The Fertility Diet: Foods That Boost Reproductive Health

Foreign. This is open mind. Now, we often hear the phrase, you are what you eat. But many of us don't stop to think about it beyond general wellness. Most of us don't realize that our hormones, even our fertility, which is declining, depends on what we eat. So let's stop and think about it for a moment. Did you know that your diet influenced the expression of your DNA and the functionality of every single one of the trillions of cells in your body? Did you know that food serves as the building blocks for our cells, our tissues and hormones? It's true. Our cell membranes are made from fat. Our hormones are made from cholesterol and amino acids. Now, food and the nutrients that make it up also serve as the raw materials that create new life. So the phrase you are what you eat is more important than we originally thought, especially when it comes to our fertility and to our reproductive health. Now, the data fully support the link between bad diets and infertility and healthy diets and improved fertility. We know this and we have the research to back it up. And couples who follow an anti inflammatory whole whole foods diet have significantly better fertility outcomes than those who follow the standard American diet. And it makes sense. Do we want our reproductive function to be regulated by Oreos and ice cream or wild caught salmon and blueberries? Yet conventional medicine fails to recognize this, turning to expensive IVF therapies before basic nutrition and lifestyle interventions. Now, sometimes fertility treatments are necessary. But the results I've seen from doubling down on diet and nutrition and addressing the root causes of infertility has yielded incredible results for my patients. Many, many of them have gotten pregnant when they were told they could not. This episode is going to provide valuable insights into the power of nutrition infertility and will give you specific steps for nurturing reproductive organs through food. Hi, I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and welcome to Health Hack. Now, key nutrients and their roles in reproductive health are important to understand. First, let's discuss the key nutrients that you need to support fertility and their role in conception and how to optimize your levels by prioritizing certain foods as staples in your diet. And men, you got to listen up too. These nutrients aren't just for women to focus on. They're just as important for men to incorporate into their diet as well. And one of the most important nutrients for I optimal fertility and having a healthy baby and to prevent miscarriages is something called folate or folic acid. Folate is essential for DNA expression, for DNA repair, and for something called methylation, which is crucial for regulating which genes are expressed and for regulating cell division and many, many other things. And this involves many things that have to do with fertility, such as the growth and development of cells, which is key for the neurodevelopment of the baby and the creation of, of new life. And I'll just tell you a quick story here. I was in China. I lived there for a year, and guess it was the 1990s. And I went to a lecture by this guy who was studying the women in Harbin, China, which is north of Beijing. It's really cold in the winter. It's kind of a desert. It's on the top of the Kobe desert. And he said they discovered that the women in that area would have a lot of birth defects and a lot of miscarriages and a lot of fertility issues. He, he noticed that, that, that that area was very devoid of any plant foods during the winter. It was just cold in winter. And they didn't eat a lot of vegetables. They didn't have like shipping and whole foods around the corner. So they basically had to eat whatever was around. And it wasn't a lot of green stuff, which is where the folate comes from. Folate comes from the word foliage. And in that study of, of these women in Harbin, he found that they usually got married in February, which is the Chinese New Year. And of course, if you get pregnant in the middle of winter, you're not getting a lot of vegetables. And so it turned out that these women had high rates of neural tube defects of spina bifida, birth defects, miscarriages. And it was related to the problem with low folate in the diet. And that's how this was originally discovered. That's why all women, of course, take prenatal vitamins when they get pregnant, which contains folate, which is good. We can talk about why that's important. Just quickly, I was involved in a movie called Fed Up. The director of that movie had multiple miscarriages and birth defects to babies that came out with no brain. It was just horrible. She could never get pregnant. She read my article on methylation and folate on my blog and went to her doctor and says, I think I need to test for this gene that affects