Hi, everyone.
Welcome back to friends with fertility.
Today, our friend is Nicola salmon.
Thank you for being here.
Oh, thank you for having me.
Um, I'll let you kind of give your own intro a bit because I don't wanna miss anything here because I feel like it's such an important topic.
So why don't you give our audience a little bit about who you are? Absolutely.
So if you can tell from my accent, I live in The UK, um, I I'm what I call a fat positive fertility specialist, which basically means that I help fat folks who want to get pregnant, navigate that all that stuff without weight loss and dieting, which is very different to a lot of people's approach when it comes to folks in bigger bodies who want to get pregnant.
Um, I've written a book called fat and fertile.
I have done lots of training in lots of research into this topic.
There aren't really any formal qualifications that you can get to be a fat positive fertility specialist but um yeah I have um a background in um medical engineering if you'll believe that and that is a whole of a kind of kettle of fish but yeah, I've got, like, medical training in my background and research, which is why I've kind of ended up in this fear of of talking about weight inclusive health care in the fertility sector.
Amazing.
It's such an important topic because I feel like one of the main things when you get to the doctor's office, depending how overweight you are, it's always you you might wanna try to lose some weight before you start.
Your your process.
Right? And It's so common for people to think of anyway.
For The UK as well? Like a kind of go to situation of well, let's start there kind of thing.
A 100%.
It's I feel like most doctors have gone through medical school and their careers, assuming this kind of foundational belief that fat is bad, that fat is wrong, that we need to make everybody's body smaller, and that is the very same belief that they come to fertility care with that it's the person who's in a bigger body's fault that they're that size and that they need to make themselves smaller before they can access any kind of help or support with getting pregnant.
Right.
And let me just address first off just the fat positive word, fat as a word.
Like, is that a thing as far as being tiptoed around or not? Like, you know, I I know in my household because we've I grew up in a very body image conscious situation, and so it wasn't a healthy environment.
So I really am overly sensitive for my kids not to be calling each other fat or saying any words like that because I just don't want food to be an issue.
I don't want body image to be an issue.
I, like, I just don't want it to exist in my house because it did when I was young and it caused a lot of damage.
Is that word itself a fat, a, like, an issue with people now or not? Like, maybe it's just my own thing because I'm the baggage that I come to the table with, and that's I can completely own that.
But as a general statement, is that something that's politically correct or not? Or how how do we navigate that with people to be to be considerate? It's such a great question, and it's one that I am super intentional about.
So I use the word fact really intentionally in my business as it's a word that I've reclaimed for my own body.
Um, when we kind of break down the word fat, it doesn't really mean anything kind of literally beyond you know, having fat cells, being in a bigger body, like it's a totally neutral word as in the same way that tall or short is, but we have as humans applied so much meaning to it and so much morality around it.
So we use it as shorthand to mean like greedy or unmotivated or ugly, like there's so many layers that we put on top of that, and I know so many people have a history of that word being weaponized against them me included, right? Like, I remember so many memories that I have of being smaller, um, like younger and having that word used to bully me.
Um, so in a way, it's an act of like reclamation in terms of, like, it's more of an an activist kind of phrase and one that a lot of other activists use within that space.
It's a word I use generally to describe people.
I don't ever use it to describe an individual without their consent and without having that know, discussion around what words they feel comfortable with.
Um, but for me, it's almost part of the work of making being fat more normal, more acceptable, not something that we should shy away from, because it is a totally neutral word, and there are some words that aren't neutral.
So for example, the term that's often used in the medical world is obese and obesity, that in its Latin roots, mean something like to eat until, you know, like, deathly overweight.
Like, it means something very different and has these really negative medicalized connotations around making fatness and illness and having to be fixed or cured this kind of pandemic that we have of obesity.
So language can be really, like, important when we talk about this.
Um, but I'm the same with my kids, right? Like, we I talk about this really openly with them.
I tell them that fat is not a bad word, but also in the same way they cannot use it to describe other people's bodies.
The rule that we have is we just don't talk about other people's bodies because that's the least interesting thing about them.
