Real Food for Fertility: Prepare your body for pregnancy with preconception nutrition and fertility awareness

As a registered dietitian in women’s health and public health nutrition, I truly couldn’t rate this book higher. Real Food for Fertility is the most comprehensive, evidence-rooted resource I’ve found, and I’ve read more women’s health and nutrition books than I can count. If you're an RD, this is required reading. Women are chronically misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed, and under-researched, and dietitians are often the ones who catch what others miss, especially with PCOS, endometriosis, hypothalamic amenorrhea, and other reproductive endocrine conditions. This book arms you with the nutrition and lifestyle strategies that can genuinely prevent, treat, and sometimes even send these conditions into remission. What is even better, once you read it, you can earn 40+ continuing education credits through Lily's course. a no brainer. thank you Lily and Lisa for putting this incredible resource together. I use it in my nutrition practice.

Love this book! Has so much practical and applicable knowledge in it. It is a dense read, but it is written in a way that anyone can understand it. There is so much information packed into this book, and the food guidelines it suggests are easily applicable and not too restrictive. The authors did a wonderful job covering all the aspects of fertility, to include male fertility, and how your diet can affect them! A must read for anyone who is thinking about trying to conceive!

As a licensed dietitian and functional nutritionist who works with many women from preconception through postpartum, I have looked to Lily's books and research for the most up-to-date evidence-based recommendations to pass along to my clients. I had high expectations for this book-and it did not disappoint! If you are currently ttc, planning to in the near future, have a condition impacting fertility (such as pcos or endometriosis), or, are simply curious to learn more about your body and how to optimize your overall and reproductive health (which *everyone* should care about, as reproductive and hormone health is a sign of your overall wellbeing- whether or not you want to be pregnant anytime soon or ever) -this book is a must-read! If you are obsessed with research as I am, there are countless (fascinating) studies throughout to support Lily and Lisa's recommendations. Even if you aren't excited by research, this book is overflowing with specific and actionable tips for diet, overall lifestyle, supplements, fertility awareness, and more, so no need for a science degree to understand what to do and why. There are also recommendations for areas to dive deeper with testing (such as for recurrent pregnancy loss) that are important for both patients and providers to be aware of. If you're a health care provider and especially if you work in the women's health/fertility space, I also cannot recommend this book highly enough to you. There is a lot covered that you simply won't find or learn anywhere else, and in a world of misinformation and outdated practice (especially in the fertility world, sadly) this is one of the very few trustworthy sources -and best, most updated book right now-on this topic! Will be recommending to all of my clients, co-workers, and friends. -Claire Gilmore, MS, CNS, LDN

I love this book! I started reading it and found the information to be helpful! It’s a great book to have on your fertility journey. I have recommended it to many friends and continue to use mine as a resource.

