Latest / Nourished Fertility / Nourish Your Body for Fertility Series, Part 1: Eating Enough

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Nourish Your Body for Fertility Series, Part 1: Eating Enough · Nourished Fertility

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Welcome back to the Nourishing Women podcast.
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This is Victoria Meyers, your podcast host, period recovery specialist,
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and fertility registered dietitian.
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And today I am so thrilled to be sharing with you a brand new series I'm
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calling Nourish Your Body for Fertility.
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You know, eating to support your fertility when you are a woman who has
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period loss or period irregularities means eating enough to turn back on the
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hypothalamus pituitary ovary access.
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So that the body feels safe enough to ovulate again and for the preconception
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phase so that your body can develop healthy follicles with quality eggs
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that will ensure implantation and successful conception is possible.
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And then from there.
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Staying pregnant.
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To put it simply, creating a fertile body is one of the most energy
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demanding times of a woman's life.
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From maturing an egg to your body ovulating, fertilization,
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and implantation, this requires a lot of energy.
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And unfortunately so.
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Any perception of stress from the body, whether that's mental, emotional
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or physical, like under eating and over exercising, and it's going to
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immediately shunt focus away from reproductive organs and vital needs
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are prioritized to maintain life.
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That makes sense.
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Getting pregnant.
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It's just not necessary to maintaining homeostasis and living.
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It's something the body can only do when it has safety and surplus in a
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sustainable life with stress well managed.
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No wonder, then, the body can't get pregnant when you're eating 1,
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200 calories for years and years.
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Hell, even 1, 800 calories a day.
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When you're exercising five times a week and walking 20, 000 plus steps a day.
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When you're living a busy, chaotic life.
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Working nonstop, living off the caffeine from coffee, avoiding hunger through
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chewing gum, people pleasing, weighing yourself six times a day, perfectionism.
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I mean, it is all so much on your body to become and then stay fertile.
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It's going to mean you need to truly nourish your body for fertility.
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So welcome.
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Officially to this four part series to walk you through exactly what to
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do to take your body from stressed and malnourished to safe and nourished from
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the inside out, we're going to begin this four part series focused on the
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most important change you need to make.
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which is eating enough.
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And then from there, each week for the next four weeks, we will tackle
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together each important area of how to nourish your body for fertility.
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To be clear, this four part series is for the woman who has been dieting
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or living in disordered eating for years and is ready to solve the root
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cause of their period loss or period problems and heal from the inside out to
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ovulate, cycle, and conceive naturally.
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Specifically, this first part of the series is directly addressing
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the woman with period loss or even period problems, meaning you have
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a period, but you don't ovulate.
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You have long cycles or you have short luteal phases.
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If you have or suspect you have hypothalamic amenorrhea or HA or
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your cycle has been impacted from malnutrition, this entire series is for
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you, especially though today's episode.
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And then parts two through four will really pertain to anyone trying to
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get pregnant and boost fertility.
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But honestly, even people with fertility issues caused from period
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problems outside of HA alone need to properly nourish themselves.
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So while I am speaking to HA today, You may need to hear this too.
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In fact, we recently had a client sign on who didn't know the exact
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reason why she had period loss.
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She got off birth control two years ago, and we believe it is PCOS through
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our root cause investigation that we do with every client we work with.
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However, we also very quickly identified that she was Way under eating because she
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thought she needed to do that because of, you know, PCOS and what she'd been told
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about those conditions and her needs.
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So with this client, even though she did not have a direct diagnosis
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of HA, we knew that under eating was causing period problems.
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And in fact, within five weeks of following her tailored period
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comeback plan, she cycled.
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This can be possible for you too.
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You know, eating enough is even more important than your weight
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when it comes to your cycle.
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There's three reasons why eating enough is critical, because period
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loss can happen at any body size.
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It's important, it is critical to fuel properly, because number one, we want
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to fuel your current activity levels.
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You guys are busy bodies doing all the things.
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We need to be able to fuel that properly.
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Number two, to help your body recover from years and years of underfueling.
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And then number three, since it is harder for the hypothalamus to start a
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new hormonal pattern than to maintain a pattern, it often requires eating more
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than you think so that you can turn back on the ovulation switch from your
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brain to your ovaries, reigniting the HPO axis, and therefore allowing your
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body to create and produce essential hormones like FSH, LH, and estrogen again.
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And y'all, this is speaking only to the need for nourishment for period recovery.
