In this episode, we dive into how your morning habits might be working against your fertility goals. From mistimed coffee to skipping breakfast or overtraining, we break down how your routine impacts hormones, digestion, and nutrient absorption and what to do instead to set your body and fertility potential up for success.

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Takeaways

Skipping meals in the morning can negatively impact fertility.

Intermittent fasting may not be beneficial for everyone.

Hydration in the morning is crucial for overall health.

Testing can reveal nutrient deficiencies affecting fertility.

Gut health plays a significant role in reproductive health.

Cortisol levels can impact fertility and overall well-being.

An ideal morning routine includes hydration and nutrient-dense foods.

Exercise should be balanced with nutritional needs for fertility.

Understanding personal health markers is essential for tailored advice.

A healthy microbiome is vital for both male and female fertility.

Chapters

00:00 Morning Routines and Fertility Connection

02:52 The Impact of Intermittent Fasting on Hormones

05:42 Testing for Nutritional and Hormonal Imbalances

08:45 Gut Health and Its Role in Fertility

11:44 The Importance of Proper Nutrition

14:50 Hydration and Morning Rituals

17:42 Electrolytes and Their Benefits

19:55 Morning Routines and Fertility

29:42 The Ideal Morning Routine for Conception

39:20 Wrapping Up: Key Takeaways and Next Steps

Connect with Dr. Jane Levesque

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

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

Hi guys, today I'm back with Dr. Nicole and we have another hot topic for you about morning routines and energy and cortisol and gut microbiome and how it's all connected to your fertility. Thanks for being here, Nicole. It's good to see you.

It's so good to see you. Thank you for having me.

I feel like every time we connect, it's like you gain more experience and you see more patients and there's more insights that you can share with us all. you, I mean, why don't you just say what is the thing that's been coming up on the surface level? And then we're going to go ahead and break it down and how it's connected to fertility and why it's important to address.

I love that. So I've been seeing a very, very common theme, especially amongst women that I'm working with, not just we mentioned morning routine, but really skipping meals in the morning, not hydrating in the morning, being, you know, solely reliant on caffeinating and doing that and essentially not consuming until later in the day and calling it intermittent fasting, right? So then there's the concerns of

What is this doing to their blood sugar? What is it doing to their hormones, their stress levels, their ability to sleep? How is their body able to handle it? And then how is that affecting their fertility?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so it's.

Yep. Yeah, I'm glad you said intermittent fasting because I wonder.

Sorry, I wonder how many women are doing intermittent fasting as a benefit. Like they're thinking that this is really beneficial, but then they're caffeinating and over exercising and all these other things that are then actually detrimental. So I'm glad that you brought up intermittent fasting already.

Yeah, and I think in some cases, at least one I can think of, it's they're under exercising, but they're intermittent fasting for the goal of weight loss, but then their body's just storing all of that fat because they're depleted and because their cortisol is through the roof. And so it's actually having a counterproductive effect to what they really need to be happening to not just lose the weight, but to also stimulate that proper fertility aspect and have that good, healthy ovulation.

Yeah, so it's starting with the morning routine. What are the symptoms? I think, why do you think we have the morning routine that we do? Is it usually weight loss? Is it running out of time? Is it, you know, like you just don't have time and it's stress? Is it low energy? And so then you're relying on caffeine. What are the patterns that you're seeing?

Yeah, I would say I probably see two of those the most. One is gonna be the couples that don't have the very restful sleep and so there's a lot of waking at night so then in the morning it's like, oh, I need this to even just start my day. And sometimes that's just a mentality too. It's not that they actually need it. It's just that mental crutch. And then on the other end, it's the opposite of...

Mm-hmm.

They wake up, they've got a busy job, busy day. So then it's, let's grab the coffee. We do the coffee, we run out the door. Maybe we're grabbing a Chick-fil-A egg sandwich on the run and we're eating in the car. it's like the, you know, by the time they actually eat, they've already been up for about six hours.

