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When You're the Healthiest Person You Know…But You Can't Get Pregnant · Nourished Fertility

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  Well, hey there and welcome back to the Nursing Women Podcast.
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  I'm Victoria Myers, your podcast host, period recovery specialist,
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  and fertility dietician.
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  Today we're diving into a topic that might hit close to home for many of you.
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  You are someone who eats organic and whole foods only aren't you?
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  You exercise daily, you walk your 10 20 k steps per day.
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  You religiously take your fertility supplements and by all accounts,
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  you are the healthiest person.
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  You know how you've even changed all your beauty and home products flow
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  toxic, like you don't use plastic anymore, you are seriously doing.
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  All of the fertility things.
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  Yet, despite this, you can't get pregnant and you're constantly also dealing with
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  never having a reliable period, having absolutely no signs of ovulation like
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  fertile cervical mucus, or a positive OPK or raised in your basal by temperature.
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  You have frequent urination.
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  You feel cold all the time.
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  You have low to non-existent libido.
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  You may even have night sweats or never poop, but you're always bloated anxiety
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  that just doesn't quit, but you're also exercising to earn your food.
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  You feel so much food guilt.
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  Every time you eat a carb and you have food rules like you know
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  you don't eat past 7:00 PM or you only eat fruit twice a day.
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  These very symptoms that you might shrug off daily, but low key
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  frustrate, you are the very reason you are struggling to get pregnant.
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  And this is true, even if your doctor has told you that your
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  labs are quote unquote normal.
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  These are all impacts from your body not getting the nourishment
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  and rest required to feel safe enough to get and stay pregnant.
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  And specifically what we're looking at here is a condition known as
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  hypothalamic amenorrhea, low estrogen, also low LH and FSH are often what
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  classifies and diagnoses someone with ha.
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  But I honestly have to tell you, it's so rare for clients to actually
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  get formally diagnosed with this.
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  It may even be just that you have suboptimal hormones, suboptimal
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  thyroid, adrenals, and all of these again, are just signals to us that your
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  body is struggling with the amount of undernourishment and over-training.
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  It's under.
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  Specifically Hypothalmic a amenorrhea or ha.
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  It's a form of chronic anovulation associated with stress, weight loss,
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  excessive exercise, and more often than not, in combination of these factors,
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  it is so common in women just like you.
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  My clients like myself, who are the healthiest people we know are more often
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  than not the women who struggle with this.
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  You're likely someone who engages in a lot of exercise.
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  You're a runner.
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  You do CrossFit, hit daily strength training.
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  You may have even recently lost a large amount of weight in a short
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  period of time, or be underweight, but please know that I work.
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  Primarily with women that are normal weights and normal BMIs.
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  Don't think just because you're not underweight that this couldn't be you.
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  You may also experience significant stress or even have disordered
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  eating, and these factors all lead to the disruption of normal pulses
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  of hormones in the hypothalamus that leads to decreased production of a
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  hormone called Gogo trappin releasing hormone, which then in turn affects the
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  entire reproductive axis, the HPO, the hypothalamus pituitary ovarian axis.
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  But this isn't just period loss, and that's something I've been
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  really trying to drive home more and more in our episodes lately.
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  While oftentimes most of the women we're working with have entirely lost
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  their periods, there is just as much women that just have period issues.
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  Still caused from the same underlying reason that their body
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  is overtrained and undernourished.
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  And we have studies that show this to be true, approximately 50% of
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  exercising women experience menstrual disturbances such as luteal phase
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  defect, which means a short luteal phase caused from low progesterone.
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  Or anovulation, and that's significant.
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  50%. So that means half the women you know that are extremely active, just like
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  you, that are healthy and loved, you know, to do all the things with their health.
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  Eating well, exercising lots are experiencing issues
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  with their menstrual cycle.
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  And all of this means that your healthy lifestyle could very well be the
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  culprit of your fertility concerns.
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  Eating too little for the amount of exercise and stress your body is
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  under doesn't just cause period loss.
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  It causes long fo liquor phases.
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  It can cause anovulatory bleeds, which typically show up as very light bleeds.
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  It shows up as low progesterone, again, that short luteal phase
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  and this is why I want you to actually deal with your true root
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  cause of what's going on here.
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  You don't need to freak out about the soap at your mom's house anymore.
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  You don't need to go even deeper into the no toxic lifestyle.
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  You don't need to eat even more organic or cut out another food
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  group or add in more exercise
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  Or another thing to obsess over with your health.
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  Instead, we need to dig deeper about what may be going on here.
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  I'm curious if you've ever heard of the term orthorexia before as an
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  eating disorder characterized by the unhealthy obsession with eating healthy.
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  And while it may seem beneficial to like be fixated about your
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  health, this, especially when combined with excessive exercise.
