Your body is made up of trillions of cells. These cells are constantly dividing to make new cells daily. The food you eat is highly responsible for the quality of these new cells. So you literally are what you eat. This also means you have a say in what you’re made of.

Not only that, your baby is what you eat, too. This phenomenon is called fetal programming and it means that the mother’s nutritional status can alter her baby’s genes. In other words, what a woman eats while she is pregnant has the ability to affect fetal development, the baby’s DNA, and long-term health in her adult life, either increasing or reducing the risk of chronic diseases as an adult.¹ Remember our brief discussion about epigenetics in Chapter 1? (See The Future Is in Your Hands, here.) What that means is that your choices now truly affect not only your future children but also your grandchildren. You hold immense power at the end of your fork, power that is beyond your wildest dreams.

So let’s start with what foods to avoid and how to do it without going crazy.

Top 6 Things to Avoid

• Caffeine

• Sugar

• Alcohol

• Soy

• Gluten

• Toxic bath and body products and household cleaners (which are major hormone disruptors)

We admit this can be overwhelming at first glance. But we would never leave you on your own to figure it out. Our time-tested process will help you reach new nutritional heights you never knew existed, and you can get there without having to think so hard about it.

Our job is to make the process graceful and to give you so many upgrades and tasty food substitutes that you will hardly recognize the absence of what may have been your old standbys.

Let’s begin our good-byes with caffeine, since America largely runs on lattes and cappuccinos. We hope by the time you finish reading this book, you won’t need that afternoon cup of joe because the energy you crave will be there naturally.

CAFFEINE

Do you know anyone who sustains an adrenaline rush well? All of the work you are doing to balance your stress hormones will be in vain if you are forcing your body to release cortisol (a stress hormone) by regularly pumping yourself full of coffee. The body needs time to regularly rest and recover; by giving it excessive amounts of caffeine we push it beyond its natural limit, forcing it to run on fumes… and then sputter.

By enjoying viable, tasty substitutes for coffee, you can start to give your poor little adrenal glands a rest without feeling completely deprived. These two tiny glands, no bigger than the size of a grape, are responsible for your life energy and vitality. Feed them well by giving them high-quality fat and protein when you wake up (which gives them what they need to make cortisol so you have energy) instead of kicking them with coffee (which forces them to give you cortisol you haven’t quite “earned” yet). The latter is like stealing from the energy bank. You will have to repay this borrowed energy with exhaustion at some point.

Remember that it’s always about moderation and accountability. Having an 8-to 12-ounce cup of organic, unsweetened (or naturally sweetened with coconut sugar) coffee after or with a substantial breakfast never hurt anyone. It’s the three cups before noon without breakfast that need to be addressed. It’s totally fine to start your day with breakfast and a cup of coffee. But instead of having a second morning latte or going back to the office coffee machine, are you willing to try green tea? It’s much less offensive to your system, not to mention less acidic, and it contains the amino acid l-theanine, which calms your mind (and reduces brain inflammation) and helps increase focus. If you need more caffeine than that, go with yerba mate, a delicious, earthy-tasting herb that looks like green tea but has a kick of caffeine—like coffee, minus the acidity.

Or if it’s that bold, rich, ceremonial cup of dark liquid elixir you need, but you don’t so much mind going without caffeine, try Dandy Blend, an herbal instant coffee substitute that is caffeine- and gluten-free. You can drink it hot or cold, but we like it best on ice. You can also use Christa’s product review website, twjproductreviews.com, which offers all kinds of free, healthy product swaps, as a guide in the grocery store as you upgrade your pantry toward foods that help you conceive naturally.

We are often asked if decaffeinated coffee is a better choice, and we’re afraid we don’t have the answer you might want. Unfortunately, caffeine is mostly processed out of the coffee bean via chemical stripping, which is toxic. If you do drink decaf or are planning to make the switch, seek out Swiss-water processed decaf to ensure it is processed naturally. Any brand will do as long as it’s Swiss-water processed and organic. There are several widely available brands made with good-tasting Peruvian beans.