So We have different boundaries around that, and they're very aware that that word can be hurtful to people, and why that is and why that's problematic in itself.
So, yeah, it's definitely complicated, but it's really interesting.
I know.
It and it's so sad that it's so complicated because it shouldn't be.
And even from, you know, one of my children, his baby pictures, he is a fat baby.
Like, there's no more, no ins and outs about it.
But also he was healthy.
And so that's what I say when they're looking at his picture and they're laughing.
I'm like, he was healthy.
And he was, you know, he wasn't eating anything different than everybody was they all ate the same.
Six ounces every three hours and whatever.
His body just is different, and it was healthy.
And I try to I mean, they're so young, so they don't quite understand that.
But it it is a constant struggle.
I feel like to normalize the situation of recognizing you're just different, but you're healthy.
And what is the line when you're not healthy? And I always say that person knows if they're not healthy.
But as far as we know, they're healthy.
And that kind of leads me to the fertility side of things of I've had so many clients come to me over the years.
I will happily say all which have babies now, um, which is proof to say that don't let somebody tell you that this is a reason that you're not gonna be able to get pregnant.
There's a lot of thinner people that are having just the same issues is what I tell them.
Right? And there's a lot of people that are too thin that they're gonna tell the same issues to that have babies too.
So everybody's body is individual.
And we need to find what the root cause is of you struggling with fertility, but let's not go to.
It's your weight, one way or the other because I personally don't believe that just from what I know and the the the social evidence I know as well as the medical evidence that I know.
It's kind of like the age thing with fertility.
Oh, it's the age of your eggs.
Well, excuse me, f u, it is not.
You don't know that.
You haven't seen my eggs.
You know, you're just assuming that based on my number, you know, on my, you know, that I write down to tell you my age.
If you didn't know that, you would have no idea to assume that my eggs are not healthy.
Right? Oh, absolutely.
Because there's so many variables.
Right? Like, and we cannot possibly judge that just by the person that walks in the room.
Right.
So I feel like similar to age, and this is even compounded with someone who may be overweight with age, is that it's this additional stress that is put on people if they have if they have a feeling that they need to lose weight.
Right? So not only am I not getting pregnant, but I also have the stress of feeling like I need to lose weight.
Yeah.
You know, then we get into a whole another level of stress in which I believe prevents us from getting to the end results of what we want.
Right? So Absolutely.
How do you approach it with people? I know how I've approached it with clients that are overweight, but tell us your because I know you've helped thousands of people as well.
How that specialize just in this, which I think is amazing.
What is the narrative that you tell them? And how do you go about Essentially, we need to retrain their brain to think they are absolutely okay in the way that they are.
And it's so I'll let you tell how you work with clients.
I'll get off my soap box.
Now I'm right here with you on that soapbox.
So in the same way, like, it's exactly the same work.
It's finding that root cause of what is going on and the extra layer for fat folks is that they often don't get access to that testing of like doing investigations and figuring out what the problem might be.
Like I've had clients who've who've been on this journey for eight, nine years, and they were not getting anywhere, they weren't being able to get tests or treatments, and they found out eventually by being able to work with a clinic that I put them in touch with that their floping tubes were blocked, so they were never gonna get pregnant naturally.
So sad.
But they wasted all that time.
It's thinking it was their body when at actually.
There was something that was, you know, physiologically, um, that needed they needed support with.
It is and it happens so often even for people who they know it's a male factor issue and they can't access IBS because they're in a bigger body, like it's it's wild how these situations can pop up where it's so obvious that there's something that needs to happen and they're not being able to access the treatment that they need.
Um, but when I work with folks, we look at all kinds of different things.
The first thing that we often talk about is safety.
So helping them come to a place in themselves where they feel it's safe for them to get pregnant, and we're doing a lot of deconditioning around a lot of the things that we're told around getting pregnant in a bigger body whether that's from their doctors or society or social media, the forums.
Um, I do that in lots of different ways in terms of like identifying what their beliefs are and helping them and pick those and see how they impact their daily lives.