Yeah, it's funny you say chick-fil-a because I just think about my husband who's like, leave my diet coke alone, like leave my chick-fil-a alone. know, I got to it eventually, but it does take time. Certain things we have attachments to a little bit harder than others. yeah. Okay. So, I mean, you know, us, we want to talk about the testing.

There's no

and kind of understanding, I mean, let's connect it to fertility first, like why is this detrimental to fertility? And then let's go into the testing that we do and the imbalances that we see when we have this routine. And then we will bring it back to like what is an ideal and optimal routine as we dive deep into some testing details first.

Yeah, as far as testing that we run, love looking at, mean, blood work's always gonna be a foundational. It's gonna give us a lot of insight as to what's happening. For instance, we were just looking at appliance methylation panel and everything was really low. So we could see that, okay, she's nutrient depleted. She doesn't have what she needs and she's not eating enough, right?

then we can jump over to a Dutch and that gives you the cortisol awakening. So you can really see what's happening with those cortisol spikes. How is the body handling it? And what's great with the Dutch is it also is going to show you a picture of if ovulation is happening and the quality of that ovulation. And you can see that correlation between the two aspects of that stress hormone and the fertility aspect there. But it's going to be super important because

If you are, and you've said this multiple times across multiple platforms, but if your body is in that fight or flight state, which is what happens when you're already depleted, you're running on cortisol, then you drink coffee and you're kind of putting, you're like putting water into a gas tank and trying to run off of it. Your body's not going to be thinking about how to handle conception, implantation, and then developing a child because it's too busy trying to survive because it's not getting a bare minimum of what it needs.

Yep, that's it. Like that's very, and then after the Dutch, where do we jump? What's the other one we jump to?

Yeah, so looking at, so we said blood methylation, Dutch, and then also like a gut health test, like a really good gut microbiome test, even preferably sometimes that over the Dutch, depending upon what we need for that particular person. But really looking at what is happening in that gut microbiome, what is the diversity? Are there things that are overgrowing? Do we have, for instance, Candida that's going to thrive off of an empty environment, so to speak?

or do we have other types of gut inflammation, irritation that's occurring? And so, you know, is there an over activation of the immune system? I also find it really interesting the amount of women who are doing this kind of delayed or intermittent fasting and maybe it's not even intentional, but then they also have autoimmune diagnoses. And so then you start looking at the connection there and how that autoimmune is gonna affect their fertility as well.

Yeah. What in for those here is.

What I do love intermittent fasting, fasting done intermittently. I literally have, I think she's 45. She's had like two or three failed IVF retrievals and they just blamed it on eggs. No one looked at sperm and she's, we are essentially cleaning up the mess that was created with all the drugs. And then when I look at her hormones, I'm like, you know what, this is actually pretty good. And I think she has good genetics. So I think that there, and we have to work on him quite a bit because he, he's got, but if I just look

Mm-hmm.

Look, she's got some stubborn fat. She's got some stubborn blood sugar dysregulation. And if I time it with that first half of the cycle, for five to 10 days, we do two meals a day. And it's breakfast and lunch versus breakfast or lunch and dinner because women do so much better with fuel in the morning.

Thank

that intermittent fasting routine tends to for five days and like she dropped three pounds and it's still staying off. She feels great. It's like, and, but after the 10 days, she was like, I was getting really tired. I was starting to get really irritated. And I think what happens is most women will go, that's when it's working and they'll just caffeinate themselves because of this energy crash. And so that creates the depletion where we look at a methylation panel and you're like, you have nothing.

there's things.

like you don't have any proteins, amino acids, you don't have any choline, don't have any, like there is nothing there. And that's why, you know, what you were bringing up is, this person eating? And it's like, well, they're eating, but they're eating really low calorie. And then if they're eating...

and room.

Absolutely.

And then the body's holding on to fat instead of releasing it. They have inflammation and then they have, you know, immune dysregulation and you add candida. I mean, so many things start to go off that the last thing the body's thinking about is like, I should make a baby, especially if you're, you know, older.

