Food Freedom and Fertility Podcast

A fun, honest conversation about food, fertility, and women’s health. The Food Freedom Fertility podcast started when Caitlin’s mom overheard a conversation between Caitlin and Sophia about fertility nutrition. As registered dietitians and experts in their field discussing fertility nutrition and human health, their banter was funny, honest, and insightful. Sophia and Caitlin both specialize in prenatal, fertility, pregnancy, and postnatal nutrition, and invite you into their conversation about all things food, freedom, and fertility!

Preconception and Fertility When You Have Diabetes 05/05/2025

Preconception and Fertility When You Have Diabetes Welcome to another episode of Food, Freedom, and Fertility. In this episode hosts Sophia Pavia and Caitlin Johnson chat with Nikki Sahebghalam with about trying to conceive after you have a diabetes diagnosis. Nikki is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Nutrition Specialist here to help you feel your best from the inside out. She has spent most of her career as a dietitian in skilled nursing, eating disorder and addiction treatment, and outpatient counseling. However, she has always found the most fulfillment in the 1:1 counseling she gets to do with her patients. She has worked with individuals with a wide range of conditions including PCOS, pre-diabetes, and Hashimoto’s. While implementing sustainable behavior changes towards a healthier life, her clients also develop a loving relationship towards food, their body, and their mind. She knew she wanted to be a dietitian since high school, but after completing her undergraduate degree she felt unfulfilled from learning about nutrition only through the conventional lens and decided to continue her education in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine. After receiving her Masters she decided to pursue a dual tract certification as a CNS and RDN. Sophia Caitlin and Nikki speak about the importance of eating a healthy diet, implementing lifestyle changes like walks, exercises and movement and working with a dietician if you have a diabetes diagnosis and are struggling to get pregnant. This episode is great for those who also receive a gestational diabetes diagnosis in pregnancy or those who are curious about blood sugar balance, have a pre-diabetes diagnosis or just want more information on trying to conceive! For more information about Nikki and ways to work with her head to Diabetes Digital's . Thank you to our Season 4 Sponsors. Be sure to use the code on their site for a Food, Freedom and Fertility discount. FullWell: FullWell is offering our listeners 20% off your first order by using our code FFF20. Head to their for more information on their products. : $25 off first appointment with link: : Head to fondbonebroth.com then use the code FFF10 to get 10% off your first order. You can find us on IG at /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/36430950

OTC Progesterone with Alannah from Raena Health 04/28/2025

Nutrition Tips for Heavy Periods 04/21/2025

Bringing Fertility Treatments like IUI to Your Home with Alia Johnson 04/14/2025

Bringing Fertility Treatments like IUI to Your Home with Alia Johnson Welcome to another episode of Food, Freedom, and Fertility. Host Caitlin Johnson speaks with Alia Johnson! Alia takes tremendous pride in being called a midwife and feels very humbled to serve her community. Part of her life’s work is to support and empower those to make informed, evidence based decisions about their bodies. She feels that every individual needs something a little different during their health journey and she will happily cater to that. Her career in healthcare began as a certified nurse assistant in 2009 working in many acute care settings such as hospitals, psychiatric wards, long term rehabilitation facilities, and a maximum security prison. Along that journey she met a home birth midwife who invited Alia to her home group for midwives and that is where her interest for midwifery was sparked. After working in western / allopathic medicine she decided to make her dream of becoming a midwife a reality. She enrolled at The National College of Midwifery in 2013. Apprenticed for 3 years in her hometown of Redding, CA before relocating to Arroyo Grande, CA and finishing out the rest of her 5 year apprenticeship on the Central Coast. She was honored to have learned from 9 midwives in the course of her training. From there she obtained her Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) via the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) and also her Licensed Midwife (LM) from the California State Medical Board. After obtaining licensure in 2018, was born. Caitlin and Alia have an in depth discussion on midwifery care at home and how Alia provides her clients different services like prenatal care, postnatal care and even fertility care. Alia offers couples in-home IUI services to those in need. For more information about Alia and the services she offers head to her ! Thank you to our Season 4 Sponsors. Be sure to use the code on their site for a Food, Freedom and Fertility discount. FullWell: FullWell is offering our listeners 20% off your first order by using our code FFF20. Head to their for more information on their products. : $25 off first appointment with link: : Head to fondbonebroth.com then use the code FFF10 to get 10% off your first order. You can find us on IG at /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/36119540

