Ep 348 The Hidden Link Between Stress, Blood Sugar, and Fertility with Jillian Greaves
On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I’m joined by Jillian Greaves @jilliangreavesrd, a functional medicine dietitian and women’s health expert, to unpack the complex—but often overlooked—relationship between blood sugar balance, hormonal birth control, and fertility. Jillian shares her personal health journey from battling persistent symptoms like acne, bloating, anxiety, and hair loss to uncovering the deeper root causes through functional medicine.
We dive into how hormonal birth control impacts your hormones, gut, liver, and micronutrient status—and why so many women feel worse when coming off the pill. Jillian also breaks down why managing blood sugar is essential not only for hormone balance but also for egg quality, ovulation, and creating safety in the body.
Whether you're navigating post-birth control symptoms, thinking about conception, or simply curious about how nutrition and nervous system regulation influence your cycle, this episode is packed with insights that will leave you feeling empowered and informed.
Key Takeaways:
Hormonal birth control suppresses your natural hormone cycle and can lead to long-term nutrient depletion, gut imbalance, and inflammation.
Coming off the pill is often a bumpy process that requires patience, support, and targeted care.
Balanced blood sugar is the foundation of hormonal health and fertility—swings in either direction can create stress signals in the body.
Fasting and trendy diets like intermittent fasting may backfire for women, especially those trying to conceive.
Nutrition is powerful, but blood sugar regulation also depends on stress management, sleep, and circadian rhythm alignment.
Guest Bio:
Jillian Greaves @jilliangreavesrd is a functional medicine dietitian and women's health expert who helps women address the root causes of hormonal imbalances, period problems, and fertility challenges. After facing years of frustrating symptoms and inadequate answers from conventional care, Jillian turned to functional medicine to heal her own body and now supports others through a personalized, evidence-based approach. She offers private coaching, advanced lab testing, and practical guidance to help women feel empowered in their health journeys.
Links and Resources:
Disclaimer: The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any changes to your health or fertility care.
For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com
Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!
https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility
Discover The Wholesome Fertility Journey:
https://www.michelleoravitz.com/the-wholesome-fertility-journey
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Michelle: Welcome to the podcast, Jillian.
Jillian: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Michelle: Same. So I always love to start the podcast with a new guest with the origin story. So I'd love for you to share your origin story and how you got into the work that you're doing.
Jillian: Absolutely. I, I feel like every, everyone in this space has an origin story and, you know, kind of personal professional experiences that led them to, to do what they do now. You know, for, for me, in terms of becoming, you know, functional medicine dietician, specializing in women's health, it was really a, a combination of.
Personal health struggles combined with professional experience as well. To give you a short [00:02:00] version of a very, very long story I about a decade ago started experiencing a lot of health issues, health symptoms that felt like they were popping up out of the blue. Eczema, anxiety, acne, bloating, head, hair loss.
And at the time I was in grad school, you know, studying nutrition, I worked in nutrition research. I had an undergraduate degree in nutrition and felt like I was doing all the things that were text textbook healthy. But I, I started to experience a lot of these symptoms. At the time, I had also been on hormonal birth control for a little over 10 years that I was put on at a really young age for heavy periods, and I started to first seek out support from conventional providers.
I. And was really left without answers. You know, they ran lab work and said, Hey, you're the picture of health. Everything looks great despite, you know, all these symptoms I was experiencing. And I was basically only offered band-aid solutions. So, you know, use a topical [00:03:00] steroid for the eczema, try this topical, or medication for the acne.
And, you know, I was just tossed around from one provider to the next and no one was, was willing to dig deeper with me. And no one was kind of asking the question why. And. I really wasn't willing to accept that these symptoms were were happening for no reason. I had also tried to get support with learning more about the hormonal birth control that I had just taken, and in all honesty, had not questioned for, you know, 10 plus years and.
You know, because I could not get support from my providers, I started to dive deep, deeper into research on hormonal birth control, really learning about female physiology, which I learned nothing about in my training. And, you know, eventually I also found the world of, of functional medicine, integrated functional medicine.