folate metabolism. And indeed, she had this gene that makes you require a certain type of folate called methylfolate and eventually took that supplement and ended up having this beautiful baby that we, we when I actually got to meet at the premiere of the movie. So it's a great story and it just shows you the power of These nutrients to affect and regulate fertility and the development of the fetus. So if you're deficient in folate, for example, it, like I mentioned, it can lead to neural tube defects, to hormonal imbalances. It can increase something called homocysteine, which also affects infertility. Men also, it's important guys, it's for sperm production, for sperm quality and motility. If you want good swimming, fast swimming sperm, you gotta have enough folate. Now low levels also decrease the success of fertilization, so you're less likely to fertilize an egg. Now what can you eat? Well, folate rich foods, beef, liver. Yum, I like it actually. Spinach, kale, arugula, black eyed peas, asparagus, brussels sprouts, avocado, broccoli, mustard greens, eggs, beets, citrus food, walnuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. You can eat your way to fertility here. But often you might need a supplement with something called methylfolate, which we'll talk about in a bit. Now, omega 3 fats are also a key part of your health and they're an essential fatty acid. They're a key part of your cell membranes throughout your body. So they're your membrane that surround your cells. Basically the baggie that holds the cell contents in in part are made up of these omega 3 fats which you can only get from your diet. This includes your reproductive organs and cells. And, and it helps also when you have enough of the Omega 3s, it helps your cellular response to sex hormones, so your body responds better. These hormones in the receptors, including estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. So and you need to have good cell membrane function to be fertile and many of us don't. There also are great anti inflammatory properties of omega 3s which creates a healthy environment for conception. Omega 3s can increase blood flow to reproductive organs. And for men, by the way, there's a lot of benefits, including better erections. It's great for sperm production. It positively affects sperm quality. Sperm count, sperm motility mean they swim, better semen volume and testosterone levels. So all around, omega 3 fats are great. So not bad for a can of sardines or a little fish oil. Women actually it helps with the uterine lining and good blood flow, which helps you to have a good thick endometrium or uterine lining for implantation of the fertilized embryo. Now, Omega 3 retrieves are great. You can get those for example, to have high levels of EPA and DHA from small fatty fish that are low in mercury. I call it the smash fish, salmon, mackerel, anchovies, soy's, sardines and herring. Also you can get it from plants like ala, walnuts, chia seeds and flaxseeds. Although it's not converted well to EPA and dha. So you need to take the preformed. If you're a vegan you can take preformed DHA from algae which is great source but it does give you the full epa. Vitamin D also really important for fertility. It influences the production of estrogen and progesterone in women which is really important for maintaining your regular menstrual cycle. There are vitamin D receptors on most reproductive organs including the ovaries, the uterus, the testes in your brain as well the hypothalamus and pituitary which is really critical for ovarian function, follicle development, sperm quality, testosterone levels in men all around really important. So vitamin D is key. Vitamin D is also anti inflammatory, it regulates your immune system and a lot of people have deficiencies which is common. And deficiencies have been associated with polycystic ovarian syndrome which is a common cause of infertility in women and erectile dysfunction in men. So just a little vitamin D can be helpful there guys, vitamin D rich foods, what can you eat? Well, fatty fish like herring, mackerel, the small fish, mushrooms, particularly porcini mushrooms are the highest source. Eggs have a little bit cheese. But the truth is you really can't get enough unless you're eating large amounts of these. And you're also getting a lot of sun exposure. Now sun exposure is a great way to get vitamin d about between 10am and 3pm if you're below Atlanta, you have to be 10 to 12, 20 to 30 minutes on your whole body. You can put sunscreen on your face and that'll give you enough vitamin D, but you have to do it every day. And if you live north of Atlanta and the latitude there, you're going to need to take vitamin D supplementation and you know, so just be smart about it and don't, don't avoid this. This is one of the most important supplements you can take now, vitamin D supplementation in infertile women, and this