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The Red Meat Debate: Why You Should Be Eating Beef for Fertility · Nourished Fertility

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Welcome back y'all to the Nourishing Women Podcast, your go-to podcast to
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get your peer back and get pregnant.
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I'm your host, Victoria Myers, peer recovery specialist, fertility, dietician,
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and owner of the virtual coaching practice, nourishing Minds Nutrition.
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Where we work together to restore your fertility.
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Today's episode is when I've been itching to record because we're about to bust.
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One of the biggest myths I see floating around in the, both the
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wellness and the fertility spaces, especially in that like clean girl,
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plant-based green smoothie world.
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You feel me?
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What Ashley inspired this episode is personal.
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My husband recently got his annual and did his labs like he does every year, and his
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cholesterol came back a little elevated.
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And what did his doctor say to him?
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Go plant-based.
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Stop eating as much red meat, lower your saturated fat intake.
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And it really lit a fire under me because I was like, that's not what he needs.
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Nor should he be eliminating red meat from his diet.
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I could tell you really quickly why his.
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Cholesterol is elevated, or I could tell the doctor at least and all to be
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said, we came up with a very specific game plan of what we're gonna do to
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lower it and we're gonna retest his labs in three months and see what works,
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what didn't, and continue from there.
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Maybe I'll share at the end of this, this year how that goes,
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but that's neither here nor there.
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'cause that's not what we're talking about today.
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But it was my inspiration behind me being like, we need to talk about red meat.
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We need to have the debate why you should be, and this is like my, like I
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imagine myself on a debate stage right now and I'm like, I am pro eating meat,
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specifically eating beef for fertility.
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Let's talk about it.
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Today we're specifically gonna be talking about why you should
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absolutely be eating beef if you want to support your fertility.
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Yes, red meat as in steak, ground beef roast, short ribs, bone broth, all of it.
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We're diving into why red meat, especially grass fed red meat, is one
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of the most nutrient dense fertility supportive foods you can eat.
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Now if you've been following along with our Nourish Your Body for
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Fertility series, I'll link to that four part series in the show notes.
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You already know that I love a good nutrient dense food.
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Not only does it make the work of Pure Recovery so much easier.
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But it also supports egg quality for fertility too.
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But just in case you're new here.
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Um, when I use that term like nutrient dense, nutrient density, it just
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simply means foods that give you a ton of bang for your buck in terms
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of vitamins, minerals, and fuel.
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AKA calories and grass fed beef is a powerhouse.
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For fertility.
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Now, it would be almost impossible to get into all the reasons why
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that is, but let's just go through a few of the key specific ones.
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Number one, grass fed beef is a phenomenal source of heme iron,
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which means it's super bioavailable.
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When we get iron from plant-based foods, it does not well absorb from the body.
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Um, so not only is it super bioavailable, but it's also key for
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egg health and preventing anemia.
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It's a phenomenal source of zinc, which helps regulate gene
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expression, supports egg development and reduces oxidative stress.
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Beef is also a great source of B12.
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You can only get B12 in animal products.
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Uh, B12 is essential for.
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Ovulation supporting implantation and early embryo development and
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preventing neural tube defects.
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B12, B six and folate work together to do so, but choline also plays
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an important role there too.
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Choline is also found in beef, and according to the book, real
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Food four Fertility Choline is important during preconception.
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Because it plays an important role in some of the early steps of your
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baby's development, namely the proper closure of said neural tube.
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Meat, like red meat is also a very important source of many amino
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acids that we really need in the diet, especially for fertility.
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There's so many of them, but today we're just gonna focus on glycine
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because it is one of the most important.
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It plays a role in managing oxidative stress, improving blood sugar balance,
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improving liver detoxification, supporting healthy connective tissue,
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and maintaining healthy blood pressure.
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And specifically if we talk to that liver detoxification process, the
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glycine is the key component of the liver's primary detoxification enzyme.
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Glutathione.
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Glutathione also doubles as a potent antioxidant according to the real book.
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For fertility, obviously highly recommend reading.
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Antioxidants are just so important when it comes to fertility,
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when the body encounters.
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More inflammation that can handle this can lead to oxidative stress.
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And really the only thing we can do to counteract that because we want to,
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because oxidative stress causes damage to your eggs, is your antioxidants.
