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Amiee Raupp : The Egg Quality Diet: A clinically proven 100-day fertility diet to balance hormones, reduce inflammation, improve egg quality & optimize your ability to get & stay pregnant

podcast Aug 06, 2021

Aimee Raupp, MS, LAc, is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist & has helped thousands of women to improve their vitality, celebrate their beauty, and discover the root cause of their fertility issues. She’s today's special guest & is here talking with us about how you can optimise your egg quality with the right diet.

Topics Discussed:

🦩Immune System & Gut Health

🦩Inflammation & its impact on egg quality

🦩Liver is a power food

🦩 Her new book The Egg Quality Diet: A clinically proven 100-day fertility diet to balance hormones, reduce inflammation, improve egg quality & optimize your ability to get & stay pregnant [Get your copy over on Amazon]

After years of practising eastern medicine, Aimee started to recognise that many of her clients were facing western autoimmune issues. Through her practice and studying the latest scientific evidence coming out of functional medicine, Aimee started supporting her clients and followers by highlighting the importance of lowering their inflammation to help improve their egg quality.

Aimee Raupp, MS, LAc, is a renowned women’s health & wellness expert and the best-selling author of the books Chill Out & Get Healthy, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, Body Belief & now The Egg Quality Diet: A clinically proven 100-day fertility diet to balance hormones, reduce inflammation, improve egg quality & optimize your ability to get & stay pregnant

She engages her large community worldwide through her online programs Connect with Aimee: www.aimeeraupp.com & Instagram: @aimeeraupp

