An Interview With Lauren Lobley, Founder of The Mom Feed

Today we are thrilled to feature Lauren Lobley, podcaster, writer, chef and founder of The Mom Feed. I first connected with Lauren on Instagram and instantly became a fan of her unfiltered and honest take on motherhood (including the highs and lows and everything in between). Learn more about Lauren and The Mom Feed, how she hopes to empower other moms, why she’s so passionate about maternal wellness and much more!

We're so happy to talk with you! Can you start by telling us a little about yourself and what inspired you to start The Mom Feed Podcast?

Why does this question feel so confronting? Haha My name is Lauren and I am both a mother and a multi passionate entrepreneur (thank you, Marie Forleo, for that accurate and empowering term). Before motherhood and podcasting, I spent 15 years in the restaurant industry doing everything you can imagine: hostessing, waitressing, bartending, dishwashing, and eventually going to culinary school and becoming a pastry chef! I was the head baker for the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes star, Duff Goldman, at Charm City Cakes Los Angeles location for about a year and a half. I’ve written two cookbooks, A 14 day Nutrition Reset and The Accidental Paleo, and host a cooking show on You Tube. A recovering sugar addict, my recipes are based around healthy, plant based foods, especially dessert. I am also a certified integrative nutrition health coach.

Before food, I spent about 10 years in the retail industry, most notably with athletic apparel giant, lululemon, in both community relations and store management.

And throughout both of my careers in retail and restaurants, I was always and still am a writer. I focus on blogging, though I’ve been contracted to ghostwrite a few self help books.

I started The Mom Feed Podcast in August of 2020 after reading a life changing book called In The Flo by Alisa Vitti. In my humble opinion, it’s a must read for every woman of every age. I learned more about my body and my mental health in those few hundred pages than I ever had in my 37 years before that. I just about cried when I read Alisa talk about a relatively new term called matrescence, which is a term used to describe the hormonal changes a woman goes through as she transitions into motherhood. It turns out that during matrescence, the brain chemistry and hormones of a woman change so dramatically that it trumps even puberty and menopause!

I felt angry when I read about it, and simultaneously relieved. It was like I was finally given the piece of the puzzle I didn’t realize I was missing about my journey in motherhood, which was rocky, to say the least. I felt liberated to know that my experience wasn’t just me being crazy and unable to handle things. It was legitimately my hormones and brain chemistry.

That was the reason I started the podcast. I wanted better for us mamas. But I wanted to share resources with mothers - resources we aren’t given. I wanted to begin to be a part of a much needed change in the way we treat postpartum women, which is with so much more care and support than our current system and culture does. We deserve better. This podcast aims to begin the process of delivering better care to our mamas.

How many kids do you have? What ages?

I have 2 kids. Madison is 5 ½ and Liam is 21 months.

Your website says "Motherhood was "supposed" to come naturally to me. It didn't. Now, I'm finally talking about it". This is something I can definitely relate to and wish more parents were comfortable talking about. Did you always feel comfortable talking about this or did something empower you to speak out?

Oh my goodness, no! I didn’t feel comfortable talking about my experience at all in the beginning. When Madison was born, I had all these ideas leading up to her birth about how motherhood was going to be. It was going to be matching outfits and cute bows and she would sleep well and bla bla bla. My labor with her ended up being 4 days long, and she was 11 days late, so it started out pretty traumatically. But no one coached me on getting therapy around the birth trauma, so I just sat with it in shame and shock, thinking I must be fine and I’ll get over it.

I didn’t realize I would be so angry and resentful about all the ways my life had changed after my daughter was born. I hated that I couldn’t pee when I felt like it for fear of waking Madison up and not being able to get her back to sleep. I hated that I couldn’t make myself food whenever I felt like it. I hated that my husband didn’t have this gaping wound and could still go about his life as per usual, and that I was so sleep deprived and bleeding and confused and isolated in my shock of becoming a mother. Madison was colic and my family lives in Canada, so that made everything even harder.

All those feelings made me feel like a failure, and like the worst person in the world. I judged myself for those feelings. I shamed myself for them. I remember people asking me, “Do you even remember life before Madison?” and I wanted to scream YES!! I do! And I want that life back! But I just smiled politely and said what I thought I was supposed to say.

I also felt ashamed that I wasn’t in love with Madison at first sight. In fact, it took about 3 months for me to really fall in love with her. Because she was colic and didn’t sleep much, and spent many hours crying, I was sleep deprived to the nth degree and just didn’t recognize myself and my life. And the identity change? Gosh - that was such a hard one for me too. I just couldn’t navigate who I was now that I was a mom. Clearly I have a lot to say about this!

What empowered me to really speak out about it, honestly, was just time. Research. Talking to other mothers who felt the same way. And then reading Alisa’s book. It’s like I had something constructive to blame, rather than myself. Like - I could blame those feelings on that hormonal process of matrescence, which made me feel like I wasn’t a failure, and like I had a duty to speak out about my feelings so as to liberate, help and support other mothers who may have been feeling the way that I was. I wanted to normalize all these icky but very normal feelings that come with motherhood that I think are more common than any of us realize.

You have an amazing range of guests on your podcast. Do you plan what topics you'd like to cover and then find your guests or do you have specific guests in mind first? And do you have any dream guests?

