Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode 5: REVERSED: INFERTILITY (with Amy Fewell)

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Episode 5: REVERSED: INFERTILITY (with Amy Fewell) · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, thanks for joining us today.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, and today I'm so excited because we are showcasing another success story.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Today we have with us Amy Fuel.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: She reversed infertility after a nine-year struggle.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Today, Amy is the mother of two children.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: She's also a homesteading mama, a wife, author, entrepreneur, and an herbalist.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: She's the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization, as well as their annual conference.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Amy is also the author of two books: The Homesteaders Herbal Chicken Keeping Handbook and The Homesteaders Herbal Companion.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can find Amy online at thefuelhomestead.com, where Amy blogs about homesteading, herbalism, motherhood, and more.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Amy, welcome to the program.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thank you for having me.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show because I know that the topic of infertility can be a sensitive one.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to be, you know, very aware of that.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not comfortable talking about something, then go ahead and keep that to yourself.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but please feel free to share whatever comes to your mind.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to start out by having you walk us through your story.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like what was it like um to have this struggle with infertility?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: What did you try?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So so I'll start from the beginning.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I I got married when I was 18 and had my first son, excuse me, in 2009.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it only took us about three months to get pregnant with him.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I ended up having was secondary infertility.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we wanted to wait a couple of years, wait till he was about three or four, and maybe start trying then.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were not actively preventing or anything.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And over the years, it just never happened.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did get pregnant one time and had a very early miscarriage, but then I never got pregnant again.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And during that time, I had gained weight, more weight than I had, you know, when I first got pregnant with my firstborn.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the time, my OBGYN had told me, he's like, well, if you just lose a couple of pounds, you'll probably get pregnant.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I did.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I lost, you know, 15 pounds and I didn't get pregnant.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, being an herbalist, so when my son was born around a year old, he got childhood asthma and we tried to treat everything herbally.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, well, I wonder if I can treat myself herbally and see how that works.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I literally tried everything in the book.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I tried essential oils, I tried drinking these teas every day, and nothing worked.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't say that to discourage people from like going that route, but it didn't work for me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am thinking, I'm an herbalist and I truly believe in these things, and I'm trying to do these things, and nothing is working.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so obviously that wasn't my issue.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need herbal support.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so in 2018, um, it was a nine-year gap between my firstborn and up to that point.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so around July uh of that year, I really wanted to lose weight.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was my my main focus.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not because of wanting to get pregnant.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I had actually come to terms with not getting pregnant.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had started a career.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing, you know, I was I was going into that part of motherhood where kids are behind you.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my oldest son was nine.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was very independent.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I could do so many more things now.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so having a baby was the last thing on my mind, to be honest with you.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want any more kids because he was so older, you know, he was so much older.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so that July in 2018, um, I thought, well, my child is older, I'm getting older.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not old by any means, but I'm getting older.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to be healthy.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just I want to be the best version of myself that I can be.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started the keto diet, and basically it wasn't a strict like medical keto diet, which you can do.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: The keto diet can be used for various different diseases, and it's it can be very, very strict.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't do that, it was mostly a low carb diet where you eat 25 carbs or less every day.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: You eat high fat and moderate protein.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: 25 grams of carbs?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that net carbs?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you can explain what that is.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really confusing for me when I got started because I'm like, what's the difference between, you know, carbs, net carbs, what is all this?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to make it as simple as possible.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, what it is is you take the sugar.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: You could probably explain it more than I could.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you take the sh the grams of sugar, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you You subtract out the fiber.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Subtract out that, yes.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not carbs.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look at like a uh like a nutrition label, for instance, or you can look up the grams of carbohydrate in different fruits and vegetables online, and it will tell you like total grams of carbohydrate.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so what you want to do is subtract out the grams of fiber from that total grams of carbohydrate.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then that gives you the net carbohydrate.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the keto diet, you're counting the grams of the net carbohydrates.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes I didn't do that, I just counted carbs altogether because it was easier for me.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's what I tell people because people are like, Well, how did you keep track of all this?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I really didn't.