The Hidden Way Your Diet Programs Your Baby's Health | Jessie Inchauspé

Summary

The School of Greatness – Detailed Episode Summary

Podcast: The School of Greatness
Host: Lewis Howes
Guest: Jessie Inchauspé (Glucose Goddess)
Episode Title: The Hidden Way Your Diet Programs Your Baby's Health
Release Date: March 9, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this compelling conversation, Lewis Howes is joined by biochemist, bestselling author, and renowned nutrition educator Jessie Inchauspé, also known as the Glucose Goddess. The episode focuses on how a mother’s diet before, during, and after pregnancy can profoundly influence a baby’s physical and mental health for life. Jessie dispels common societal myths around pregnancy nutrition, breaks down essential nutrients, and provides actionable food strategies rooted in science—while emphasizing compassion for mothers overwhelmed by conflicting advice and societal pressures. Jessie also bravely shares her own personal journey with pregnancy, loss, and motherhood.

---

Key Topics and Insights

1. Societal Myths vs Scientific Reality of Pregnancy Nutrition

• Addressing Common Myths
  • "Eat for two" and “the baby will always get what it needs” are common misconceptions.
  • Jessie: “Pregnancy is a moment where I believe we need to be extra aware and extra educated about what we’re eating, because everything you eat when you’re pregnant goes straight to your baby’s bloodstream.” (08:16)
  • The placenta does NOT filter out excess; whatever is in the mother’s bloodstream is accessible to the baby (08:56).
• Pressure and Guilt
  • Modern mothers feel immense pressure from social media and conflicting advice.
  • Jessie emphasizes: “This is not the mom’s fault…it’s a societal issue.” (02:34, 05:17)
  • Aim to remove guilt and empower with practical steps.

2. The Four Essential Nutrients for Pregnancy

• Choline (from eggs, some animal foods, organ meats, small amounts in plants)
  • Crucial for baby’s brain development.
  • 90% of pregnant women get too little. Failure can result in lifelong brain deficits (37:58).
  • “With just four eggs a day, you get all the choline that your baby needs.” (37:51)
• Glucose
  • Needed, but balance is key—too much creates problems.
  • Jessie’s research: “It’s about making sure you’re not getting too much.” (29:40)
  • The baby’s glucose levels closely track the mother’s; excess leads to lifelong risk for diabetes (15:22).
• Protein
  • Vital for tissue, immune system, hormones.
  • Pregnancy increases protein need to 1.2g/kg (2nd trimester), 1.5g/kg (3rd trimester), up to 1.9g/kg during breastfeeding (49:23).
  • Deficit leads to the mother’s body breaking down muscle for the baby, causing muscle loss (50:05).
• Omega-3s (from fish, some supplements, eggs)
  • Vital for neuronal development, brain elasticity.
  • A deficiency may impact child’s cognitive function.

3. What to Avoid and What to Stop Worrying About

• Clear Elimination List During Pregnancy
  • “All the known toxic ones. So cigarettes, alcohol…drugs…those are the real ones to eliminate.” (07:19)
  • No need to fear moderate sugar; focus on context and total volume.
• Processed Foods and Sugar
  • Processed foods and sugar are more enticing and addictive during pregnancy, in part due to brain chemistry (02:34, 19:41).
  • Jessie: “Our entire food system was going to be processed food based...It’s not the mom’s fault.” (16:22)

4. Blood Sugar and Its Long-Term Impact

• Direct Correlation: Mother's Blood Sugar → Baby’s Blood Sugar
  • Oslo study: perfect correlation between mother’s blood sugar and baby’s at birth (10:45–14:00).
  • Babies born with high blood sugar are statistically more vulnerable to developing diabetes and other chronic diseases later (15:08).
  • But, Jessie reassures: "It might make a baby a bit more vulnerable to disease. It's not going to dictate his entire life." (16:22)

5. How to Make Changes — Small Food Hacks

• Behavioral Changes
  • Start with minor tweaks: e.g., have sugary drinks after meals, not before, to minimize glucose spikes (21:23).
  • “My passion is behavior change from 0 to 1. Because once you’ve done 0 to 1, then you’re on your way.” (21:41)
  • Examples: Add protein/fat to carbs, e.g., having an apple with peanut butter (52:05).
  • Protein-rich breakfast brings more stable energy, fewer cravings (55:32).

6. Food Pyramid, Carbs, Protein and Fat Guidance

• Food Pyramid Critique
  • Glad to see the U.S. guidelines moving away from carbs as the dietary base (22:47–25:04).
  • Focus on animal protein, vegetables, healthy fats. Watch for processed foods exploiting new guidelines.
• Carbs: Quantity and Quality
  • Most people function well at ~100g carbs/day (43:01).
  • Best to choose complex carbs/starches (bread, rice, potatoes) over simple sugars, but even fruit is fine in moderation.
  • "We don't actually need to eat carbs...your body can make glucose from within," but carbohydrates remain a practical, social source of energy (42:53).
• Protein & Fat
  • Concrete protein targets by trimester/breastfeeding (see above).
  • Fats, especially omega-3s, are important for brain and hormone development.

7. Addressing Pregnancy Guilt, Loss, and Postpartum Realities

• Personal Story of Miscarriage
  • Jessie’s honest, emotional recounting of her miscarriage, the resulting isolation, and eventual healing (57:06–64:48).
  • “If emotions could kill, I think I'd be dead.” (59:08)
  • Importance of being open about pregnancy loss—sharing and conversation are key for processing.
• Postpartum Health
  • "Food is a big tool" to support recovery and mood (66:22).
  • Many mothers end up depleted; supportive nutrition can help buffer against postpartum depression but cannot eliminate the challenges alone.
  • Importance of community support and reducing new mom isolation.

8. Spirituality, Intuition, and the Journey of Motherhood

• Jessie shares her spiritual connection, use of intuition, and how she found meaning in loss and new life (67:55–71:02).
• “I connected spiritually. I tried to connect to my future kids…That helped a lot.” (69:16)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Societal Myths:
  “The biggest nutrition lie? That your baby will get what he needs always... The correct sentence is, your baby will take what you give him.” – Jessie Inchauspé (38:39)
• On Blood Sugar's Impact:
  “When you have a blood sugar spike…your baby also has a blood sugar spike.” (10:34)
• On Small Steps:
  “My passion, is behavior change from 0 to 1. Because once you’ve done 0 to 1, then you’re on your way.” (21:41)
• On Guilt and Responsibility:
  “It’s not the mom’s fault…the food industry is going to make highly addictive, highly sugary foods to get them hooked. This is not the mom’s fault.” (16:22)
• On Postpartum:
  “If you end your pregnancy depleted…any adult with low choline, low omega 3, low muscle mass and blood sugar spikes and dips will not feel well. You throw that into postpartum. Huge hormonal shift. Sleep deprivation, isolation…no wonder.” (66:42)
• On Healing and Loss:
  “If emotions could kill, I think I'd be dead. The level of despair that I spiraled into for the better part of like a whole month was just…so painful.” (59:08)
• Three Truths (Rapid Fire):
  • “Have a savory breakfast.”
  • “Listen to your body because symptoms are messages.”
  • “If you're pregnant, eat a ton of eggs.” (77:21)
• Definition of Greatness:
  “My definition of greatness now is peace and contentment…I’m so jealous of people who are just content.” (78:19)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Key Societal Myths & Pressure – 01:54–05:59
• Four Essential Nutrients – 06:11–07:11, 28:47–33:59
• Mother’s Diet & Lifelong Impact – 14:00–16:22
• Behavioral Food Hacks – 21:05–21:59; 52:03–55:32
• Food Pyramid & Carbs – 22:47–25:04, 42:32–46:00
• Personal Story: Miscarriage & Loss – 57:06–64:48
• Postpartum Recovery – 66:22–67:55
• Spiritual Approach to Motherhood – 67:55–71:02
• Three Truths & Greatness – 77:21–78:47

---

Final Takeaways

• Empower, don’t shame. The emphasis is on actionable, science-backed tips presented with immense compassion. Guilt is not helpful—having information is.
• The four nutrients (choline, glucose, protein, omega-3s) are foundational for optimal baby brain and body development, but mothers everywhere are often not given this clear advice or access to good nutrition.
• Minor dietary changes—like shifting when and how sugar is consumed, prioritizing protein, and adding a few eggs per day—can yield outsized benefits.
• Societal, not individual, failings drive most nutritional risks.
• Motherhood is complex—nutritionally, emotionally, and spiritually. Jessie’s honesty in sharing her struggles with miscarriage, anxiety, and postpartum challenges ensures that listeners get not only science but solidarity.

---

Where to Find More from Jessie Inchauspé

• Website: glucosegoddess.com
• Instagram: @glucosegoddess
• YouTube: Glucose Revolution
• Book: 9 Months That Count Forever: How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes Your Baby's Future

---

“You're not an oven; you're the soil. The baby is a seed. The nutrients you provide co-create your baby's genetic plan.” – Jessie Inchauspé

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who is, has been, or plans to be pregnant—or for anyone supporting someone on that journey.

Transcript

[Host/Announcer]

This message is brought to you by Apple Card It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card you'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every purchase that includes 3% in daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple Card, you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, you must apply at Apple Co getdailycash Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City. Branch offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.

[Lewis Howes]

Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. The moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken the times you're deep in your flow and can't be interrupted by an auto update. That's why we build tech that adapts to you, built with long lasting battery and built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. Find technology built for the way you [e-mail] XPS built for you

[Pandora Jewelry Advertiser]

Celebrate your unique story with Pandora Jewelry. Crafted with meaning and exquisite artistry. From sparkling lab grown diamonds to personalized engravings and heartfelt charms, Pandora offers endless ways to express what's in your heart. Pandora's rings, bracelets and necklaces are so fun to mix, match, stack and style. Every day is a chance to be love. Let Pandora Jewelry remind you that love starts with you. Shop in store or [e-mail] did you

[Lewis Howes]

know that the nutrients you eat, or

[Host/Announcer]

lack of nutrients you eat while you're

[Lewis Howes]

pregnant, ladies, directly impacts the brain development and the nervous system of your kids? Guys, ladies, if you're about to have kids, this is a must watch, a must listen to episode on what you

[Host/Announcer]

should be eating to set up your

[Lewis Howes]

future kids lives for success.

