The Truth About Prenatal Care, Supplements For Women, Hormone Health, & Postpartum Ft. Victoria Thain Gioia Of Perelel

18:03Victoria Thain Gioia:And then there's actually recent studies on creatine around cognitive health. Yep.

18:07Michael Bosstick:I slept bad last night. I woke up and slammed five grams of creatine just because I slept bad. Yeah. And then he has to do a performance. He's like, this is how I take creatine. And it's like an inch of water in the cup. And he's like chugging it like it's a shot of tequila. You're so proud of yourself. No, but to your point, there's things that I think the quote unquote gym bros have known about where it's like, I know if I have a terrible night of sleep, one of the first things I'm going to do is have maybe a double dose of creatine, not right at once, but five in the morning, then maybe five after the workout.

18:37Michael Bosstick:And it does have neurological protections and cognitive benefits for doing that, especially if you have a bad night at rest. Yeah.

18:44Victoria Thain Gioia:No, I think it's huge. And I think it's important that it's just becoming part of the conversation for women and women's health and actually how important muscle health is for women in terms of longevity and bone loss and bone density. All of our grandmothers had osteoporosis or similar issues, like we can start preventing that, but we need to start preventing that now and sort of building up our muscle health and our bone density. One thing that I've noticed from creatine, this is so weird, is I noticed that my skin is tighter to the muscle. So a lot of people are like, oh, it makes you bloated.

19:22I've found that creatine like gives you that very youthful tightness of the skin around the muscle. And I don't even know how to describe what I'm trying to say. If someone's listening, DM me what I'm trying to say. But it's like, it's almost like the muscles more toned and the skin connects to the muscle more. Like firmness in the skin? I don't, it's like, it's a look. You know how Kim Kelly looks? It's like Kim Kelly.

19:46Michael Bosstick:A lot of women, and again, I don't want to paint every woman, but the women in my life would say, I don't want to take creatine and protein and weight lift because I'm going to get too buff and jacked. Not me. And I always laugh at these women because I'm like, do you know how hard we're trying as men to just get a little bit of muscle? It's like this idea that you're going to take a little creatine and it just doesn't work. But what happens when you do take some of these supplements is, yeah, you'll be able to get more hydration to the muscle. You'll be able to build it in a more effective way.

20:15Michael Bosstick:You'll be able to retain it longer. And so you're going to have that look. When you work directly with your incredible OBGYN, what have you learned from her when it comes to supplements?

20:26Victoria Thain Gioia:Everything. thing. I mean, she has such an amazing approach and she is a medical doctor. She's an OBGYN. She's delivered many of my children, but she has such a holistic lean to her practice, but she really focuses on like efficacy, safety, research, and like what she sees with her patients. So there's been ingredients that are really popular out there and she is like an absolute no. She's like, we cannot include that in our products.

20:54Michael Bosstick:What are those ingredients? You know we're going to ask.

20:57Victoria Thain Gioia:Certain things just can have like liver toxicity. So there's some around like some PMS ingredients, even some like menopause ingredients. And so she's like, those are a no, we're not including those in our products. She's really cautious about the dosage. Like we are creating products that women can take every day. And so what is safe and effective? And like there's a lot of clinical studies at certain dosages. So we can use that to know that it will still be effective, but it's safe for a woman to take every day. And then I think the other part that I really learned from her and her philosophy is just that like supplements are just that.

21:35Victoria Thain Gioia:They're supplements to a healthy diet. And so we need to think of them that way, but it needs to be part of your daily routine. Like how does it fit in? And I think that's also been like the biggest learning as we've made products and formulated. She's all about like tolerability. How does it fit in the use case? I think that went into our formulation with our protein. We were talking about protein. We were talking about fiber. We were talking about creatine. And she's like, this woman needs all of those. Let's make this easy for her. How do we make this something she can take every day? How does this fit in her routine?