If you are not the cold turkey type, start off your morning with a glass of warm lemon water and eat a little food, specifically something with protein and some fat, before you enjoy your first cup of joe. Then slowly wean yourself off coffee at a pace that’s comfortable for you so you don’t feel miserable with withdrawal headaches and foul moods. Another gentle way to transition is to trade out your afternoon coffee for an herbal tea and go from there.

In case you still aren’t convinced that cutting down on caffeine could help you, there are a few other issues we would like to point out—nine to be exact. In his book Caffeine Blues, nutritional biochemist Stephen Cherniske, MS, points out that drinking excessive caffeine can contribute to:²

1. Cardiovascular problems: Caffeine increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure, and can contribute to the development of heart disease. Both decaf and regular coffee increase your cholesterol and homocysteine levels (bad for those with the MTHFR genetic mutation) that science has linked to increased risk for heart attack.

2. Stress: Caffeine stimulates the excretion of stress hormones, which can produce increased levels of anxiety, irritability, muscular tension and pain, indigestion, and insomnia, and can decrease immunity. By constantly operating in a state of high stress, your body forgets how to respond in a healthy manner to normal, daily stressors.

3. Anxiety, irritability, and emotional disturbances: Anxiety and irritability are hallmark mood disturbances associated with caffeine consumption, but equally important are depression and attention disorders. Depression may occur as part of the letdown after the stimulant effects of caffeine wear off. It may also appear during the recovery period after quitting caffeine while the brain’s chemistry readjusts.

4. Blood sugar swings: Diabetics and hypoglycemics should avoid caffeine because it stimulates a temporary surge in blood sugar followed by an overproduction of insulin, causing a blood sugar crash within hours. This roller coaster also causes weight gain since insulin’s message to the body is to store excess sugar as fat.

5. Gastrointestinal problems: Many people experience a burning sensation after drinking coffee. Coffee, including decaf, can reduce pressure on the valve between the esophagus and the stomach so that the highly acidic contents of the stomach pass up to the esophagus, creating heartburn and reflux.

6. Nutritional deficiencies: Caffeine inhibits the absorption of some nutrients and causes the urinary excretion of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, and trace minerals—all essential elements necessary for good conception health.

7. Female health problems: Fibrocystic breast disease, PMS, osteoporosis, infertility problems, miscarriage, low-birth-weight babies, and menopausal problems such as hot flashes can all be exacerbated by caffeine consumption. Women on birth control pills are particularly at risk since they have a decreased ability to detoxify caffeine.

8. Aging: If you are forty or above and wanting to conceive naturally, we recommend quitting cold turkey. Production of DHEA, melatonin, and other vital hormones declines at this age and caffeine speeds up that downhill slide. Caffeine dehydrates the body and contributes to aging of the skin and kidneys. Additionally, it has been shown to inhibit DNA repair and to slow the ability of the liver to detoxify foreign toxins.

9. Adrenal exhaustion: Caffeine overconsumption leads to eventual adrenal exhaustion, which can leave you vulnerable to a variety of health disorders related to inflammation, autoimmunity, and fatigue.

Infertility, miscarriage, low-birth-weight babies, and menopausal problems such as hot flashes can all be exacerbated by caffeine consumption.

On deck next for things to avoid is sugar.

SUGAR

Who hasn’t had their battle with sugar? It is literally everywhere and let’s be honest, it tastes delicious. It calls to you after a savory dinner. It throws itself at you at nearly every holiday and celebration. It makes you feel like you deserve it for just about any old reason at all.

Christa personally loves sugar. Shocking? It is true. And she credits it for getting her into the nutrition field because she was a total sugar and caffeine junkie. Who needs lunch when we have Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish? Plus they are fat-free. Ha. Or at least that’s what made sense to her in high school and college. Thank goodness she figured out how to take herself off that roller coaster. She shudders to think where she’d be now if she hadn’t.