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Add in fertility and wow, the need for nourishment is critical.
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So what exactly does it mean to eat enough?
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The goal will be to eat.
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At least 2, 500 calories per day.
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Yes, I just said 2, 500 calories per day.
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Now this can be tricky for a variety of reasons.
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First, we do not encourage calorie counting in the long term.
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It's a habit created by diet culture and something we don't advise, But
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in specific circumstances, such as making sure that you are eating enough,
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there can be some positive benefits.
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When you work with our team though, this won't be necessary because we take care
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of this for you both in your tailored period comeback plan as well as our
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reviews of your food and symptom journal.
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So I'm sure you're wondering like why specifically 2500 calories a day.
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Various studies have shown that an active, fertile woman needs at least
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this amount of calories to both maintain a healthy metabolism and
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a functioning reproductive system.
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I think the better question is, is why do you see this as so much food?
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I know for so many of you, you think of the FDA guidelines on nutrition
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facts with 2000 calories a day to eat.
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And for many of you.
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You subtract from there because you do not believe a woman
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should even eat that amount.
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Or maybe for you, you keep yourself in a consistent calorie deficit, either
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to lose weight or maintain weight loss.
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Keep in mind that these actual calculations that indicate the average
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person's eating habits is actually around 2, 300 calories per day.
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And the FDA went with 2, 000 calories for a cleaner number.
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You also need to keep in mind that you are a very active person, which
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means that you need a lot of calories.
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I know some of you feel that as a woman, you don't need as many calories,
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And I know you're so used to not only comparing your eating habits to your
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husband's, but other women around you.
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You're so used to eating 1, 200, 1, 500, 1, 800 calories a day that even eating
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2, 000 calories a day seems like a lot.
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But the 2, 500 calories is honestly a minimum.
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Right now, your body needs fuel to recover.
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Right now, eating as much as you can is vital to your cycle returning,
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therefore restoring your fertility.
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According to hormone expert Laura Bryden, too few calories or too little of any
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macronutrient, including carbohydrate, can switch off the signaling of
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the hypothalamus to the ovaries.
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It's not a malfunction, but is instead the brain making the smart decision
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to avoid pregnancy when there is not enough food to make a baby.
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Now that we've covered what eating enough means and that your goal
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is to eat 2, 500 calories a day or more, especially if you're unable
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to pull back on the activity levels.
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We'll talk about that more specifically in part four of this series.
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Uh, but if you.
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Are trying to eat 2500 calories a day to resume your period
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and restore your fertility.
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Let's break down exactly how you will accomplish this.
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And it's interesting.
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The two most demonized macronutrients, carbohydrates and fat will be the two
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very most important nutrients to consider.
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When it comes to getting your period back, one of my favorite things that
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carbohydrates do for our hormones is stimulate our glucose sensing
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neurons in our ovaries, eating enough overall and eating sufficient.
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Carbohydrates tells these neurons to communicate with hormones, which
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are also involved in turning on G.
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N. R. H. or Gornogradropin releasing hormone secretion to stimulate
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the specific reproductive hormones involved in your menstrual cycle.
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Consuming enough carbohydrates also spikes the hormone leptin, often
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enough to tell the hypothalamus that the body is indeed in the fed state.
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Without this, and without enough insulin, the hypothalamus is unable to tell the
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pituitary to produce enough sex hormones.
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Insulin also signals the body that's in the fed state, and
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without enough consumption of carbohydrates, this will be difficult.
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I know insulin is seen as the bad guy these days, but let's remember it's
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an important hormone in the body.
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If you are not producing enough insulin because you are not eating enough carbs
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to do so, that can be problematic too.
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Too little energy intake or energy intake with out sufficient carbohydrates will
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trigger a starvation response in your hypothalamus that disrupts luteinizing
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hormone, LH, and will shut down ovulation.
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This LH production is also impacted by brain glucose availability.
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This is one of the many, many problems I have with the ketogenic diet.
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So what carbs should you be eating?
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Honestly, any ones that you're comfortable and willing to eat and I'll be honest
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with most of our clients as we're helping them implement their plans.
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We're also purposely putting in fear foods to help them address their
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relationship with food and body.
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As they're doing the work to get their periods back and restore their fertility.
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So for me, it really is a variety.
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Yes.
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The starchy vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash.
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Yes.
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All fruits of any kind.
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Yes.
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The whole grains like quinoa, brown and wild rice, and all ancient grains.
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Yes.
