Today I had the pleasure of connecting with Victoria Myers, a registered dietitian who specializes in helping women recover their periods and support natural conception.

We talked about the importance of building a healthy relationship with food and exercise, learning to nourish your body, not punish it, so your fertility can restore. She also shared some powerful mindset shifts around nutrition that can help you approach your journey with more ease and trust.

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Takeaways

Hypothalamic amenorrhea is often caused by dieting and under-eating.

Fertility requires an abundance of energy and nutrients in the body.

Many women are misdiagnosed with conditions like PCOS instead of HA.

Eating a calorie surplus and reducing exercise can help restore menstrual cycles.

Psychological factors play a significant role in eating disorders and fertility.

Women often fear weight gain, which can hinder their recovery and fertility.

Tracking menstrual cycles can provide valuable insights into reproductive health.

Estrogen is crucial for overall health and fertility.

A healthy relationship with food is essential for mental and physical well-being.

Fertility issues can have generational impacts on women's health.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Fertility and Hypothalamic Amenorrhea

09:58 Understanding the Mechanism of Amenorrhea

19:44 The Role of Nutrition in Restoring Menstrual Health

29:47 Psychological Aspects of Eating Disorders and Fertility

39:44 The Importance of Tracking and Understanding Your Body

Connect with Dr. Jane Levesque

Website - https://www.drjanelevesque.com/

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Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DrJaneLevesque/

Thanks, Victoria, for being here. Thanks for finding me. How did you find me? I didn't even ask you.

You know, I put my assistant to the case, so I'm not entirely sure how she found you, but I'm so glad she did. I was listening to some of your podcasts before coming on this interview today. And wow, that information is so incredible. And you're doing so much incredible work to help people feel really empowered about their fertility. I think it's so special.

Thank you and ditto. We're both in the fertility space, but as we talked, you're like, I'm niche within the niche. Tell everybody your niche and what you specialize in and how you're helping women on their fertility journey.

Yes. And thank you so much for having me on Dr. Jane to talk about hypothalamic amenorrhea. So my name is Victoria Myers. I'm a dietitian and I specialize in exclusively work with women whose infertility struggles are really from dieting, from disordered eating, from under eating and the specific role that plays in causing period loss when we are active women who train a lot, but we don't eat enough and the way that that stresses the body and causes a condition called hypothalamic amenorrhea. So we are really specialized in the fertility

space that we help women heal their relationship food and get their periods back and then go on to get pregnant naturally.

Yeah, that's a big one. And we actually we had a live today and we were talking about with the other practitioners and we were talking about how, I didn't have my period for a year. And the doctor goes, well, you're an athlete. So that's normal. And then you as a 15 or 16 or even a 20 year old woman, young woman go, my god, that's great. I'm an athlete. That means I'm performing.

And I don't have my period, so I don't have to worry about it. So let's break down a little bit. mean, I'm sure I know you have your own story as well to share along with it, because it's like, how do you even end up in such a space? Usually, we have a story to share. And yeah, I'd love for you to just break down. I mean, there's a lot. So let's start with the caloric restriction and food or over exercising or stress. Like, what's the mechanism between the dieting and

the amenorrhea.

from the get-go of like how do I fix my body? How do I lose weight? How do I shrink myself?

Watching our moms to be on a diet, think for me, that was the biggest thing like I've never seen and still to this day, like my mom isn't happy with how she looks or feels and doesn't love her body. And so it's like, we just, I don't remember having a role model and saying, wow, this is what it's like to feel really good and accepting yourself versus constantly trying to change.

I mean, I went on my first diet with my mom at 16 years old, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who's experienced that. to be fair, that's one of my huge personal missions is I want to, have two daughters. I want to be like such a good role model to them of a healthy relationship with food and exercise too. I want to show them I love to eat healthy, but I'm also, I can be flexible with my food choices and be free too. So we'll get to that. But yeah, if you imagine kind of this teenager who's a perfectionist, they're type A there, except

Excelling in probably school, but also they're an athlete they go to the doctor. have a missing period boom They're put on birth control for the next 10 15 20 years. I'm sure you see that all the time. Dr Jane and Honestly, most of our clients are people who've been off birth control for two three five years and they still haven't gotten their period back there are