Let's Do This Together 💚

Monica

Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Finding fertility podcast. I want to remind you that every Tuesday I relaunch one of my favorite episodes that we've done in the past. So if you hear any funny dates offers or even the podcast being called the infertile diagnosis. This is why I hope you forgive me for this and enjoy the amazing content we're putting out here on the podcast. And whenever you're ready for more guided support, make sure you go over to the website and check out the fertility formula. This is where I take you through the six vital steps you need to overcome your fertility issues. The formula is an exclusive 10 week online program packed full of everything I did to get pregnant naturally. Using science backed functional medicine, you'll discover the method I take with my 1 to 1 client without the high price tag. Start boosting your fertility naturally by maximizing all areas of your health. Today, the monthly membership includes special access to me, your fertility health coach.
So check it out over at the website www dot Finding fertility dot co backslash fertility formula. Hello, Beautiful and welcome to Finding fertility. I'm your host Monica cox from Finding fertility dot co. And I created this podcast to help get you to start thinking outside of the box and realize that your infertility might have nothing to do with your lady bits rooted in functional medicine and personal experience. Finding fertility is all about looking at the whole body and finding the root cause of your infertility. Finding fertility does not diagnose prescribe or treat any issues of infertility. But what we do is take a holistic approach and improve your diet and your lifestyle to get you steps closer to creating your dream family. Just by being here with me listening to this podcast. You're already going down the right path to making your dreams come true.
Let's do this together. Hi Amy, welcome to the Finding fertility podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. I know you're really busy launching your new book, that aid quality diet. Uh I would thank you for sending me an advanced copy. I was a little bit nervous before I got it because I'm very particular on what information I want my followers to know. And I was very pleasantly surprised that you are getting the word out there about auto immune issues um and how they have a huge, huge impact on fertility. So, thank you so much for that. Thank you. Thank you for noticing because I agree. I mean that's part of me does feel like I threw the book together fairly quickly because of the sense of urgency. I can't I can't describe it any other way. It was um I have this information. I really wanted to get it out there and I kept seeing you know more and more people talking about like the fertility, this fertility diet do this fertility.
And I just you know, women come to me and they're so overwhelmed and it's like, you know, this is actually what you need to do and this is what you need to understand. You need to understand the immune system, you need to understand the gut, you understand inflammation and how it all actually plays together to impact not just a quality but fertility. Um I called the equality diet just because I thought it would be like it would capture as many people as possible but like you know with your trained eyes, you know, you know you kind of know what I'm after. You know that I you know, I've been practicing for 17 years as an acupuncturist and herbalist and I've been writing books for 11 years and um I just started to see over and over again that like what women want, they don't actually know what they need, you know what they know what they want. So they know they want to improve air quality but they don't understand why I quality is compromised in the first place and it has very little to do with age. And the research supports that actually has much more to do with our modern lifestyle and our immune system and our gut health and auto immunity.
And so um you know to me it was like needing to get this information out sf because I hear like the doctors that are aware of how diet impacts fertility will say like, oh mediterranean diet or a paleo diet and I don't even think that's um you know, I send love to all you guys listening, but I don't even think that's enough for a lot of the cases. Oh yeah, and I talked about that listeners know that um I went paleo for a whole year because I had a shambles of an IVF at 30. Um They told me my eight quality was poor and there's nothing I can do. Just try IVF again, luckily we had a friend say, why don't you change your diet? And I'm like, I'm not unhealthy, I'm thin, I'm fit, I'm active, I'm not sick, I'm not on medication and he's like just change your diet. So we went paleo, we did it for a year. I improved so many aspects of my life but I still wasn't getting pregnant. And we went into another round of IVF, didn't even make it today 28 I improved my aid quality, we got embryos, we froze embryos but I was like, what the fuck?
Like I was healthy. Like at that point you could not like get me and luckily as you reference in your book, the paleo mom was blogging around that time, this was back in 2000 Of 14. And um I got diagnosed, finally found my answer that I had high natural killer cells and I was like, okay, and because I was already on this path of health and wellness. I was like, I'll try it. Like I've already tried paleo, it's not that hard to go A I. P when you're already paleo I don't think, I mean the nuts are painful. Yeah. No man like it was pretty depressing. Um because at the time I lived in the United Kingdom um and I kind of feel lucky because I'm originally from California. So at least all the good mexican was not around. But the indian food was out the door. The british people love their tomato and I couldn't have tomato, I couldn't have my balinese. I used to make an incredible chili.
So like yes it was easier but it was still a mind fuck it was still you know it is, I'm not going to underscore. Yeah, I mean I should underscore it is a mind fuck. It is not easy. Um Even right now we're being out with the book being out. It's so amazing like so that's that's kind of where it started for me, right? So um you know I wrote I wrote my first book shop and get healthy just like a general women's health book 2010. I talked about epigenetic sai talked about auto immunity in there. I talked about and I had a whole chapter about fertility and I talked about the importance of diet and eating nutrient dense foods and bone broth and liver and stuff like that and then I took that chapter and made it into a whole book and in 2014 yes you can get pregnant and there I really went into because so before I became an acupuncturist. Um 17, Well, I guess 21 years ago I started acupuncture school. But so 25 years ago I was a biology, chemistry major in college. Then I went on to study do research, study neuroscience. And so I've always been a bit of a research junkie, right?
