If you are a woman who:

☞ Sips on her smoothie throughout the day instead of eating breakfast and lunch, or;

☞ Waits until you’re starving to eat, or;

☞ Snacks to avoid eating full meals, or;

☞ Eats mostly plants in the name of health…

This is for you. ==>

I know you feel like shit. You need to eat more.

It’s currently normal to obsess over eating *just enough.* Never gorge yourself, never eat to fullness, and NEVER eat when you’re not hungry enough. But I’d argue it’s vastly more important to worry about not eating enough.

A woman’s body requires so much input to function optimally. but with the automatic programming of “don’t eat too much” ruling over our decisions, how can I prove that a diet of salads and numbing out your hunger cues isn’t actually healthy? The answer is: by using the logic of your inherent biology. I’m talking, of course, about fertility.

Why I use fertility as a marker of health:

Wellness is a co-opted term that’s ubiquitously understood to mean “weight loss,” But you and I know that’s a bunch of malarkey. If you don’t, see:

do I need to control my weight?

&

the lies we're told

Consider the achievement of the foremost inherent biological goal of the human body: survival of the species. (AKA: fertility.)

We as women are meant to conceive. If you can’t procreate, something is wrong. Fertility is the ultimate marker of health and wellbeing. But let’s take it one step further by defining optimal physical wellness as the best possible circumstances for creating a healthy new human. Case being: if you can’t create an optimally healthy new life on your current diet, you’re not eating well.

Let’s begin.

Dietary factors for optimal perinatal health and gestational development:

Niacinamide

There are some pretty impressive studies demonstrating the use of niacinamide for not only improving oocyte quality, but also reversing female reproductive decline. And guess what foods naturally have the highest concentration of vitamin B3? Animal foods! (Trigger warning: this is a common theme when addressing nutrition for fertility health.)

Choline

Every single plant, animal, and human cell needs choline to produce and maintain their structural integrity. I could stop there, but I won’t.

Choline is so important for cellular health. To name a few reasons why:

☞ Choline is an essential nutrient in the methyl process of cellular metabolism.

☞ It’s needed to synthesize phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin, two major phospholipids that are vital for cell membrane strength.

☞ It’s needed to produce acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that allows your entire nervous system to function. And;

☞ It regulates everything from gene expression, to cell membrane signaling, to lipid transport, all the way down to cellular metabolism and early brain development.

☞ Without enough choline, we’re left with impaired cognition (like memory loss) and nervous system imbalances (like depression & anxiety).

Guess what food has the highest concentration of choline? Egg yolks. And as a bonus: in egg yolks, choline is conveniently bound to phospholipids, which are easily absorbed by your digestive tract.

Sugar

We already know how overrated the fear of sugar is…

why i 🤍 sugar

So now it’s time to consider how underrated the benefits of sugar are. And chief among the laundry list of sugar benefits is:

The health of your thyroid. Sugar plays a vital role in thyroid hormone conversion. If your liver doesn’t have a constant supply of glycogen (which comes from sugar), it won’t convert thyroid hormone T4 into T3. (As a refresher, T3 is the fire that stokes your cellular metabolism.) When you cut sugar, cortisol and adrenaline rise, which increases the stress load on your body. And guess what? Sugar has the opposite effect.

Put simply:

☞ You need sugar for a healthy thyroid;

☞ You need sugar for a healthy metabolism;

☞ You need sugar for a healthy digestive system;

☞ You need sugar for a healthy liver;

☞ Excess sugar can be turned into fat (sorry, you’re still a mammal);

☞ Sugar protects against inflammation;

☞ Sugar improves cholesterol;

☞ Sugar is more effective than protein at preventing protein degradation in your muscle tissue, and;

☞ In the absence of polyunsaturated fatty acids, sugar reduces insulin resistance.

If you need to prove it to yourself: do the work, read the research.

Protein

This might be obvious, but it bears repeating: not all proteins are the same. These macromolecules are widely varied: some types of protein are readily absorbed and used in your body, while others take a few steps to get there. Indisputably, the highest quality and most bioavailable forms of protein come from animal foods.

What’s more: when you consume a complete range of amino acids and minerals by honoring animals through eating nose to tail, you improve both your liver function and hormone production, including the production of progesterone (think: “pro-gestational”).

Getting a complete range of amino acids:

☞ Boosts your immune system

☞ Improves digestion

☞ Fights inflammation

☞ Promotes high-quality sleep

Let’s take bone marrow, for example. Bone marrow alone is:

☞ Rich in minerals like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus: all essential for fertility.

☞ Contains large amounts of gelatin and collagen, which are key to supporting joints, connective tissue, and your skin.

☞ Contains glucosamine and chondroitin, which support bone and joint health.

☞ Has naturally occurring electrolytes like sodium, magnesium, and potassium.