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I really just said, this is the amount of carbs I'm gonna eat every day because I know that if you eat a amount, a certain amount, a decrease in carbs, it can send your body into ketosis.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so ultimately that's the goal of the keto diet is to send your body into ketosis and you rapidly lose weight.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I did achieve that multiple times, but it wasn't necessarily my goal to stay in ketosis all the time.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: My goal was to have enough as of a carb deficiency to lose weight, basically.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the quickest way to do that was to be on the keto diet, eating 25 carbs or less a day, and then focusing more on high fat, high, you know, moderate protein.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go into all of these keeping track apps and stuff like that.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was too much for me.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was too much for me to keep track of.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I needed something really simple, and so that's why I just did the 25 carbs or less a day.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happened was I was, I just I started that and a nutritionist friend of mine, she laughed.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was about two weeks in.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, Oh, you're gonna get pregnant.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, What?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's not even no, I don't want to get pregnant.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Well, you're gonna get pregnant.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, we are gonna pray that I'm not gonna get pregnant because I just didn't, I didn't want any more kids at that point.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's just it's an emotional thing too, because you come to terms with not having more kids.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then when you think about that, you're like, no, I'm just nope, I'm not gonna think about it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And defense mechanism, yeah, it really is.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I started to do the same thing after after my fifth miscarriage.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I went into defense mechanism mode where I was like, Well, maybe I don't even want kids.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And look at how great my life is with one kid.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, right, right, exactly, exactly.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I started that in July, and by September I was pregnant.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I got pregnant the end of September, and I didn't know though, was the thing.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had the Homesteaders of America conference that year, and it was a very busy conference.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: We had like almost 5,000 people, and it was just a very busy event that year, and so I was feeling really good though.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh yes, I'm the lowest weight I've been in like 15 years, and I am just feeling wonderful.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then that Saturday, it's a Friday and Saturday event.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: That Saturday, I was sitting on a bench like in the middle of the day, and I was so tired and I was so hungry, and I'm like, what in the world?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started feeling sick, and I'm like, what in the world?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so the week after that, uh, we had friends stay from out of state, and I literally slept almost the entire time.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was so tired, and I thought, this is not normal, this is not like do doing an event tired normal.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was falling asleep in the car as a passenger, which is unlike me because I'm terrified when other people drive.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so the following keto diet uh boost your energy levels.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I well, and so then I thought, well, you know, because I had been the most energetic I'd ever been on keto, I mean, I felt really, really good.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people kind of scoffed at me when I told them I was only eating 25 carbs a day because they're like, you're gonna kill yourself.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: You need more carbs than that.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, tell my body that because I feel really, really good.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and so anyhow, so it was two weeks after the event I um realized that I was late on my monthly cycle.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you know, maybe I should just take a test because it wasn't abnormal for me to be late.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, girl, I have probably taken thousands of pregnancy tests just because just because.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took a test and it was positive.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember coming out of the um bathroom holding up the pregnancy test to my husband.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You better hope this is wrong.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, What?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like what?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, what are you talking about?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought I even then, another defense mechanism, thought it's wrong, like it's not real.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think I took like eight tests over the course of a few days and realized nope, it was real.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we welcomed little Everett into the world in June of 2019, and it was a very healthy pregnancy, other than we had a couple of scares in the beginning because my progesterone levels were low.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that made me realize that what was happening was actually the diet um working with my hormones, and that is what got the pregnancy going.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so the keto diet, even a, we call it lazy keto.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So even a lazy keto diet where you don't, you know, meticulously track every single gram of food that you eat, you know, even just a low carb diet of 30 carbs or less is very um, it has a great effect on your hormones.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are quite a few studies that show that a keto diet can actually heal PCOS and actually heal certain hormonal disorders.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why my nutritionist friend told me that I would get pregnant because she had suspected that I had PCOS for quite a while.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so Will you explain that?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: PCOS?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: What was that?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you to for the viewers and listeners, will you explain PCOS?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's polycystic ovarian syndrome, and it's basically um, you can have it a couple different ways, but basically there's cysts on your ovaries, it can cause issues with your hormones, and it can also cause other issues.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It can cause um higher testosterone, which can cause you know hair growth and on your chin and your chest and in various different parts, which I also have.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um I always joke with my friends, like, I can grow a better beard than my husband.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's it has various different hormonal effects on your body.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so actually, I did growing up as a teenager have cysts on my ovaries frequently, and no one ever said anything about it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no one ever said, Oh, well, you could have polycystic ovarian syndrome.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, and I got pregnant fine with my first son, and it just, but I was also a lot healthier then, and I was a lot less overweight then.