Topics:
1. News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:27]
2. Something new that I’m into: mango salsa and parent’s group [18:05]
3. Maximizing fertility; nutrient seeking and stress reduction [24:00]
4. Low testosterone levels in men [41:18]
5. Prenatal brands and low basal body temperature [46:55]
6. Best options for birth control [52:20]
7. #Treatyoself: fresh squeezed orange juice [57:57]
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Links:
Subscribe to Real Food Liz!
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Symposium on The Paleo Approach and Evolutionary Medicine
Primal Life Organics C-ex and the Coffee Bean Serum Combo Deal
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You’re listening to the Balanced Bites podcast episode 230: Women’s Health & Fertility
Welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast with Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe. Diane is a certified nutrition consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of Practical Paleo, The 21-Day Sugar Detox, and co-author of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking. Liz is a nutritional therapy practitioner, and the best-selling author of Eat the Yolks and The Purely Primal Skincare Guide. Together, Diane and Liz answer your questions, interview leading health and wellness experts, and share their take on modern paleo living with their friendly and balanced approach. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only, and are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Liz Wolfe: I’m back!
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone, it’s me Liz. Back again, here with Diane, who has been holding down the fort lately. How are you friend?
Diane Sanfilippo: Ugh, you said two things that I wanted to just laugh about already in the intro!
Liz Wolfe: I’m good like that.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m baaack!
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: And then, whenever you say, back again. I just want to sing “tag team, back again!” like every time you say it! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: Erytime. Erytime.
Liz Wolfe: Oh man. Well, let’s hear from one of our sponsors.
Liz Wolfe: I’m really excited about our new sponsor, the Nutritional Therapy Association. This is brand new sponsorship, and it’s thrilling to me. The Nutritional Therapy Association was the program that I went through to become an NTP; you can also become an NTC. They are a phenomenal real food based holistic program that just completely changed my life, and I’m just thrilled to introduce it and to support their program and their work to the podcast community. Whether you are looking to just really dig into what might be going on with yourself, or if you really want to help people, or you just want to give your real food blog a solid foundation, this is definitely the program to look into. NutritionalTherapy.com will have lots more details coming up in subsequent episodes about the sponsorship and about what they have to offer, but we wanted to just jump right in and welcome them and let everyone know that we’re super excited, and to stay tuned for more info on the Nutritional Therapy Association.
1. News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:27]
Liz Wolfe: Awesome. So, what’s going on with you Diane? What are you updates?
Diane Sanfilippo: Hmm, alrighty. So, I mentioned this last week, February 27th here in San Francisco, there’s a paleo event at UCSF. So for anybody who is in the Bay area, please come check it out. We’ll put a link on our show notes. It’s a cool event; I think it’s called the Symposium on Paleo Approach and Evolutionary Medicine, but it’s open to everyone who wants to buy a ticket. It’s not just for doctors or just for someone in the business, any of that. If you’re just kind of paleo curious, eating paleo, etc. Chris Kresser will be there speaking, Robb Wolf, Michelle Tam, Chris Masterjohn, and a bunch more. I will not be speaking at this event, but I am going to attend, so if you want to bring a book, I’ll sign it for you.
I’ve got some other events coming up in the area, so stay tuned for that stuff. We also have a discount code; it’s BALANCEDBITES, shocking {laughs} and I think that gets you, I don’t know if its $20 off or 20% off. I forget what they said. I think it might be 20% off. So check that out if you are in the San Francisco Bay area, come join us on February 27th.
And, dun-dun-dun! I feel like we need a drum roll. Maybe Scott can get a drum roll. I’m going to pause…
Liz Wolfe: We definitely need more sound effects.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m going to pause for a drum roll and/or applause. Ok, go.
{applause, cheering}
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Portland! Portland, wo-hoo! I’m super pumped about this. We are doing a live podcast event on March 17th, which is a Thursday. It’s right before the NTA conference that Liz is going to mention in just a second here, but we’ve got tickets on sale. We expect them to sell out. We are not maxing out the venue because we need this to be a slightly more intimate event where we can really take time to go ahead and do the podcast, but then answer some questions from you guys, do some book signing, some fun pictures, all that good stuff. It’s going to be held at Ecotrust, which is right in Portland, Cultured Caveman is going to be catering.
So for those of you who are coming from work, the event kicks off at 6 p.m. with food and if you’re AIP, go ahead and select an AIP ticket, we are accounting for that so you guys can get your meals handled. And then the podcast part will start at 7. So everyone should arrive sometime shortly after 6 if you can, but we won’t start recording until 7. The tickets are including the food, so there are no separate tickets if you do or don’t want something, it’s just all inclusive. Come have fun, come chat with other paleo peeps. It’s going to be a really awesome time.
I am so excited about it because Liz is traveling, so I’m like; ok let’s do an event! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Oh em gee.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh em gee.
Liz Wolfe: Are you sure this is a good idea?
Diane Sanfilippo: I think it’s a really good idea!
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. Everyone can witness me having a nervous breakdown.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, no. well, I think it will be fine. I think it will be just fine.
Liz Wolfe: It will be good.
