In this episode, I'm going to be talking about five things that could be sabotaging your fertility efforts to conceive. And a lot of these things may not be so obvious to a lot of people,    I will be covering:   Why too much of a good thing isn’t so great for your fertility health (you’ll find out what I mean!) The importance of sleep and how to regulate it if you’re having trouble. Why many fertility disruptors can be hiding in your kitchen and ones that even fooled me! Important times to eat during the day and why!   For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com   For more information on fertility diet, you can pick up my free fertility diet ebook in the notes. https://www.michelleoravitz.com/fertility-diet   The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/   Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/   Links mentioned in this episode:   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457858/ https://www.ewg.org https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350886/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400274/   [00:00:00] Could these five things be sabotaging your ability to conceive? In this episode, I'm going to be talking about five things that could be sabotaging your fertility efforts to conceive. And a lot of these things may not be so obvious to a lot of people, So stick around.   So number one is over exercise. So while exercise is something that is really good for the body and it can actually improve fertility health. If a person is overweight or if they have not exercised before, it can improve your lymphatic movement, your blood circulation. And increase your overall energy. However, if you over exercise, too much of a good thing is not so good. So while exercise is amazing for the body, in some cases, over exercise has been shown to adversely impact reproductive health. So studies have confirmed that over exercising could [00:01:00] impact menstrual cycle irregularities and ovulation. or, amenorrhea, which is when your period completely stops.   There was one study done where women underwent a really intensive training for military camp. And what they found was that 68 to 98 percent of them who started out to have regular periods, ended up becoming irregular after the training. So what's been observed with over exercise is that it impacts the luteal phase. So it can cause luteal phase defect in the menstrual cycle, which means that the second part of the cycle, which is after ovulation is shorter than it should be. And the reason that is so important not to happen, is because it's a really important time for implantation to occur. And if it's too short, it doesn't allow for that pregnancy to take place. Over exercise can also increase cortisol and cortisol tends to compete with progesterone, [00:02:00] which is why it can impact the luteal phase since progesterone is the main hormone. that increases around the luteal phase. And it's a really important hormone, not only for pregnancy to occur, but also to support pregnancy, they also found that ovulation hormones such as GNRH, FSH and LH, as well as estradiol were suppressed, and that led to an ovulation, which means that they were not ovulating. And that is why over time it can either make the periods irregular or take away the periods altogether.   And as you know, you need to ovulate in order to get pregnant otherwise you're not going to have an egg to fertilize. So that is one of the reasons why overexercising can really impact the body is because it causes a lot of stress on the body. When the body experiences a lot of stress, it also increases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Cortisol tends to compete with progesterone, which is a really important [00:03:00] hormone, but also the body ove