Jillian Greaves (MPH, RD, LDN) is a Functional Medicine Dietitian, Women’s Health Specialist, podcast co-host, and founder of the highest-rated dietitian and functional nutrition business in Boston. She has been recognized across major publications such as Dr. Axe, Healthline and EatingWell for her transformative and unique approach to wellness. Jillian’s mission is not only to empower women to understand and treat the root causes of their health issues naturally, but also to guide them in breaking away from the pursuit of perfection in doing so.

It was early on in Jillian’s career when she realized the potentially damaging consequences of the “pill for every ill” approach traditional medicine often takes. After years of struggling with her own health, she realized that what she learned in her professional experience and her doctors’ orders to “just take birth control” were not enough to help her truly reverse her symptoms. Fueled by her own personal health challenges and frustration with being told that “everything looks normal” while her body was telling her otherwise, she decided to build her own private practice.

Through her private nutrition coaching and courses, Jillian has helped thousands of women – and counting – heal their gut and hormone symptoms while breaking away from dieting extremes through personalized and sustainable programs. Her unique approach to helping clients achieve whole-person health is focused on helping them foster empowering relationships with food and their bodies.

Learn how stress and blood sugar balance impact fertility. Get expert insights on nutrition, hormones, and lifestyle for better egg quality.

In this Episode

• Understanding the stress bucket 
• How under eating derails blood sugar balance and increases cortisol 
• Dangerous social media diet trends for hormones and fertility
• Understanding how the circadian rhythm impacts hormone production 
• Nutrition to boost egg quality and the importance of fermented foods 
• Debunking myths about AMH and your ability to get pregnant 
• Learning the line for what’s too much exercise for fertility 

Transcript:

Lindsey Lusson  00:01

We talked a little bit about egg quality. Obviously, there’s supplements. What about from like a food and lifestyle perspective? What are those foundational things if somebody has concern for egg quality? 

Jillian Greaves  00:11

Foundationally, I would say supporting blood sugar regulation is super, super important for egg quality. When we get big, rapid spikes in blood sugar chronically, that can be a driver of inflammation. Which can be negative from an egg quality perspective. Same with our chronic blood sugar crashes or things that are spiking cortisol or stress hormones. So really dialing in that blood sugar stability with consistent, well rounded meals throughout the day is going to be key from there. 

Jillian Greaves  00:39

I think generally, focusing on antioxidant intake is huge. Bringing in lots of those bright, colorful fruits and vegetables, your starchy vegetables, your whole fruit, non starchy vegetables, herbs and spices. I think, get really overlooked. Upping that antioxidant intake is huge. 

Lindsey Lusson  00:54

Welcome to the Period Recovery and Fertility Podcast. Here, we discuss the challenging, rewarding and life changing process of recovering your period and finding freedom with food and exercise. Whether you’re hoping to regain your cycle to get your health back on track or you’re ready to become a mama, this podcast is for you. While the recovery process isn’t always rainbows and butterflies, it’s my hope to bring you both information and inspiration during your own recovery journey. I’m your host, registered dietitian and fellow HA woman, Lindsey Lusson.

Lindsey Lusson  01:25

Jillian Greaves (MPH, RD, LDN) is a Functional Medicine Dietitian, Women’s Health Specialist, podcast co-host, and founder of the highest-rated dietitian and functional nutrition business in Boston. She has been recognized across major publications such as Dr. Axe, Healthline and EatingWell for her transformative and unique approach to wellness. Jillian’s mission is not only to empower women to understand and treat the root causes of their health issues naturally, but also to guide them in breaking away from the pursuit of perfection in doing so.

Lindsey Lusson  01:56

Y’all. I am so excited. Welcome to the Period Recovery and Fertility Podcast. We have a super special guest today, and we are going to get into some really cool things that we haven’t talked about on this podcast maybe ever. So welcome, Jillian.

Jillian Greaves  02:06

Thank you. So excited to be here. 

Lindsey Lusson  02:08

Well, we’re so excited to chat about all things, hormones, fertility. I think that so many of our listeners are coming to this podcast looking for more information about what they can do on their own outside of medicine to support their hormones and fertility. And I know that that’s something that you’re really passionate about. 

Jillian Greaves  02:08

Yeah, absolutely. 

Lindsey Lusson  02:10

Tell us a little bit more about how you got into this work. Because I feel like everybody has a story behind what they do. And sometimes it’s personal. Sometimes it’s like a family member struggled with this. But tell us a little bit more about your story. 

Jillian Greaves  02:34

Yeah, oh my gosh. Where do I start? I totally agree. I feel like everyone who does this work has a personal element often that drove them to do what they do today. For me personally, I’m an integrative functional medicine dietitian and women’s health specialist. Essentially what that means is I’m supporting women with diving a little bit deeper and really working to identify the why behind their hormone and gut related symptoms. And using natural modalities like nutrition, supportive lifestyle interventions, targeted supplements, Mind Body techniques, to really support the body back to balance. 