And it was like, you know, an aha moment or the light bulbs went off where, you know, this deeper root cause approach was actually looking to assess why are these symptoms happening in the first [00:04:00] place? So, that led me to, you know, seek out advanced training in functional medicine and, you know, to run testing on myself to really start to take a serious look at my diet, my lifestyle, how things were, you know, supporting or not supporting me at the time.
I was, you know, running half marathons, hit training five days a week, eating predominantly a plant-based diet. So I had a lot of changes to make. I also took myself off of, you know, hormonal birth control. Which led to all of my symptoms, you know, getting worse. I had long cycles, heavy, painful periods.
But over time you know, through deeper testing and you know, with really targeted nutrition and lifestyle strategies, I was able to heal these symptoms naturally and really to get my body back to balance and to. Do that without the bandaid approaches. I always like to be honest about the fact that, you know, getting to that point of, of actual symptom resolution and, and having a lot of resilience [00:05:00] in my body took a lot longer in my mind than it, than it should have.
And certainly healing takes time. However. You know, I was hacking a lot together on my own. And in talking with friends and, and family and colleagues, I realized like, wow, so many women out here are struggling with you know, being offered birth control is the only option for, you know, every women's health symptom un under the sun.
And it really motivated me to start my private practice after, you know, becoming a registered dietician and to, you know, really change the trajectory of my, my career in terms of wanting to provide women with the support that I so deeply wished I had had when I was kind of in the, the trenches and struggling.
Michelle: We share a lot in common. As a matter of fact, I've had like a 12 years of on and off like really irregular periods and, and it also caused circadian rhythm dysfunction. 'cause you know, there's a relationship between the two [00:06:00] anxiety, which. A lot of times we attribute it as a completely separate thing, but years of really not having answers and getting so frustrated and intuitively knowing there's gotta be something deeper than this, than what I'm being given.
And, and then of course, you know, going through this state where you almost lose hope. You think, okay, that's just the way my body is, it's just off. But you don't realize. And then also kind of something that came to my mind as you were saying. How you got off the birth control pill. When you got off the birth control pill, you had more symptoms come up again.
And sometimes actually, you know, the healing process can be a very frustrating one because you almost have to go through really difficult times and be patient knowing that your body's still moving in the right direction. But you almost have to go through those difficult months or maybe even sometimes.
Close to a year to really regulate even when you are healing [00:07:00] yourself.
Jillian: So, such a good point. And healing journeys are, are never linear. And you know, coming off of hormonal birth control after 10 plus years of hormonal suppression, naturally that's gonna be a. Big transition, a big change for the body, and things aren't gonna bounce back perfectly normal. And I think the hardest part in, in my journey and what I see with a lot of women is that they're in the trenches, they're struggling, they're trying different strategies and approaches.
They're self researching and. You know, they, they often don't have support to guide them in terms of okay, you know, the symptoms you're experiencing or the response you're experiencing. Like, this is normal and we need to stick with it and give the body time. You know, women are just guessing, right? And they're frustrated and they can't find that support.
So I think, you know, a key thing for me was really wanting to be able to, to guide women on that, that journey. And you know, 'cause I think when I did come off hormonal birth control and things went really haywire. You know, not having anywhere to [00:08:00] turn and just the stress that that adds is a lot.
Michelle: Yeah. And also not knowing, not having anybody give you answers, or at least like some signposts, like, oh, it's gonna be fine eventually if you do X, X, Y, and
Z. But completely like in the dark. And, and it is it's so frustrating and I see a lot of people, a lot of my patients coming in, so many people go on the birth control pill for years on end, like years with no breaks.
I actually was on them too, and that was pretty much the solution I was given, but. For some reason I was just inconsistent. I was kind of like intuitively new to take breaks. But I, I could have just kept going if I just listened to what they said. Like, it just kind of like nonstop and a lot of people do.
So I actually wanna talk about that because I wanna talk about what because there's so many people listening, I'm sure have been in the same boat. And what does the hormonal birth, hormonal birth control do to your body? Like what impact does it have? I know, I know like [00:09:00] how it, you know, from my perspective and my lens, but also I know that it really impacts gut health gut microbiome.
