Featured On Today’s Bride: Stress-Busting Bridal Nutrition Strategies
It really wasn’t that long ago that I was a bride myself and I remember so clearly the pressure I felt to get everything right—including how my arms looked in photos—especially in the weeks leading up to our wedding day. Seven years later, all I really remember is the pure bliss of those beautiful few hours.
So I was thrilled when Today’s Bride asked me to contribute to a story on stress-free self care for brides. Check out a few of my tips here—they’re everything I wish I knew back then. And to all those approaching their wedding day, here’s a few more ideas that didn’t make the edit:
Go Diet-Free: It's completely understandable for brides to want to look and feel their best on their wedding day—it's not often you get photos taken that will live on your mantle or wall for a lifetime! But unfortunately, the urge to restrict can ultimately contribute to additional stress. Managing families and planning is stressful enough. Restricting calories too much or completely cutting out carbohydrates can lead to low blood sugar which ignites a stress response in the body—essentially going into survival mode. This can not only lead to those energy crashes and hangry moments, but also have an impact on your overall mood, leading to irritability and anxiety.
Body, Mind And Spirit: Balancing your meals and snacks, and not skipping meals, is key to mitigating cravings overall. Our body’s response to stress is making sure there’s enough glucose pumping throughout the bloodstream to ensure we have the energy to run away from that tiger (fight or flight response). So it’s natural to crave things that have our body’s top two preferred sources of energy. Two ways to approach this that always go hand in hand: blood sugar balance and nervous system regulation. Deep breaths! Find some loving kindness for yourself in challenging conversations. And don’t add to your stress by beating yourself up when you want to have that a chocolate croissant. Enjoy it, savour it, chew it thoroughly, take a little walk afterwards in the fresh air, and your body will do the rest for you.
Pre-Wedding Grocery List: Getting enough protein and fibre in your diet helps to ensure you are adequately satiated so those cravings won’t feel out of control. Staying properly hydrated is also key as even 2% dehydration can have an impact on our body: aim for half your body weight in pounds in fluid ounces. Anti-inflammatory omegas from things like walnuts, almonds, flaxseed, and fatty fish, are also a wonderful way to provide nutrients for your nervous system. Plenty of colourful fruits and vegetables for antioxidants to reduce the impact of stress. Look for foods high in a full spectrum of vitamin Bs as these are key for our nervous system and adrenals: leafy greens, eggs, wheat germ, spirulina, nutritional yeast, lentils, nuts and seeds. Opt for magnesium-rich foods like rice bran, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, cacao, leafy greens to support getting an adequate amount of this key mineral for relaxation. Finally, there are some nutritional adaptogens that we can incorporate the are supportive of how our body manages stress: turmeric, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, rosemary, sage, basil.
Get Those Zs: Don’t underestimate the power of a good night’s rest! Prioritizing sleep not only supports healthy blood sugar management, but also ensure there’s adequate time for repair and recycling processes that are so crucial for our overall health and wellbeing. Quality sleep is crucial for energy and hormone health. Creating a wind down routine at night can be a great way to relieve stress at the same time. Whether that’s taking a hot bath, doing some stretching, deep breathing, journalling, writing a gratitude list, reading, getting away from screens and spending quality time with your partner. These are great tactics for both stress relief and sleep support.
And last, but definitely not least, enjoy every minute!