Honestly, I have such an amazing network of really smart friends, so I just started asking them to be guests on the show because they inspired me so much. Since then, the process has been that I either get recommendations from listeners, or I get inspired by someone I see on Instagram or whose article I read somewhere and I reach out to them to see if they want to be on the show. I also get some people who reach out to me asking to be guests. I vet the guests to make sure they are willing to be open and honest and raw about their experience about motherhood, because that’s what I want on this podcast. No fluff. No filters. Just real talk, actional tips and advice in a condensed amount of time. Because moms don’t have time! They just need quick tips. And they need to feel seen, heard and understood. And the way that can happen is through my guests sharing good information, and sharing it vulnerably and openly.

As for dream guests, I would love to have Glennon Doyle, Gabrielle Bernstein, Kristen Bell, Alisa Vitti, Kelly Leveque, Dr. Shefali Tsabary, Meghan Markle, Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Lauren Roxburgh, Peter Crone, Jessica Oertner - I could go on forever!

You have already recorded 30+ episodes of your podcasts. How do you want to see your podcast/business grow?

It’s now 45 plus!! I can’t believe it!

I really see The Mom Feed as a company that pioneers research and support in women’s health, so the podcast is just a starting point. It’s the way I wanted to start the conversation. I want to continue the podcast for the life of the company, and eventually grow so big that we can be releasing two episodes a week.

In a perfect world, The Mom Feed is a place where mamas can go for courses about various transitions in motherhood, like the newborn stage, the identity crisis, managing romantic relationships, parenting, etc. I’m actually working on the first course launch with 3 amazing women right now. We plan to launch a course around surviving the first 6 weeks of motherhood, because I feel like you just get sent home from the hospital and no one really cares about you until that ridiculous 6 week check up. And I say ridiculous because it’s basically just to check your stitches and give you the green light to have sex and workout. But I don’t know any woman who was ready to do either of these things at 6 weeks postpartum! And as I later found out, your tissues in your lady bits aren’t actually even healed until 4-6 months postpartum, in general!

And soooo much happens for a woman in those first 6 weeks, spiritually, emotionally and physically. It’s a shame we don’t address those things. I want to change that. So look out for that course coming sometime in the fall of 2021.

Beyond courses and the podcast, I want to have a research team looking into things like endometriosis and hyperemesis and other women’s health issues we have been forced to just live with. That’s not acceptable to me. So I want to have a research division to help treat and hopefully cure these and other conditions.

My big hairy audacious goal is that The Mom Feed becomes one of the best places in the world to work because of our onsite daycare, stipend for off site childcare, amazing health benefits and onsite health and body work, stipends for self development, unlimited paid vacation, unlimited sick days, etc. And I want the podcast to be the number one in parenting and motherhood with millions of unique downloads a month.

I’m dreaming big because women deserve it!

You are very open about the realities of motherhood on your Instagram. Do you ever get nervous sharing the not-so-Instagrammable moments?

I don’t. Because I’m clear on who I’m talking to. I think that if I was trying to speak to everyone and trying to please everyone, I’d be nervous. But I know who I’m talking to. It’s the mama who needs to hear that she’s not alone. It’s the mama who needs to feel seen and who needs to see another mama being vulnerable so that she can feel liberated to embrace her own vulnerability. Because as my friend Tandy always says, you have to feel it to heal it. So the more we try to repress our emotions - and deny our experience - the further away we are from healing. I try to practice what I preach, and that means posting the unfiltered, unpretty, mundane, everyday life photos that represent the real truth of what motherhood looks like a lot of the time.

You work from home, record your podcast and stay at home with your two kids. What tips do you have for other parents trying to juggle everything the pandemic has thrown at them?

Adjust your expectations and know you’re not going to get everything done on your to do list.

Enlist the help of your partner and be very clear about scheduling and boundaries.

Be flexible. I used to take leisurely mornings where I’d trail run and then do yoga and then eat breakfast and then work. And I never worked at night. Since having kids, I have seen the value in stealing away 20-30 minutes here and there throughout the day. You have to do it in chunks of time like that or else you won’t get anything done. And you have to be focused as hell during those times.

It helps to have a supportive partner! And if you can get child care, do so! I haven’t had consistent child care so that has made things unnecessarily hard. But I’m looking for someone to help, and hopefully my family in Canada can come soon so they can help a bit too.

I would also say that it’s sooooo important to do something that makes you feel alive or happy or that makes you laugh every day. And you must find time for some kind of mindfulness practice, even if it’s just a 5 minutes of silent meditation or taking 10 minutes to journal at the end of the night.

Finally, you MUST move your body in any way that you can. I do these amazing 30 minute online workouts every day with Tandy Gutierrez of Unicorn Wellness and it honestly makes all the difference.

The mindfulness and the movement always end up making me more productive with what little time I do have. I know it seems counterintuitive, but it has never failed me (and trust me, I’ve tested the theory many times).

What are your favorite family-friendly activities in the LA area?

Hiking is our favorite family activity.

We also love walks on the beach. We own a yoga studio in Malibu called 5 Point Yoga and used to live there too, so beach walks are our fave.

We also love driving to Ojai for the day because it’s so close. There is a creek there that is absolutely magical. We always see dragonflies and butterflies and it’s the best feeling to put our feet in the water and do leaf boats down the stream.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I think I may have already written a novel! I would just tell any mama reading this: you are doing the best you can, and you are amazing. The secret to getting through life as a mom is to always always put yourself first. You cannot give to anyone if you don’t have anything to give. It’s like trying to drive a car without gas in the tank. It doesn’t work. So you first, mama. Everything else comes second.

And finally, where can we find you?

Website: www.themomfeed.com

Instagram/social: @themomfeedpodcast