The Fertility Dietitian | Functional Fertility Info in your Ears

If you're ovulating every month, timing intercourse correctly, and still not getting pregnant, it may be time to look beyond your cycle tracking. Ovulation is an important piece of the fertility puzzle, but it doesn't tell us everything about egg quality, sperm health, metabolic function, or the conditions needed for successful implantation. If you've been told that everything looks normal and you should just keep trying, I want you to know that there may be more to investigate.

In this episode, I'm walking you through seven important areas to explore when pregnancy isn't happening, even when you're ovulating regularly. We'll look at egg and sperm quality, thyroid and metabolic health, inflammation, fallopian tube patency, the uterine environment, and what progesterone testing can actually tell us. I'll also explain why both partners need to be evaluated and how nutrition, lifestyle, and comprehensive fertility testing can work together to identify potential barriers to conception. The goal isn't to track harder or guess what might be wrong. It's to understand your individual fertility picture and build a plan around what your body actually needs.

"You cannot optimize a couple's fertility by treating one person." — Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why ovulating every month doesn't guarantee successful conception
• How to identify your fertile window and time intercourse more effectively
• Why egg quality depends on nutrition, blood sugar regulation, inflammation, sleep, and metabolic health
• How preconception nutrition and lifestyle changes can support egg development over three to four months
• Why sperm quality matters just as much as egg quality for fertilization, embryo development, and a healthy pregnancy
• What sperm DNA fragmentation can reveal beyond a standard semen analysis
• How thyroid function, insulin resistance, and chronic inflammation may affect fertility
• Why open fallopian tubes and a healthy uterine environment are essential for conception and implantation
• What progesterone testing can confirm — and what it cannot tell you about your fertility
• When to seek a comprehensive fertility evaluation rather than continuing to wait
• How to combine reproductive testing with individualized nutrition and lifestyle support
• Practical steps both partners can take to investigate fertility barriers and prepare for conception

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Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
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• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
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• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
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The perimenopause conversation is everywhere right now, especially if you're in your late 30s or early 40s. Changes in sleep, cycles, body composition, mood, hair, and fertility can quickly get labeled as "perimenopause." But while perimenopause is very real, it shouldn't automatically become the explanation for every symptom you experience during these years.

In this episode, we're taking a closer look at what actually happens to fertility during perimenopause, how to tell when symptoms may be coming from something else, and what you can still do to support fertility in your late 30s and 40s. Your age matters, but it is only one piece of the fertility picture.

"A changing cycle is information. It gives us somewhere to start looking." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• What perimenopause actually is and how it can affect ovulation and fertility
• Why perimenopause should not automatically explain every symptom in your late 30s and early 40s
• How thyroid function, iron status, blood sugar, stress, gut health, inflammation, and nutrient status can overlap with perimenopause symptoms
• Why fertility is still possible during perimenopause when ovulation is occurring
• What your menstrual cycle and ovulation patterns can tell you about your fertility
• Why there is no single blood test that can definitively diagnose perimenopause
• Which labs and fertility markers may provide a more complete picture
• How metabolic health, nutrition, sleep, and circadian rhythm can support fertility
• Why both partners need to be included in the fertility evaluation
• What to prioritize if you're trying to conceive in your late 30s or early 40s

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Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

Cholesterol is one of those words that can immediately make you think, "I need to lower that." But cholesterol is also essential for fertility. Your body needs cholesterol to make reproductive hormones, build healthy cells, produce bile, and support vitamin D production. So what happens when cholesterol is too high—or potentially too low—when you're trying to conceive?

In this episode, I'm breaking down what your cholesterol numbers can actually tell you about fertility, metabolic health, and hormone function. We'll look at LDL, HDL, triglycerides, ApoB, Lp(a), thyroid health, fasting insulin, nutrition, exercise, and the important difference between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol. Most importantly, we'll talk about why your cholesterol numbers need to be interpreted in the context of your whole body—not in isolation.

"Your body needs cholesterol to make the hormones you need to get pregnant." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why your body needs cholesterol to make estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone
• How cholesterol, thyroid health, blood sugar, and insulin resistance are connected
• What your LDL, HDL, and triglyceride levels can tell you about metabolic health
• Why ApoB and Lp(a) can provide additional context beyond a standard lipid panel
• How insulin resistance can affect cholesterol, ovulation, and reproductive hormone signaling
• Why elevated cholesterol doesn't automatically mean you should follow a low-fat or highly restrictive diet
• Why dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol are not the same thing
• How eggs, healthy fats, fiber, and omega-3s can fit into a fertility-supportive diet
• What unusually low cholesterol can tell us when it's combined with under-eating, irregular cycles, or low energy
• Why thyroid health deserves a closer look when cholesterol is elevated
• How cholesterol medications fit into the fertility conversation and why you should never stop medication on your own
• What comprehensive preconception blood work can reveal about your fertility and long-term health

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Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
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• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

After five years of fertility challenges, multiple pregnancy losses, and four failed IVF outcomes, Sarah and James were exhausted. They had been told to try another IVF cycle, but they still didn't understand why they were struggling to get pregnant or stay pregnant. Instead of immediately repeating the same treatment, they decided to pause IVF and take a deeper look at both partners' health.