Exactly. And I love how you said, you know, with the client you were talking about, you did it for about five to 10 days, right? So having, think, where is.

in the first half of the cycle. And I think that's really important because if you're doing that when progesterone is supposed to be high, that's actually so depleting for the woman. She needs more carbohydrates. She needs more calories. And so it has to be done right in the right periods of your cycle. Like I think that is very, important for women to know. Cause if you're starving yourself in that second half, you bet your ass you're going to be flat for the entire next cycle. Cause the body's just wiped.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So what I kind of wanted to pull from what you said is, and just putting it super simplistic, is the way that you design using it so that it's a tool, right? So the intermittent fasting is a tool versus this ongoing lifestyle thing that I'm just going to do until the end of time and hope that it has these big benefits. So having that structure around this is how long we're doing it.

Thanks.

this is when we're doing it and then we're going to stop and we're going to take a break and we're going to let our body recover and we're going to replenish it the way that's healthy and proper. So it gives you more of a reset versus a long-term depletion.

And I mean, if we go into the gut, whether it's a ketogenic diet, whether it's intermittent fasting.

Mm-hmm.

carnivore diets for long term, I do not see the benefits of doing it long term. think short term, very few people, what I will say. And if you're listening to this, it's unlikely that you are the very few person. Like we always want to think for the exception, the 1%, and I think most of us are in the 99 % category. And I've seen people do intermittent fasting for a long time or the carnivore diet or just

Keto.

And their gut microbiome is horrendous. Like they have no good microbes and then they'll just have, because then there's no good microbes. Then you have a couple of these nasty kind of streptococci of pseudonymous or klebsiella or even a parasite like just hanging around and causing adding to the nutrition. Now people will say, I feel amazing on that. It's usually you feel amazing because that inflammation goes down short term, but the goal is to teach you how to.

is an

eat for a healthy microbiome and

Testing really helps you. I always say, like, I don't want say I don't believe people when they say they're healthy. Like I just don't, because I just think our standard of health is so, low. So I'm like, show me, just show me that you're healthy. Cause I've been at this for so long. And do I consider myself healthy? Yes, absolutely. But do I also have things that I'm working on? Yes, absolutely. You know, so it's, there's so much of a ripple effect and I, I'd love for people to stop doing something just because they heard an influencer.

Sure.

Yeah.

So.

say the or or even

Mm-hmm.

friend.

I'll go as far and say, not even a friend, even in research, when people are like research shows, it's such a controlled study of like research shows for this period of time. It's very unlikely. Like there is some more longer studies coming out now, which is beautiful, but like people are not following someone for 10, 20 years to see the effects. It's such a short term. And then if we look at women versus men, most of the time it's men that are being studied and then researchers are

in

not clinicians. Some are. And so I think clinical experience always trumps what we're seeing in research because researchers trying to catch up and study the body and trying to figure out what the body is doing versus if I'm working with a body all the time, like my own and my clients, I can see those changes and I can test and I can look and then I can use research to help guide. But the, you know, every case is so unique and individual. Sorry, that was a rant.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I love it. I love it. I think it's super important. And I think a couple of things that you kind of touched upon too is like when it comes to seeing an influencer or research and you decide to do one of these diets, you also have to be careful of what's being categorized as keto friendly or Whole30 friendly. And it's like, okay, these are good guidelines, but then a lot of the things that are being consumed are still ultra processed and they're not good for you. And they're way too high.

You

certain fat contents or sugar contents. And if you're someone, let's say you struggle with bacterial vaginosis or Candida and you're just consuming these foods, you're actually just feeding that bacteria or that fungus. You are just giving it the sugar that it wants to have. And same thing with being mindful of wheats and the way that they break down to sugar. You are still just serving.

that overgrowth and that discomfort. you know, being mindful there. And then as far as like the morning routine goes, right. So it's just as important where it's like, okay, we're intermittent fasting, but then what's the first thing that we're going to put into our body afterwards, right. And are you hydrating? Are you doing things to help kickstart your digestion? Are you making sure that you're nourished throughout the day? So we were talking earlier about

Mm-hmm.