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so so I ended up joining several groups on Facebook, and they were strictly geared towards the ketogenic diet and being pregnant.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found in those groups is the same exact thing happening for all of these other women.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about, you know, women who hadn't been able to get pregnant ever for their whole lives, and now they were in their 40s and started a keto diet because it was very trendy and suddenly found themselves pregnant.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was different for each person.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, it was like me, it only took a couple of months.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: For other people, it took over a year, and it really depended on how strict they were with the diet as well.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if they were only doing it sporadically, then no, it didn't work.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if they were truly doing it almost, you know, every single day of their lives, it worked time after time after time.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because they they were healing their body and they were putting their hormones back in check with this diet.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is having a low-carb diet, like a keto diet, actually helps with your insulin levels.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And PCOS is an insulin-resistant type disease.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so going on the keto diet produced less, you know, more insulin balance and then therefore better hormones, and then it resulted in pregnancy, is basically how that worked.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So did you also notice like decrease in like the hair growth on your chin and like other things that you had?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Slightly, but I wasn't on it long enough to really I think that would take longer.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I did notice it slightly.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I did notice less like growth on my chest, but maybe not as much on my chin.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that can also be from just years of it growing and then being hard to get rid of those stingy hairs, but um yeah, it was it was really interesting.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I did try to stay on it for the most part during pregnancy, and it was really funny.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really until the 30th week that um I started like eating more donuts and went eating all the sweet stuff, and um, but I really did, I still I didn't gain hardly any weight um during my pregnancy.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up, it was like two weeks or less after I had him that I was back down to my pre-pregnancy weight.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and he was a completely healthy baby?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: We we ended up opting for a birth center birth, and I had a water birth, and he was a very quick labor and delivery.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: We had him in about four hours, and so that was wonderful.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was my prayer.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: That would be a really fast labor and delivery.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the best part of it was that when the midwife was looking at the placenta, she goes, Oh my goodness, this is literally the biggest placenta I have ever seen.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the most healthy placenta I have ever seen.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so the other midwife was like, Well, yeah, that's because she was doing the keto diet and she was on this special diet the whole time.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I truly believe that.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I believe that that strict diet and really watching what I ate and implementing that method not only helped be healthier before pregnancy, but also during pregnancy and then even after pregnancy.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and how much did your son weigh at birth?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he, I think he was eight pounds, six ounces.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So good weight to anything.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm inquiring so much is because um, as as I'm sure you know, Amy, being on a ketogenic diet during um pregnancy is very controversial.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you talk to some of these quote unquote keto experts, they'll say, okay, the caveat is pregnant women um should, you know, and even nursing women to a certain extent should not be um consuming a ketogenic diet.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I find it fascinating that not only you, but all like you said, these other women that you connected on through social media that you connected with were having success stories on this diet.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, do you know if any of them, like, did they in general continue with the ketogenic diet as well during the pipe?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of women did.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, because now I will say I did up my carb intake to about 60 because I was just more hungry.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you are growing a baby, so you can eat more carbs because it's taking more energy from your body.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't do the 25 or less, I did up it to around between 60 and 75.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was not as strict.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to be, but I was not necessarily as strict every single day.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I but I would say 90% of the time I was.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, a lot of these women, so there's some there's some turmoil that goes on inside of you when you have lost so much weight, and then you become pregnant, and then you're gaining weight.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was actually a really big deal for me emotionally, because you know, I had finally reached this weight that I was comfortable with, and then I'm just watching my body slowly gain more weight.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the same for a lot of women.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the general consensus was well, if we stay on keto, then we'll automatically go back to what we were after pregnancy.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so they did the same thing.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: They they did like a 60 to 75 carb uh intake every day.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of women still lost weight while pregnant.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they reached a certain point where they stopped losing weight and they started gaining.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just, you know, the weight of the placenta amniotic fluid and the baby.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And generally for any pregnancy, it's you're gonna gain up to about 20 pounds, but that's that's all just stuff that's inside of you, you know, things and an extra fluid that you're holding.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, they did.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: They they went through the the diet even on while they were pregnant, and they had healthy pregnancies, very healthy pregnancies, and delivered a lot of them seemed to have really fast deliveries as well.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Their body just it was like their body reacted in every healthy way possible.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I'm healthy now, so I can react in a healthy way.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can have a quick labor and delivery and an efficient one.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was really intriguing to watch all these women walk through the same process as me, even being pregnant, and then going back to their pre-pregnancy weight so quickly and picking right back up.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I didn't, I didn't pick right back up because I I worried so much about my milk supply when it came to the keto diet, because you know how it is.