And when I was writing, yes, you can get pregnant. I you know, I was looking at all the data, all the research. I was trying to kind of in my brain. I like to connect the dots. That's kind of how I work. It's like very detective like, and it's like, you know, mainly all these women that are not getting pregnant have ovulation disorders. That's what they were saying. Kind of even back then like 2013, when are in the book, right? Or they have structural issues. So ovulation disorders, it's usually pcos Structural issues, usually endometriosis. And then there's all this like 40% of women that have unexplained infertility and I was like this is bullshit. Like this this doesn't the dots are not connecting. And so and at that point, right? I've been a clinician now for, you know, at that point, I don't even know, 10, 12 years. And so you start to see the pattern. You see these girls coming in and no ones checked the thyroid or they're not being properly supported, I asked to get antibodies checked. And sure enough they have hashimoto's no one's like oh I feel terrible when I eat gluten or dairy. Like no ones and they're seeing acupuncturist.
They're seeing functional docks. They've done like you know, maybe cleaner eating. So maybe they're eating sour go or organic, you know, fermented grains, Maybe they've cut out gluten and dairy. But they like you they still are not getting pregnant, they still have a ton of symptoms. So in the book there is a symptom questionnaire and most there's like 80 symptoms in there. But most women have like 20 to 30 symptoms if not more if they're really honest with themselves. Like brain fog, body aches, headaches. Um And so but when I was writing it you can't get pregnant. I just started to look at the research and it was pretty common that you know endo has is an inflammatory condition. Endometriosis. But it has autoimmune like qualities. Pcos Same kind of thing. No one really wants to call it an autoimmune condition but it acts like one responds well to treatment like one pretty much more ovarian insufficiency. That's the new name. It used to be P. O. F. Right? That same thing. There's ovarian antibodies that some of these girls have. Like but no one is talking about it. Right? So I had interviewed a couple of doctors for the book and there was this one doctor up at Yale reproductive medicine here in Connecticut Hugh taylor dr Hugh taylor, he runs the fertility clinic up there.
He was like a friend of a friend and he was gracious enough to get on the phone with me and talk and I said to him I was like this the research they're like have you? And he was like because he does all this research on uh he was doing research on plastics and endocrine disrupting chemicals and how it was impacting not just fertility in this in this population but in our future Children. And so I knew he was like you know onto something. And so I said to him like do you think all of these unexplained infertility cases are actually undiagnosed or mismanaged autoimmune conditions. And he like he like chuckles, he leans back when we were on a video call um and he goes he said something like like he gave me a huge compliment basically. Like he was just like wow, he's like honestly you know you're ahead of most of the doctors in this field. And he said for instance right now we're implementing that every woman that comes to our clinic is getting tested for celiac and for hashimoto's because we see such a high correlation in those two disease states with infertility.
Um and so they just kind of started from there. So then I had written this book and then now I have all these new women coming to me and the diet's working for some of them, maybe 30 40% of them but not all of them. I think the diet was kind of paleo I suppose but a little more heavier on the nutrient dense, heavier on the I think the veg most people including myself and maybe you, I don't know when I went paleo, I still wasn't even enough vegetables and I was probably eating too many nuts and I was still eating a lot of like in free grains, you know what I mean? Like I was still not hitting the mark so it's like what can overload? Yeah, yeah you're like I'll just eat like all this almond paleo bread, it's so delicious with almond butter, you know what I mean? Like that's my meal. Um my exam, I got like worse, it was crazy but for me I can't really do nuts and that's what I figured out doing um an elimination diet but so then I started kind of you know, same thing Sarah Ballentine, her book. The paleo approach was out. I you know, I look over at my bookshelf because it's like right there front and center.
I always been in that book, it's like an encyclopedia and so big, I was like overwhelming. Like I'm just like people are like why do I remove elections and like just go read that book because I can't explain it but their inventory there, hard to digest, you know like go read her book, I was following her on instagram when she was writing the book and then she like talked about how she like was getting her auto immune issues back because of writing the book. And then when I got the book I was like, no shit, you got an autoimmune issue, this thing is insane. And then the stress factors Yeah, so smart, She's so smart. She actually is the side note wouldn't endorse body belief because she didn't love the mental aspect that I talked about. She didn't feel it was scientifically based enough, which I was crushed at the moment, but I actually like respected her for it because she's just such a PhD like nerdy science on the, she's like, I love all the food stuff you're talking about. And I like the research you've given from the mindset perspective, but I can't connect the dots of like emotional inflammation and auto immunity.
And I was like, okay, she's like, but at some point I'm sure we will. And and that was 20 you know when everybody belief came out, I don't even know um I don't even know 2018 I think like that. But yeah, her book. So it started to change it for me where I was like, Huh? You know, I started seeing these girls and I was like take that beans, let's see what moving beans does take this out, let's see what this does. And then I started to see these recurrent pregnancy loss. I mean I had a lot of them already, but and it led me down the rabbit hole of looking into uh you know, chinese medicine, right? Good health is like the main important show. Like, if you are not absorbing your nutrition from the food you eat, or we say the air you breathe, you can't make the blood and the key in the essence that you need to thrive. And so when we, even if a woman comes to me and she's just trying to get pregnant, but oh, side note, Yeah. Have I B. S. Side note, I have eczema psoriasis. Side note, I have rose atia. Oh, I have a key joints of brain fog. I feel exhausted. Even after 11 hours of sleeping, I can't lose weight.