Fertility Red Flags: What You Need to Know About Your Cycle 04/07/2025

PCOS Fertility Medications You Might Be Offered 03/31/2025

Back to Basics: Cervical Mucus, Position and Tracking in General 03/24/2025

Be Brave Stay Hopeful 03/17/2025

Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA) treatment with Lily Nichols 03/10/2025

FullWell Fertility: Raising the Bar on Fertility Testing 03/03/2025

FullWell Fertility: Raising the Bar on Fertility Testing Welcome to another episode of Food, Freedom, and Fertility. Host Caitlin Johnson speaks with Ayla Barmmer of FullWell. Ayla founded FullWell as an adjunct to her clinical practice at Boston Functional Nutrition because she wanted to make the evidence-based, effective, and high-quality supplement they created for their clients available to the rest of the world. After almost two decades working on thousands of complex fertility cases, she learned that no two are alike. In fact, fertility is arguably one of the most common yet perplexing health issues. The vast majority of people receive the most frustrating diagnosis of all: “unexplained infertility.” Popular medical interventions have notoriously poor success rates and often yield tremendous physical and emotional stress, not to mention the financial and relational impact. Ayla synthesized decades of findings, looking at the needs that have emerged from the most straightforward to the most complex cases. Her approach looks at the whole person, in the context of their environments, peeling back the layers until we grasp root issues. Over time, She has observed as many external and systemic causes of fertility issues as internal and specific concerns. For this reason, She believes in addressing the pursuit of fertility health as both an individual and collective need, carefully supporting a wide variety of inputs to build the optimal foundation for conception, pregnancy, and postpartum recovery. This episode also speaks about FullWell coming out with fertility testing! A new test kit that will check your Vitamin D levels, TSH, AMH and more! Head to their for more exciting details! Thank you to our Season 4 Sponsors. Be sure to use the code on their site for a Food, Freedom and Fertility discount. FullWell: FullWell is offering our listeners 20% off your first order by using our code FFF20. Head to their for more information on their products. : $25 off first appointment with link: : Head to fondbonebroth.com then use the code FFF10 to get 10% off your first order. You can find us on IG at /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/35505100

Back to Basics: BBT Edition 02/24/2025

Fertility and Eating Disorders: What You Need to Know 02/17/2025

Fertility and Eating Disorders: What You Need to Know Welcome to another episode of Food, Freedom, and Fertility. Host Sophia Pavia speaks with Jillian Lampert and Kezia Reeder with Accanto Health, the parent company of The Emily Program and Gather Behavioral Health. Jillian Lampert oversees the public affairs, communications, and public relations activities, including cultivating and maintaining industry relations, leading organizational advocacy and policy involvement, supporting public relations highlighting the organization’s role as an industry thought leader, and spearheading availability of key educational content available to the public and external providers. She is Co-Founder and President of the REDC, the national consortium representing eating disorders care focused on treatment standards, best practices, access to care, and collaborative research. She is also Treasurer of the Eating Disorders Coalition, a DC-based national organization for eating disorders policy and advocacy, and a Board Member of WithAll, a Minnesota-based organization that empowers eating disorder prevention and strengthens support for recovery. She holds an adjunct graduate faculty position in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota. Kezia Reeder is the Director of Clinical Operations at Accanto Health (with brands The Emily Program and Gather Behavioral Health), where she leads with compassion and expertise. Kezia became involved in the eating disorder field after struggling with, and recovering from, an eating disorder in college. As a mother to a young daughter, Kezia is driven by her desire to create a more supportive and inclusive environment for future generations. Combining her professional skills with her personal mission, she is a fierce advocate for eating disorders awareness and treatment, passionately working to improve client care and access. Sophia, Jillian and Kezia have an in depth discussion on eating disorders impacting your fertility, how to overcome it and ways to seek help. They also spoke about how having struggled with an eating disorder in your past does not mean you will automatically struggle trying to conceive. For more information about Accanto Health head to their ! Thank you to our Season 4 Sponsors. Be sure to use the code on their site for a Food, Freedom and Fertility discount. FullWell: FullWell is offering our listeners 20% off your first order by using our code FFF20. Head to their for more information on their products. : $25 off first appointment with link: : Head to fondbonebroth.com then use the code FFF10 to get 10% off your first order. You can find us on IG at /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/35305620