Diane Sanfilippo: So yeah, check out BalancedBites.com/Events to get the details. You can click through there, and grab your tickets. Do not wait, because I am sure they’re going to sell out. So don’t wait on that. That’s it for events. On a personal note, on the what’s new and update scenario; {singing} here we go, yo; here we go; what is with me? {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: What is? This is a new genre we’re breaking into here.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m kind of tired right now because I did all the working out this morning. That’s how I joke about it. I’m like, I did all the working out. I ate all the food.
Liz Wolfe: You did all the exercise.
Diane Sanfilippo: I did all the working out. On a personal note, I got my new meal plan, because I did my 12-week meal plan, completed that. I did post a 10-week update; I will post a final from the first plan update and then a few notes about what the next kind of phase of this whole thing is going to be for me. I’ll post that on the blog, but if you missed the 10-week update, and you’re curious about it, you can go check that out at Balanced Bites. But I got a new plan, so I’m starting in on that.
I’ve been doing a little more training; not for the purpose of calorie burn, necessarily, because I know; look, if people have been listening for over 4 years, and I’m sure as you’re hearing me even say this, you’re like; don’t work out so much, you’re crazy! {laughs} but basically what I’ve been doing for those who are not following along yet, every morning I’ve been doing fasted cardio during the week. Not for really any purpose; it’s something I’ve been asked to do as part of the plan, but for me, for those of you who know anything about my personality, I’m not very quick to do it just because somebody asks me to. I did in the beginning, I started going for walks outside in the morning, but it’s actually become part of my routine, part of my habit and I don’t like missing it now, because what it does for me, and this is definitely something I’ve learned a lot about just other successful entrepreneurs and folks out there that I think a lot of us look up to in terms of lifestyle, career, etc.
But setting the tone for my day by the first couple hours of my day being extremely intentional and chosen versus reactive. And so when I wake up, I kind of get dressed, put my gym clothes on, I do have some coffee, I grab some water, and I do some cardio at the gym for like 45 minutes to an hour. The intention and the motivation behind it is not, “Go hard, burn all the calories!” it’s just for me to get moving and get my heart rate going, and it sets the tone for my day that’s just totally different than I’ve had for the past couple of years, and it really does give me a bit of a calmer mindset.
So I encourage anybody who is in a state; especially entrepreneurs, especially people who might be working from home; if you have the capacity to do it. Or, if you can work towards getting to a place where you’ll have the capacity to do it, carving out anywhere from 15 or 20 to 40 or 45 minutes for yourself in the morning. I can say I can do longer because I don’t have kids, I don’t have a family; it’s just myself and Scott and the pets. But I really do feel like by doing something that I’ve intentionally chosen first thing in the morning instead of just looking at emails and reacting with social media and doing all this stuff, I have a calmer start to my day and a much more thoughtful; “ok, here’s what’s important for me to get done today.” Of course, I do respond to email and all of that stuff, but it just sets the tone for me. So I’ve upped my game in terms of that part of my routine. It’s just been a little bit extended. It was a little bit shorter before but now it’s a little bit longer, and other types of training almost every day a second time during the day or strength training and cardio.
But for me, the thing that’s really different about this for me is that in the past 2-3 years since working on Practical Paleo, the Sugar Detox books, etc.; I’ve actually become less and less like the self that I knew for my whole life. So for anybody who has listened to me over the last few years, kind of talk about really working out less. Which I don’t have a problem with; I think for anybody who is reaching their goals and feels healthy, you know, doing three days a week of Crossfit or whatever it is you want to do, I’m not saying what I’m doing is best for everyone. What I’m saying is, it feels really good for me right now and actually feels so much more like myself than I have in years. And so for me that’s been really great identifying with myself again as an athlete.
And one of the funny things that happened in the last few weeks at the gym, two different people said something to me along those lines; one of the guys in my cardio kickboxing class was like; “you’re so athletic!” and I was like, ok, girlfriend. {laughs} He was cracking me up. But I was like, um thanks. Because the way that he said it, wasn’t quite sure where he was coming from. But I did take it as a compliment. Because a lot of people in a cardio class don’t all do a lot of strength training, too. And someone else said something along the same lines. It kind of made me feel like; yeah, I’m getting back to myself.
So that’s kind of a new thing for me, and I’m psyched about it. I’m feeling really good and I’m about to drink some more water up in here. So that’s it. What’s new with you?
Liz Wolfe: Sweet. Are you going to get back on the trapeze again?
Diane Sanfilippo: I would like to. I’m pretty sure the width of my hips is still not quite small enough to actually fit back on that trapeze bar {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: It barely fit 5 years ago when I was doing it. I’m not kidding, there was barely enough room for my hands with the spread of my butt on that bar. {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} The spread of my butt.
Diane Sanfilippo: The girls who do that stuff are pretty lean and mean. So, yeah, I don’t know. We shall see. But I’m working on my pull ups again, so baby steps.