is a study significantly increased the pregnancy rate and the pregnancy outcomes. So if you're, if you're low and you're infertile, it's an easy fix. So get your levels tested. Really important to test. About 70 to 80% of people have vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency. Now up to 70% of the people in this country have vitamin D deficiency by general accepted laboratory reference ranges of less than 30 nanograms per milliliter, but more deficient when you look at the optimal range, which would be more like 40, 60. So it's pretty significant. Everyone responds differently to vitamin D supplementation, and it's important to get your levels tested and then retested if you're supplementing to make sure you're, you're getting the right dose. Because, you know, sometimes, you know, people need a thousand units and that'll get their vitamin D level great. Assemble, you know, 5,000 units. So you have to check and test. And that's why I'm a huge fan of testing and lab testing through companies like the one I co founded, Function Health, and puts the power in people's hands by testing specific nutrient levels that are often disregarded in conventional medicine. In fact, 67% of the people we've tested in our 50, 50,000 members are deficient in one or more nutrient at the lab level of reference ranges, which is like vitamin D, less than 30 or so forth. So that's not good. And you can also get them retested. So you supplement, you recheck, you can do whatever you want. And you can see what you're doing is working. You can go to functionhealth.commark to get your labs. It's pretty easy. You'll jump the waitlist that way with that code. There's 200,000 people on the waitlist now. The power that way is really in your hands. And then you can, you know, design your plan that's personalized, not just to correct a deficiency, but for your whole body optimization, which is really important for reproductive health. So we look at a lot of things that have to do with reproduction, like your omega 3 levels, your methylation status, folate indirectly through homocysteine, vitamin D. So you're getting a lot of the things that you need to know to optimize your fertility. Also magnesium. We're looking at red cell magnesium on those tests as well. And magnesium is important because it's involved in over 600 different enzymatic reactions in the body that play a key role in fertility, including DNA regulation and repair. It's important for healthy egg and sperm development. It reduces inflammation, it regulates hormone production, it helps balance estrogen and progesterone, and it improves insulin sensitivity, which is the root cause of so much infertility, especially through PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And this problem affects 8 to 13% of reproductive age women. So it's really common and is a common cause of infertility. In fact, Walter Willett from Harvard wrote a book called the Fertility Diet where he talks about the role of insulin resistance in infertility. And I've seen this very many times. And you correct the insulin resistance and you correct fertility. Now 70% of women who have this problem are not diagnosed. And it's the leading cause of infertility out there. Magnesium will lower cortisol due to its stress reducing properties. And it's kind of the relaxation mineral. And stress has a big impact on hormones and menstrual cycles. Think about, if you're under stress, you don't want to be getting pregnant, right? Because you're in a danger zone. So if your body's not doesn't know you're just stressed from, you know, living in a tough environment or poverty or from fighting with your husband or wife. You know, it's just, it's, it's a uniform reaction and that has a universal effect on the body to actually impair fertility. Even in men too, magnesium rich foods are really important. So you can eat those foods that have a lot of magnesium, like almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, avocados, certain fish, dark chocolate. That's my favorite. And so magnesium is key, but you also may need to take magnesium as well. Most of us do, I think most of us are deficient or insufficient. And it's great for sleep and many other things. What else in terms of nutrition? Iron also another thing we test on the function lab panel as well as magnesium and folate and vitamin D and omega 3s. All the things we were talking about, which by the way, are not checked on your regular lab panels with your doctor. Even if you go in for a pregnancy evaluation or pre pregnancy counseling, they generally won't check those. Now iron is important because it helps reduce hemoglobin, which is the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body. Now why is this important? Well, it's key for reproductive health, for immune system function, for producing energy, which is really important for the energy manning process of ovulation. And if