What to Know
Less than one year after Jessa Duggar gave birth to her youngest child, Edward, her husband, Ben Seewald, has made a pretty surprising confession about her journey to losing her baby weight. During an appearance on Jinger Duggar and Jeremy Vuolo’s podcast, Ben admitted that he and Jessa gave an extreme diet a try, but the couple didn’t last very long because of the way it impacted her milk supply.
Jessa’s milk supply dropped while starting the “carnivore” diet.
While sitting down to chat on the Jinger & Jeremy Podcast, Ben brought up a new diet that Jessa’s older brother, John David, had taught them about since he’d been following it over the past couple of years.
“He was really into carnivore, and he was talking to us all about it. He actually got us on it for a little bit,” Ben said. “We couldn’t stick with it.”
When Jinger asked him how long they did stick with it, he admitted that they only lasted a week.
“Jessa was breastfeeding at the time, and it really dropped her supply, so she had to get off of it,” he explained, adding that he didn’t want to do it by himself because “it wouldn’t be fun.”
What is the carnivore diet?
According to Harvard Health, those following the carnivore diet only eat animal products like meat, eggs, and dairy — everything from fruits, vegetables, and grains is prohibited, which means eliminating almost all carbs. It’s similar to the popular keto diet, which can help people begin to lose weight very quickly.
It does come with risks, since animal products contain high levels of LDL (or bad) cholesterol, and can lead to issues like osteoporosis and gout, and in the long term, it can even have a negative impact on kidney function. It’s no wonder Jessa’s milk supply instantly dropped!
Critics are raising eyebrows at Jessa, but some aren’t all that surprised.
Fans on a popular Duggar-related snark subreddit brought up Jessa and Ben’s brief foray into the world of the carnivore diet, and many are baffled at what a bad decision they believe it was.
“It just pisses me off that she’s apparently more concerned with maintaining her ‘girlish figure’ than she is with making sure her latest baby’s nutritional needs are met,” said one comment.
Others pointed out that if Jessa had done her research ahead of time, this could have been avoided. “A simple Google search told me that it would deplete milk supply. I’m not mom shaming, I’m saying Jessa didn’t do any research before starting carnivore while breastfeeding,” one commenter wrote.
At least she was able to figure out it wouldn’t work for her quickly.