Liz Wolfe: Sweet.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: One thing I’m working on right now, in my brain thinking about. I’ve actually heard that visualizing exercise is just as good as actually exercising.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I’ve been visualizing myself hanging. Like, actually your ability to hang. This is like a Katy Bowman nutritious movement, move your DNA thing.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, tell me.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Well, all it is you just work on hanging. Being able to just hang. An overhead; whether you’ve got a rack, or whatever you might do pull ups on. Just hang. It’s in some way also I think correlated to lung capacity, I think I remember Katy saying at some point. We’ve got to get Katy back on the podcast again pretty soon.
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s very cool. I like that.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’ve been working on pull ups, but I will work also on hanging while I’m there.
Liz Wolfe: And just to also make your calluses, your hand skin tougher, because there are lots of benefits to; it’s funny we talk about shaving calluses, but calluses are actually a really good thing. I think Kathy says something about calluses being areas of increased blood flow.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, I like that.
Liz Wolfe: So that’s actually a really positive adaptation.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m picking at mine right now.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Don’t pick!
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, they have to come off if you’re going to use your hands because otherwise they just blister and peel off anyway.
Liz Wolfe: Well you just need a more broad callus rather than localized calluses, know what I’m saying.
Diane Sanfilippo: I do, I do.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, alright, I like it.
Liz Wolfe: Anywho, so it’s my turn then, right?
Diane Sanfilippo: Do it.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. So, I’m going to be in Portland, like we talked about, with the Balanced Bites podcast event, but the reason initially I’m coming into Portland is to do a presentation at the Nutritional Therapy Association conference. I’m also going to do a panel with Mickey Trescott, with Caroline from Colorful Eats, with Paleo Mom. It should be pretty cool. And my talk is actually on, not so much nutrition, but on building a blog from scratch that is a good driver of your overall business as an NTP or as a blogger, or whatever. I do not know the high level stuff, but I think the really, really low level stuff is so, so important. So many little teensy tiny things that I wish that I had done from the beginning for my blog so I wouldn’t have to feel like I was constantly going back and retrofitting stuff.
So, it’s going to be a really foundational level; not even foundational level. It’s going to be like, find the right plot of land to build, to dig your foundation into. So don’t expect that I’m going to give everyone the keys to making a million dollars, because I definitely don’t know. But I’m going to really take it down to ground level for folks that are just getting started or for people who feel like their blog could be a driver of their business but aren’t exactly sure how to make it a little more refined, those little details. So hopefully I’ll be able to help a couple of people out with that.
What else? I just sent out an email; you read it Diane, right? My lead paint email. So we found lead paint in our house.
Diane Sanfilippo: Of course I read it. I was muted to not interrupt you.
Liz Wolfe: I figured you were muted.
Diane Sanfilippo: You ask me a quick question while I’m trying to be muted.
Liz Wolfe: I need to have some kind of; we need to have, maybe a red light, or I could press a button and a red light will light up where you are halfway across the country when I’m about to ask you a question.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: So you read the email. We found lead paint in our house, and I’ve just been beside myself for weeks. We had to move out; we’re getting the lead paint remediated. And it’s funny, it kind of came at a time when I was thinking a lot about heavy metals, because I get a lot of questions about fertility and heavy metal detox and that type of thing, and low and behold we’ve decided to do some home renovations to our super, super, 100-year-old house, and I’m just thinking; well, if you’re going to tear stuff out, we should probably make sure we’re testing for metals and all of that stuff, because I don’t want to be living in a house while it’s being renovated and have bad stuff in the air.
So we went ahead and tested, and I’m thinking everything is going to be fine, and of course we end up with lead paint and have to tack that onto the renos, which was awesome. So we’ve basically been floating around, staying with my parents, and it’s just been quite an ordeal. But if anybody has missed that, I did post a link to it on the Real Food Liz Facebook page. If you’re not a subscriber, you can go there and check that out.
I also posted a couple of links in that email to lead paint information to actually make up that actually tests for lead; some people might have heard of Beauty Counter; I’ve kind of gotten into Beauty Counter a little bit. It’s not this perfectly natural; it’s not made from rosehips, but Beauty Counter is actually the only company that I’ve found that actually does test their color makeup for heavy metal contamination. It’s just one of those things that is not talked about in the beauty industry, and it is ubiquitous. Heavy metals are in everything, and that’s just something to think about if you’re using conventional makeup. So if you want to check out that email, go to the Real Food Liz Facebook page.
And in better news, we’re doing a special discount on a really awesome skincare combination. Folks know that I collaborated with Trina from Primal Life Organics on a vitamin C, whole food vitamin C serum, and people are loving it. I recently discovered that her coffee bean serum is an amazing morning skin treatment, so coffee in the morning and the vitamin C, C-ex is what it’s called, at night is phenomenal so I immediately sent Trina a text and said we have to do something for valentine’s day, some kind of discount on coffee and C-ex because it’s such an incredible combination.
So, what Trina is going to do is from the 11th, which should be today when this podcast comes out. From the 11th through I believe the 15th of February 2016 if you purchase the coffee bean serum and the C-ex, as a one-time order from PrimalLifeOrganics.com, you’ll get 15% off. Or, if you do a subscribe and save, or an autoship is what it is, you’ll actually save 25%, which will make the entire order less than the price of C-ex alone. So basically you’ll be getting the coffee bean serum for free. So, I’m really excited about this. Remember that the 25% off for subscribe and save is a limited time offer; you can chose your interval. So go to PrimalLifeOrganics.com. We’ll put a link in the show notes of this podcast to the purchase page for this combo. It’s a limited time thing, so don’t wait. Go check it out. It’s really, really good.
