Top Reasons Your Holistic Fertility Diet & Lifestyle Isn’t Working Out

podcast Nov 24, 2022

“Once you connect with something that you absolutely love and stay consistent with it, you start seeing the magic with it.”

Topics Discussed:

🦩 Change your mental and emotional habits in your lifestyle.

🦩 Allow your body time to heal between IVF procedures.

🦩 Learn to listen to your body and intuition.

Do you feel your holistic fertility diet isn’t working out even after perfecting it? Sometimes it’s important to look at other things like your emotional and mental health after perfecting your diet to ensure they’re not the issue.

In this episode of the Finding Fertility podcast, I talk about the top reasons why your holistic fertility diet may not be working. I also explain the steps you need to take to get your body to a thriving mode which will lead to a healthy pregnancy and motherhood.

Listen in to learn the importance of getting real with yourself about other health issues that may be the reason why your holistic diet isn’t working. You will also learn the importance of exercising patience and surrendering to the fertility journey to improve your cellular health.

“Your body is healing and it will get out of survival mode if you do the things that it specifically needs to get in the thriving mode and the thriving mode is what we want for a healthy pregnancy.”

Episode Highlights:

[4:24] Why you should start looking at other issues in your life after perfecting your fertility diet.
[10:30] Why the mental and emotional pieces of your fertility journey can take longer to be impactful.
[13:49] Learn to stop jumping from one IVF procedure to the next and give your body time to heal.
[19:36] Figure out what you need to do, give it time to work, and be open to tweaking things.
[23:45] Find the missing holes, see where you can do better, and do the testing to give you direction.

Listen here: Top Reasons Your Holistic Fertility Diet & Lifestyle Isn’t Working Out

Let's Do This Together 💚

Monica

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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.

Full Transcript:

0:01
Hello beautiful and welcome to finding fertility. I'm your host Monica Cox from finding fertility.co And I created this podcast to help get you to start thinking outside of the box and realise 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. Happy Friday, y'all welcome back to another episode of finding fertility. I'm your host, Monica Cox. And I am so grateful that you are here listening to this podcast, and just elevating your consciousness and becoming the mama bear you were born to be. Today we have another clip from our group coaching. I just think this one is like super important for everyone to know. Like everything, like everything I say within the group coaches and stuff needs to be out there, it's just you receive this message message in a different way here on the podcast. So without further ado, let's get started. Um, so today I am going to talk about some of the top reasons why holistic fertility, all the natural ways aren't working for you. Because I think there's a bit of some pitfalls that we fall into thinking that this is going to work, like right away, it's going to happen. And while I am living proof, and I truly obviously believe that these methods not only help you get steps closer to your dream family, but hope in so many different other aspects of your life that you probably don't give a shit about right now, but are truly important for all aspects of motherhood. And motherhood obviously starts the moment you get pregnant, you obviously start thinking a very different way about yourself and what you should be doing. So right now I'm actually in a conversation with someone through email. And I'll probably let her know that we talked about this in the group coaching call today. So maybe she would like to join. But she has tried AIP it greatly improve some aspects of her life. And, but things still just like aren't right. And there's other things that are, you know, still happening that are affecting her fertility. So she's thinking about doing a carnival carnival, Kenny was saying, like a meat diet coordinated this carnival. And while I will never say to someone don't do it. That's pretty extreme. And actually, Dave Asprey, the bulletproof guy, if you guys I'm sure there's some things through the course like leading to him, his better baby book really inspired a lot of things in my journey. I know he's a little bit like OTT sometimes, but you know, that's just what he is. He actually went on an Eskimo diet, and completely fucked himself up. So when you go on, when you are dramatically changing your diet in that way, even when you go from like, let's say you're just normal eating to shifting, like eliminating gluten and dairy and soy, and all like the top inflammatory foods or you move into an autoimmune paleo diet. Your body is like there's this really big readjustment. So a lot of the times it's great because it lowers inflammation. A lot of people feel like amazing when they first start, like these new diets, right? But long term, especially when you're just eating meat