Of course, people who never went on birth control for all of those years, but we see that use most often of like, they didn't even realize that they had a problem. It was so disguised by the band-aid at birth control because they were told by their doctor, this is going to regulate your period. They come off of it 10, 15, 20 years later to try to conceive and they never get their periods back. And then they're sick kind of on this hamster wheel of like, why is my period missing in the first place? And

You know, that's healthy in some ways to be that active. And also if the body is under too much stress, it's being over-trained and then there's just a calorie restriction at all times. If you habitually for 20 years eat 1500 calories a day, your body's going to turn off the ovulation switch between your brain and your ovaries. Obviously the complexity of the hormone cascade is much more than just that, but I think it's a really easy way to kind of explain it. Like ovulation switch is turned off because your body is like, hey, this is an unsafe time.

to get pregnant. don't have what I need, the resources I need. I'm not getting the energy balance that I need between the training and the eating in order to cycle. So I'm just gonna cut everything off. you know, a lot to protect you.

Yeah, because you're in fight or flight, so I'm just going to protect you. And I always say reproduction is we can live without our ovaries, we can live without our uterus, you can't live without your heart, you can't live without your liver. And so in terms of I always I really do think fertility is about abundance in the body. And if I think about why fertility rates are really infertility rates are skyrocketing and people are having a harder time conceiving, it's like, well, there's not a lot of people who feel abundant.

in their body, abundant with energy and vitality and nutrients. And I do think it's sign of wealth in the body when it has so much energy that it can. So yeah, the body's really smart. if you, like the picture that you just drew, I'm nodding along because it's like, yeah, that makes total sense. And even I'm sure for your patients, as you unravel this, they go, my God, yeah, my poor body for the last 20 years, I've been putting it through so much.

And then you can, you know, that's, I find like that's when the person can actually start to heal because they can resonate with, they can start to feel sorry for their body instead of being mad at it. You know, it's not like you want to feel sorry for it, but you want to just go, I'm so sorry I've been doing this, you know?

I couldn't agree more. mean, it's this kind of this recognition of like, wow, like my body needs so much more speaking to the abundance you were just mentioning. Fertility is one of the most energy demanding times of a woman's body's life. So if you are just, you know, for 20 plus years eating 1500 calories a day, but you are that active woman who's, you know, walking 20,000 steps a day and exercising six days a week, like there's just an imbalance that's happening here. And no wonder your body's like, hey, like, hold on, because it's not getting that abundance you were so beautifully speaking to.

Yep. And what I will say is to be like the devil's advocate, there's plenty of people who get married, who get married, plenty of people who are getting married too. That too. But plenty of people who get pregnant who are in a deficient state. But what we're seeing is that it has a big impact on the health of that future child. And if you're having a girl, the health of her hormones, when, and I'm seeing some 20 year olds now in my practice where I'm like,

That doesn't matter. Comparison is the thief of joy, first of all. Second of all, it's like, what is the pregnancy and the child that you want? And let's focus on that because this is how we do it.

Wow, so that's like not an area that I work with. That's gotta be so impactful to be seeing women in their 20s have the impact of basically their mothers dieting behaviors impacting their...

And grandmothers die under behavior. Yeah, you think about when the grandma was pregnant, the cells that would become you were developing, right? Because the baby's mom. That's so it's tri-generational. And then there's quad-generational studies that will be coming out soon. But fertility is a generational disease. Especially now we're seeing, like I said, when I see young women, it's like, you have a big burden and it's sad and it's unfortunate and I'll sit with you.

but like, see if we can fix it and let's see what we can do because the body is incredible and it remembers and it can heal and you know, but it needs tools in the right environment.

That's so powerful and what wonderful work you're doing then to like change it for the generations to come. And I see that too with our work is like really changing the narrative. I mentioned earlier, one of my whys is I want to be a really positive role model to mine. I have two daughters. I want them to see a mom who takes care of themselves, but also can be free and it's not, you know, looking at the mirror and, you know, talking hatred towards their body or counting the amount of almonds they're eating per day. I want them to see someone who loves to nurse their body and take care of themselves.