You might say, “Lucky for me, I don’t have a sweet tooth.” But consuming sugar doesn’t just mean eating Sour Patch Kids and brownies all day. Sugar is in so many other foods it didn’t used to be in, like yogurt, bread, ketchup, hummus, chicken, bacon, pasta sauce, salad dressing, baby food, formula, and so much more. So trust us, your life and health will improve dramatically once you kick this sweet, seductive habit and do some detective work about where it might be quietly lurking in your diet.

Without sugar, you can finally regain some energy and emotional balance without a crazy, addictive substance sucking up all the minerals and B vitamins that are responsible for keeping you sane and happy and energetic. That’s what turned Christa’s life around and helped her commit to the field of nutrition.

Sugar is addictive! An addictive substance is defined by two traits:

• Having just a little bit creates a desire for more.

• Suddenly taking it away causes withdrawal symptoms.

We know this is really difficult, though. Sugar is addictive! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. An addictive substance is defined by two traits:

1. Having just a little bit creates a desire for more.

2. Suddenly taking it away causes withdrawal symptoms.

Thus, sugar is a drug.

Here is a bit of sugar history to drive home the point of how this diabetes-, cancer-, and obesity-exacerbating substance has taken over our culture and society. When it was first introduced in 1689, people consumed around 20 to 30 teaspoons of sugar throughout the course of their entire lifetime. That is roughly the equivalent of one 20-ounce soda or one serving of conventional yogurt in your life. Can you believe that? Or better, can you imagine that? Drinking the equivalent of only a single bottle of Coke in your entire lifetime? Almost 400 years later, the average American consumes 130 to 158 pounds of sugar per year!³ This means that many of us are consuming more than our body weight in sugar annually.

Since sugar is disguised in many different ways, it is important to learn all the names it goes by so you can avoid them when grocery shopping:

• Barley malt

• Cane sugar

• Corn syrup and corn syrup solids

• Dextrose (cultured)

• Evaporated cane juice

• Fruit juice

• Fructose

• Galactose

• Glucose (syrup)

• High fructose corn syrup (known to decrease learning and memory ⁴)

• Lactose

• Maltose

• Maltodextrin

• Mannitol

• Sucrose

• Sorbitol

Fructose is the kind of sugar that’s found in fruit and in processed sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup. The issue with fructose is that the body metabolizes fructose differently than glucose. When you eat a whole piece of fruit, that fructose is wrapped in a healthy package of fiber that slows absorption. The fructose from processed sweeteners goes straight to the liver, creating stress, weight gain, inflammation, and in extreme excess, a fatty liver. And unlike glucose, fructose doesn’t trigger insulin secretion or leptin production. These are two crucial hormones that regulate appetite by telling your body you’re full. The body also absorbs fructose far more rapidly than regular sugar like glucose. The bottom line here is to avoid high fructose corn syrup at all costs and consume fructose only in the form of whole fruit.

We highly recommend reading food labels. Knowledge is power and your key to vibrant health. Who wants sugar (cultured dextrose) in their hummus for goodness’ sake? Not us.

Even if you don’t feel like a sugar addict, you should follow these ten steps for dealing with sugar addiction and substitute and enjoy the options from our natural sweeteners list whenever possible. Keep the sweetness, but lose the sugar! The key to reclaiming your health is controlling how quickly or slowly a substance spikes your blood sugar. We like to keep it slow and steady. Following the steps below will help you live longer because balanced blood sugar levels are the only thing that people who live to one hundred have in common!

Here are ten steps to break up with sugar for good:⁵

1. Reduce or eliminate caffeine. We mentioned this already so we won’t say much more on the topic, but try to observe how caffeine in the morning without food always causes a sugar craving in the afternoon. Also, caffeine is dehydrating and hydration is oh-so-important for your baby-to-be. Speaking of which…

2. Drink water. A lot of it. Often, craving sweets is simply dehydration in disguise. So before you indulge your sweet tooth, drink a glass of water, wait a few minutes, and then check in with yourself to see how you feel. This is an especially useful technique during the first trimester when you’re in the business of making great amniotic fluid. And, ladies, soda doesn’t count when trying to stay hydrated. Soda is America’s number one source of added sugar—avoid it like the plague. Don’t despair, soda addicts; we have upgrades coming for you.