you're menstruating woman, you're more prone to iron deficiency because, and even anemia because you're getting blood loss during your period. If you have heavy bleeding, it can be worse and so forth. And when you have low iron that impairs ovulation and fertility. Now get this, 35% of women less than 50 years old are iron deficient. This is from Lancet. That's a lot of people A third of women are iron deficient. It's less of a problem in men because they don't bleed. And there's a lot of iron rich foods out there, but nutrient dense animal protein now, now animal protein covers a lot of the nutrient bases, not just iron. It's got a lot of nutrients for fertility, including zinc, selenium, B vitamins, B12. We're going to cover their role in fertility next. So high quality, clean protein, usually between 07 to 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight. And just to be clear, you know, like 30 grams of protein is about 4 ounces. So if you're thinking about, you know, how many grams of weight you are, let's say you're 100 pounds or 120 pounds. You know, 30 grams would be 4 ounces. You need that, you know, three times a day, four times a day to get enough, um, and you can get from grass fed beef, lamb, venison, low mercury, wild caught, sustainable fish like we talked about, the smash fish. And that also is rich in a lot of nutrients, right? The fish has got omega 3s, vitamin D, selenium. Clams and oysters are great. They have B12 and zinc. Pasture raised omega 3 enriched eggs are great source as well. Egg yolks have B12, B6, folate, omega 3s, poultry and pork have thiamine and zinc. So animal foods are a great high quality protein. It's great and it's full of other nutrients that also support fertility. Now while we're on the topic of high quality protein, I wanna mention why it's important to focus on optimizing your protein intake first. See, adding more protein will help you optimize your diet quality and nutrient density. It also makes you feel full. It promotes what we call satiety, making it harder to overeat sugar and sweets. When you look at, for example, vegans who eat low levels of animal protein, they tend to crave more carbs and sugar and sweets. And that's a problem. So start by eating about 30 grams of animal protein every meal. About 4 to 6 ounces of protein, palm size portion. Basically whatever size you are, it's the size of your prom. If you're Shaquille o', Neal, it's one thing. If you're, you know, Richie Shoemaker and, oh, what's the guy's name? Willie Shoemaker was his little tiny jockey was famous back in the day. You might need a lot less, right? So work up to eating your body weight in grams of protein per day for 140 pounds it's about 140 grams of protein, about 40, 50 grams per meal. Vegetarians and vegans have to increase their volume of protein rich whole plant foods in the form of non GMO tofu, tempeh, beans and legumes. But things like lentils, peas are great. Some people can't tolerate the beans, but they can be adapted to over time. But the problem is you can't get enough. You need 2 cups of beans to be equal 4 ounces of chicken. So it's just nobody's gonna eat that much beans, a lot of beans. But you can use high quality protein powders, sprouted peas, pumpkin seeds. You can supplement with branch chain amino acids. You need to get the right amino acids in the right amount to actually help with protein quality. Don't rely on vegan meat substitutes for protein. They're not meat, they're fake meat. And they're ultra processed science projects. They're inflammatory, there's no nutritional benefit except what they sort of quote fortify the foods with. I, I wonder why they have to fortify foods, right? Because they're so impoverished in the first place. Now here's something that's important to note. Iron absorption is lower in plant foods. So you got non heme iron, so you don't get as much iron. There's antinutrients like phytates which found in grains and beans and some seeds and nuts and that can inhibit absorption. Although you can overcome that. Vitamin C can enhance iron absorption, which is great. So you want to pair that with iron rich plants like beans and spinach with tomatoes, citrus fruits. Fiber is also going to help promote you feeling full and making refined carbs and sugar over to eat. So that's good. If you struggle to know the first steps to optimize your diet for fertility, adding more protein and non starchy veggies to your plate is a simple way to do it. It should be 75% of your plate. But non starchy veggies, these are also a great source of magnesium and folate. Now B12 is also important for sex hormone production. It's really important for ovulation, for regular menstrual cycles, for testosterone production in males. It's essential for sperm and egg quality, for cell division and even early fetal development. Now deficiency in B12 can ca lot of problems, right? It can cause problems with