We look at a lot of the research so that they can kind of build up an evidence bank in their own brain around, like, what does the research actually say? Um, because often doctors will say, you know, really quite sensationalist things about getting pregnant and bigger bodies and being pregnant, when actually the research just doesn't support that, um, and we look at shame as well.
So so many people are carrying around a bucket full of shame around feeling like it's their fault because they're in a bigger body and they haven't been able to lose weight and it should be easy for them to do that because that's what the doctors say.
Oh my gosh.
I say, you know, just eat less and and work out more.
I mean, if I heard that anymore, I literally I probably quite literally would tell somebody to f off for the amount of, like, people that have told me that between trainers and doctors or whatever.
That doesn't that's not the answer for everybody.
It's it's so simplistic and so lazy.
Like, honestly, We know we've had evidence for fifty odd years that completely disproves that it's it's just not that simple.
There are over a 100 different factors that impact anybody's weight at any given time.
We all know a thin person who can eat like a horse and still doesn't put on any weight.
So of course, we all know that that's not true yet we just bring out the old trope time and time again when we're blaming fat people for this.
So it's about really relocating that shame away from themselves and into the real culprits which are the systems you know, the the systems that have created this healthcare system where we blame fat people for everything under the sun that could possibly go wrong, whether that's a cold or broken arm, you know, it's always because you're fat.
Um, it's, you know, around our own internalized version of that story about how we'll put it off until we've lost weight and oh, we'll wait till we go to the doctor until we've lost weight.
We can do that to ourselves so often because we're afraid of what the doctors are gonna say and the judgement that we'll receive It's the isolation that we experience because we feel it's unsafe to talk about this stuff for fear of that judgement and shame again.
So there's lots of culprits as to where that shame comes from, but helping people understand that it's not their fault and actually giving them the real system to blame can be really powerful because it gives them that permission to move forward and to be like, yes, I I actually can do this and it's okay to want this and get all the support and have community around them, which can be really powerful too.
Yes.
Just hearing you talk.
I mean, I feel like there's so many layers of, like you say, the isolation, the this, the that, and I know for myself with having body dysmorphic disorder at a younger age, all of those things are what happens to somebody.
So I feel like it's multi layered with the people that you work with from, like, helping them through one step and then the next step and then the next step where fertility might be the ultimate goal, but there's so many things between there and fertility that probably need to be addressed just in healing the idea that and the thoughts that they've had in their head probably for many, many, many years.
Many of which, like I was saying, is a learned language.
It's a learned behavior from people around you, or you're doing it from a protection perspective.
Like, there's a reason for most people whether, you know, I believe also you may not be sitting around eating bond bonds all day, but on your subconscious mind, there's probably something there that has is protecting you from that, which I'll use myself in as a as an example.
No matter, I ran a marathon.
Literally trained for a marathon and could not lose weight.
Um, my body was not in a state to lose it no matter what I was doing.
Right? There was a reason that it was there and it was happening there.
And it was more than just getting in the gym for two hours a day and not and starving myself, right, even then my body was like, nope.
We're not we're not gonna let that happen for you.
And I think that in the work that you do, it's so multidimensional in a beautiful way because I think that this fertility and pregnancy and motherhood is something that usually transcends other feelings.
Right? So it's something that they want much more than being attached to the protection that they've had or the whatever it may be.
And so it's like, okay, I'm actually gonna reach out to Nicola and figure out what I need to do to get there.
And there might be some stuff that you need to address between here and there, but ultimately reclaiming and empowering yourself of regardless of why you are in the place that you are.
You'd still have it's still your birthright to want a child and to grow a family.
Regardless of whatever.
You know, it's just the same as your skin color or anything else.
Like, it doesn't mean that you don't have the ability or the right to do that.
And having somebody to advocate for you for that, or just give you the voice and, like, the pep talk to be like, you got this.
You can do this.
And here's a lot of people that have done it.
I imagine opens and unlocks those doors really quickly for people to for that light bulb to turn off.
And do you see that happen quickly with people, like, once they kinda get on board and they get excited about the possibility? Definitely.
As soon as you they see somebody else who's been through that experience who's walked that walk, they immediately feel like it's possible and that they can see that spark of hope again because it's so isolating.