It makes you deficient in a lot of vitamins and nutrients. So I'd love to get your take and kind of break down for people listening to understand really the processes of the body and how that aspect of it gets shut down.
Jillian: Yeah. And I, I think that's so important because so many women are, are put on hormonal birth control without that informed consent in terms of like truly understanding the mechanism of action or like how the birth control's working, what are the potential side effects? And you know, I always like to say to clients that, you know, we are never anti birth control.
If that's a tool that feels really supportive for you however. I do have a beef with the, again, the lack of in informed consent and women kind of getting all that information to make, you know, empowered informed decisions. So hormonal birth control. In, in terms of how, you know, how it works, it will vary depending on the type, right?
Are we on an oral contraceptive or, you know, do [00:10:00] we have an IUD? But in terms of speaking to the, the oral contraceptive specifically the combined oral contraceptive being kind of the most. Common form of birth control. This type of birth control is essentially going to shut down our reproductive system.
So, it is shutting your own hormones off. So we are not, you know, producing our own estrogen. We're not ovulating producing progesterone. I think that's so important to point out because so many women that get a monthly withdrawal bleed when they're on their placebo week, are, are not aware that they are not actually ovulating or, or cycling.
So it's important to know that, again, this is a withdrawal bleed where we're, you know, kind of shedding or sloughing off. You know, the, the uterine lining where we get this, you know, withdrawal bleed, but we're not actually bleeding in the true sense of a period where ovulation has occurred. So first and foremost, you know, communication between the brain and the ovaries is shut down.
So hormones are suppressed. In terms of potential, you know, side [00:11:00] effects with hormonal birth control, you, you hit on some of the, the big ones. Nutrient deficiencies really common. So, you know, B vitamins you know, magnesium vitamin C, selenium, zinc, all are depleted by hormonal birth control.
And, you know, these can be kind of su subclinical, but. Again, if we're on hormonal birth control for 5/10/15 years, you know, these things can can really accumulate. And some of the nutrients that I'm mentioning that get depleted by hormonal birth control are also key key nutrients that are involved with hormone production you know, hormone breakdown and, and clearance.
So. That's a big one. Other kind of side effects of, of the birth control pill definitely impacts to gut health. So, possibly negative shifts or implication for implications for our gut ecosystem. You know, our healthy gut microbes. There's also evidence indicating possibly increased intestinal permeability, meaning the [00:12:00] gut lining that we want to be really strong and healthy can become less healthy and essentially more.
Permeable which can, you know, drive inflammation in the gut and also systemically. So we see those, those impacts on gut health. There's also impacts on cortisol in the adrenals. And there's also impacts on the liver, a heavy burden on, on, you know, the, the liver, which plays a key role in, you know, processing our you know, hormones as well.
So those are kind of some of the, the big things I think about with hormonal birth control. And ultimately too, I, I'm sure you find this as well with clients where oftentimes women are on birth control for a long time. They come off when they wanna get pregnant and you know, thinking like, oh, you know, I'm gonna come off my cycle will be regular and I'm gonna get pregnant.
And you know, for some women that may be the case. Great. For. The women we work with, that's often not the case where they come off hormonal birth control and their period doesn't come back, or it's very irregular hormones are imbalanced, or [00:13:00] they experience a whole slew of new symptoms that were kind of being suppressed by the hormonal birth control.
Michelle: Yes, I see that very often. It's interesting 'cause I had a teacher when I was doing, when I was gonna school for Chinese medicine and. One of the teachers, her specialty was gynecology and she, and it was kind of interesting how she put it. She said, basically, your ovaries get lazy. It's almost like when you put a cast on, like what happens to the muscle.
You could literally take two legs. One with that had a cast or arms, and you can see it became, it becomes almost like it looks emaciated. It's like skin and bones because the muscle's not being used. The body works like that. If you don't use it, you lose it. It's just like that. That's how the body works.