[Host/Announcer]

Let's go ahead.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Diabetes I think there's an issue with the societal myth that when you're pregnant you're going to gain weight anyway, therefore you should eat as much as you want and eat for two. There's an issue with this belief that's perpetuated in society that pregnancy is the time to eat whatever the heck you want because you're going to get fat anyway. It's really backwards actually. Pregnancy is a moment where I believe we need to be extra aware and extra educated about what we're eating because everything you eat when you're pregnant goes straight to your baby's vet stream.

[Lewis Howes]

Known around the world as the Glucose Goddess. And she is a biochemist, a bestselling author, and one of the most influential voices in modern nutrition education. Jessi, welcome back to the school of greatness.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Some studies done on animals are suggesting that during pregnancy, your brain gets more pleasure from sugar than when you're not pregnant. So it intensifies sugar cravings. And of course, would it be better to have zero sugar during pregnancy? Of course. Is that realistic? Absolutely not. This is not the mom's fault. The moms didn't decide that our entire food system was going to be processed food based. They didn't decide that the cheaper thing to buy is the crisps versus the healthy broccoli. This is not the mom's fault. This is a societal issue.

[Lewis Howes]

You talk about these four key nutrients that influence a baby's development in the womb. What are those four key.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Okay, so the first one is,

[Lewis Howes]

I feel like people are struggling with their health so much. And I have a personal experience with my wife just going through pregnancy and having twins. But even in that process, I'm getting inundated with content on social media of like, don't do this and moms need to do that and make sure you don't eat this. You're gonna ruin your children's life forever. And it's like, it's kind of scary hearing everyone talk about what to do, what not to do. Even doctors and scientists and researchers saying different things that you're like, well, this doctor says to do this and, and that doctor says not to do this. So what do mothers do to make sure when they're pregnant, pre pregnancy, during pregnancy and post pregnancy to make sure they don't mess their kids health up? Like, it's a scary thing.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think you said it right. We're inundated. Social media tells you all kinds of things. There's also a lot of emotional pressure on women. You know, you can feel like, guilty, like, am I not doing enough? Am I doing enough? Doctors are really focused on short term diseases. Like, do you have gestational diabetes? Do you have. You have that? You're stressed out. And I was in that same situation. I was pregnant last year with my son. And I also felt inundated. I also felt confused. And as a scientist, I told myself, okay, let me just like block out the noise a little bit and let me go into the science and the research. So that's what I did. I looked at all the studies because Instagram is not science. So I looked at all the studies and I found some few easy, high leverage things that I could do that had a proven positive impact on my baby's development. Development in terms of food without it feeling overwhelming, without it being incompatible with, you know, the nausea prone first trimester, etc. And I want to address this concept of pressure early on in this talk so we can then move on from it. There is innate pressure in being pregnant because you're building another human. And I hear a lot this word guilt, you know, when it comes to nutrition tips. Yeah, mom, guilt for nutrition.

[Lewis Howes]

It's real, huh?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think it's wrong because in terms of nutrition, for example, what I found is that most moms don't have access to the proper nutrition for their baby to grow optimally. But it's not the mom's fault. We live in a society today where most people are eating processed fruits. We're all suffering from bad nutrition habits, including pregnant moms, but it's not their fault and nobody tells them what they can actually do. So what I tried to do with this book is give people a simple guide to navigate that pressure without the guilt to navigate the broken food landscape we live in during this period of pregnancy, which has a disproportionate impact on the lifelong health of our baby.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. And that's what you're doing?

[Jessi Kneeland]

That's what I tried to do with this book, yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

And so to start, then, what would you say are the. You talk about these four key nutrients that influence a baby's development in the. In the womb. What are those four key.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Okay, so the first one is choline. We're going to talk about it.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Choline is essential to forming your baby's brain. It's in eggs, in animal foods, a little bit in plants. Exactly. The second one is glucose. And this has been my work for the past, you know, seven years, talking about blood sugar balance. It's also important during pregnancy.

[Lewis Howes]

So it's important to have glucose.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's important to have enough for your baby, but not too much. It's all about the balance. The third one is protein. You need enough protein when you're pregnant because your baby at birth is 50% protein if you exclude water. So you need to give him enough protein to develop. And the Last one is Omega 3s. And this is a fat that comes from fish and is important for your baby's brain. So those are the four pillars. And if you optimize these four pillars, you will give your baby a very good soil out of which he can grow to develop. Exactly.

[Lewis Howes]

What would you say are the four things that moms should eliminate from their diet pre or during pregnancy?

[Jessi Kneeland]

All the known toxic ones. So cigarettes, alcohol, as much as you can. Drugs, I mean, all the stuff that your doctor will tell you, those are the real ones to eliminate. When it comes to things like sugar, for example, we all have sugar cravings during pregnancy. And in fact, some studies done on animals are suggesting that during pregnancy, your brain gets more pleasure from sugar than when you're not pregnant. So it intensifies sugar cravings. Cravings. And of course, would it be better to have zero sugar during pregnancy? Of course. Is that realistic? Absolutely not. So it's about eating sugar in a way that creates less impact. And apart from that, really, do you need to eliminate anything else? No, I think any. Anything can be part of your pregnancy diet. But if you have these four key pillars in, you're going to have a really good baseline.

[Lewis Howes]

Is there an issue with pregnant women who say, well, you know what? I'm craving this, and I'm just going to eat as much as I want until I stop craving?

[Jessi Kneeland]

There's no issue with women. I think there's an issue with the societal myth that when you're pregnant, you're going to gain weight anyway, therefore, you should eat as much as you want and eat for two. There's an issue with this belief that's perpetuated in society that pregnancy is the time to eat whatever the heck you want because you're going to get fat anyway. It's really backwards, actually. Pregnancy is a moment where I believe we need to be extra aware and extra educated about what we're eating, because everything you eat when you're pregnant goes straight to your baby's bloodstream. There's another myth, Louis, that there's a filtering process going on, that your baby's just going to get what he needs. And none of the stuff that he

[Lewis Howes]

doesn't need, he gets all of it.

[Jessi Kneeland]

He gets all of it. So the placenta is an organ that you grow in your uterus next to your baby. And the placenta brings your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream in really close contact to exchange nutrition. I know. Now, the placenta is not a filter. The placenta trusts, largely trusts, that whatever is in your bloodstream belongs in your baby's bloodstream, which is why it's important to not drink alcohol, smoke cigarette, or do illegal drugs, because they're going to show up in your baby's bloodstream. It's the same for all the other nutrients.

[Lewis Howes]

Let's say a woman who's pregnant is like, I'm just going to have the whole pint of ice cream every single day because I'M craving it and it's okay. And this is what moms have done for the last 50 years and whatever.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

What is that? Like, how much of that sugar rush is actually going into the bloodstream of the placenta and then impacting the fetus? And then as the baby grows, how much does it impact throughout the stage of pregnancy?

[Jessi Kneeland]

So the first trimester is the trimester where most of us feel nauseous. So I felt extremely nauseous. And I could only eat carbs. I could only eat, like, croissant, chocolat, basically for like, four months. It was so good. And so in those phases, you do whatever you can, right? Just eat whatever you can.

[Lewis Howes]

Survive.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Survive. And in the first trimester, your baby's bloodstream and your bloodstream are not yet connected. The placenta is not in place yet. The placenta is in place from the second trimester onwards.

[Lewis Howes]

You're only hurting yourself, not you.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And listen, when you're nauseous, you do whatever the heck you can to survive. So it becomes your bloodstream and your babies become really connected from the second trimester onwards. So your question was how much of the sugar that you eat ends up in your baby's bloodstream? All of it.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jessi Kneeland]

When you have a blood sugar spike, meaning your blood sugar levels increase after eating, for example, a big tub of ice cream, your baby also has a blood sugar spike.

[Lewis Howes]

The exact same, or no, it's a

[Jessi Kneeland]

little bit lower than yours, but it's perfectly correlated. And they know this because they do studies on babies. So, for example, at Oslo University Hospital, the scientists recruited 200 women that were going to get a C section. And what they did is they drew blood from the mom's arms before the C section, and they measured their blood sugar levels. And then the baby was born through cesarean. And then they took blood from the umbilical cord of the baby. The umbilical cord is an external cord that connects your baby's bloodstream to the placenta. And it's actually perfectly representing the baby's own blood blood composition. And they took blood from the umbilical cord, and they showed the perfect correlation. If a mom had low glucose levels, her baby also had low and healthy glucose levels. And as the mom's glucose levels increased, the baby's also perfect correlation. So your baby does not get just the glucose that he needs, he gets the glucose that is there. And so let's let me talk a little bit about glucose. So glucose has been a foundational part of my work for forever, for the past. You Know how long I've been doing this? And glucose is quite important. It's your body's fuel, it's your body's energy. You need to give glucose to your body by eating carbs. Now, a little bit is great. Too much causes issues in an adult body. So too many blood sugar or glucose spikes too often leads to being on a glucose roller coaster. Spike, crash, spike, crash. And that leaves you feeling not so great. It increases inflammation, it increases fat gain.

[Lewis Howes]

And how does it impact your nervous system? How does a glucose spike over and over again impact your nervous system and your ability to navigate the emotions of the world?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, a big glucose spike can create stress in your body. Right. Inflammation and stress. A big glucose spike can also impact your sleep and mean that you have less deep sleep. So if you take those in combination, that means your nervous system can become stressed chronically. How does it impact how you navigate the world? That was your question. I think for me at least, it makes me more unstable. I feel less resilient. I feel that I have more emotional swings, more mood swings. My own journey came through mental health. So for me, big glucose spikes meant poor mental health. And when I kept my glucose level steady, I felt stronger, I felt calm, steady, steady, sturdy, grounded. I don't think there are any studies yet looking at glucose spikes and, like, how grounded one feels.

