Trying to Conceive? How to Support Your Body for Optimal Fertility | Ep 354

The Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast

Erin Holt

Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Alternative Health, Nutrition

4.9 • 759 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you’ve ever felt frustrated or confused about your fertility journey, you’re not alone. In this episode, Erin is talking to our lead practitioner Rachel Heintz, MS, RDN, to break down the key factors that influence female fertility beyond just age and ovulation. They dives into how stress, gut health, and nutrient deficiencies can all play a role, and what you can do to optimize your chances of conception naturally.

You’ll also learn the biggest misconceptions about fertility, how to recognize the signs your body is sending, and practical strategies to support hormone balance. Whether you’re actively trying to conceive or just want to better understand your reproductive health, this episode is packed with insights.

In This Episode:

(04:52) The importance of hormones in female fertility
(08:11) How stress and lack of ovulation can affect the menstrual cycle
(09:15) The role of melatonin as a powerful antioxidant that protects egg cells
(16:07) The impact of gut health on hormonal balance and fertility
(24:02) Rachel shares her favorite supplements for supporting mitochondrial health, like CoQ10 and NAC
(29:42) A comprehensive starting point for foundational labs and lifestyle changes to support your fertility journey

FOR OUR FULL LIST OF LINKS + RESOURCES, HEAD TO:

https://www.thefunktionalnutritionist.com/podcast/354-fertility-journey

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's important to acknowledge that a variety of factors can impact the amount of time it takes to conceive.
0:06.9	This includes your nutrition status, your age, the quality of your eggs, and the quality of sperm, the other part of the equation,
0:16.6	toxin exposure, and then overall health, which includes hormonal health. I'm Erin Holt, and this is
0:24.0	the functional nutrition podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how
0:29.5	diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. I've got over
0:35.3	a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional health. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that,
0:38.3	I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional health care model.
0:42.7	This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, and you're
0:47.0	ready to be an active participant in your own healing. I would love for you to follow the show,
0:51.7	rate, review, and share because you never know whose life you might change.
0:57.0	Hello, my friends. Today I've got Rachel Hines on the show. She's our lead practitioner, and we're going to talk about optimizing female fertility. So before we even get into this conversation, Rachel, when should people start thinking about this?
1:13.5	Honestly, I say it's never too soon to start thinking about it, even if you think you want to
1:17.7	start trying to get pregnant in 12 months or 18 months. Like, now's the time to take some of the tips
1:23.1	that we're going to chat about today and put it into practice. Yeah, so start thinking about it
1:27.4	sooner than you might think you need to.
1:30.3	So I want to just clarify, infertility is really defined as the inability to conceive
1:35.7	after 12 months of actively trying to conceive.
1:40.0	So like giving it the old college try, if you're a woman older than 35, it's after six months.
1:45.7	Now, we don't specialize as a practice. We don't specialize in infertility. However, we do know that
1:53.6	more and more couples are struggling to conceive. And actually, it was Rachel that advocated for
1:59.1	doing more of this work in our practice because
2:01.3	she's like, more people are coming to me struggling. This is something that we should really
	...

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