4:52
can be pretty caffeine, like pretty bad for your overall gut microbiome. And as we all know, that just cascades into many other things. So I don't want to say don't do it, but it's definitely not something I would ever recommend someone do on their fertility diet. And when you've done autoimmune paleo, you know how hard this is, this diet is like extremely hard to do, because it limits just so much of what's in the grocery store. But at the same time, if you do it correctly, you realise that there's like an abundance of other like vegetables that you probably haven't brought into your life. I live pretty closely to an autoimmune Paleo Diet still to this day. But I have figured out my intolerances, so it's not as strict. I don't even know where I was going with that. I just lost my train of thought. But oh, when it's not working, okay, when that diet isn't working, right, so you've seen improvements, but you haven't seen your ultimate goal, which is pregnancy is highly likely not your diet anymore. And the diet piece of fertility is the tangible piece, even though it's like hard to do. It's like you feel like you're in control, you're, you know, you're, you're physically doing things, you've you're doing it like surely this has got to work. And the fact of the matter is, is like once you do autoimmune paleo, let's say you've done it for a month, and then you start reintroducing foods and you feel really confident in your diet, then that is the time to release and surrender, and just get into the flow of that clean eating, you know, your food intolerances, you feel confident in that it's time to start looking at other places in your life. Now, this person has specifically mentioned, rest and recovery and sleep. And I know I need to improve that and my stress issues. That's where you need to focus. And that's where the mental and emotional piece come in. Because it's not tangible. It's not as easy as restricting what you put into your house or not walking into McDonald's, right or not walking into that bar. It's your it's in your head, and you are with it every day, and your habits or maybe your lifestyle that you've lived really long time. Or maybe you can't quit your job, that's super stressful. This is the most important place you need to go now. And you need to surrender that control. I see it it's either supplements or diet. People are always like, I'm not doing enough, I'm not I'm doing too much did it and you're going back and forth. And it's like no you that you've done that, you can take that off the list, let's move into some of the harder things that you need to do. And that is the mental and emotional side. And changing up those habits and your lifestyle to either if you can't like say quit your job, and it's super stressful. Okay, what modalities can you bring into your life to manage that stress? Okay, so when it's like a marathon training for a marathon, you find something you connect with emotional freedom, tapping breathwork just going outside, you know, whatever it is like getting a little like stressor ball, you know, whatever it is for you that you connect with, and practising when a stressful event comes up, not staying in that fight or flight mode for long periods of time, you know, an hour, two hours all day, you take it into the night and you're overanalyzing, you're overthinking everything, and I wish I would have done that. And I wish I would have done this. So I'm so taking that, and practising that day in and day out. And that is going to help your endocrine system, it's going to help all your hormones. If you're dealing with autoimmune issues, it's going to help reduce all that inflammation. And these things aren't overnight, right diet can literally be an overnight thing. You could wake up one day and just be super committed and like fuck it, I'm gonna get rid of everything. I'm going to do this. And you can see dramatic results. But the stress and the mental and emotional and the lifestyle, just take a little bit longer to really be impactful and see those big shifts in yourself. Because it's like, I don't know why it's just harder. It's just fucking a lot harder.