[Lewis Howes]

That's interesting.

[Jessi Kneeland]

We should do one.

[Lewis Howes]

Curious about how glucose spikes impact your nervous system and then how that impacts the quality of someone's life.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Absolutely. Well, listen, the nervous system is impacted by stress and glucose spikes, repeated glucose spikes and especially the crash that comes afterwards, increased stress. So they're not a good news.

[Lewis Howes]

And it, you know, glucose spikes impact increased inflammation. Correct. In the body.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yep.

[Lewis Howes]

And that causes stress.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Absolutely.

[Lewis Howes]

It makes it harder for the nervous system to regulate under stress.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes. I think regulation is a really good way to put it. Yeah, absolutely. If your body and your nervous system are busy dealing with a glucose spike, you don't have much energy left to deal with the rest of the world.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. Yeah. So in this study in Oslo, they took 200 women who had a cesarean C sections and they saw this correlation.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. And some babies were born with double the blood sugar levels in other babies. That's how much of a wide spectrum.

[Lewis Howes]

What does that mean? They're going to double the blood sugar levels.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So that means that the concentration in the bloodstream. Some babies had healthy low glucose levels, some babies had double the normal healthy levels of glucose in their blood.

[Lewis Howes]

That's a bad thing, right?

[Jessi Kneeland]

That's a Bad thing. Yeah. So very high glucose levels in an adult means diabetes. We don't want high glucose levels.

[Lewis Howes]

So can a mother give their child diabetes in the womb?

[Jessi Kneeland]

So no, But I would say like a diet that is so high in carbs can lead to a baby having very high glucose levels in the womb. So what happens in the baby's body? Same thing as in the adult body. Inflammation and fat gain as a response to this high glucose. Now, some glucose for your baby is important and good. He needs the energy. Okay. But in extreme cases, when, for example, if you're only eating carbs during your entire pregnancy, your baby is going to have glucose levels that are too high and you might through is okay. Well, after birth, surely this must then normalize. Normalize right out.

[Lewis Howes]

It'll run around and be okay.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And this is the key thing. Scientists find that when a baby is born with high glucose levels and high fat mass on his body as a response to his glucose, he is more likely to get diabetes as an adult.

[Lewis Howes]

Come on.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes. This is the whole point of why pregnancy is important. Let me give you an example. Families where moms have two kids, during one pregnancy, they had normal glucose levels. The mom, during the other pregnancy, they had very high glucose levels. Both kids born back to back grew up in the same family, same environment, same food. The kid that was in the womb during the high glucose pregnancy, four times more likely to get diabetes in his lifetime.

[Lewis Howes]

Gosh, that's crazy.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's crazy. It's crazy.

[Lewis Howes]

I mean, mom guilt is already a thing. And so if you're like a mom, it's like, wow, I had this. I didn't eat correctly during this pregnancy. Three, four or five years ago. Did I ruin my child? You know, it's this fear of like, mom guilt is big already.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I understand. And my mom, when she was pregnant with me, she only ate sugar. She ate Coca Cola, Coca Cola, table sugar at every meal.

[Host/Announcer]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, just carbs. But you also had. No.

[Lewis Howes]

But you also had extreme mental health challenges as an adult.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And I was on the cusp of Pre diabetes at 25 years old. So what happens in the womb is important, but it's not the only thing. Okay. These increases are still modulated and impacted by what you do in your life. I didn't get diabetes. I was like, at 25, oh, whoa. I have high glucose. Let me manage that. I never got pre diabetes. It might make a baby a bit more vulnerable to disease. It's not going to dictate his entire life what you do during your Life is still important. But today, if you think about two of your friends that have the same diet or same routine, and one of them has higher glucose levels than the other, maybe one has diabetes, the other one doesn't. One of the factors that could be influencing this, what was is what was happening in the room. And again, on this topic of guilt, like, this is not the mom's fault. The moms didn't decide that our entire food system was going to be processed food based. They didn't decide that the cheaper thing to buy is the crisps versus the healthy broccoli. They didn't decide that the food industry is going to make highly addictive, highly sugary foods to get them hooked. This is not the mom's fault. This is a societal issue. This is the system messing up everything for us. It is not the mom's fault. So I wanted to write this book because we need tools for moms to navigate this toxic food system that we're in during pregnancy to try to, you know, use these high leverage points that we can use and to use these nine months as a moment where you can slightly program your baby to get better odds during his lifetime. But again, it's not the mom's fault. And it's the same thing when you're not pregnant, like today. If somebody has type 2 diabetes, it's not their fault. It's absolutely not their fault. It's not a willpower thing. It's a food environment thing. It's because of the food that is available today and because of big food trying to make us addicted to sugar. It's not the mom's fault.

[Lewis Howes]

I hear you saying it's not someone's fault who has diabetes today, but is it their responsibility to start to reverse it or make different choices and start making saying, listen, I know I'm eating these highly addictive sugary things, but isn't it also their responsibility to say, and I've got to learn how to start making healthier choices and be more consistent in the other way, otherwise I'm going to be stuck like this forever?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think that implies that it's a choice. I think it's really difficult when you feel addicted to the sugary food and that's all you have access to and you don't know how to cook, and so you think you're making the right. Nobody wants to have diabetes. No, everybody thinks that they're buying the healthy food or they're doing the best they can, and they look at something that says like, oh, well, this is a Vegan, gluten free cookie. Surely it must be better for me than the regular cookie. Food marketing tries to trap you into thinking you're making a better choice. So, yes, it is. The way out, I believe, is through educating individuals to be able to make better informed choices. But it's not their fault. And my whole work is around this. Like, what are simple food hacks that are not complicated, that can help you break free from these cycles of addiction?

[Lewis Howes]

When I was growing up, I had what, eight Dr. Peppers a day in the summer? And I thought it was like, I'm hydrating myself. It was just eating candy all day, sugary things, cookies. It was just whatever I could eat. And if I wasn't running six hours a day, playing in the backyard, playing sports, I'd probably have diabetes. I mean, I don't know. But I think that helped me. But it has been very hard to break the addiction of that habit for decades that I had.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Everything is built to make you addicted. Yeah. It's not your choice. There are billions of dollars being spent on making food extremely addictive. Billions of dollars in marketing campaigns trying to make you believe that orange juice is healthy. How can one sing person.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Break free from this as a choice? It's not a choice. It's so hard.

[Lewis Howes]

I got. I love that you're saying this, but you know Sean Stevenson? Yeah, he is. He goes against the other. He goes against that. And he'll say, I don't know if you go on a show ever, but he said I was the guy laying with like back pain for months in my bed because all I was eating was fast food for my whole life and I was inflamed and I was overweight and I was obese and all these pains that I couldn't get out of the. And he said it was extremely hard. It was extremely challenging because there was no healthy food in his city where he was living in. In Ferguson, Missouri. It was like food desert for miles. Right. But he was like, I had to work so much harder to go out of the city to find a healthy store and make conscious decisions consistently. And it was so hard. I'm not saying it's like not hard, but he was like, I did it and I reclaimed my health by taking those actions. But. But you have to make such a conscious effort daily. I'm not saying it's easy, but I believe it can be possible even with the pressures of the system at place. And again, it's. You have to be so committed to it.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I feel like I agree completely and, you know, with my glucose hacks, that's my first book. What I try to give to people with these hacks is a way to go from zero to one.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Small tips that don't take so much pull power that allow you to start feeling better. For example. Okay, you're going to. What was the thing you were having? Dr. Pepper.

[Lewis Howes]

Dr. Pepper. Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Is that what you said?

[Host/Announcer]

Dr. Pepper.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Okay, so. Okay, so Dr. Pepper. If you need to have it because you feel addicted to it, have it after your meal instead of before so that you don't create a spike and a crash that's going to make you crave more Dr. Pepper. So it's these small little tweaks, and when you apply them for a week, all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait, I feel a little bit less stuck here.

[Lewis Howes]

I'll need eight of them. I could just do one of them.

[Host/Announcer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And this zero to one is the hardest. And that's my passion, is to behavior change from 0 to 1. Because once you've done 0 to 1, then you're on your way. And Sean is very strong, and he was able to do that all without my glucose hacks. Would have been way easier for him with my glucose hacks.

[Host/Announcer]

Of course. Of course.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So it's all the zero to one, the small things.

[Lewis Howes]

And he's an exception, for sure. And he was extremely sick. He couldn't move. So he was like, I have to take complete control of changing and learning about these things. Because he thought fast food was healthy. He thought because it had egg in it, you can have a Big Mac with a bun and grease and it's still healthy or whatever. I thought pizza was healthy. You know, it's like, I used to eat a whole pizza.

[Host/Announcer]

I could eat a whole pizza like

[Lewis Howes]

this still because it tastes so good for me, but just because I thought, like, oh, this is on the food pyramid. You know, it's like bread, meat and cheese, but it's not. Or at least, you know, maybe you can make it healthy, but that was not healthy. And speaking of the food pyramid, this just changed, or they're making these changes. What are your thoughts on these new changes for I guess, at least in the USA of the food pyramid suggestions?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I'm very happy that we no longer have the recommendation that says you should have 8 servings of carbs a day as the base of the pyramid, because carbohydrates. So bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, these are foods that are full of glucose that raise your blood sugar levels that lead to the glucose spike and the glucose crash that give very little nutrition to your body.

[Lewis Howes]

That was my diet for years.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes. And so I'm very happy that this is no longer seen as the base of your diet and this is true for everyone. I'm very, very glad about this and I hope it's also going to impact school lunches. I hope that kids are no longer going to get just bread and orange juice as their meal.

[Lewis Howes]

Just big spikes, huh?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes, yes, big spikes.