3. Eat sweet vegetables and fruit. They are sweet, healthy, and amazing. The more you eat of these, the less you crave white sugar. For example, a sweet potato or butternut squash soup at lunch will go a long way in helping you avoid the afternoon crash because vegetables slowly release glucose into your bloodstream versus the fast spike of the refined stuff.

4. Use gentle sweets. Avoid artificial sweeteners and food with added sugar. You know, the little pink, yellow, and blue packets—consider them toxic chemicals unfit for human consumption. Instead, use gentle sweeteners such as dark liquid stevia and coconut sugar. (We’ll give you the low-down on our favorite sweeteners in just a minute.)

5. Move it, baby. Get physically active by starting with simple activities, such as walking or yoga. Begin with ten minutes a day and increase that time incrementally. Exercise will help balance your blood sugar levels and reduce stress and tension without needing to medicate yourself with sugar. If you work in an office, get outside and lap the building or do a few sets of stairs in the afternoon just to get the blood flowing. It will help take your mind off the vending machine.

6. Get more sleep at night and more relaxation throughout your day. When you are tired or stressed, your body will crave false energy in the form of sugar (or caffeine). These cravings are often a result of being sleep deprived, going to bed late, or waking up early for months and years on end. Plus, daytime naps improve your memory and reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease. If you can sneak one in during work hours, you’ll feel better for it. When Christa worked a corporate job, she would sleep in her car for twenty minutes on her lunch break. It changed her whole day.

7. Evaluate the amount of animal protein you eat, including meat, dairy, chicken, and eggs. Eating too much (or too little) can lead to cravings for sweets. Experiment to find your body’s balance of how much animal protein it wants at any given point in time.

8. Say good-bye to fat-free and low-fat foods. That is so ’90s. Christa calls it the fat-free cookie phenomenon. Remember all those tasty little cookies that were fat free? She was so excited. She thought to herself, “Awesome! Now I can eat six cookies instead of one.” Bad idea. She was tired all the time back then. In high school when her friends were doing sports after school, she was parked on the couch in a sleep stupor of gluten and sugar, watching talk shows and wondering why she had no energy. Low-fat and fat-free foods contain high quantities of sugar and cheap, pro-inflammatory oils, which will just send you on a nasty roller-coaster ride of cravings, weight gain, poor digestive health, and exhaustion.

9. Experiment with spices. So many spices have near-magical properties that they seriously belong in the medicine cabinet. On a daily basis, use fennel, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom. They will naturally sweeten your foods, support digestion, and reduce cravings while giving you loads of antioxidants and nutritional support.

10. Slow down and find sweetness in ways that don’t involve food! Your body does not biologically need sugar, but it does need physical touch, time with friends, time in nature, workouts, and other things that feed your soul. When life becomes sweet enough itself, no additives are needed!

Keep the Sweetness, Lose the Sugar

You can still have sweet treats, just in a smarter way. Following is a list of seven alternatives to sugar.⁶ Note: We are not fans of agave nectar because it is so high in fructose. As you know from the box here, fructose has to be processed through the liver the same way high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) does. In fact, depending on how agave is processed, it can contain more fructose than HFCS! So dump this trendy sweetener in favor of another one on our list.

Coconut Sugar

Let’s start with our personal favorite: a sugar that looks and tastes just like brown sugar (only it’s much healthier for you). Coconut sugar is made from the sap of the cut flower buds of the coconut palm. It has been used as a natural sweetener for thousands of years in Southeast Asia. We love the rich taste of coconut sugar and the fact that it registers a modest 35 (out of a possible 100) on the glycemic index, a measure for how much a substance raises blood sugar. Compare that to table sugar or sucrose, which maxes out at 100.

