Episode 20: What Is Fat Positive Fertility Coaching?
Episode Summary
In this episode of Fat and Fertile, I’m diving deep into something I don’t talk about nearly enough—what fat positive fertility coaching actually is, and why it matters so much.
I’ve been a fertility coach for over seven years now, and while I often share tools, insights, and resources, I realised I haven’t really broken down how coaching works or what it looks like to be supported in a fat-positive, weight-neutral space. So that’s what this episode is all about.
I share how my own experience of being diagnosed with PCOS as a teen—and being told I’d never have children—led me to this work. And I explain how my journey through unlearning diet culture and stepping away from weight loss gave me the clarity and drive to support others doing the same, especially those navigating fertility in bigger bodies.
In this episode, I talk about:
What coaching means to me (and why it’s not about “fixing” you)
The unique challenges fat folks face when trying to get pregnant
Why we deserve support that’s free from judgement and shame
What it means to create safety in your nervous system as you navigate this process
How to explore health-promoting behaviours without dieting
And why separating your worth from your ability to conceive is a game-changer
Links and Resources
Email me: nicola@nicolasalmon.co.uk
Find me on Instagram: @fatpositivefertility
My book: Fat and Fertile – available via Amazon
Join my community: Ko-Fi Membership
Get Involved
Nicola would love to hear from you! If this episode resonates, share your story, ask a question, or leave a review.
Support the Podcast
If you’re enjoying Fat and Fertile, you can buy me a coffee here to or share this episode on your favourite social media platform. Every share helps make this info more accessible to everyone who needs it.
Follow Me on Instagram: Join me here for fat-positive fertility tips, updates, and encouragement.
👉 Explore all these resources here and take your first step toward parenthood without stigma or shame. I’m cheering you on every step of the way!
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Nicola Salmon [00:00:03]: Hey, my lovely. Welcome to Fat and Fertile, the podcast. I'm Nicola Salmon, fat positive fertility coach and author of the book Fat and Fertile. I'm obsessed with helping folks navigate getting pregnant in an anti fat world. On this podcast, we'll explore the complexities that fat folks face when you want to grow your family. If you want to support this podcast, I would love for you to share it on social media or leave me a review on your podcast app. Are you ready? Let's dive in. Hi, folks, and welcome to another episode of fat and fertile. Nicola Salmon [00:00:45]: It's Nicola, and I'm excited today to talk to you about fat positive fertility coaching. So if you don't know, and I don't talk about it loads, but I am an integrative fertility coach, but also a non diet coach, a body image coach, basically, lots of coaching. And all of the stuff that I do is around coaching principles, but I don't often talk about what coaching is and what that really involves when it comes to fat positive facility coaching. So I thought it'd be super fun to dive into this stuff. And if you have absolutely any questions on this, then I would love love for you to send me a DM on Instagram at fat positive fertility and ask away because I love coaching with my whole being. It's one of my favorite favorite things to do, whether that is one to one or in a group setting because there is so much that we can do. But I still remember the first time that I heard somebody else talking about coaching, probably when my boys were really little. So that is, what, a good ten years ago now, maybe. Nicola Salmon [00:01:50]: And I was like, what is coaching? What does that even mean? Like, the only reference I had was around, like, a football coach. So I really wanted to get into, like, what I see coaching is, what it could mean for you when you're navigating getting pregnant, and if it's something that could be a useful addition or support as you're navigating this. So I think the first thing that's really helpful for me to share is a little bit about why I do the work that I do. And I talk about this a lot and maybe more so on other podcasts that I'm a guest on than my own. But the reason that I do this is because I experienced stigma through my own reproductive journey, but in a very different way. So, quick recap. Diagnosed with PCOS at 16. Told I would never have kids. Nicola Salmon [00:02:43]: So I kind of expected it to be difficult for my whole adult life. It wasn't for us, and we were super lucky and very grateful. But that meant that I had the capacity and the energy and the resilience to then go on and talk about this stuff and to really question why fat people are told that we shouldn't get pregnant, that it's irresponsible for us to get pregnant, and it's not safe for us to get pregnant. And I did a whole unlearning when my kids were little around diet culture, around all the lies were told around weight loss and intentional weight loss and diets, whole big rabbit hole that I went in. And when I came out of that rabbit hole, and decided that I wanted to give up dieting, that I didn't wanna do that to my body, I wanted to heal my relationship with food, I realized that there was no support for other folks who were wanting to figure out what life looked like without dieting, but also might be wanting to get pregnant. So that is kind of where those two worlds collided for me, and I started the work that I'm doing now, which was over seven years ago now. So, really, my mission statement, my ethos that underpins all of the work that I do is that I want people to be able to navigate getting pregnant without stigma, without shame, without judgement, and also with choice, also with autonomy around their bodies so that they can choose if they want to make their body smaller. But I want everybody to have all of the information that they need to make those decisions in an informed way so they understand that intentional weight loss is only ever short term usually for majority of folks. Nicola Salmon [00:04:25]: And that includes medications. That includes surgery. And I think going in with your eyes open is the way that you can make the most fully informed decision. And I always say, like, I totally understand any behavior, any action that you might take towards growing your family. It's totally understandable, and I am so for that for you. But what I am not for is systems that oppress people, that hurt people, that harm people. And those are the things that I want to dismantle, which is why fat positive fertility coaching is so vital in the fertility industry because there is so much weight stigma, so much shame, so much judgement around people and especially people in bigger bodies. So fertility coaching in general, there are growing numbers of fertility coaches now, but what that really is is a support person who's there with you to support you navigating this. Nicola Salmon [00:05:27]: And coaching can look a billion different ways. There are so many different methodologies, ideas, things that people use, but it is often around helping people either goal set and look at what their goals are and helping support them to do that. It can look like, looking