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to have a certain amount of carbs and calories to produce milk.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was an underproducer with my oldest son, but I think that was more because I was uneducated about breastfeeding.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of freaked out a little bit this time because I'm like, well, I'm not eating enough.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I need to eat more, because that's what the experts tell you, right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my milk supply actually dropped when I went back to a standard diet.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it actually gained, I actually gained a milk supply when I did went back to a keto diet.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And not only did I gain milk supply, I actually gained more fat content in my milk, which is one of the things with breastfeeding, is even if you don't produce a lot of milk, if you are producing a lot of fat, your baby doesn't need as much milk anyhow.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was really interesting to see.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I didn't figure that out until he was about five months old.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're getting ready over those next couple of months to go into solid feeding.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And but it was interesting.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: But now I know, you know, for next time, if there is a next time, I'm actually starting it now again this week.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great that we're doing this podcast.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I started last week actually and into this week.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's amazing to see, you know, you will go through this period where you don't feel good, you know, because your body is getting rid of toxins.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's trying to, you know, it's basically screaming, like, what are you doing to me?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is completely abnormal.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the keto flu, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: We pee a lot of people call it the keto flu.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did go through that just a couple of days ago.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just me feeling bad.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, your body is getting rid of everything in every way.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And after that was over, I felt so much better.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also, I should mention, I also did and am doing intermittent fasting, which you and I have talked about before, um, which is a big player in the keto diet too, because basically it's going a certain length of time.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I normally do 16 hours.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll eat dinner, you know, by a certain time at night, and then I won't normally eat again until lunchtime the following day.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it gives your body time to heal and it gives it actually is a way to eat less carbs too.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna work, of course, if you go 16 hours and eat a hundred carbs right afterwards, but it it does work.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I it wasn't just keto, it was also intermittent fasting.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: So my body not only had time to lose weight and regulate insulin, it also had time to heal itself through intermittent fasting.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was a really important key player as well.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wasn't aware that you did that intermittent fasting at the same time.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and for everybody listening or viewing this, um, one great benefit, as Amy said, about intermittent fasting is it does help you heal.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: It specifically helps heal the lining of a gastrointestinal tract because if you wait long enough, which you know, it's individual, the time period is individualized for everybody, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's mind is a little bit different.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: But what we think happens is it When you reach the 16 hour mark, like 16 to the 18 hour mark, um, that what happens is um you you're you allow a second wave of peristalsis to go through your gastro gastrointestinal tract.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that second, the first wave really helps push out like more fecal matter, you know, move your the food and uh the remnants of that through your gastrointestinal tract.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: The second wave of peristalsis um they think helps move like toxins um out of your gastrointestinal tract, you know, like certain things that could be um pathogens out of your gastrointestinal tract.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to fast to a certain extent, you know, roughly like the you know, 16 hours in order to initiate that second peristaltic wave.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, as Amy mentioned, that's a great form of healing.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um one thing I love too about the keto diet is that it's been used for a long time to treat a wide range of diseases, like neurological diseases, metabolic-related diseases, I mean epilepsy.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it upregulates pathways that help nerve fibers grow.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: It promotes longevity through many different mechanisms.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: One is decreasing oxidative stress, which decreases DNA damage.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: One is um studies have come out to show that it increases um telomere length.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's you know, the the parts on the ends of your chromosomes, the telomeres.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they think that the the shorter the telomere um not only you know it reduces your longevity, right?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: It reduces how long you live, but they think the shorter the telomere is also predictive of disease risk.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So by the keto diet actually increasing the length of it, it's increasing your longevity and it's actually decreasing your risk of disease.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: It does other things too, like increase glutathione levels, which is you know major antioxidant, stimulates um NRF2 pathways, which helps you detox and um you know, helps with um antioxidant production, um, also with autophagy, so cell turnover, which helps you regrow new tissues.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: So the keto diet is um can be used in therapeutic sense for a vast array of autoimmune inflammatory and chronic conditions.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as Amy has shown here, including infertility.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um so can you explain?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And by no means are Amy and I promoting a keto diet for go on, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone needs to, you know, consult with whoever they do, consult with, consult with your body and figure out what's best for you.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're just sharing what's worked for Amy and other people and what's in the scientific literature.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will say that I go in and out of state of ketosis.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as the listeners probably know by now, I don't follow any one particular diet.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, tap into my body, into that intuition, and I ask what it needs.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I change what I eat meal by meal.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I will say that generally speaking, I eat more of a ketogenic diet, a very high healthy fat diet.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I my body prefers carbohydrates that are have a low glycemic index, so that overall in that meal, I have a low glycemic load.