The Top 5 foods to Avoid When Trying to Get Pregnant

Published Thursday July 11, 2024

What a woman eats while she is preparing for pregnancy AND while she is pregnant has the ability to affect fetal development. This phenomenon is known as fetal programming and it means that the mother’s nutritional status can alter her baby’s genes.

Your choices NOW truly affect your chances of conceiving and your future children’s health.

Your body is made up of trillions of cells. These cells are constantly dividing to make new cells. The food you eat is highly responsible for the quality of these new cells and the raw materials that will go into making your baby.

In this blog post, I outline what foods to avoid when preparing for pregnancy and why it matters for your fertility and your baby’s health.

For years, the public has perceived soy as a health food. While this broad sweeping statement has some truth to it, there are some things to consider to ensure you are consuming the right kind of soy.

The bean part of soy found in most soy-based foods including tofu, soymilk, edamame, and soybean oil, is in its unfermented form and is toxic to the body. Processed soy is pro-estrogenic which means that it mimics estrogen and can upset the delicate hormone balance in the body impacting the health of your menstrual cycles (1), as well as inhibit thyroid function by blocking the thyroid from absorbing iodine. 

The only type of soy that is recommended to consume are ones that have been fermented including: 

• Miso
• Tempeh
• Tamari
• Natto

Here is what you need to ditch.

• Tofu
• Soymilk
• Soybean oil
• Soy flour
• Soy protein (isolate) 

Who hasn't had their battle with sugar? It calls to you after a savory dinner, it throws itself at you at nearly every holiday and celebration and it makes you feel like you deserve it for just about any reason at all. Unfortunately, it is also hidden in most of our foods today.

Without added 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, happy and energetic. 

Why does this matter?

When you consume sugar, It is released into your bloodstream and immediately insulin is released to take the sugar and shuttle it into the organs and muscles. Insulin is essential as it keeps the blood sugar stable, and keeps us alive because too much sugar in the blood can be fatal.  

If you have a constant high supply of insulin, it also has its own detrimental effects. It increases belly fat storage and will also contribute to mood swings, leaving you feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Therefore, knowing how to fuel yourself properly will make or break your mood, your day and your health.

What does this have to do with your fertility? 

Think about your hormones as being in a TIERED system, there is a hierarchy when it comes to your hormones.

Tier 1 = Insulin & Cortisol

Tier 2 = Pregnenolone & DHEA

Tier 3 = Estrogen, Progesterone, Testosterone & Thyroid

If they become imbalanced, they disrupt the remaining ones down the chain. Cortisol and insulin are at the top of this hormone hierarchy because they are "life and death" hormones. These hormones are heavy duty, and they will overtake all other hormones to prove they mean business. When they rise to unsustainable levels, they can wreak havoc on ALL the other major hormones, which are essential for making a baby. So how do you regulate and take care of these 2 Queen Bee hormones? You guessed it… by balancing your blood sugar.

Since sugar is disguised in many different ways, it is important to learn all the names it is labeled as so you can avoid them when grocery shopping. When you start looking closely, you may be shocked with how many of your groceries have hidden sugars in them. 

A few of the names for hidden sugars: 

• High fructose corn syrup
• Dextrose
• Rice syrup
• Dextrin
• Golden syrup
• Maltose
• Galactose 

These can typically be found in many grocery store snack foods including: cookies, crackers, cereals, granola bars and pastries. Additionally they are added to yogurts, condiments, sauces, protein bars and baby foods. 

Some approved replacements include: 

• Coconut sugar
• Stevia
• Xylitol 
• Monk Fruit
• Date syrup
• Raw honey
• Maple syrup

These oils were discovered in the early 1900’s and have run rampant in the western food industry in the last century. They are mainly used in all shelf stable products and as replacements of healthy fats in low-fat products. They are very high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which promote inflammation and the accumulation of toxins in body fat (2).

To give you an idea of how bad these oils are for you, it’s important for you to understand how they are made.

First, seeds are gathered (soy, corn, cotton, safflower & rapeseed plants). Next, the seeds are heated to extremely high temperatures; this causes the unsaturated fatty acids in the seeds to oxidize, creating byproducts that are harmful to human health.

The seeds are then processed with a petroleum-based solvent, to maximize the amount of oil extracted from them. Next, manufacturers use chemicals to deodorize the oils, which have a very off-putting smell once extracted. The deodorization process produces trans fats, which are well known to be harmful.

Lastly, more chemicals are added to improve the color of the industrial seed oils.

Because these oils are typically liquid at room temperature, many companies use hydrogenation to improve the texture, consistency and shelf life of a product. Although many countries have tightened regulations around hydrogenated vegetable oil, it can still be found in a variety of food products. Here is a list of hydrogenated oils to stay away from.

