When I was a small boy, my mother was a teacher at the same elementary school I attended. I remember how after school she would plunk me on her bicycle and start toward home. As we rode, we would pass farms where we would stop and buy the ingredients for our evening meal. First we would pick up vegetables from farmers who would pull them up from the muddy field and rinse them off quickly before handing them to us.
Next we would go to the open market where they sold foods straight from the earth and water. What we couldn’t fit in our basket, we slung over our shoulders. We would buy fresh fish that was still jumping, shellfish that was still crawling. And we’d buy fruit: not the perfect, stackable apples you see today in the supermarket all covered with wax, but apples with blemishes that were tasty enough for the birds to fight over.
Today it’s unrealistic to imagine hopping on a bicycle and buying fresh food every day. Even when we do make it to the market and buy fruits and vegetables, we still have to soak them to remove the pesticides. Yes, there is still fresh food. But it’s not like when I was a little boy in Taiwan. Those memories of riding on my mother’s bike and picking up fresh food stay with me even now. It was a perfect world for me.
There’s really no other way around it: food is best in its natural state. In an ideal world, we’d all eat nothing but whole foods that are just as nature made them. But we do not live in an easy world. We run from one activity to another, trying to balance family and work and all the rest of the elements that make up our complicated lives. It’s no wonder we rely on convenience foods and so-called fast foods. What kinds of foods are you really getting when you head down that supermarket aisle? If you are relying heavily on frozen, processed, or canned foods, you might be serving your body foods that not only are lacking in nutrition but are also harmful to your health in the long run. What harms your health harms your fertility. Here are some of the biggest offenders.
Coffee
Coffee is a natural stimulant. The caffeine it contains gives you a lift, helps you stay awake, and increases your concentration level—what could be wrong with that? The answer is plenty if you are trying to get pregnant.
The caffeine in coffee stimulates your nervous system, temporarily increasing your heart rate and raising your blood pressure. There is no problem with moderate occasional use. But if you drink coffee on a daily basis, especially as a substitute for a nutritious breakfast, you can compromise your blood sugar levels and create an energy deficit. When that happens, you run the risk of raising your adrenal gland activities as a way to compensate for this loss. That can spell trouble for your fertility, since chronic overactive adrenal glands, when combined with an overstimulated nervous system, can prohibit the proper function of uterine contractions, the tubal functions of transporting the egg, and finally, implantation itself. In short, it can have a suppressive effect on female hormones.
If you don’t drink coffee, don’t start now. If you drink more than a cup a day, cut back. And if you are over the age of thirty-five and trying to get pregnant, don’t drink coffee at all.
Sugar
If sugar is so bad for you, then why are there so many delicious cookies, pastries, and candies in the world? The answer is simple: they taste good. But sugar also happens to be among the most addictive substances known to humankind. When you eat those cookies (simple sugar) or pastries (refined carbohydrates), your pancreas goes on high alert and starts to produce and release insulin.
Insulin is a hormone secreted by your pancreas that helps stabilize your blood sugar levels by regulating your metabolism. When you indulge yourself with a frequent intake of sweets, your pancreas must work overtime to secrete more insulin to catch up with the added sugar. After a while your body becomes accustomed to the elevated insulin state. When that happens, you become resistant to the effects of a normal amount of insulin. This temporary insulin resistance can decrease proper ovarian function and your fertility potential. Too much sugar can also potentially change the quality of your cervical mucus, making it more acidic and less conducive to retaining and protecting sperm. In men, it can actually reduce sperm motility, making sperm unable to swim well enough to meet the woman’s egg.
Refined sugar and processed sugars like corn syrup and fructose are just plain bad for you, particularly when you are trying to get pregnant. A snack bar, for example, might say “no added sugar” on the label. But read further and you may find the words “sweetened with fructose or fruit concentrate.” Don’t be fooled. White, brown, or in liquid form, sugar is sugar. Avoid it or at least reduce your consumption of it. If you are eating grains, fruits, and vegetables, you are already getting enough sugar in a natural form. You do not need more in a refined form.
Processed Foods
Any foods that contain artificial flavor, artificial color, or artificial preservatives fall in the category of processed foods. Eliminate them from your diet altogether if you can. We know they are not good for your body in the long run; in the short run, they can actually place a chemical burden on it.
Think about what happens when you buy a new pair of shoes. The first time you wear them, they might get a little dusty. After a few more wearings, they start to pick up dirt. If you don’t clean your shoes at that point, the dirt and the dust will continue to pile up. Pretty soon, that dirt will start to affect both the material and the look of the shoes. At some point, the dirt will become like tar that you won’t be able to remove. It’s the same with your body. In health, your body is an efficient machine with the ability to detoxify itself. A small amount of chemicals will probably not create that much of a burden on your body’s organs and systems. But if you continue to accumulate them over a long period of time, these chemicals can potentially become endotoxic. In effect, they can poison your endocrine and other internal systems and decrease your body’s ability to cleanse itself. They can start to interfere with your metabolism and with the conversion of hormones.