I gained weight in college. I can't lose it. Those to me, we're like, okay, there's like the body speaking. So I thankfully I was trained that way of like, there's still something like, and they're like, what I eat so clean and I'm like, give me a food diary. And it would be similar to what my food diary was, you know, um a couple of years ago or I'd say six years ago or something like that, where they were just missing their marks on, I think, especially vegetables and especially fat and there was way too many grains and carbohydrates. Even good, healthy carbohydrates, right? It was just too many things were miss balanced. And so it just started um when I started to see the symptoms go away. These chronic inflammatory symptoms and these women that maybe or maybe did not have like, a lot of them have how she noticed, but not all of them. And I don't even test for celiac because what's the point? Like, if you get better off gluten, just stay off and you know what I mean? Like, I don't even see the point. Stupid. Um And the testing can be so vague anyway, it's like, and the food allergy testing doesn't mean anything. Um So it was like, we started just doing these elimination diets and then that's when I started like, literally I felt like, oh my God, I found, you know, we found this secret thing, like, I felt like that years ago when I started using liver organ meats, um it was a chinese medicine thing, but I was like, what I realized now, you know, I'm on a total tangent, but this is a fun story, what I realize now I started using liver gosh, it has to be probably 12, 15 years ago in my practice, I was treating the mth fr mutation is what I was doing and I now I know it, but that back then I had no idea, I was like nutrient dense food.
I used to call it nature's B complex. You didn't I even wouldn't even put girls on a prenatal, I would give spirulina, liver probiotics vitamin D and cod liver oil, That's it, that's all I took. I got pregnant with James like 40 I give birth right before my 41st birthday. I never even took a prenatal and I think I was actually, because I have two copies of MT HFR, I was actually doing myself justice because all the pre angles then had folic acid. I was like, I wasn't causing harm to my body is just kind of fascinating. But so you see the full evolution of things and but yeah, thank you. Long story short, thank you for noticing the difference in the diet because I hear it all the time and I feel I feel terrible um for women that are already going through fertility challenges, but then they come to me and they're like, and I've been paleo or I've been following your diet for two years and I'm still not pregnant and it's like, okay, we're missing something somewhere and not that I don't think my yes, you can get pregnant diet is wrong. I think it's a great starting point, but I also think I just didn't give them enough hand holding, I give them seven days of a menu. Like, what's that?
Do you know what I mean? Like now with the egg quality diet, it's literally like, here's 100 days of menus, like they're all macro nutrient balanced. I've covered your ass. These are the things you need to hit every single day. Um let's see what happens and uh you know people are, there's a lot of emails coming out of girls like so I wait, I got to cut out grains for how long and I'm like, you'll see though, you'll see your ceo life change. Yeah. Yeah, so I have a program online called the fertility food program and um is literally my, my bread and butter is find your food intolerances. Yeah, I don't care what it is deemed healthy. If you're intolerant to it, it's gonna fuck you up. So you have to cut it out and helping women and see, okay, well you know, you have the top five, right, corn, dairy, soy gluten and excess sugar. I said if you've done that and you're still not seeing results, you kind of have to dig deeper. And um yeah, just like you would checklist like these are the auto immune issues.
If you're dealing with any of these auto immune issues, you have to start looking into an autoimmune paleo diet, why an autoimmune paleo diet is the only as tight out there that basically gets rid of everything like that. Like it's obviously elimination proven. But it is like you thought you couldn't eat a lot before, you really ain't going to eat a lot now. And like you say I have on and off the list for the food. It's like stop hyper focusing on what you can't eat and bring in all that food, like you're not eating any out liver is like the top. Like when I started eating liver, you can see it, you could just feel it maximizes your body Well. And did you see two? I talk about the study in in the equality diet. The research, it's so great. It came out like little. I was just wrapping up the book and the research that that study in the journal of aging came out in April of 2021 and I was just finishing and I put it in because it was so good. But it's dr Cara Fitzgerald, she's actually up here in Connecticut near me and they got a grant and they published research in the Journal of aging.
They took 37 men. So it was men. But I still think it's profound. 37 men through an eight week protocol which was very similar. It's like a very super clean eating tons of vegetables, good quality animal protein, lots of fat. They were eating like six ounces of liver a week, minimal supplements. They had mindfulness, 20 minutes twice the day movement 30 minutes five times a week. They were sleeping 7 to 8 hours and they were on a probiotic that supports methylation. Um Plant tarom is this is the species l planetarium And that was it. And they took they did their genetic age. So you know there's these tests now that you can test the genetic age versus your chronological age. They their genetic age at the beginning and then eight weeks later took it again. These men took 3.2 years off of their genetic age in eight weeks. It was like oh my gosh that that like it just speaks. It's just volumes. And they weren't even on supplements. That's the part to that like blows my mind because it's like and I say that in the book and I say I feel like everywhere these days but like and I'm sure you say it too, if your gut health is compromised, you're wasting your money right now in your expensive P.
It's like you're just and It's just gumming things up like you need food-based vitamins first of all if you're going to eat them. But you also need to be able to absorb them. And I think the physician's desk reference, you know in the early 2000 said something there was a research that they did. Most people only absorb 15 15% of the actual vitamin that they take. So and that's because we're all compromised and gut health. And so if we go and we do like a. I. P. Or an elimination diet. And I think lots of bone growth and healing foods. And um then we can start absorbing like a. We're gonna start absorbing nutrition from our foods first of all. So that's where the thriving happens. And then the vitamins. Yeah they're like the cherry on top. They are not the only thing like oh I take all my supplements. I don't understand, I'm not getting pregnant. You know I do the acupuncture, I take my supplements you know I'm going to therapy you know you're doing and you're doing so much great for yourself but to step back and realize like your body is still talking to you that something isn't working and and it's time to connect the dots. Yeah. I think it's really crazy. I mean I I didn't see a positive pregnancy test for almost five years, six years maybe.
