How soon should you start a preconception care plan?
One of the questions I get asked is “how soon should I start a preconception diet?”
I recommend at least 6 months, the reason being is that it gives you time to adjust from your previous diet without too much overwhelm and stress on you to have to change your food choices all at once.
Not only this, but getting in a few liver cleanses before conception is definitely a must.
You see, we live in a very toxic world!
If you know my work, you know I’m very vocal about this fact, but for good reason!
You see, since WW2, approximately 80,000 toxic, man made chemicals have entered our environment.
Our bodies aren't designed to tolerate these chemicals. Our livers take on these poisons that enter our system in order to protect us and if we don’t cleanse them out, we pass them onto our children.
Add on high protein/ fat diets, viruses and bacteria that are in our environment and that’s a lot for our bodies to deal with, leading to symptoms and conditions that we suffer today.
This is why having ample time to make changes in your current diet and lifestyle can make such a difference to not only being able to get pregnant when you want to but also to your pregnancy, birth, post natal recovery and your baby’s health.
It’s not always easy to make changes in your life, however if you start as soon as you can, no matter how small the change may be, well that’s a start and that’s great!
Some of the best ways to begin preparing your body for pregnancy are:
Increasing your fruits and vegetables-
These powerful foods will help cleanse your body of unwanted pathogens as well as upping your vitamin and minerals.
Saying no to unproductive foods-
Have you heard of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)?
These are foods that have been altered through genetic engineering.
Unfortunately, our bodies don’t cope well with these frankenstein foods and therefore it’s best to avoid them. These foods include gluten, soy, and corn.
Some other foods to avoid would be anything with numbers on them, preservatives, words you don’t understand, natural flavours and colourings.
Liver cleansing-
Decreasing the amount of fats and proteins you eat can make the liver’s job a much easier one!
Unburdening the liver from this task means your body can finally start digging into old reserves of toxins it’s been holding onto.
Letting them go safely before being passed onto your baby is a great start!
Supplements-
Getting started on some basic supplementation can really up your preconception care game!
I wish I could say supplementation isn’t needed but unfortunately, due to the amount of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and rodenticides being sprayed in our environment and on our soil, over time our soil has been depleted of its minerals and therefore the produce grown is deficient of the nutrients it once had.
Movement plan-
Yoga, pilates, and walking are great gentle movement practices to start implementing right away.
I especially love yoga as I feel it has not only movement covered, but also works on mindfulness and breathing techniques which are great for getting you ready to birth your baby when the time comes.
Cycle charting-
I did a whole blog post on this, check it out here. Cycle charting can help you bring awareness to your body and that information is valuable especially when TTC.
Let me know in the comments below, what will you get started on right away?