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I was in a state of ketosis during pregnancy as well.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with this, you know, now now my baby's almost five months old, but I was in a state of ketosis during pregnancy and after and prior to pregnancy, and the healthcare professionals freaked out about it, but you know, she turned out to be um a perfectly healthy baby.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I too had a short um labor and delivery.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was like three hours.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: You told me about that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it was also fantastic.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And after um right after I had her, like the day after I had her, um, I was weighed and I was only five pounds heavier than before I was.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow, that's awesome.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that was that was water retention, right?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was like fluid shifting in my body.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very fascinating to hear for me to hear your story and the stories of these individuals you've connected with over social media because mine's mine follows that same pattern.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Also coming off of, you know, um having five miscarriages, a sphere bottle with infertility.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um, and I didn't, I'm I kind of more fit into what you did.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I don't count calories, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Count macronutrient grams, you know, I don't do any of that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just listen to my body.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: But through listening to my body, I ended up on a path like you, you know, more of a keto diet.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, I will say that um I don't think we're meant to be in ketosis chronically.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, yes.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, because and this is how I think of it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you, you know, ancient cultures, they would have gone in and out of a ketogenic state, right?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's through fasting or or you know, hunting and gathering, and they would eat um every they would, they wouldn't just hunt something like an animal and take the lean protein out, right?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right with it, they would eat the organ meats and you know, boil the bones and make a broth, like they ate a high fat diet.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: By the same token, if they were hungry and they walked by and there were root vegetables, they wouldn't say, Oh, that's a high toxic index, you know, root vegetable.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: I can't eat that, it'll take me out of ketosis, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So they swung in and out of ketosis.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's pretty much what I do.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes my body wants a sweet potato, yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll eat it.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And some days my body's like, no, I want that salad with the avocado on it and the olives, and then I want some bone broth, right?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, with like broccoli in it and like zucchini noodles and you know, things like that.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: So having said that, can you just paint us a picture of like what a typical keto ketogenic plate would look like for you?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad you said that because I was actually going to talk about, you know, historically cultures and what they ate.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, they wouldn't have walked by stuff like, oh, I can't eat that today because I'm too fat or I already had too much of it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really important.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I say this in homestudying all the time too.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we eat so differently than cultures have historically eaten.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we eat way more food than historically has been eaten by other cultures.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's really important to remember that.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, all like you said, being in a state of ketosis is not something you want to be in all the time.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, a lot of people were like, oh, well, it's not sustainable because you're not gonna do this forever.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do this forever.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm, you know, I'm gonna be in a deficiency to where I want to lose the weight that I've lost.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first way I'm using it as a tool.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, I'm gonna maintain it by doing exactly what you're doing.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: If I feel like I need to eat a sweet potato, I'm gonna eat one.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: If, you know, it's it's there's a different ways that you can use the keto diet.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: But so for me, I need things to be simple.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you can go on Pinterest and you can go on Google and you can find all these keto-friendly recipes that make your mind think you're eating your regular food that you were eating before, right?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I actually found that that deterred me from eating keto because I was trying to mimic a non-keto diet with a keto diet.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, to give you an example, I made this um avocado, not avocado, um, oh, what is it?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a spinach and artichoke.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, artichoke is the word I was looking for, uh, chicken dish with like cheese and and stuff.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it was low carb until you ate too much of it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so for these recipes are great, but they're only great again if you stay in the guideline, which if we were all doing that to begin with, we wouldn't need, you know, these special diets, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I found that a typical plate for me, I had to keep it simple.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of meat um and lower carb vegetables.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would I would put broccoli on there.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a more high-carb vegetable, but I would just eat it in moderation.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I I was very boring.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would eat a lot of meat and a lot of cheese, and then I would have some olives and some pickles, or I would have um, you know, some carrots, or you know, not a lot, but it was mostly meat and cheese that I was eating.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can use things like mayonnaise if you want to make homemade mayonnaise, which doesn't really have hardly any carbs in it.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I did that for a month because generally it takes about four weeks to create a habit.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it also took about four weeks to not be craving the the other food that I was eating before the diet.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people think you can't eat a lot on the keto diet, but I eat, I feel like I eat more because there are so many things that have zero carbs in them or only have a few carbs in them.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I was piling up plates with salad and and lots of meat and lots of cheese, and I felt like I was eating, not eating on a diet.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was eating too much, maybe, but I was still under my carb count.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so after that four-week time frame, I did kind of venture out.