Is a high protein diet going to help with my Post-Natal recovery?

Hi all,

I regularly get emails from women asking me if a high protein diet will help them with their Diastasis Recti, or any other Post-natal issues. As we all know protein is essential for muscle repair and growth, so it makes sense that a high protein diet would help you recover quicker…right?

But does it really?

How much protein should you eat as part of a normal diet?

For most people it’s fairly straight-forward.

About 1g of protein per Kg of bodyweight is more than sufficient assuming you do a bit of exercise everyday but are not crazy busy the rest of the day. If you are breastfeeding this goes up-to 1.5grams per Kg of bodyweight which is still easily achievable.

To illustrate it I’ll take a nice round number;

If you need 80 grams of protein every day you can get that by having the following throughout the day;

A glass of milk; 6 grams.

Overnight oats with berries etc, for breakfast; 15 grams

3 egg omelette with a bit of Salmon for lunch; 23’ish grams

Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner; 20’ish grams of protein.

Who doesn’t like Spaghettis!?!!

Throw some nuts etc. in there as a snack and you’re laughing.

I’ve ignored everything you might eat in addition to the above. It’s likely you’ll consume an additional 20-30 grams of protein without even realizing it.

Most people on a western diet really don’t need to be concerned about their protein intake, it’s very likely to be on the high side anyways. But here is a general guideline.

So will eating more protein help my Diastasis Recti heal faster?

Unfortunately there is a limit to the amount of protein that is actually useful to consume. That extra chicken breast does nothing for you if you already consume enough protein. Actually, it’s not great for you at all if you consume too much as it will have some impact on your liver,kidneys, make you gain weight etc. 

Assuming you have a healthy, nutritious, diet you don’t really need to worry about additional protein intake. Here is another blog I wrote about foods that could hinder the Diastasis Recti recovery that you might find useful.

But protein helps muscles recover and athletes takes protein shakes so why won’t they help me?

The simple answer to this; You’re not an athlete. You don’t train hard enough to require them.

Apologies if you’re J. E-H and reading this.

Unless you live your life like an athlete you don’t need to eat like one.

The home and strength sessions we do can be quite intense, especially the ones after the 4th month, but that’s different from training hard for 2-3 hours a day. So you can stay away from the protein shakes and all those things.

So in short; If you just keep eating a nice, healthy and nutritious diet you will be OK and don’t have to change things up too much.

And you can download some great recipes here

Take care,

Peter