Fertility Maxxing: Why I Love It (and also Why I Don’t)

If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, you’ve probably come across “fertility maxxing.” It’s the idea of optimising every part of your lifestyle to give yourself the best possible chance of conceiving. I’ll hold my hands up: I’ve jumped on the bandwagon too. My fertility maxxing posts have had over 300,000 views across Instagram and TikTok, which is a lot for a little account like mine. Although really, I’ve been fertility maxxing my patients for 15 years, long before it had a name.

But I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. Here’s why.

The love: modify the modifiables

I’ve been helping women conceive using acupuncture and Chinese medicine for 15 years from my clinic in my Leicester, and one thing I’m sure of is that preparation makes a difference. Whether you’re trying naturally or about to start IVF, the months before are an opportunity.

Some things you can’t change. Your age is your age, and pre-existing conditions are, for the most part, what they are. But plenty of things are within your control: your sleep, your exposure to certain chemicals, heat exposure to the testes, and what you eat and drink. These are the modifiables, and research shows some of them can make a real difference.

Eggs go through their final stage of development over around three months, and sperm take a similar time to develop. So changes you make now can influence the eggs and sperm you’re working with in a few months’ time.

The fertility maxxing list

Some of what’s trending under the fertility maxxing banner has little evidence behind it, so here’s what I’d actually focus on. This is what I included in my post, with a look at the evidence. Some of these are well supported, and some are simply reasonable and low effort. It’s useful to know the difference.

For both of you

Sleep. Aim for seven to eight hours. Poor sleep affects the hormones that regulate your cycle and sperm production, and early research has linked sleep with IVF outcomes.

Stop smoking and vaping. Smoking is one of the most clearly evidenced changes on the list, affecting egg quality, sperm quality and IVF success rates. The research on vaping is more limited, but it’s sensible to stop both.

Limit alcohol. The NHS advises couples trying to conceive to avoid alcohol or keep it low, and heavier drinking is linked to lower fertility in both men and women.

Watch your caffeine. For women, the NHS pregnancy limit is 200mg a day, and it makes sense to start before you conceive. Two mugs of coffee can easily reach it. For men, some studies link high intake with poorer sperm quality, so keeping to a couple of cups a day is sensible.

Limit plastics and fragrance. Some chemicals in plastics (like BPA) and synthetic fragrance (like phthalates) are endocrine disruptors, meaning they can interfere with hormones. Simple swaps help: glass or stainless steel containers, never heating food in plastic, and fragrance-free products where you can.

Manage stress where you can. The link between stress and fertility is complicated, and stress doesn’t cause infertility on its own. But chronic stress affects sleep, eating and hormones, and trying to conceive is stressful in itself. Find what helps you switch off, whether that’s walking, talking to someone, or time away from fertility forums.

Aim for a healthy weight. Being significantly over or under a healthy weight can affect ovulation and sperm quality, and the NHS lists weight as one of the factors for both partners. Small, sustainable changes are more useful than crash dieting, which can disrupt your cycle.

Consider acupuncture for fertility support. Research on acupuncture and fertility is mixed, but many people find it supportive through what can be a stressful process. In clinic, I use it alongside advice on lifestyle, cycle tracking and testing.

For her

Track your cycle. Knowing when, or whether, you’re ovulating is incredibly useful. LH tests show when ovulation is likely, while basal body temperature and urine progesterone tests can help confirm it’s happened. This also helps you time a progesterone blood test properly, rather than defaulting to day 21.

Take a prenatal. A good prenatal supplement is one of the simplest things you can do, ideally starting before you conceive. Some people need a higher dose of certain nutrients, for example if you have a BMI of 30 or more or diabetes, so it’s worth checking with your GP.

Eat a Mediterranean-style diet. Plenty of vegetables, wholegrains, oily fish, olive oil, nuts and legumes. This way of eating is associated with better fertility outcomes in several studies.

Don’t skip breakfast. A regular, protein-rich breakfast helps keep blood sugar stable, and a study in lean women with PCOS found a larger breakfast improved hormone markers and ovulation rates. Jakubowicz et al., 2013

Move daily and get morning sunlight. Regular moderate exercise supports hormonal balance, and morning light helps set your circadian rhythm, which influences sleep and hormones. The direct fertility evidence for sunlight is limited, but it’s easy and free.