2. Something new that I’m into: mango salsa and parent’s group [18:05]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so what is a new thing you’re into lately, Diane?
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so it’s not like super new. But {laughs} it’s pretty new. I’ve been buying it pretty often, so I figure I’m going to talk about this. Mango salsa, premade right now because I’m just that lazy that I don’t feel like making it. But it would be really easy and quick to make. But I’ve been grabbing that at Whole Foods, and I’m just enjoying a couple of little spoonfuls of that on a salad along with some pico and some other stuff, or on tacos or whatever else. I just like that little bite of sweetness along with all the veggies. So I’ve been into mango salsa. Do you like mango salsa? Is that like a thing that you’re….
Liz Wolfe: I love mango salsa. I love mangos so much.
Diane Sanfilippo: Good, we can still be friends. Phew.
Liz Wolfe: We’re fine, we’re good. I love mango; so good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. So P.S., with mango salsa if you do make your own, the one that I buy I believe has some jalapeño in it. If you do want to make your own, there’s a recipe in Practical Paleo. I think I called it 5 kinds of salsa, because I’m showing you you can actually replace tomato in salsa with any number of things. You can replace it with cucumber if you need to be low carb and night shade free. You can replace it with pineapple, with mango. You can actually make a pepper salsa and use bell pepper instead if you want to, if you just don’t want tomatoes but can do nightshades. So there’s a bunch of different ways that you can make salsa, and if you want to make something that’s nightshade free and low FODMAP for example, you could do the cucumber nightshade free. But with FODMAPs, mango salsa.
There’s just tons of ways to do it, so I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t have that kind of yummy, limy, cilantro just deliciousness. So, mango salsa is my jam right now. Or, it’s my salsa right now. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Merp-merp-per-pow. {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: Womp, womp. Sad trombone. What are you into lately?
Liz Wolfe: I’m super into my mom’s Facebook group. Not like the Facebook group of my mother, but the Facebook group I started for parents or the parent curious that I talked about a couple of podcasts ago. It’s funny because I started it figuring, oh, some people might want to know where we got our crib mattress or what we did when we were bed sharing, and what the kiddo is starting solids with, and stuff like that. I didn’t want to spew that on my Real Food Liz Facebook page, because I just feel like that wasn’t part of the deal, you know? Like, people joined up not necessarily interested in anything except for food, so I figured I should start a different group for that. And immediately it exploded into this mom’s helping moms, parent’s helping parents. To my knowledge we have one father in there so far, but all fathers are welcome, as well.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Everybody is helping each other, giving each other some really just good thoughtful insight on different questions. I can only pop in like once a week to answer a couple of questions here and there; I wish I could be in there more. But I can’t let it stress me out, because I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. But I do try and pop in and answer questions here and there and participate. I’m just blown away by the support system that people are building and how respectful people are being to one another. There’s been a couple of subjects brought up that are a little bit dicey, I think, in a lot of other groups that I’ve seen, but people are amazing.
So if you want to join the mom’s Facebook group, it’s called Parenthood! (exclamation point) with Liz Wolfe, NTP. You can request to join; we’ve only been able to let people in every two weeks just to kind of keep the flow going. And just remember before you ask a question to use the search box to see if there’s already insight going on on that particular question. But come join us; it’s really fun in there.
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s pretty cool. I’m liking Facebook groups. We’ve got one for Practical Paleo, we’ve got one for Sugar Detox. Just because pages are a great place for us to post stuff kind of here and there, but for people to really collect on community topics and they’re all closed; I know your group is closed, my groups are closed. What that means is, if you guys want to talk about this stuff and not have your friends all see everything that you’re posting, even as a comment, I think even if you comment on a page a lot of times that will show up somewhere so people can see it. Because our pages are public, and that’s one of the reasons why I think a lot of people are starting groups.
And I like being in groups, too. I have a handful that I’m still active in outside the ones I sort of either moderate or am kind of the owner of. But I think it’s a great way to connect. And for those of you who’ve been maybe not so into Facebook because a lot of the weird stuff that’s happened with just not being able to see things anymore, I think if you have not been into it, consider joining some groups. That might be a better use of your time on social where you really can connect with those people, like Liz is saying in her group, or if you’ve been interested in the Sugar Detox for example and you just want to see what people are talking about, you can hop into those groups and we’ll approve you. Just get in on the conversation there; I think it’s a great way to connect.
Liz Wolfe: Yep.
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3. Maximizing fertility; nutrient seeking and stress reduction [24:00]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so we’re going to do listener comments and questions, per usual.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: And you’re going to ask these questions, because I think most of them are for me at this point.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think so. So, these questions actually came mostly from Instagram, so for those of you who are not yet following us over on Instagram @Balanced Bites podcast, that’s the full spelling of it. We do post I would say about once a week or maybe every two weeks for questions on different topics, so make sure you’re following over there if you’re like; I don’t know where to submit it, because I don’t think we’re doing as much via the online form because this seems to be a great way to just see what everyone’s asking about.