Yeah, absolutely. We veered off, but let's bring it back to that 15. And I guess my question to you is, now we've stepped back and you go, my God, there's so much. What does the female body really need in order to thrive and to have that menstrual cycle come back to be able to conceive essentially?

Yeah, so hypothalamic amenorrhea is such a unique hormone condition where again the ovulations shut off because of the energy imbalance. So it's a very specific protocol we put clients on. It's probably going to look so different than anyone else's out there because we are really looking for a calorie surplus in exercise reduction where I would assume probably in other cases you're really looking at blood sugar regulation, although we do look at that too, but you're looking more so at calorie deficits. You're looking at adding more exercise where our people kind of need the exact

opposite. And that's why we're so passionate about only working with cases like this because it's such a unique individualized care that they need. So we're putting people on 2,500 calories a day or more. We're cutting down their exercise pretty dramatically just for a temporary timeframe. Usually need about 90 days of doing that. So your body feels safe enough. And then from there, we're getting the body cycling within those 90 days. And we can start to add back in the layers of the exercise, the protein intake, but we're really emphasizing within those 2,500 calories.

a lot of carbohydrates and a lot of fat because those are the two most important macronutrients to turn back on the ovulation switch. And also when we have this history of dieting, the two foods that have been the most demonized, the most avoided too. And then again, we kind of, we have kind of phases we walk people through of adding things back in because with fertility, we do want to keep in mind blood sugar regulation and protein, but there is kind of a specific protocol that is like, Hey, like your body needs way more than what you're giving it currently. Let's kind of jump all in and fixing this. And then we'll,

We'll customize things as we walk along the journey to get pregnant once the body is cycling again.

Yeah. How are you diagnosing the hypothylamic amenorrhea? Because let's face it, like there's many different reasons why women are having no cycles. And so how are you diagnosing it? And then I want to talk about the psychological component of that. Because I know right away how difficult that is for some women who are used to dieting to go the opposite and have weight gain and bloating and all these things that they're

those things. Yes. That's like the number one fear that holds people back. to speak to the first question that you asked, we look at a diagnosis through blood panels. So we're looking at specifically estrogen, LH and FSH, although other blood like hormone panels are very helpful to ruling out things like

PCOS, looking at thyroid, we do really like that, but to be specific when we're looking at hypothalamic amenorrhea, an estrogen below 50, although it's usually below 20, and LH below 10, although again, it's usually below two to five, it can be very, very low in HA cases, and then with FSH below 10. So really easy way to remember it is, estrogen below 50, FSH, LH below 10. Sometimes...

And so, but it's usually it's even lower than because below 10 is what we want for fertility. then sometimes it's like two or one point five for both.

had someone who was like 0.1. The most recent client I signed on had a LH of 0.1 and an estrogen of five. I mean, that's like classic hypophilic amenorrhea. And she has been dieting her entire life and was an athlete her entire life.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's there is, think, to again, there's always a balance, you know, because sometimes we're so hyper focused on like, my FSH is normal, my FSH is normal, it's below 10. That's ideal. But then it is to me, anything below three, four, you're like, something's going on there. So definitely below one. But yeah.

Yes, and we also are looking at things the more than just the hormones, you know I do ask a lot of questions about dieting history with dieting exercise stress levels sleep kind of taking in the picture of like the whole conversation of like

anything that could be impacting their period loss, specifically from this lens of HA. And really what we're looking for is what would make the body feel so unsafe that it won't even ovulate? And is there anything that we can do from a food and nutrition and lifestyle perspective to turn back on that ovulation switch?

Yeah, so, and you know, now you have this woman in front of you who's been dieting, who's been an athlete, stressed out, inflammation, all that jazz. How do we, side question, do you work with women who are like on their way there? Because do you know what I mean? Sometimes it's the woman who is an athlete and she has a period, but it's really, really light and they're still over exercising in that. So it's not quite a menorrhea, but...

