far as normality goes when he goes off into school or something, and I can just pack him something on bread and nobody’s going to think he’s weird. I don’t know why I worry about that. I shouldn’t, but I don’t want him to feel like he’s an outcast because he eats differently from normal people either.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, I remember being that outcast. My mom made green shakes and like, yeah. I did not fit in, but you know, looking back it was really nice to have a parent that cared about that. While it was informed with 1990s type of nutrition standards, it was like a lot of margarine and stuff, but she was trying and that was cool.

You mentioned two things I’ll also include the link in the show notes. Daily Fat Burner, it’s one of the Fat Fueled profiles in my program Fat Fueled, and then the flax focaccia recipe, I’ll also include that in the show notes. It’s my go-to. My sister makes that recipe twice a week. She can’t live without it.

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh.

Leanne Vogel: We can’t.

Deanna Fike: It’s so awesome.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, I’m a big fan.

Deanna Fike: And it’s easy, too. That’s what I love about it. It’s so easy. You just freeze it and then have it for when you need it, and my husband will even go into my bag of flax focaccia and be like “I’m having some of your bread.” And I’m like “Okay, whatever.” So, yeah, it definitely works well for our family, and I think it’ll work really great when I have a kid who’s school age, and just to have something that’s like not just vegetables and meat. Like I eat … I’m pretty boring with my meals because I get pretty lazy, so I’m just like … I’ll cook up a bunch of meatballs for the week and that’s what I’m eating. That and a big salad.

But I feel like for my kid, I need recipes exactly like that so that I have something different to give him, and to like give him variety and make it interesting kind of thing, so I love that kind of stuff.

Leanne Vogel: Have you ever tried to make French toast with it?

Deanna Fike: No, I haven’t. That’s one of the things I remember people mentioning. I really should.

Leanne Vogel: It’s really good.

Deanna Fike: I have some in my freezer right now, so I could totally pull it out and make it for lunch.

Leanne Vogel: Oh, yeah. It’s the best. Okay, so we’ve chatted a bunch about how just being keto has helped with your pregnancy. Just overall, how would you say that being Fat Fueled – because we chatted a little bit about the shift between the standard ketogenic practice that you were doing before and then switching over to Fat Fueled – what has that provided you outside of pregnancy and fertility, which are awesome things, but has there been anything else that’s just been totally lit up with this experience?

Deanna Fike: I think that the biggest change was I finally found something that allowed me to live my life and not focus on food and restriction all the time. I mean, I’ve been restricting probably since I was nine or ten years old. Either that or binge drinking in college. Like there was never a happy medium and I always thought that that was just the way it was going to be. And even when I found the traditional sub-twenty carb ketogenic, like low-calorie ketogenic diet, I still felt like I was so restricted and I couldn’t just live my life and be normal and not have a weight problem.

And finally with Fat Fueled that’s when it finally all clicked into place, was like I can relax now. I don’t have to worry about my weight all the time, and that’s the biggest thing in my life because that was always my number one concern was my weight. Like, even in my family it was always like “Well, how much are you eating?” Or like, “Have you gained any weight since you’ve been away?” You know, that kind of stuff. That’s just always been a focus, because doctors have always said I was overweight. So like, just having the ease of not having to worry about that anymore, it’s something I haven’t experienced since I was a kid. So that’s just amazing to me. I could not put any price on having that type of freedom in my life as far as just not having the anxiety over it anymore. It’s amazing.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah. Same. Said like a champ. Totally. And I guess my last question for you really is what’s your favorite keto thing right now that you’re enjoying?

Deanna Fike: Oh, my gosh. My keto smoothies in the morning. So I went away … we went away on a quote-unquote babymoon. I just pretty much was calling it like my last vacation without kids. So we went, we drove and like my husband wasn’t comfortable with us flying because he knows how weird my body is, and so we drove down to South Carolina. We went to Hilton Head and there was this smoothie place, and they made a smoothie that I consider a keto smoothie. It was avocado, soaked cashews… it had maccha in it, blueberries and kale and lemon, I think was the combination. And she’s like “Well, it’s not very sweet so some people like to add protein powder.” I’m like “No. That’s perfect.” Like all the fat and none of the sweet. That’s awesome.