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would go to a restaurant and say I would look at their low carb options.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if I went to, you know, uh a Mexican restaurant and got a taco salad, I would get the taco salad, but I would omit the beans because they have a lot of carbs in them.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I could, I could still eat the cheese, I could still eat the meat and vegetables, I could still eat sour cream, yay.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those all are all things that I could still eat.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: So people are pretty amazed.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like when they think about uh eating low carb, they think, well, I'm gonna eat just cardboard, you know, because there's nothing else to eat.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: But really, I there's so many things that you can eat that are low carb.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I even I keep it's horrible.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I would keep a can of the natural um like spray whipped cream because it was literally only one car carb per little like squirt, and I would just squirt it in my mouth when I needed a really quick like sugar fix, you know, trying to transition from that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I would do.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was wonderful.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people will go on a really strict diet and they um they sacrifice so much and then they get discouraged because they're completely changing their life and they're a lot of people eat for comfort.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I found little things like like the whipped cream or um, you know, like even just a spoonful of peanut butter, you know, that it can be lower carb, those types of treats.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I still treated myself.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't treat myself to making a chocolate cake and eating half of it, you know.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was little things.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, my biggest thing was a lot of people say, well, if you eat like, let's say I ate really good for lunch and then I had a horrible snack.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the day's over with.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna eat horrible today, right?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's you make one mistake, you're gonna make it the whole day.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I found that that if I, you know, let's say I ate a good breakfast and then I messed lunch up, you know, normally I would have been like, okay, well, I'll just eat whatever I want to at dinner.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I found that taking, you know, giving yourself grace and starting new with every meal instead of starting new with every day actually helped me stay on track a lot better.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because it's still going to your overall carb count during the day.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that's what I tell a lot of people start new every meal.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you messed up the meal before, do better the next meal.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it that taught me a lot of self-control too, because it it is like an it's an American mindset where, well, if you blow the diet at lunchtime, then you might as well blow the whole rest of the day, right?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just that's just not the case.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could I found that even if I blew my diet at lunch by eating, you know, a sandwich because bread has so many carbs in it, I was still under my carb count if I didn't mess up at dinner time.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when that clicked in my head, it was like, oh, well, yeah, that's a no-brainer, you know.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: So my plates are pretty big.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of snack plates, like I said, a lot of meat and cheese, tomatoes, um, avocado, which is a good, good, healthy fat.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, in the morning I would drink coffee, I would put like grass-fed butter in my coffee.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds really weird, but it's actually really, really good.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it helped keep me full too.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and then for drinks, I would drink unsweet tea because it was just easier for me to keep fluid in me because you have to drink a lot of fluid um when you're on keto.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: But once I got the diet down pad, then I moved to more water and you know, it was just baby steps.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then of course, when I got used to all of it, I got pregnant.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love those points you brought up.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um one thing I would caution people about, um, just re-emphasizing what Amy said, is that if you're if you hear this recording and you are inspired and you think, oh, maybe I'll try the the keto diet.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I would caution you when doing like, you know, your internet searches, as Amy said, because you'll find these keto-friendly, quote unquote keto-friendly recipes, but um a lot of them have unhealthy ingredients in them, right?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not to mention, you know, like guar gums and xanthan gums and you know, all these different like binders and that you can add to foods, but some of them it'll be like the whole thing's covered in cheese.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I would just caution people to try to, if you're gonna do the ketogenic diet, try to lean towards the whole foods.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so for instance, um my plate that would be more ketogenic is about maybe a quarter of it or less is um protein, right?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what my body told me that I need.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because excess protein can actually also turn into glucose.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't want to eat too much.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: So a little bit, you know, about a quarter of a plate or less of the protein.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then the rest of my plate, so at least three quarters of it, is these low glycemic index vegetables.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, like leafy greens, you know, cucumbers, asparagus, zucchini, all these.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then I coat it with a healthy fat.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, like avocado oil, for instance.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like I drench the whole thing avocado oil and sprinkle in some real salt on there because you will need more salt, um, real salt, not you know, table salt that has corn in it.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll need more salt, you know, you your body doesn't retain the type of sodium it does when you're having a high carbohydrate diet.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um there's all different ways to put together your plate, is what I'm trying to say.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so you really need to research it and maybe, maybe I'll do a show on that um to show them like what a healthier, more healing plate, nutrient-dense ketogenic plate is, you know.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I I love that concept.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love now.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Did you change anything else?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did you do you eat organic foods?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: We we always did.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: We did before I we even started the the keto diet.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we were eating all mostly organic, um, which I know can be expensive for some people, but we adjusted to it pretty well.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we adjusted to the cost of organic, but then we also grow our own food too.