Um that's with two failed IVF and so I know the mindset in and out about the vitamins, acupuncture reflexology. You know even like a clean diet like I would felt like I was doing all those things and now on the flip side as a coach as someone who studies functional medicine, it's um and holistic healing and the mind, body connection, Those things are tangible. Yeah, we don't, we feel out of control with infertility and so especially the supplements, we feel like we're doing something and IVF treatment and acupuncture and reflexology but I'm doing these things and it's it's really hard to help women get past that mindset of like okay the food is tangible. We really want you to do the food but what's going to like flip your whole journey is your mindset about yourself, about your food, about your infertility and yourself love yourself worth because a lot of time women don't understand that, that's like all connected because if you don't have enough self love, you're not going to love yourself enough to stick to the diet yourself, sleep through the night to actually make the food choices that best support you to listen to your body of how it's talking to you.
Like if you eat, like I just had a woman, she's coaching with me and she just got the copy of the equality diet. I've already had her on a similar diet, but now she's really in it and she was sending me a food diary and I mean she was eating super clean, but she still had a good amount of grains and she's like, the one thing I forgot to mention to you is like, at the end of every day I look like I'm six months pregnant, I don't feel bloated, but I look and I'm like, that's swelling, that's inflammation, you know? Um but I don't even know that until we started working together, how she really connected the dots and like that's the biggest thing of like actually listening to your body talk to you is a form of self love and then saying like, okay, now I'm going to sit back, I'm gonna try to reflect and see, you know what I mean? Like, oh, this doesn't make me feel that this does okay, so what should how should I propel myself forward, but I think the diet to um I couldn't agree with you more. It has to come from a place of um healing and thriving, not positive pregnancy test, which is so easy to say, you know, and I understand the mindset of the strong desire to have a child, you know?
So it's like, yes, I think that can be part of it, but there has to be, you know, a deeper dive in of like, okay, why am I doing this? Like, I keep saying that with this book of like discovery exploration. Like what can I learn about my body, how can I learn to better support it versus I'm going to do this diet for 100 days and if I'm not pregnant then like that's it, nothing has worked for me, you know? Yeah, exactly. Um Yeah, it's it's a very interesting journey if you let it be, you know, a lot of people there's um when we, I think most of us when we start out during infertility years, it's very why me, it's a victim card, why has this happened? And it makes sense. You feel so left out and so overlooked. It's devastating, devastating as a society we've just taken fertility for granted, you know, and now I really try to emphasize like, look, it's not just about getting pregnant because a lot of, a lot of our listeners, you're dealing with recurring miscarriages or you've had a loss um you know, even not getting pregnant, it's so much more than those two pink lines because the reality is, and as you know, you see those two pink lines, the anxiety, a whole new level of stress maps, right?
I'm like, it doesn't stop there. I always say that shit before two pink lines, I'm telling you, it does not stop there, it gets worse. It's really hard. And I say, look, it's this diet and lifestyle is just not only going to get you pregnant, but it's going to set you set yourself up to handle some really hard times if they happen because we can't guarantee I've had two miscarriages, you've had miscarriages and losses like that shit is hard? It's hard. And it's like, I think even for us, right? Like, I mean, I couldn't have been more prepared to deal with a miscarriage if you will from a professional perspective, but still when it happened, I was like, what the fuck just happened like that? And then just the time it takes to process it. It just is. And so now yeah, anything any any pregnancy after that is just like, yeah, you're, I was a deer in headlights with my son James only because I knew of all the potential pitfalls.
And I remember my mother saying to me one day, when are you going to start being excited about this pregnancy at what point? And I was like, I remember I was like, in my clinic, she helps me in my Nyack clinic and I started to cry and I was just like, mom. Like, I don't even want to share with you that you were so lucky with what you went through your experiences with having two Children and no losses. And it was easy peasy and all those things. I mean she did almost die in delivery with me, so she had that problem, but there's that piece. But I was like, the shit I have seen, like, it's just and when girls asked me like, okay, so like, now I'm in the clear and I'm like, you know, I just want to hold it up for them. I'm like, I'm going to just keep cheering you on. Like I always say to them, I want you to be as naive as you possibly can be and like, I hope it all just goes well, but shit does happen, you know? And it can be scary for me. It wasn't until like I had to do to anatomy scans because of my age. Um and I opted not to do an amnio and it wasn't until that second and anatomies camera. I was like, okay, I think he's prison now. Like he's got a he's got all the things in the right place is alright.
I think I can relax a little bit. But so 20 weeks and I always say that two girls, it's like the 1st 20 weeks, we worry worry worry. And then the 2nd 20 weeks were like, oh shit, I'm gonna have a baby. Yeah, yeah, but all that mental and emotional and physical work you do leading up to that pregnancy, just really let you handle all those pressures just a little bit better. Um and and also I think, you know, finding someone like you or someone like me and then doing that, you know, I don't love the word work, but doing that work, you've done so much development on yourself and self awareness and I think you've created a deeper bond with yourself in a layer of perspective, it's easier to ask for support and ask for help, which I do think is the key to getting through. It is um you know, once, once you are pregnant and there's this whole new level of anxieties and so it's like, okay, but I know myself and I know I'm, you know, I'm doing like, it's almost like I always say to girls like we're gonna go in with a check box that we're gonna check the boxes okay, we have this, we have this and I have my support and the diet and the supplements and my doctors and um but it's it's I think that level of awareness and self respect and self love really does help you mediate the anxiety and the stress when it comes up, or at the very least know how to ask for help when you need it versus falling to the rabbit hole, like dr google and you know the forums.