. . .who wouldn’t benefit from buying and absorbing the wealth of powerful information and wisdom on nutrition and fertility contained in REAL FOOD FOR FERTILITY. I’m not going to repeat any of the wonderful things that have been said in the many reviews on REAL FOOD FOR FERTILITY. Except to say that, in my opinion, they are all true. Lilly Nichols and Lisa Hendrickson – Jack have interfaced their extensive research, knowledge and expertise in their own areas of practice so perfectly that it brings up the old saying: the total is much greater than the sum of its parts. All I can really do is repeat the title of my review (and add a bit more). I CAN’T THINK OF ANYONE, MALE OR FEMALE, LAY OR PROFESSIONAL, WHO WOULDN’T BENEFIT GREATLY FROM BUYING AND ABSORBING THIS BOOK. I will add that I strongly believe OB/GYN‘s, general practitioners, nurses, physicians assistants, certified nurse midwives and all those who work in the conventional/standard medical system that pervades North America should carefully read this book at least twice and refer to it often. I predict that, if this was done, the very way in which our healthcare system treats its patients would change drastically for the better. From my own experience, after 25 years of being a midwife, and from being a patient myself, of course, I see our healthcare system as an industrial complex that has long ago thrown out the Hippocratic Oath. This book could, if widely read, provide the impetus that would motivate healthcare professionals to get back on track - assuming at some point that they had been on track. I do, however, strongly believe that, at least in the fields of fertility awareness, nutrition, pregnancy and birthing that the traditional healthcare system has done more harm than good. I can go into other areas of medical practice and say the same but I’m going to concentrate on lily’s and Lisa’s groundbreaking book. Childbearing and birthing, for example, have been taken over by the healthcare industrial complex and treat pregnancy and birthing as if they were medical conditions. There is no continuity of care to speak of when establishment practitioners, whether male or female, become the overseers of childbearing and childbirth. They don’t really get to know the expectant mother during pregnancy or treat her with the dignity, humane support or allow the freedom of movement needed during the birth process, therefore, the hospital environment, both in it’s sterile and what I call, heartless, ambience, creates many of the complications that the hospital is equipped to deal with. “Birth must be induced.” “It’s CPD. A cesarean is mandatory.“ These determinations arise all too often because of the stress of giving birth in a hospital or for the convenience of whatever doctor who happens to be around at the critical stages of effacement and crowning. “Well I may have to use forceps for this. Or perhaps pulling on the mouth with my fingers may work.” All the while the mother is screaming for pain relief. Conventional hospital birthing dismisses the innate knowledge the mother has and turns the whole process upside down. How this point relates to Lily Nichols’, and Lisa Hendrickson – Jack’s book will be revealed near the end of this review As a midwife who very rarely has anything to do with hospital births, I am committed to continuity of care, highly professional standards of care, making arrangements for medical back up, palpating a pregnant mother’s tummy in the second trimester - sometimes third – if the baby feels out of position, getting to know the mother as a person and eventually a friend in a relationship that begins with the first prenatal check up, through ultrasound procedures to determine the sex of babies, through the labor and delivery, education in postpartum conditions and breast-feeding. Sometimes the friendships just naturally endure. The menstrual cycle IS the fifth vital sign and that truth meshes with my practice. Nutrition for pregnancy and nutrition for gestational diabetes is powerful information that pregnant women and their significant others should learn thoroughly. This also meshes at the heart of my own practice. This is really what REAL FOOD FOR FERTILITY is all about. It exposes the antagonist myths created over the past 100+ years about nutrition and pregnancy - myths that have also turned related and accepted protocols upside down - and so thoroughly discredits them. It should be a best-seller and I think it will.

Absolutely loved this book and the advice it offered. I would even say it gives good tips for overall health, not just if trying to conceive. I followed the advice here and in Real Food For Pregnancy, and had an easy pregnancy and delivered a healthy boy. BONUS: the recipes at the end are so helpful! The pulled pork is now a family favorite.

Que excelente libro, súper recomendable

This book is amazing. I've been looking into different pre-natal and pre-conception information (as well as hormone / menstrual cycle info) for a few years now, and this book pretty much melds all of the helpful information I've found, in one convenient place. She even has a whole chapter on sperm quality, which is super important and helpful too. I love how she uses facts to back up her claims and stays ontop of the proven newer science that isn't stuck in the 1960's. Highly recommend this book and her other work too.

This is simply a fertility bible, no other book about fertility even comes close. This has absolutely everything you might possibly want to know, and not just regarding nutrition, but it also covers cycle tracking, functional testing, supplements, exercise and more. Most importantly, it is actually based on real scientific evidence. Lily Nichols is incredible at reading scientific papers and unlike many other authors, she does this properly and therefore proves herself to be one of the most trustworthy voices in the fertility space. Don’t even think about other books, buy this and you won’t be disappointed.

Well researched, spot on topics and great in depth information about those topics. Very useful book for my TTC journey. I read real food for pregnancy and was really hoping someone would write one for fertility and I was so thrilled when I heard one is in works. Thank you so much for writing this.

Este libro es un absoluto necesario si quieres tomarte en serio una fertilidad exitosa. Muchas veces nos olvidamos de la importancia que tiene la nutrición a la hora de optimizar los procesos de nuestro cuerpo y ningun proceso es más importante que el de procrear. Lisa tiene una sabiduría profunda sobre los procesos del ciclo menstrual y todos sus años de investigación salen a la luz en este maravilloso libro creado con Lily, experta en nutrición del embarazo. Un libro interesantisimo a nivel fisiológico y culinario!! Tandem perfecto no solo para la cocreacion pero tambien para lograr un ciclo menstrual sano y equilibrado.