Jillian Greaves  03:15

That includes working with a lot of clients who are wanting to support preconception or they’re struggling with fertility or recurrent miscarriages, things like that. And in terms of how I got here and became so passionate about this, I went through a lot of my own personal health struggles about a decade ago. Long story short, I was in a phase of life where I was in graduate school getting my nutrition degree. Was working full time in a busy clinical nutrition research clinic. And I had a very full plate, full schedule. 

Jillian Greaves  03:49

At the same time, I was also running half marathons. I was hit training. You know where this is going. HIIT training four or five days a week. I was eating predominantly a plant based diet, and was doing a lot of things that I thought were healthy for my body. At the time, I had also been on hormonal birth control for 10 or 11 years, and had been put on hormonal birth control for miserable period symptoms way back in the day. 

Jillian Greaves  04:17

I started to experience a lot of symptoms. So I was dealing with eczema, head, hair loss, anxiety, acne, bloating, all the things. And I was like, This doesn’t make sense.  I have all this knowledge and have all these healthy habits. And I sought out support from my providers, and really was given no answers. They ran some labs, and kind of said, everything looks great you’re the picture of health. And meanwhile, I’m like falling out of my skin with symptoms, and I was really only offered options for symptom suppression or symptom management. I want to preface this by saying too, that I’m never anti medication. 

Jillian Greaves  04:52

I think it’s important to call out the fact that sometimes medications are really helpful tool. However, I at the time, I was just not willing to accept that these symptoms were happening for for no reason. That was my only option. So I really started to do my own research, dive into female physiology, which I learned nothing about in undergraduate school or my graduate training. Really starting to learn about female physiology, and started to question how my diet and lifestyle was impacting things. 

Jillian Greaves  05:26

And everyone is, of course, unique and different. But for me, my stress bucket was overflowing. Not just with my schedule, but with the rigorous workouts that I was doing without appropriate recovery. And I started to make some big changes there, foundationally, in terms of more adequate nourishment. For me, it meant also incorporating more animal foods into my diet, adjusting things to a more low impact style of movement, and making sure there was a good balance there. Then, part of my journey too, was coming off the hormonal birth control and going through that experience with post pill symptoms. 

Jillian Greaves  06:01

Again kind of not having a lot of support. So ultimately, that kind of led me to the functional medicine nutrition space, and really working to more deeply understand why I was experiencing these symptoms and how I could actually support the body better, my body better. And ideally eliminate those symptoms naturally. I’ll be honest that it took me a really long time to do that in terms of hacking it together on my own. But ultimately it led me to seek out advanced training in functional nutrition and women’s health so I could really provide women with the support that I wished I had had when I was struggling.

Lindsey Lusson  06:38

100% that’s such a beautiful story. You mentioned something that I think is a foreign concept to a lot of people. Because I think the first thing that pops in our minds when we think about stress is work stress, marital stress, something like that, right? But you talked about this idea of a stress bucket. Can you explain a little bit more about that?

Jillian Greaves  06:58

Yes, yeah. So in terms of a stress bucket, I always think about everyone having their own unique stress bucket, or stress capacity, right? Where two people could experience the exact same stressors and respond wildly differently. So I always like to think about my personal stress bucket, a client’s personal stress bucket, and kind of everything going into that. Stress really comes in all different shapes and sizes. And I love that you point this out, because I think it’s just not talked about enough. 

Jillian Greaves  07:26

In our modern world, we’ve started to kind of normalize stress. We often think about stress as this acute, significant life event, right? Where it’s something super stressful happened, or there’s a huge presentation or a deadline at work or something acute. But ultimately, stress is so pervasive. Certainly the emotional stressors things going on in the world, just the day to day to do lists. 

Jillian Greaves  07:51

But I think what often gets overlooked with women is the physical stressors. Under eating, over exercising, nutrient deficiencies and things that can essentially activate a stress response or dysregulate the nervous system, disrupt the body’s lack of safety. And it’s really common for us, honestly, to work with women, that their stress bucket is overflowing. It’s not just the emotional stressors, but physical stressors and stressors of all shapes and kinds.

Lindsey Lusson  08:19

Yeah, exactly. And I think that this is where a lot of our clients get into trouble is they’re in high performing careers. They’re probably not sleeping very well. They’re training five to seven days per week, and they’re like, I’m fine, because they’re climbing the corporate ladder, and they’re performing really well. And they’ve got the body, they’ve got it all together, and they’re not recognizing maybe how stressed they actually are.

Jillian Greaves  08:43

Yeah, I totally agree.

Lindsey Lusson  08:44

 To go a level deeper, tell us more about how a stress bucket that’s overflowing can impact blood sugar and why that’s important for fertility and pregnancy outcomes.

Jillian Greaves  08:56

I love that question. Stress in general, I think is something that gets really overlooked in conversations about blood sugar. For anyone that’s new to hearing about blood sugar, we always tell clients that blood sugar regulation is step number one for supporting balanced hormones and supporting fertility and preconception. If our blood sugar is imbalanced or we’re riding the blood sugar roller coaster, as we say, this can definitely have negative implications for the stress response system, for egg quality. 