Exactly have you read the book um Origins The 1st 9 months? Uh Oh I think you'd be really interested in it. Um It's all about like how the nine first nine months of pregnancy affects the fetus and you know how there can't be any clinical studies about stress on pregnancy, right? It's unethical will never happen or even like essential oils or nothing right? Um She went up to Canada after like a major uh free storm and so all these pregnant women were under like you know crazy stress and so she followed all the way up into adulthood and the impacts of the stress of that stressful time. She got to like document. It's really interesting. I think it's like even that that ties into trans generational trauma like it's just so real and that that is like you know I love the tangible stuff like the diet and the supplements and the acupuncture and the herbs and all those things but like I you know the meat is really in that mental emotional opening like it's cracking people open and then healing you know those traumas that our and ours to carry any more deciding to like forgive and let go and um we say that in chinese medicine to like we are so protective of pregnant women.
We say they shouldn't even watch scary movies, they shouldn't be around any kind of negativity like should only be joy and laughter Like watch comedies if you're gonna watch anything. Um And tell hopeful story. So it's like even like how women share like they're horrible birth stories with other women. I'm like why would you do that? I love you but don't share unless they ask you to share. You know? Uh Yeah but it's we're hyper protective of their energy. I mean it's harder in today's world. And then especially dealing with the population we deal with these women have already been through so much and they know they know they know all the stories right. You know? But yeah and I do think to there's there's definitely a connection. You know? And I talk about that in my book body belief. There's definitely a connection between you know what I call mental, you know, inflammation and physical inflammation and how that's impacting things too. So you could have a diet totally in check and you could be a I. P. And still not getting pregnant. And we have to look at stress right? Then we have to look at the stress massively.
Have to look at that HP access. Are you in survival mode every day? Because survival mode is not procreation mode. It's just not you know? And so how to shift people from surviving and that's hard work. Especially for I mean and you know it five years in the journey like you are surviving, you're just surviving. That's all you're really doing. Um And hoping something eventually sticks right versus starting to thrive again. Yeah, I would say like 90% of my clients that come to me, it's literally down to the mental and emotional stress they've had either through childhood or adulthood or infertility. Most of the time it's wrapped into the three and as much as I can do the functional testing, get them on the right diet, get them targeted supplementation. I'm like, you need to go see a train qualified therapist or do emotional freedom tapping or get into these blocks because this is where your infertility is coming from. I literally just had a woman who it was down to stress completely with secondary infertility.
And I just kept saying to her was like, if you don't set out your stress levels, it's gonna be really hard for you to get pregnant. And so she did a lot of hard work and yeah, she got pregnant. I mean, within like um I think that yeah, my courses only six weeks because I have an online course as well that I do with women and Um yeah, she was pregnant two weeks after the course. And I mean, I don't want to be like, my courses, so amazing. It got, you know, but you have to look at all the layers and and that's what I see two, I agree. You know, it's um even we did a post the other day on macros for fertility and oh my gosh, the feedback and the chatter and you could just you could feel like the wounds of women who were like lashing out about how the diet, like, you know, isn't the thing or like, what do I really know? Like, you know, blah, blah, blah. It was like really harsh criticism from some of the women um and it's to me that just speaks volumes of like, their deep, deep wounds that need to be healed and you know, to not obviously, I don't take it personally, but it's really, it's it's um it's devastating to me that so many people go through life without um you know, checking into that piece because it is it is the glue, it is the piece that holds it all together.
And also, like I always say to me, it's not even about the positive pregnancy test, right? It's about me helping my women and their partners step into the best versions of themselves so that we can raise Children in this world, you know what I mean? It's like, it's about becoming the kind of mother this world needs more than it's about just getting pregnant and carrying to term like, I want that shit worked out. So you can be the mom that maybe you didn't get, you know what I mean? And no, you know, I love my mom to pieces. She was really young when she had me and she had a she had a very traumatic childhood and she had a lot of stuff, you know, didn't get worked through, you know what I mean? And I had to say bringing, but like, you know what I mean? There was things that I didn't get taught or nurtured and there's nothing not her fault, it's really not her fault, you know, I'm at peace with that at least. But um think of there's general, like, you know, there's just there's thousands and millions of us out there with similar situations. Well, what I talk about in my course and with my one on one client is that like, but we've been taught that trauma is like sex, sexual abuse or physical or mental abuse or like a bad car accident or like, you know, like seeing someone dies, right?
Like really big and then when you actually start breaking down traumas, anything if it affected you in a mental and emotional way that's called trauma. And um, it's not until someone actually gives you permission. Like I'm the same as you. Like, my parents were, My mom was 21 when she got knocked up. My dad was really young. They definitely did not deal with their bullshit. And so it came on, I had a great upbringing. I never like went hungry, I had lights, my parents were around, you know, all that stuff, but they just, they couldn't mentally and emotionally be there for themselves. So how could they mentally emotionally be their first kid, Right? But I didn't realize that that was actually having a really big impact on me that in my childhood I didn't, I was emotionally neglected in a way that societally at the moment, I think it is shifting. I think we're definitely in this big shift just wouldn't necessarily be like, you know, it's like suck it up.