Hydrogenated oils to remove:

• Canola oil
• Corn oil
• Cottonseed oil
• Soy oil
• Sunflower oil
• Safflower oil
• Rapeseed oil
• Palm oil

Next time you’re at the grocery store, check your labels for any of these hydrogenated oils and minimize buying the most common foods that contain these hydrogenated vegetable oils including:

• Margarine
• Fried foods
• Baked goods
• Coffee creamers
• Crackers
• Pre-made dough
• Vegetable shortening
• Microwave popcorn
• Potato chips
• Packaged snacks

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 by regularly pumping your system with caffeine. 

Remember the hormone hierarchy we discussed in the sugar section? When you drink caffeine, this automatically calls upon cortisol to be released and constant cortisol production can take a hit on your adrenal health and your fertility.

Research now shows that caffeine consumption affects menstrual cycle length and the production of your reproductive hormones. It also increases the risk of experiencing fertility challenges (3).

One study found that women who consume moderate to high amounts of caffeine are more likely to experience a delay in their time to conception (4).  Another study found that women who consumed 300mg of caffeine per day (equivalent to about 3 cups of coffee) were 27 percent less likely to conceive during any given menstrual cycle (5). 

If you experience any of these symptoms or scenarios, consider it a red flag from your body telling you there might be hormonal dysfunction in the body. 

• If you can’t get up and function in the mornings without caffeine 
• Have extreme PMS 
• Suffer from anxiety
• Experience chronic exhaustion and fatigue 

Consider omitting caffeine entirely for one to two cycles to see how your symptoms change and if you notice any chance in your sleep quality, overall energy, mood and hunger cues.

What about decaf? Unfortunately, caffeine is mostly processed out of the coffee bean via chemical stripping, which is toxic. If you 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. 

Check out different strategies for how to drink coffee when TTC.

Gluten is the main protein found in wheat products that gives it its elasticity. The most common sources of gluten that you might be familiar with are found in wheat, rye and barley, but also sneak its way into our food (and personal care) products from a variety of other ingredients. These include starch, modified food starch, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed plant protein, textured vegetable protein, dextrin, maltodextrin, glucose syrup, caramel, malt flavoring, malt extract and malt vinegar. 

While gluten foods are pleasing to our pallet, there are an increasing number of people who have health problems related to consuming gluten. 

One of the main reasons for this is that as a society, we have thrashed our food supply with scientific engineering and an increased use of pesticides, with grains and wheat being at the top of the list for one of the most genetically modified crops in the world. As a result, our bodies are not recognizing these foods and we cannot process them efficiently, leading to health problems. 

We now know that modern wheat is causing severe digestive disorders, contributing to inflammatory and autoimmune conditions and to thyroid disorders, which all dramatically impact fertility (6).

Gluten, Thyroid & Autoimmune Conditions

If you are someone who struggles with Hashimoto’s, any thyroid issue or also have an autoimmune condition, eliminate gluten altogether. In Hashimoto’s, this is an autoimmune condition that causes white blood cells and antibodies to attack the thyroid.

When someone with the condition eats gluten, those antibodies react because the protein structure of gluten is similar to the structure of the thyroid. High levels of antibodies correlate with symptoms in Hashimoto’s, so lowering antibody levels may help alleviate some of these symptoms (7).  

One study of 34 women with Hashimoto’s did find that a gluten-free diet reduced antibody levels, but more research is needed to confirm these findings (8). There is some evidence that a gluten-free diet may be helpful for people with non-celiac autoimmune conditions as a whole because it can help reduce inflammation, which may be largely responsible for many of the symptoms (9, 10). 

Celiac disease is more prevalent in people with autoimmune conditions, so testing for celiac disease is recommended (11, 12, 13). 

Approved gluten free grains, starches and flours:

• Amaranth
• Arrowroot
• Buckwheat
• Flax
• Gluten-free flours — rice, corn, potato and bean flours
• Millet
• Quinoa
• Rice, including wild rice
• Sorghum
• Tapioca (cassava root)
• Teff

It is highly evident that fertility and pregnancy require a complex interplay of nutrients and hormones, all of which can be affected by your food choices. Taking time to prepare and nourish the body prior to starting "trying" or after running into difficulties is a wonderful way to set up the best possible environment for conception to occur. You have more control over this process than you think.

It’s about educating yourself first and then working with, instead of, against your body to set it up for the best possible chance of conceiving and carrying a baby to term.

Looking for personalized support and guidance with getting pregnant? We’re here to help. Check out my 1:1 private fertility coaching packages here.

Sending you love, light & baby dust,
Nora