Jillian Greaves  09:28

And when it comes to this stress blood sugar connection, what we eat impacts blood sugar. Yes, absolutely, when we eat impacts blood sugar. But outside of what we are eating, if stress is really pervasive, this can lead to disruption with blood sugar. And it can make it really challenging to manage or regulate blood sugar well. Something that I think is important to point out here too, with the stress blood sugar or cortisol blood sugar connection, is the fact that low blood sugar or blood sugar crashes, that is a stressor on the body. 

Jillian Greaves  10:03

As well as the emotional stressors and the lack of sleep or disrupted sleep. So all of these things are interconnected at the end of the day. Sometimes it’s hard if we’re in the weeds and we’re like I’m eating a healthy diet, and my blood sugar must be great. But there’s just a lot of variables at play when it comes to blood sugar regulation, and the stress factor being a big one. 

Jillian Greaves  10:03

So cortisol, one of our primary stress hormones, is a glucocorticoid. Meaning one of its primary jobs is to keep blood sugar stable. So if the body senses that energy is is scarce and blood sugar’s dipping too low, it’s going to start to pump out stress hormones like cortisol, to actually normalize that. I think there’s just so much talk in our world about high blood sugar and avoiding spikes with blood sugar. Which, yes, we want to stabilize blood sugar as a whole. But in my mind, and in the work we do with clients, we see under eating low carb diets, erratic eating all of these things, we see these physical stressors creating dysregulation with blood sugar. 

Lindsey Lusson  11:08

I just so appreciate this conversation. Because when I’m talking to clients about blood sugar, and I work with a lot of women that are kind of on this disordered eating spectrum, right? So if they’re ever getting an A1C of 5.3 5.5 something else, kind of like, headed into an insulin resistance thing… What I hear from a lot of women is they’re freaking out. They’re like, Oh my god, I gotta cut carbs. I have to lose weight. I gotta get my blood sugar under control. And it’s more complex than that. 

Lindsey Lusson  11:34

It’s not about what we eat. And quite frankly, perhaps the reason why blood sugar is out of whack is because we’ve got some unaddressed stress, and we’re not thinking… I mean, it’s ironic, because I think we’ve been programmed to believe, like, oh, blood sugar, that means you need to cut carbs. You need to cut this, you need to do that. Well, we have to consider where somebody’s coming from. Because if somebody’s coming from chronic stress and undernourishment, it’s kind of the last thing that your blood sugar needs.

Jillian Greaves  11:56

Right. Oh, my gosh, completely. And it is, I find, like the knee jerk reaction is blood sugar issues. Oh, I need to restrict carbs or cut carbs but we really see it have the opposite effect on women in terms of putting more stress on the body. And it’s not just overeating carbs or imbalanced meals that’s going to cause elevated blood sugar. It’s stress or kind of even these restrictive approaches that we often see women engaging in. That’s where we need to think about true blood sugar balance and more holistically. Like what’s impacting the body here and creating some some insulin resistance. And oftentimes it’s like evaluating stressors and getting more consistent with carbohydrate intake and meal frequency and sleep. And it’s not just the carb element.

Lindsey Lusson  12:40

You talked a little bit about your own personal journey with reaching this overflowing stress bucket with the half marathon training. And then you also talked a little bit about being on a plant based diet. So I’m curious, being on social media, what kind of trends are you seeing that are coming up that you think might be problematic from… You know, people think they’re being so healthy being plant based… 

Lindsey Lusson  13:04

I’m trying to stop laughing. Carnivores a really big trend right now. People literally think that they are doing the healthiest thing for their body by eating a ton of meat and kind of, again, trying not to laugh. What are these healthy diet trends that you’re seeing going around social media that might actually be really damaging for somebody’s fertility.

Jillian Greaves  13:21

I mean, that’s definitely a big one with a carnivore diet, or on the other end of the spectrum, a fully plant based diet or vegan diet. It’s not to say that there is never a time and a place for a therapeutic diet that meets an individual’s needs. In general, though, the extremist approaches where we’re cutting out food groups should always be a red flag in my mind. And it’s hard because eating a balanced diet and focusing on a really well rounded dietary pattern, anti inflammatory diet, isn’t the sexiest or most exciting thing to talk about. 

Jillian Greaves  13:58

It’s much more appealing when we See like, oh, X diet, I cut out this whole list of foods and that’s gonna solve my hormonal issues, or it’s gonna lead to getting pregnant. But that’s pretty much never the case in my experience. I’m assuming you know for you as well, where it’s the extremist approaches. So I would definitely say the fully plant based versus the carnivore. 

Jillian Greaves  14:19

I’ve also had clients recently asking me about a fruitarian diet. Which is a diet that is just all fruit and nothing else. So that’s apparently trending out there in the social media world. And then I would say, in general, just elimination focused diets, that’s probably one of the biggest things we see women engaging in. Again, I get the appeal, where it’s like, all right, straightforward, black and white, cut out x, y and z, and then that’s going to support my fertility. 