You know, like it's not that bad. He had a bag. I walk to school in the snow, like who cares what? I feel like I'm walking to school in the snow and I'm not so we weren't as seen, it's like, I couldn't agree more. Um, and I think that's it and there is this level of neglect or just even then, um, you know, feeling like we're too much or like that we're not worthy. Like that's where their worthiness issues really do set in, which I do think is the root of all the limiting beliefs of these worthiness issues and it sets in because, you know, you didn't always get that like eye to eye contact from a parent that was like, you're feeling scared. How can I better support you right now versus don't be scared. Like just whatever. Like I walk to school in the snow, like what's your problem? You're like, oh, so you were tough, you were smart, you are resilient. Like I'm a great performer, like, you know, great grades because everybody, you know, I was just gonna say now that leads into, I'm 100 action is um yeah, infertility.
The large majority of women are type a women and I like you have to step back. Why are you typing? Why do you have to perform every single day and go, go go like judge yourself when you're not performing? Because then that's like the right, you know, like I'm sure you see it too. You get women working a 40 hour work week doing I? Ve on top of that, doing acupuncture on top of that, trying to eat clean. You know, it's just like managing relationship, trying to, you know, a lot of them are like saving their, their partners, you know? Um Oh yeah, 100%. I I see and I can talk about this and like the chinese medicine world because it kind of makes sense to us and I never mean to sound judgmental or over overly general when I say this, but there's a high correlation between autoimmune conditions and perfectionism 100%. And then chinese medicine, it makes perfect sense to us because it's all about the liver and it's like control, control, control the tighter I keep it like even and you can see a woman, she was like perfect eyebrows. You're like, she's a control freak. I love your eyebrows, They're amazing.
But but yeah, chinese medicine to us. It's, it all makes sense. It's like, and I talk about that embody belief where it's like auto immunity is the body attacking itself on a cellular level. Where are you attacking yourself on an emotional level? So we need to curb that attack. We need to meet ourselves with compassion and grace. And it's not an easy process. And I think it's like a minute to minute process most days, you know? So it's it's it's not about and then it's, you know, not about striving for perfection in that, it's about flexibility and humanness, accepting your humanness. Like, I'm human, I'm gonna fuck it up sometimes, but I'm gonna keep showing up as as you know, and I'm gonna learn, right? And I'm gonna hopefully show up as a better version of myself tomorrow than I did today. Yeah, exactly. I always say, you don't have to be perfect to get pregnant like that. Oh my God, you don't have to be healthy to get pregnant, get that out of their head. The crack street on the crackhead on the side of the street has proven that to us. Um It's all about that inward um Yeah, I find uh engine it.
I do think there's an epigenetic thing with that, the crackheads, because it comes up a lot to massively. It's if we're not living in support of our epigenetic, if we don't know how to live in support of her epi genetics and the crackheads typically younger and she can get away with it for longer. But but yeah, she also doesn't care, right? Just know, Yeah, she's totally surrendered, right? That's what I was doing to her. Yeah. I think it um it just comes down to like you say, your genetic, she's not genetically prone to deal with those issues, but she will fall off the cliff eventually, eventually. Yeah. Yeah. God bless her. You were. Yeah, exactly. Um so what's your main mission with this book? What would be your top thing that you would love women to get out of? Simplify? I want to make it easier for you guys. It's so fucking overwhelming. You know, it's like, uh and I hope that I've if you will proven as the recovery, the recovery, um the What is it? The perfectionist and recovery and myself proven myself, you know, 17 years, almost 20 years of clinical experience.
Um, I think I figured it out, you know, and I want to help women identify what is triggering their body and creating inflammation in their body and make it as simple as possible with it still being a very challenging elimination diet. I'm not gonna lie on that part. Like it's the 1st 50 days are a little hard once you can start reintroducing. I think you start to feel a little more free And you can read to do some things like by 30 days. But um Yes, simplification and then support because with the book comes this incredible resources page, which I don't know if you've checked that out yet either, but there's just I just basically curated like the best of my best content and it's on there and then created more content for the reader. So there's meditations and every every uh shopping list and um, you know, hack sheet that we have are all pdf, you can download them. Like we've tried to make it as easy as possible and then also highlight the different areas that support like their videos and information on sperm health.
There's stuff on exercise on mindset, emotional inflammation. So I've, what I didn't put in the book, I basically put on the website and trying to really hold their hand and then just simplify the process as much as I can because I want to take the guesswork out of the diet piece. I just yeah, I see so many women who are really, they really are there, they are doing great and they're doing their best and they weren't getting they're not getting the proper guidance and they're missing their marks. I think mostly especially on vegetables and fat and you know, and like the research is super cool on the macro nutrients, which I know you probably know about it just like what we really need for fertility is is pretty different than other other levels of what we're trying to achieve. And so we really need the fat and we do need some carbs, not too low carb but not too high carb. You know, it's just there's a cool study in their of this one doctor, he shifted the average girl in his clinic was like 60% car, but I think about 10% protein and then maybe the rest fat and he shifted her to 45% fat, 25 or so percent carbs and the west protein and the pregnancy rate's quadrupled girls undergoing idea, that was it, like, and they didn't specify what kind of food, you know, it's kind of kind of interesting.
They just shifted less brains basically, I think is what happened and and more fat, you know, fascinating. Yeah, exactly. Well, um I would say I had to do this all myself. I mean, I obviously had the paleo mom to guide me through um I did get pregnant naturally after eight years of infertility. Um and it was literally down to my diet and lifestyle changes. I reversed my NK cells, I still have to live a certain way because um Because I'm highly intolerant to that stuff, I mean, I'm pretty sure I was infertile at 17, like, I'm just gonna put it out there, like, this is a bit a long ongoing thing for me. But yeah, I'm really excited that people are now talking about this because I've been talking about this for a really long time, but the more people talk about it, the more socially becomes acceptable. Like, oh, she's saying that she's saying that she's saying it's me, they know what they're talking about, Maybe I'll listen. So I agree and I feel like I do, I make a good argument for it in the book to of like, okay, listen, you are doing the diet, but it's still not coming together for you, so something's missing, right?