For him

Keep things cool. The testes sit outside the body because sperm production needs to be slightly cooler than body temperature. Loose underwear, avoiding hot baths and saunas, and not resting a laptop on your lap all help.

Eat nuts. A clinical trial found that adding around 60g of mixed nuts a day (walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts) improved sperm count, vitality and motility. Salas-Huetos et al., 2018 Brazil nuts are also a good source of selenium, which is important for sperm. One or two a day is enough.

Avoid anabolic steroids and testosterone supplements. Taking testosterone from outside the body signals your own testes to reduce production, which can lower sperm count significantly, sometimes to zero. If you’ve used them, speak to your GP before trying to conceive.

Phone out of your pocket, and cut back on cycling. The evidence here is mixed. Some studies link heavy phone use or frequent cycling with poorer sperm parameters, but results aren’t consistent. They’re easy changes, so I include them, but I wouldn’t worry if you can’t.

A Chinese medicine view

Everything above comes from Western research. As a Chinese medicine practitioner, I also look at fertility through a different lens, and it’s worth understanding in its own context.

Chinese medicine is built on pattern differentiation. Two women with the same Western diagnosis can have completely different Chinese medicine patterns, such as Blood deficiency, Blood stasis, Liver Qi stagnation, Kidney Yang deficiency or Kidney Yin deficiency. I look at your symptoms, your cycle, your tongue and your pulse, and the points and lifestyle advice I recommend depend on that diagnosis. So there’s no one-size-fits-all list.

That said, a few general recommendations suit most people:

Eat warm, cooked foods. In Chinese medicine, the Spleen is responsible for transforming and transporting food, and good digestion underpins everything else. Warm, easily digestible meals like congee, soups, stews and casseroles support it, especially through winter. This is even more important in the second half of your cycle, the warmer progesterone phase.

Go easy on caffeine. Caffeine is considered very heating in Chinese medicine and can burn up Yin, which is another reason to keep it moderate.

Keep your lower back, abdomen and feet warm. The Kidney, Liver and Spleen channels all begin in the feet and run up through the lower abdomen, so keeping your feet warm is part of looking after that area. Avoid bare feet on cold floors, and keep your lower back and tummy covered. This is especially relevant for anyone diagnosed with Cold in the Uterus.

If you’d like to know what your own pattern is, that’s exactly what we work out in a consultation.

Test, don’t guess

Lifestyle changes are only part of the picture. For around half of couples having problems conceiving, the cause is sperm-related, according to the HFEA, yet the male side is often looked at late, or not at all.

At-home sperm tests can give a rough idea of sperm count and sometimes motility, but they don’t give the full picture. A lab semen analysis measures count, motility and morphology, and your GP can arrange one. For her, tracking ovulation gives you real information to work with.

Knowing your numbers means you can focus your efforts where they’ll make a difference, rather than trying everything and hoping.

The hate

What I’m not keen on is anyone feeling blamed or less than because they didn’t do it last time. Maybe you didn’t have acupuncture. Maybe nobody looked at the male side before your embryos were frozen. Maybe you didn’t know any of this existed. That’s okay.

If fertility maxxing has left you feeling guilty, that’s unhelpful. This process is hard enough without adding another impossible standard.

Where to start

You don’t need to do everything on this list. Pick two or three changes that feel manageable, like getting to bed earlier, swapping plastic containers or cutting back on coffee, and build from there.

Ultimately, most of what’s on this list is good for your health overall (and keeps the testicles from overheating). If it helps your fertility too, that’s a double win.

Fertility maxxing should be about giving yourself the best chance from here, not punishing yourself for what came before.

If you are based in Leicester or Leicestershire and would like personalised support preparing for conception or IVF, I would love to work with you.

About Claire

I'm Claire Norton, a BAcC-registered acupuncturist, and I've been helping women conceive using acupuncture and Chinese medicine for 15 years. I hold a First Class Honours degree in traditional acupuncture from Oxford Brookes and an advanced fertility diploma, and I'm a clinical supervisor at The Acupuncture Academy in Leamington Spa.

I'm a member of the Zita West Practitioner Network and the AFN, my case studies have been published in the European Journal of Chinese Medicine, and I've appeared on ITV. I see patients at my acupuncture clinic in Blaby, Leicester.