Fertility Journal Week One: Food as Medicine 🍵
There are so many places that we could start here on this journey. So, I’m going to kick it off with something I love deeply, food. I’m going to start there because I would go so far as to stay, what and how we eat determines the amount of ease or struggle in healing everything else.
Our digestion is the one piece that every other aspect of health is rooted in Chinese medicine. To have a healthy body and mind we need healthy foundations. What we eat and how we breathe are the building blocks for healthy blood and qi (energy) and the quality and circulation of our qi & blood determines our overall health. In Chinese medicine, we work to create blood and qi that is flowing, nourished and bountiful. Stagnant and/or deficient blood and qi is the cause of many infertility challenges, among other health issues.
There’s so many elements to eating in a way that nurtures fertility that I won’t even attempt to cover it all in one sitting. That’s not to overwhelm you because when these pieces come together it all happens with relative ease. Some of these elements include eating for menstrual health, eating seasonally, timing of meals, fertility boosting foods, the importance of eating organically (especially important for pre-pregnancy mom and dad) and there’s eating mindfully with presence and gratitude for your food. I’ll cover all these topics and more along this journey. But right now, I want to share what I consider to be one of the most important elements for eating in a way that truly feeds us and that’s eating intuitively.
Let’s explore what that means.
In Chinese medicine, we study the energetics of food. Is it warming or cooling? Aromatic? Spicy? Sweet? Sour? Bitter? All these elements have specific effects on our bodies. Sweet has a tonifying effect, bitter drains heat, sour astringes our body fluids. It would be impossible to prescribe one diet plan for each unique individual but by tapping into our own intuition on what would be nurturing to us meal-by-meal we can start to understand our own dietary rhythms.
A few examples might be if you’re feeling angry or hot-headed, think of eating cooling foods like cucumbers or adding mint to your water. Or if you are phlegmy, cut out dairy and add aromatic, opening foods like citrus that break up phlegm.
If you want to explore the energetics of food more, you can take a look at the book “Tao of Nutrition” by Mao Shing Ni, “Healing with Whole Foods” by Paul Pitchfood or “Fixing your Mood with Food” by Heather Lounsbury, which all take a Chinese medicine approach to nutrition. I also follow @chriskresser and @medicalmedium on IG. Who do you like for meal inspiration or nutritional guidance? Tell me in the comments, would love to hear.
Coming back, there is this one thing that applies to all menstruating and fertility-focused people: eat warming foods. We’re working on building a warm cocoon for a possible baby to live in and so having a warm digestion that then creates a warm womb is paramount. If the idea of forming a relationship with the state of your womb is new, don’t worry, I’ll explore that in the coming weeks too. In Chinese medicine, eating a warm diet focuses qi (energy) and blood circulation on the lower abdomen and the reproductive organs. By improving blood flow to this area we are able to enhance fertility.
Eating warm foods means cutting out iced drinks, salads, smoothies and pretty much anything that’s served cold or has a cooling effect. If you really love some of those things, remember this is just hitting the pause button and you can treat yourself in moderation during the warmer months. Sometimes I get around this by drinking warming ginger tea after I eat a salad or throwing in some turmeric, ginger or cinnamon into a smoothie or my cooking to add a little extra nourishing warmth.
There are also specific foods that are good across the board for most every woman to indulge in. That includes getting plenty of essential fatty acids, preferably from unprocessed plant sources and deep sea fish, eating grass-fed, organic meat, indulging in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, brussel sprouts and cauliflower and getting iron, folic acid and B vitamins. I’ve been trying out the most beautiful recipes that include these ideas from “Awakening Fertility” by Heng Ou at @motherbees.
To me, cooking in this way is one of my favorite parts of preparing for pregnancy. I love to experiment in the kitchen. The way I’ve eaten over the years, hasn’t changed drastically. I was fortunate to have grown up with a mom who cooked at home pretty consistently. She made dishes from her French and Italian heritage and experimented with cooking casseroles, roasts and fish. She also kept the amount of snacks in the house to a minimum, which as a kid was a real buzzkill. My diet evolved when I came up against some skin issues, mostly painful cystic acne. It’s part of what led me to become an acupuncturist but that’s a long story for another day. I had to become a detective around what my skin was reacting to in my internal and external environment. In an effort to treat my skin, after multiple other routes failed, I eliminated dairy and gluten and found success in how my skin looked and my energy levels. Over the years, I’ve experimented with being paleo, vegan and intermittent fasting but in the end, I practice eating intuitively. I don’t always listen to what my body tells me but I know that when I do, I feel better. That includes deciding whether I need to eat meat that day by checking in with myself, looking at where I am in my menstrual cycle and feeling out my energy levels. Or if I’m feeling sluggish and foggy headed, I’ll eat some brain nourishing foods like salmon, walnuts or anything else that delivers healthy fats. In essence, intuitive eating to me is being your own healer and listening to the signals from your body (not just your mind) on how to fuel yourself.
To try this out, I want to invite you into a practice.
Practice #1: Before mealtime, stop and close your eyes and connect to how you are feeling in your body. What are you truly hungry for? Is it something light, warm, salty, crunchy, spicy, sweet? Are you thirsty? It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Then build your meal around that desire. Empowering yourself to be your own healer.
What we consume on all levels plays such a huge role in our health and making those conscious decisions takes practice, it’s like a muscle that’s being worked. In the beginning it can feel like a real slog but then you turn a corner and it feels easier and more fun.
It takes a little more time to eat in this way and time is absolutely a resource. But when we slow down just a little bit to make food choices that nourish us, spend a little bit more time in creating a meal that will sustain us and spend a moment giving our attention on the food we eat, I find that I feel much more well cared for and centered, which therefore makes it easier to complete my other tasks. It does take prioritizing but it’s creating healthy foundations to thrive instead of survive and a baby grows in a thriving environment.
I take a lot of pleasure from food so I hope this feels like an invitation to become inspired around how to use food as medicine. Like one of the original doctors, Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
With love, Jessica
Jessica Wakeman, L.Ac, CCHT, is an acupuncturist, herbalist and certified clinical hypnotherapist. She is an all around explorer of wellness practices and wisdom traditions.
To learn more about her, visit KinMedicine.com and join her on Facebook or Instagram. You can also sign up for her newsletter to receive new posts and upcoming events.
