Amend your lifestyle!
The first thing told to me on this journey, was ‘to act like I was pregnant’ from the very beginning.
This doesn’t mean walking around with a pillow tied around my belly and moaning about a sore back haha, it’s more…how you treat your body.
When you’re pregnant your told not to drink, smoke, eat certain foods or put yourself into places full of toxins, like a newly painted room or in the firing range of mosquito repellent and that is how you need to treat your eggs before you become pregnant.
You need to give them the best possible start to renew themselves and be fighting fit for the future. This is not necessarily the fun element to falling pregnant but certainly one of the most important if you fall in the older age category.
What did my lifestyle look like?
Alcohol:
The first thing I did was give up Alcohol and sugar (as well as gluten, dairy, raw food such as sushi, fast food and preservatives such as pre-packaged meals or modified snacks and fried food)
Giving up alcohol was like social suicide for me. Catching up with friends revolved around alcohol or sugar or both. I am a social person by nature - the ol’ cliché of good food and good company was my lifestyle. So what was I to do?
I went cold turkey. I don’t know if there’s any other way?
When out, I drank soda water. At the point in the night where people start re-telling the same story or someone spills a drink down my top, it’s time to call it a night. At first I found it depressing and lonely. But then I would wake up the next day and feel……..awesome! I had a whole other day of the weekend to do things. I wasn’t hungover, I wasn’t chasing bad food to absorb the night before, so I made better choices, opened the blinds for pure daylight and was productive!
Plus there was no Monday work blues!
If you already don’t drink – then pat yourself on the shoulder, you’re already one step ahead!
If you do and don’t know how you would stop – just think of this, you won’t be going out on drinking binges with a newborn and as you are now acting like you are already pregnant, consider this conditioning for when you have a baby. Bye Bye late night binges!
I look back over this period of time where I worked on ‘me’, no longer was I wallowing every Sunday and reaching for the Panadol.
The lure to go out started to wane, instead I became keen to have a really nice meal at home (that I could control what went into it) and watch a movie, go to bed with a plan for the next day.
When trying to conceive (TTC) statistics show that 50% or more of the fertility issue could lay with your man. If this is the case for you, then it is a chance to detox together and bond over your joint cause.
I had a lot of people ask me – Why did you give up drinking and how?
The answer is different for everyone but for me – the want to have a baby was greater than the want to have a drink. I didn’t tell a lot of people we were TTC, I didn’t tell them, as I didn’t want the pressure of people knowing. So I said it was for my health– which most people respected.
Over time the want to have a drink disappeared all together, however the want to have chocolate never really did. I found this one the ‘real’ battle to deal with. In the end my naturopath let me keep this one joy - as long as it was pure dark chocolate and I minimised the amount I ate.
If your life currently incorporates alcohol, you need to find new ways to socialise. I started to become a tea aficionado, buying hordes of herbal teas. Trying them out with friends and desk buddies, finding the perfect brew and drinking copious cups of it.
Side effects:
Giving up alcohol, sugar and preservatives can be a real shock to the system. If you have ever seen a ‘You Tube’ video of people giving up sugar or alcohol, you will find it isn’t always smooth sailing. Your body may release toxins and you could feel like shit, depending how much you currently drink or eat the ‘good’ stuff.
I remember a lot of people asking me ‘you must feel great’ and my answer for a while was no.
My body was all over the shop. So be prepared for that. Especially if you have hormone imbalances (such as I did) things felt worse before they got better. It is suggested you do not try to fall pregnant in this withdrawal stage when toxins are still having a party at yours.
Dining Out:
Eating out became a hazard, most places don’t have strict dietary requirements in mind when creating menus. They might have a Gluten free meal but include dairy. Or it is dairy free but used with bad oils. I couldn’t win and would have to conduct research before choosing anywhere to eat out.
To be completely honest, I think I was way too hard on myself with this process, I wanted to be 100% perfect with my diet and lifestyle choices and looking back, I now know that it is just impossible to be 100% in all areas all the time but for me, I felt I was going against the age odds, so felt I needed to stick to my diet as much possible.
These days more and more places are opening all the time that offer organic, healthy menu choices. Make it your new hobby to hunt these places down and save up to visit them when you want to eat out. ,Or pack a picnic with all the things you can have and mix up your view each week… You can thank me later!
Fitness:
Fitness choices can be a real conversation divider. You may have friends who love to do cross fit at 5am and bench press a small hobbit or friends who go for a walk in leisure wear purely to buy a coffee, or maybe you don’t even own a pair of running shoes. Each to your own.
After a previous injury I was no longer able to partake in long distance running and have never really found another activity to replace it for fitness.
Whilst recovering from Adrenal Fatigue burn out, I couldn’t lift a finger, so there was no surprise that I also couldn’t lift a bar bell. It was over this time that I realised that pushing myself to delirium 5 times a week was not a suitable type of exercise for my body type. I learn’t that not all people are built the same and what may work for some people, doesn’t mean I should be doing intense workouts myself.
I am not great at taking it slow, so no surprise I hated Yoga. I started with a more relaxing, meditative yoga (like Yin Yoga) then moved to a beginner style, gimmick free yoga (no headstands, 40 degree heat etc.). Once pregnant, I swapped the yoga for pregnancy Pilates. And lots of walking. My thinking here is – if you are wearing out your body with high intensity exercise, possible injuries and over exhausting a tired body or tight schedule and then you are constantly run down - you may need to back off a little.
Controversial yes, am I am 100% right, possibly not in everyone’s eyes – but if falling pregnant is becoming difficult for you, I dare you to look at your exercise schedule and ask two things 1) would I be going this hard if I was pregnant? Because remember you are acting like you are already pregnant and 2) we are trying to chill the body down so it is calm and balanced and I don’t know about you - but I am never calm when boxing and doing upper cuts!
After 3 months I started to notice a difference in how I looked and people started to comment that they noticed a change in my complexion. My weight stabilised and I stopped thinking of my body image, I wasn’t dieting for weight loss, so I didn’t focus on it and for once I was comfortable with my body. My thoughts and words were clear after years of feeling like my head was clouded and confused with brain fog. I knew I was really healthy, so I was more positive about how I looked and felt, which encouraged me to continue on.