People think that they are the only one going through this, which seems wild because there are, you know, there are so many people in bigger bodies who are experiencing this, but because of that fear of talking about it, and we just, you know, there are clinics over here that just have the BMI restrictions.
I know it's the same where you are.
You know, it's just this crippling fear of like I can't talk about this because people are gonna think I'm already a terrible parent before I've even got pregnant, um, that they are so feel so isolated and that it's never gonna happen for them.
And then they hear about other people's stories and the success stories and like so many people know, people in fat bodies have been getting pregnant for millennia, but we forget, right, that this is totally boring and ordinary even though it's like the biggest miracle.
Like, it happens all the time every day for poke folks of all bodies.
So it's just giving them that spark of hope back and then they can see the possibilities and then they can get a little bit excited about it again because I don't think they ever feel that excitement when they're stuck in that shame spiral it's like even when they're like at the beginning of like, oh, maybe we were ready to, you know, start trying and we want to get pregnant.
It there's not that same excitement I think for them because they've always got that underlying fear and that panic and that nervousness.
So it's it's really nice to see them kind of have a little bit of hope and get excited and be like, this this could happen for us.
And maybe it's not gonna be this awful thing that we're told it's it will be.
And I think just having the courage to be excited to begin to start that journey also probably has you feel you're you need to put the brakes on a little bit because if you bring that up to your general practitioner doctor, you, like you said, you probably know what they're gonna say.
Right? Go home, get on a diet for a little while, and then come back and talk to us as opposed just to being open about that.
And you mentioned that there's a clinic that you send people to.
Is that a clinic that you've built a relationship with that they understand the the process of working with people in bigger bodies? And so they're more open to that? Or because I feel like that really is the key.
Right? We need to we need to partner with physicians that are open to saying, as I call it, let's check the lay of the land.
Is your uterus good? Is your your fallopian tubes open? Is structurally everything okay? Yes.
Okay.
Great.
At least we at least we know we have all of that checked off.
But for some people, you know, you even can't even do that until you've tried for six months or a year, depending on your age.
And I imagine from the weight perspective, let alone if we get insurance involved.
Right? I'm sure insurance will say we're not gonna talk to you until you get to a certain weight, which is the same thing for here in The United States.
With any any comorbidity, you know, whether it's heart disease or whatever.
They're that's always the blanket statement of There's always a way to get out of paying for it.
Right? Yeah.
So is there doctors that you feel are under standing this and helping people to step forward into this and and and breaking down that stigma or not so much? There are a few.
If they it's massive spectrum.
There are some clinics that I that that I can recommend to folks where they have higher BMI limits, but they're still likely to talk about weight or diets, but it's still an an accessible thing, like it's still an option.
Then there are clinics that are more forward thinking.
There are a couple in The US.
So what I tend to do is I have a long list on my website of of clinics that folks have recommended to me where they've had a positive experience and I share that freely with people so that they can go on and look in their state or their country and find out where people have had a positive experience, where might they, you know, get one and see, like, what their attitudes have been.
You know, people share different amounts of information.
Some people share like, how the whole experience was, what their BMI was, so give it people context, um, and others have just said, yeah, this is a good clinic.
So it's it's just giving people that access to information where they might possibly get a positive response and sometimes it isn't a cozy, fuzzy, wonderful experience that it should be, but it is a case of them being able to access it rather than not access it.
So it's it's just knowing in, no, going in there, having your eyes open and knowing what you're gonna expect, be prepared for that and being able to advocate for the care that you need.
Which is step one.
Right? I always say, like, I don't want I don't need my doctor to be warm and fuzzy.
I just need them to get me pregnant.
You know, like, It depends.
And everybody's different.
Some people really do want that really good bedside manner.
And I think it again depends on where you're at when I was at my age doing it.
I just wanted somebody to help me get to where I needed to be.
I didn't need them to be my best friend, whereas, I think it's similar to people in bigger bodies as well.
Like, just somebody who's educated in this field that is willing to help me, I'm happy to go to.
Absolutely.