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  Maybe the very reason that you're struggling with fertility concerns
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  right now, even though you're the healthiest person, you know, orthorexia
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  while classified as an eating disorder more often than not, shows up to me,
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  in my opinion, as disordered eating.
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  And I say that because that's exactly what I had.
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  I would've never gone to a doctor and been diagnosed with an eating disorder.
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  Uh, but I certainly had disordered eating there's a spectrum when
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  it comes to eating disorders.
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  Certainly many of you listening may have actually had an
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  eating disorder in your past.
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  However, many of us too just struggle always with our relationship with food.
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  We've always had food rules or always trying to lose weight
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  or be as small as possible.
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  That is me to a team.
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  Over a decade ago, I was just like you.
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  I exercised all the time.
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  I was the healthiest person I knew.
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  Like no one ate healthier than me.
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  And after coming off the pill, I didn't have a period for two years, and I knew
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  my missing period meant a red flag.
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  It was a missing, vital sign of health, and I was terrified for what that
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  meant for the future of my fertility.
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  Recognizing that I had orthorexia, which was for me personally, very intensified
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  by going to school to become a dietician.
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  That's really when it manifested into orthorexia, while terrifying to
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  really look at and to, to be honest with myself that I was struggling.
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  I'll never forget laying in my bed one night after my honeymoon, after
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  I bench ate the entire honeymoon because I was so restricted the
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  year leading up to getting married.
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  I'll never forget thinking that there has gotta be a better way that this
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  sucks to live life this way, and I had no idea how much that was also affecting
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  my fertility until I got off the pill and realized I didn't have a period.
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  I'm so grateful for all of that though, for the struggles for everything I
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  went through because it made me decide to do something about it, and it's
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  why today in 2025 I'm able to eat pasta without guilt to easily take
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  a day off exercise without anxiety.
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  Why I'm able to ovulate.
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  I've ovulated every single month for 10 plus years, and is why I am so honored
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  to say I was able to get pregnant with my two beautiful baby girls with ease.
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  So if this episode is making you question.
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  Is being the healthiest person I know actually the healthiest thing
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  to allow me to get pregnant here are instead some ideas to get you started
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  on doing the real deep work that you personally need to do in order to
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  restore your fertility and get pregnant.
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  Number one, minimum of eight hours of sleep per night.
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  Fertility and sleep go hand in hand.
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  And if you were someone who's waking up at four or five in the morning in order
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  to exercise, that's gotta stop eating breakfast before coffee or caffeine,
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  and eating within 30 to 60 minutes of waking will be so important for your
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  adrenal health, your third health, and your reproductive health too.
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  Therefore, supporting your fertility.
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  I wanna encourage you to do gentle movement over intense training
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  like hit Running or CrossFit.
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  One of the questions we get more than any other question is, do I
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  have to completely stop all exercise in order to restore my fertility
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  and the answer is no.
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  I think some exercise is really beneficial and it's gonna help you feel better, but
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  it's changing the type and the amount and the duration that matters most.
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  You wanna consider walking as part of that, but also other nervous
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  system regulation techniques because stress is such a big picture
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  of your fertility concerns too.
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  Things like deep breathing meditation, slow mornings going to therapy, that
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  all is gonna matter so much for you.
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  Eating every three to four hours is gonna be important.
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  Eating carbs, protein, and fat, but also consider micronutrients.
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  More often than not, when we do an H, TM A or a hair tissue mineral analysis
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  on our clients, they're also extremely depleted in their minerals from all these
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  years of dieting and obsessive healthy eating and disordered eating and the like.
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  As part of all of this, I highly recommend if you're ready to start
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  doing the real work to support your fertility, is getting a customized plan.
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  So that you can stop guessing and DIYing or getting more and more fixated
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  on how things that really aren't the reason why you're struggling and in
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  fact it's just taking you farther and farther away from your goals by instead
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  getting a customized plan, you'll take out all that guesswork so that you can
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  ovulate, cycle and conceive naturally.
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  Honestly, not to brag, but I'm really good at getting you knocked up.
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  This is exactly what we do in our practice.
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  So if you're ready for that next step, if you are the woman who's like, yeah,
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  I am the healthiest person I know, but this is me to a T and I'm ready to fix
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  this so that I can actually get pregnant,
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  I want to invite you to apply for one of our limited spots inside a
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  Premier period recovery for fertility.
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  It's the high touch personalized coaching experience designed to help you.
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  We only work with women just like you to help restore your period
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  and achieve your fertility goals.
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  At the end of this episode, I just wanna remind you that being the healthiest
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  person you know doesn't always equate to optimal fertility sometimes.
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  Instead for my people.
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  For you, it's about finding balance, nourishing your body adequately, and
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  giving yourself permission to rest.
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  Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
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  If this episode especially resonated with you, I'd be so incredibly honored
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  if you shared it with a friend or two who might also need to hear this.
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  With that shared, we'll be back as always for another episode next week.
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  Until then, know that a nourish spotting is a powerful one.