Jillian Greaves  14:46

But it really sort of misses the mark when it comes to fertility hormones, a pro fertility diet, where, in my mind, we really need to focus on nourishment. That addition nutrition approach in terms of what can we add to better nourish, better support the body. And I find that the elimination diets, elimination approaches, we kind of miss the force for the trees. It leads us astray in terms of what actually really matters for supporting fertility and kind of optimal functioning in the body. 

Lindsey Lusson  15:15

Yeah, thank you for that. I so agree. And I think that we can take principles of these certain diets and be like, yes, we should be adding more of these foods in. Especially when we start talking about building another life, it should always be about abundance and addition, not restriction. And we get a lot of clients on elimination diets because they’re trying to solve their gut issues. And I know that there can be some targeted changes that can be really important. But what I see is that women are like, I’m gonna cut out everything. I’m doing low FODMAP, I’m gonna cut out dairy, I’m gonna cut out gluten, I’m gonna sugar. And I’m like, you weren’t eating nothing.

Jillian Greaves  15:50

Yeah, 100%. What’s interesting too, is in the functional medicine world, I think a lot of women come to us and they’re like, all right, tell me what to cut out. Tell me what I can’t eat, and I’m like, we’re having the opposite conversation here. And when it comes to elimination diets, I always like to say at the end of the day, these are just a big fat Band Aid, right? If we’re experiencing gut symptoms and we need to cut out all of these foods in order to somewhat stabilize digestion. Again, we’re missing the mark. 

Jillian Greaves  16:18

And so in our work with clients in terms of that root cause approach. We’re digging deeper to understand why are we not tolerating these foods. Why are we extremely bloated and distended at the end of the day, or experiencing constipation or loose stools. The answer is not cutting out a laundry list of foods. It’s really supporting those foundations, supporting any deeper imbalances. And our goal at the end of the day is to help women resolve symptoms while also having the most liberal diet possible. So yeah, the elimination diets are a little bit out of control in the online health space. And I find that, yeah, we’re seeing that a lot with clients. 

Lindsey Lusson  16:56

Yeah, I can imagine. And to your point, it’s just easier to think about things in black and white. Of like, Oh, if I just stop eating these foods, then I’m fixed. It’s not that black…

Jillian Greaves  17:06

And I always think it’s wild, too. When we work with women and they’re on all these, like you said, they’re low FODMAP, they’ve cut out dairy, they’ve cut out gluten, they cut out this and that. When we get into things, they’re not eating breakfast. Their meal timing is erratic. Our protein intake is really low. And just like these core foundations have been overlooked when these are often the things that are the biggest needle movers with the foundational support. So again, I think we just missed the forest for the trees when we get like so zoomed in, especially with these elimination plans. 

Lindsey Lusson  17:38

For sure. And what we’ve seen in a lot of our clients, is the idea, okay, you’ve cut out all these foods, so you’re clearly cutting down your calorie and your nutrient intake, and you’re running seven miles and you’re in the gym. So the over training with the imbalanced nutrition is just obviously a recipe for disaster for people’s hormones.

Jillian Greaves  17:59

Totally. 

Lindsey Lusson  18:00

Another thing I wanted you to get into, and this is so interesting, I don’t think we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, is just the way that the circadian rhythm plays into hormone production. So I want to give you the floor to explain this to listeners and to help us understand why circadian rhythm and adequate quantity and quality of sleep is so important for fertility. 

Jillian Greaves  18:23

Yes. I love this question. Circadian rhythms are one of my favorite topics. It’s just not talked about enough. So circadian rhythms, the way I kind of like to break this down. Circadian rhythms are essentially, it’s the roughly 24 hour cycle that essentially all internal biological processes follow in the body. So all of our internal processes are operating on this, roughly 24 hour cycle. And what I mean by that is it’s kind of how our body’s programmed to know when to produce hormones that help us fall asleep. When to produce hormones and neurotransmitters that help us to feel awake and alert, and to think when to produce digestive secretions to help us break down food. 

Jillian Greaves  19:05

So really, circadian rhythms run the show in the body in terms of making sure that everything is happening in the right place and at the right time. Our digestion is circadian. Our hormones are circadian. And in terms of circadian rhythms in this, this 24 hour cycle, there’s a few kind of core external factors that influence or entrain our circadian rhythms. When we sleep, being a big one, so when we go to bed and when we wake up. 

Jillian Greaves  19:33

Light exposure, light regulation, is another big one that regulates our circadian rhythms. Essentially, we have what’s referred to as like a master clock in the brain. Then we have all sorts of like peripheral clocks throughout our cells in the body. So these different external factors speak to the clock in the brain and stimulate sort of the cascade of events that needs to happen in order to produce hormones at the right time and in the right place. 

Jillian Greaves  20:00

So when we sleep, our light regulation, and also, actually when we eat, in terms of our meal timing or meal schedule, impact the synchronization, essentially, of our circadian rhythms. In our modern world, there’s a lot of things that can disrupt our circadian rhythms. For example, back in the olden days, right? We’d wake up with the sun, we’d get lots of natural sunlight exposure.