22:07And because she's like,

22:08Victoria Thain Gioia:that's the only way this woman's going to take it every day. And she's seen patients for 25 years. And she's like, the biggest issue is making sure someone sticks to this routine. And whether it's like a new diet or a supplement and all of those things. Like how does it fit into their routine? So that's been like, I think a big insight where it's like as a woman or you'll just be like, oh, well, they'll just change the routine and they'll add that to this and then they'll make a smoothie every day. And she's like, well, that doesn't always work. How does this fit into their routine? And she's really pushed us on that side, which has been really helpful.

22:45Knowing everything that you know now, because obviously you've been around the right people and done your research. If you got pregnant today, what would you do?

22:54Victoria Thain Gioia:Yeah, I would be really focused on my nutrition ahead of pregnancy. And I think that's the biggest difference that I didn't realize with my first and going into a pregnancy, how important it actually was to be on the right prenatals, taking the right supplements, you know thinking about egg health like all of that and it's not immediate it's not like especially for egg health it's like three months in advance at the very very least if not like six months to a year so that is something that i've learned through this journey of like really preparing your body for a pregnancy and then like we've done a clinical study on our conception support pack and shown that taking that for at least three months, like increases key nutrients that are critical for a healthy pregnancy.

23:43Victoria Thain Gioia:And so preparing in advance, I think is the biggest piece that I would focus on. And what about when you actually are pregnant? So I think a prenatal is sort of non-negotiable and taking those ingredients, I would take parallel and have sort of the focus on because your needs change between different trimesters. And so that's why I think how we built out our system of you get something that's specific to first trimester, second trimester, third and postpartum. That's fascinating. I think that's so smart. Yeah. I mean, look, you could take everything all at once and take 10 pills a day, but that would be really hard to tolerate.

24:21Victoria Thain Gioia:So like, let's actually be really specific of what exactly you need when and what you don't need at different stages. So I would take that. But I think more so I would also be really focused on my nutrition. I actually think that protein, I probably wasn't very good about that when I was pregnant, at least with my first two. The second two were during parallel. So they're the strongest, most well-adjusted of the bunch.

24:44Michael Bosstick:You're going to hear that in the future and be like, you hear that? They're the stronger ones.

24:47Victoria Thain Gioia:They are. They're well-adjusted. I feel like you're less nervous at the last kids and they're like, figure it out. I tell my siblings because I'm the oldest, I say what happens, I said mom

24:56Michael Bosstick:and dad were the youngest and healthiest. And then so they had me. And then as you guys came along, their bodies were deteriorating. And so you got the weaker stuff. That's the narrative.

25:04Victoria Thain Gioia:Yeah. I like that. But I actually think prenatal nutrition and like your protein needs are so much more important when you're pregnant and women don't realize that at all. And like you can't tolerate food and you have aversions. Like I hated chicken. And so I feel like I ate no protein. And that actually probably would have like, yes, probably benefited the baby, but more benefited how I felt and how I recovered and how like I felt postpartum like the whole process I feel like could have been just felt easier I'd have more energy and like balance my blood sugar better that's like the first one I feel like too I just you don't know what you don't know and it's

25:42Michael Bosstick:the postpartum hits you so bad have you heard people talk about a lack of folate as it relates to postpartum?

25:51Victoria Thain Gioia:I haven't heard that as much as in the postpartum period. I feel like you think more of like iron depletion and energy and like all of what you go through. And then you're just kind of like on the other side of it and everyone cares about the baby. So I think it's more like general depletion than folate. Everyone is throwing around this word clean. What does that actually mean in the supplement and protein world? Well, it means nothing. It's not a regulated word. So I think everyone actually, and it's like sort of the same in beauty, like it actually means nothing. So we have to double click of like, what does it mean to be clean?