Right? Like, I don't need you to be super this or that.
Just take a look and see what's going on.
Yeah.
And there are many layers to it.
I think fat people who've, you know, maybe if they've had different experiences with their doctors are often expecting the worst, so they, you know, have a really low baseline and more acceptable level of care is because of the way they've experienced it in the past.
So having some empathy is good, like, if that's possible, but often it's, yeah, it's literally just who's closest in the vicinity who covers your insurance if that's the option.
You know, and just figuring out what your choices are because there is a limited choice and it is about deciding, you know, financially what your options are geographically and what makes the best sense for you in terms of what is your priority in in your care.
Right.
Feel like we would hope that doctors in general going into that field would have some level of empathy, but I've I've recognized that that's not the change.
It's tricky, isn't it? Sometimes it does feel a bit like, a machine for, you know, like people going in and out on the conveyor belt and it being a bit of a money maker.
But, um, there are definitely some doctors who are in it for the right reasons, and I hope that continues.
I know here in The States, there are quite a few REs that are now sub prescribing, uh, Ozempic, and I don't know the term, the GLP ones.
I don't know what it's called exactly.
Got it.
Is that happening there as well? Yeah.
Unfortunately, it is.
And it's it's a tricky one because those medications can be really useful for folks.
For example, if they've got diabetes, if there are issues with blood sugar levels, it's really useful, really important, but people need to be aware that you need to be off that medication for at least one to two months before you get pregnant because the studies that we have and we obviously have very limited studies in regards to pregnant people because it's really unethical to do medical studies on on pregnant people, but the studies that they have in rats show that there could potentially be issues during pregnancy, and we obviously don't want that.
So we the the guidance from the manufacturer on the product information leaflet is that you need to stop taking it at least one to two months before, and I think clinics some clinics are great.
Um, if they're recommending it, they're making sure they are recommending it appropriately.
But I have heard some experiences of clinics being very blase about it and just being like, oh, no, you can take it through, and that's where it becomes really problematic because this basically just becomes a big experiment on these people then, which is not acceptable.
For sure.
And I think you're not for most people, they're not addressing the underlying issue.
Right? Like, of what is it that is causing their body to be bigger and what have you done? They're not really just, like, for me, when I walked in, they didn't ask me about my gut health.
They didn't ask me about anything else about my body.
And I feel like it's the same there as far as just looking at the weight itself on a scale and saying, okay, here you need to do this.
Come back later, and then we'll we'll talk later.
And we don't really have later in these situations often.
Right? I mean No.
Time is of the essence, essentially.
The sooner the better, right? Always the sooner the betterment Yes.
And I feel that I while I understand that if they see weight as the problem, then like things like ozone fit could make sense to be a solution, right? But We know from the research that it's only ever short term measure, it is basically just turning off your brain's desire to eat so that you're basically restricting calories.
It's just a different form of restriction.
And we know that when people stop taking it that they often put the weight back on, um, and even when they're still taking the medication, there's research to show that the weight will increase again after a period of time.
So it's it's only ever a short term measure it comes with a whole host of side effects, some of which are more tolerable than others, a lot of gastrointestinal stuff, and what we know from a lot of studies is that like severe calorie restriction while you're in that preconception phase can be really harmful as well.
So there's it's, again, a lot more complicated than just, oh, take this medication to lose weight, and then, you know, your fertility or magic could be better.
It's it's so much more complicated than that.
Well, even people here, there's you know, the osempic babies that people have been on osempic and accidentally gotten pregnant.
And it's not that way.
There's a medical, you know, in intervention, so to speak of what is happening with other drug interactions that in most cases is causing that to happen.
So it's not like, oh, you take osempic and you get pregnant.
That is not the narrative at all.
So much more scary than it sounds, right? Osempic babies, like, oral contraception not working.
That is scary.
Right.
Like, your meds not working properly because it stopped the absorption of them in your stomach.
That is something we need to be really worried about.
Right.
So I think that's been another narrative we've been trying to change is don't rush out to your doctor to get on Ozempic because you wanna get pregnant.
That is not the answer of what what you're trying to get at.
