I am excited now to introduce you to Susan Portz and Susan is gonna talk with us about finding freedom in your fertility journey. And I think that's, that's so important because there's so much guilt and there is so much where you feel like you have to do it like this and you have to be perfect. Um, freedom will activate I think your, your overall happiness and decrease stress. So there's so much goodness in that, Susan. Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
I love it. So what made you, um, become so passionate to, to teach woman who struggle with, for to find freedom in, in, and freedom and, and you know, in how to deal with food and nutrition?
Yeah, that's such a good question. So for me, it really started with my own personal fertility journey and mm-hmm, <affirmative> having my own personal struggles with trying to conceive and being on this journey myself for several years now, that's what really made me passionate about helping other women that are also on the fertility journey. And I also realized as a registered dietician, that diet culture, as we often call, it has really infiltrated the fertility space. And yeah, it it's, it's made it so that a lot of, and myself included, I felt like this at first too, that like you have to eat perfectly and you can't eat certain foods. And the problem with that is it just doesn't allow you to live your life. And that's what it was the combination of my own journey and seeing how, how diet, culture, and culture within the fertility world, when it came to food was really impacting other women as well.
Yeah. You know, and, and, and I know for my clients that, you know, they tell me they, you know, there's, there's so much out there that at some point you really don't know where one says, you have to do this. The other says, you have to do that where it's confusing, I guess. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> if you're on your own and you're, you're, you're Googling your way around the internet <laugh> then. Yeah. How do you find peace of mind and how do you find okay with what you do
Well, and that's exactly it, because when you start to get down the Google black hole, I call it, you're gonna find one resource. That's going to tell you one thing. And then another resource that's going to tell you the complete opposite of that. And so it is exactly what you said, it's, it makes it confusing and frustrating. And then what I see happens to a lot of women is you end up blaming yourself and thinking that you need to be more perfect. And that's just, that's just not how it has to be. There is a different way.
Yeah. And let's talk about that. What, what would you say is, you know, your, I don't know, number one, two or three tips that you say, this is, yeah. This is important for you to know on the fertility journey.
Absolutely. You know, I think my number one tip when I'm first getting started with people is to just stay off of Google, um, and stay and stay off of the internet. And, uh, because it, it, it just, it creates more confusion and it, it makes more frustration. So getting away from trying to like, find the answer on Google and like trying to like control everything. I think one of the biggest things that I see is when we feel like we have no control on the fertility journey, food is something that you feel like you can control. However, these restrictive mindsets and these restrictive diets that tend to come with the fertility diet, it doesn't really allow you to live your life. So if we can get away from doing the Googling and trying to listen to these external rules and start to learn more about like, what works best for your body and taking a more gentle approach, that's where we can really start to figure out what's going to work best mm-hmm <affirmative>.
And, you know, I'm just tuning in to if the listeners are thinking. Yeah. But I don't know what's best for my body. Do you have like a clue on how to tune into that? Or what is it, what is a guideline? I mean, I know my body's super sensitive, so if I eat something that I know it's not good for me, but then I will feel it. I, I get floated or, but not everybody has that. So how do you, yeah. How do you deal with that then?
Absolutely. So that's kind of where inside of my framework, one of the things that we talk about is just the very first step is starting to identify if you notice when you're hungry and if you can feel when you're full, um, because those are kind of the first little vital signs that you can start to listen to. And then over time, you start to learn more about what feels good for your body and what works best for your body. And then on top of that, we, once you're feeling more comfortable and more competent in that space, that's when we start to add on the different layers where we can talk about fertility, nutrition, and there absolutely are things that you can do that can help you improve your egg quality, improve your overall fertility from a nutrition standpoint. But we talk about how do we approach that in a gentle way, and in a way that's going to allow you to continue to live your life, because anything that's gonna impede you from living your life is, is really not sustainable.
No. And what for example is just from the top of your Headd, like where, you know, well, that's, that's good for everyone for ad quality because I know this is such a hot topic. Likeliness always, you know, they wanna know this and they're like, okay, what could you say?
You know, I think honestly, one of like the like baseline things and I'm gonna say it, and everyone's probably gonna be like, okay, that sounds like I knew that. But the reality of it is, is that nutrition doesn't have to be as complicated as we make it out to be. And so that's what I focus on is simplifying it. And so one of like the more simpler things that you can do is just add in more fruits and vegetables. And like I said, that sounds really, really basic, but a lot of times, like when we're stuck in diet culture, we think like we have to eat them in a way that we don't like them. So thinking outside of the box and how do you like to cook your vegetables? What types of things do you like to mix with them? And really starting to think of it more from what's going to be really appealing and satisfying for you in a whole different light.
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Now back to our podcast. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. So you're like, you know, add, add more vegetables and add more, uh, fruits to your diet. And I think for most of us that would be really healthy, right? It's it's I think we're a borderline under nourish. Probably.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And the thing about looking at what you can add in is it's way more focused on abundance than it is focusing on sacrificing and taking things away. And that's really what I want women to see. And I also want you to see that you can make fruits and vegetables taste good. You can come up with combinations that you enjoy. Like they don't have to taste bad. They don't have to be raw and UN profited. And in a way you don't like them. Like you can, you can roast them. You can add dressing to them like that is okay. And it doesn't have to be the most, perfectly clean salad dressing. Like you can put ranch on your vegetables. That's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I remember my daughter as a child, I was raised like, you have to eat your vegetables and now I love vegetables, but I'm more creative, but then like Al sprout was like a curse. You couldn't come near that. My daughter thought me that you roast them. And I love Brussel sprout now. So it's yeah, it's really like you say right. To be, be creative and, and, and instead of restrictive, I think that's, that is so, so helpful. Now, Susan, what do you have any last word of wisdom for, for our women?
Absolutely. I think my biggest piece of advice is when you're looking at food, just to remember that no one food or one meal or one day of eating is going to make or break it when it comes to your fertility or your ag quality. So don't beat yourself up. Don't feel guilty over something that is in the grand scheme of things, not that big of a deal.
Mm. Thank you so much. That's, that's, it's so helpful. And I think anyone who listens can implement the information you, and it's just beautiful. Thank you so much. Can you, um, tell our listeners, what's your website?
Easiest to find me is actually on Instagram. Um, so you can follow me on Instagram at empowered dot nutritionist and just connect with me on there, pop over and say hello. And we will chat about what's going on with you.
Mm. Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and yeah. Okay. This is Pascal gall with the get pregnant now podcast. And thank you so much for listening. And I wanna remind you that there is hope and there is help. And sometimes it takes just one little tweak. You never thought of to open your body, your mind to conception. I believe that every woman who longs to be mother deserves to have all the help to get pregnant, to make her baby dream come true for more information, go to get pregnant now.com and make sure you join us for the next episode, sending you sweet healing, baby whisper.