We’d be outside during the day, and then when it got dark out, we’d kind of be inside, and then getting ready for sleep. Nowadays, a lot of us wake up and we’re immediately on our phones or on our computers or watching TV. We’re working on computers and on screens all day, and then we’re up late at night, exposed to screens and blue light. This is actually confusing for the brain. It confuses that master clock, and it can create dysregulation with our hormones. 

Jillian Greaves  20:50

So there’s a lot of things that can disrupt our circadian rhythms. In terms of where we see the impact hormonally, we know that disrupted circadian rhythms actually contribute to insulin resistance and blood sugar issues. We know that it impacts thyroid hormone conversion, which is a big, big key player when it comes to fertility. And from a sex hormone perspective as well, we know that circadian disruptions can actually disrupt the menstrual cycle. 

Jillian Greaves  21:18

So in terms of circadian rhythms. What do we do… How do we kind of support circadian rhythms? Focusing on a consistent sleep schedule is a great first step. So waking up around a similar time in the morning. Usually, we’ll recommend with clients into wake up within a similar hour each morning and to go go to bed around, a similar hour each evening. And the reason I point this out is because, I think a lot of people can relate to this, where maybe they have to wake up at  6am for work every day. And then on Saturday and Sunday, we wake up at 10am right? Come Monday morning, we feel like we got hit by a bus. 

Jillian Greaves  21:59

And that’s actually referred to in literature as social jet lag. Where, because of the differences with our wake timing, it impacts the secretion of hormones and neurotransmitters, and we can really feel that. So I think dialing in kind of a consistent sleep schedule or reducing large variability, can be really helpful. And then I think the other really, key thing that can be helpful is being mindful of light exposure, light regulation. So ideally, if we’re able to get some sunlight exposure soon after waking we know that that stimulates a healthy cortisol awakening response. So it supports immune function, it supports blood sugar regulation. It actually supports cortisol, which is another circadian hormone. 

Jillian Greaves  22:42

If you’re someone that wakes up and it’s pitch black out, or it’s freezing cold and we’re not going to get outside, maybe we grab a full spectrum light box or a happy lamp that we can use when we wake up to sort of stimulate that. Small things can make a really big difference. In the evening, is there a way we can dedicate some screen free time before bed? Or if we need to be on screens, can we throw on a pair of amber blue light blockers to filter out some of that blue light? Maybe turn off the big, bright overhead lights, and put on some floor lamps or table lamps to again, sort of support our circadian rhythms and regulating that light exposure a little bit. 

Jillian Greaves  23:19

It sounds simple, or overly simplified. But again, in our modern world, there’s just a lot working against us, and these small tweaks, like the consistent light exposure, the consistent sleep schedule, can make a world of difference for our Hormonal Health and also just how we feel in a more immediate sense.

Lindsey Lusson  23:38

Yeah, 100%. I love this practical tips. Because I was just thinking about that as I was like, I mean, I get my kids up for school and it’s blackout, right? But the lamp lower light exposure, versus, the harsh lights in the morning. I think the phone thing is so hard though, right? Because how many people go to bed scrolling or checking emails? How many people wake up checking their email on their phone? Any tips for boundaries with the exposure from your phone?

Jillian Greaves  24:05

Yes, and this is such a huge one. And my biggest tip there, which is something that I honestly do, personally, and I find a lot of clients benefit from, is aiming to dedicate a chunk of phone free time morning and evening, and putting your phone on airplane mode. So we’re just not tempted. I think creating the path of least resistance there. It’s hard when grabbing our phone and scrolling it’s almost like autopilot, right? It is crazy. So putting the phone on airplane mode can just be really helpful for like, all right, it’s a hard stop. This is kind of my phone free time.

Lindsey Lusson  24:39

I like that. My husband and I have started doing after we picked the kids up from their after school daycare program. We’ll just do phones in the drawer for two hours. 

Jillian Greaves  24:48

I love that.

Lindsey Lusson  24:49

 Concentrated family time. It’s time off the phone. But with all of that, it’s embarrassing how hard that is. I’m like, Oh, let me go see if I got that email from that client. Oh, someone  because I’ve got my watch on still, oh, so and so text me. It is just so insane how pervasive just the addiction.

Jillian Greaves  25:07

I know, it’s like I know our phones in particular, it’s like another limb, right, where it’s always with us. And I like to always point out to clients, too, that there’s two, kind of two elements of it with the phone in particular. Where, one, there’s  the blue light aspect. So we know the blue light exposure at night is going to decrease the production of melatonin, right? One of those important hormones involved in the sleep wake cycle, but also an important antioxidant, found in high levels in follicular fluid, important for fertility. So that blue light directly is going to suppress melatonin and increase the secretion of cortisol. 

Lindsey Lusson  25:43

For sure.  I’m kind of that low hanging fruit, like you said, that can actually turn the dial in the right direction. As hard as it might be, if this is something that’s going to help you with regulating your blood sugar, getting your hormones on track, it’s kind of a worthwhile change. 

Jillian Greaves  25:43

But we also just have the actual consumption of things, right. Whether it be scrolling on social media or emails or texts. And it’s not that these things, maybe we’re not consuming stressful content, but just the stimulation of being dialed in can really activate the stress response system. And it’s weirdly a harder change than we would think, or to admit, in terms of getting off phones. But it feels so good, right, when we do that.