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Beans and peas and legumes and dairy like milk and yogurt too.
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But I honestly don't have a problem at all.
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And in fact, I purposely put into our client's plans, things like pasta,
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tortillas, chips, crackers, and desserts.
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We want our clients having a healthy relationship with food just as much
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as we want them having a fertile body.
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And these two things go hand in hand in helping turn back on that ovulation
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switch from your brain to your ovaries.
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And in fact, you are going to find it's so much easier to meet your
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carbohydrate intake needs through allowing foods you want steamed off limits.
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It is very difficult to eat enough.
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sufficient carbs when you are only allowing yourself to eat high fiber carbs.
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So they both play a role in the diet as well as healing your relationship
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with food, therefore restoring your period and fertility too.
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Now that we know eating enough is critical to our periods and
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fertility restoring, and we reviewed the most important nutrient to
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Regainer cycle, which is carbs.
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Let's now review through the second most important, which is fat.
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The only reason getting pregnant with no period feels hard is
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because no one has shown you how.
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How to repair your relationship with food and what that has to do with your
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This free training is going to give you every single detail that
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you need to make your goals of starting your dream family a reality.
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You can download and get started watching this free training today
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with a link in our show notes.
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Now let's get back to today's episode.
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We need fat center diets to synthesize hormones and to properly absorb nutrients.
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Not only do fats in our diet help do these important bodily functions,
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but fats found in food also contain very important nutrients.
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for fertility.
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Examples include full fat grass fed dairy is a great source of vitamin D
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and K two an eggs with yolk are a great source of choline and cholesterol.
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Just in case you didn't know your hormones, including estrogen,
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progesterone, testosterone and vitamin D are synthesized directly from cholesterol.
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And one of the reasons we actually need it in our diet.
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That's from oil, such as olive oil and avocado oil, nuts and seeds,
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avocado, full fat dairy products.
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And honestly, one of my favorites is quality meat with the actual
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fat grass fed butter and fatty fish are all wonderful sources of fats.
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We can also look at fats like omega 3 fatty acids that are so wonderful
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for us when it comes to supporting the inflammation response of the body and even
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supporting your menstrual cycle health.
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Heck, even omega 3 fatty acids improve Overall egg quality.
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We'll get more into that next week in part two.
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So carbs and fat are the most important nutrients for you to be eating here
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to eat enough to get your period back and restore your fertility.
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But let me clarify here.
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This isn't saying to only ever eat carbs and fat going forward.
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It's about a balance of all macronutrients and including
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all foods in your eating world.
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There is literally macronutrients No need to eliminate food or food groups when it
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comes to fueling your fertility, unless there's a true medical need to do so.
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In our diet culture world, carbs and fats are the enemy and protein and
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vegetables are the only approved foods.
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We just want you eating all foods.
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Yes, protein and vegetables, these play in a critical role in fertility
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too, but also carbohydrates and fats.
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Since carbs and fats are so limited in our diets these days, I hope moving
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forward, you now see how important they are for so many factors, including
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your overall health, but especially your period and fertility health too.
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Now, when it comes to fertility with protein, we do typically recommend
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about 30 grams of protein each meal because blood sugar regulation is so
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critical for fertility, but oftentimes in the case of period loss, we actually
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need to deprioritize protein to add back in later if, Protein is making it
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difficult to eat enough, or you find it impossible to maintain your current
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protein levels and add more carbs and fat.
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This is truly a case by case basis, so I don't want you to think that I
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don't want you eating protein at all.
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Protein can be so filling that we just need to back off just a little bit to
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have more space in the diet for carbs and fat, which have to be there for
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that ovulation switch to turn back on.
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And then once we get your period back, we can come back to adding
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more protein for fertility.
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So now that you understand why nourishment is so important to fertility and what
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that specifically looks like in the rest of our four part series, dense
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foods to support your egg quality and specifically your mitochondria.
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Then minerals and their role in hormone production and fertility.
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And then finally, in part four, we'll talk about habits and lifestyle changes,
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wellness without obsession to make part of your life to nourish your body.
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Finally, if eating what was discussed in this episode overwhelms you, this
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I would love to see you inside the program if you are ready to get support every step
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on your path to healing your relationship with food for good to getting your period
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back into getting pregnant naturally.
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The link to apply and schedule a one on one call with me to
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see if it's a good mutual fit.
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We'll be included in the show notes.
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Cannot wait to see you back for part two of our series next week.
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Until then love to each of you.