[Lewis Howes]

So I mean, of the food pyramid now, the suggestions, do you feel like they got it right or you feel like it's moving in the right direction? You feel like it's 80% overall there or what do you think is good and what do you think needs to be improved?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think my main thought process around this is what then happens to the food industry. Because the food pyramid is one thing, but what does it actually mean in terms of how we're going to change how we eat? Yeah, because if you take it to the letter meaning like now we're going to eat animal foods as healthy sources of protein, we're going to focus on fruit and vegetables and we're going to eat very few carbs. That sounds pretty great. But if this is co opted by the food industry who's like, how can I use this new pyramid to sell my processed food?

[Lewis Howes]

Processed. Yeah, yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So I want to, I'm waiting to see what happens. I think it's definitely better than the old one, 100%, there's no question about that. But then where do we go? I don't know. I'm, I don't have a, I don't have a judgment yet. I need a little bit of perspective.

[Lewis Howes]

But in terms of the, the recommendations itself, let's say it was all organic and unprocessed.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, it's great.

[Lewis Howes]

You feel like that structure is the way to go?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Absolutely. I think it's great. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

I think obviously, you know, companies are going to market how they need to, to say, okay, you're hitting the right things in the food, you know, pyramid, but it could still be unhealthy for you, how they process things.

[Jessi Kneeland]

For sure.

[Lewis Howes]

And it could still create spikes and all these different things.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Absolutely. But in terms of the overall volume and what's important, it makes complete sense to me that we're shifting away from carbs being the main thing that you should eat all the time as the base of your diet and towards healthy animal foods and fruit and vegetables.

[Lewis Howes]

I mean, yes, pasta, pizza and bread. That was my diet.

[Jessi Kneeland]

That was your diet.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, I mean, I had a steak once in a while, but it was like, that was the diet. And it was like, no wonder I was exhausted all the time. Big yawning all the time, Exhausted, tired.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And it wasn't your fault, right? There was just, this was the messaging.

[Lewis Howes]

I thought it was healthy.

[Jessi Kneeland]

That's what I'm saying.

[Lewis Howes]

It's healthy.

[Jessi Kneeland]

That is what I'm saying. Nobody thinks I'm gonna eat an unhealthy diet on purpose and try to feel horrible. Everybody's doing their best. Pregnant moms are doing their best. And so I understand that this information, nutrition advice around pregnancy can come as making moms feel like they're doing things wrong and guilty. The problem is, is that all of these, all of the science, all of these studies exist. They've been around for a long time. The American association of Pediatrics have been talking about this forever. We have these guidelines, we have the World Health Organization talking about choline, about glucose, et cetera. Nobody's telling moms about this. Why is that? Is it because they think that, oh, moms can't handle it? No, I think this is key because it shows you these four high leverage Nutri nutrients that are actually very simple shifts that can make a big impact on your baby's health. And as a result, you're not inundated by just Instagram, infinity, Instagram content. And that's leaving you very confused.

[Host/Announcer]

Imagine never buying gas again. Just plug in your car like you plug in your phone. That's the power of driving electric. It's not just good for the planet, it's actually more convenient and more affordable. I've actually been driving a Tesla for a couple of years now, and I love it. I can charge it overnight in my garage, and when I'm on the go, I hit a fast charger and I'm back on the road in no time. No gas stops, no oil changes, just smooth, quiet, reliable drives. EVs are built for real life, with daily range that lets you go wherever you need to go without worry. And the savings, up to $2,000 a year just by skipping the gas pump. And with over 100 new and used EV models available right now, there's truly something for every lifestyle and budget. The way forward is electric. Learn [e-mail] there's nothing that frustrates me more than when things don't move with speed. And when it comes to building a strong daily routine for your life, the tools that you rely on at home should make things run more smoothly without interruptions. And that's the thinking behind T Mobile's 5G home Internet. And big news. T Mobile now has the fastest 5G home Internet, according to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. Setup is so quick and simple. No technician needed and you're online in 15 minutes. Minutes or less. And the price comes with a five year price guarantee. So you don't have to worry about unexpected price hikes down the road. And when I'm working from home, my Internet does a lot of the heavy lifting. It's prepping for the next show on the School of Greatness, uploading files. I'm doing zoom calls, I'm doing meetings. All these different things are all happening and I need them to happen fast. And with t mobile 5G home Internet, things move fast and stay smooth. Pages load quickly, files upload successfully and I can stay focused without constant interruptions. It makes a big difference. Visit t-mobile.com homeinternet to check availability today. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply fastest based on Ookla Speed test intelligence data second half of 2025. All rights reserved.

[Pandora Jewelry Advertiser]

Celebrate your unique story with Pandora Jewelry. Crafted with meaning and exquisite artistry. From sparkling lab grown diamonds to personalized engravings and heartfelt charms, Pandora offers endless ways to express what's in your heart. Pandora's rings, bracelets and necklaces are so fun to mix, match stack and style. Every day is a chance to be love. Let Pandora jewelry remind you that love starts with you. Shop in store or [e-mail] if moms

[Lewis Howes]

listening or those who are going to be moms soon, who are going to be pregnant soon, they're listening and you say these four key ingredients, choline, glucose, protein and omega 3s are what they need to create a fertile foundation for a child's development of their brain. To be set up for more success. Right?

[Jessi Kneeland]

More resilience.

[Lewis Howes]

More resilience, more potential for opportunity for the growth of their brains to be forming better is what I'm here to say. If a mother who is pregnant does not get choline, glucose, protein or omega 3s in their diet at all, what is. And they unders. They hear this information and they still choose not to get that what is at stake for their baby's development?

[Jessi Kneeland]

So I will just say one thing. The glucose part of this book is not about getting more. It's about making sure you're not getting too much of it.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay. Having the right amounts.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Exactly. So if you don't do any of these things, your baby will probably be fine. Really? Yeah. Your Baby will probably be born and probably lead a normal life, and just maybe one day in the future, he'll have a bit more susceptibility or, yeah, be a bit more vulnerable to getting one of these diseases.

[Lewis Howes]

Because you were. Your mom was on sugar all day.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I'm like, the perfect example.

[Lewis Howes]

And you were fine.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I'm being somewhat okay with no choline, no omega 3s, not enough protein, and a lot of sugar, and look at me. I'm writing books.

[Lewis Howes]

It turned out all right.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So, you know, I thought about this a lot as I was writing this book, and I called my mom and I was asking her about her diet, and, yes, I'm fine. But if I'm being honest, I've struggled with mental health a lot in my life. As I said, cuspid prediabetes. I have a hard time with emotional regulation. I. I've had aches and pains. Like I have a hard time building muscle. Are the. Are all of these things. Do all of these things take a root in the womb? Probably not all of them. Do I think, knowing what I know today about this science, do I think that if my mom had had this book when she was pregnant with me, do I think that maybe I would feel differently today as her daughter? Probably. I think maybe it would feel a bit better to be in my brain. Because by the time your baby is born, all of his neurons, so the brain cells that process information are in place for life in the womb. You're forming the basic architecture of your baby's brain. And then brain cells, neurons, they don't get replaced. You keep the ones you're born with for your entire life until they die. So my neurons were forming in my mom's uterus, and she did not know about choline and she did not know about omega 3s, which are two key nutrients to allow my brain to form as best as it could. So, yes, I do believe that maybe if she had known about choline, which is fruit, which is nutrient you can get in eggs, for example. So if she had been eating a lot of eggs and eating fish and supplementing with omega 3s, maybe my neurons would be a little bit better today. I can't know. We don't know. But what we do have is we have animal studies. So we can't do studies on pregnant human moms is very unethical, but we can do this on animals. And so let me give you the example. So let's look at choline, for example. So when you deprive a mom of choline, like A mom, an animal, like a rat mom. Okay. The development of her baby's brain in the womb stops earlier than it should, and the baby has fewer neurons than his peers because the mom is missing this key nutrient of choline. However the baby is born. The baby is born and outwardly survives.

[Lewis Howes]

And it's.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Exactly, exactly. To be honest, we're an entire generation of babies. Probably you didn't have enough choline in the womb either. We're an entire generation of people who probably did not have enough choline. Why is that? Because choline is found in eggs, but also in organ meats like liver. And today we don't eat any more organ meats.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, we don't eat that. We used to.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Right. And this is the case for everybody, pregnant moms or not. Is this the pregnant mom's fault? Absolutely not. It's the food industry. It's the processed foods we eat today. So we're all probably babies of low choline moms. We're mostly okay, but what if we could change that? It'd be cool. What if we could give mom this important information?

[Lewis Howes]

100%.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So one thing that scientists do, they're able to do trials on human moms where they supplement the moms with extra choline, for example. So we can't do the hardcore stuff that we do on animals, but we can do it in moms, for example. So there's one cool study that I'll mention, there's this test that scientists do on human babies. So they put them in front of a computer screen, and they flash images on the screen, and they see how quickly the baby reacts to the new image. So moves his eyes like this. This may seem inconsequential, but it's actually associated with adult iq. So the faster you react to the images on the screen as a baby, the higher your IQ as an adult, on average. And so what they do is they do these trials where they give some moms during pregnancy a choline supplement and other moms, no choline supplement, and then they measure the baby's reaction time once they're born in the first year of life. What do they find? 10% higher reaction time, faster reaction time when the mom had a lot of choline during pregnancy, Small, small, small marginal changes. But interesting nonetheless, because what happens in the womb seems to have a lasting impact on measurable measures of brain function.

[Lewis Howes]

Fascinating, because you're saying this, you know, I have twins, and one of them was born, I guess, more premature or just smaller, you know, and had to be in the nicu for a little bit of time. And it was like, where the other one was, like, more fine right away. It was like everything was fine. The other one was kind of struggling. The one who was struggling in the nicu. It almost feels like the reaction time is faster than the other one that was, like, fine, you know, that didn't have, like, the complications. And so it's interesting to see twins that were born from the same mother, and I'm curious to see their development over the years to see what happens. Yeah, but all this stuff is fascinating.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Absolutely.