Jillian Greaves  26:27

Yeah, 100%.

Lindsey Lusson  26:29

You mentioned melatonin. And I get this question from clients a lot, so I just kind of wanted to throw it out there. We work with a lot of clients that have poor disrupted sleep. I usually tell people, Hey, let’s get your body more fed. Let’s start focusing on some stress management things. Because we usually see improvements in sleep, quantity and quality once the body is a little bit better fed and we’re like, getting out of that fight or flight state. But what do you think about melatonin supplementation? I feel like in the fertility space too, this gets a little bit controversial. Because people will be like, Oh, it’s great for egg quality. Oh, wait, we don’t want to overdo it. What was your take on that. 

Jillian Greaves  27:04

There’s definitely some nuance there. And I would say… so we do a lot of Dutch hormone testing in practice, where we’ll actually evaluate clients melatonin levels. Even when levels are pretty low, it’s rare, honestly, for us to supplement. There certainly will be cases that that it’s warranted. But ultimately, I would say I’m not recommending melatonin supplements that often. In terms of, if we’re seeing, low melatonin levels and there’s sleep disruption and difficulty falling asleep, the first couple things I’m looking at are what’s happening with light exposure and our sleep schedule. 

Jillian Greaves  27:42

So we know that light exposure that we get in the morning is actually a big influencer of melatonin produced at night. So if we lack any sunlight exposure, whether it be a happy light or get or getting outside, this could be a big reason why melatonin is low. And or if we have a lot of exposure to blue lights, and we’re suppressing that melatonin production as well. So first and foremost, we’re going to want to dial in those lifestyle habits for sure. Which inevitably make the biggest difference. But, in cases where melatonin is really tanked, or sleep is, super disrupted, I do think it’s something that can be used. 

Jillian Greaves  28:25

I think a lot of times people use it, or talk about it like a sleep aid. And if anything, I would say, let’s use it short term in a low dose, anywhere from one to five milligrams to kind of help reset the circadian rhythm. So maybe we take it at 9:30 every night for two weeks or four weeks, and we’re aiming to be in bed by 10, and we get a little support there. And there are the benefits, from a fertility egg quality perspective. But I think ultimately, we’re big advocates of whenever we can, let’s self regulate versus replace. So let’s get the body producing that melatonin on its own. 

Lindsey Lusson  29:00

Right, for sure. And I do feel like a lot of times people are using melatonin as more of a crutch, right? Like we’re using it as a bridge while we adjust the lifestyle thing. Super interesting about the morning sunlight impact cortisol. I don’t feel like that’s an intuitive connection, so that’s super interesting.

Lindsey Lusson  29:16

If we’re using it as a short term bridge as we’re working on improving our sleep quality, awesome. But I do feel like more often than not, people are like, Oh, I’m just gonna take seven milligrams of melatonin to help me fall asleep. But picking up at 3am so.

Lindsey Lusson  29:32

Well, we talked a little bit about egg quality. Obviously, there’s supplements. I’m sure that you recommend your clients who are thinking about preconception. What about from a food and lifestyle perspective? But we can get into supplements too. I feel like people love talking about it. We’ll get into that. But let’s start… Because I think sometimes too, people love supplements because it’s so easy and sexy and they’re well marketed. But the reality is that the supplements can’t do their job if we don’t have the foundational things down. What are those foundational things, if somebody has concern for egg quality?

Jillian Greaves  30:03

Yeah, great question. Foundationally, I would say supporting blood sugar regulation 100% is super, super important for egg quality. I mentioned previously, kind of riding the blood sugar roller coaster, or getting, big, big spikes are crashes, right? So when we get big, rapid spikes in blood sugar, chronically… I’m not talking about the one off situation here. But chronically, that can be a driver of inflammation, which can be negative from an egg quality perspective. Same with our kind of chronic blood sugar crashes or things that are spiking cortisol or stress hormones. 

Jillian Greaves  30:40

So on a basic level, really dialing in that blood sugar stability with consistent, well rounded meals throughout the day is going to be key, first and foremost. From there, the foundations first but from there, I think generally focusing on antioxidant intake is huge. So really bringing in lots of those bright, colorful fruits and vegetables, your starchy vegetables, your whole fruit, all your non starchy vegetables. Also things or herbs and spices, I think, get really overlooked that have a lot of potent anti inflammatory compounds that can be really supportive. 

Jillian Greaves  31:17

So I think upping that, that antioxidant intake is huge from an egg quality perspective.I’d say that’s kind of where I would start with some general guidance, foundationally. And there’s so much that we can do, I think, from kind of an antioxidant perspective too, to really support things. 

Jillian Greaves  31:35

A couple other micro strategies would be focusing on things like fermented foods or foods that contain live, active cultures. Interestingly, in recent years, there’s been some data that suggests that incorporating fermented foods, or a serving of a fermented food daily… So that could be fermented veggies or, Greek yogurt or kefir, can actually have really positive impacts on microbial diversity, gut microbial diversity, as well as with lowering markers of inflammation. There was this interesting study that done that actually compared a high fiber diet and serving of fermented foods daily and at the end of this eight week study. And it’s not that, not to say that fiber is not key and important, but individuals in the fermented foods group saw significant improvements, again, with this microbial diversity. 