Yeah, we consider these are the spectrum of HA. So yes, we definitely work with these. We have clients that have really long follicular phases, so they've gotten their period back, but it's highly unpredictable. We'll also work with anovulatory bleeds. That's another kind of like what we consider the spectrum of HA. And then sometimes even short luteal phases, that can be really common if someone's in the midst of period recovery. They've gotten one or two periods, but their periods haven't regulated. And again, that low progesterone is causing luteal phase defect. And we know that that body still needs a lot of recovery and a lot of nutrition in order to

recover that progesterone levels because obviously that's so important to getting pregnant. So yeah we see kind of a spectrum. Most of the time we see people with period loss with or without use of birth control but we also see some of those other examples too, absolutely.

Okay, and then let's talk about the psychological because the first thing you told I'm like, I just know that it's such a hard thing to break through when you're told that I've been dieting now you need to eat more. The fear of weight gain.

and everything else in between, you know, that comes with that.

Absolutely. This is what I would say we do the most with our clients. So yes, we're dieticians and we're talking about nutrition and supplementation and looking at their labs. However, because we specialize in this condition, most of our one-on-one time is food and body image coaching. I've had my own past with an eating disorder. I actually had one called orthorexia, which is characterized by the unhealthy obsession with eating healthy. And I say most of my clients kind of are in that spectrum. So not only do I have personal history in that, but like we're all clinically trained actually in eating disorders, just with

hormone specialty because it's so much of this work. When we look at what

causes most people to fear getting their periods back. is exactly what you said, Dr. Jane is the fear of weight gain. That is like the number one thing that holds them back. Even though for most of these people, they legitimately need to gain weight. Doesn't mean they're always underweight in the BMI category. A lot of times people are normal weight. However, it does mean that like they are like very low, like they're, they're someone who could stand to gain 10, 20 pounds, but it's understandable that that's so terrifying. Uh, we talk a lot with our clients of this concept called body grief, which is when you're like,

truly grieving the loss of the fantasy of a thin body and what it will give you or the loss of the body that you had in order to become a fertile woman. And you know, it means going through all the stages of grief. have clients, you know, they're in denial that they need to gain weight. They're bargaining with themselves or going through anger, depression, and eventually towards acceptance. And so a lot of our work does end up being that body image coaching of like, sounds like you're feeling a lot of grief. Let's talk a bit about it. We use this concept from, Brie Campos is called sitting in the suck.

of like, yeah, this does suck. This is really hard. And if it means that you become a fertile person again and you can get pregnant, which way is heavier for you? If you're avoiding or being able to get pregnant.

Yeah. And I mean, what kind of weight are these women usually gaining?

10 to 20 pounds usually. mean there's

But it's not like you're just gaining belly weight. Do you know what I mean? It's not like you're just gaining this gut. Usually I have a client that I'm thinking about and she has her period and think endometriosis, but I was like, listen, you're like 90 pounds. And in order for you to be able to carry a baby, you're gonna have to gain like 30 to 35 pounds to like a healthy term. And she goes, oh my God, I can't do that. I was like, I know.

And not from a psychological component, but she's like, I can't even lift this, you know, this grocery bag or whatever. And I'm like, right. So sometimes we're just so fixated on getting pregnant. We don't actually understand what is involved in that, which is your body has to be able to change and carry that heavy load. Then you have to push that baby out and then you have to carry that baby and feed that baby while your pelvic floor is torn and your boobs are leaking. And, you know, like when I said that to her, she's just like,

Is this why I should be weightlifting? Yes. so then she starts to gain weight. She's gaining weight in like her bones and her, do you know, like there's more liveliness to her tissue and plumpiness versus like this drained and, you know, the skin has no elasticity because the hormones are all low. And now you have someone being like, yeah, just get Botox done. And it's like, yeah, but that's not fixing the issue of the fact that you don't have the hormones there or libido or anything like that. So.

Absolutely.

It's not like you're just sitting there and there's a lot of psychological, like I just dig in with my patients to be like, well, what does it mean to get fat? Like, why are you so afraid of it? You do you believe about it? And then you can have a real conversation. But a lot of the times, are you finding that these women are also just over exercising a lot or are you able to still do things like weight training and some light walking or, you know, whatever to essentially make sure that they're...

gaining healthy weight as opposed to unhealthy weight, because there's two different, right?