implantation of the egg into the uterus, with the development of the fetus. It can drive other problems like low sex drive. It can cause high homocysteine levels which also are associated with Reproductive issues. And you can get B12 from food like animal protein, which is the only bioavailable source vegetarians, amigas, must supplement. There's no way around it. You can take methylcobalamin, but you cannot get it from plant foods. There are some people you say you can get from different plants, but you just may not be getting a reliable amount. So I, I think you've got to be very careful with that. Selenium is, is also important. Uh, that's an essential micronutrient that helps fight inflammation. It powers our body's antioxidant defense systems. It helps glutathione peroxidase, which is a selenium dependent enzyme important for making glutathione, which helps to reduce toxins in your body, including heavy metals. Uh, it's also involved in hormone production. Right. Your thyroid hormone depends on selenium to convert T3 to T4. It also influences your brain and your hypothalamus and supports the release of gonadotropin releasing hormone that also then stimulates the follicle stimulating hormone. So basically the hypothalamus telling the pituitary, telling the ovaries to make hormones. Right. And that controls the whole LH FSH cycle and that leads to the regulation of, and the growth and the maturation of ovarian follicles, your menstrual cycle and ovulation. So the whole hypothalamic pituitary, ovarian axis, we call it, is critical to be functioning well and it requires the right nutrients. You know, when you look at selenium, it's involved in helping to regulate those pathways. It also influences testosterone production and gene expression. So really important nutrient. Now what can you get selenium from? Meat, seafood, Brazil nuts, about, you know, four Brazil nuts a day usually cover your, cover your selenium needs. So that's great. So that's, that's selenium. What about other nutrients? Well, zinc is involved in sex hormone function and regulation, including gene expression, sperm and egg quality, DNA regulation, and genetic integrity of the little tiny gametes, which is your embryo. It also has antioxidant properties. It helps protect the reproductive system from oxidative stress, and it's involved in cell division and immune function. So where do you get your zinc? Well, meat, seafood, pumpkin seeds are great, oysters. Now what else can help your fertility? Well, antioxidants can help because they reduce inflammation, they protect the integrity of the sperm and egg, and they support the microbiome, particularly the polyphenols in Food. So what should you be taking? Well, vitamin A is important. Although you don't want to OD on vitamin A. You can get carotenoids which are the precursors to vitamin A, like the beta carotenes, but there's a whole suite of carotenoids. Vitamin e is important, CoQ10, all helpful in managing oxidative stress. Now what else do you need to know about to maintain and optimize fertility? Well, gut health. Your gut microbiome plays a huge role in hormone regulation and fertility. Now researchers are discovering there's a lot of roles for gut microbes and optimal gut health and how it contributes to obesity, to pcos, to hormone imbalances and lots more. So it's important to tend your inner garden and I always talk about that. But it's really important to learn how to take care of your inner garden. And you need gut supporting foods. Things like fermented foods that are have probiotics in them. There are other things that are great in there like fiber and great probiotics. Prebiotic foods are important like fruits and veggies. And you get 8 to 12 servings of non starchy fruits and veggies. Certain gluten free whole grains can be helpful. Cruciferous vegetables also really important for the gut health because certain vegetables like broccoli, collards, kale, brussels sprouts, collard greens, they help to regulate excess estrogen in the body. They help with estrogen dominance, which is something that is happens commonly as women enter their later reproductive life where they get higher estrogen than progesterone, either relative or absolute. And that can help lower beta glucuronidase, which is a really important compound that's produced by certain bacteria in your gut that can actually lead to higher estrogen levels and more problems with cancer and fertility. So there's a lot of really important things to to kind of consider. Also there's another class of foods that are great for your gut, which is the garlic family. Garlic, onions, leeks, shallots, they're anti inflammatory. Certain gluten free whole grains can add fiber like amaranth, teff, buckwheat. I like Himalayan teri buckwheat. I like my Himalayan tari buckwheat. Sprouted powder, which is great. I put it in my smoothie. Wild rice is great, although it's technically