Stevia

Stevia is an herb from the rainforests of the Amazon that has been used for centuries by native South Americans. One hundred times sweeter than sugar (a little goes a long way), use it in cooking and baking as well as in drinks where you would usually use sugar or artificial sweeteners. Stevia, which does not affect blood sugar and has zero calories, is available in a powder or liquid in most natural food stores. Be sure to get the green or brown liquids or powders because they haven’t been refined and therefore still retain all of their nutrients. When Christa used to lead cooking classes with clients, she put stevia in everything from salad dressing to turkey chili to tuna salad. Why? Because Americans are so programmed to have the sweet taste that she wanted to gently and gracefully detox them so they still got the sweet taste without the sugar. Soon, the cravings went away without even trying and they were free from the sugar monster!

Xylitol

Quickly gaining recognition in the US, xylitol has been used for decades in European and Asian countries. It occurs naturally in fruits and certain plants and is most commonly sold for consumption after being extracted from birch bark. With its white crystalline structure, it looks and tastes just like sugar but with a profoundly different chemical makeup. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol that is slowly absorbed and only partly used by the body. It contains 40 percent fewer calories than sugar and is safe for diabetics. It is only a 7 on the glycemic index. Your pancreas will thank you. There is one caveat with xylitol. In about 10 percent of people it causes digestive upset and bloating. If you have this reaction to xylitol, then it is not the natural sweetener for you. One of the reasons that this happens with sugar alcohols is because of bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. This is another reason to get your digestive health in order!

Luo Han Guo (Monk Fruit)

Luo han guo is a very sweet fruit native to the mountains of southern China. It is very low in calories, and its extracts are a great substitute for sugar. It is 30 times sweeter than sugar and has been used in China for more than a millennium because of its flavor and lack of calories. It has also been used in traditional Chinese medicine for respiratory ailments and is well reputed to increase longevity. Just make sure to find one without unnecessary additives like maltodextrin and erythritol.

Date Sugar

Date sugar is not a sugar, but rather finely ground dates containing all of the fruit’s nutrients and minerals. If you like the taste of dates, this is a great choice for you. Date sugar can be used sparingly as a direct replacement for sugar; however, it will not produce a sugary taste in cooked dishes.

Raw Honey

Raw honey could be considered the original sweetener. Sweeter to the taste than white sugar, it offers different flavors depending on the plant source. Some honeys are very dark and strongly flavored, while others are lighter in color and flavor. Raw honey contains small amounts of enzymes, minerals, and vitamins, and can be used medicinally in some cases. It is higher on the glycemic index than other natural sweeteners, so use it sparingly. And remember our friends the bees, and source it locally and organically.

Maple Syrup

Maple syrup adds a nice flavor to foods. Make sure you buy 100 percent pure maple syrup, not maple-flavored corn syrup. Organic varieties are best, as always. Maple syrup is also higher in sugar than the others listed above, so use it as a treat and sparingly.

ALCOHOL

Parting is such sweet sorrow! Happy hour or celebratory drinks with family and friends can be hard to let go of for the social aspect. But there really is much to be said for knocking out booze as quickly as possible. While we do advocate moderation, and a glass of wine here and there is fine, too much alcohol kills good gut bacteria, leaches minerals and B vitamins, and messes with your sleep by suppressing GABA levels (a key relaxing chemical messenger in your brain). It also impairs reproductive functions in both men and women.⁷ If you’re just starting to think about pregnancy, you can take your time tapering, but if you’re over thirty-five and have been trying for six months or more, you owe it to yourself to quit cold turkey.

If you are drinking routinely, let’s come up with an action plan. If you are used to your nightly cocktail, start having one every other night, and then only on weekends for about a month with an initial goal of having five drinks a week max, then three drinks a week, and then none. If you do drink during your preconception phase, try choosing lower-sugar options such as tequila, (gluten-free) vodka and soda, or organic red wine. We get that sometimes you need it to be able to relax enough to want to make a baby. You might also consider taking a yoga class to help you relax without alcohol.