Jillian Greaves  32:24

So improvements with the gut ecosystem, as well as decreases in  19 inflammatory markers with just a serving a day. Again, ways that we can really support inflammation and reducing oxidative stress can help with with egg quality. 

Lindsey Lusson  32:39

In the clients that you’ve worked with that might have low egg quality. And maybe we should start by, how do you define low egg quality? Are you usually looking at AMH, are you looking on intra follicle count? Are you looking at both, are you looking at FSH ? How do we define what is low or poor egg quality?

Jillian Greaves  32:58

Yeah, so in terms of defining low egg quality or poor egg quality, we can’t look at any one of these markers in isolation. In my opinion, I think, I don’t know if you feel this, but I think there’s still too much of an emphasis on on AMH. I think it’s an important marker, and it’s great to have, but it’s not telling the full story. So ultimately looking at kind of a combination of these labs that you described.

I will say too, we often work with women who have been trying to get pregnant for a year or two, who’ve experienced recurrent miscarriages, or who’ve done egg retrievals with really poor yields, or are kind of getting through the process and are doing embryo testing. And we’re learning more there. It’s really a combination of, I think looking at some of these labs. But which nothing is going to tell you to be able to quantify directly the quality of…

Lindsey Lusson  33:51

Even if you do have poor egg quality, doesn’t mean all of them are or if you have lower… I think, yeah, I totally agree with the over emphasis on AMH. And for whatever reason, people thinking this is the end, this can’t change.

Jillian Greaves  34:07

Oh, yeah. And I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions that I know you experience often, is that all of this is out of our control. It just is what it is. Egg quantity and age, it’s a piece of the puzzle. But egg quality does matter far more in my mind. There isn’t one straightforward test that we could do to say, Okay, we’re exactly here. But to your point, egg quality shifts, and it takes about 100 days for a follicle to develop. So things we’re doing right now are going to impact the quality of the egg that’s released three months from now. 

Lindsey Lusson  34:09

Somebody’s tying to you. They’re like 29 and they have an AMH 2.5 which is low for their age with lifestyle changes. Do you see AMH rebound and change over the course of three months? Or does it take longer to actually see that reflected in a blood draw? 

Jillian Greaves  34:38

So obviously, our stressors change our habits, change our exposures, change so egg quality can change a lot. And thinking about that through a really, positive, opportunistic lens, that means there’s so much we can do right to kind of influence, egg quality, even over the course of three months, six months a year. You know something too, I think, is In terms of egg quality, you can also just learn a lot. Obviously, this is not any type of direct measure, but just from assessing, a client’s habits and and diet and fertility journey and kind of piecing these things together. 

Jillian Greaves  35:13

But yeah, the nutrition and lifestyle can make a huge, huge difference with egg quality. And that’s only going to impact obviously, any direction you’re going from a fertility perspective. Whether it be natural conception or there’s assisted fertility treatment involved, it’s important across the board.

Jillian Greaves  35:28

Great question. So I will say we do actually see it shift. I would say it definitely depends on the individual. I would say three months would be the minimum. And I don’t know if you you’d agree with what you see in practice, but I’d say more so around six months is where we might see things shift a little bit more significantly. Yeah, I’d say probably six months is a better benchmark. For some women, kind of, depending on what’s going on there. I feel like we do see more significant shifts with it, with AMH, and sometimes we don’t, right. So again, that’s where, at the end of the day, really focusing on the the egg quality piece, I think is the best, best use of our energy.

Lindsey Lusson  36:24

Yeah, for sure. And it probably also depends upon Why is AMH low, right? An undiagnosed autoimmune condition. Is it stress? You what I mean. So I’m sure that the shift is also dependent upon Why is it low, and how long would it take to correct that problem? 

Jillian Greaves  36:41

Yeah, 100%.

Lindsey Lusson  36:43

Okay, cool. We’ve talked more on I feel the nutrition side of what we can do to supplement and support our fertility. Foundation wise, we’ve talked about nutrition, we’ve talked about sleep. Can you share a little bit more about…  I feel like this is a necessary topic for our listeners. Where does overtraining play into all of this? Why is overtraining so bad for our hormones and so bad for our fertility? Because my girls that we work with, they love their exercise routine. You tell them to stop looking at their phones. Got it. You tell them to take this supplement. You tell them to cut out whatever food or to totally overhaul eat more frequently. They’re like, got it. You tell them to change their exercise routine, and they’re like, Absolutely not. Help us understand why this is such an important piece. 

Jillian Greaves  37:29

Oh my gosh. It is such an important piece. And the way I like to describe this is that exercise is a stressor. It’s a hermetic stressor, meaning in the right context, this type of stressor can be healthy and adaptive and improve our stress resilience. In the wrong context, it’s like throwing gasoline on a fire. And I think where this becomes so challenging is that for a lot of women, exercise is almost a stress outlet. You know, mentally, right. We get out of our heads. And there’s all those feel good endorphins from exercise. But ultimately, exercise is a stressor. 

