A healthy diet has many goals beyond weight loss. Here, we offer you a diet that helps boost fertility. We'll go over it in detail including its pros and cons. Fitness Garage always believes most health problems can be helped with the right healthy eating plan.
This plan helps increase your chances of getting pregnant by upping dairy products and plant protein, and changing some habits in your eating routine and workout plan. These changes greatly boost your body's fertility. It might not guarantee pregnancy, but it improves your odds.
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What you can eat on this plan
First, there are 10 changes in your diet and exercise routine you need to stick to, and avoid certain foods scientists say may block pregnancy such as:
- Avoid trans fats:
Industrial and trans fats harm women's health a lot. You should also avoid natural trans fats like natural ghee and all fried foods.
- Use unsaturated vegetable oils:
Like olive oil and canola oil.
- Eat more plant protein:
Like raw nuts, legumes, and try to cut down on animal protein.
- Choose whole grains:
You should pick whole grains or foods that have less effect on blood insulin and avoid refined carbs that raise blood sugar easily.
- Consume full-fat milk:
You should have dairy products daily like yogurt, cottage cheese, or a glass of full-fat milk, or frozen yogurt with fruit.
- Take folic acid vitamins:
It helps you at first with fetal growth and boosting your health.
- Get iron:
From fruits, vegetables, beans, and supplements but not from red meat.
- Watch what you drink:
Avoid fizzy drinks and energy drinks full of sugar, drink coffee, tea, herbal drinks, and make sure to drink enough water.
- Keep a healthy weight:
Gaining weight reduces the chance of pregnancy by about 5%.
- Keep up a daily exercise plan:
If you exercise, try to learn about workouts that help boost fertility in your body.
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What you need to know about this plan
This plan isn't for weight loss. But if you were eating unhealthily before, you'll likely lose a lot of weight and body fat by following it. Many doctors say it lowers the risk of infertility by 10%. Besides this plan, you should eat a good vitamin-rich healthy breakfast like oatmeal, yogurt, or boiled eggs within two hours of waking. The plan doesn't focus on meal times or snacks but cares about the quality and type of food.
So we'll look at foods this plan avoids, and foods it encourages you to eat. For example:
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Unsaturated vegetable oil: You should eat unsaturated fats like olive oil, canola oil, nuts, and avocado. Also eat polyunsaturated fats but not from fatty fish because of high mercury. There are plant sources healthy for these fats like flax seeds, soybean oil, and sunflower.
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Plant protein: Research shows people who eat animal protein are more likely to have infertility. On the other hand, plant protein helps boost ovulation chances.
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Whole grains: The amount of carbs doesn't matter much in this diet, but the source of carbs entering your body does. Foods that spike your blood sugar and quickly turn into sugar stored in the body can block pregnancy.
But foods that react less with blood sugar help with pregnancy. This diet isn't about tracking blood sugar precisely, just swapping soda for water and relying on whole grain products in pasta, rice, and baked goods, plus eating lots of veggies and fruit in your meals.
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Full-fat dairy products: There’s lots of research linking infertility or delayed pregnancy with low-fat or fat-free dairy products, so you should rely on full-fat dairy in your diet.
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Fruits, vegetables, and legumes: Women trying to get pregnant need 40 to 50 grams of iron a day, as advised by their doctor. It’s best to focus on plant-based iron sources like dark veggies such as spinach, arugula, asparagus, and beans. Doctors also always recommend women get plenty of iron after giving birth.
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Shopping list for this diet
You can buy this list at the start of the plan to help you follow and stick to it, and to prepare some suitable meals with it. These purchases are:
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Dark leafy greens like spinach, kale, and arugula.
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Broccoli, asparagus, and zucchini.
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Citrus fruits like oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit.
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Blueberries and blackberries.
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Bananas and avocados.
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Whole grain bread and pasta.
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Brown rice and quinoa.
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Tofu, chicken, salmon, canned tuna, sardines, and eggs.
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Full-fat yogurt, milk, cottage cheese.
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Natural sugar-free ice cream.
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Fertility diet meal plan
We'll give you some meals suitable for this plan and how to make a schedule that fits you. The following meal plan is for 3 days, and you can find many healthy recipes on Fitness Garage blog that match your diet.
Day one
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Breakfast: Whole grain bread toast sandwich with avocado and eggs and a glass of full-fat milk.
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Lunch: Quinoa salad with apple slices.
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Dinner: fish tacos with a bit of spicy sauce and grilled veggie sauce.
Day two
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Breakfast: half a cup of full-fat Greek yogurt with some fresh berries.
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Lunch: lentil soup with 5 olives and some kale.
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Dinner: spinach pasta with some red pepper, beetroot, and full-fat feta cheese.
Day three
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Breakfast: a cup of oatmeal with some nuts and fruit.
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Lunch: a cup of tomato basil soup with half a cup of whole grain crackers.
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Dinner: Oven-baked salmon with some asparagus.
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Advantages and disadvantages of the fertility diet
All healthy diets have pros and cons. We should mention them so you can benefit from the pros and avoid the cons, as follows:
1- Advantages of this diet
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The diet is very healthy.
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Mostly relies on plant-based foods.
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Avoids foods high in added sugar.
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Makes sure to stay away from trans fats.
This plan is for women trying to get pregnant, but all healthy diets suggest cutting added sugars and focusing on veggies, fruits, legumes, eating more fiber, and avoiding ready-made baked goods like cakes, biscuits, and cookies.
2- Drawbacks of this plan
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You have to count calories.
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Focuses on full-fat dairy products.
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You need to prepare your meals yourself.
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It has a lot of iron.
Not sure if eating the products Full-fat dairy actually stimulates the ovaries or not, to be present in this system a lot but at this point it’s better to check with your doctor to make sure about the amount of dairy products you can eat.