☞ And, of course, it’s a good source of amino acids. *shrug*

Milk

Dairy products are an incredible vessel of easily-digestible, bioavailabile proteins. It contains:

☞ Casein, which lowers cortisol;

☞ High quality saturated fat, which helps rebuild your gut’s mucosal barrier;

☞ Easily-assimilated sugars that fuel your metabolism, and;

☞ Multiple vitamins crucial to fertility (like vitamins A, D, K, calcium, minerals, and iron).

Dairy also increases your production of glutathione, your body’s supreme antioxidant and detoxifier. Glutathione controls the production of hydrogen peroxide, which is vital in correct quantities, but can promote oxidation in unregulated quantities. Glutathione also renders toxins more water soluble so you can excrete them.

Unpasteurized milk, specifically, is a complex whole food complete with digestive enzymes and it’s own built-in antiviral, antibacterial, and antiparasitic mechanisms. It contains all eight essential amino acids and more than 60 enzymes all wrapped up in one neat little package. It’s also been shown to improve insulin resistance and treat cancer. Fresh milk is delicious medicine.

why i 🤍 milk

Zinc + Selenium

Selenium is highly concentrated in the thyroid. It’s an essential part of the enzyme responsible for facilitating the conversion of T4 into T3, which is needed for energy and cellular metabolism. Bioavailable selenium is found most concentrated in shellfish and organ meats.

Zinc regulates both oocyte development and maturation, and is necessary for DNA repair. It comes from animal foods like lamb & oysters.

Saturated Fat

Most forms of saturated fat contains vitamin A and cholesterol, both of which are essential to producing vitamin D.

Let’s take butter as an example:

☞ Butter is an excellent source of bioavailable vitamin A. Vitamin A enables proper functioning of the thyroid and is used by your body to produce anti-aging, pro-fertility hormones like pregnenolone and progesterone. These hormones then go on to increase stress resistance and decrease inflammation. Without sufficient vitamin A in pregnancy, children tend to develop narrower skeletal structures, smaller palates, and crowded teeth, while deficiency causes blindness and birth defects.

☞ Butter contains lecithin, which assists in the proper assimilation of cholesterol.

☞ Butter also has a number of antioxidants that protect against free-radical damage to the arteries.

☞ The vitamin E found in butter also plays a strong antioxidant role.

☞ Butter is very rich in selenium (which we talked about before).

☞ It also contains glycosphingolipids, a mouthful of a category of fatty acids that protects against gastrointestinal infection and helps to ensure optimal growth of children in the womb.

The saturated fat and fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are not only necessary for fertility, but have been shown to restore fertility in many women (just like niacinamide). That’s in part because vitamin A and cholesterol (along with minerals) are *the* building blocks for hormones.

In short:

no cholesterol = no hormones

And where can we get saturated fat together with these key vitamins? Animal foods.

All of this to say:

Eat more nutrient dense calories.

Most women are undernourished and overworked. Not eating enough creates hormonal imbalances, increases stress hormones, and suppresses your thyroid. Your body knows that you can't grow another human with grace if you’re barely keeping yourself alive. At this point, hopefully you’re picking up what I’m putting down here:

fertility = health

Many women confuse fertility with becoming pregnant, but being fertile is actually just being healthy - plain and simple. Our entire body will look and feel its most radiant at peak health, and that means being fertile.

Disclaimer:

Obviously other things like being outside, sleeping, and seeing sunlight affect our health. We’ve already gone over the social determinants of health, but as a refresher, this is your reminder that only ten percent of health outcomes are attributable to both food and exercise combined. The rest is determined by things like genetics, community, financial stability, sufficient sleep, and a sense of purpose. The point of this article, however, is to shine a light on an issue I’m seeing over and over again: women who are simply not nourishing themselves and then wondering why they feel like garbage.

Health doesn’t look the same for everyone. If you feel like crap, it probably has nothing to do with weight, and everything to do with the way you are treating yourself. This includes nourishment: not just through food, but through rest, movement, friendship, community, purpose, self-acceptance, and spirituality. Think of it in the context of Maslow’s Hierarchy: food isn’t everything, but if you’re starving yourself, it’s the first step.

So, my question for you is this:

What’s the point in living as little as possible?

Stop holding yourself at the brink of death. Stop contracting yourself in every way imaginable. If you want to get everything you can out of your one lifetime, give your body the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients it needs to actually thrive.

You will never be able to run at 100% when you’re only fueling yourself to 50%. When all is said and done, why treat your body like it’s deserving of nothing more than the absolute minimum it requires, and often even less?

Point being:

You (yes, you!) need to eat more.

And I don’t mean more chickpeas and spinach. I mean: indulge your body in high-quality, nutrient dense foods: meat, cheese, butter, fruit, milk, eggs, ice cream, broth, honey, shellfish, and - honestly - even processed food. (Yes, you read that right.) Your body does literally everything for you. Please stop treating her like a slave to your mind simply for the sake of following unquestioned social automations.

You deserve a fuller life; it’s your choice whether you get that.

XO,

Maria

You Need to Eat More