Yeah, totally fair and great question. yes, most of our clients are over training. That is a very common theme with hypothermic amenorrhea cases. However, we never completely take exercise away. I mean, if we're thinking of the person we're talking to today, exercise is so important to them. They're someone who loves to feel strong. It's so supportive to their mental health. It's a part of who they are. It's like their identity. And while we do need to shift the identity and, know, consider ourselves more than just someone who runs five miles a day at the same

time, it is so important that we don't completely take away something that's so important to a person. So we just adjust and modify and kind of that example I just gave of like the runner, we would probably switch them to a strength training program or look at things like Pilates, yoga bar, things that are lower impact, but still give them that endorphins that they're looking for in that mental health benefit of what exercise provides us. Thinking more long-term though, I'm thinking of like the clients we work with once they get pregnant and they're in the postpartum. We're like big emphasizes, it sounds like you are too on strength training. just

think string training is one of the healthiest things we can do as women and especially with my clients I do worry about their bone health having had low estrogen for years and years and I think it's more than just the muscle mass although that's critically important it's also about their bone health and I really want to be protective with their bone health too and I do think string training is an important component of that.

I mean, it's all of it. You can look back at when do women develop all of their autoimmune conditions, neurological, like any immune conditions, cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes. It's all after we hit menopause, which means the hormones are down and the hormones are no longer there to regulate those systems. And one of my mentors, Dr. Leah Hetchman talks about hormones as guardrails. And so they're there to keep things moving and keep them in the...

in the guardrails. So like, they're not going to develop those diseases. And then as soon as the hormones are gone, then, nothing is regulating the immune system and estrogen, it's bone health, it's muscle health, it's brain health, it's cardiovascular health. It's, you know, there's so many things that I think we just, we're not really educated on. And then you're, you don't really understand the complications of it. Yet somehow we're terrified of developing the diseases.

not realizing some of the things that we're doing today is actually leading right into that direction. And I think that's just part of lack of education. You know, you go to your doctor and you say, hey, I have a normal this, I'm concerned. And they go, no, no, don't worry about it. That's like you learning just to swallow down your intuition and say, I was wrong. Nothing is wrong. And then it just keeps getting further and further away. And then you are in birth control and you have zero connection to your body.

And then, but I want to have a baby. Sometimes I'm amazed that we even get that urge anymore because I'm like, how much we've manipulated the body from the hormones to the plastics to the whatever. I'm like, sometimes I'm amazed that we still have that urge, which just tells me how powerful that urge is to have children.

Absolutely, and speaking to going to the doctor's office most often when our clients go to their doctors, I mean the chances of them actually getting diagnosed with HA are so rare. It's so unbelievable to me the stories I hear and the most common themes are you're healthy, your labs are normal, you look fine.

probably you just need to go do IVF with a reproductive chronologist. Or they're misdiagnosed with PCOS, which is really common because there's the period loss, which is common theme with both of those conditions. Or again, they're put on birth control and they're just told, this is gonna regulate your period, don't worry about it. And unfortunately, not only is that masking their natural hormones and acting as a band-aid, but then they're never even understanding the...

the damage they're doing to their bodies by under eating and over training in this way.

Yeah. And do you think it's because the doctors are just not trained in this?

I think it's twofold with my people specifically, and I'd love to hear what you think for your cases, but for mine it's that they're not trained in hypothalamic amenorrhea. They just don't understand that much about it. It's so rare that they actually understand that condition. And then number two, they're not eating disorder informed. Most doctors think of eating disorders as that, like, kind of the picture we all have as someone who's so incredibly thin. Maybe they're someone who has been in, like, residential treatment. They're extremely anorexic. That's not what all eating disorders look like. most of my...

It's like a small percentage of it. Yeah.

Most of my clients are never even that person. They're just more so the person who's again always really healthy. They're the clean eater. They're just always on a diet or tracking their calories on my fitness pal. They just always run. They're not someone who would be ever classically diagnosed with an eating disorder and because of that they're completely missed from their doctors as far as understanding what their needs are.

Yeah, because it's such a psychological condition, do you find that these women are also not as quick to not as quick to ask for support because they know like that fear of like, I don't want to have to eat more. And whatever it right? Like you're trying to sneak away from it. Like it's such a tricky disorder, like any eating disorder.