So I just wanna say that as a public service announcement Yes.
This is not We're we're trying to get at.
Um, so tell us a little bit about your specific story and and because I know you have some little ones.
Well, how did how did that go for you? So I often talk about it almost like a bit of a fertility journey in reverse.
So when I was 16, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS, and the doctor said I would never be able to get pregnant, and that was based on some blood results, which You know, I would very seriously question their, um, you know, their doctor opinion right now, but that's what they said at time.
I had no reason to not believe them, so I grew up thinking that it would be really difficult for me to get pregnant.
I spent my teens, my twenties, trying to lose weight, losing weight, gaining weight, the whole kind of yo yo dieting weight cycling, um, and then I met my husband.
We decided we wanted to start trying and I got pregnant really quickly, and I was terrified because I thought that I'd have more time if I could just do that one more crash diet, that would be okay, and then I'd be alright.
That didn't happen.
We got pregnant.
I thought every single thing that could go wrong was going to go wrong.
It didn't.
Nothing happened.
Totally boring, totally ordinary.
Um Totally amazing.
Yes.
Incredible.
But I was so anxious through my whole pregnancy because I was expecting everything to go wrong.
How old were you? 29.
So, yeah, average age and it was when I was around maybe like a couple of weeks before I was due.
I've been pushing for like having a home birth and a water birth and they kept putting me off and putting me off.
And then I finally was like, no, this is what I want, and they said, well, you'll have to go in and talk to, like, the head of the maternity unit to get permission.
Um, and that was the most terrifying thing for me because I'd never advocated for help in my life.
I didn't have no idea what I was doing, but I found some research that said that actually folks in bigger bodies can absolutely do those things.
So I went in with my research.
I advocated for myself the very first time at 29, and, um, yeah, she said yes, which was amazing.
And I didn't get the birth that I wanted because of other things that happened as they often do during birth, but it was I was a very proud moment for myself of like standing up for what I really wanted and just really understanding that actually the doctors don't always know best that I can do my own research that I can advocate for the the the needs that I have around my health care and that could be enough.
So so yeah, so that was baby number one and then the next one popped along we call him kind of like the immaculate conception because my son got really ill around his first birthday.
He had about seven different viral infections all at once that landed him in A and E and somehow we got pregnant around that time and then The second one popped on and this was at my biggest weight.
This was when my cycles were a hundred plus days long.
Like there was so much going on that we would assume that would have stopped me from getting pregnant.
So Yeah.
That was kind of my evidence for like, well, if I can do it in my body with my PCOS, why why can't other people? Like, why are we always told that fat is this big problem that we need to be afraid of? So that's kind of what started it.
Now I have a whole host of evidence behind me, like I fully am here for this message, and I know that it is so discriminatory and so unevidence based to deny people fertility care based on my BMI and I just want more people to believe it and to understand it.
A 100%.
That's so awesome.
Thank you for sharing your story.
And I think that it's so important to just that PCOS label, I guess, that people get young.
I mean, I know I had it at some point, and I was like, I don't really think I have this, but you, like you said, you believe them.
Oh, yeah.
And And I remember even asking, like, can this change? And they're like, no, it's basically like you're pregnant or you're not pregnant.
You know, there's no, like, may there's no spectrum of it, you know.
And, um, sure enough, I changed some things in my life and and stress level mainly was the biggest thing that I was going through at that time.
And the next time I demanded for them to test for it, I did I didn't have it.
And I think had I continued with thinking that? And I see this all the time.
I have friends even that were, like, your story, diagnosed at a young age, and they just always assumed they're gonna struggle getting pregnant.
And they basically will themselves into that whole narrative of what society has told us about PCOS.
And it's such a shame because you really do take on these messages in your subconscious mind to believe whatever somebody's telling you, and it's so, so heartbreaking.
So I feel like we are constantly trying to unravel the puzzle of what people have told them.
Like you, I had my story, which was having three children over 41 naturally.
And it was like, no, that's not possible.
You have to have an egg donor.
You have to have this that and whatever because of your age.
And it's like, I don't think so.
I'm I didn't.