Five months later, they were pregnant naturally. This isn't a story about being anti-IVF. IVF can be an incredible fertility tool, and many couples absolutely need it. But treatment and investigation are not the same thing. In this episode, I'm walking you through what we discovered when we looked beyond the standard fertility workup — including sperm DNA fragmentation, insulin, thyroid health, gut health, inflammation, nutrient status, minerals, and the reproductive environment as a whole.

"Treatment and investigation are not the same thing." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why repeated IVF cycles should not replace investigating why implantation or pregnancy is failing
• Why both partners need a comprehensive fertility evaluation after failed IVF or recurrent miscarriage
• How sperm DNA fragmentation can reveal an important piece of male fertility that a basic semen analysis may miss
• Why fasting insulin can tell you something very different from glucose and A1C
• How gut health, inflammation, immune health, thyroid function, and nutrient status can influence the reproductive environment
• Why minerals matter for energy production, hormone function, and egg maturation
• What the three-to-four-month preconception window can do for egg and sperm health
• Why individualized fertility care is more useful than adding more supplements or following another generic fertility diet
• Why sometimes taking a few months to investigate and prepare can be a more strategic step than immediately starting another IVF cycle

—

Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

If you've been trying to improve your egg quality, you've probably heard me talk about sleep. Sleep is one of the foundations I come back to again and again because it affects blood sugar, inflammation, mitochondrial health, hormone signaling, nervous system regulation, and the environment your eggs are developing in. But there's another piece of sleep and fertility that gets far less attention: light and darkness.

Your ovaries have a circadian clock, and that clock is heavily influenced by light exposure. Bright lights at night, screens in bed, and light coming through your bedroom window can all affect the signals that tell your body it's nighttime. Darkness helps support melatonin production, and melatonin isn't just a sleep hormone. It's also found inside the ovarian follicles surrounding developing eggs, where it helps protect them from oxidative stress. In this episode, I'm breaking down why your ovaries care about darkness, how circadian rhythm influences reproductive health, what the research tells us about melatonin and egg quality, and five practical changes you can start making tonight.

"The goal isn't to replace darkness with a pill." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why your ovaries have their own circadian clock
• How light exposure influences reproductive hormones and ovulation
• Why darkness and melatonin matter for egg quality
• How oxidative stress affects developing eggs
• What research shows about sleep, circadian disruption, and IVF outcomes
• Five practical ways to improve your light exposure and circadian rhythm
• When melatonin supplementation may support fertility and IVF
• Why egg quality depends on more than supplements alone
• Why the 90 days before ovulation can be such an important window for fertility support

—

Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

If IVF is on the calendar, you may feel an enormous amount of pressure to start as quickly as possible. But starting faster doesn't necessarily mean getting to a healthy baby faster. After working with couples for almost a decade, I've seen what can happen when we take the time to investigate the barriers that may have been missed and intentionally prepare both partners before starting IVF.

IVF is an incredible tool, and I'm not anti-IVF. But IVF is a treatment, not a comprehensive fertility workup. In this episode, I'm walking you through what I would investigate before IVF, why I recommend at least three months of preparation before stimulation when medically appropriate, and exactly what I would focus on during those three months—from nutrition and nutrient status to sleep, supplements, metabolic health, sperm quality, and the uterine environment.

"Getting started faster does not get you to a healthy baby faster." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why IVF should not replace a comprehensive fertility investigation
• What to investigate before starting IVF medications
• Why endometriosis should be appropriately evaluated before IVF
• Why I recommend at least three months of preparation before stimulation
• How nutrition and protein intake can support IVF outcomes
• Why egg and sperm quality are influenced by the months before IVF
• Which nutrients and supplements may support IVF preparation
• Why both partners need to participate in IVF preparation
• How sperm DNA fragmentation can influence embryo development and miscarriage risk
• Why sleep, metabolic health, and inflammation matter before IVF
• How to use the three-month preparation window strategically
• Why sometimes slowing down can actually get you to your healthy baby faster

—

Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

Male fertility is still one of the biggest blind spots in fertility care. Male factor infertility contributes to roughly 40–50% of infertility cases, yet I continue to see couples spend months or even years investigating the female partner while the male partner gets a basic semen analysis and little else.

A semen analysis is important, but it is not a comprehensive assessment of male fertility. Sperm quality matters not only for getting pregnant, but for embryo development, staying pregnant, and supporting a healthy pregnancy because sperm contributes 50% of the DNA required to create an embryo.

In this episode, I'm breaking down six areas that deserve a closer look when we're evaluating male fertility, from sperm DNA fragmentation and hormones to nutrient status, diet, oxidative stress, and environmental factors. More importantly, I'll walk you through what you can actually do with that information so you can stop treating male fertility as an afterthought and start investigating both partners from the beginning.