So it does, it impacts that aspect of the body because it knows, oh, it's shut down. I don't need to work on this. This is something that I can put on the back burner. So it's pretty, pretty [00:14:00] fascinating stuff. And again, like you said, in many cases you might need it and that's okay, but at least you know, or you can prepare for it.
So you know what you're signing up for, and if you are, you might wanna like, take breaks or, you know, consider different ways of taking it.
Jillian: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and we always tell women too, you know, if you're on birth control and you wanna remain on it, then there's so much you can do to, you know, support your, your body with mitigating some, you know, some of those side effects or if you're on birth control. Currently and you're thinking you wanna make a transition off in six months or a year, amazing.
That's an opportunity for us to really support things to ideally, you know, prepare the body for a more, more easeful transition when the time, you know, feels right for you. A couple other things I I actually wanna mention about hormonal birth control that I, I also think is, you know, not talked about enough, is the fact that, you know, the oral contraceptive is associated with increased insulin resistance, so [00:15:00] more blood sugar issues, and also with increased levels of inflammation as evidenced by, you know, biomarkers like our, you know, CRP being elevated with women on hormonal birth control. So, I just think it's important to kind of have all of that information.
Michelle: And speaking of blood sugar, I know that, I mean, we know that in PCOS cases like PCOS, but even otherwise, like it can really impact. Fertility and, and so I, I would love for you to talk about it 'cause I know you work a lot with this.
Jillian: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, I always say to clients that balancing blood sugar, blood sugar regulation is step number one if you want to, to balance your hormones. And blood sugar regulation is incredibly, incredibly important when it comes to fertility. So. Ultimately when we're talking about, you know, blood sugar balance, essentially we're referring to, you know, when we eat food and food that we eat is broken down into sugar or glucose and our glucose goes up, [00:16:00] right?
Ideally after we eat throughout the day, we want to experience, kind of like slow rolling hills with our blood sugar. So slow rises and slow declines throughout the day. What we ideally wanna avoid are the big peaks in, in valleys, or the big spikes in crashes with blood sugar, where we're getting, you know, highs and lows highs with blood sugar, where we're getting big rapid spikes and blood sugars remaining elevated for too long.
This can contribute to inflammation. So. When we have high, you know, high blood sugar, blood sugar spikes, the body has to pump out a lot of the hormone insulin in order to you know, usher that glucose into our cells. And, you know, high insulin chronically, again, is going to drive that inflammation, which can be, you know, damaging for egg quality in a big way.
And we also know that excess insulin can drive the ovaries to overproduce hormones like androgen hormones. And this can even interfere with ovulation and the regularity of, you know, ovulation. As [00:17:00] you know, well as other, other symptoms, I. What's also, I think, not talked about enough is blood sugar lows or blood sugar crashes, right?
So we talk a lot about, you know, avoiding blood sugar spikes, but in my mind, blood sugar lows or blood sugar crashes are, are just as detrimental to the body as these blood sugar highs in a chronic sense. When blood sugar gets too low. This kind of sense, you know, sets off the alarms in the body where the body senses, you know, energy resources are scarce.
So it starts to pump out. Hormones like cortisol, one of our primary stress hormones. And cortisol will, you know, tap into glucose stores in our liver and our muscle and kind of dump that into the bloodstream to try to normalize things. So essentially low blood sugar is inducing a stress response.
and we. intermittent. Asking.
Yes, we're thinking intermittent fasting, you know, ultra low carb diets or, you know, carbohydrate intake that is inappropriate to, you know, sort of meet an individual's needs. You know, [00:18:00] so definitely the intermittent fasting. And you know. Just going too long between meals. You know, I, I'm sure a lot of listeners can relate to the feeling of, of low blood sugar, which can actually present a lot like anxiety, right?
We might, you know, experience rapid heart rate, or we might feel jittery. We might feel, you know, moody, irritable. Hangry. Exactly. Hangry. And you know, these are all symptoms of low blood sugar or blood sugar crash and that stress response that follows. And when it comes to hormonal balance, when it comes to supporting and optimizing fertility and egg quality, you know, really the number one goal is to prioritize safety in the body.