The Link Between Poor Sleep and PCOS 02/10/2025

Broth for Baby Making with Alysa Seeland 02/03/2025

Male Libido and Intimacy with Mark 01/27/2025

Sophia's Ectopic Pregnancy Story Part 2 01/20/2025

Sophia's Ectopic Pregnancy Story Part 1 01/20/2025

Evidence Based Birth on Due Dates with Dr. Dekker 01/13/2025

Hot Gos: Caitlin and Sophia Spilling the Tea 01/06/2025

Intermittent Fasting: What You Need to Know 12/30/2024

My Faith is Not for a Baby 12/23/2024

Season Four Kick Off - Carnivore Diet & Pros and Cons to Ozempic 12/16/2024

Rerelease: You are Pregnant, Now What: Birth Education Courses 12/11/2024

Rerelease: PCOS and Fertility: How to Approach Treatment 12/04/2024

Rerelease: PCOS and Fertility: How to Approach Treatment PCOS is treatable! Here’s how to start: Personal Baseline: What do your labs say? What symptoms are you dealing with? Have you had any imaging done? These are all the first things to start looking at when it comes to PCOS. It’s important to note that while Caitlin and Sophia love working with women with PCOS, and we have many years of experience, we are dietitians, not doctors. We don’t diagnose! So what to do with nutrition: Balance blood sugar Make sure that there is a higher quality and quantity of protein at each meal and snack “Quality” means it’s not inflammatory and provides more protein than it does any other macronutrient. Examples: meat, cheese, nuts, and seeds Most women with PCOS tolerate high protein dairy products like greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheese! SOME women do have fewer symptoms when they eliminate gluten and dairy, but it’s not the magic answer to PCOS management that it’s often believed to be Not everyone needs to be dairy free! Veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds are your best sources of fiber! Pro tip: artichoke hearts have a ton of fiber! Fiber is great at filling your plate and filling your belly! You’ll find that you get to eat a lot of food while managing your PCOS Eating real food, vs. a protein bar or shake will keep you full for longer. It will help you slow down and feel full, versus slamming down a protein bar in under a minute To succeed, you have to eat enough to feel full! Fiber and protein are keys in making that happen FIBER! Starting your day with nutrients and blood sugar balancing protein! Even though it might seem like a lot of calories to have 3 egg scrambled with spinach and feta, a slice of toast with nut butter, and with a cup of coffee; you will feel full for so long and it will keep your blood sugar steady for hours! Swapping sweet for savory when possible. Eating sweet makes you crave sweet! It’s not your fault, its PCOS! Eating the right fuel first thing in the morning will keep your cravings at bay. Breakfast Try cronometer.com! Plug in what you’re eating and let’s look at your vitamin/mineral/fiber intake in a day! Sometimes you can be eating “healthy” but missing key pieces for PCOS fertility Take a peek at your protein/carb ratio! Typical American diets can have way more carb to protein than is helpful for PCOS fertility Check out your current nutrition status Keto, Atkins, and other super restrictive diets are not needed to boost fertility with PCOS Food is slow medicine; sometimes it takes several months of eating right to balance your cycles and get pregnant! You need to do something that can be sustained long term, not another crash-diet plan. Sustainability Supplements Remember to check with your doc!! Some of these supplements can interact with medications or are contraindicated for certain medical issues. Is there insulin resistance present? How about high testosterone? Or high stress? How’s the thyroid? That’s where we start to dig into what supplements can help. We recommend myo-inositol and not d-chiro. PCOS ovaries can make too much d-chiro, so we are careful not to exacerbate that Inositols Helps improve insulin sensitivity and can boost egg quality, plus helps you make great cervical mucus NAC Another powerful blood-sugar/insulin supportive supplement Berberine Wherever you live in the world, most of us are vitamin D deficient. As levels of vitamin D rise, insulin resistance lowers! It’s also important for maintaining a healthy pregnancy! Vitamin D Support egg quality and improve insulin resistance Zinc Common mineral of deficiency in PCOS, helps with gut health, insulin resistance, and ovulation Magnesium You don’t want to wait until you’re pregnant! Start on a quality prenatal ASAP! (And stay tuned for our episode on prenatals dropping soon!) Prenatal We’re here for the omega-3’s! Omega-3’s are essential fatty acids that are vital for reducing inflammation and supports your body in building new tissues. Eggs, endometrial lining, and babies are all new tissues your body grows! DHA/EPA are the omegas you want! Don’t be seduced by algae oils! They don’t have the same DHA/EPA ratios as fish-based supplements Fish oil Movement and Exercise Sleeping 6-7 hours vs. 4-5 hours is a game changer for PCOS Blackout curtains or a sleep mask can help you stay asleep longer. Here is a link to Meditation apps and sleep stories can help you quiet your thoughts and get into a deeper sleep Blue-light blocking glasses can help if you’re using screens prior to bedtime Sleep environment is key Sleep and stress management Many times women with PCOS have been told to lose weight in order to get pregnant, that they’re total exercise junkies! All that effort can be misplaced when it’s cranking up your stress hormones and stressing your immune system If you’re dreading your workout and coming up with every excuse not to go, find something else! Keep your own body in mind - if you’re 280 pounds, putting weights on your back and trying to squat is only going to put more strain on your body. Bodyweight exercises can be a lot more helpful! Cardio isn’t always the answer. Strength training and resistance workouts can do wonders for building muscles and changing insulin Find something that you like Stretching and breathing can lower your stress and help your body relax. Quality ovulation is dependent on your body feeling safe enough to become pregnant. Lowering stress hormones can be a big key in this Yoga Exercise Check out Caitlin's program: /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/34266000