"Sperm quality matters big time too." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why a standard semen analysis is not a comprehensive assessment of male fertility
• Which semen analysis markers actually matter for sperm health
• Why sperm DNA fragmentation should be considered after recurrent loss or fertility treatment failure
• How oxidative stress, smoking, environmental exposures, illness, and paternal age can affect sperm DNA
• Why low testosterone may be a clue to an underlying health issue
• Which hormones and metabolic markers can provide a more complete picture of male fertility
• How zinc, vitamin D, and other nutrients support sperm production and function
• Why omega-3 fatty acids and fatty fish are important for sperm health
• How diet and antioxidants can help reduce oxidative stress
• Which lifestyle and environmental factors can damage sperm
• Why testosterone replacement therapy can interfere with fertility
• How long it takes for lifestyle and nutrition changes to influence new sperm
• Why male fertility testing should happen alongside female fertility testing

—

Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

If you've been told your fertility testing looks "normal" but you're still not getting pregnant, there's an important group of nutrients that may be getting overlooked. Vitamins A, D, E, and K play critical roles in egg quality, sperm health, implantation, immune function, hormone production, and your baby's earliest stages of development—yet they're rarely evaluated before fertility treatment begins.

In this episode, I'm breaking down why these fat-soluble vitamins matter so much for fertility, where to find them in food, what the research says about deficiency, and why gut health and gallbladder function are just as important as the nutrients themselves. Understanding how these vitamins work together can help you build a healthier foundation before pregnancy and support better fertility outcomes naturally.

"When your body has the raw materials it needs, it often performs exactly the way it was designed to." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why vitamins A, D, E, and K are essential for fertility
• The role of fat-soluble vitamins in egg quality and sperm health
• Why vitamin A has been misunderstood for years
• How vitamin D supports implantation and pregnancy
• Why vitamin E is one of the most overlooked fertility antioxidants
• How vitamin K works together with vitamins A and D
• Why oxidative stress damages reproductive cells
• How gut health and gallbladder function affect nutrient absorption
• The best food sources of fertility-supportive fat-soluble vitamins
• When lab testing may be helpful before trying to conceive

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Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

If you took hormonal birth control as a teenager—or spent years on the pill before trying to conceive—you were probably told it was safe, effective, and something you could simply stop when you were ready to get pregnant. What many women weren't given was the full picture of how long-term birth control use may influence gut health, nutrient status, immune function, hormones, bone health, and the environment where your eggs are maturing.

This episode isn't about fear or blaming women for choosing birth control. It's about informed consent and understanding what your body may need after years of hormonal contraception. I'm breaking down what the research tells us about birth control and fertility, why symptoms can appear after stopping the pill, and the steps you can take to rebuild nutrient stores, support your gut, improve egg quality, and prepare your body for a healthy pregnancy.

"You can't undo 15 years of birth control overnight, but you absolutely can rebuild what was lost." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why hormonal birth control and fertility deserve a bigger conversation
• What informed consent should look like when prescribing birth control
• My personal experience starting birth control at 15
• How hormonal birth control may alter the gut microbiome
• The connection between gut health, inflammation, and immune dysfunction
• Why long-term birth control use may increase nutrient demands
• Key fertility nutrients commonly impacted by hormonal contraception
• How birth control during adolescence may affect bone health
• Why the three to four months before ovulation matter for egg quality
• How nutrient depletion and inflammation can influence fertility
• Why symptoms often return after stopping birth control
• The difference between managing symptoms and addressing root causes
• What I evaluate after long-term hormonal birth control use
• How to rebuild your health and prepare for pregnancy after the pill

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Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast

If you've been told that surgery is your only answer for endometriosis—or maybe you've already had excision surgery and you're still struggling to get pregnant—this episode is for you.

Excision surgery can be one of the most valuable tools available for women with endometriosis when it's performed by a highly skilled surgeon. But surgery alone doesn't treat the underlying immune dysfunction, inflammation, or metabolic factors that influence how endometriosis behaves. In this episode, I'm breaking down what excision surgery can and cannot do, why fertility doesn't always improve after surgery alone, and how supporting your body before and after surgery can dramatically change your long-term fertility outcomes.

"Your genes may load the gun, but your environment often pulls the trigger." - Brooke Boskovich.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why endometriosis is a whole-body inflammatory disease—not just a reproductive condition
• The difference between excision surgery and ablation surgery
• Why excision surgery has lower recurrence rates
• What endometriosis surgery can improve—and what it cannot
• How immune dysfunction affects fertility with endometriosis
• Why inflammation, gut health, and hormones matter after surgery
• The role of egg quality in endometriosis-related infertility
• Functional lab testing I commonly recommend before and after surgery
• Nutrition and lifestyle strategies that support fertility with endometriosis
• How to create a personalized plan beyond surgery or IVF

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Connect & Learn More:

• Support the show: Please leave me a comment or a review wherever you listen to this podcast
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4faTvVq
• Learn more about this episode: thefertilitydietitian.health
• Contact me: [email protected]
• Check out my Digital Store: thefertilitydietitian.health/shop
• Facebook: facebook.com/BrookeTheFertilityDietitian
• Instagram: instagram.com/the.fertility.dietitian
• YouTube: youtube.com/@TheFertilityDietitianPodcast