Right. A sense of safety from. Every angle. So, you know, making sure that blood sugar is really balanced and stable is an incredible way to promote and prioritize that safety in the body. And it's such a huge foundation that I, I find is often overlooked. We also do have data that's found. [00:19:00] That women who have blood sugar levels that are considered, you know, within normal parameters in terms of like their fasting glucose and their hemoglobin A1C, which are s some, you know, typical markers of you know, blood, blood sugar, health that your doctor might run.
Women that have normal blood sugar parameters. But that experience dysglycemia meaning we're, we're getting, you know, highs and lows with blood sugar, even though our labs look normal. You know, these women actually have you know, are less likely to conceive on any given cycle. Also ovulation rate rates are more disrupted in women, again, that have normal blood sugar parameters, but are still experiencing you know, wonkiness with their blood sugar that is likely creating stress in their body.
Michelle: It is so interesting. And so what is the cause? If, if they see that everything looks normal in the labs and they're still spiking, what condition is that? What is causing that?
Jillian: Yeah, so, you know, ultimately I think it, it speaks [00:20:00] to the fact that. Like in our, you know, in our conventional system when it comes to like labs using blood sugar labs as an example first and foremost, normal reference ranges are very large, right? So what's considered normal is not actually always optimal.
So these reference ranges are wide, where. We could be on sort of the far end of, of the scale which could indicate early stages of, of, you know, some issues. But because we don't fit into kind of the perfect box of a medical diagnosis of having pre-diabetes or diabetes, we kind of, you know, get fall through the cracks essentially.
But I think it's, what's important to point out is that, you know, you may not have, you know, pre-diabetes or you may not have insulin resistance or issues with your cellular insulin sensitivity, but you can still be riding the blood sugar roller coaster and, and you can experience big swings with blood sugar from, you know, under eating, fasting, or, you know, erratic meal timing from stress, you [00:21:00] know, over exercising and under fueling disrupted sleep.
So this can contribute to blood sugar wonkiness that may not be reflected in, you know, significant abnormalities in our labs. But these ups and downs with blood sugar can absolutely impact our hormones and our fertility.
Michelle: That's fascinating because a lot of times you hear about blood sugar. You're thinking just diet, but you're mentioning all of these other aspects of them, which really prepare the body to handle it sounds like. Yeah.
Jillian: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, nutrition is, is so foundational for balancing blood sugar. But, you know, you could have the most perfect, you know, diet in the world the most perfect, you know, meal timing. But if stress is, you know, totally out of check or unaddressed if our sleep quality is poor or we're not getting enough sleep, if our circadian rhythms are disrupted all of these things can, you know, create a lot of blood sugar wonkiness regardless of what we're eating.
Michelle: Comes down to [00:22:00] one of my favorite topics, the nervous system.
Jillian: Yes. Always goes back to the nervous system at
the end
of the day.
Michelle: does. I, that's what I'm like. I'm like, it just really is all about the nervous system. I mean, it's all about everything, but the nervous system is such a conductor of everything. The vagus nerve impacts your gut health and the stressors.
And it is just, all of it really comes down to feeling safe,
like you said before.
Jillian: more.
Michelle: Yeah. So interesting. And so, so you kind of talked about how like those popular diets can impact it. We discussed about like skipping meals or maybe like going too low on carbs or are there any other things that you've seen with a more common like.
You know, blanket diets.
Jillian: Yeah, I would. I would say those are two of the biggest ones. So the intermittent fasting, which we see, you know, a lot of women applying as like skipping or delaying breakfast. I. And you know what, what's tough [00:23:00] about these things too is that, you know, there is you know, positive data on, you know, potential metabolic benefits to intermittent fasting in certain populations, predominantly in men and animal models that, you know, don't take female physiology into account.
But, you know, new, newer research is finding that for women of reproductive age, these longer fasts. Really may, may be contraindicated. And, you know, with these longer fasts, what we're seeing is alterations in the, the peptide kisspeptin which is. Essentially the secretion is altered with these, you know, longer fasts where energy carbohydrates are scarce.