Rerelease: Snack and Fridge Swaps 11/27/2024

Rerelease: Snack and Fridge Swaps This episode of food freedom and fertility is the 3rd installment of TCC friendly swaps! This week we jump into snack and fridge swaps and while we have some good ideas we want the listeners to know that you will need to expand your horizons for snacks because there isn’t always a 1 for 1 swap, but to remember it’s all about balance. It is ok to remember that if you love a snack… make room for it but also keep in mind how much you indulge on this treat. If it something you have daily make sure to see if you can make a more fertility friendly choice. If you need a little snack inspiration you can try organic grapes and sharp cheddar, berries, fruit with sunflower or other nut butter, you can also create your own trail mix with dark chocolate almonds and other nuts. Being prepared always help you make the best choices so having something prepared is always the goal however sometimes you just need that quick grab and go option and there are healthy items such as Beanie Bops that come in a variety of different flavored and spiced beans or a grass fed, low sugar jerky and the new wisps crackers are a great alternative to a chip! Having something you’ve thought about ahead of time and just having it ready It is also ok to indulge every so often during a period or other situation but remember to make sure you are making choices that fill your cup vs fill a void. When looking in your fridge condiments take up a lot of space and there is plenty of room to make better choices in this area. If you love a sweet salad, instead of choosing a creamy sweet dressing opt to use oil and or vinegar as the dressing but add fruit to your salad for the sweet craving. If you need more flavor options Primal Kitchen offers a healthy and clean option with a line full of different flavors. Eggs are a great snack option and the best version of an egg would be a pasteurized egg so that the chickens are getting all of those rich and healthy vitamins from the earth. Also remember to store those veggies and fruits where you can see them so you don’t waste them! The best place for a fruit or veggie is front and center! Freezer foods that Sophia and Caitlin keep stocked are frozen meets, organic berries, liver cubes (to drop into sauces) frozen soups, frozen veggies and a favorite Costco Bare Chicken nuggets which are a great Chick-Fil-A dupe! A tip for listeners is instead of focusing on a meal plan thing about your week more broadly and estimate for your life! Some days are busier than others, some days you feel more creative, and some days you just don’t want to cook at all! That’s why host, Sophia suggests to plan your week as follows: 2-3 days of the week with have NO ENERGY quick fix meals available. Such as a rotisseries chicken and bag salad. 2-3 nights that are your all-Star night menu nights, which is a night you are ready to roll out your best recipes! 2-3 nights for a normal day and that is where you make a meal you’ve made a dozen times and your family likes it. Usually requires medium effort. 1 Night where you try something new! 1 Left over night 1 Take out night Remember that you don’t have to be perfect and it is a process so allow yourself the grace to start transforming your healthy, fertility friendly lifestyle! /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/34130641

