Fertility Friday: Whole Milk

When trying to conceive, it's best to avoid dairy products that have the fat removed. Eating yogurt, milk, and cheese in it's natural state maintains the integrity of the food.  Skimming the fat off the top chabes the chemical balance of hormones and proteins in the milk making it a hindrance to ovulation and therefore fertilty.  So, just for the short term, enjoy a good ice cold cup of whole milk.

Fertility Friday: Plant Proteins

Animal proteins have long been favored over their plant protein counterparts.  Animal proteins have more satiety, due to their higher fat content and then are often complete proteins in themselves and do not need to be complimented. This was an excellent way to maintain a good metabolism and appropriate amount of fat and calories when food was less abundant. Today, with food so abundant it is easy to consume the right compliment of plant proteins to get a complete protein.  Eating animal proteins can increase the amount of insulin like growth factor 1, contributing to infertility and poor ovulation.  So substitute a few animal based proteins a week for eggs, legumes, or soy.

Fertility Friday: Consult with an Eastern Practioner

There is a great field of research and medicine out there that we are fortunate enough to have access to. Eastern medicine looks at the body, mind and soul in a different way than traditional Western medicine. This different perspective can often shed light on issues that we may have been feeling immobilized by in the past. Acupuncture is a great way to start. Many acupuncturists will give you an eastern diagnosis, using the 5 Element method or Traditional Chinese Medicine and you might find that it fits. It can also help to tailor your diet and lifestyle modifications in a way that makes sense to you.

Fertility Friday: Cutting out the White

Sometimes we can get overwhelmed with what we can and cannot eat, and so sometimes it's nice to have things simplified.  Cutting out the white is about avoid all processed foods. Unless its a coconut or jicama most foods are not meant to be white. The whiteness of a food often signals the high processing that this particular food has gone through. Most grains, sugars and starches are naturally brown in color. Avoiding white breads, white sugars, and white grains is a helpful reminder when trying to enhance fertility.  Other foods that are naturally white, like potatoes are high in fast burning, high sugar carbohydrates. Exchange the color white in  your food for cream, khaki, amber, burnt, tan, taupe, sepia, seal, and beige.

Essential Lifestyle Changes to Enchance Fertility

There are a lot of simple lifestyle modifications women, AND men can do to enhance their natural fertility, whether they've been trying for 1 month or 1 year.  A few good ones a reviewed below.

SMOKING - stop smoking
Seems like common sense, but some may not have an exact understanding of how smoking effects fertilty. Smoking can causes changes in the health of a woman's fallopian tubes (which is the place where natural fertilization takes place).  It can also be harmful to cervical mucous, which is what enhances a sperm's ability to reach the egg during ovulation. In addition, smoking is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage.  Smoking is also thought to prematurely age the ovaries by up to 4 years and can decrease the quality of sperm.


WEIGHT - maintain a health weight
Another way to enchance fertility is by maintaining a healthy weight.  Women who fall into weight extremes underweight or overweight are less likely to conceive naturally. Fat stores estrogen and estrogen is what is in birth control pills, so too much estrogen (stored in fat) can be like taking a birth control pill.  Birth control pills are 99% effective in preventing pregnancy.  Another concern with weight is an increased insulin level in the blood. Insulin is the hormone that the pancreas produces to absorb glucose (or sugar) into the blood stream. A high level of insulin in the blood can effect other sex hormones decreasing overall fertility.

ALCOHOL

Women are attempting pregnancy should avoid drinking. Women who drink 4 or more drinks a week tend to take longer to achieve a pregnancy and are at higher risk of undergoing an infertility evaluation. Investigators have used the concept of a "standardized alcoholic drink" in most studies of ethanol and infertility. A standardized drink is typically defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of spirits, which is the equivalent of 12 grams of ethanol.

CAFFEINE

It is unclear whether high caffeine consumption affects female fertility, but the thought is that it does. Especially caffeine from coffee.  I usually recommend to switch a morning cup of joe with green or white tea. Green tea has polyphenols and is very high in antioxidants and green tea has been thought to increase fertility by as much as 50%. Great.