Fertility is affected by many aspects of our life and it can all be very overwhelming when you start to learn about it. So, here are the basics for getting on the road for optimal fertility. When trying to conceive there are three things that you absolutely need to consider to make sure that you are setting up your body for its best chance at conceiving and growing a healthy baby: Lifestyle, Diet, and Supplements.
Let’s talk about lifestyle first. I’m talking stress, exercise and environmental toxins. Stress has a direct impact on our fertility as it downregulates our sexual hormone production which means it’s a lot harder to conceive. It’s important to make sure that you are doing what you can to say no to what you can so you don’t get overwhelmed and then do things like meditate, yoga, and gentle exercise to help alleviate the stress you can’t eliminate. Which brings me to exercise. Yes, exercise is good but you don’t want to over-exercise. Doing loads of high intensity exercise is stressful on the body and will land you right back in the over stressed down-regulation cycle in your fertility. Keep your exercise lower key by doing activities like walking, jogging, yoga, pilates, and resistance training. Finally, in lifestyle factors we want to try and keep our environmental toxins low. There are many endocrine disrupters in the modern world but a great place to start is by replacing plastics in our kitchen with glass or stainless steel. Another highly toxic endocrine disrupting ingredient in many household items is fragrances and perfumes. Opt for the products that are either fragrance free or use essential oils to scent them.
Diet is another important factor in fertility. Your body needs the right fuel in order to make hormones and process them properly. It also needs the right nutrients to be able to build healthy eggs! While I truly believe there is no one right diet there are some general guidelines that I think we all should follow. First, on the list is veggies! We need to make sure that we are getting in veggies at every meal. It’s also important to get in a variety of veggies so try to rotate through them throughout the week. Second is Fats! So many of us are afraid of fats we have been told that fat is bad for so long that it’s seems scary to include them in our meals again. I would like to let you know that your body NEEDS fat to function. So this is your permission slip to eat healthy fats at every meal. Healthy fats include olive oil, grass fed butter or ghee, coconut oil, grass fed tallow or lard, avocados and avocado oil, pastured eggs, pastured fatty meats, and wild caught salmon. Finally, protein is also important to our growing eggs and a growing baby. It’s important that you are sourcing your protein properly grass fed and pastured animal meats, wild caught fish, and soaked and sprouted legumes and grains are your best sources of protein. These sources contain the most nutrients that are best absorbed by your body and least taxing to your digestive system.
I do believe that it is best to get nutrients from our diets but due to soil depletion as well as excess stress and toxins increasing our need for these nutrients it’s necessary for us to supplement nutrients as well. Many of us need specific supplementation for our specific needs and if you would like help figuring out what your specific needs are feel free to sign up for a free consultation on my services page. There are however some supplements that I believe everyone needs. With our stressful lives we all could use with some extra B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and omega 3’s. When choosing your B vitamins it is important to choose a B complex with methylated B12 and folate. This is due to almost half of the population having some form of MTHFR gene mutation which affects your body’s ability to convert regular B12 and Folic acid into the useable form. So to be on the safe side make sure to get a methylated B complex.
While I tried to keep this post short and sweet because the amount of information out there for fertility is huge, I know that even this little bit can feel overwhelming. I want to encourage you to try to implement just one thing you learned here. Even if it’s just adding in more vegetables or replacing your body wash for a non toxic one the next time you run out. Just by doing one thing at a time over time adds up to a lot! If your feeling stuck check out my Fertility Basics Program!