Yeah.

It is, it is, and that's such a-

I prefer and this population is just such an incredible gift to work with because they're so ready and so committed to making those changes because they want to hold that baby in their arms.

Yeah, for sure. No, I agree. I just think it's such a difficult condition to treat any eating disorders because there's a lot of protection. And I think there's a lot of shame and control. Like you're just trying to control the behavior because of the chaos and things that you're feeling or have external chaos. And usually there's a lot of trauma and the ego kind of comes in to protect.

And I think it's one like I always talk about the spiritual component of fertility as well. Like how amazing is it that the soul that's not even here is getting you to change before they you can even meet them and hold that baby in your arms. You know, it's like, how amazing is that? And I often ask my patients to like tap into that energy because you feel that energy already. That's what's driving all your behavior. You're just kind of maybe not aware that that's what it is, you know.

But yeah, when you don't have that awareness, for sure you're just kind of stuck in your own cycle of, this is just the way I've always been.

Yeah.

And if this is the way I've always been, maybe I just can't get pregnant when in fact they can relatively easily. I think that's one of the really cool things too about AJ is for these specific people, the likelihood of going on to get pregnant naturally is very high. If they can just restore ovulation and cycling in their bodies, they most often don't need fertility treatments. And in fact, most fertility treatments don't work well in their bodies because their bodies in such an unsafe state. So by doing the work of period recovery, it really solves every single problem that you're

experiencing. You mentioned earlier things like low libido and like that's my people too. Like because of the low estrogen they have low libido, they have cold hands and feet all the time, they're peeing all the time, they have bloating and constipation. They have so many issues than just their infertility and I think it's really powerful to think gosh

solving this problem of my period loss truly not only heals my relationship with food and gets me pregnant, but it also solves like all these annoying, like low key frustrating symptoms that I like blame on other things that are actually related to the fact that I have barely in the estrogen of my body and my body is in unsafe state.

Yeah, and we've had a lot of like demonizing against estrogen, do you know? And it's like estrogen is really important. Yeah, yeah. And how we metabolize it was also really important, but we need estrogen in the body. We need progesterone, we need testosterone, we need all the hormones, but we need them in balance. And that's where I think people are, people are miseducated. Now, what you were talking there, I think the cure, every woman at some point, like you said, was on a diet and...

probably is trying to redefine her relationship with food in some way, or form. I'm curious if you have some tips in terms of how you help to rebuild that relationship and what I call food freedom is the goal is like the goal is to get to that food freedom. And I first-handedly always tell my patients like when they first come in, I'm like, Kate, here's what I need you to do. And then once they we can start to trust their intuition and we actually develop and fix the gut and the infection and all of that, they can then

actually trust what they're craving. Because before that, if you have a bunch of candida, or if you have a bunch of parasites, like you're not going to crave the best things. But we want to get to this place where you don't feel restricted. And, you know, from my personal experience, I've also dieted and done all those. And now I'm like, well, I have food freedom, but the choices that I make are so different than what I did when I was 20 years old. So I'd love to hear a little bit about the tips that you give your patients to help us achieve that food freedom.

I love this question, Dr. Jane, and I really appreciate you sharing your own personal story because I think you're right. Like what woman cannot relate to this on a personal level? just, I've never met a woman who, when they learn about my job, is not in some way like, yeah, I've been there before. I've died, I've done this. I've always been-

You did a good job.

It affected us deeply. So this is a really good question and obviously it's different for every person. But one of the two main things that comes to mind for me is getting used to eating consistently and regularly throughout the day. Not only is that vital to healthy hormone production, but also most women who diet, what do they do? They try to starve.

themselves in the morning, you know, eating just a banana or protein bar or even just black coffee. They try to prolong eating as long as possible to almost like allow themselves the privilege of being able to eat in the nighttime. So instead what we want to do is be eating within 30 to 60 minutes of waking up, eating about every three to four hours, especially in the case of period loss from A.J. Your body needs that consistent regular intervals of eating. But I would even argue like everyone, every woman really needs that. So just getting used to eating consistently throughout the day is going to be so

healthy. And then the other thing that comes to mind is really challenging food guilt when it arises. So instead of being like, my gosh, I just ate ice cream and the worst person in the world, or I had a bite of my husband's french fry. Now I need to go exercise that off. Asking yourself like, why do I feel this way? Where did this first come?