[Lewis Howes]

All this stuff is fascinating.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And your twins have different DNA, Right? So DNA is one thing, and then the environment in the womb is something else, and they both interact to create unique babies. And there's buns. There are buns on this, on this table. And I want to talk about the reason there's a bun here.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Is because of the myths.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Having a bun in the oven when you're pregnant. Have you heard that sentence? Of course, of course.

[Lewis Howes]

What is that? Why do people say, like, there's a bun in the oven? And why is that harmful to say that?

[Jessi Kneeland]

You know, I don't know where this comes from, but I know why it's not good. So telling a mom, oh, you have a bun in the oven implies that the mom is an oven. And what's an oven? A passive object that provides heat and time. As a mom, you're so much more than that. You're not just passive, waiting around for the next, next ultrasound, providing heat and time to your baby. A better image is that you are soil and your baby is a seed. We all know intuitively that if you have a seed for, like, a nice apple tree, if you plant it in a driveway full of gravel or if you plant it in a healthy garden, it's not going to lead to the same tree. You know that. You know that the soil co creates the tree's plan.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jessi Kneeland]

When you're pregnant, it's the same thing. The nutrients you provide to your baby co create your baby's genetic plan. And if you provide all the stuff that he needs, he'll be able to develop more optimally. And this, again, is linked to adult vulnerability or resilience to disease. So as a pregnant mom, you are soil, you're not an oven. And this is actually so in my book, I called the introduction, you are not an oven. This is like the first idea here. You have to understand you are not an oven. You have so much more power, so much more agency, and for some Weird reason this science has been kept from you when with simple tools. For example, getting enough choline on a daily basis, you can give your baby's brain the nutrient that he needs. Because today, for example, in the case of choline, this is a shocking statistic. 90% of pregnant moms. 90% of pregnant moms are not getting the bare minimum amount of choline that is recommended during pregnancy. 90%. Not because we don't have access to eggs, because nobody's freaking telling them why. Big mystery. I have no idea. I think it's a sense of like, oh, moms can't handle all this information. It's a bit too complicated. Or maybe because the medical system is built around short term disease prevention and problems and doesn't take time to tell you about the long term potential benefits that you can impact. So this is why the choline chapter is so important. With just four eggs a day, you get all the choline that your baby needs. I know four eggs a day sounds like a lot, but actually it's the easiest way to get the choline. It's in the egg yolk. So if you can't eat all your eggs, just eat the yolk. Make sure they're cooked through is important during pregnancy. There's also choline in fish, in chicken, in meat. There's a little bit of choline in plant foods. And there are great choline supplements that you can take if you don't eat any animal products. So easy. I ate so many eggs when I was pregnant.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. Four eggs every morning. Except the first four months where I could not eat a single egg.

[Lewis Howes]

Just carbs, just crystals.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I was like, croissant. I'm sure there's some choline in here, right? No, no choline in the croissant. But. So choline eggs, super simple. We have evidence that moms are not getting enough. We have evidence that it matters. We have animal studies, we have human trials. We. The American association of Pediatrics says failure to provide choline during this important time can result in lifelong brain deficits. Really? The American association of Pediatrics, it says that?

[Host/Announcer]

Yes.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Can you explain to me, Louis, why we're not telling moms this?

[Lewis Howes]

I have no idea.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Exactly. I have no idea. It's a mystery. So this is why this book is important. Wow.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. So what would you say then is the biggest nutrition lie that moms have been told during pregnancy? That, man.

[Jessi Kneeland]

The biggest nutrition lie? That your baby will get what he needs always.

[Lewis Howes]

Ah. Like just eat whatever and the baby's gonna be fine.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Eat more Calories, because you're, you know, eat for two. That's a big lie.

[Lewis Howes]

Also, having double the calories is not.

[Jessi Kneeland]

You don't need double the calories. You don't need double the calories. And the biggest lie is your baby will take what he needs. The correct sentence is, your baby will take what you give him, your baby will take what is there, and your baby will adapt. Just like a tree in different soils, your baby will adapt.

[Host/Announcer]

Adapt.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Your baby knows nature is smart. Even if you don't eat any choline, your baby will adapt and do things differently. But if you give him all the stuff he needs, he will not need to adapt so much and he'll be able to.

[Lewis Howes]

He'll thrive better. Yeah, you could still grow a tree in concrete, I guess. Maybe, maybe. But it's like not going to be the best growing tree.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Thankfully, the human body is not that extreme. Right. As long as you have air, water, food, a uterus, your baby will probably be okay. Okay, but actually not necessarily, because in the case of choline, for example, we know that low choline levels can lead to brain malformations that end in miscarriage. So we talk a lot about folate. I don't know if you heard this when you were going through the pregnancy, but it's like, take a folic acid supplement, it's very important, etc. Choline is just as important, but nobody talks about it. Yeah, and we talked about. You just said the sentence, eat for two. Eat a lot of calories. I think this brings us to the topic of glucose, which is important. So glucose, as I said, is in carbs. So bread, pasta, croissant, rice, potatoes, fruit, chocolate, cakes, etc. You need more glucose when you're pregnant because your baby needs it. But how much, is the question.

[Lewis Howes]

Not double 10, 20%? More, maybe? Right?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Kind of. Yeah, exactly. So at the end of the third trimester, when your baby is really big or your babies are really big and they're just about to be born, your baby needs 70 grams of glucose per day. 70 grams of glucose is the amount of glucose in a cup and a half of rice. That is the max. Yes. That is the maximum amount he will need when he's the biggest he's going to be right before birth. So at the very end of the third trimester, in the first trimester, you barely need any extra glucose at all. Second trimester, it starts going up a little bit at the very end. The maximum, a cup and a half of rice. That is not nearly eating double the amount of Carbs, you don't need to eat double that. So you need to give your baby a little bit. But if you give your baby way too much, he's going to have to adapt in the womb, and he's going to put on fat to try to protect himself from high glucose levels. And it might create some vulnerabilities, for example, to diabetes. And there's a cool thing we have to talk about, which is the difference between DNA and epigenetics. So when then you conceive a baby, his DNA is set, it will never change. Half from the mom, half from the dad. DNA will never change. But that's not the end of the story. Scientists have recently discovered that there are little tiny switches, tiny molecular switches that sit on our DNA and control which genes are on or off. So DNA is one thing, but the programming of the DNA is very flexible, and it's a whole other thing.

[Lewis Howes]

Is this the whole crispr thing?

[Jessi Kneeland]

That's different. That's gene editing.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Jessi Kneeland]

But epigenetics, we all have this. All of our genes are being programmed by these little switches at all times. And during pregnancy, you're setting up the epigenetics, the programming of your baby's DNA. And so scientists can measure this programming. They can see which genes are on and which genes are off. And what they find is that when a mom has very high glucose levels during pregnancy, the human baby has genes linked to diabetes that are turned on more than other babies. So with your diet during pregnancy, you're programming these genes on and off, and this can lead to the long term increases in risk that we're seeing for

[Lewis Howes]

someone who's not pregnant. What is the optimal amount of carbs someone should be eating on a daily basis?

[Jessi Kneeland]

That's a very controversial topic, Louis, to

[Lewis Howes]

have, like a healthy lifestyle, to be in fat burning phase, but also, you know, enjoying life as well. What is, what is that?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, the thing is, we don't actually need to eat carbs.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, man. But it's so good.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I know. Because if you don't eat any carbs, your body can make the glucose that it needs from within.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes, from other sources, like protein. Your liver can create glucose as long as you're eating something. That doesn't mean we should all eat no carbs. Most people do fine on like 100 grams of carbs per day, for example.

[Lewis Howes]

How much does 100 grams of carbs? What is that?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Two cups of rice?

[Lewis Howes]

Two cups of rice a day?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah.

[Host/Announcer]

That means.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, two cups of rice. That's correct.

[Lewis Howes]

Two cups of rice a day in terms of carbs is all you should need, or is like the maximum or is like.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It depends so much. Like, if you're an athlete, you need more because you're using up a lot of glucose for your muscles. It depends if you're, you know, if you're maintaining your weight, if you're trying to lose fat. It depends on so much. It depends on your individual sensitivity. If you're a female, if you're a male, time of the month, like, you need to find your own balance.

[Lewis Howes]

What is the best use of carb source for most body types? Like, is it rice, is it bread, is it pastas? Like, what is.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Great question. So I would put carbs in two categories. So we have the starches, which are bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats, and then we have the sugars. So that's chocolate, cake, fruit juice, even just fruit starches just contain glucose. Sugars contain glucose and fructose.

[Lewis Howes]

You don't want that.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Your body doesn't need any fructose, so.

[Lewis Howes]

So it doesn't need fruit.

[Jessi Kneeland]

No, you don't need to eat fruit.

[Lewis Howes]

But it tastes good.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, that's fine. So eat it. Hey, listen, we're talking about biologically what you need, right? So it's always better to get your carbs from starches than from sugars like fruit juice or cake. Now, fruit themselves, whole fruit is mostly fine because they contain fiber and water. So there's glucose and fructose in there, but because of the fiber in the water, they arrive in your bloodstream more slowly. All that to say it's up to you to find your optimal amount of carbs. You don't need to eat carbs, but it's a nice way to get energy. It's also a very social food. Yeah, of course, carbs are a social food. So I do pretty well, like, 100 grams of carbs per day, I would say. And then I focus a lot on protein and healthy fats, et cetera.

[Lewis Howes]

But if someone is trying to, you know, get in shape, stay healthy, stay lean, trying to eliminate fat from their body, you're saying stay around 100 grams of carbs a day or less, or, you know, it all depends on who and when and all that stuff. But if it's a normal human being who's not pregnant and they're just trying

[Jessi Kneeland]

to stay lean, I would avoid giving exact numbers. What I would say is if you are able to keep your blood sugar levels steady by using my hacks, for example, I feel like you naturally get to an amount of carbs that's going to support fat burning in your body, because fat burning is a healthy state to be in. And when you don't have big spikes and big dips in your glucose levels, your body can burn fat for fuel. So it's hard to say a certain number. Because, for example, if you only eat carbs but you're staying under X grams, does that mean you're going to be healthy? No. Right. It's about a combination of things. I don't think we should say like X grams of this, X grams of that.

