I was thrilled to see a post on Resolve’s Facebook page talking about them moderating a panel at a US Senate briefing regarding the impact of chemicals on infertility.
It mentions that they want a couple to express concerns about how chemicals in our products, homes and workplaces can interfere with conception and infertility.
How about starting with the food products in our home?
Up until a year ago, we honestly thought we ate a healthy balance of protein, vegetables and fruit, and everything else in “moderation”.
We were in for a rude awakening.
Just over a year ago, Lisa hired a personal trainer.
After 10 years of trying to lose weight she had battled since Elliana was born, and being frustrated with still being on blood pressure medication, she felt that the 5 days a week of exercise was just not enough.
The trainer she hired told her something I’d never heard:
Her success would be based on 20% exercise and 80% nutrition.
We also learned that about 80% of what we were eating was chemically altered crap.
And it wasn’t the obvious culprits like chips, and donuts, and sugary breakfast cereals.
The wheat bread we bought had high fructose corn syrup. The wheat in that bread was genetically modified.
Translation: our bodies didn’t recognize much difference between the bread and the bag of Doritos.
The “convenience” meals were the worst—Mac and Cheese was a staple of our diet. Quick fix rice dishes and microwaveable food had about 3 days worth of the amount of sodium you need in ONE BOX.
The fat free foods—in the words of Lisa’s chiropractor: a chemical shit storm.
We learned about chemicals used on the vegetables and fruits we thought were so healthy.
The hormones injected into the meats that we were buying in the grocery store.
So we went to a clean eating diet, that is commonly referred to as “paleo.”
I hate the word paleo because it gives people the impression we are out hunting in our back yard and tearing of the flesh of animals and eating around a bonfire.
It just means the food is not chemically altered. Organic meat, organic vegetables, and organic fruits.
Nothing in a box. No brand name breads, if we have bread at all.
You’ve probably read Lisa’s posts about the results:
She went from a size 16 to size 4 in one year. Off blood pressure meds for a year. A fibroid the size of a doorknob: disappeared.
Elliana lost 20 pounds over the summer, has more energy now that has helped her not only get into competitive dancing, but given her sustained concentration and fewer emotional meltdowns, resulting in her 3rd quarter of high honors.
I have more energy than I did in my twenties, my concentration level at work is off the charts, and I never get that 3pm “sleepy” thing I started battling with when I turned 45.
The one thing we never really adjusted was our eating habits when we were going through infertility. In fact, “comfort” foods were a staple when a cycle failed and we wanted to drown our tears in a bag of popcorn and an escape movie fest, or in a pint of ice cream.
I have read a lot lately about how inflammatory diets can contribute to all kinds of inflammatory diseases and health issues.
Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease that Lisa battled with. Perhaps an anti-inflammatory diet would have at least made the flare ups more bearable.
My low sperm count was unexplained. Maybe eating an anti-inflammatory diet could have improved things.
I guess the scary thing is, if the food in our pantry was filled with chemicals, adding household cleaning products, and workplace chemical exposure make it easy to argue that conception and infertility could be adversely affected.
Bravo to The Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Coalition for bringing a bill that seeks to reform how chemicals are regulated to the Senate.
Hopefully the bill will address the chemicals that end up inside us from our daily diet, in addition to all the other chemical exposure we are in contact with around us.