This is an excerpt from Pregnancy Mastery ebook

Step 1: Tilt Your Diet Towards Fertility
Food = fertility.

Food actually equals health, fertility, great pregnancies, safe births, healthy babies, rich & nourishing breast milk, plus healthy toddlers, children… and grandchildren. There has been a fair amount of research done on how food impacts your fertility. That’s surprising since the medical and insurance industries do not want to admit, much less discuss, that food has an impact on pregnancy outcomes (where’s the money in food?). What’s even more surprising is that fertility nutrition studies that go “contrary to the medical opinion” have been published. What does that mean? It means that we know that healthy fats are vitally important to your body, and especially to your fertility. The modern attitude towards fats (i.e. that fats are evil) doesn’t like that, but that’s the way that it is. Actually, the modern, industrial darling – processed vegetable oils – have been shown to be harmful in many ways and do not have fertility benefits. But traditional, saturated fats like dairy fats, coconut oil, avocados, etc. show major fertility benefits. Other traditional fats like olive oil and oily fish (salmon, tuna, etc.) are also very healthy.
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A good rule of thumb when you’re eating to TTC is to eat healthy the fats your great-great-great grandmother would have been able to use. If it requires extraction via a chemical process, it’s probably bad news, no matter what corporate marketing departments say about their polyunsaturated profits. Another dietary guideline brought to light by fertility studies is the benefit eating low levels of carbohydrate while TTC. This makes sense because lower carbohydrate diets are low in grains that can cause inflammation. Low-carb also helps keep blood sugar (blood glucose) levels under control, which is especially important if you are struggling with PCOS or other fertility problems. High protein diets have also been shown helpful when trying to conceive. Normally women need moderate levels of protein, but dropping back grains and carbohydrates, eating healthy fats, and upping your protein is a good way to boost your fertility. Make sure you’re getting plenty of calories, especially as you get closer to the point of conception: 1800-2000 calories a day is probably adequate for most women. When you fall pregnant you’ll gradually increase to 2300-2600 calories a day, but you don’t need that many when you’re TTC. Be wary of extreme calorie-cutting diets. These can stop ovulation and even contribute to nutrient deficiencies and birth defects. Even if you don’t need as many calories now as you will during pregnancy, you do need to make sure your food is absolutely packed with nutrition. Now is a good time to research diets and start transitioning to some healthy, low-carb diet rich in healthy fats, probiotic foods, and nourishing, healing foods. By the time you fall pregnant you’ll be ready to
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research and expand upon your diet so you have a healthy pregnancy, excellent birth, and a happy, healthy baby.



Step 2: Balance Your Hormones to Get Pregnant – and Stay Pregnant

Hormone levels are absolutely crucial to a healthy pregnancy. Your hormone levels begin to rise as soon as you fall pregnant and continue to rise throughout pregnancy. Estrogen and progesterone play key roles during pregnancy, rising to many hundreds of times their normal levels. Other important hormones, like oxytocin, also rise greatly during pregnancy. Hormone balance helps you to get pregnant in the first place, too. You’ve probably heard of estrogen, progesterone, oxytocin, and testosterone (the male hormone). But there are other hormones that play more of a “master hormone” role – including leptin and cortisol. Your thyroid hormone is also crucial to fertility. Balancing these hormones out actually starts in the step we’ve already covered: diet. You can take some additional steps to optimize your hormones. For example, you can help cortisol work appropriately by:
• Consuming protein-rich breakfasts (at least 30g protein) with non-starchy veggies (and healthy fats)
• Avoid carbohydrates in the morning
• Get out in bright sunlight each morning shortly after rising
• Get enough sleep
• Avoid cereal!

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See how this builds upon a healthy diet? Eating well – and eating consciously – is going to help you bring your hormones back into balance naturally. Pay attention the lighting in your environment – it’s also very helpful to hormones. The production (or lack of production) is often dependent on cycles of light and darkness. Don’t stay up very late at night – this wreaks havoc on your hormones!

Step 3: Prepare for Conception With a Multivitamin

When you begin trying to get pregnant you hear from many different sources that it is a good idea to begin using a prenatal multivitamin before you become pregnant. There are now studies backing this advice. Multivitamins serve as a type of “back up” plan to our diets. While eating a healthy fertility diet is of the utmost importance, it is always a good idea to include a whole food prenatal multivitamin in your program as well.
“A study from Harvard Medical school involving 18,000 women has shown that taking multi vitamins, particularly folic acid, can improve chances of pregnancy…”
That study followed nurses who had hoped to get pregnant for an eight-year period. Women who took their multivitamin six times a week were 40% less likely to fail to ovulate than women who took none.


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