[Lewis Howes]

Keeping the spikes lower.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

And less frequent.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes. And focusing on foods that actually give your body something really important. So, for example, protein and fats. Right. We can't make protein from within, so it's very important to give your body enough protein, but we can make glucose from within.

[Host/Announcer]

Sometimes greatness feels far ahead of you, but in reality, it's right in front of you. That's why Buick is here to help you make the most of this moment. To show up at your best today, and to remember that now is exceptional. Whether you're making a statement in the Buick and Vista with its sleek style that sets you apart on the road, or you're announcing your arrival in the Buick enclave, where purposeful technology and sophisticated spaciousness keeps you present and in command, Buick delivers a lineup of premium vehicles that enrich the life you're leading right now. So keep pursuing what's down the road, but remember that today is its own reward. Visit Buick.com to discover a design that inspires you to rise to any occasion. That's Buick.com, buick exceptional by design. There's side sleepers, back sleepers, stomach sleepers, even those starfish sleepers who somehow take up the whole bed.

[Lewis Howes]

And honestly, I think I might rotate

[Host/Announcer]

through all of them in a single night. But luckily, no matter what kind of sleeper you are, the adjustable pillows from Coop Sleep goods are designed to work with how you actually sleep. Coop's adjustable pillows are crafted from a super comfy blend of memory foam and microfiber, so you can add or remove fill to get the exact height of firmness that feels right for you. It feels supportive without feeling stiff, and you'll feel comfortable from night one. Their cool plus adjustable pillow is perfect for even the hottest of sleepers like myself. That's the one I have, and I cannot recommend it enough because I'm someone who needs to be cold in order to sleep comfortably. And this one stays noticeably cool and breathable throughout the night and What I love is that if you are like I was and you don't really know which pillow is best for you, Coop has a sleep quiz you can take to find the perfect pillow for you. Let Coop help you show up feeling rejuvenated and ready to go. Get 20% off your first order and try Coop risk free with a 100 night sleep better guarantee at coopsleepgoods.com greatness. That's C-O-O-P sleepgoods.com greatness.

[Lewis Howes]

How much protein and how much fat should we have?

[Jessi Kneeland]

You want numbers? You want me to write a whole list for you?

[Lewis Howes]

Just on average, like, you know, is it. Yeah. Is it based on so how big you are?

[Jessi Kneeland]

So for protein, I think it's actually useful to talk about exact numbers here because your body cannot make protein from within. And when we think protein, we often think muscle. Muscle protein is not just muscle. So many things in your body are protein. For example, the collagen in your skin that keeps your skin healthy is a protein. A lot of the parts of your immune system are proteins. They keep you healthy, they keep you safe from pathogens. For example, insulin, which is a hormone that manages your glucose levels, that's a protein. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of types of protein in your body. And it's really important to make your DNA makes protein. The little code in your DNA, what does it do? It tells your body how to make different proteins. So it's not just about muscle mass and bodybuilding. And during pregnancy, you're literally building another human's body inside your body. It's important to remember that sometimes, and as I said, your baby, the moment he's born is about 50% protein, if you exclude water. Proteins are everything. They're everything. So how much protein do we need? We've had lots of different methods to try to measure how much protein a human needs to eat. And the more recent methods, they have a funky name. They're called the indicator Amino acid oxidation method. Very fancy word, but it's just saying. It's a new method for measuring how much protein you need to eat to give your body enough not just to survive, but to thrive. And so this method is now showing us that In a pregnancy second person, we need about 1.2 grams of protein per kilo of body mass per day. In the second and third trimester, we need 1.5. And during breastfeeding, 1.9.

[Host/Announcer]

Wow.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So breastfeeding is very intense in protein because you're putting protein in your breast milk to continue to feed your baby. So these stats are, are core and very important to learn about for moms. Most moms are not getting nearly enough protein during pregnancy. And what happens is that your body starts breaking down your muscle because your muscles are full of protein. Break down the muscle, give it to baby. And that's why we see studies that say that 30 of moms lose muscle mass during pregnancy. Wow. How much?

[Lewis Howes]

Just curious. How much proteinism in a kid cup of breast milk on average? Do we know? Did you ever study this with your.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I'm sure we know, but I don't know. I don't know the top of my head.

[Lewis Howes]

I'm curious if it has a lot of protein or if it's like one gram of protein. I don't know. I'm just curious.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's a good question. What I do know is that it's a complete source of protein, meaning it's very high quality protein for your baby.

[Lewis Howes]

What's the science behind weird pregnancy cravings? Why do moms say like, I want to eat like pickles and chocolate salt? I don't know, like weird stuff.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So it's still up for debate. But the pickle thing, scientists believe that it has to do with iodine. So iodine is something that is found in sea salt. It's very important for your baby's thyroid and brain development. And when you crave pickles, it's probably because you're craving something salty, something high in iodine. I craved red meat and kiwis and like citrus fruit, a lot of fruit during my pregnancy. Maybe it was because of all the vitamins.

[Lewis Howes]

That's a big glucose spike, right? Like all this fruit.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, whole fruit is fine. Fine.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Jessi Kneeland]

But the fruit juice, if you get rid of the fiber, that's going to be a problem for sure.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. How much fruit is fine? Like what if you're eating buckets of fruit? That's still a lot, right?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, yes, because the fruit that we eat today has been bred by humans to be very high in sugar.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So, you know, if you eat a lot of it, it might cause a big spike. But what I recap in the glucose part of the book is all the glucose hacks to help you eat the sweet stuff with that.

[Lewis Howes]

So having an apple with peanut butter.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Exactly.

[Lewis Howes]

Right. Putting some clothes on your carb.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Oh, yeah, nice one. Or having the fruit or the sugar at the end of a meal instead of at the beginning. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, but I, I'm a firm believer that whole fruit is totally fine. And we should Absolutely not. Demonize whole fruit. It's the best thing to eat if you want to eat something sweet.

[Lewis Howes]

Speaking of sweets, what's the real reason people feel out of control with sweets and sugar?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think one of the main reasons is that they are on a glucose roller coaster and they don't know it. And the main culprit is often eating something sweet on an empty stomach. Because when your stomach is empty, anything sweet that you eat, those glucose molecules arrive very quickly into your bloodstream. Nothing is slowing them down, which means big glucose spikes, like, and big glucose crash. And we know that the crashes can activate the craving center in your brain. So I used to eat sweet stuff for breakfast all the time. And then at 10am I was like, I really need, like, some chocolate or, like, more sweets. I was like, I need, like a muffin. I go to the coffee shop and get like a coffee and a muffin.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah, something sweet.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And now looking back, I'm like, God, God, all these years I was just having a glucose crash because my breakfast was sweet and I had no idea. And then the cycle starts again because I have the muffin at 10am what happens? Another spike and then another crash. And then all day. And then it's 11pm and I've just ordered on Uber Eats, like five pints of ice cream. I'm like, how did I get here? Well, it was all because of the breakfast.

[Lewis Howes]

Gosh, you made something for me last time you were here.

[Jessi Kneeland]

The chocolate brittle.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, my gosh. This is. Is incredible.

[Jessi Kneeland]

This is a recipe in my second book, the Glucose Goddess Method.

[Lewis Howes]

I want it right now.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's so easy. You just get this dark chocolate and you melt it and then you put it on this baking sheet and you put a bunch of nuts in it. Like, I think I made it with pistachios and walnuts for you. Sea salt. Put it in the fridge, you wait for it to harden, and then you break it up. Now, you know why this is a good dessert?

[Lewis Howes]

Tell me.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Because of the nuts. Because those nuts contain protein and fat and they're going to slow down the glucose spike from the chocolate.

[Lewis Howes]

So you want that now?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Are you having a glucose crash right now?

[Lewis Howes]

I'm okay right now, but I've been eating mung bean soup for like, six days. I'm trying to kind of just like get more beans and reset from the holidays because I ate a lot of. A lot of sugary sweets that I was too much. And so I'm just doing it for a number of days. But yeah, that brittle sounds Amazing. Right now you make some while you're here.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Okay. I'll say this too.

[Lewis Howes]

Freaking ubered over here. Oh my God. Gosh, it's so good.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think that's one of the reasons people feel out of control is when

[Lewis Howes]

you're eating sweets essentially alone by itself, you're going to have a rush and then a crash. Even if it's a little sweet, you miss a couple cookies, it sounds like.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, listen, having one cookie is going to create a smaller spike than 10 cookies.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. Or whole box.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. And listen, sometimes I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I want ice cream for breakfast. And I do it and I'm like, this is going to create a big glucose spike.

[Lewis Howes]

Bike and all day.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Was it worth it?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I always regret it. No, regret it because I feel. I feel awful.

[Lewis Howes]

You know the science, you know what it's doing to your body, your brain, all these things. Yeah. It's good for an hour, but then you're like. And then the rest of the day you have to kind of like try to figure out how to re regulate your system. And then the next morning, hopefully you can reset it. But it's like you also sleep worse when you're doing it all day.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. So it's a little bit of a vicious cycle. And we're talking earlier about, you know, people feel a victim and trapped in their diet and it's hard to exit out of it. Breakfast is a good moment to try to exit out of it. If you have a protein rich breakfast. Pregnant and not pregnant. This is a very great way to stabilize your blood sugar. And I found that during pregnancy, when I was on a glucose roller coaster, my nausea was worse. But if I was able to have a little bit of protein, like I would lay in bed and wake up and I had some almonds next to my bed and I would eat them before I got up and that kind of helped. A little bit of protein before getting up to stabilize my blood sugar. Sugar. I mean, pregnancy is a whole thing. It exacerbates so much stuff. It's complicated.

[Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Pregnancy is also highly emotional. Highly. You know, there's some, some women have more anxiety around pregnancy, other women have great pregnancies. But still there's a. It seems like there's something in the, the pregnant mom that starts to switch on where they're thinking about it more intently. When you're pregnant is what it seems like from my interpretation, my experience witnessing it, you're thinking about your pregnancy, you're thinking about your choices, you're thinking about your body, then your body's changing, then you're questioning your body. All these different things are happening. And I can only imagine what is happening with your mind and trying to stay calm and the hormones. Yeah. Trying to stay calm with all of it seems extremely challenging.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And so on top of that, there's the stress of, like, what do I need to eat?

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And it can be highly confusing. Very confusing, yes. That's why this book is a nice guiding light in all of this.

[Lewis Howes]

Your book is called 9 Months that Count forever. How your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future. I want everyone to make sure they check this out. You also told me beforehand that you had a miscarriage before. Right. What was that experience like for you? How did you navigate and overcome it and process it? And how did you step into the, you know, having your son after going through that experience?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I mean, talk about anxiety, man. So I was pregnant the first time, and at no point did I think anything bad could happen. I had no. There was nothing in my field, nothing in my mind. I never thought anything wrong would happen.

[Lewis Howes]

You're young, you're healthy, you know all the right things. And.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And so the moment of that first positive pregnancy test, I told everyone. Everybody, everybody. I didn't know. I was like, oh, I guess people wait three months. But I just. I was like, oh, this doesn't apply to me. I just had no. No conception happening.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So ultrasound. There's a heartbeat. I'm like, oh, my God. Great. Yeah, baby's gonna be born in December, blah, blah. And I'm due to go to the second ultrasound. It was at three months. And I'm like, la, la, la, la. Everything's fine. And I show up and they start. The doctor starts the ultrasound and. And this image pops up on the screen, and instantly I just knew Lewis. I was like, something's wrong. Because the embryo had not grown since the last time. And it was sort of at the bottom of the screen kind of. You could tell that it was, oh, man, so sad. And so I learned that I had had what's called a silent miscarriage, Meaning in normal, quote, unquote, miscarriages, you bleed and you. Your body expulses the pregnancy naturally. My body did not do that. So I learned at the ultrasound that I had been walking around for three weeks thinking I was still pregnant, but the embryo had stopped developing three weeks ago.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, my gosh.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So entire life comes crashing down. I mean, like, just the emotional shock of that was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was just. I don't even have words. I remember this one sentence I said to my husband, and that's the best way I can describe it. I said, if emotions could kill, I think I'd be dead. The level of despair that I spiraled into for the better part of like a whole month was just. It was so painful. So I had to have a surgery where they take the embryo, etc. Yeah, it was a whole thing. And so how did I process was just extremely difficult. Very, very difficult. And all of a sudden you see pregnant people everywhere.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, you know, they're happy.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, they're happy. All of a sudden you're like, everybody's pregnant around me. Oh, no, everything. It was so painful. So I honestly, I didn't cope very well. I started drinking a lot of coffee and just working a lot and tried to get my mind off it.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, I was numbing, completely numbing. And then, you know, I spoke to my therapist, my husband. I had really supportive friends, but it was just a very difficult process. And two months after that, I was in two minds. One part of me was still grieving and still incredibly sad. And the other part of me was like, I think I want to try again. And I was wrestling with this thing of like, do I need to be healed from the miscarriage?

[Lewis Howes]

Physically or emotionally?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Emotionally, before I'm allowed to try again? I don't know. I had a sense of like, do I need to heal myself before I can try again again? And I realized that, no, that that grief was always going to. Was always going to be there and it was probably going to coexist with a new pregnancy.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, man.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And so I got pregnant again rather quickly in two months, and I was extremely anxious that it was going to happen again. It was awful because again, I had no external signs of anything wrong. And until your baby starts kicking at like month five or something, you have no clue what's going on on.

[Lewis Howes]

Were you checking your ultrasounds every month?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I was going to the doctor almost every week.

[Lewis Howes]

Really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Oh, yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Hey, make sure it's okay.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I was freaked out.

[Lewis Howes]

That's a lot of anxiety.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I was incredibly anxious. Very, very, very anxious. I would cry all the time, like for, you know, for 48 hours after. Before each ultrasound, I would be crying and sobbing, scared it was going to happen again. Walking to the doctor's office, I was crying. Everything was fine every time. But it was. Was horrible, very emotional, horrible. And until my son was born and I could hold him in my arms,

[Lewis Howes]

I was so anxious because you're like you never know. I guess you never know.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So it was very, very difficult. And what I realized is that we don't talk about pregnancy loss at all. And when this happened to me, I learned some crazy things. Like all of these people close to me had experienced this and were just

[Lewis Howes]

telling me now, now they've never shared it before.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Like, my mom was like, oh, yeah, I had three miscarriages. I was like, what? My grandmother, I had five. I was like, what? You know, tongues untie, but it's taboo. Nobody knows how to handle it.

[Lewis Howes]

And it's a heavy thing.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's. It's heavy. But yes, I guess it's heavy. But look, when somebody goes through grief in another form, people kind of know how to handle live. So heavy things happen all the time, but the heavy things that we're okay talking about are easier to handle.

[Lewis Howes]

Gosh.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So in my book, I talk about all of that, my entire story, because I wanted to put it out there. Because the only thing that made me feel better when I was going through that was to talk to women who had gone through that. That as well.

[Lewis Howes]

Not holding on to it. Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And to hear that, like many people around me had had a miscarriage and then a successful pregnancy afterwards.

[Lewis Howes]

Oh, that's good. So this hope,

[Host/Announcer]

sometimes greatness feels far ahead of you, but in reality, it's right in front of you. That's why Buick is here, to help you make the most of this moment. To show up at your best today and to remember that now is exceptional. Whether you're making a statement in the Buick and Vista with its sleek style that sets you apart on the road, or you're announcing your arrival in the Buick enclave, where purposeful technology and sophisticated spaciousness keeps you present and in command. Buick delivers a lineup of premium vehicles that enrich the life you're leading right now. So keep pursuing what's down the road, but remember that today is its own reward. Visit Buick.com to discover a design that inspires you to rise to any occasion. That's Buick.com Buick exceptional by design.

[Lewis Howes]

I'm not an astronaut.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I don't need an astronaut.

[Movie and Fidelity Advertiser]

Audiences have spoken. Project Hail Mary is an awe inspiring masterpiece.

[Lewis Howes]

So I met an alien.

[Movie and Fidelity Advertiser]

If you've fallen out of love with going to the movies, this one will bring you back. Ryan Gosling in the first must see movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary, rated PG13, may be inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters March 20.

[Lewis Howes]

Do you feel like you've or where are you on your healing journey of

[Jessi Kneeland]

that Honestly, today actually. Good. I feel like I've processed it.

[Lewis Howes]

That's good.

[Jessi Kneeland]

But. But it was probably one of the darkest moments in my life. Life. But today I feel fine because my son is here and he's okay.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. And he's happy.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. So in a way, I'm like, okay, I can have a healthy baby. Like, this is possible, and maybe it'll come back up at some other point. Writing it in this, in the book was also very cathartic and talking about it a lot was cathartic. But it's very, very challenging.

[Lewis Howes]

Challenging. Yeah. I mean, something that guys will never know what that feels like. Yeah. You know, we'll never know what that feels like with their wives or people that have gone through that.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. It's a very isolating experience.

[Lewis Howes]

I can imagine.

[Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Host/Announcer]

I mean.

[Lewis Howes]

But I think a lot of women, even if they haven't had a miscarriage, it sounds like what. What is very common for pregnant women after they deliver a baby is postpartum depression and some form of come down, even though you have this beautiful miracle and gift that has come into your life. But, you know, even my wife Martha, she is the most positive person I've ever met. She has tools, she goes to therapy. She's been doing these things for years. But she had, I guess it was pre diabetes or gestational diabetes, like symptoms during the pregnancy and then. And preeclampsia. And it was rough for her for about six weeks. And she is super positive and has the tools and has support and family's there and, you know, has a, you know, supportive husband. All these things are there. And it was still challenging for her, and there's still moments now. But a lot of women don't have all that support and they go through extreme postpartum depression. Did you experience any of that? And how can we serve moms who have delivered babies on how to set themselves up for success after the delivery to minimize those things?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think food is a big tool.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Because your baby will, you know, suck a lot of your reserves in your body up to a point. So, for example, if you eat zero choline, your baby will take a lot of choline from you. Up to a point. Point. Because nature always wants to make sure the mom survives too.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

So if you end your pregnancy, depleted muscle loss, no choline, all of your Omega 3s taken from you for your baby's brain, up to a point. Any adult with low choline, low omega 3, low muscle mass and blood sugar spikes and dips will not Feel well, you throw that into postpartum. Huge hormonal shift. Yeah. Sleep deprivation, isolation, early motherhood is so isolating.

[Lewis Howes]

Identity, change, everything, everything.

[Jessi Kneeland]

No wonder. Recipe for not feeling so good. So if you can use these tools in the book, you'll at least have the nutrition part. Not too depleted after you give birth. It's just very difficult. I don't have a magic wand. I also went through. It was very painful. My baby's eight months now. But, you know, for the first four months, it was rough. I didn't feel so good. It's very challenging in so many respects. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically. Very, very hard. Very, very, very hard. And I was finishing writing this book at the same time. Like, wow. It was just a vortex. Vortex. I feel a bit more stable now. Because you're sleeping better also. So it's. It's helping. It's just a very tough, tender moment of life.

[Lewis Howes]

As a scientist, yourself and a researcher, do you have a relationship with God?

[Jessi Kneeland]

God, yeah, I do.

[Lewis Howes]

How do you wrestle with science and spirituality?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I don't.

[Lewis Howes]

You know, No.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think it's ridiculous to say that the only real things are the things that science understands. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. Look at where science was 100 years ago. We didn't know about microbes. We didn't know about DNA. They still existed. We just didn't have the tools yet.