Who? Like, who told you that?

Who told you that? Who told you you can't have a single french fry? I am a dietitian. I obviously love nutrition and healthy foods and I don't think it has to be where we are in the health and wellness world where it feels like there's such extremes of like just because we want you eating sweet potatoes and broccoli and healthy foods does not mean that you can't also have foods that you may be yeah that you see as treats or desserts or things that

Not necessarily what you want to eat every meal and every snack, but that doesn't mean we should feel guilt and shame, honestly. That's what most women tell me is they feel shame when they eat foods like that and they have to go exercise to burn it off. And I really would instead encourage reflection upon that of like, why do you feel that way? And food isn't meant to be this vacuum of you're only allowed these five foods and everything else is bad for you. How can we allow all foods to fit in the eating world?

Yeah, and some like enjoyment is a big part of food.

Yeah, yeah, like think of like every culture out there cuisine and like the cultural experience of eating is like a huge part of each culture. I think that's for a reason. I think there's a reason why food is such a huge part of everything. Like it's part of every culture out there and I just I'm a foodie. I love food. I want you to enjoy eating.

Yeah. And I think about like, if we didn't have mirrors? Do you know what I mean? Like if you don't have mirrors and you didn't have tight clothing that like what we used to wear and cotton and you and it's just swings back. It's always about balance because I do think for the most part, there is a large population of people who are overeating and overeating poor quality foods, which means they're actually highly malnourished. And so when we're getting into

It's not a thing that you just continue to do. So there is a lot of really good studies on fasting and how they're supporting, but it's intermittent. So you're doing it for a period of time and it's very strategic and you're watching numbers. And then, you know, I've met even men where I'm like, you're actually just starving yourself at this point. You're not intermittent fasting, but because he felt so great or she felt so great when they first started, they're like, my energy is great and this is, and then you're just going with it. It's like, no, no.

The markers will start to dip if you're undernourishing yourself, period. So I always just look at the markers, you know? Like if you are not sure if the diet is working or not, just test and then you can see. And so if I look at your tests and all your nutrients are in the gutter, you can tell me whatever you want, but the data doesn't lie.

Test don't guess it. That's such a fair point. The data does not lie and it will tell you and we personally run H2MA or hair tissue mineral analysis on all of our patients for same reason it sounds like you are. They're people who've been under eating and not eating the right type of foods either for their whole lives. So we want to see what does their body need more of not just from a caloric standpoint but also from a mineral standpoint too.

Yeah. And I mean, I'll run a lot of, I've run a lot of everything, but there's blood work that will show like fatty acid profile and amino acid profile. And you can literally see what you're not eating on a regular basis or like what you're not absorbing and then which system is using it up. So if there's an fatty acid that's really prominent in the nervous system and that's really low, then I can say, Hey, there's some neuroinflammation going on here. And that becomes more important.

you know what mean? Then like, but I'm getting fat. It's like, well, you shouldn't be getting fat, but we need to get somebody fat percentage up. And then we need to create a healthy relationship. And the swing is hard. You know, that's the, the swing from like, I used to feel this way. And now it's just uncomfortable, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing. Anything else that we haven't covered that's important in your field that you do.

You know, I think that the main thing I would say is just if you have period loss Question more than just labs ultrasound question to how you're eating be really honest with yourself. Look at your exercise obviously, so not all period losses caused from hypothalamic amenorrhea and There are many cases that go unaddressed or misdiagnosed as I referenced earlier So just be willing to be honest with yourself and kind of look like hey is there a possibility that this could be my specific root cause?

And if so, the approach really does need to be adjusted and modified so that my body gets that temporary timeframe of a surplus. gets the rest, gets the safety required so that pregnancy can actually be quite easy for me by getting all those things that it needs that it just hasn't had in really long time.

Yeah, and can we speak to the woman who is like, relieved that she doesn't have her period? Like, why is that not good long term?