the Dutch test and you can see the graph where some people wake up and they're so depleted already and then they're just rising on cortisol and then they crash and they tank and it's because they don't have that set up and I love how you said like most women do better where they eat in the morning and the afternoon and then do the intermittent fasting in the evening. I think most people just think, oh intermittent fasting, wake up, drink my coffee, not going to eat until one or two o'clock, I'm good to go.

and they need a thousand calories before you go to bed.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and then they don't sleep well because their body's trying to digest because they just ate a ton of food when they went to bed. And it's like, I don't understand why I'm so uncomfortable and I have to get up and go to the bathroom. My brain's busy. It's like, well, because you're you just fueled your body for a marathon that it's now going to figure out at night. Mm-hmm.

It's true. Yeah. Like just running a quick 42 miles like or 42 kilometers or 22 miles. I just need some pancakes and I, most people don't realize the amount of calories that they consume. So I do think it's like, and the spectrum is always, I'm cautious with that because

Yeah.

I do not tell some women to look at what they're eating because I know it's going to trigger some past traumas, which we will take time and work through, but that's not something that I want to introduce right off the bat. And so it's like, if you're in that category, it is more important that you learn how to nourish your body and like genuinely, are you putting food into your body that's helping it thrive? And I think we all have an intuition around that. I think you can look at a food of plate or if there is a, you know, a presentation of food.

Thank you.

You can look at food and see how much energy and vibrance it has and if it's going to be the right food. I've literally looked at something and go, I don't know if I should eat that. And then if I did eat it, I paid for it. And then now I just listen to it. You look at something and you go.

This is

I don't know if I should eat that. And now I just don't because I know that's my senses going, don't eat that. Like whatever is in there is exactly, it's putting an energy out for you. And most of us are just not in tune enough, but I would encourage people cause sometimes we're like, I don't know what to eat. I'm like, just look at food. And so if nothing looks good, then is the choices of food you have terrible or B is your digestion so bad that your body's like, I can't eat anything. So then.

Yeah, yeah, you're even questioning it.

Thank

You you start with broths and you start starts with soups and smoothies and like really soft food that's easy to digest and you add enzymes. It's like if you don't ever want to eat, that's a huge red flag. And if you

It's new.

or, you know, like, it doesn't matter what I eat. Also, you know, red flag, should, you should care the few, the fuel you put in your body. But all that to say, I know I ranted, but like, I remember in the fertility one on one, I'm thinking of this one client, she's actually pregnant, she'll be getting giving birth, I think in October, early September, October. And when I said like, do intermittent fasting, but cut the dinner, she was like, but I love having dinner. And I'm like, I know.

for being.

Absolutely.

Love having breakfast though. Like, you know, it was such an attachment to having the dinner, but it worked so much better for her cause she was tracking data with Aura. You could see how much better her system handled the breakfast and the lunch and the results that she had for that short window of intermittent fasting for literally 10 days. it was really, really powerful for her and it's powerful for a lot of people. mean, I've had people get pregnant right after that because

Yeah, yeah.

There's, you know, short-term, intermittent fasting has incredible benefits, but it's the breakfast and the lunch, not the dinners.

Yeah.

And two, if you're a sugar craver, also intermittent fasting can be a really beautiful tool to kind of help that. So taking that break, almost helps cleanse you from it. So then you're not having such intense cravings, but again, it's making sure that you're doing it properly and you are fueled and you are able to handle that. But there are so many ways that it can be used, but I just, across the board, I'd say I probably had three clients in the last couple of weeks where

you know, we're having the same conversation around making sure that we're hydrating in the mornings versus like coffee can be dehydrating. So you're already waking up dehydrated and then just kind of sticking with that versus waking up, putting some water into the body, optimizing your digestion, giving it a kickstart, and then being able to work through the rest of the day.