not a grain. Black rice, quinoa, all they're fine. Fermented probiotic rich foods are great. Sauerkraut, goat or sheep, yogurt, kefir, kimchi, natto Tempo, tempeh, miso, all these are great for helping your gut health. So you really need to learn how to take care of your inner garden. And you might even need to take probiotic supplements. Now, if you have a messed up gut, it's important to work with somebody on this. If you have leaky gut or irritable bowel, you want to work with a good functional medicine practitioner to fix it. And you need to learn how to do that with the 5R program, which is avoiding the. Minimizing the foods that create problems using pre and probiotics and gut repair tools. All right, so once you've dialed in your nutrition and you're focusing on eating specific foods to support your hormones, your reproductive health, your sperm and egg health, it's really important to clean up your diet, not just add the good stuff, but take out the bad stuff and reduce your intake of more problematic foods that cause insulin resistance, oxidative stress, and inflammation, which definitely reduce fertility and cause impaired fertility. And what are those foods? No surprise if you're listening to me, right? Ultra processed foods. Basically, foods that contain ingredients that you wouldn't have in your kitchen and that are made in factories and are deconstructed science projects. You do not want to eat those. Even though they may look like food, they're not actually food by definition. Refined grains, refined flours, added sugars, all bad. Now, potato chips, crackers, pretzels, candy, microwave popcorn, muffins, donuts, sandwich bread, I mean, it's not even really bread. Cookies, flavored yogurts, puddings, jello cereal, granola bars, ice cream sandwich. I mean, listen, if you're making this stuff, if you make it at home, fine. But if you're, if you're making, you know, breakfast cereal from like, nuts and seeds and toasted your own granola and homemade with coconut flakes, that's fine. But don't eat that garbage. You get a box. Also, don't eat ready to eat meals. Instant noodles, soups, frozen pizzas, dinners, TV dinners, canned ravioli, pasta, soups. I mean, all just garbage, right? Convenience foods, also not great. Take out fast food restaurant foods, unless it's a good restaurant. Be very careful. These foods, why are they bad? Well, they contribute to the epidemic of metabolic dysfunction, which affects 93% of the population and is somewhere on the trajectory of insulin resistance. They lead to oxidative stress, they reduce the chances of fertility, they increase pcos, they cause sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction, and poor blood flow. Yep, that's true. Guys, that's what happens when you drunk and, and it contains a lot of forever chemicals. These endocrine, endocrine recepting chemicals that you don't want to be having in your body, like BPA and others. You want to get rid of all those. Those are very much significant endocrine disruptors. We call this whole class of chemicals endocrine disruptors because they disrupt your hormone system. They also contain a lot of bad stuff. Chemical additives, artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, thickeners that all contribute to inflammation through damaging the gut lining, leading to a leaky gut. They also often contain low quality fats like trans fats, and inflammatory oils like soybean oils, sunflower, canola, vegetable seed oils, GMO corn, soy, all that crap. Sugar sweetened beverages, definitely a no no, because that'll drive in some resistance, including sodas, diet soda, although artificial sweeteners work in a different way. Fruit juice, green juices, unless they're truly green juices, because a lot of them are just jacked with pineapple juice and sugary fruit stuff, which is just as bad. Of course, there may be more antioxidants and other good stuff in there, but it's a lot of bad stuff. Obviously don't have soft drinks, lemonade, iced teas that are sweetened. Alcohol, sports drinks, meal replacement drinks, protein drinks like Boost, Fairlife, Core Protein, Power, Slim, Fast are all garbage. There are good plant proteins out there, there are good animal protein products out there. But just be careful and also be careful. The plant milks, they can be flavored, sweetened, they can have emulsifiers, thickeners, they can be some good ones, but make sure they're just simple ingredients like almonds, water, salt, for example. Energy drinks definitely do not have those. Those are full of colors, dyes, artificial sweeteners, flavored coffees. I mean, you go to Starbucks, you're getting tons of sugar, probably as much sugar as of coke or sometimes more, depending on what you're getting. Fruit juices, creamers that are weird, creamers, just stay away from all that. Also, you want to stay away from conventional dairy. Dairy is a hugely hormonally disruptive