[Mini] 3 Things To Check When 'Everything Looks Normal' But You're Still Not Pregnant | Ep. 147

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I'm Bridget Walton, a Women's Hormone Coach helping ambitious women ages 25-40 naturally restore hormone balance, fix irregular periods, feel confident in their fertility, and resolve gut health issues without restrictive dieting.

If you struggle with missing periods, PCOS symptoms, bloating, or unpredictable cycles, this women's health podcast will teach you how to support your hormones through strategic nutrition and lifestyle changes that actually fit your busy life.

On I'm Hormonal, you'll discover natural solutions for period problems, learn how gut health impacts your hormones, and get practical hormone balance tips from a functional nutrition perspective - no more guessing what your body needs.

Listen to this episode so you can understand which three markers and data sets you can check in order to understand what's causing chaos with your hormones, PMS, and fertility goals. You're already doing a lot of these tests and tracking information; use this episode as a quick guide to make those efforts more impactful.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why “Normal” Labs Aren’t Enough
• 0:45 Insulin As A Fertility Signal
• 1:30 CGMs, Bread Spikes, And Inflammation
• 3:27 Reading Basal Body Temperature Patterns
• 5:13 Gut Health Links To Hormones
• 6:55 Targeted Testing And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey girl, welcome back to episode number 147 of I'm Hormodal. This is a little mini episode where we're gonna be talking about three things that I want you to check if you are still feeling frustrated about your fertility because there's nothing more frustrating than being told, like, oh, everything looks normal on your lab results when clearly something is not normal because your cycle isn't regular or you're not getting pregnant. So that's what we're gonna focus on today in this mini episode. If you haven't listened to this week's earlier episode, go back and check that out after this, too, where I talk about three red flags that your doctor might not be looking for, isn't talking to you about. The first thing that I want to talk about for today, I want you to go back and check your insulin levels on your last lab result. I went into more detail in the longer episode on this one specifically, but I think it's important enough to reiterate again here because insulin is gonna be a good marker for what is your metabolic health like. It's one of the markers that will help paint that picture. It's also one that for which the medical system's standard or I guess their threshold is much higher than what you want to be looking for if you are trying to optimize your health and optimize your fertility. So going back to see what insulin looks like will be really a good quick first step. I also want to give a quick shout-out because maybe you have like tried a continuous glucose monitor, a CGM. It's something that maybe you've gotten through your primary care provider, or maybe you did it like through, you know, a website and they sent you the kit. And one of the things that's really interesting that you can learn, in addition to just what is your blood sugar normally, what is the range that you're normally in? But I have a client who has been wearing a continuous glucose monitor, and she's like, hey, Bridget, I realized that after every time I eat bread, doesn't matter what else I had with it, I see that my blood sugar spikes every time, no matter what. And interestingly enough, when we got her food sensitivity panel back, she was sensitive to both wheat and yeast. So while that won't be the case for every single person who has a blood sugar spike after you consume bread, what I want to communicate is that understanding how your blood sugar's reacting to something can also paint the picture of how your digestive system, how your immune system is responding. Because if you eat something that's causing an inflammatory response that causes your blood sugar to spike, well, this is one way to become aware of it. So that is, I think, a lesser-known fact, but really important, really helpful. And it's not something that you have to then eliminate from your diet forever, or it's not necessarily the case that you need to do that. It might just be a matter of supporting the restore and repair of your gut lining and then eventually reintroducing it once that immune response has subsided. So coming back to the main point here, go back and check out insulin levels on your last labs and see where they fell. Now, the next thing I want you to check is as it relates to your basal body temperature. If you are tracking your basal body temperature, you will already know that tracking your temperature in that way can be helpful to confirm ovulation because after you ovulate, your body temperature for the rest of your cycle goes up by just a part of a degree. Nothing crazy. But it can be really helpful, obviously, if you want to conceive. Also very helpful if you would like to avoid conception, because naturally knowing whether or not you've ovulated will help you to forecast for future cycles, which day of your cycle you normally ovulate, or obviously avoid having intercourse uh in your fertile window so that you can avoid conception. So go back to take a look at your basal body temperature. And in addition to just seeing, okay, is there a spike? Can you confirm ovulation? I want you to also take a look at how big the spike is. Is it more of a gradual increase or is it a very prominent, like marked increase? Because understanding if your progesterone maybe goes up a little bit more slowly, or does it go up right away, as demonstrated by your temperature changes on that graph, that can be helpful for you to understand what is going on with your progesterone level without having to even go get a lab test or have your blood drawn or you know pee on a stick or whatever it looks like for you. So first, insulin, second, basal body temperature. The third thing that I want you to check is your gut health. If you are somebody, this is going to be applicable to you, if you are somebody who has constant bloating, if you have a lot of digestive discomfort, if despite all of your best efforts, you have constipation or you have diarrhea, you have extreme urgency, if there's something that, and especially if you've normalized it, because I know, I know, I see you, girl, sometimes you have those experiences for years and you think this is normal. But let me tell you, if you have anything that I just mentioned that despite your best efforts, you can't figure out how to get it to go away, unfortunately, or no, not unfortunately, it's fortunate that you can do a stool test to see exactly what's going on in your gut and get a very clear, clear, clear picture of what you need to do moving forward. Supporting your digestion, supporting your, you know, stomach acid levels by relaxing while you eat and getting adequate zinc and hydrating, all of those good things, yes, are helpful. But if you are somebody who has a specific overgrowth or imbalance in your gut microbiome, it might take something more targeted, more pointed in order for you to see the transformation that you need to see. And a lot of the times, what I see with my clients and what I've seen with myself as I improved and worked on my own gut health. But when I work with my clients and we really focus on their gut health, that's what leads to the change with their hormone health, with their PMS, with their acne. So it is so important. We can't say it enough. Now, that is really all I've got for you in this mini episode. As always, everything I share with you here is for educational purposes only and not a replacement for medical advice or diagnosis. If what we covered today resonated with you and you feel like you've tried everything to get your hormones back in shape, but you are still stuck, I've created a free guide specifically for you. You can head over to I'mhormonal.com slash guide to grab it. Or if you have any requests, anything you want to hear me talk about on the podcast, send me a message on Instagram at I'm underscore hormonal. All right, my friend. Thanks for listening. I'm Bridget Walton, and I will see you on the next one.