Yeah, and I find like really good electrolytes first thing in the morning, especially if, and you could see right on blood work, if it's sodium versus potassium versus, yeah, like magnesium, what do you need? And usually if we can get a good mix between the sodium, potassium and some lemon first thing in the morning, it's like, not only will you drink that really fast because your body will just absorb it. And it's like, my God, I need that. But then the need for caffeine, might be delayed if.

you need it at all.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I love that. think the electrolytes are huge. think even in some of our modules, we talk about doing like the lemon and ginger, having that in the mornings to kickstart digestion, which is also a great option. I've had people put little pinches of Himalayan salt just to help with that absorption, which is also a really good option to consider. So you don't necessarily have to go and spend.

the crazy money on the electrolytes. If you need to just start really, simple with what you have in your house, there's so many things that you can do to just kind of, you know, get that going. And it's kind of like letting interest in the bank build, right? So you're just over time putting a little bit more in and letting it grow. And as you do that, and as you create that habit, then you can build onto the next habit and go a little deeper. Maybe you buy the electrolyte or maybe you.

you know, get a little fancier with the breakfast you're making in the morning versus just getting like the hard boiled eggs that sitting in the fridge.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well I'm like I would just say there

really depends on the time you have. if you're a 35 plus or in, you're 40 plus, we need to implement things a lot faster and quicker to, because that timeline is literally closing versus if you're listening to this and you're just wanting to improve general fertility down the road, it's like, yeah, absolutely. Putting a quarter teaspoon of Himalayan or any like just high quality salt with half a lemon squeezed into one cup of water. So it's pretty potent. If you,

is

Is it?

do that first thing in the morning, you will feel awake. And you'll probably go to the bathroom within the next 30 minutes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. It makes a big difference. It really does to just start off. There was someone, I forget who it was. It was one of those like popular motivational speakers, kind of like a Tony Robbins. But I remember him saying like, if you win the first 45 minutes of your day, then you lose the rest of your day less. And so I think about that a lot. And I try to put that on the forefront of clients' minds of, you know, when you wake up in the morning, what are two or three things

that are going to let you know that you're winning your day, but not just winning it in general, but you're taking a step forward in this fertility journey. So what are the three things where you can wake up and say, okay, I did this for my body and that's going to help my fertility. I just took a step forward today. I feel good. The rest of my day is going to be good.

Right? And having that, because it's not just about, you know, what you're consuming, it's also what you're thinking. And, you know, are you scrolling your phone and consuming poison in the morning? So just being mindful of that and then putting those steps in place. And this is where having someone on your team or someone behind you like Dr. Jane, myself or Tina can really be helpful because we're looking at everything with that fertility lens and we're looking at your story and what you're doing on a day to day basis and can help you figure out what is that next step.

to get closer to our goal in fertility and breaking it down. And what are those three things in the morning that each of them, it's not just gonna be some advice that you found on the internet, but it's gonna be very specific and tailored to you and to your fertility goals. Cause even, you know, ultimately everyone wants to get pregnant, but one couple's goal might be IVF and another couple's goal might be a natural pregnancy. And so it's always a little different and there's little tweaks that you can make depending upon those stories.

Yeah, I went that actually like brings it in before we talk about like, what is the ideal morning routine? What other, you know, let's connect it to like, you said cortisol, we talked about, you know, kind of inflammation in a little bit about the gut, but how is that morning routine? What else does it impact when it comes to fertility? And we're, we're kind of just speaking about women at this point, but I think I, I do think that this relates to the male partner as well.

Yeah, I think it goes both ways. think, you know, it's going to have an effect regardless. But essentially.

The question was, how is it affecting fertility?

Yeah, how was my fertility? Yeah. That morning routine. Besides, the court is all spiking and being in fight or flight.

So.