food, unless you're eating sheep or goat cheese, which is less. Most conventional dairy is antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, a lot of hormone disrupting compounds in them. And it's one of the things for women who have menstrual issues or hormonal issues, I very strongly recommend they avoid. Caffeine can be fine, but be careful of too much, you can wear out your adrenal glands. Alcohol definitely not a good thing for Fertility, it affects your obviously liver and your ability to regulate hormones through your liver can cause dysregulation of estrogen, testosterone, many other hormones. Foreign. Consumption in men can lead to lower testosterone levels and higher estrogen levels, which can cause all sorts of issues like lower libido, fertility issues. You can increase breast size in men, it can cause loss of hair in the body. It's just not a good thing. So what are the practical dietary adjustments for enhancing fertility? Let's go through them a little bit one by one here. What are the practical tips for creating a diet that's incorporating fertility boosting foods into your everyday meals? First, balance your blood sugar, which is super important to reducing your cravings for ultra processed food, for refined carbs, for sugar, sweets, all of which disrupt hormonal function and drive insulin resistance and infertility. Just bad news. Don't do that. Build your meals around protein and veggies and fiber, which makes you feel full and less likely to overeat. Try food stacking. Start the day with protein and fat for breakfast. You can have a savory breakfast. You're gonna have a protein shake, that's really fine to do. I mean, I, I, I, I don't know why we've sort of in America gotten to a place where we think sugar for breakfast is a good idea, but it's the worst possible thing that's ever happened to us and we need to be focusing on protein and fat. Breakfast. Definitely avoid sugar and carbs for breakfast. That's cereals, muffins, bagels, all that junk we eat. Um, if you're gonna eat carbs, make sure you combine them with protein and fat and fiber, which blunts the spike in blood sugar. Eat your veggies, fat and protein before your carbs. So if you wanna have some grains or something with a meal, you know, get a little bit of fat and protein and veggies in there first cuz it sort of blunts the absorption and that helps lower the glycemic response. So what can you have for breakfast? What does that mean? Well, eggs are great, they're rich in vitamin D, B12 and protein. They're great for hormone balance. You can have an omelet with spinach, tomatoes, added folate, vitamin C. You can have poached or hard boiled eggs. I like, for example shishuka, which I buy the kind of jarred version and I put the eggs in there and put in the oven and cooked in like 10, 15 minutes. Pretty quick. Don't eat those quick cooking oats. Get rid of those, if you're going to eat oats, only have steel cut oats. But you want to add protein and fat. So flax seeds, chia seeds, almonds, nuts. You can also put in some butter in there, grass fed butter or some other kind of oil like flax oil. You want to get protein, fat and fiber in there. Chia seed pudding is a great breakfast. Coconut yogurt. Berry smoothie with protein powder. I like that one. It's my favorite. What about snacks? Well, I don't really snack that much, but if you're hungry, nuts and seeds are great. Handful of almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds are great. Snacks that have zinc, selenium, lots of good fats. Meat sticks are great. I like the Maui Nui Paleo Valley, they're great. Raw veggies and homemade hummus is an option. Low glycemic fruit is fine. Berries, apples, cherries, citrus fruits. What about lunch and dinner? Well, salads are great. They're, you know, you can put a base of leafy greens like arugula or just dark leafy greens. Mixed, mixed greens. You can use spinach or kale to increase folate intake. You can add avocado for healthy fats. Sprinkle some sunflower seeds for vitamin E. And I, I basically use olive oil. So you get a fat salad with nuts and protein and fat. And you can even add a can of sardines or salmon on there. It's also great. You can include fatty fish like salmon and mackerel. I get some of the canned salmon or mackerel. I love that with my salad. That helps boost your omega 3s. It helps sperm quality and your reproductive health. Beans can be helpful. Legumes, lentils, chickpeas, you can put them in soup, salads side dish helps with fiber, protein, iron, folate. Make sure you get your healthy fats. Use oils that are rich in omega 3s, like flaxseed or walnut oil for dressings or olive oil. Obviously my favorite olive oil is not great for cooking unless you're doing it at low temperatures. But you can use avocado oil for temperature cooking. Also make sure you stay hydrated. Dehydration is something very common and it's important to avoid, so