SOY

We think this stuff should be used for paving potholes, not for human consumption. Soy is very controversial in the nutrition field. For years, the public has perceived soy as a health food, an ideal source of protein that lowers cholesterol, protects against cancer and heart disease, reduces menopausal symptoms, and prevents osteoporosis. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

The bean part of the soy found in most soy-based foods—tofu, soymilk, edamame, and soybean oil—is in its unfermented form and is toxic. This is why in Asia the common practice is to soak or ferment the seed or bean to remove the toxins. The only form of soy we recommend is soy that has been fermented. (Bonus: Fermented soy contains higher amounts of B vitamins and probiotics.) This includes miso (to make soup or dressings for fish and salads), tempeh (a fermented soy and grain product), and tamari (a wheat-free soy sauce). We also like coconut aminos to help you skip the soy altogether. Tofu is not fermented and we don’t recommend consuming it for a source of vegetarian protein.

For prenatal health (for both men and women), avoid processed soy like the plague. It is pro-estrogenic, which means that it mimics estrogen and can upset the delicate hormonal balance in the body, as well as inhibit thyroid function by blocking the thyroid from absorbing iodine. In fact, just one serving of non-fermented soy lowers thyroid function by 7 percent. When clients who have been drinking soymilk or eating tofu for years come to Christa, we have to virtually rebuild their depleted thyroid gland. Don’t worry if you are currently drinking soymilk. (Christa used to drink soymilk every day in her smoothie; she didn’t know any better—everybody said it was good for her!) This can all be reversed. Just stop now and make a better choice like almond milk, coconut milk, or cow’s milk.

The other concern with soy is that much of it is genetically modified. In fact, 95 percent of the soy grown in the United States is genetically modified. (See here for more on GMOs.)

Here’s your call to action: Gather all the products from your refrigerator, cupboards, and freezer that contain soy (that includes nonorganic eggs and meat because GMO corn and soy is in most conventional animal feed) in its various forms (make sure to read labels) and put them on a table to see just how much of it you might actually be eating.

Here’s what you need to ditch:

• Tofu and soymilk

• Soybean oil, commonly found in chips, crackers, salad dressings, other processed/packaged foods, many restaurant foods, and some supplements

• Soy flour, commonly found in gluten-free baked goods and protein powder

• Soy protein (isolate), commonly found in vegetarian protein powders and vegetarian protein bars

While this soy information may not be good news to you, it could save your fertility. Please read labels but try not to stress. And check out the ton of tasty and healthy soy-free products we’ve found; see the link in our Resources section here.

GLUTEN

Yes, we’re asking you to decrease and eventually ditch gluten from your diet. Believe it or not, our goal is not to inspire you to live in a bubble or a cave where people spoon-feed you kale and berries—we just want to help you get super healthy, and we will soon get to all the wonderful things you can eat.

One of the issues that makes wheat and gluten an unfavorable choice for food is the fact that we have really thrashed our food supply with scientific engineering and an increased use of pesticides. This can cause a host of issues, as you know from our earlier discussion about GMOs, food sensitivities, and fertility (and see here). Food should have remained agriculturally based and should never have made the perilous journey of demise by way of industrialization. And yet, here we are.

So what do we mean by gluten-free? You’ve undoubtedly heard a lot about it and yet it remains a confusing topic for most people. Gluten is the main protein found in wheat products that gives it its elasticity. It’s the stuff that makes the cake or bread spongy and delicious. The problem is that our farming practices have significantly changed the wheat we consume today; it is not the wheat that our grandparents and great-grandparents ate. Modern wheat is causing a host of health issues—from severe digestive disorders, to inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, to thyroid disorders—which dramatically impact fertility.