So, I feel in love with that smoothie and the place was like twenty minutes from where we were staying, and I was like “No, I need this smoothie like all the time.” So the second I came home, that’s what I’ve been making every morning, only just some tweaks because I don’t have soaked cashews around, or I don’t put maccha in mine, but that’s my favorite thing to have in the morning and it’s been great for keeping me regular, I guess you could say. Because that’s another problem that a lot of pregnant women have is, you know, like the constipation issue. Just having that in the morning with all that fiber is just spectacular, and it tastes so good, and it’s so refreshing and now that it’s getting warmer out, it’s just really nice to have in the morning. So that’s definitely my favorite go-to right now.

Leanne Vogel: That sounds delicious.

Deanna Fike: It is. It’s really good. And you can switch up different ingredients and it still tastes good, and I even put in … and I found this beet, it’s called Farmhouse Culture, like probiotic or something drink.

Leanne Vogel: Oh, I love them.

Deanna Fike: Have you been … oh, my gosh, I love it, and it makes it like bright purple which is so cool. So I add just a little bit of that like probiotic into it just to have that in there as well, so you can mix it up a little bit, but the core of it is the kale with the avocado and blueberries. It’s so good. And the lemon is key.

Leanne Vogel: Is it their probiotic fizzy drink sort of thing? It’s like a tonic almost?

Deanna Fike: This one is like … it’s called like “shots”. Like it’s a probiotic shot.

Leanne Vogel: Oh, yeah, a Gut Shot.

Deanna Fike: Yeah, Gut Shot, yeah.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah. I have the beet one. I’m going to take one right after this.

Deanna Fike: Yeah, that’s the one I have, so I’ll add that into my smoothie in the morning and then I’ll do … I do a lot of coconut water mix to drinks just to get some extra potassium in, but not too much sugar at one time. So I’ll do coconut water, lemon water and then I’ll add that Gut Shot of the beet stuff to it, and it makes it like this bright purple fun … so it makes me feel like I’m having a cocktail even though I’m not.

Leanne Vogel: That’s really smart.

Deanna Fike: So but that’s super fun.

Leanne Vogel: I’ve never thought of adding it to anything. I just like fill … I can drink one of those a day, so I … it’s really …

Deanna Fike: Yeah.

Leanne Vogel: But I just fill a mug up with it. And I just drink it. So okay, maybe I need to be a little bit more creative.

Deanna Fike: Yeah, no, it’s fun in a drink because you can’t really taste it that much. Because beets aren’t always the best tasting things, but it’s fun, like the color in it, and it makes you feel like you’re getting some probiotics in, which is cool. So, it works. I even put some kombucha, like a little bit of kombucha in with it sometimes, too.

Leanne Vogel: Wow.

Deanna Fike: Just to like add some fizz. I don’t know. I really like, you know, I just miss having a little bit more variety in my drink, so I just start mixing random stuff together.

Leanne Vogel: Hey, it’s sounds like it’s working for you.

Deanna Fike: Yeah, it’s awesome.

Leanne Vogel: Cool. Well, I mean I could speak with you for another four billion hours and just laugh for the next little while, but thank you so much for coming on the show today. You shared so many great valuable tips for everyone, and the show notes and full transcript for today’s episode can be found at healthfulpursuit.com/podcast/e30, and thanks again, Deanna.

Deanna Fike: Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, and good luck with your pregnancy …

Deanna Fike: Thank you.

Leanne Vogel: … and I can’t wait to hear how things go for you. It’ll be great.

Deanna Fike: I’m sure you’ll see it all on the Facebook page.

Leanne Vogel: I’m sure we will.

Deanna Fike: Awesome.

Leanne Vogel: Talk to you later.

And that does it for another episode of The Keto Diet Podcast. Thanks for listening in. You can follow me on Instagram by searching “Healthful Pursuit” where you’ll find daily Keto eats and other fun things, and check out all of my Keto supportive programs, bundles, guides and other cool things over at healthfulpursuit.com/shop and I’ll see you next Sunday. Bye.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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