So, we’ve got our first question. These questions, as you guys will see from the topic of this show, are all about women’s health and fertility. This one is from the Posh Body. She says, “I’m curious about maximizing fertility/how can you best prepare your body beyond taking prenatal vitamins ahead of time?” That’s a good one, we get that a lot, I think.
Liz Wolfe: It’s just so; {sigh}. The mainstream view of this; it’s so easy, right? It’s like, oh just start taking a prenatal now, and you’re good! That’s just not necessarily the case. And I hate the fact that a lot of what I’m doing with this pregnancy/fertility/baby’s/birth stuff is probably making things adding layers, I guess for people to work through. But in the end, I think it’s a really good thing. I think it’s good for us to build up a larger pool of information for people to draw from when it comes to this type of thing rather than just, you know, giving ourselves a false sense of security.
So, this is a big question. Pretty much half of the impetus for even creating Baby Making and Beyond was this question, and the answer is; it depends on where you’re coming from. If you’re starting from scratch and you’ve had like zero exposure to the real food movement, to paleo, to what Diane and I do, and you’re still maybe in that “Raisin Bran and low fat milk stage”, or you’re in a fat-free dieting stage, or conventional wisdom stage, or worse, an “it doesn’t matter what you eat” type of mindset. “Eating for two, so go grab a Big Mac!”
You do need to start with the basics. Just eliminating food toxins like vegetables oils, canola oil, soybean oil, partially hydrogenated oils, and opting for the stronger, more stable fats like fats straight from whole foods; avocados, tallow, coconut oil, clarified butter, that type of thing. Really good high quality olive oil; Kasandrinos olive oil. Eliminating anything from modified crops, anything genetically modified because it’s starting to look like glyphosate, which is used on a lot of GMO crops is actually potentially a factor in some pretty gnarly food intolerances and things like that that people are experiencing. So, a lot of people just need to start right there.
And if you know all that stuff already, but you’re still stuck in the chicken/broccoli/coconut oil land that Diane and I talk about a lot, from there you can start adding fat soluble vitamins from whole food sources to your food routine.
A lot of people; this is something that we’re going to tackle in Baby Making and Beyond. And of course, people know that I’ve recommended cod liver oil for a long time, and specific types of cod liver oil. But I feel like I’ve found that a lot of people jump on the cod liver oil bandwagon and they’re like; “Every single day, gotta take my cod liver oil! Never miss a day!” And for some people that’s good, because some people are really vitamin deficient and what they need is to build up that reserve in their bodies, and cod liver oil is good for a short time in higher doses. But, my opinion now the more I learn, is that it’s probably best to look at getting your fat soluble vitamins from liver, some butter oil, sardines for vitamin D, with cod liver oil just as an augmentation to all of that. So, two times a week, something like that as a maintenance dose. And in the in between times, like 3-4 ounces of liver a week, get that in there. Get your sardines in there.
At this point, I just personally don’t agree with a lot of folks in that fertility space who say that cod liver oil is their number one fertility food. It’s just not. It’s a great and really valuable addition, but lowering your overall PUFA exposure I think is more important, as well as having a grip on which fat soluble vitamins you actually need, which is where testing comes in handy. So all of that taken into consideration is why we’re kind of recommending cod liver oil more in context in Baby Making and Beyond.
Above all, though, I think the fact is that stress will derail all of your efforts nutritionally if it’s allowed to go unchecked. And this is where people tune out immediately; it’s a big eye roll for some people. Because when I say stress, I think we think of something that’s in your head. But stress is something that has physiological, hormonal consequences. And when we’re talking about fertility and baby making, we’re also talking about hormones. That’s just beginning and end.
And we used to talk about this in our workshops; and Diane I think I’ll have you talk about it if you have anything to add once I’ve gone through this, please feel free. We talk about the pregnenolone steal. The body produces cortisol from pregnenolone. Which, is the precursor to all of your hormones. It produces cortisol to buffer stress. But chronically elevated cortisol means that your body has to manufacture that cortisol on a continuous, continual; one or the other. Continuous/continual basis. And cortisol is made from the same stuff as your sex hormones, but cortisol gets priority because it’s an immediate survival type of hormone.
And cortisol, what a lot of people don’t realize, is that it can be estrogenic. And high estrogen can deplete zinc and B6 and folate; all of those nutrients that we’re trying to get in as a fertility measure are being depleted if you’re stressing. And we get so focused on food because we’ve don’t a lot of quantifying and researching and targeting of food and nutrients in this community, and I think the #nutrientseeker; I think a long time; I don’t know if I coined that term, or not, but I know a long time ago I was talking about being a nutrient seeker, and that became a pretty big thing. And yeah, it’s important, but in a way stress is still this ubiquitous; “yeah, I get it but I don’t really get it” type of thing.