26:30Victoria Thain Gioia:And it's something that really needs to be looked at in the supplement industry because it's not regulated in that way. So supplements are not regulated for sort of efficacy and safety. And so it's on, the onus is on brands or the products to actually test and kind of measure what's in their products in terms of heavy metals, contaminants, solvents, any of those things that you don't want in your products. So there's different layers of this that's gone on since we've been in the industry over the last seven years. And most of it's been good because it's kind of pushing. Consumers have become more aware of this.

27:12Victoria Thain Gioia:So they're pushing brands to do the right thing. So one of the things that we did from day one was what's called third-party testing. And that means that every finished lot, well, actually it doesn't mean that every finished lot, but for us, it means that every finished lot, so every time we make the product, even if you make it four times in the year, every time that comes, that is done, we send it to an external lab who third-party tests it to make sure that it has one, like what we say is in it, isn't it? So they test for like the dosages and sort of the potency of the product. And then they test for contaminants and that's microbials and solvents and heavy metals.

27:53Victoria Thain Gioia:And the heavy metal thing is also this interesting conversation in this category. Everything that comes from the ground has trace levels of heavy metals. It's unavoidable. So So if a supplement says they're free from heavy metals, it may be true, but it probably means that they don't have critical ingredients, especially in a prenatal. Like they probably don't have magnesium or zinc or iron. Those are important ingredients. They are going to have trace levels of heavy metals, but it's what is that level? So you third-party test to make sure that those are below USP standards or in our case, we make sure they're below Prop 65 standards.

28:33Victoria Thain Gioia:It's a California regulation and it has really strict standards for what can actually be sold in a product. But you can actually go above that. You just have to you'll see like a Prop 65 warning on the box. And then the like next step of this to actually verify clean is third party certifications. So that's things like the clean label project, which tests all different products independently for the same sort of things of contaminants. Well, first they test for potency to make sure that what's on the label is in the product. And then they test for contaminants, solvents, pesticides, and heavy metals.

29:11Victoria Thain Gioia:And then you can be clean label certified and you can receive a purity award, which means you have the lowest of a lot of those levels. And there's another certification, which is NSF certification, which is sort of the same thing and does the same thing and has their own set of standards. So we've done both of those to really kind of show to the consumer our commitment to, quote unquote, clean. But there are certifications that can set that standard. But in general, anyone could say clean because it's not actually regulated. Wild. So the third party testing is important when you're getting a supplement, it sounds like.

29:49Victoria Thain Gioia:Yes, very. You want to make sure any product you buy, they are third party testing. every single lot, not just saying they do it once a year, every time they make the product. They should be third-party testing and verifying what's in it and any contaminants. With all you guys' research, what have you found when it comes to postpartum anxiety and depression? Are there different things about it? Is it all the same? Is it under one category? I mean, we haven't done a ton of independent research on that. We are working on things on our mom multi-pack and sort of doing some clinical research of how it affects that and what are sort of the precursors to postpartum depression and anxiety like sleep deprivation and energy and like how can we help sort of minimize the precursors to that but we haven't done a ton of research on that I can only say from my own personal experience I had like really severe postpartum anxiety and I feel like those are very different, but they're grouped sort of the same right now and not, I mean, I just think there's so much more to that conversation that can be pulled forward and like people talking about that.

31:00Victoria Thain Gioia:Because I think so many women suffer from both postpartum depression and anxiety, but they're all kind of grouped as the same and not really talked about separately. It totally should be different buckets because I remember feeling depressed, but then at the same time I had such bad intrusive thoughts, thoughts were coming into my mind that I'm like, where did this come from? Like, it's not like I watched a movie about it. Like, it's not like I was like you, you're like all the knives are going to fall out onto the baby and stab the baby. And you're like, what, where did this come from? It's like very, very weird when you're doing stuff with the baby, you think is the baby going to slip out of my hands and like crack his head open.