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So again, antioxidants are key and glycine is one of the 3:00 AM Amen
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Acids that makes up glutathione.
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We could also talk for days about the important role of eating
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adequate protein, especially in fertility as well as saturated fat.
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We need both protein and fat to stabilize blood sugar and hormone
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synthesis, and obviously so much more.
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Again, we could go in for like days about the importance of eating.
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Just animal meat in general, but especially eating red meat.
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But I just brought up saturated fat and I think because I just brought that up.
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We should talk about that for a minute, shouldn't we?
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You've been told you need to gain weight, stop exercising or do IVF
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to get pregnant with no period.
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What if I told you that's not actually true?
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You're tracking your food, working out, trying everything to be healthy,
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but your period is still missing and now pregnancy, it feels impossible.
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I know exactly how that feels because I've helped hundreds of women get their
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peered back and get pregnant naturally.
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Inside my free training, I'm walking you through the exact five step
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method that's helped women like Lex.
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really causing your missing period.
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Why food freedom is essential for fertility and the customized approach
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Click the link in the show notes to watch the free training.
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It's time to restore your period, your fertility, and your hope.
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Now let's get back to today's episode.
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Saturated fat is not the villain.
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Now, I know some of you are still like, what are you talking about, Victoria?
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Like saturated fat is so bad for you, but let's set the record
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straight and the demonization of.
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Saturated fat largely stems from the outdated and deeply
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followed research by Ansel Keys.
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In the 1950s, his infamous seven country study, cherry picked data to support
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his theory that saturated fat causes heart disease, completely ignoring
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countries where high saturated fat intake didn't lead to heart issues.
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This fear-based narrative stuck and we reigned with it despite the fact that
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saturated fat is needed just as much as we need other healthy fats like mono,
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unsaturated fats, and Omega-3 fatty acids.
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So we do need saturated fat in the diet, and it's one of the best fats to actually
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cook with another argument made against red meat is the amounts of cholesterol.
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Now if we look specifically at ground beef labeled 90% lean, specifically a
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four ounce serving, you're gonna see about four to six grams of saturated fat and
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about 70 to 75 milligrams of cholesterol.
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So, yes, ground beef has saturated fat and cholesterol, but here's
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another truth bomb for you.
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Cholesterol is the foundation of every single sex hormone in your body that
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includes estrogen and progesterone.
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And other hormones, you need to ovulate, have a regular cycle and get pregnant.
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Without enough cholesterol, your body literally cannot make these hormones.
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It's like trying to build a house without bricks.
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It's one of the many reasons I don't recommend vegan or vegetarian diets
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for fertility, and I absolutely don't recommend them for period recovery.
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Specifically, eating dietary cholesterol does not raise your blood cholesterol
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levels either, despite longstanding myths.
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Instead, what actually raises blood cholesterol, especially the LDL or
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bad type, is high intake of trans fat, ultra processed food seed
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oils, and chronic inflammation from overall poor dietary patterns.
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I will be honest.
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This isn't usually my people.
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I find you guys rarely are consuming these type of foods.
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However, I think that's just worth mentioning here is that inflammation is a
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major cause of elevated blood cholesterol.
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I'll also note here that in the case of pure loss from hypothermic amenorrhea,
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it is incredibly common to see.
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Elevated cholesterol as well as elevated liver enzymes and other labs that
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sometimes makes the doctor say to you, Hey, like you should avoid saturated fat.
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Hey, you need to change your diet, and you just have elevated
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cholesterol because you have pure loss.
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That will completely fix itself once you get a regular period.
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Okay, so when you cut out cholesterol rich foods, which we need for hormone synthesis
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and for our fertility, when you do so in the name of clean eating or a fertility
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friendly diet, you're actually robbing your body of one of the most essential
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hormone building ingredients, cholesterol.
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So next time you hear someone fear monger cholesterol, remember this instead.
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Cholesterol isn't clogging your arteries, it's fueling your fertility.
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Now, I know you're wondering, does it have to be grass fed?
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Not necessarily.
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You know, eating any red meat is better than none.
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We're not about food obsession here.
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We're instead about nourishment without obsession or perfectionism.
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But if it is accessible to you as well as affordable to you, here's
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why you should choose it if you can.