So it's possible.
You know? So I think that it's really a matter of finding that social evidence.
So with you and saying, if this if I can relate to this situation and this is what I'm going through, I'm gonna grab on to you and I'm gonna be that have you be my beacon of hope and know that it's possible and not give up.
And if you have that knowing inside of you that you will be a mom, know that it's possible, and it's just about finding the right people and team around you to help yourself believe that.
Sometimes we need the people around us to give us that, that faith that we might not have in ourselves.
And you'll get there.
We just gotta help each other out to know that it's possible.
And I'm really, really grateful for the work that you're doing because it's such it it's so needed.
Like I said, it's so multi layered, but at the end of the day, you know, it really is not something that should get in the way of you building your family because Absolutely.
It's it just shouldn't.
So one one more thing before we go, your book, I love I love it.
So please tell our audience about that and and what they will learn by by reading your book.
Oh, thank you.
So I wrote it a few years ago now.
It is totally self published.
Because surprise surprise, not but nobody wants to publish a book about fat fertility.
Um, but it is basically a mixture of my own story, my coaching techniques, and some research all bundled up in a great big kind of hugging a book I like to call it.
So basically, yeah, it is just like listening to me speaking, um, and talking about some things that will help move you forward through these beliefs and ideas, some of the research that I found along the way to support you in building up your belief in yourself.
And yeah, just navigating through some of the trials and tribulations of that fat folks often face when they want to get pregnant.
Amazing.
I but again, I'm thinking of something else before we go.
And I know I keep pushing this on, but it's so important.
And I and maybe I'm more tied to it because I've had my own issues mentally with it.
So I feel like there's a bit of relatability for me in some way.
But I think I have seen so many people pay over $10,000 to work with a fertility diet coach Mhmm.
To have them to lose weight or maybe it's not even lose weight, but get pregnant.
And it ends up causing them so much stress because they're like, I can't eat this.
I can't eat that.
I can't go out with my friends.
I'm not supposed to do this, etcetera, etcetera.
And so they end up getting in a worse state, honestly, by the time they get to me because they're even more in their head about food shaming and or if I would have not need this piece of cake or if I didn't have this, you know, glass of wine or whatever it may be, and we work for two months together and they end up being pregnant because I base my my thing is We just wanna watch the foods that you have food sensitivities to.
What are you allergic to? What's causing inflammation in your body? Anything else that's not gonna move the needle? Mhmm.
Maybe some people get lucky if they avoid gluten, dairy, and sugar.
But that's not that's not the answer in my opinion, not unlimited state not because that's that's it's more about your food sensitivities and what your body has reactions to.
We know that our our eggs and our cells for that matter react to inflammation.
And when they're inflamed, then we have other issues going on.
One of which is the, it affects the eggs.
So please don't go on any of these in or pay lots of money to fertility diets No.
That are telling you one thing.
Now if you feel better by doing that, then that's great.
Like, if you if your body just feels better like that.
Wonderful.
But what I see most of the time is it gets becomes a mental fight against themselves and it causes more stress.
And those babies wanna come to people that are having fun and living life and enjoying And if that means having a piece pizza and a and some cake, have that.
That's not gonna be the game changer of whether your baby comes or not.
So I just wanna leave with that because I see it so so often.
And it's it's really a matter of finding Nicola, finding somebody who can walk you through the process of what's good for your body, what makes you feel good, and and knowing that it's possible rather than cutting things out that don't need to be cut out of your life.
If it, you know, so we'll leave with that.
Thank you.
I love that.
And, yeah, the one food rule that I always give to people is that I want them to eat enough, and that is it.
Full stop.
Because we are so used to restricting ourselves.
And, yeah, people just need to eat enough food and that is gonna, you know, lead to safer body, safer baby.
Safer baby.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for being on today.
I really enjoyed our conversation.
Where can everybody find you? So I am over on Instagram of fat positive fertility.
And if you want to check out any of my resources, the clinic thing I mentioned, It's all on my website at nicholassalmon.
co.
uk.
Fantastic.
Thanks so much, Nicola.
Take care.
Thank you