So we did touch upon the microbiome, making sure that that's a nice healthy microbiome because your vaginal microbiome and even like a male reproductive microbiome, it's going to be a reflection of what's happening in your gut. So for instance, like we said earlier, if you're having those Candida bacterial overgrowth or maybe there's just really low diversity that's happening because you've created this more acidic environment with just consuming coffee and not having enough fuel.

that's going to affect what that reproductive microbiome looks like. And now when it comes to whether we're talking women or men, there's certain pH levels that we want to target, right? So we want to ensure that we have the right kind of pH for the sperm. We have a good vaginal pH. And so if our gut pH is way thrown off the chart, well, we can only expect that to then be reflected into there. And now if you don't have a proper environment to be housing healthy sperm or a healthy egg,

Well, there you go. Now we have a fertility struggle in our hands, right? And not saying that this is the one and only root cause, because it comes from a bunch of different angles and it creates a perfect storm. But that's also a big piece of the puzzle is what's happening in that pH, because that's going to ultimately sustain life or not be able to.

in some studies showing that the pH determines...

for those who are trying to influence if they have a boy or a girl, it's boys tend to be born in a more alkaline environment and girls more in an acidic environment. And it can be like connected back to methylation. And this is something that I'm like, Like I'm just blessed with whatever, know, versus there's for sure more research and studies of like, how can we influence it naturally to be a boy or a girl? And then the other study that I was thinking about.

Yeah.

That's it.

is when

your cortisol is dysregulated. changes your microbiome within minutes, let alone, then like you can take a couple of hours to come back. And so even when we're asking our patients to test, we're trying to get them to test on a normal day. So if you were driving in to do blood work and you got some road rage because you were stuck in traffic or whatever, those blood markers are now going to be different than if you weren't the S like something like prolactin, for example, for women.

Soon.

So.

you have to sit still for 10-20 minutes before you go in. And so if you ran in and you had a really bad experience, just had wrote that prolactin is going to be elevated. And now the cortisol is all over the place and that has a downstream effect on the microbiome. So we always tell our patients when you're getting the stool analysis or the vaginal microbiome, just try to have it as normal of a day as possible because it does create that those shifts that quickly and then it will

come back to quote unquote your normal. But if you're always high, then it's always just, it's like this and that's chaos. And then when the body is in the chaotic state that comes back to that fight or flight, nutrient depletion, last thing your body's thinking about is like, I should make a baby. So yeah, those are the two studies that I was like, yeah, that's, you know, there's, there's so much research showing all these things that we are talking about already. It's just, guess, conceptualizing it for people. So it's more tangible of like, how is this showing up?

up in my day to day, you

And I think an easy, you kind of brought it to mind, cause it made me think of a case this week that I was talking to, but they had a stressful, slightly more traumatic event happen over the weekend. And then the next day, you know, she was very sick and she had these runny mushy stools and you know, in her case, she was also vomiting, but it was all anxiety driven, right? So a really good check-in of even if you're doing the intermittent fasting of how your body's doing and how it's handling it is looking at your stool.

So if you're waking up in the morning, not eating anything, you're just doing coffee and then you have super runny, liquified stool, probably not doing the best for your body, right? And same thing where you can check into, I in that fight or flight state, is depending upon what's happening with your stool. Is it nice and formed? Is it leaning more towards diarrhea or is it more constipation? Because it can kind of go either way when you're in that fight or flight.

you

And granted, there's other things that may come to play, like again, the nutrients or, you know, infections, but as far as like looping us back to where we started with that intermittent fasting is that is a really, really good check-in and also, you know, hydration, like how much are you going to the bathroom? What does it look like? Is it super yellow? Is it relatively a light yellow? Like, is it clear? You know, is it, you're just trickling or are you really urinating? And so just seeing what you're doing to.

Sustain your body's health.

Yeah, are you peeing every 30 minutes or every hour without really drinking any water? Because that's a lot of the times is infections. One of my patients is she's just like, but I always go pee. And I'm like, but there's no burning. There's no anything else. But we saw the infections show up in other areas. And so it's like.

Is there any?

you clear it and all of a sudden you're like, yeah, I'm drinking a bunch of water and I'm not going pee. It's like, right. Cause your bladder isn't this big. And so if something is triggering it, then usually, and that's true for men as well. If you're peeing frequently, it's usually, you want to look at the prostate. You want to look at a urine culture. I mean, semen culture and semen analysis, semen analysis, if it's including like white blood cells, yes, you might catch something. And there is more seminal microbiome tests that are coming out.