Jillian Greaves  38:09

So we always when it comes to anything, but particularly with exercise, we have to think about the context. So are we adequately nourished? What’s our sleep like? What are our stress levels like? These things are really going to dictate kind of the appropriateness of movement and the appropriateness of different types of movement, in my mind. So again, we’re jacking up our stress hormones with workouts to varying degrees. And again, I don’t want to scare you one or say that’s all bad. Again, in the right context, this can be healthy. But in the wrong context, a lot of dysregulation with our hormones, across the board. With our blood sugar, with our sex hormones with our thyroid hormones, we can really see the negative implications of too much stress from over training with these things. 

Jillian Greaves  38:57

But, yeah, it’s a challenging one, because it brings people a lot of joy, right? And we never want to take away anything that’s, going to bring a client joy. But it absolutely we see that often in terms of creating barriers with regular ovulation, being able to get pregnant and stay pregnant. And sometimes that can be really challenging, but I think it’s important for all women to just sort of get curious about their habits and to make some supportive changes and to experiment there. 

Jillian Greaves  39:26

And maybe it means less frequent workouts. Maybe it means we need to dial down the intensity or change up the types of workouts that we’re doing. Maybe it’s even for a finite period of time where, like, hey, for the next three or six months, we need to prioritize safety in the body. So we need to minimize all of these stressors, ideally get the body to a place where there’s more resilience there, there’s more stability with stress hormones, and we can engage in different types of workouts in a healthier context.

Lindsey Lusson  39:51

Yeah, for sure, I know. And it is hard because you don’t want to take this extremist approach where you can’t exercise at all, because it does hop that mental health benefit. I mean, obviously it’s supportive for reducing free radical exposure. We want people moving, but we want people moving in a way that is going to be supportive of amplifying their hormones, regulating your hormones, not suppressing them, or making them freak out and be out of balance. And so, yeah, it’s a tough one. It’s a tough one, because that’s the one that whatever reason people are so attached to.

Speaker 1  40:25

And I think what’s hard too, is that I think a lot, a lot of women, too, kind of define a workout, or a good workout, as something that they’re pounding the pavement, dripping sweat, heart rates through the roof. And so sometimes too, it’s redefining what a good workout is, and kind of exploring and seeing the benefit of lower impact movement of just metabolic movement, neat movement, walking, breaking up sedentary time, which I think we don’t give enough credit.

Lindsey Lusson  40:51

Totally, totally, because it’s too easy. It doesn’t count, right. And earn it. It’s hard. It’s a mindset shift. But honestly, once you make that mindset shift, your life gets a lot easier. Because you’re like, Okay, I really feel like moving my body today, but I missed my F45 class. I can do that another time,  I can go walk around my neighborhood. And I feel like, once you start to expand your mindset around what exercise is, it takes a lot of stress and pressure off of you, and it’s going to have that trickle down effect on your body.

Jillian Greaves  41:22

Oh my gosh, 100%. And it’s pretty amazing, too. With the women we work with that are really resistant to maybe switching up the types of workouts, and once they do and also kind of allow themselves the flexibility to like, determine what actually feels feels good today, versus that black and white thinking with movement, they feel so much better.

Jillian Greaves  41:42

You know, so much better. But I think sometimes we have to commit to experimenting a little bit, and then often our body gives us evidence of, like, oh yeah, this feels better. 

Lindsey Lusson  41:49

There are also people actually long term, end up having better results in the gym. They’re strong, they feel better. They can recover faster. They’re less inflamed. And so it all works together, but that mindset shift, man, that’s key. You gotta know that so that you can get to that other side. 

Lindsey Lusson  42:07

Well, you have shared so much helpful information. Thanks so much for coming on today. If listeners want to hear more about you and what you do, how do they get in touch with you? Can they follow you on Instagram? I found out recently that you have a podcast because I met your podcast co host recently. Just tell us a little bit more about what you do and how people can follow people can follow along and get connected. 

Jillian Greaves  42:24

Yeah, absolutely, this was, this was so fun. Clearly, I could chat with you all day about this. But in terms of where you can find me, you can find me over on Instagram. My handle is @JillianGreavesrd. You can also check out my website, which is just jilliangreeves.com.  all sorts of fun resources, free resources there, in terms of recipes, articles, guides that are helpful. You can also learn a little bit more about our services and working with our team of practitioners.

Jillian Greaves  42:51

 And then I do also have a podcast called Your Body Has Your Back, where you can dive in and learn a lot more about a lot of what we chatted about today, and working through the fundamentals.

Lindsey Lusson  43:01

Amazing. And we can get those things linked in the show notes too, so that they’re easy and accessible. But thanks again for your time. 

Jillian Greaves  43:06

Amazing. Thank you!

Connect with Lindsey:

Instagram: @food.freedom.fertility

Website: foodfreedomandfertility.com

Twitter: @lindseylusson