9:50
So when you are on this journey, and you feel like it's not working, and you're just really stuck on your diet piece or your sub meant peace or even like your drug regime, regime peace, it's time to get real with yourself and start looking in the other areas that we talked about within the formula and just say, where can I put my focus on those? How can I, you know, reduce all that stress? How can I get better sleep. So that is a big hang up that a lot of people get on. And I know I did, too. Yes, it's vitally important to find those food intolerances. And like, you guys know my story. I went paleo for a year, I still wasn't getting pregnant. And it was the autoimmune paleo diet that helped me find those hidden food stressors. If you've done that already, it's just time to look other places. Also, if you've done the autoimmune paleo diet, and you're still dealing with autoimmune issues, like obviously getting tested and just figure out little bits, definitely will help. But once again, it's just going back to that mental and emotional piece. Some people it could, like really be past traumatic events for them. And they have just physically manifested into these issues. So if you don't deal with those past events, you're always going to have this reoccurring, like underlying health issue that you can't physically tangibly get rid of. Because it's that mental and emotional that has, like stuck with you. So I see a lot of women with thyroid issues that were really suppressed, either vocally, like really pushed down and have a lot of mental and emotional baggage, when it comes to either family issues. I've seen a lot of religious issues. So it's really important just to get real with yourself, and think, okay, where else do I need to go? So that's definitely one of the top things that people get hung up on. The next probably biggest thing so that kind of like cover the diet, the immense learn emotional part two, right, that is a huge missing link for people. And I think it ties in the other thing is, one of two things is time and rushing. Right, I've had several clients just do back to back IUI is back to it, you know, back to back IVF like just go go go this is going to work this is going to happen. And when you're rushing and like just pushing those treatments like over and over and over again. It literally can set you back because not only is your body still in survival mode. It's now like even in worse survival mode because you you know you're messing around with your hormones, you're taking all this medication, it's not having time to detox all this shit. And then the mental and emotional piece of it not working is so impactful to your journey so sometimes people see like their their numbers when they get using you know, testing within these fertility clinics actually get worse and so the doctor is like oh my god, it's getting worse it's like Yeah, no shit is getting worse is because you're not addressing the root cause in the first place. And then you're like tackling on all this medication and all this time spent and all this worry and all this like failed emotional, like, you know, you're not you're not giving your body the the actual support it needs. And you're literally like just punching like, again and again and again. And so when we're rushing into these things, and I know sometimes it's hard not to either with time restriction or you know, insurance. I've seen people just jump into it because their insurance is like Well, we were paying for it now I'm back. It's so fucked up. But um, if you can truly truly wait and like step back, take a deep breath and breathe. That is literally going to save you time and money and heartache

14:39
before going into the next procedures. So just take for me example, I went into my first IVF pretty blind to everything. And it was a super shambles, like crazy crazy shambles. But when they're like okay, there's nothing you can do just do another round of IVF If I would have just gone into another round of IVF, like, it probably would have like turned out worse, because my body had, you know, had like it had a nice time to process all those drugs that they use to make you ovulate and do all the things that I didn't need to do. So I would have wasted a shit tonne of money. And I would have wasted that time when I definitely use my time better. And I didn't know this, like, I can only say this with hindsight. And this is why I'm telling you guys these things. So you don't have to go through this is that when I took my time, and I took a long time in between our IVF for various reasons. But during that time, I was increasing my health. And that's how even though the second IVF failed, I didn't get pregnant, I didn't bring home a baby. But I made better embryos. So the thing that they told me I couldn't do you have low a quality, there's nothing you can do. I did it. And I only did that, because I allowed my body the time to heal lower, dramatically lowering that inflammation. So it's a really important when you have this society of like, go go go and especially when your late 30s, early 40s. And you have these doctors, like you should have had IVF yesterday, like, I really encourage people to be like, Okay, I'm already fucking there. I'm already in this age category that you think is old, six months from now, is not going to drag dramatically reduce my chances, because I now have the knowledge that my body is able to heal. And it's more important about my cellular health than my actual age, you're not going to turn 55 in the next six months, you'll be 42. So really try to disconnect from the bullshit that they're telling you that this is a time game and it needs to be rushed, is like the furthest thing from the truth. Now in saying that, if you are older, excuse me, you are older, it's still incredibly important to take that time heal the body and improve your cellular health. But you might want to use IVF or IUI, too, this is where you can speed up time and collect a lot of eggs at one time, especially through IVF. But it's vitally important that you improve that cellular health before you go into these treatments. And I mean, this is for anyone who has been on their journey for a really long time, I'm not gonna say don't go do IVF if you're just like, I need to, you know, be over the shape, get it over and done with but really take the time to improve that cellular health before.