We really need to get more concrete with what stress does, especially in a fertility context. We know it depletes B6, which is a cofactor for magnesium, which is critical for energy production, which is wrapped up with thyroid function, which is central to fertility, so you kind of see where I’m going with that. You just have to manage stress. And I would almost tell people to do that first before that even start making massive changes to their diet, because it can be that important. Get rid of stressful people, get rid of stressful exercise, so anything exercise that’s really the sticking point for some people. Anything that gets towards that lactic acid threshold might not be doing you any favors. Walk; just walk if you can. Maybe focus on that over intense exercise if you can. Do deep breathing in the morning, manage your circadian rhythms, eliminate environmental estrogens. All of these things get kind of packaged up into the what stresses your body; ball of rubber bands.
What else; what are my other notes? If you need super deep healing, I would tackle things in the order of; liver, then adrenals, then thyroid, and you can work on your gut health all the same time. Adrenal fatigue is a real thing. It’s also tied in with the stress system, but I would probably work on liver health first as a precursor to tackling adrenal health. It also depends on how much time you have; if you have 6 months, you can work on healing the gut, detoxing with food and supplements. You can do the home detox, you can balance your hormones, you can get targeted testing, even if your doctor won’t order testing you can pay upfront cash from RequestaTest.com, something like that. You can start putting the pieces together yourself or work with an alternative practitioner and that type of thing. You can really do a lot of leg work in recovering from PCOS and triad syndrome. You can boost your vitamin D naturally, and if you have a little less time, you can modify that. There might be a little bit less you can do.
We’re going to be doing 6-, 3-, 1-month type plans in Baby Making and Beyond just helping people get an idea of what’s safe to do in a shorter period of time versus when you have a longer period of time; 6 months to a year. So, all that said; I actually think her real question was probably more about food and supplements. At least I’m assuming that. But I guess if I only had 2 minutes in the grocery store checkout line to tell someone what to do, I’d say, go get my book, Eat the Yolks, get Diane’s book Practical Paleo, do paleo like we say to do it.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} “Reduce your PUFA, ditch your fish oil; don’t take fish oil. Of course I’m not a doctor, I can’t tell you what to do, but run that by your doctor. Moderate your cod liver oil intake, and opt for getting those fat soluble vitamins from the foods that they come in. Include liver in your diet, broths; including vegetable broths, which are a really good source of minerals. Get a whole foods based prenatal and maybe some extra whole food based vitamin C. Get rid of environmental estrogens, remove stress in every way possible. And another one…
Diane Sanfilippo: I feel like;
Liz Wolfe: Go ahead.
Diane Sanfilippo: Do you have like a checklist for this, where people can…
Liz Wolfe: I should, right?
Diane Sanfilippo: Like start with this for week one, work on this.
Liz Wolfe: Yes. We’re going to do a 28-day Baby Making boot camp, which is going to be awesome.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ooh. Whoa. That’s going to be crazy because I feel like there’s going to be all kinds of people who start getting pregnant right after that, and then you’re going to have first generation Baby Making and Beyond babies.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Oh that would be so cute!
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s crazy.
Liz Wolfe: Get busy!
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} So I just, I was talking to; I was either watching somebody talk to somebody else on Facebook; but I believe my friend Dr. Megan Burt was talking about Innate Response as a good prenatal for prepregnancy and pregnancy. They do a prepregnancy and then a first two trimesters, and then a different prenatal for the third trimester, so that might be a good one to look at. I think it’s a practitioner brand. Diane and I like the Calton’s Nutreince, which can also function as a prenatal.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: I had a lot of words for that question.
Diane Sanfilippo: That was a lot; that was all the words. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: All the words.
Diane Sanfilippo: One of the reasons why I think people end up with this; “should I take a prenatal? What’s the deal?” It’s almost like we’re scrambling to get this kind of insurance policy or “be safe” that we have this type of nutrition built up in our system that it’s become medicalized; just the way supplements are, right? We have this very one issue, one supplement mindset sometimes. Which it’s one of the reasons why when I did meal plans in Practical Paleo, I’m like; here’s 20 different supplements that could help you, here’s what they do. I’m not going to tell you, “here’s the 3 you should be taking,” because I can’t do that. I don’t know what’s going to be right for you. I don’t know what you’re already eating, what you’ve been eating for years, what you; you know, what you really need.
I think the reason that prenatals have become probably more popular is that traditional diets are less popular.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: If you look historically at times before supplements existed, just like sometimes we talk about times before baby formula or infant formula existed, it’s like; what did people do? Let’s start to think about, what did people do? Well, people didn’t supplement, they just had a diet that was probably focused on certain nutrition. I would believe that, as girls and women reach certain ages in very traditional cultures that the elder women of that culture would probably have been encouraging them to eat certain things, and who knows if there was the same, like, turning up their nose at things like liver, but I do believe that we were eating things just traditionally. It was just, this is the wisdom that’s passed down, and it’s one of the things that we have gotten so far from with our modern food.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And I think that’s the reason why we have this deep sense of; I kind of know I haven’t been eating what I should have been eating for the last 20-30 years, or even less time than that, but what can I do to build up and have that insurance policy? And the truth is two-fold; yeah, do what you can, and if you’re going to have this 28-day boot camp, it’s going to be amazing. It’s going to help people so much. But the other truth is, you can’t assume that taking the supplement is going to do the work; it never does, with anything, right?
Liz Wolfe: Nope.