And Kisspeptin influences our gonadotropin releasing hormone, which influences our LH and FSH, which influences our sex hormones and our menstrual cycle. So, fasting interestingly. And I'll be honest, you know, we don't have a ton of data on this. There's, you know, it's definitely newer and there's not a lot of studies in women, but I do also see this in practice in terms of, [00:24:00] you know, women that have these really long overnight fasts and you know, their cycles are irregular.
You know, or they're struggling, you know, to conceive you know, they have really poor stress resilience in their, in their body. So I would say the.
Michelle: is Ayurvedic principles, what something that I, one of the things that I studied, they talk a lot about how eating during the day when the sun is out, the body's more primed to digest and.
And then having like less meals and kind of if you're gonna fast, fast, like in the evening time, and that is when it's more beneficial actually, and it helps your sleep. So it's not that fasting's terrible, it's just if it's done right in the right timing with the right type of body. So everybody's also so different.
If you have somebody that's way underweight, they need more reserves, they need more nutrients, so. It wouldn't be beneficial. Somebody who overexercise and really is depleted. So it's like the body has [00:25:00] its own bank account, so if you shift it more towards evening, you're kind of working more with that circadian rhythm.
Because our body's digestive system does slow down as the sun goes down. We really respond to that rhythm. So if we work with our body in that way, because most of us. You can actually, if you, if you go for a long time restricting your diet, you will lose your hunger in the morning. That's what I've seen a lot of times with my patients.
And then once you start to do to eat, little by little you'll find that comes back. It's just like thirst. Same thing. Use it. You lose it. Your body sort of like just adapts to whatever you give it, but then your body will need that energy and you'll feel it, and you'll feel the difference. So on that level, I think that there is something to that circadian rhythm and kind of working with nature where it gets more optimized, I believe, if you do want that break in the evenings.
[00:26:00] Now, another thing that I've heard of a lot is I. It's not just about eating like certain carbs, it's how you eat the carbs. Because you can first start out with like a protein or some fiber, something first for the body to take that's not going to spike the sugar. And then after that ease into maybe a fruit or something sweet where your body's able to take that more evenly.
Am I correct? I know
Jillian: Yeah.
Michelle: not nutrition, but
Jillian: Yeah. Yeah. I'd say on, on both accounts too, with what, what you're describing in terms of you know, PRI principles in Ayurveda with meal timing. I, I'm a big advocate of circadian eating where, you know, we're breaking our fast earlier in the morning, eating consistently throughout the day, but then maybe having an earlier dinner.
And there's, you know, so much nuance depending on the individual and what they have going on. But at the end of the day, context is king. So, you know, fasting at the end of the day, [00:27:00] especially if the fast is prolonged you know, is, is a stressor on the body, right. So if, you know, we're someone that is, you know, underweight, we have a lot of, you know, life stress going on, and we're thinking about that context you know, our body, it, it may not be supportive for our body to have a, a longer overnight fast for someone that.
Stress is lower, they're well fueled, well nourished, their nervous system is supported. They, you know, may benefit from that, you know, longer, overnight, fast. But I completely agree that, you know, in terms of what you described and kind of the data we're seeing too, where, you know, eating kind of ear earlier in the day when the body is prepped in prime for fuel has a lot of benefits.
And in terms of the, the blood sugar piece with meal composition, you know, you're, you're spot on when it comes to, to carbohydrates at the end of the day. There's absolutely, you know, variation in how different carbohydrates are going to impact our blood sugar in terms of how rapidly, you know, our blood sugar will respond in, in terms of eating different carbohydrate foods.
[00:28:00] But at the end of the day, really all carbohydrates are broken down quickly and make blood sugar rise more rapidly. So the, the blood sugar balance from a meal composition standpoint is really gonna come from the food pairings. Like you mentioned. So the protein, the fiber, the healthy fats you know, protein in particular is, is really supportive when it comes to blood sugar and essentially it with what you're, you're describing in terms of, you know, having some protein, having, you know, the fiber, prioritizing that even.