Rerelease: Periods and Fertility with Nicole Jardim 11/20/2024

Rerelease: Periods and Fertility with Nicole Jardim This week’s episode of Food, Freedom and Fertility is all about your menstrual cycle! Since we are talking about the menstrual cycle we thought the best guest for that is Nicole Jardim Nicole is a Certified Women’s Health Coach, writer, speaker, mentor, and the creator of Fix Your Period, a series of programs that empower women and menstruators to reclaim their hormone health using a method that combines evidence-based information with simplicity and sass. Nicole and Sophia chat about a few key topics regarding your period and what it should or shouldn’t look like. One of the big things to look out for are signs from your body that could mean something. What could your period be telling you that you need to know for your fertility? Your period plays such an important role that recently, your menstrual cycle has been officially considered a vital sign. Most women are always thinking about having a regular period which is important but another important regularity to consider is your ovulation. This episode Nicole and Sophia give some big tips on what regular periods and ovulation looks like. Nicole shares some red flags to watch for in regards to your cycle and one of those is period pain which has been normalized by the media for many years. If your period pain is disrupting your life, it is problematic and you should dig deeper. Normal period pain would look like day before or day of, mild to moderate pain where minimal intervention such as a hot water bottle will take care of the discomfort. The premenstrual phase is a good place to also take notice in what your body is trying to tell you. Spotting before your period is a sign that something could be going on. The good news is that sometimes it is not complicated to fix. Just remember to pay attention to your body and advocate for yourself. If you feel like something is not right because of one symptom or multiple, don’t waste time, take immediate action. This episode is full of helpful and important information to help women determine what a ‘normal’ period should look like including topics such as period color, volume, pain, and duration. If after listening to this episode you still need guidance with your cycle please feel free to check out Nicole’s websites and other valuable resources in the link below. /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/34026990

Rerelease: Ovulation - What You Need to Know 11/13/2024

Rerelease: TTC Friendly Food and Grocery Swaps 11/06/2024

Rerelease: TTC Friendly Food and Grocery Swaps On this week’s episode of Food, Freedom and Fertility Caitlin and Sophia are talking about grocery swaps! During this “eat this… not that” episode to help with your fertility journey and overall health! Our hosts start off with organization tips on how to curate your shopping list to fit your life which will help you kick off a successful grocery store trip. They also discuss the EWG’s new list of dirty dozen and clean fifteen. They dive into how important it is to look into your pantry items that carry some of these items and keep that in consideration when you are shopping. They also want to remind you if your budget needs some cushion check out frozen organic fruits and veggies for a healthy and budget friendly substitute. Sophia and Caitlin tour their kitchens and discuss the good and the not so good options such as which type of oils you should use for cooking and the reason behind it. They also suggest that cooking with fats such as butter, tao, good lard, chicken fat, duck fat are excellent options. If you are used to using Pam spray a good alternative is to swap it out for a spray bottle like a Misto Sprayer and put oil in it. You could also swap your Pam spray for olive oil or avocado spray instead. They also suggest using an actual maple syrup and not something like Log Cabin. Real maple syrup can taste different and may be an adjustment but if you are eating oils or syrup everyday it is best for your overall health. Other key foods of concern to find healthy alternatives would be your Teas and Coffee. You want to be sure that your tea and coffee are “Fair Trade”. Nut butters are another big flavor switch but totally worth it since most non-organic nut butters are palm oil aka processed seed oil and sugar. Speaking of nuts… it is a good idea to make your own trail mix so that you can include quality ingredients with healthier ratios and variety. For those of you who have comfort foods and childhood memories of things like hamburger helper and rideroni… their are copycat recipes on the web that you can make from home that are similar to the original product but you will need to plan ahead so these aren’t default options for when you are in need of something quick! Canned goods are another good item to have on hand for quick meal ideas. When you are buying canned goods you want to look at what the cans are lined with and made of. You want a Bisphenal free can: may not last as long but less toxic. Canned foods can be helpful in adding fiber, protein, vegetables to meals that take less work. But you want to make sure you are buying cans with a safer lining. Glass jars are great for tomato products or other products. Boxed products may be a good alternative. This episode also covers important info on choosing a good pasta option, flours, bone broth, cereals and much more! As always moderation is important. So keep that in mind that if you stray from the BEST option sometimes that is ok! /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/33813007