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that was very helpful.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we did eat all organic.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I ate while on keto was organic or at least non-GMO, um, which uh also can play a big role.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I I don't feel like that was a a huge role for me because we were already eating that way before, but it could be very uh, you know, good for people that are not already eating that way.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I also I was doing um I was eating or drinking a lot of store-bought milk before that.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I completely cut that out as well.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I wasn't drinking any of that, of course, because that is high carb too.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that those are the only other things that I really changed.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and one thing that's interesting too is when you go across the board, you're looking at these different diets that are helping people reverse infertility in these other conditions.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, like keto, keto diet, paleo diet, like AIP, the autoimmune protocol, you know, you name it, they all have things in common.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the big things is cutting grain out of the diet and cutting dairy out.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you just hit on both of those.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, I just wanted to re-emphasize that to anybody listening is that there are commonalities amongst these diets.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when people are like, yeah, because I find that some people um take on a lot of stress when trying to discern through all of these different dietary options and like which one is gonna work.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then you invest so much time and money and effort into one of them, and you're like, ah, now I'm stressed out trying to follow that one, you know.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it helps to break it down.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, all these diets are working for various conditions, such as infertility.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that's connecting all these diets together that's causing these you know success stories?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's a biggie.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's grains and it's dairy.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: And also, as you mentioned, low levels of fat are contributing to these chronic and inflammatory autoimmune conditions, right?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because we've always been taught fat is bad, right?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's just not true.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is sugar too.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of people are eating a lot of sugar, and of course we know carbs can turn into sugar too.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, for me, when even just starting a diet like this and having to see how many carbs something is made me realize just how many carbs I actually was eating.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so even just the awareness of it, it almost just disgusts you.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my gosh, I was eating, you know, 500 carbs a day.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to only be eating this much, and that is just crazy.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's an excellent point because I think um, and this happened to me too, I was so far removed from communicating with my body, right?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because sick is the new norm in society.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew what sick felt like, and I didn't know what healthy felt like.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: So back then, you know, this is the years ago, um when I was really sick, if I ate a food, I couldn't necessarily communicate with my body and understand that it was saying, oh, that's too much sugar for you.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if I'm eating, like I'll my body will say, Okay, yeah, I want some sweet potato.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm eating a sweet potato, maybe halfway through my body will say, Wait, that's enough sugar.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, eat now, come over here and eat the fat that's you know, on your Brussels sprouts, right?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I I think you're exactly right.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've lost that ability to really be in tune with our bodies.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we're defaulting to what whatever people around us are doing or whatever the no bad diet is, you know.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it it is it is really important to try to reduce the sugar intake as much as possible.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I was and that's another commonality.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you look at the paleo diet and AIP diet as well, you're not eating um refined sugars in those.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sometimes like honey is even restricted, right?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you're really cutting that out, and fruit is restricted in the diets as well.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even though that's got sugar, like that's a natural sugar, right?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but and you know, when people have conditions like PCOS, that sugar is just detrimental to their body until they can get everything under control.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't eat that.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is one thing I did not eat.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I freaked out when I first started the keto diet because I ate like half a banana one morning.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when I sat down and looked at how much sugar and how many carbs are in a banana, I was like, oh my goodness.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you know, these this diet sounds really restrictive.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: It it does sound restrictive, but it's really not.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when when you really sit down and you start planning out meals, you know, it's really important to make it simple in the beginning.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's not simple in the beginning, you're not gonna stick with it.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even if it's just I'm gonna eat meat and cheese every day for a month until I can really focus on it.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: For me, that was beneficial because that was the only way that I kept with it and then ventured into, oh, well, I do need to add, you know, more vegetables, more healthy fats, things like that.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And because if if it's not simple, most people won't keep with it.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, from when I started really researching, and this would be really good to have like even on a website, just like a list of things that you should be eating, you know, during a keto diet.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there are plenty of those out there, but then there's a lot of people that are different, you know, they have their different mindset of how to do it, and that's fine, you know, difference is good because your body is different.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: But um, just me looking at each, like, what do I like to eat?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I do like to eat vegetables.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what vegetables should I be eating that are that are better for me, that are less carbs, and then go from there.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so once I realized I could still eat stuff I wanted to eat, but just not all the bread and all the sugar.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it was it was easier for me to kind of plan out meals.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I also tried to do meals where whatever I cooked for my family, because my family didn't do a keto diet, and that's one of the big things.