Um and for some women it is just cutting out gluten and dairy and that's awesome for them. But for a lot of us, it is not just that. And um yeah, so I think, I think the research like to simplify it right? And also I just thought about that like it was like I woke up one day from sleep or something and I remember messaging my team and I was like, let's make 100 days of the diet. I'm going to make a book. I'm actually just going to give him 100 days because I think that's what they need instead of just like this is the template. Like actually like here are 100 days of menus. I mean they are templates, you can move things around however, you know, as long as you're still within the guidelines of each phase, but to make it easier because it's just uh it's not easy to go um Yeah, well I'm super excited for all these women because auto immune, I'm convinced is the next diabetes. I think we're just on the tip. Yeah, no, they say, I think by the age of 41 41 in eight women, but it's also interesting, the stats are very similar, one in eight women and one in eight women, you know, it's like, yeah, I think that kind of actually is the same staff.
Um I think we're dealing with autoimmune infertility challenges across the board and then also, if you just sit and look at the pathologies of each of these diseases and endometriosis is a common cause of Pcos is a common cause. Um, guess what? That's basically. Okay, so everything is an inflammatory and or an autoimmune condition and they all respond well when you treat them like an autoimmune condition, that's kind of what I figured out, you know, and the same thing as like 78 years ago when I was like, oh, okay, wow, this is pretty fascinating. Okay, so let's just, and not everybody likes to be told to take all the foods out that then you take out. But the cool thing is, the cool thing is you got to reintroduce and you see, right, so you get to figure out, you know, like, I can do sour, there are a couple of days a week, like I can't do almonds five days a week, but I can do sour dough a couple days a week, right fascinating to me. Um everybody is so different. So you eventually will get back to it is, and I talk about, it's just your healing stage, your healing right now, so you're your gut, you can't see, but think of like a broken bone, you know, like you wouldn't take it out of the cast for a day just to see how it goes.
Or like if you have a big burn or scrape you, you tend to it, you don't pick at it, you know, you leave it alone and that's what the gut is and you need to heal the gut. And then, well I talk about like watching your normal health issues instead of focusing on pregnancy because you're going to feel like you're failing is you list your top five complaints and exactly those go away first because your fertility is highly likely going to be the last thing to click because your body doesn't need it to survive. So it's going to get everything that it wants to survive and then go, okay now I have extra, I'm like, that's it right now. So I'm going to give it to your ovaries and that's why I did that too in here of like, you know, I encourage the checklist every week and that's your guide close. So that's like, okay, I'm seeing my body change. And yes, fertility unfortunately, usually is the last thing to kick in and sometimes it's six months after everything else is healed. Sometimes it's a year after everything else is healed, but it does typically kick in at any age too.
And I was so bad for these women who are like, well I'm 37, I'm 39, I'm 41, it won't work for me. I'm like 40 four, I have a plethora of women. I just I have women 48, making genetically normal embryos. You know, like that's not, no one talks about that and that's kind of unheard of, but like, not that I encourage just waiting that long, but because I think you're just so mistreated, there's so much like racism around your age that that really does happen. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I was, Yeah, I mean, I was only 35 and 37 when I had my boys and I was still borderline or you're old. I'm like, What? I'm probably healthier than like all the 18 year old who are smoking outside of the like, you know, ultrasound thing. I'm like, don't tell me I'm old. You know, it's kind of terrible. It's kind of terrible. So finding the right people to support you to who aren't going to look at just your age or even your FSH in your image.
Like they don't really mean much. They change all the time. Um It's really about it is it's about getting your body in tip top working condition and feeling your best and then through that is where it should thrive, The baby should come through from there. Yeah, well I'm super excited that you're out there, obviously you've been in this industry for a really long time, but I think the more of us speaking a lot louder. Um and standing up to these doctors and these naysayers who say it can't be done. Um I think we're gonna hopefully shift the whole conversation of infertility too. Um yeah, you can, and maybe, you know, reduce the number of IVF babies, get some more natural pregnancy is going. Um that's, that would be nice because like you say, it's the mission of epigenetic, we want healthier Children. You know, I think it's the gen gen z is the generation who has predicted the first generation not to outlive or live as long as their parents and uh yeah, it's so hopefully we can change that narrative.
Absolutely, yeah, so thank you so much for joining us today. So everyone know where they can contact you. Get in touch with you buy your book. Um so the book is available anywhere. Books are sold, it's called the Egg quality Diet. You can find out more about me on my website amy ralph dot com. And I think instagram is a great place to follow me as well. I'm really active on that channel and we post all the time and I do my fertility hot seats every other week. And um yeah, it's one of my favorite channels. So, you know, you can find me on social anywhere, but instagram is one of my favorites. Nice, Cool, well, thank you so much for taking the time out, You have a lovely day and I'm sure we'll meet again. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you once again for tuning into the Finding fertility podcast. If you're loving this podcast, please leave us a rating and review and let us know how this podcast is supporting you to get steps closer to creating your dream family. I hope you have a beautiful weekend and we will see you next friday for another episode of the Finding fertility podcast.

 

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Anything written or said about health and diet are my opinions, that I have formed over the years, through trial and error, study, reading, listening and observing. What worked for me may not work for you. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or dietician and all medical advice should be gotten from a qualified professional. Product recommendations are based on what I used during my infertility journey or wish I had.

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