I hear this all the time. That's why I cackled when you said that of like people, I get these actually in the comments more than anything of my posts of like, thank goodness my period is gone. And I always think that's usually teenagers saying that or someone, maybe it is someone in their twenties and thirties who does not understand the importance of a period. But as Lisa Henderson Jack coined, your period is your fifth vital sign. If your period is missing, that is.

one of the biggest red flags your body could possibly give you if like something is wrong here, you were meant to

Like if you stopped pooping, you would be freaking out. Right? So why don't we do the same?

And it's been more than three or more months, hypothalamic amenorrhea is a possibility. So we need to really look and be like, OK, what is going on here? And that's why we love fertility tracking at our practice, having women measure not only their basal body temperature, but look at things like cervical mucus. Because we know when ovulation is coming. We know when your period is coming as a result of that. And it gives us so much data about what's going on with your body. So even if you do have a period, you don't have period loss, just tracking and understanding your body.

It will tell you everything you need to know by paying attention to the signs your body gives you, including a regular ovulatory period. And I say that because some women, because they don't track her, because they're not paying attention, have a period, but they're not ovulating. like, you have to make sure that's an ovulatory period too.

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. It's that's funny. It's like, but if I have my period, I must be ovulating. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

So when our clients come to work with us, they most often report that 95 % of their thoughts are surrounding by food, body, and exercise. And usually by the time they're done working with us, we're looking at like where it should be, 20, 30%. We want to think about these things every day, but it shouldn't be all consuming all that you think about. You're able to.

thinking about how much energy that takes. Do you know what mean? It does take a lot of energy to think about food and what you're eating and.

But imagine if you're obsessing every single time you eat about, my gosh, should I be eating this? How many calories?

I remember, I remember what it's like.

And then we talk so much in the fertility space we all do don't we dr. Jane about the impacts of stress and I think it's important to note the mental emotional damage that an Unhealthy relationship with food causes therefore affects your fertility. So there's obviously that huge piece There's obviously just having a period and the ability to get pregnant and stay pregnant But we're also if we look to the things I was mentioning earlier, you know, your libido is back It's wonderful to have hormones. They make you want to actually have sex. We're talking about

Do the thing that you want, right? Like when women don't have a libido, I'm like, you realize that that's the thing that you have to do in order to have the baby. And so that's the first sign of infertility is low libido because you don't actually, your body is like, I don't want this because maybe it's too tired, it's too depleted, it's too stressed, inflamed, whatever it is. it's a huge and important sign of low libido and infertility, very big connection.

Yeah, and for our cases in HA, I mean no libido whatsoever. Like they are completely don't even think about it. In conjunction with that, they also often have very like they have a lot of vaginal dryness. So they're getting proper lubrication back. So that's enjoyable to have sex. We're looking at things like being able to go to the bathroom every day and not being so bloated. You're not cold all the time. Your hair and nails are luscious and vibrant as they should be. You have energy. You don't have to take a nap or

or drink a coffee every day at 3 p.m. I think if someone is able to do the work to heal their relationship with food, get their periods back and go on to get pregnant after their pregnancy and push apart, you are gonna be amazed by how amazing you are about to feel. I can speak to that on a personal level. I had no idea how awful I felt on a daily basis. I was so used to that, especially given that I was on birth control for so long. I just had no idea that it wasn't normal to be that tired all the time or to never go to the bathroom.

and it's going to impact really truly every single area of your body.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, and then it sets you up for the healthy pregnancy and the baby and good examples for your children. Boys and girls.

and that is yeah and gosh I mean if that means that future generations of their ovaries are going to be healthy because of that that's incredible.

Yep, absolutely. Thank you. Is there anything else? Where do people find you? Yes. How do they work with you?

So the most common places to find us is Instagram. We're incredibly active on Instagram. You can find us at at nourishing minds nutrition. And then we also have a podcast, nourishing women podcast, where we talk exclusively about this condition, HA.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Victoria, for being here. I'm excited to let this podcast out. I love the niche within the niche because, you know, there's just so much in the infertility space. And I think when you have someone who just specializes in one thing, if you know you have that one thing, just do that because that's, you know, and it cancels out so much noise, which is great.

Yes, thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Dr. Jane.

Thank you. Bye guys. See you next week.