31:38Michael Bosstick:I think everyone has these thoughts when you're walking and it's like, oh, I could like knock that over or I could like, you know, hurt myself. But you like obviously to catch yourself real quick and don't do but then it's with we should do a meme when a man tries to relate to postpartum i'm just wondering what's going on here yeah i don't think you can really understand but is it just like that like but if you'd like to explain childbirth yeah next let me tell you how much yeah yeah childbirth is like well what they do is they put you on these

32:03Victoria Thain Gioia:really uncomfortable couches oh my god and then i've heard about this so many times and then the

32:08Michael Bosstick:the woman yells at you for being uncomfortable on the couch it's really inconsiderate if i had If you have another baby, I might just do a home birth and make you take a trip. And then you try to get Postmates to find the room you're in. It's a really tough thing that men have to go through. And you had to carry my placenta downstairs. God forbid that thing is eight pounds. Yeah. Well, you know, my back was thrown out. And Lauren was just really not being considerate about it. Honestly, each time you've gotten less considerate towards me. The differences are different feelings. The depression is you feel this for me, you feel almost a little hopeless.

32:48Maybe you feel like there's for me, I felt like there was like a like if I had a windshield, the windshield needed to be wiped. Like it felt like I couldn't see and I was dissociated and I was anything was overwhelming. And then the anxiety feels for me like intrusive thoughts. And it's funny. I've had intrusive thoughts with all three babies but it's gotten less each time like by a huge amount but i i mean i have never spoken to a mom that didn't have a couple of intrusive thoughts after and i could be wrong but it's almost like by the third i was like okay lauren like you're just this is what's going to happen and just be prepared yeah you kind of just like go through it and jokes aside

33:30Michael Bosstick:and with the for our first child and we've talked about it on the show she had postpartum anxiety and depression and I had no clue what to do. I didn't know I had it though either. You don't know you have it. You just, I didn't know. Yeah. And I think a lot of partners in the, like I remember for me and not, it wasn't about me, but I, I hadn't, I just had no idea what was going on. I had no idea how to support it. I didn't even know it was a thing. I think a lot of guys aren't aware about the thing. And all of a sudden one day you're with your significant other and then there's like, they're different, they change.

34:01Michael Bosstick:And now I know. So I, there's things that I could do to potentially help work through that situation. But back then I was like, snap out of it. I've gotten beat up plenty of times since then. But I didn't. My favorite is what's wrong with you? Well, I didn't know. What's fucking wrong with you? So for the guys listening with your girls, if they're pregnant or if they're like, just know that this, don't say what's wrong with you. Just don't speak. Don't ask what's wrong with them. Just sit there and be quiet. He would breathe and I would be like, do you have to breathe like that?

34:30Victoria Thain Gioia:Yeah, I had all these same conversations. Actually, with our fourth, I had really bad anxiety in our first trimester because I'd had quite a few pregnancy losses between babies. And so for this last one, I was also doing like shots of blood thinners and it was just complicated. And I feel like it felt so much pressure. And I started having like panic attacks, which like during the first trimester was so like I didn't know what was wrong with me. and I went down like such a deep spiral before realizing that I was having like a severe like postpartum anxiety spiral while pregnant. And that's also a thing.

35:07Victoria Thain Gioia:And then like found out that that's really common that people don't talk about either. It's funny that you say this because one of my friends is pregnant right now and she called me and she's like a month in. And I said, sometimes when you get pregnant, you almost feel you're so happy that you're pregnant. Like, of course, like you're out of your mind. But there's also a little bit for me of depression that I felt a little bit in the beginning. And I don't know if it's that it's because you know that it takes a lot of work and commitment to carry a child. And there's so many ebbs and flows that you're kind of like, oh my gosh, this is going to be a lot.

35:44But sometimes you're, and I don't know if it's your hormones, but you do sometimes feel a little up and down.

35:50Victoria Thain Gioia:Yeah. Well, your hormones are going crazy. Yeah. And so like, we don't really talk about that. Like that actually affects your mood and what's wrong with you. Like your hormones are on a roller coaster.