18:03
Okay, so time. So I think that kind of covers like the time thing to with, maybe not. So when you're doing a holistic, functional approach, it is all about time. It is about surrendering. It's about patience, it's about all the things that we feel in lack of. Because when you surrender, you don't feel like you have control. When you say I'm gonna give it time you already feel time poor when you're dealing with fertility issues. You've already been on this journey for what feels like a fucking eternity. So these are the things that I would say were most fearful of, like, if I give into this Is this me losing all my chances, right? Because I feel like I know, I can relate to the when I was doing around of IVF I kind of felt like I was doing even more to get to my ultimate goal because IVF is tangible, where the reality is, the time that I spent healing in the various different ways that I used was the valuable time that I needed to get pregnant naturally. And remember, I couldn't get pregnant at 27. I couldn't get pregnant with the assistance of IVF at 30. But I got pregnant naturally at 36. So I really want to hone in on the point that my age didn't fucking matter. It was my cellular health. And the only way to improve your cellular health is to give it time is to surrender. Let go of the BS, find ways to do the stress management. You know, clean up your diet, clean up your environment, doing all these physical things. And I know it can feel like completely frustrating because the crackhead on the street God bless her soul doesn't have to do any of this shit and she's popping out babies. Right and we just have I have to remember, this journey is very personal, we cannot compare ourselves to anyone else, because the only thing that does it, it makes it more frustrating. And it makes it feel less achievable. So what you really want to do is to attach to people who maybe have a very similar journey and have the outcome that you want. Or just even attached to I know I like blocked out like a lot of like pregnancies and like, disconnecting myself from that. But the you really want to do the opposite, you want to bring that energy in, and you want to hold that focus and you want to hold that feeling of you can get there. Because the fact of the matter is, is that you are the only one that can make this happen for you. Right? Like I always say you, you have to show up in the ways that are going to work for you. And that's going to be different for everyone. And your genetics play a role in this. But remember, your genetics are the gun, and you're dying your lifestyle, are the bullets that make that gun work. So figuring out what you need to do is super important. And then just give it time and be open to tweaking it as well. Be open to exploring different modalities of stress relief and, and be consistent with I know being type A myself like yoga was fucking shit, I hated it. It was boring, I was in my head too much. But I kept going and I kept like going to different places, I'm like, this one doesn't suit me, I don't vibe with that. And that's where the magic happens is when you feel a connection to something or someone, then you know, you're gonna stick with it, because you just continue, like, you have that feeling like, this is so much more than more important to me right now, then, maybe going out with the girls or, you know, like pleasing my parents or you know, like whatever it is, once you connect with something that you absolutely love and stay consistent with it, you really start seeing the magic happen with that. So the other thing, which is probably the hardest thing is just those little missing links, that you know, it's would be hard. So there's two ways, right? Either you work with a functional fertility health coach, like myself, who can see the holes, I can literally see the holes. If you haven't listened to my discovery call podcast over on the podcast, I highly recommend you go into those and see kind of what I do. And even I know this is the group coaching call, even if you're new and you haven't listened to those podcasts, and I'll link them down below.

22:56
This is so vital for a lot of people to find those missing holes and see where you can better in those areas. The other is the testing. So sometimes I can't see things so or I love Okay, so one one client today, not today, but that I'm working with right now. Um, we talked about gut health issues. She's still having gut health issues, even though she's on the autoimmune paleo diet. So she's talking about it she's talking about she's had a GI test. And I'm like, Have you been tested for SIBO? She's like, No, I'm like, okay, that's our first step. Let's go there. And like, lo and behold, she has some issues there. So getting that testing, to kind of confirm, like, that's the issue and where you need to go. And whether you want to choose to go down a western medicine side or a holistic side, or both can just really propel your journey, and these missing things that are connected to your fertility, but your doctors might not be looking at them. Or even like, I'm not gonna, I'm not bashing anyone, but I am finding a lot of natural paths. No, that they need to look into these things, but are definitely missing the mark when it comes to healing. So I don't know what the disconnect is there. I don't know why they want to look at it, but then don't give like really thorough, like functional assistance to, like get rid of the fucking issues. So if you present with like H Pylori, or you know, real big gut dysbiosis like your practitioner should really, there should be a big regime for at least three months to really help you shift through these things. I'm not talking about like going and bicep rotations every fucking six months and they just want you to give you more and more and more, but there should be was a real big action plan for a certain amount of time to shift through these things. So if you're working with someone who is holistic and looking at these things, but then maybe aren't feeling like you're getting the support you need or they don't think, like the same client has a positive with H. Pylori and I was like, Well, have you done the H. Pylori tea? Have you? They're like, No, it wasn't that big of a case. So they just said, don't worry about it. I'm like, fuck what? No, that could be your big issue. Right? Like it might not be presenting big for someone else. But let's look at all your markers, you're dealing with like gut issues, you're dealing with high inflammation. That small case of h pylori might be the, you know, the tipping, you know, the show that broke the camel's back type thing. So don't let anyone like say, Oh, that's not a big deal. Because that's, like, complete bullshit. It could be your big deal. Right? So that leads me into the following your intuition, I think I'm going to start talking, I know, you guys have heard this before from me, but following your intuition. I don't come from a medical background. I am not an academic. I've accepted that about myself. And I am totally fine with that. Sometimes you come in with this like imposter syndrome, like talking about all these things. I'm a creative, I love photography, I love editing, and I love all that kind of stuff. But and so if I can figure this stuff out, if I can make this stuff, then you can leave this stuff to when the doctors told me that there was nothing I can do about my a quality at 30, something was telling me that was complete bullshit. And it was my intuition. And whether wherever you want to believe where your intuition comes from, it's really about tapping into that source, and learning to listen to it. So above the noise above what your doctor is telling you above what, like anyone, like a health coach, like the guru, like whatever they're saying, if you can tap into your body and really ask your body, is this true for me? Do I need this? Should I do this? Your body will literally tell you. And sometimes it's not the answer that you want. So you don't listen. But I can really reassure you that when you don't listen to your intuition, that's when those life lessons come and you're like, What the fuck? And like, whatever God universe spirit, we're like, well, we try to tell you remember that feeling you had like, remember, and you didn't want to listen? Well, this is the outcome of not listening. And so like for me,