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While all beef provides a valuable nutrients like the protein IN and
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B12, we mentioned in the beginning of the episode, grassed beef does
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offer an extra layer of fertility goodness compared to conventional.
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Grass Fed beef tends to have higher levels of Omega-3 fatty
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acids, which obviously are.
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Critical for reducing inflammation.
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Um, has more antioxidant wrench, vitamin E, and just a better ratio of
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omega six to omega threes, all which do support hormone balance inequality.
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Plus animals raised on pastures aren't pumped with unnecessary
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hormones or antibiotics, which helps reduce your overall toxin burden.
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Something that I don't wanna overemphasize with my, my girlies,
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because y'all tend to get very anxious about things and we don't need to.
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Freak out if we eat conventional beef.
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Again, eating anything is better than not eating it at all.
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But ideally something we do wanna minimize if we can in our fertility journey.
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You know, I can't even count how many times I've seen a client go
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from exhausted, bloated, missing periods to cycling again, glowing
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with energy, and literally getting a positive pregnancy test.
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Once they, number one, ate more consistently and
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regularly throughout the day.
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Number two, stopped fearing calories.
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And then number three, added in nutrient dense foods like red
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meat multiple times per week.
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In fact, if you've worked with us on our practice.
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You know, this should be true, right?
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Like every time I see ground Turkey, I'm like, girl, I want that, that to
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be ground beef, or I'm challenging you to add in steak when I talk about
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clients and I talk about red meat, it makes me think specifically of a client.
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I worked with Paige.
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What was so unique about Paige's journey was despite the fact that she was truly
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eating enough for months, I. To get her peer back, and despite the fact that she
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had gained quite a significant amount of weight, she was still having a lot
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of issues getting her cycle to return.
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I encouraged her.
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This was kind of like the last thing left that we could think of that she hadn't
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yet done because she was a vegetarian.
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I asked her to eat red meat again and just to give it a shot.
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And guess what happened to you guys?
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She got her period back and it's been consistent ever since.
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So if you've been scared of eating red meat or if you're mentally stuck in the
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grilled chicken ground Turkey loop, I want to lovingly challenge you today to try
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adding ground beef to your pasta night.
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Grilling a juicy steak with soup, potatoes, and saute Spinach,
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we love steak in my house.
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We probably eat it.
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Every week, every other week, something like that.
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I mean, it is expensive, but it's one of my favorite meals.
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And it's just so simple too.
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We go to a butcher, I always recommend going to butchers to get really
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good quality source cut meats, and also get them the grass fed.
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Like it's just an easier way to source good meat.
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I'll also say my favorite.
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Type of steak is the Kansas City Strip.
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It will change your life, I promise you.
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You can also go for slow cooked meat, meat on the bone and bone broth.
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And hey, if affordability is an issue, these are such an inexpensive way to
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include more red meat in your diet.
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And bonus points too, when you're eating some red meat, if you can add
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in some liver too, that would be.
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Even more nutrient density added, and obviously we should also do a podcast
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episode about that at some point too.
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So at the end of this episode.
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I wanna remind you that eating red meat isn't anti wellness.
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It's not dirty, it's not dangerous, it's not backwards.
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It's instead ancestrally aligned, nutrient dense and hormonally supportive.
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If you're trying to get pregnant and you're still cutting out
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foods your body needs, that is.
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The real problem.
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If you're living on egg whites and almond milk and bland chicken
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breast, I lovingly invite you to come back to nutrient dense foods.
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I promise you, your body will thank you if this episode resonated
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and you're ready to truly nourish your body so that you can get your
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period back in your fertility too.
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My team and I would love to support you inside Premier
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Period recovery for fertility.
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Inside of our program, you'll receive a root cause investigation into your period
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loss, a tailored period recovery and fertility plan that will get your peer
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back and include these nutrient dense foods like the red meat we discussed
14:02
today to support your fertility.
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1 0 1 unwavering support to implement these recommendations and to make
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other premier clients and so much more.
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If this sounds like exactly what you're looking for, you can learn more and
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apply with a link in our show notes.
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Thank you so much.
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For tuning into this episode of the Nourishing Women Podcast,
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go eat that burger, my friend.
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I'll be back as always for another episode next week.
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Until then, you know that I nourish.
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Spotting is a powerful one.