36:02Michael Bosstick:You're going to just beat me up. I've been beaten up for this for years. I'm just going to get it again. You can, you can simultaneously feel really grateful and excited, but also like a little blue blue is the word I would use. Depressed is not it. It's not like I felt fully depressed. You just feel blue or like overwhelmed yeah a little bit yeah and i think that that i mean sometimes it happens during your period too yeah women are you know we ebb and we flow and you have to give us space to do that because we're not a straight arrow that's boring like you guys i'm just kidding

36:36Victoria Thain Gioia:it's a joke it's a joke we are hormonal we're hormonal like that's all parts of it sorry we're fun.

36:43Michael Bosstick:No, it's, I mean, listen, it's, it's, you're building a human, right? You're taking basically almost a year to do it. It's pretty intense if you think about it. Now that I've experienced it a few times with her, I'm like, well, like it's pretty wild. And then after that, they're just there and you're just expected to like get on it. Right. Yeah. It's like just bounce back. Yeah. And here, and now it needs to eat and it needs to wake up and like, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. It does help that my husband's a good partner. I always tell you this. in there one time in the episode. He is a really good part.

37:12He really helps a lot. And I know that that's not normal. Put that at the front of the episode, Carson. You do help a lot. He helps. Well, I wouldn't have it any other way. I got to be honest. If you didn't help, I'd be like, what in the fuck are you here for? Call the sperm bank because if you're not going to help, I don't know. I'm out.

37:29Michael Bosstick:No, I try to be helpful. He is helpful. Okay. So if someone is listening and they have M-T-H-E-R-F-R. What are the things that they need to do? Is it as simple as really just changing their vitamin? Yeah, just take a methylated folate.

37:47Victoria Thain Gioia:I mean, everyone should just take methylated vitamin. It's not just folate. Like take all the methylated formats, take the chelated formats, like take the things that are most bioavailable to you. I feel like just in general, it's good. But that's it. There's nothing else that you've seen that makes a difference with it. I mean, transparently, I probably haven't done a, I kind of went down this rabbit hole and then spiraled and decided to start parallel and spent more of my time on that. But I think we just focus on what is the most bioavailable format of ingredients and go from there. You do probably not want to take too much folic acid because your body's not really going to process it properly and then sort of remove it as properly.

38:26Victoria Thain Gioia:But I just think in general, take like the most bioavailable format of every ingredient.

38:30Michael Bosstick:Yeah, the way Gary Brekka explained it is if you're pulling raw oil out of the ground, you can't just put it in your car. You need to refine it and then turn it into gasoline and put it in your car so it works. Well, that's over my head. So what we're doing if you have that MTHFRG mutation is you're taking the raw materials that your body can't turn into gasoline and you're putting it in your body and it just literally doesn't work. So if you could just take the form like you're saying right off the bat, you're giving your body what it needs right away without having to turn it into a refinery.

38:56You guys also sent me the cellular hydration thing that I loved. and I took it on like a bunch of my vacations. What is that?

39:04Victoria Thain Gioia:It's our electrolytes. So this is everything that we do at Parallel is we don't do sort of single ingredient products. We really think about what does this woman need out of this? So we were asked a ton of like, what electrolytes should I take, especially during pregnancy? And we brought it to Dr. Iotti and she was like, well, like I'm not just going to suggest electrolytes. One, it is great electrolytes and it's great for hydration. It doesn't have crazy amounts of sodium. So it's safe to take every day, especially during pregnancy. You don't want to overdose yourself on sodium. It tastes so good too.

39:34Victoria Thain Gioia:But it tastes amazing. And then it has collagen in it as well. So it's added cellular hydration boosts or sort of that beauty from the inside out and hyaluronic acid. Yes. That was the thing I liked. Some really good skin boosts. And so we love that flavor. And then we're going to kind of explore how else we can make that fun this summer. If our audience could start with one product from you guys, I know they listened to the episode with alex your co-founder, but what would you recommend they start with? What's your favorite product? So I live by the mom multi-pack I guess maybe I should have answered that of what's my only thing of self-care is I take my vitamins every single night Because I think that they help me from getting sick But I think for general all women and women who might not be in like the pregnancy postpartum season of their lives Not that i'm actually in that is protein I think that we forget how important protein is as women and we typically under eat protein.