you want to make sure you stay hydrated. You can use herbal teas if you want some flavor like raspberry or nettle are things that are helpful for female reproductive health. Now if you're having desserts or treats, fine, but choose something that's kind of good for you, like dark chocolate, like 70% cocoa is a treat, has lots of antioxidants, improves mood, doesn't give you too much sugar and it helps benefit your hormones. Melt dark chocolate and coat blueberries, raspberries or almonds. You can freeze them to make a healthy dessert. Or you, you can sign up for my recipe newsletter, Mark's Kitchen, which I always have healthy recipes and desserts like Fudgy almond butter brownies, Chocolate olive oil mousse with candied walnuts. Yum yum, yum. Now what about meal prep? This important? You know what, what did someone say? I think I forgot who said Henry Ford's. If you, if you plan, fail to plan, you plan to fail. And I think this is true for food almost exclusively. If you don't have a strategy for shopping and having the foods in your kitchen that you can then cook easily and simply to make a delicious meal, you're not going to be in good shape. For example, this weekend we went to the farmer's market. I got some salmon that they brought in from the coast, I got sugar snap peas, I bought some nice chanterelle mushrooms very quickly, made a very simple meal and it was all there in the kitchen. And when you have the meal prep and you make sure you have what's in your kitchen available to cook the right foods, you're going to do better. You know, when you have the healthy fertility boosting options readily available in your kitchen, it's going to help you not eat crap and opt for less healthy choices. Now what about supplements now do we need them? Are they important? Can we get away without them? Well, even if we eat completely perfectly, like all organic whole foods, no ultra processed foods, the declining nutritional quality of our foods, the stressors of modern life and our toxic environment increase all the demands on us nutritionally and makes it a lot harder to get what we need from food alone. For women, it's important to supplement to fill nutrient caps. For for example, a prenatal vitamin is important even before you get pregnant. If you're just preparing to get pregnant, which there's a lot of them out there, like Thorin's Great has a great product of prenatal vitamin. It's got methylated B vitamins, folate, 5 methylfolate, not folic acid, which is the crappy form that's not well utilized by the body. Found in most prenatal vitamins. 40%, 35 to 40% of the population has a mutation in a gene called MTHFR that affects your ability to utilize this synthetic folic acid which is found in prenatal supplements. So you don't. You're not even getting the benefit. You want to take the pre formed methylfolate. It also contains methylcobalamin or B12, the right form. Omega 3s are really important. At least a thousand 2000 milligrams of EPA and DHA every day. It's great product. I like the Omega 3 rejuvenate from big Bolt Health Probiotics also really important. There's lots of probiotics out there. Seed is a great product. Pure encapsulations makes them. Metagenics makes them. I make sure I have high quality products. Vitamin D also really important. Probably two to 4,000, 5,000 a day. Inosterol also important. It's kind of a B vitamin that's important for fertility and relaxation and many things. Also DIY methane, which is basically sounds like a chemical, but it's actually a broccoli compound and it helps support estrogen metabolism. It helps your body regulate estrogen. That can cause infertility. Excess estrogen, that is for men. You also want to take stuff, not just a woman. It helps fertility for men too. So you guys aren't out of the picture. So a multivitamin, mineral, vitamin D, omega 3s, good levels of multi folate, B12, zinc, might also consider CoQ10, carnitine, all of which help support sperm quality and motility and maturation. So really important to get your food the right foods, not eat the wrong foods to take the right supplements and to optimize your metabolism to actually help you achieve a healthy pregnancy. Really important. So we have a lot more control over our hormones and our regulation of our reproductive life than we think. It's important for you to take control of that. And that's really why I did this podcast today. I hope you found it helpful. Now, whether you're just getting started on your health journey, whether you're actively trying to have a baby or one day want to have one in the future, by understanding how different foods and nutrients affect your hormonal balance and reproductive health, you can make better choices that support your reproductive health and fertility. Thanks for joining me today on Health Hacks. We'll see you next week for another exciting episode. 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