Rerelease: Egg Quality with Aimee Raupp 10/30/2024

Rerelease: Egg Quality with Aimee Raupp On this episode of Food Freedom and Fertility we have Aimee Raupp, MS, LAc, is a renowned women’s health & wellness expert and the best- selling author of the books , , and . A licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in private practice in New York, she holds a Master of Science degree in Traditional Oriental Medicine from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Rutgers University and is currently working on a master’s level education in functional medicine. Aimee is also the founder of the line of hand-crafted, organic skincare products. She has appeared on The View, and has been featured in Glamour, Allure, Well + Good, GOOP, Shape, and Redbook, and has received endorsements from Deepak Chopra, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Arianna Huffington, and Gabby Bernstein for her work in helping thousands of women to improve their vitality, celebrate their beauty, and reconnect to the presence of their optimal health. Aimee is also the Head of Chinese Medicine at The Well, an active columnist for media outlets such as Thrive Global, Well + Good, MindBodyGreen and is a frequent speaker at women’s health & wellness conferences across the nation. She engages her large community worldwide through her online During this episode Aimee will help walk through a variety of topics around egg quality but one major important thing to remember is that when you are improving the quality of your egg cells you are also improving all the cells in your body, we are amplifying health. Aimee helps answer the question of if women are born with all your eggs you will ever have, how is it possible to impact your egg quality? Aimee explains that the eggs you have are not developed. When those eggs mature the environment, you are in is what impacts their quality. The extracellular fluid that surrounds the cells is affected by the environment. Aimee also dives into a variety of other ways your egg quality can be affected. It is important for women to realize they can control certain things and one of the items that research is pointing towards is a certain type of anti-inflammatory diet lifestyle and diet lowers oxidative stress, which causes cellular abnormality which can lead to poor egg quality. Using food to change the aging process behind your cells will help improve the quality. What you do now will affect the next 2 generations. Aimee has written a book, The Egg Quality Diet, which is the culmination of what Aimee Raupp has found, during her two decades of clinical practice, to be the most effective nutritional approach to optimizing fertility. This diet has been proven to work not in a randomized control trial (RCT) but in real life, on thousands of real women like you. The short version of her book is to count your Macros. Your macros should be 40-50% quality fat, 30% protein and the rest good quality carbs (sweet potatoes, beans, fruits). Her thought process is to heal the gut, improve absorption. Her book is meant to be for you to discover the best diet that works for you. Aimee also helps understand why a plant-based diet maybe difficult to hit your nutritional needs to help with your egg quality. There will be a point in each woman’s life that they decide to stop trying to use their own eggs and decide to go forward with a donor. Aimee says that she thinks the decision is something that each woman and couple needs to make on their own but her gauge is how much more heartache can you handle or how much more can you financially afford. Just remember to emotionally check in with yourself and also have no regrets that you didn’t do everything in your power. To learn more about Aimee, please visit her website at and you can find her book, . /episode/index/show/foodfreedomfertility/id/33677332

Rerelease: PCOS Labs 10/23/2024

Food Freedom and Fertility Podcast

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