So look at your supply of processed, frozen, and prepared foods. Get rid of that box of orange mac-and-cheese, those sodium- and chemical-laden soups, those dinners with artificial f lavoring. Read the labels, and don’t be fooled just because something comes from the health food store. If you see chemicals in the ingredients, be wary.
Alcohol
I’ll be perfectly blunt: no alcohol. Recent scientific studies have suggested that even moderate drinking can decrease fertility potential in both males and females.
Alcohol is hard on the liver. But that’s not the only reason for avoiding it while you are trying to get pregnant. In order to have good fertility, your hormones must work in a balanced fashion. Because the liver has a close relationship with both male and female sex hormones, any burden on the liver can change how it assists in the production of these hormones. Alcohol can affect your ovulation, causing it to become irregular. When consumed by your male partner, alcohol can be directly harmful to the sperm. It can weaken, slow, and damage all of the sperm parameters, including their shape, speed, structure, and liveliness. As if that’s not enough, drinking alcohol puts you and your baby at higher risk for a miscarriage, preterm birth, stillbirth, and other serious conditions.
You might use alcohol to relax your body and mind after a day of hard work. While I think it is a good idea to unwind on a daily basis, there are many better alternatives for achieving this. Taking a hot bath is one—just make sure it’s no more than fifteen minutes at a time. A walk after dinner, drinking noncaffeinated tea, and meditation are also good ways to put yourself at ease.
Monosodium Glutamate
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a unique food enhancer that is added to many of the foods we eat. Contrary to popular thinking, it is not just used in Japanese and Chinese restaurants. It can be found in many nonethnic restaurant dishes as well as in canned soup, potato chips, snack foods, and frozen dinners, just to name a few. While most people tolerate a small amount of MSG well, others can be extremely sensitive to it. Symptoms can include burning, numbness, tingling, flushing, or weakness in the face, neck, upper back, forearms, and chest, as well as rapid heartbeat, headache, nausea, and even difficulty breathing. We do know that infants are more sensitive to MSG because their nervous system is weaker and therefore more prone to overstimulation. Make a practice of reading food labels so that you can reduce your intake of MSG.
Dairy
It’s true that dairy products are high in protein and calcium. But they are also high in fat. When women who are trying to get pregnant need to gain weight and increase their body fat, I recommend that they actually eat more dairy products. It is the quickest way I know to gain the protein and fat that are necessary for reproductive function. But if your weight is normal, or especially, if you are overweight or obese, keep dairy products to a minimum. If you feel you must eat dairy, go for low or non-fat products. Avoid dairy altogether if you have dairy intolerance marked by bloating, gas, or sinus congestion after consuming dairy products. Intestinal disturbance and allergies can and will interrupt proper endocrine function. Improper endocrine function can in turn cause a thickening of your cervical mucus, resulting in decreased sperm transportation, fertilization, and embryo implantation.
Calcium is an essential nutrient that your body needs to have strong bones, heart, muscles, and nerve functions. It’s important for follicular production and general reproductive functions in both men and women. While the best source of calcium is dairy products, there are alternatives such as orange juice or soy milk fortified with calcium, tofu made from calcium sulfate, dark green leafy vegetables, beans, and sardines.
The one dairy product that I absolutely recommend avoiding is butter. It is not a good source of fat. It can wreak havoc on your fertility by clogging up your arteries and decreasing your circulation.
Soda
Soda contains sugar, preservatives, and other synthetic chemicals. Too much soda prohibits you from eating proper nutritive foods that might be good for your health and your fertility potential.
Tap Water
I can hear you now. “No coffee, no sugar, no crunchy snack foods, no wine, no soda... and now, no water?” I am simply asking that you drink filtered or bottled water when you are trying to increase your fertility. Unfiltered tap water can contain chemicals. Scientists have told us that tap water is most likely safe to drink, but not all tap water is the same. While occasional consumption of plain tap water is not a problem in developed countries, filtered water is much better for your health in the long run.
Many women ask me how many glasses of water they should drink per day. Some studies recommend as many as eight glasses. I recommend moderation—no more than five glasses or so a day, since you should ideally be getting liquid from food sources like fruits and soup. If you drink too much water, you run the risk of excessive water syndrome, which could cause vital nutrients and trace minerals to be leached from your system.
Make sure the water you drink is not icy cold. As cold water goes down into your stomach, your body warms it up by using energy and circulation that could be put to better use in your pelvic area, your uterus, and your ovaries.