PREPARING FOR TTC + PREGNANCY | What To Eat When Trying To Conceive Naturally + Before

Hi guys, my name is Megan. Welcome to my channel. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about preparing for pregnancy and the kinds of things that you should be doing before you even start trying to conceive Mostly along the lines of proper nutrition. I just want to throw in here that we are not trying to conceive I am actually 26 weeks pregnant right now with our second, so we aren't trying to conceive but Hopefully this is helpful for some of you guys if you're trying to conceive or thinking about doing it in the future This is great to start all this stuff as early as possible. So let's get right into this video Now I just want to throw a little disclaimer in here that I'm not a doctor or health professional I am just another mom who's done a ton of research about this stuff And so I'm not telling you this is what you have to do, but through all my research This is what I've learned and what I feel totally comfortable with us doing I just wanted to throw that little disclaimer in there that I'm not a doctor or anything So definitely talk to your naturopath or do your own research before you start implementing stuff So having good nutrition is vitally important for trying to conceive and maintaining a healthy pregnancy And it's actually very important for both the man and the woman To have proper nutrition about six months before you start trying to conceive It takes a while to kind of get all the bad foods and stuff out of your system and to get all the good Nutrients and stuff that you're gonna be getting through food and supplements and different things to create a really healthy sperm and egg So it's ideal if you can start doing all this stuff six months before you start trying to conceive but diet is so much more important than most people realize like it has so much to do with health problems and So many health problems that people deal with today are food related and they just don't realize it It'll have an effect on the kind of health problems that your kids will experience someday And so it's just really really important to have proper nutrition and good gut healing foods and all this stuff that I'm gonna be Talking about today, so so I also want to say just do what you can from this list I know that budget can be an issue for a lot of people it definitely is for us at times and so Just doing the best that you possibly can and just after that just not worrying about it Just I don't feel guilty if you can't do all these things or if you can't buy everything organic and local Because it can get really expensive So every little thing that you add in Every every good thing that you add into your diet is gonna help so much and every bad thing that you can take out of your Diet, it really does make a difference. So if you can't do everything don't feel guilty about it So the first thing I want to talk about is that if I could do it all over again And I actually I didn't do this before I got pregnant with my first daughter and then I had back-to-back pregnancies I got pregnant with my second when my daughter was only six months old So I didn't have the opportunity to do this with either pregnancy But if I could go back and do it all over again I would definitely do some sort of gut healing cleanse like the gaps diet Where you cut out everything except for bone broth for a while and then you add in really select things and it just really heals your gut and So many health problems are related to an unhealthy gut biome I'll link some stuff about the gaps diet if you guys are interested in reading more about it But I would highly recommend doing the gaps diet Before you even start doing all this other stuff. I'm gonna be talking about so like get a really good Cleanse get your gut nice and healthy Before the six months of eating all this other stuff even would be ideal So the next thing is to cut out the bad There are so many things in the modern American diet that are just terrible for your health the main things that I would say are most important to cut out are Processed sugars and greens so like regular white processed sugars are like terrible for you and white Bleached flour and stuff like that like processed grains and sugars are one of the first things that I would cut out cut out the bad dairy like pasteurized milk or skim milk or Margarine or any of these things like that for a long time people thought that anything with fat in it was Extremely unhealthy so everyone's drinking like skim milk and all this stuff And it's really actually very bad for you fat is really good for your body and your body needs good healthy fats like not just Any fats it needs like good healthy fats so cut out any Pasteurized milk or anything like that Because those are just full of hormones that are really gonna mess with your system while you're trying to get pregnant a good rule of thumb to keep in mind when you're buying things from the store to eat is if your great-grandmother didn't eat It then you probably shouldn't be eating it either because a lot of these things that we're eating in our diets nowadays are more modern things and People way back in the day would have never even thought about eating that stuff It's just not real food And so just kind of think back to what people used to eat, and that's what we should be eating So then the next step would be to add in nutrient-dense foods, and the main one is high quality fats These are gonna fuel and feed all those hormones that are gonna Sustain your pregnancy and so high quality fats are just super important So things like olive oil and coconut oil like not just the cheapo ones that you buy at the grocery store Invest in some good high quality like cold pressed olive oil and things like that high quality grass-fed Butter is a really good thing to eat a lot of avocados and nuts and seeds and things that are just high In healthy fats and then also animal fats like lard and tallow is another super great thing to be having in your diet I make most of our dinners with lard instead of a lot of other oils now because I can make lard myself From locally raised pigs like it's totally self-sustaining which is really cool lard and tallow are really great And they're also really high in vitamin D So definitely a lot of high quality and healthy fats and oils and then add in a lot of high quality Protein sources and now this is the one area that it's most important to buy organic So if you are having budget issues, and you can only invest one area in really high quality Organic foods would be this area is protein because they use the most hormones and pesticides and things to To produce meat and those are things that we really really don't want to be eating Especially when we're trying to get pregnant So if you can find organic grass-fed meat and Organ meats organ meats are super important I know they're really uncommon. Most people would never even think about eating organ meats like liver and anything like that It's just so uncommon But they're so so good for you And especially when you're trying to get pregnant and it's actually recommended That even once you get pregnant you try to eat liver at least once a week It's just so high and things that are so good for your body Pregnant so good for your baby that you're growing but try your best to find Organic and grass-fed meat and organ meats and if you can find local that's even better, too