Thanks for listening.

will in the next one to two years, like this space will be exploding, which then like we can have a deeper look and usually it's a sign of, you know, infections and that's why the bladder is, you know, being triggered to empty because the body's so smart. It's like, I don't want to hold this in here, get it out. But once the infection is gone, it doesn't have to have that same trigger.

Thank

Yeah, that was a good point. actually just had that conversation with someone yesterday who was telling me, you know, she drinks a lot of water in the morning and kind of funnels it down towards end of the day, but she's still waking up consistently at night. So we had that little same exact conversation around hidden infection and really diving in. so the next step for her is the lab testing to see, you know, what exactly is going on and what's coming into play, not just in her urinating at night, but fertility, of course.

For sure. Okay, so let's talk about what's the ideal morning routine. What do we want to see for our patients and for anyone who's trying to conceive?

Yeah, absolutely. First things first is waking up and hydrating. So whether you're doing the electrolytes or you're doing the pinch of salt or you're doing lemon and ginger, but making sure you're waking up, you're having some type of cup of water, you're probably going to the bathroom right away. So ideally if you wake up and you're using the restroom, that's fantastic. We want to see that. And then after that.

Yeah, we want to, you want to have a poop one hour after waking. That's Let one hour or less. So if you're not pooping until the end of the day, that's sluggish digestion for me. I like that bio all because all of that cleanup should have been done at nighttime. And so as soon as you wake up, the colon goes, get it out. And so if that's not happening, then there's usually an overwhelm of cleanup, sluggish liver, not enough fiber, water, all of that stuff.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then I, and this may vary from from practitioner, practitioner. For me, I typically say like give yourself about 30 minutes to really just wake up, be hydrated before you eat, but then eat something that's going to be a bit more protein heavy. So whether it's, know, you're having some eggs with a little bit of veggies, that's fantastic. If you're someone who's like, I'm just starting fresh and eating in the morning is really, really difficult. I mean, you could find

there's some yogurts that have really good protein content, get a yogurt or do an oatmeal that has a really good bit of protein in it. Like you can get very creative with what you're able to consume or even if you just need to start off by doing a protein shake, right? So if you're just like my stomach just won't and it needs training, it needs to learn, then you can baby step that process. After having protein, I typically recommend like no less than 15 minutes, but ideally another like

Yep.

30 to 45, even pushing an hour before you have coffee. So giving your body some time to really break down that food and digest and absorb it before you start putting coffee into the system.

Yeah, what do you say to people who are like, but I don't like eating, I'm not hungry in the mornings. And then what about if I work out in the mornings, you know, first thing, so like you're waking up and you're working out.

Yeah, so one of the questions I'll have is like, what is the goal of the workout, right? Because in some cases, it can be good to work out on an empty stomach and it depends on, you know, what you're working out for and why you're doing it. But in other cases, it's much better if you can get some fuel into the system prior to working out. I try to meet people where they're at. I've had some people who definitely like they wake up and they're not hungry, but then they do a 30 minute workout and then they can eat.

So it's like, if they need to really get that movement going and lifting, then making sure like, okay, still hydrate before you do your workout, but let them evaluate what you're eating after that workout and also how intense are you going during that morning workout? Because you can do it and do it properly so that it's sustaining versus depleting yourself. So I think there's, and know, Dr. Jane, I'd love your insight, but for me, I try to gauge like where someone is, why are they doing the workout? What is their goal for it?

and then supporting that journey specifically.

I think you have to, like, I agree with everything you want to, we always meet people where they're at. I think the tough conversation to have is how is your working workout goals fitting in with your bigger goals? So if the bigger goal is to start a family and you're used to working out at five in the morning on an empty stomach, and then I look at your data and it's like, you're depleted and you need at least another hour of sleep and you need to fuel your body. Like this patient, you know, that we were just talking about her labs. It's like,

Is it?

