My "Failing up" Story

I felt like I failed when I stopped birth control for getting ready to try to conceive, and after tracking my cycle, I discovered my luteal phase was only 10 days, and my period only lasted 1 day. I had read conflicting things, and that might be perfectly acceptable in some situations, but I wanted it to be “ideal”.

As a dietitian who strives to eat healthy and get gentle movement and exercise in, it felt disappointing, like I was somehow doing something “wrong”. I was also frustrated that this was something I might need to dedicate time and effort in a busy life to “Fix”.

I realized that this was an opportunity for me to learn about all the nutrition research out there for helping women with their cycles. I was able to experiment on myself with nutrition and lifestyle tweaks.

By going through this experience, I felt the reward of allowing all my years of knowledge and hard work studying nutrition to pay off in the form of teaching myself to naturally fuel my cycle and fertility. This also helped me to realize I want to help other women do the same thing and change the direction of my career to fertility nutrition!

-Mindy J Vanberkel MS RD LDN