If you want to get pregnant, then the first thing to check is your diet. Adequate and good quality nutrition is essential for both general health and fertility. Diet and fertility has a close association; your hormonal system, and thus fertility, can be affected by the types and quality of food you eat, and how your meals are prepared.
While there are certain diets to help you conceive faster, here you’ll take a look at which types of food are harmful to your health and fertility level, and that you would want to avoid as much as possible. To discover more on diet and lifetyle tips to improve fertility and get pregnant faster, you might want to check out the Personal Path to Pregnancy guide.
Refined starches and simple sugars
Refined starches and simple sugars (such as found in bread, processed breakfast cereals, pastries, biscuits, cakes, packed-foods, soft drinks, honey, table sugar, tinned fruits, etc) cause blood sugar levels to fluctuate dramatically. This can lead to hormonal imbalance and affects your fertility. Fluctuation in blood sugar levels may also lead to panic attacks during the day, waking up from sleep in the middle of the night, heart racing and sweating. You’ll also feel sluggish in the day time.
Tips: Avoid sugar in your foods, including honey. Eat lots of fresh fruits if you crave for something sweet.
Bad fats
Bad fats are saturated fats, which are mostly found in dairy products (e.g. butter), animal fats (e.g. lard), fatty beef, palm oil and coconut oil. Trans-fats (i.e. hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils), such as found in margarine, packaged foods, fast food, toppings and dips, are also bad fats.
Tips: To replace bad fats in your cooking, use in small amounts polyunsaturated oils, such as canola and sesame oil. Use olive oil, which is a monounsaturated oil, for your salads. Flaxseed oil can also be used as a salad dressing. These are the beneficial fats – they absorb and store the right amounts of fat-soluble vitamins (e.g. vitamins A, D, E and K) needed for reproductive health.
Coffee
There are studies that claimed 1-2 cups of coffee daily is unlikely to affect your fertility. However, it has been found that a caffeine intake of 300 mg or more every day may make it more difficult to get pregnant, not to mention that the risk of miscarriage will increase as well. It’s quite the contrary in men – moderate consumption of coffee actually helps to improve sperm function.
Tips: Instead of coffee, opt for black or green tea. It is suspected that there may be other ingredients besides caffeine in the coffee that are affecting fertility.
If you want to find out what other fertility-damaging foods to avoid, visit this diet and fertility article.
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