Gluten is pro-inflammatory and can throw off your hormones when trying to get pregnant. And 1 in 7 Americans are sensitive to it when blood-tested. That means that 1 in 7 people are building up antibodies to gluten, and we think that number is quickly climbing. This is an example of a food operating as a slow form of poison, leaving people feeling tired, bloated, overweight, headachy and cranky, or slightly ill after eating it.

You may have also heard of celiac disease, and we want to be sure that you don’t confuse gluten sensitivity with celiac disease. Celiac disease is a condition in which people have a severe reaction to wheat or gluten. Even small or trace amounts of gluten (even one-eighth of a thumbnail size) will harm their intestines upon consumption. If you have major digestive upset, autoimmune problems upon eating gluten, or chronic, excessive diarrhea, definitely check for celiac disease prior to trying to conceive because miscarriages and stillbirths are a real possibility with undiagnosed celiac. This goes for the guys, too. Men with (undiagnosed) celiac cannot absorb nutrients, especially zinc (a needed mineral to make testosterone), and zinc deficiency drastically affects sperm quality and count.

Celiac testing can be done with a blood test by any physician, naturopath, or functional medicine doctor, and by most nutritionists. A naturopath or physician can walk you through the testing necessary—usually they will begin with an IgG (or an IgA) food sensitivity test to see how you react to gliadin, the protein in wheat, check for leaky gut, and then go further with a test for gliadintransglutaminase complex, which identifies the early mechanisms in the gut that are occurring. (See thedr.com for more information on celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity.) If you’re found to have celiac disease, the treatment is to live a 100 percent gluten-free life.⁸ If you’d like to test on your own, the best way to determine if you have a food sensitivity is to eliminate gluten from your diet and then see how you feel. See here for more on food sensitivities.

Where is gluten found? Gluten is mostly found in bread, flours, candy, cookies, crackers, soups, salad dressings, soy sauce, and seasonings. It is also in oats (due to cross-contamination), barley, and rye. You may even find gluten hiding in lipstick, chocolate, and even the seal on an envelope. Look for terms such as hydrolyzed plant protein, maltodextrin, vegetable protein, and food starch to indicate that a product may contain gluten or wheat. Fortunately, almost all health food stores now provide a lot of wheat-free and gluten-free options for pasta, cookies, and crackers that are made from other grains such as brown rice and quinoa. Wheat- and gluten-free breads will be denser and can be found in the refrigerated section of most health food stores. That said, be sure to avoid some gluten-free products that contain a lot of fillers—they can be just as bad as the gluten itself. We have done the work for you in taste-testing and reviewing a ton of amazing gluten-free products. Go to here in our Resources section for the link to a full list.

XENOESTROGENS

The ingredients in your bath and body products could be messing with your fertility without you even realizing it. Did you use any of the following products today?

• Shampoo

• Conditioner

• Body soap

• Face soap or cleanser

• Facial toner

• Facial moisturizer

• Sunscreen

• Toothpaste

• Tampons

• Perfume or cologne

• Body lotion

• Makeup

• Shaving cream

• Hairspray

• Hair mousse or gel

• Hair coloring

• Nail polish or nail polish remover

• Antibacterial soap

• Hand soap

• Deodorant

• Contact solution

• Laundry detergent

• Baby powder

• Fabric softener

• Air fresheners (for the house or car)

• Household cleaners or disinfectants

• Dish soap

• Fabric freshener

• Baby wipes

The skin is our largest eliminative and protective organ as well as our most absorptive organ. This is why it makes perfect sense that what we put on our bodies affects us just as much as what we put in our bodies. Would you eat any of the products listed above that you used today?

For your fertility goals, our biggest worry is estrogen (this worry applies to your guy, too). Like every hormone naturally produced by the body, estrogen is a vital chemical messenger that transports a signal from one cell to another. However, there are a group of chemicals present in the environment that are nonessential. These are called xenoestrogens. They are in many of the bath and body products many of us use every day, and they mimic the effects of estrogen and can therefore interfere with normal hormone function. When combined with the estrogen naturally produced by the body, these foreign chemicals can create an excess of estrogen. At the same time, they can also create a decrease in progesterone, a necessary hormone for conception and for the retention of pregnancy. Since we know that breast cancer can develop in the presence of excess estrogen over prolonged periods of time, we can also decrease our risk for the disease simply by buying healthier products for our medicine cabinets and showers.