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, my family is not gonna eat it.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got to make myself a meal, you know, by myself.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I tried to make things that I could make a keto version of, you know.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if they were having um lasagna one night, I, you know, and I make homemade lasagna, I would make them regular lasagna.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I would use zucchini, you know, strips of zucchini or strips of cabbage, which is a little bit higher carb, but and then I would make myself this little mini lasagna in a loaf pan.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And also I found that in making extra dinner for me at night, I had lunch for me the next day that I didn't have to think about.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so just kind of meal planning that um was very, very helpful because you're not stressing out about thinking, well, what am I gonna make today?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then you only eat meat and cheese every single day of your life, you know.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, so you know, our little, our youngest, he's almost two, and he, you know, even we have him on not a keto diet, but he just eats really well because I eat better during the day, and so he sees what I eat, and so even he is eating well.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we commented on that when he first started eating because you know, a lot of kids they'll turn their nose up, it's things like sauerkraut and pickled items and fermented items, but because we started him on those from the get-go, he he, you know, he doesn't even think about it, it's just normal for him to eat.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so not only was it great for me, you know, to get pregnant and during pregnancy, but now it's even transferred over into raising your children.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: My first child is hopeless.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: He was raised on the standard American diet, but you know, this time around, he should it's it's normal, you know what I mean?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Eating this way is normal, and so therefore for him, it's just it's not yucky, it's just normal, it's just a normal way to eat.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: I love that, and you know, and you're you're probably already aware of this, but during pregnancy, they now think that you can help set your baby's taste buds by the food that you're actually eating.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and obviously, you know, the mother passes on her microbiome to the child, which we now know that your bite microbiome will in large part dictate the foods that your body wants to eat.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you, by staying on this ketogenic diet, it sounds like during the pregnancy, passed on this microbiome where those are the foods that he's gravitating toward.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the same thing, like with my first child.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I ate the standard American diet.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was I was not educated at that time, even though I already had my PhD in nutrition, right?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was not educated.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: That always goes, right?
• 46:22
  unknown: Yes.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I ate Sanard American diet, and um, you know, and he wanted the sugary foods, and that's what he would eat when he was a baby.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to have, you know, the puree broccoli or spinach.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted those pears and the banana.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my my child now, we've just started trying to give her foods, and what does she like?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: She likes avocado and she likes broccoli and like spinach.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't even like sweet potato.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like Yeah, you that's funny that you said that because Everett did not like sweet potato at first either.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that's so weird because it's sweet, you know, out of all the things you could eat, it's sweet and you don't like it.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I will say now that he's a toddler, obviously he naturally he'll gravitate toward things like yogurt or a snack bar or something, but he still eats.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'll put broccoli on his plate and he'll just eat it right up.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, he he definitely eats differently than our first child did.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I think there is that theory is is very correct, you know, between the what you eat when you're pregnant and just you know what you naturally eat afterwards, they see you eating it, you feed it to them.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to think of of children in other countries and some of the stuff that they eat and they don't think it's gross.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's same concept, they're just born eating it, you know, essentially is what's happening.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I told my um my two, my two boys, they're um 11 and 6.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: I told them the other day, I'm gonna start making you guys um liver broth.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, And they're like, and my oldest son goes, Do I have to eat that?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I have some, you know, the rule in a house, you have to try it.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't make them eat stuff, they can keep eating it if they want, you know, I don't force but I said that is the rule, you have to at least try it, you know.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it's that concept, it grosses them out.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas still in other cultures today, they would eat, they eat liver and it's a healthy, it's a healthy food.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I'm not a big fan of liver either.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have to do a podcast on this when I when I finally make the the liver broth and like my friend gave me a recipe for frying the liver with the onions.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: And because I promised my newborn child that whatever I make I have her eat, I will try myself first.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I and I want to give her liver broth, you know, at some point, but I'm gonna have to suck it up and eat it myself.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of liver either, but I have had it in certain ways where it tasted better than other ways that you've had it.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: So well, I'll experiment.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if I make a if I create a recipe that tastes great, I'll share it with you.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Amy, you've been so gracious to spend your time with us and to share your story with us that we know these are personal stories, they're oftentimes difficult for people to talk about.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I really applaud you for your courage um and for your strength in coming on the program today.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited for you that after nine years of struggling with this infertility, you had a healthy baby child.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just wish you all the best.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd love for you to come back in, you know, once you're on the diet again and tell us about changes that have happened.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, absolutely.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you so much, Amy.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and if you want to connect with Amy, I will put her website in the description box on both the podcast and the video.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's got some great information on her website.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye, everybody.