27:48
we specifically went to IVF clinic that was doing the immune testing, because I knew that was something to do with my issue. Even though I wasn't presenting as a normal autoimmune patient. That was my issue. And the doctors talked us out of it. They're like you're not having reoccurring miscarriages, just try another IVF. The, you know, the test is really expensive. And we're like, okay, and I remember sitting in there going like, don't do it, don't do it. Just just get the fucking testing before you do the IVF. And I didn't listen. And my lesson was another failed IVF. And so it's just really important to tap into that source that everyone has in them, and you, it doesn't matter what religion or belief or non belief that you have, you just everyone has it in them. And once you're able to really get in tune with that, then you can just make better decisions for your journey. And it can relate back to all these things I just talked about the missing links, the mental and emotional, the rushing the diet the time. Just really step back into those things. And Trust yourself, trust yourself, your body is always healing. If our bodies were not self healing, mechanisms, machines, whatever, everyone would be dead, especially in this day and age, like we would all be dead from the toxic overload of everything in our lives right now. So your body is healing and your body will get out of survival mode if you do the things that it it specifically needs to get in. And the thriving mode and thriving mode is what we want for a healthy pregnancy. Now remember, remember pregnancy isn't a sign of health. Sick people get pregnant all the time. It doesn't make it right And even though nothing is set in stone, I'm not saying that you have to be perfect to have a healthy baby. But the evidence is out there that your genetics, your epigenetics gets passed on. And it starts from your age and your sperm. So that's why it's so vitally important to increase those qualities, before they meet, then the embryos have a better chance, obviously, your about your body is in a better condition to welcome and grow this baby. And I talked about it as like a seed, right, you have to think of your embryo as a seed, and you don't just go put a seed in a dry, crappy environment and like fingers crossed, it's gonna grow. You know, you want to give it the best environment that you can. And you know, that's your job as a mother, before you become a mother, that is your job. In this day and age, we just live in a very different world than our grandparents lived. And we have to, unfortunately, overthink things. Our ancestors didn't have to deal with the shit that we have to deal with. And I think you'll see, I think you'll see when you start putting all these things into place that and that's why I talk about being conscious, I want conscious mothers, because the things I did before I had my babies allowed me to be a better mother. And that's ultimately, ultimately what we want, right? Like, we want to have a happy and healthy pregnancy. We want to have a joyful labour. We want to have a beautiful postpartum, we want all these things. And the reality is is a lot of us are just kind of did not getting denied these things because of fucking society. So guess that is our group coaching call today. I really, really hope you enjoyed it. And remember, you can send me an email if you can't make the live group coaching so I can answer your questions specifically. And yeah, we'll see you next week.

32:24
Once again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really hope you got some massive wisdom from today's podcast. Remember, the group coaching is accessible through fertility, food and the formula and you actually get access when you do one to one coaching. So there are ways so if you are ready to get the guidance and the support you need, there are many ways that you can do that. So go over to the website, check out the different options, see what feels right for you. And let's start doing this together. Thank you once again for tuning in to 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.