In the Fertile Heart OVUM Program a Fertility Cleanse Must Match Your Unique Needs
“I bought three different pricey programs for the “fertility cleanse.” Most of the jars and bottles are sitting unopened on my bathroom floor.” I keep hearing similar reports from clients over and over again.
So the first thing to remember is that there are as many ways to accomplish your personal fertility cleanse as there are people. The same way there is no one fertility diet, there is also no one size fits all fertility cleanse. We have an ongoing conversation about cleansing in our Visionary Circle and with private clients. There is always something new we can learn from each other.
As always, I’d love to hear what works and doesn’t work for you.
I also offer these 10 Steps to pre-conception detox to share some of the principles of gentle cleansing: adding foods, supplements and daily habits that will lovingly nudge the body toward a more pregnancy-friendly space without spending a fortune.
The idea is to make fertility cleansing an ongoing hygiene habit rather than something you put yourself through once a year and then say, Phew, done!
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Ease the workload for the Body-Child
Even if you’re a meat eater, for the duration of the pre-conception cleanse stick with fruits and vegetables, and easy to digest well soaked grains. Digestion is the most labor intensive task for the body and by making digestion easier, more energy can be channelled for cleansing and detox.
By easing the body’s workload you’re also making the job of the hard working cleansing organs – liver, gallblader, kidneys, intestines,skin and lungs — easier.
Without guilt tripping yourself into a radical overhaul and then throwing in the towel, meet yourself where you are. Walk into your very own custom crafted fertility cleanse with a gentle attitude of a Mommy preparing her child for a fun experiment.
Use the occasion of the pre-conception detox as inspiration to cross off your meal plan all the usual fertility-damaging food culprits such as caffeine, alcohol, white flour and processed sugars (See 10 Fertility Food Tips and the food related chapters in The Fertile Female for a more detailed list)
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Support your liver
The liver is one of the most hardworking organs in our bodies, processing most toxins. Love and support your liver by lightening her workload and adding such detoxifying foods such as turmeric, garlic, onion, leeks, all of which are famous for their natural detoxification properties. The mighty Beet is a gorgeous liver and gallbladder support vegetable, so be sure to add it to your green juice or to your salad. Be sure to check out this page for my fave beet recipe.
Liver Loving Herbs – Artichoke Leaf Extract taken as a tincture or in capsules is another helper that supports the liver cleansing process and acts as an antioxidant. Decaffeinated Green Tea Extract is a powerful supplement especially if you estrogen access linked with PCOS or fibroids is an issue. It enhances the detox work by reducing inflammation and nourishing healthy gut microbiome. Broccoli Extracts (DIM, Sulforaphane, Indole-3-Carbinol ) another supplement that helps with excess estrogen detoxification for endometriosis, uterine fibroids, PMS sufferers.
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Heavy Metal Detox
Heavy metal detoxifying foods can be useful fertility boosting agents to add to all of our healing regimens, but it can be especially useful for people suffering from allergies, and chronic ailments, and people who have had amalgam fillings for a long time. Cilantro is known to be an effective heavy metal binding food. I love throwing a bunch of cilantro into my Green Lemonade
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Digestion
Take a high quality digestive enzyme with every meal (even if it’s fruit or salad) but especially meals that contains cooked food It will facilitate more efficient digestion, and depending on the ingredients, a quality digestive enzyme will also help move toxins out of your body. (See brand recommendations)
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Internal Ecology
Add a high quality probiotic to help restore the balance between healthy and harmful bacteria.
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Fiber
Eat plenty of fiber rich foods such as whole grains, vegetables, especially calciferous vegetables, fruits, lentils, barley. The increase in fiber consumption should be gradual. As with any excess, excessive fiber could be dehydrating the cells and interfere with proper absorption of nutrients. (Note: broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage contain goitrogens, compounds that interfere with the production of thyroid hormones. Cooking helps deactivate the goitrogenic effect, so if you suspect hypothyroidism you’re best to avoid eating these foods raw.)
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Get moving
Include a break for some pleasurable, aerobic activity — if at all possible outdoors — in your daily itinerary.
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Scoop on poop
Before moving to a juice fast or a more radical pre-conception detox, your internal cleansing brigade should be coming through with two full bowel movements a day.
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Easy fast
When you’re ready, you could start with a one day vegetable juice fast – see Green Lemonade recipe in my Tips on Juicing for Fertility post, or improvise your own blend of veggies keeping in mind that you don’t want to juice any vegetables that you wouldn’t ordinarily eat raw.
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Experiment
Extend the juice fast to a weekend or long weekend depending on what you’re ready for. During the fast, be sure to create space for sufficient rest periods during the day and an uninterrupted good night sleep (8 hours or more) A full body massage and gentle stretching will also help support your lymphatic drainage
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The most essential part of every fertility cleanse
As I like to say, In the Kingdom of baby making, the power of veto is with Her Majesty the Heart. Which means that no pre-conception detox is complete without tending to your heart. In the Inside Job chapter of my first book Inconceivable I talk about how after all the diet changes, cleansing and detoxing, I discovered an urgent need to attend to all my inner voices of defeat. Thankfully you don’t need to go through 10 years of psychotherapy to heal them. The Fertile Heart Toolkit is a mind-body-heart fertility cleanse that turns all your inner “Orphans” into passionate fertilehearted Visionary Mamas.
Copyright @2011-2017 Julia Indichova, No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the permission in writing from Julia Indichova and Fertile HeartTM
See the food and supplement related chapters in The Fertile Female for additional inspiration and information.
Thank you Julia. I had an appointment at a clinic last year when I was told I had 0% chance of conception. The very nice doctor told me my best chance was to try for an unexpected natural conception. She suggested I make diet changes. I think she may have thought I didn’t believe diet could have an effect but I meant that there was no more I could do with my diet. I’ve been juicing and eating 10+ units of fruit and vegetables for 10 years now but I totally missed the most essential part.
I’ve been working on Mirror of Truth and think I’ll extend it for at least another week. I don’t know how it escaped me until now. At the beginning when I was being written off I used to look at myself and think they were delusional if they thought I was menopausal but it quickly became a preoccupation, causing nightmares. I started wrinkle-watching, fearing with every sign of ageing that it must mean I was past it.
Diet-wise the only thing I can add is to make juice-fasts more regular. My protein level is at the lowest level of normal so I may need to look at that also.
As ever, thanks for this wonderful work.
Dear FH Planet-mates.
I am looking forward to tonight’s call. I have been working with the “Issues in Your Tissues” imagery. Thank you Julia for recommending it. I had not done that one before. I also did body truth yesterday and will be doing it before our call. I started with “Welcome home”. I have also started listening to all the imagery sequences so I get an idea of the intentions and what’s in my tool chest.
I also have the new book with me. I look forward to reading and learning from it. I did some dream recording. Some of them surprised me and i was somewhat embarrassed to write them down, but i remember the gist of them. I will be noting them down. Finding my way back to the practice that has given me a lot.
Thank you, Julia.
Love,
xxxx
Thank you so much, Julia, for the detox suggestions. I appreciate the way these suggestions love and respect the body.
I have continued to work with letting my body move the way it needs to body truth and the imagery with the longed for family. The imagery is very sweet, particularly combined with the breathing.
I have been working with trying to stay open for guidance and not trying to control everything. Some of my guidance is to breathe more and with more quality. It has been a little rough at work again, but I am grateful for the loving support of my coworkers.
Blessings to all.