40:29Victoria Thain Gioia:You need a gram of protein for every pound of body fat. And that's really hard to get out of a diet. And I feel like we created a protein that has your protein and your fiber where fiber is also critical to your health. And I feel like no one talks about that either because it involves poop and digestion. But like...

40:47Michael Bosstick:People are talking about it more now. It's becoming popular. Thankfully. People are realizing, yeah.

40:50Victoria Thain Gioia:And there's like the gut brain. Like fiber is so important. So it's giving you all of that and it gives you your creatine and it's all in one scoop. So it's like so easy to add that to your daily routine and you kind of check the box on all three. Before you go, you have to tell us you guys are backed by Unilever Ventures. How was also a couple of different growth partners? What is that like from a business perspective? Total off tangent question. Yeah, it's great. We have really great partners. So and I don't think that's always true. We have an all-female board. They're mostly all moms. So they really understand what we're doing.

41:29Victoria Thain Gioia:And I feel like that's made all the difference in having them as partners. And it's actually been great. I would say the fundraising path to getting there was not so great. But we're really, really fortunate to have some great partners now. The fundraising part is a bitch. Yeah. That was unfortunate. Like post-prepartum. we did it also in like april of 2020 when we just had this idea and so there was no fundraising it

41:55Michael Bosstick:was covid the market's been it was like basically bad for like a five-year stretch yeah well while we launched the business so we probably made you better business people though and you know what

42:04Victoria Thain Gioia:it did and every dollar had to count and we raised like not even a quarter of what we planned to to get this off the ground but we weren't willing to cut any of the products because it was like conception each trimester and postpartum. And we're like, well, we can't, that's the whole thing. You can't cut any of that. That's what this woman goes through. So we had to get like really creative in everything that we did. And I do think it made us better on the other side, even though it didn't feel that way in the moment.

42:35Michael Bosstick:Well, I just think a lot of people that were in the more flush times, it was like, here's a shitload of money and then just grow to grow. Don't worry about being efficient. And when the market got tough, it's like, hey, we can't back this anymore. It left a lot of people high and dry. Which if you really think about it, it's like it never made sense to just build a super unprofitable, highly scaled business that you couldn't sustain without just injecting more and more and more cash into it.

43:01Victoria Thain Gioia:It didn't make any sense. We're not software businesses. We're selling products. So you have to make sure you have a sustainable business model. You want to be here for the long term. If you're going to get people hooked on products, you need to continue to be able to sell them.

43:13Michael Bosstick:Yeah. And then I just think like, you know, not enough founders talk about it. It sounds like you have great partners, but you got to be careful with some of these people on the financing side because they get your hooks in a way where like there's so many horror stories of founders taking terrible terms, raising too much money, like selling their company, ending up with nothing. It's just, it's, it's a mess. Might as well just slow and steady wins the race.

43:35Victoria Thain Gioia:Yes. I have a finance background and that's how I started my career. So I was very fortunate to know what not to take in terms of those terms. And even though some things I feel like we got a little desperate and had to take some things, but I don't know founders that don't have that background. It's really tricky.

43:55Michael Bosstick:It's hard. Where can everyone shop Parallel? You guys, go try that hyaluronic acid collagen concoction. You will love it. And where can everyone pick up all the goods?

44:05Victoria Thain Gioia:At parallelhealth.com. It's P-E-R-E-L-E-L health.com. And check us out. You guys can use code skinny at parallelhealth.com slash skinny. You get 20 % off your order. Thank you so much for coming on. That was amazing. And tell Alex that we say hi. Of course. Thank you. You killed it.