That would be so chaotic for that system to work out first thing in the morning fasted and maybe she's already doing that. I don't know. And so it's like now if the greater goal is to have a family versus the losing weight is the goal that we'll get. But there's so many ways to lose weight or there's so many different ways to so if you can be flexible and adaptable with your routine, I think that what will set you up for success because once you do have children, you have

is lean.

to let go of some of your routines, right? Like I have maintained working out, but it's so different now that I have my children versus when I didn't because I had all the time in the world before and I could work out in the afternoon, in the morning or whatever. Whereas now it's like, if I can get 20 minutes in, that's all I'm going to get. Like today I'm going to work out in my living room while my pot is boiling for dinner. it's like, that's like, I'm planning for that, you know, because my goal is longevity versus

Mm-hmm.

I'm trying to get fit. so...

To me is where is that fitting in? absolutely. And then like, is this actually beneficial for you? Because with working out, it's very tricky, but it's adrenaline. And so a lot of people feel very good after working out because of the endorphins, which is great, but they mask. Sometimes they're actually masking how crappy they're feeling and they are depleting themselves. Most people are not moving enough, but there are a few people who mask

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

what else is going on for them by working out. And so then that becomes a different story. And then it's like, can we address the issue? So then you're not using the workouts to just feel good. You should feel good. And then you're working out to build yourself up as opposed to, if I don't work out, then everything falls apart, you know? Yeah.

and

Absolutely.

So, and what the patient I was talking about, who I think she's giving birth in September or October.

Yeah.

I haven't eaten and now I'll have a big steak and potatoes and all this stuff and I can have dessert and it's like no no no that's not you know we have to cut calories in intermittent fasting that's the whole point. When you wake up in the morning you're not going to be hungry because your body is still you can probably do a 24 hour fast and be fine with the amount of calories you consumed so if you cut out the dinner usually you have no issues or make the dinner portion smaller if you're not doing intermittent fasting usually there's no issue.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

then with eating breakfast because your body's like, I'm hungry. And it's so much better for you to eat earlier in the day so your body can break it down and metabolize it as opposed to at nighttime. As we talked about, you're just like crashing and sleeping.

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, just kind of piggybacking is like eating, like you mentioned, eating earlier. So sometimes I'll have conversation with clients of like, okay, they're not having dinner till eight o'clock at night. Let's try to bump it up to like seven thirty eight. And then if we can get a little bit earlier than that and just slowly start moving it up so our body has time to recover through the night versus eating this big meal. And then it's like, now I'm going to sit on the couch and scroll my phone and then try to sleep. And then I don't sleep.

Yeah. Good rule thumb is three hours before bed you should be eating. So if you're going to bed at 10, like seven is the latest that you should be done eating. And so if you're going to bed at 11, then like eight is the latest, but I think earlier is better. Like if you can eat at five or 6 PM, like that's great. So then you have time to unwind and then you start to get hungry and it's like, Hey, you just gotta go to bed. Like, you know, just go to

Is it?

Stop eating. Eat your calories in the morning.

Yes, no, I love that.

Yeah. Thank you, Nicole. This was, it's funny because it was just like, let's talk about morning routine, but there's so much to unpack when you start.

really digging in and understanding. I think the goal is to like, it is so simple. It's your morning routine. And there's so much content out there of like, here are all the things that you should be doing. And like, what we encourage you to do is always to break down why you have the morning routine that you do. Like, where did it start? How did you get into it? Where's the habit? Cause maybe it's coming from, when I was a little kid, we never had time to eat and we would just be kicked out to like run into school. Cause we were always late. So you might

have some very long standing habits. If we understand that and then we back it up with some really good lab work, I say show me you're healthy, like show me this routine is actually working for your body. If we back that up, then

and

then I'm happy, like great, do, but we are usually, we're using the data to help us understand what the body needs. And then here are the changes that we need to make so then we can actually start making progress towards your family goals. Do you want anything to add? You're good.

Yes.

nothing to add. I think it was fun. think, you know, we had some little side tangents and there was golden nuggets and every single one of them. So, I guess get your notebooks out, listen to it again, write down all the things.

100%. Thanks guys. We'll see you next week.

Bye.