[Lewis Howes]

Did you have a relationship with God during and after the pregnancy? Were you. That supported you with the isolation and with the feeling of loss or with the feeling of uncertainty or the scary. Like, how did you navigate that?

[Jessi Kneeland]

So I'm very. I'm very spiritual. I believe in the. In something greater than me. I don't. I don't relate to specific religion, but I'm a very spiritual person. And I believe a lot in my intuition. I believe I can connect with guides. You know, I can ask for help, Help comes. I believe I have access to a lot of insights if I can just connect and quiet myself and get there. I've assigned a bit of a meaning, I think, now to the miscarriage in a way. And one thing I did after the miscarriage is that I connected spiritually. I tried to connect to my future kids, and I was able to connect with them energetically. It felt like.

[Lewis Howes]

Before you had your son?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Before I had my son.

[Host/Announcer]

Oh, really?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

What was that like?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, it was just me sort of quieting my mind and sitting on my bed and just calling me, like, okay, like, kids, if you're there, like, what's going on? Give me some support, something.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. And I saw. I saw two kids, and I was like, okay, what's the meaning behind this miscarriage? And they were like, don't worry. That was just not. That's not one of us. That was just. That was a process I needed to happen. But we're good, and that helped.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

That's a beautiful feeling.

[Jessi Kneeland]

That helped a lot. That helped a lot.

[Lewis Howes]

Speak to your future children or connect emotionally, spiritually with them and have a conversation with them of sorts.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I've always had this kind of stuff.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Even with the. The glucose work that I did before, I've never talked about this, but with the glucose work I did before this book, for example, I always felt like that idea of blood sugar and glucose, I connected with it, and she picked me, and she was like, hey, Jesse, there's this idea. Do you. To want it? Do you want to enter a relationship with me? And I said, yes. There's no reason for me to have come across a glucose monitor at, you know, 25 years old when I didn't have diabetes, when I didn't have any reason to come across it. It was just. I felt like the idea really wanted to come through me. And so it was a spiritual experience in a way. I have. That's just how I live. I don't know. It feels. It feels normal to me. Maybe this sounds completely crazy, but.

[Lewis Howes]

But, yeah, I don't think it's crazy. I think it's cool.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Thanks.

[Lewis Howes]

But you don't talk about it.

[Jessi Kneeland]

No, I would love to. I think it's very fascinating.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

So do you speak to your other future child today?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I have. I haven't tried. No, I haven't tried. Maybe I should talk to them and see what's up. But now one of them is here, so I can talk to him directly.

[Lewis Howes]

You think there's only one more?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. I always thought I would have many, many kids, but now that I've had one, I'm like, well, it's. It's. It's a lot.

[Lewis Howes]

It's a lot. Two of ones is like another. It's another world. Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

I definitely would like to have another child at some point. At some point. Just also because I think my son would enjoy having that experience. And I grew up with many brothers and sisters, so I like, you know, I like that energy. I think it's fun.

[Lewis Howes]

You're one of what, how many siblings?

[Jessi Kneeland]

So I have one full sister and then four halves.

[Lewis Howes]

Okay.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And I'm the oldest. Yeah.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Of six.

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. So you felt like. You feel like you're gonna have one more in the future sometime?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. What about you?

[Lewis Howes]

It's not really up to me. I think it's up to Martha. You know, I. I think I would. Would welcome another child into our family if she feels like she can physically, mentally, emotionally handle it again. She's 43, and so, you know, sure, she could have another child in a couple of years maybe, but it was also a lot. It was physically. I mean, we went to the ER twice. She was in the hospital multiple times. And her health and her safety is my number one priority, obviously our kids, but not at the risk of bringing another child to, like, hurt her. So for me, it's not like I have to have this or my life is over. It's the idea of it is beautiful and amazing if she is going to be set up for success and if she wants that, but if she doesn't, I'm happy as well.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And how has your. How has the experience of having kids been spiritual in any way for you?

[Lewis Howes]

Wow. I think it's got a. Continue to be more spiritual the older they get. You know, it's still less than three months and it's. But even today, I was looking in one of my daughters, both of them, but one of them, like, kind of woke up and I was, like, hovering over her, looking at her, and she just gave me like a little half smirk, and I was like, gosh, it's really beautiful. I mean, it's a beautiful experience. You know, it's like, it's something really special. So I can only imagine how beautiful it will fold to be. Be. You know, how beautiful it'll be to be like, wow, you were just an idea. I mean, you were an idea that has been in a spiritual world, that now you're in a physical world, or whatever we want to call this world. But you're here now, and now you're developing little by little. And I'm watching is a beautiful miracle.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's a miracle.

[Lewis Howes]

It is a miracle.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It is a miracle.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. To have both of them, it is just a gift. And to watch their personalities already within a couple of months, it's incredible. But Martha's with them more, and so she is getting to really experience it deeper at this moment, which I think is more important for her than me. And they're sleeping a lot, so there's only so much you can do, but they're sleeping on you. And I'm like, gosh, this is the greatest feeling. It's like, I used to love my cat, sleep on me. But this is like a whole nother level of having a human being sleep in your arms. That came through your life now. How does it feel for you when you're. When your son's sleeping on you?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Well, he's too big to do that now.

[Lewis Howes]

He can't sleep.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah, he can't sleep on me anymore.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yeah. It's incredible. It's. It's everything. It's just. It's just such a complexity of emotion. It's like a bouquet of all the things. It's like the most incredible thing. Just like so much dopamine and serotonin and like, wow, this overwhelm. And also like, this is the hardest thing I've ever gone through. Even though, you know, I'm lucky enough that I have a nanny, like I have help, etc.

[Lewis Howes]

Yes.

[Jessi Kneeland]

It's just my brain has changed and is thinking about him all the time and it's just really difficult. It's very challenging.

[Lewis Howes]

It's hard to be a career mom and a mom full time.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Right.

[Lewis Howes]

It's hard to do like both at a high level. You really need support if you're going to be working on other stuff, I guess. And it's. It demands all of you.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes.

[Lewis Howes]

Demands all of you.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Yes. You'll never be the same.

[Lewis Howes]

Nah, it's a blessing. I'm so excited. Well, I want people to get your book. It's called nine months that count forever. How your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future. And there's a lot of different strategies and science and research in here that's going to help moms or pregnant moms really get clear on what to eat, how to eat. And also know that if you're a mom who already had a child and you felt like you messed your kid up, your kid's going to be okay. Like it's going to figure it out. And there's so many things you can course correct. Correct when they're young that you can start getting them on these habits now if they're six months old or six years old. So it's never too late. And like you said, you didn't have a bun in the oven, you had a seed. And you are the fertilizer to help flourish and help them develop and grow until they are delivered. And at any moment, you can continue to re fertilize a human being at any season or stage of life completely so they can flourish from where they are to where they need to be. So just know that you haven't ruined your kids up if you didn't feel like you ate the perfect way again. The book is out nine months that count forever how your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future. And if people want more, they can go to glucosegoddess.com to get all your content. Your newsletter is there and also Glucose Goddess on Instagram, glucose revolution on YouTube as well. You've got amazing products out right now. You've got supplements that help people if they don't want to drink vinegar, vinegar, which I don't like. I have some of your supplements. You can take that with food. It'll help you minimize glucose spikes. And you've got other products coming out in the future that if they subscribe to your newsletter or subscribe to you on Instagram, they'll get notified of what those products are going to be, which I'm pretty excited about. Yeah, I'll send you some of that stuff. Couple final questions before I get you out of here. Here. I asked you this before, but I'm curious now that you're a mom what your three truths are. So I'll ask the question from the context. You get to live as long as you want in this life, but many years away, it's your last day on earth and you get to create and accomplish anything you want to create. All the products and the business and you have more kids. Whatever you want to do, it happens. But it's the last day for you in this earth and you have to take all of your work with you, all of your content, all of your social media, all of your books that go with you. They don't stick around for us to have. But on the final day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. What would those three lessons be for You?

[Jessi Kneeland]

Have a savory breakfast, listen to your body because symptoms are messages. And if you're pregnant, eat a ton of eggs.

[Lewis Howes]

There you go. That's good. I love it. Simple reminders. I want to acknowledge you, Jesse, for the transformation you've been on as a mom now and how you continue to show up to serve not only yourself and your son and your husband, but also your community and the world researching these things because you went through it. You went through your own challenges pre pregnancy in your 20s, and you went through your own challenges with a miscarriage. And you said, I want to find the solutions. So you turned your kind of pain into solutions for yourself and others. So I acknowledge you for the book, the work you're doing, and the constant service to humanity with what you're sharing So I appreciate you. And my final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

[Jessi Kneeland]

I think this has changed. I think my definition of greatness now is peace and contentment. Because I think, you know, jealousy is a good marker of like where you want to go. And I'm so jealous of people who are, are just content. They're just happy. They're like, I I'm content with my life.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

And it's not about more. Right. It's about that contentment in your brain. Yeah. I think it helps to have a kid. I feel more content now.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah.

[Jessi Kneeland]

More present.

[Lewis Howes]

Yeah. That's beautiful, Jesse. Appreciate it.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Thank you.

[Lewis Howes]

Amazing.

[Jessi Kneeland]

Thank you for having me.

[Host/Announcer]

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out

[Lewis Howes]

how we can support and serve you moving forward.

[Host/Announcer]

And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out

[Lewis Howes]

there and do something great.

[Movie and Fidelity Advertiser]

Building a portfolio with Fidelity Basket Portfolios is kind of like making a sandwich. It's as simple as picking your stocks and ETFs, sort of like your meats and other topics and managing it as one big juicy investment.

[Lewis Howes]

Mmm.

[Movie and Fidelity Advertiser]

Now that's pretty good. Learn [e-mail] baskets Investing involves risks, including risk of loss.

[Host/Announcer]

Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member nyse, SIPC

[Movie and Fidelity Advertiser]

the wrongs you must right, the fights we must win, the future we must secure together for our nation. This is what's in front of us. This determines what's next for all of us. We are Marines. We were made for this.