Diane Sanfilippo: You could take a fat burner, because you’re trying to lose body fat, but you still have to be eating right and you still have to be exercise {laughs}. Like, none of that stuff is magic, so if you’re trying to take a prenatal just to kind of cover your bases, it’s fine. No one’s going to tell you that you’re wrong or you’re bad for doing it. It’s just kind of missing the point of the deeper nutrition that our bodies really do need, and I think what you’re talking about, fat soluble vitamins and minerals and all that stuff. That’s that critical part.
The other thing you were talking about with stress and the pregnenolone steal; we did talk about this a ton in our workshops and we talk about it in the Balanced Bites Master Class. {laughs} We’ve got all these big projects that are coming up for people, and unfortunately you guys that all take a really long time to get done. But I talk about the pregnenolone steal a lot in there, because we; I mean, those of you listening, I’m sure you’ve all heard stories of this where there’s a couple trying to get pregnant, and they’re just so stressed out about it, and they’re trying, and trying, and it’s just not happening. They decide maybe to adopt a child, or to just put it off and just kind of put it on hold. Somehow take attention away from it and stress and focus away from conceiving, and then it ends up happening when the focus and stress is not on it.
Because what Liz was talking about is so real; it’s a real hormonal pathway you can Google; cholesterol and hormone synthesis. You can Google pregnenolone steal, and visually look at the chart and the cascade of what happens with hormone production when we are in a high stress state. Which a lot of us are all the time. So, if you think you’re not stressed and you don’t have 15 minutes to meditate in a day, then you’ve probably got another thing coming {laughs}. You probably are pretty stressed, and realizing that your body is preferentially making cortisol not manufacturing stress, or sex hormones excuse me to keep you in the proper balance so that your body can be fertile and you can conceive naturally. That’s something that I think people are very out of touch with. We really don’t understand it, and I think it’s just our society and the way that things are set up, is so far from what’s natural for us.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: From circadian rhythm health to sitting at a desk; literally, everything we do as careers and as most of our days is just so opposite of what is best for our physiology, and then we wonder why we’re feeling like we have to backtrack on prenatals or having issues with fertility. I think what you just said; there were a lot of words for it, because there’s so much that goes into it, and it’s important that women listening to our show, because we have a huge listener base who are in this age range, right?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: They’re either pre-fertility, or they’re like; I’m going to have a second child, or whatever the case may be. And I think it’s important that they hear the truth about it in that way, you know? It’s not as easy as just take a prenatal, but at the same time stressing about it certainly won’t help matters. And there are plenty of women who never even consider this stuff, and who do get pregnant, who do have healthy babies, so there’s a lot to consider and there’s a lot that you can do, and then there’s also a certain amount that we just need to do the best we can and let the rest be. And the best you can do is the best you can do. So that’s my take.
Liz Wolfe: There you go.
4. Low testosterone levels in men [41:18]
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so we’ve got another one here; let’s see, Amanda, how do I say her name? Ok, Amanda Groanwald {laughs} is asking, “would love to hear about the men’s side of fertility issues. Husband has low testosterone.” That’s a really interesting question too.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, it is. Because guess what? It’s not that simple! It’s not as simple as low testosterone. Without knowing more; things like, how old is he, what are his inflammation levels, what are his stress levels. Back up to the last 15 minutes to hear what we said about stress, again. I would first ask, actually; did you also test his estrogen? Estrogen is not the female hormone, it’s also a male hormone. And low testosterone is often actually accompanied by high estrogen. Low T is often tied to high E, and that would probably be the real issue there. I think I mentioned in my last rant that cortisol can be estrogenic; and that’s a really, really important thing to understand. There would probably be some hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis inhibition going on.
Some of the things that you can do just right out of the gate is to lower your PUFA intake, quit the fish oil, moderate the cod liver oil, but make sure you’re still getting the vitamin A and also the protein and gelatin coming in. Liver once a week is great. Really, liver is like a prenatal. It really is. It has so many things that you need, and so highly concentrated. I actually did not take prenatals every single day. I would take prenatals on the days that I was not eating liver, and sometimes I would not take my prenatals on the days that I took cod liver oil. And I’ll talk about why I made the choices that I did, because I really want to just pause a second and say; depending on your nutritional status, you might make this choice, you might make a different choice. My nutritional status I think was fairly good going into pregnancy, so I made some choices that maybe wouldn’t be right for other people. So I’m not making suggestions; individual suggestions here, I’m just saying what I did as far as how I did the prenatal and all that stuff.
But anyway, I digress. For testosterone you can boost zinc intake for a short period of time; maybe oysters once a week, which would be plenty from a PUFA standpoint, we’re talking about polyunsaturated fats in seafood. You don’t want to supplement zinc for too long since it can interfere with other nutrients, but a short time should be just fine. That’s just kind of a basic dietary strategy if you realize; wow, I’m just really, really low on zinc at this point. It might be something to look at. But first and foremost, I would definitely say look at estrogen and cortisol/stress first, because that could be the root of it, very, very easily. Practitioners see that all the time. Anything to add there, D?
Diane Sanfilippo: Nope. Not really.
Liz Wolfe: Ok.