And then also whole fat dairy. You don't want to be buying any skim milk or anything like Whatever like 3% I don't know what they what they sell them as anymore because we don't buy that stuff But whole fat dairy raw milk look into raw milk It's a really controversial topic, but I am all for raw milk and it still has so much of the fat content that's just really great for your body and All the good bacteria and just everything that it's just really great for you But if you are buying dairy from the store, just try to make sure that it's whole fat whole fats yogurts and milks and things like that also try to eat a lot of fermented milk products like kefir and Yogurt I make I think I make a batch of yogurt in our instant pot like Every other week or something like the entire thing like a gallon of yogurt We eat a lot of yogurt, but if you can get as many Fermented milk products into your diet as you can that's really great eggs are another great healthy protein source They're really easy if you can find local organic eggs, that's really awesome But eggs are so full of important nutrients and things for your body and they're just so easy So it's like a win-win lots and lots of bone broth This is a really gut healing food and it's so great for you your immune system it's actually the thing that you that the gap site recommends that you eat a lot of we eat a Ton of bone broth around here. I actually just made stock from a quarter of a cow and we got like Eight gallons of bone broth that I have canned upstairs that we're going through really fast It's not gonna last very long around here But bone broth is a really easy thing to just add into like soups and and it just increases the flavor and it's really good We actually like to just drink it straight just salted Wild-caught seafood is a really good one. Try not to get any farm-raised seafood because that's just got Pesticides and a lot of really bad things, but if you're gonna get seafood invest in Higher quality wild-caught seafood seafood is just so full of great nutrients and it is more expensive But it is really good for you. Lots and lots of fermented vegetables. That is a really really great for your body It's so full of probiotics We eat a lot of sauerkraut and there's just so many different ways that you can ferment vegetables You can ferment pretty much like any kind of vegetable that you want And so there's just so much variety in it Try to get only good quality whole grains and even if it is a really high quality grain Try to still space your grains out and not eat a ton of them. It helps with Digestion if you're able to soak the grains the day before you're going to use them It just makes it easier for your body to digest it and also sourdough is really great as well so if if you're able to make sourdough bread instead of just regular bread or Even instead of buying bread from the store sourdough ferments the grains before baking it and so it makes it a lot more digestible as well, but just in general eating less grains and more of healthy meats and Fats and vegetables like lots and lots of vegetables and then another one is high quality salt and not just white table salt but like good high quality salt is so full of Important minerals and it's just so good for you. We really like getting that pink Himalayan salt So that's pretty much everything for food I know it's kind of a long list and it might be a little overwhelming But if you just try to change one thing at a time and just do your best It's really gonna make a huge difference if you can eat all of that really great stuff So now let's move on to supplements It's a good idea to start taking a high quality prenatal vitamin six months before you start to conceive all this stuff is kind of Start doing it six months before you start trying to get pregnant But if you can find a really good high quality prenatal I think the food based ones are the best but do some research on Buying the best prenatal vitamin and then also for the guy start taking a really high quality Multivitamin and also cod liver oil. Cod liver oil is so so good for you. I actually Have taken this non-stop through all of my pregnancies and breastfeeding even after you do get pregnant You should probably still keep taking cod liver oil every single day It's so full of omega-3 fatty acids, which are so essential not only for the mom but the growing baby as well I actually take a fermented cod liver oil. It also has some concentrated butter oil in it It's really really good and it's cinnamon flavored So you don't taste the cod liver which is nice because cod liver oil is a little bit gross just by itself but take it take that throughout the entire six months before you try to conceive and Then once you get pregnant take it through your whole pregnancy and the entire time you're breastfeeding and it's just gonna be so so healthy For both you and the baby. Also find high quality Probiotics. When we give birth, we actually give away some of our intestinal flora to the baby. And so it's really important to have high enough levels of healthy probiotics that You have enough to give to the baby that's going to keep them healthy But that you also have enough to keep back for yourself to keep you healthy So a good probiotic is really important to take as well So that's just kind of a baseline with food and nutrition and supplements But if you want to read more about it I will link a couple articles about some of these different things I've talked about One of the best books I can recommend is this nourishing traditions book and it is chock-full with Awesome information about all these foods. It has a section about nutrition before you try to conceive which is really informative They also have a book out now that's geared towards pregnancy and childbirth and I actually don't have that one But I've heard really great things about it It's the same nourishing traditions cookbook but for pregnancy and childbirth, but I've been really wanting to get that So I'll link both of those below so you can look at them So another little thing to think about this isn't related to diet or anything but it might be a good idea to start tracking your period well before you start trying to get pregnant because it can be Really helpful to know like when you have your periods if they're regular It's a good indication of if you have a hormone imbalance if your periods are regular or not It is really handy to know like how long your periods are so that you can kind of Estimate when you're ovulating so that when you do start trying to get pregnant you kind of know like when you're ovulating There are so many great apps for period tracking I manually tracked just using a paper calendar and that's just the way I always did it But then I've heard really good things about the Ovia fertility tracker I think but it tracks your period and it's also geared for trying to get pregnant So it shows you like what days you're fertile So that's super handy and then also migrates into a pregnancy app once you get pregnant So I've heard really great things about that app, but I think that's all for this video. Hopefully it was helpful I am just so passionate about pregnancy and childbirth and having proper nutrition during all these things And so if you have any questions, please leave them down in the comments and I'd be happy to answer them if I can Thank you for watching and I hope you have an awesome day. I'll see you in my next video. Bye You