Today I am speaking with Mel Sulaver, a registered dietitian working to bridge the gap between women’s health and performance nutrition. As speaker, counselor, and coach, she works primarily with women in sport, focusing on disordered eating, amenorrhea, low energy availability and relative energy deficiency in sport. Mel believes there is an enormous amount of power at the crossroads of “athlete” and “mother” and is looking to challenge the narrative on what is possible throughout the fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum journey.We talk about:-the shift in identity from athlete to athlete and mother-addressing a history of body dysmorphia and disordered eating behavior as part of family planning-understanding nutrient needs and how they shift during pregnancy and postpartum-breastfeeding and lactating athletes nutrient needs, support, planning-advocating for therapy-eating disorder versus disorder eating-breastfeeding and weight loss-realistic expectationsTime Stamps1:00 Introduction3:37 experience as a collegiate athlete9:28 body/food issues that carry into postpartum15:41 where to begin as a clinician19:40 expectations going into pregnancy23:10 navigating food sensitivities with breastfeeding28:10 postpartum weigh loss & body changes38:15 unexpected toddler eating habits46:31 rapid fire questionsCONNECT WITH CARRIEIG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/Website: https://carriepagliano.comCONNECT WITH MELANIEIG: https://www.instagram.com/nutritionbymel/Website: nutritionbymel.comThe Active Mom Postpartum Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to Postpartum for active moms & the postpartum professionals who help them in their journey. This show has been a long time in the making! You can expect conversation with moms and postpartum professionals from all aspects of the industry. If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST! If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)