Diane Sanfilippo: But the same thing that I talked about; which, the whole pregnenolone steal applies also to testosterone. And I do think that there are a lot of guys who, when you show them what’s going on with stress visually with that chart, the pregnenolone steal and all of that, that can be very helpful for guys to understand if they do have a lot of career stress, or if they’re doing something like marathon training. Again, we don’t have a lot of context here, but if they’re taking a statin, for example, I had a client years ago when I was doing one on one coaching who had low testosterone, was getting testosterone injections, but had been on a statin for probably 10 to 15 years, and that’s lowering cholesterol which is going to lower the precursors and the substrate that your body is using to make testosterone. So, all of these things are worth looking into to figure out if they could be contributing to that issue. But that is a multifactorial thing, whether or not it’s just the testosterone is just one thing. But yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Nothing occurs in a vacuum.
Diane Sanfilippo: Totally.
Liz Wolfe: Your body is not a vacuum.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Imagine that! Well, mine sometimes is.
Liz Wolfe: Obvi. Yeah, sometimes.
Diane Sanfilippo: When there’s like Jackson’s chips around, or something.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Oh man.
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5. Prenatal brands and low basal body temperature [46:55]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, what’s next?
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so Becky Something says, “Prenatal brands? How long before conception..” I don’t know, brands?
Liz Wolfe: Probably just a couple of recommendations for prenatals.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. I’m going to start that again.
Liz Wolfe: I think this is several questions.
Diane Sanfilippo: Let’s start this again.
Liz Wolfe: Ok.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. Do you want to do the prenatal bands thing?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I can suggest a couple.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. I’m going to start over.
Liz Wolfe: Ok.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, Becky can’t say her last name from her handle, is asking, “What are some prenatal brand recommendations? And then also, how long before conception to start taking them? And what’s a normal basal body temperature? What would it mean if it’s low, like in the 96s pre ovulation?”
Liz Wolfe: Ok. I like this question. Prenatal brands; we’ve talked about this I think a couple of times on the podcast. I like the Pure Synergy prenatal, the Innate Response that I just mentioned a few minutes ago; the Nutreince is a good one as well. I’m trying to think of other ones that people like that they’ve reported to me. I think that the; what are those gummies? The gummies that Hayley has talked about?
Diane Sanfilippo: I think it’s Smarty Pants?
Liz Wolfe: Smarty Pants; I think they do a prenatal, I’m not entirely sure.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think that’s what it is
Liz Wolfe: Those are all fine.
Diane Sanfilippo: And the Nutreince.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah the Nutreince is good.
Diane Sanfilippo: The Calton’s Nutreince.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s a pretty solid list. How long before conception to start taking them? Well, you can start taking them whenever. Whenever you’re ready to start trying. I mean, we can’t really say; none of us know when we’re going to conceive so I can’t tell you {laughs}. It would require us to see into the future as to when it’s actually going to happen to be able to say start taking them now. I’m splitting hairs, but anyway, take them whenever you’re ready to start trying.
Ok, a normal basal body temperature and what it means if it’s low. So one of the things that we encourage women to do is to track their ovulation. The book for learning how to do this and why is Taking Charge of Your Fertility. It’s a fantastic book. And what does it mean if it’s low? So the 96 is preovulation. The normal range that you can just pull up via Google is like 96-97 degrees preovulation and like 98-99 postovulation, but I personally just based on my experience and observations, I would actually consider 97.3 kind of ideally to be at the lower end in a really healthy metabolism preovulation. And you want a really high metabolism when you’re going into pregnancy.
Heat is kind of that symbol of a healthy metabolism; so if you’re low, which I was pretty chronically, that’s something that you might want to start tackling. We’ve talked about my fertility macaroons {laughs} before on the podcast. Unfortunately, the macaroons that I really liked from Jenny’s, they’ve changed their formulation. It used to just be egg whites, honey, and coconut; now it’s a couple of other things that I’m not a huge fan of anymore. So maybe we can get some of our friends to make a fertility macaroon recipe or something.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I bet we could ask Hayley to make that. She’d probably get on top of that.
Liz Wolfe: That would be amazing. So we’ll put that on the list. So, get out of bed if you find that your temps are a little bit low preovulation; eat the second you get up. Something with a little sweet, a little salt, and some fat. Particularly coconut oil. Coconut oil; this is like a Dr. Pete thing. Coconut oil is prothyroid, is what he says. So that’s definitely what you want is robust thyroid function going into pregnancy. So eat something like that right when you get up in the morning; no fasting, no, “well I’ll have a cup of coffee and then I’ll eat breakfast at like 10 whenever I get to work” or whatever. You want to get something in there as quickly as possible and fuel yourself during the day.
This is kind of; this is another Pete thing, but I’m kind of into orange juice right now. Ask yourself, “Am I craving orange juice?” and if you are, have some orange juice. Because I feel like when metabolism is a little bit low, you need some quick vitamin C and some quick glucose, and fresh squeezed orange juice is just an amazing source of that. Just to throw that in there a little bit. I’m a little Pete’d out right now.
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s interesting.
Liz Wolfe: Like in a good way. Not, Pete’d out like sick of it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Not Petered out, but …
Liz Wolfe: <