First or earlier on in the meal. These things sort of act like a buffer, so it's going to slow down the absorption of glucose into the bloodstream. So instead of the carbohydrates kind of, you know, hitting the body and spiking our blood sugar it's gonna be a much slower, more, more rapid rise. So those food pairings are really key.
And then definitely also thinking about, you know, carb quality. Sometimes I think when, when we think about carbs, we think about bread and pasta, right? And you know, when I think about carbohydrates, I'm thinking, you know, and [00:29:00] carbohydrates that we wanna, bring into the diet to really provide like deep, deep nutrition.
I think about, you know, our starchy vegetables you know, our sweet potatoes you know, our potatoes, our, our squash. I think about fruit. I think about you know, legumes. I think about and not, you know, maybe not everyone is gonna do. Great with legumes. Again, there's a lot of nuance here, but I think about those fiber and nutrient dense starches that, you know, provide ample nutrition for the body alongside these other elements that promote the blood sugar regulation.
Michelle: Yeah, so basically juice, even if it's like fresh grape juice, is not great on an empty stomach.
Jillian: Yes, yes, yes. And I feel like a, a good, even just like visualizing it, if you imagine like eating a grapefruit and like eating all the, you know, flesh and the time that it takes you and you're chewing and, you know, breaking all that down versus drinking a glass of grapefruit, ju grape fruit juice. Woo. Where, [00:30:00] you know, there's probably several grapefruits in there.
All of the, you know, fleshy fiber is removed and it's just like, you know,
liquid sugar. So. Yeah.
Michelle: in
Jillian: Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Exactly.
Michelle: yeah, this is great. I mean, we can keep going on and on, but it's such great information because it really breaks it down. I think a lot of people hear all of these things and they hear about blood, blood sugar. They hear about gut health, they hear about what happens after getting off the birth control control pill.
But like to break it down I think is so great because. Very similar to our journey. A lot of people are going and they're trying to get answers and they're not getting any. So I think that having this information is really what is going to empower a lot of people. Just having the information and understanding really like what it means.
It's not just like, oh, okay, gut health is great for my fertility, but what does that mean and how can, like what can you do [00:31:00] to really impact it? Those are really important things for people to know and I think ultimately. Having that knowledge is really what is going to empower people just like it did us and what got us into the work we're doing.
I think that it inspires you because then you're like, I, I don't want anybody going through what I went through.
Jillian: Right, right. And you know, and there's, there's so much noise out there, right? There's so much information, which is a blessing and a curse. And I think at the end of the day, like, yeah, the end of the day with the things we're talking about too, you know, a lot of these things are not the sexiest or the most exciting things, right?
Meal composition and meal timing or, you know, circadian rhythms. And I think it's just, it's easy to. Fall into the trap of like that shiny object syndrome and it's like, you know, just the different trends out there and fads on social media. And at the end of the day, a lot of this, yeah, a lot of this, it's back to the basics, right?
And prioritizing those foundations and the nervous system support you know, all of these things are gonna [00:32:00] be likely some of the biggest key pieces you know, on a hormone healing journey. On a fertility journey. So I think it's impor, you know, important to point that out too because there's just, there's a lot out there.
Michelle: Oh, for sure. No doubt. So for people hearing this and wanting to like learn more about you and your offerings, how can people find you? I.
Jillian: Yeah, so you can check out my website, which is just jillian greaves.com. Lots of information, resources over there about, you know, what we do, how we work with women recipes, articles. And you can also check me out on Instagram. My handle is just Jillian Greaves Rd. I'm always over there sharing nutrition tips, recipes and talking all things women's health.
Michelle: Awesome. I love it. Well, I could definitely feel the passion that you have in this and I can definitely like hear, you know, the knowledge and the research that you've done. So this is amazing, amazing information that you shared and I had a great conversation with you today, Jillian. So thank [00:33:00] you so much for coming on.
Jillian: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Michelle: Awesome, so I'll stop recording.
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