Research shows that xenoestrogens are not only linked to higher rates of breast cancer, but can also contribute to endometriosis, early puberty, infertility, and miscarriages.⁹ In men, xenoestrogens are believed to contribute to decreased sperm counts and prostate and testicular cancers. Other health problems, such as thyroid disorders, may also be linked to xenoestrogens interfering with estrogens naturally produced by the body.

The four major personal care ingredients (there are more but we’ll focus on these) that contain xenoestrogens and other nasty stuff you don’t need on (or in) your body are:

• Parabens

• Sodium lauryl (or laureth) sulfates (SLS)

• DEA (diethanolamine)

• Propylene glycol

We are bummed that the beauty industry is not regulated and that companies get away with so much because the safety standards are just too low (as of the time this book was written). This means you must take extra care when selecting which products to use on your body and in your home. We suggest you avoid products that contain these ingredients or at least severely limit the use of these products. Christa runs an unbiased, healthy product review site (twjproductreviews.com) if you need help finding natural alternatives that have been tested to be healthy and to actually work just as well as traditional products. If you would like to check the toxicity level of your current bath and body products, we love the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep cosmetics database (visit it at ewg.org/skindeep) where you can type in the name of the product you are using and receive an instant rating on its toxicity level.

Remember to make changes slowly so you don’t get too overwhelmed or spend too much money up front. Start with the products you use the most such as lotion, deodorant, shaving cream, toothpaste, and soap, and slowly replace other products when you run out.

There are two simple rules of thumb here:

1. If you wouldn’t eat the product, then don’t put it on your body.

2. If it contains ingredients that you can’t pronounce (or explain), don’t buy it.

If you are really ready to make this change, here is an expanded general list of ingredients to avoid in your bath and body products:

• Artificial colors

• Artificial fragrances

• Benzene

• Bisphenol A

• DEA (diethanolamine), MEA (monoethanolamine), and TEA (triethanolamine)

• Dimethicone

• EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid)

• Formaldehyde

• Gluten

• GMOs (genetically modified organisms)

• Hydrogenated oils

• Mineral oil

• Parabens

• Petrolatum

• Plastics/phthalates

• Polyethylene glycols (PEGs) or 1,4-dioxane

• Polyvinyl chlorides (PVCs)

• Propylene glycol

• Silicates

• Silicones

• Sodium lauryl (or laureth) sulfates (SLSs)

• Wheat

Our top/favorite brands are: OraWellness for healthy toothpaste, Fat Face for deodorant and body lotion, and Annmarie Gianni for organic face care (and some makeup).

DON’T WORRY: PLENTY OF GOOD FOOD AHEAD!

We hope we haven’t completely bummed you out with doom and gloom. By now you might be wondering, “Who are these people anyway and when are they going to tell me what I can eat?”

We admit it—we are health crusaders and wanted to explain the truth about the foods you’re eating every day and the products you’re using every day to give you all the tools you need for optimum health. We hope this has been eye-opening and not overwhelming. Remember, a few small changes will turn things around quickly! But now that we’ve told you what to avoid, we can move on to the good stuff! There are so many amazingly healthy food choices that taste delicious, too.

Remember, we’ve helped hundreds of women one-on-one to prepare their bodies to conceive naturally, so head to the health food store to pick up the nourishing foods we share with you in the next chapter. We kindly ask you to give them a try, even if they sound weird and are a little outside your comfort zone—be adventurous and use your intuition. They taste good and will be so supportive of both your body and your mind. Your future baby will thank you, and so will you when you are feeling on top of the world and glowing from the inside out with new life growing inside you.

CHAPTER FOUR

Preconception Detox

Eliminate the everyday foods and toxins that impede your fertility