at thought work, so looking at the beliefs that you hold around your body, around your fertility, and how to move through some of those negative thoughts that you might be experiencing. There are lots of ways that coaching can show up. But for me, the simplest way to think about it is about supporting you from getting to a to b. So thinking about where you are now, thinking about where you want to be, and looking at any modalities that the coach has in order to move you from a to b. And for me, again, what's really important and what's really distinct about the work that I do is that you are doing the work. And I so often tell people this when they message me and say, thank you. Nicola Salmon [00:06:27]: You know, you really helped me do x y z. It's really important that you acknowledge that you did that work and that for me, I am a guidepost. I am a tolder. I am a cheerleader, and I can absolutely give you all the tools and resources, but you are doing the hard work. And it is your hard won victories for whatever happens as you go through that process. So the special thing about fat positive fertility coaching is that it is totally unique from any different coaching. Because what I was seeing when I was working with people navigating this is that we have a very unique experience navigating the fertility sector. We often come into this process already expecting there to be issues or problems because we've been conditioned to believe that fat is a problem, that our bodies are problems that need to be fixed. Nicola Salmon [00:07:20]: So when we come into this space already thinking, oh, gosh. There's gonna be something wrong. It's gonna be my fault. We are already having this different experience than other folks in straight sized bodies who come in thinking, oh, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be easy. It's gonna be no problem. So already, we are maybe stressed about the situation or anxious about the situation. Maybe we are much more reticent or unlikely to go and see our doctors for fear of judgement, shame, for fear of what they'll say, for them fear of them not helping us. Nicola Salmon [00:07:54]: There's so many ways that our experience is different, which is why we need a different type of coaching. And for me, I have a whole fat positive system that I refer back to a foundation of principles that we look at in different ways. So that can look like building safety into your life. And whilst that sounds a bit, woah, what does that even mean? What it means in a real, like, time world is finding places where you can be yourself. If you've had a really stressful situation, like talking to a family member about this stuff or going to see a health care provider and them not helping you, that is inherently stressful on your body. And that can send your nervous system into overwhelm, and it can make you feel like shit. So what that building safety in is around giving you a safe space to land, having a place where you can come and process those things and really reregulating your nervous system. So that impact of those things is short term rather than long term, rather than it leading to, like, chronic stress and feeling constantly overwhelmed, unable to know what to do, not feeling like you've got any options or choices or plans or hope, having a space where you can come and vent all that and then create, okay. Nicola Salmon [00:09:21]: I've processed that. I know what I need to do next, and then moving forward with it. It's also around if you choose to engage in different health promoting behaviors, how to do that in a non diet way, how to do that without concentrating on calories or pushing yourself into, like, overwhelmingly stressful exercise. So it's about really rebuilding better relationships with food and movement is something that I often work on with clients. One of the fundamental things that we do is separating your worth from your ability to get pregnant. I know so many of us go into this. Really having this underpinning belief that our worth as a human is dependent on our ability to get pregnant, our ability to grow our family, our ability to give our partner children or our parents' grandchildren. So much of our worth has been tied up into our childbearing, abilities. Nicola Salmon [00:10:23]: And that is a system that has been going for a long time. That's not something that is easy to just, oh, I'm just gonna change my mind around that. It can be that quick, but so often, we have so much conditioning around what it is to be a person with a uterus and what that means and what our role is. Because for hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, that, we have that's what we've been told our purpose is, and it is not. And, really detangling those two things so that you a % believe that your worth is not determined by how quickly you get pregnant or by how you grow your family, but is inherently built into you as a human being. You were born with that infinite worth, and nothing can take that away. But we do talk about beliefs. It's really can be really useful to dig into some of those beliefs in a really weight neutral way. Nicola Salmon [00:11:20]: Because if you believe that you can only get pregnant at your smallest body size and that you have to shrink yourself in order to get pregnant, then that is gonna impact how you feel about your body on a day to day basis. It's gonna impact the actions you take around the food you choose, around how you move your body, around how you relate to people in your life. There are so many ways that that has a a role on effect on what choices you make day to day. Whereas if you believe that you are your body is absolutely capable of getting pregnant exactly as it is today, then those actions, the way that you talk to yourself is gonna be very different. So it's changing that fundamental belief that you have about yourself that then changes how you think about yourself, that then changes the foods that you choose. Because instead of choosing the thing with the lowest calories or the thing that's, you know, fits into whatever fertility diet you've googled this week, you pick the foods that make you feel good. You pick the foods that give you energy, that let you live your life in the way that you choose to, and that can make all the difference in terms of helping your body to feel safe, to feel nourished, to feel supported so that you can enjoy living in this moment whilst you are still moving towards your goals of getting pregnant. There is so many ways that being in a bigger body can impact this, whether that is access to health care, it's how you think about yourself. Nicola Salmon [00:12:57]: It is, the information that you can access in terms of what is available, whether that's in books, forums, fertility clinics. It is also centered around you have to lose weight in order to be able to navigate. And I wholeheartedly believe that that is harmful. That is irresponsible, unethical, and also not evidence based. So much of the work that I do is built on looking at the evidence and looking at that from a weight neutral lens so that we can use this evidence not only to build our own beliefs and to silence those mind monkeys that go round and round in our brains saying, Speaker B [00:13:38]: oh, well, you know, the doctor said this, and the thing is said that. Nicola Salmon [00:13:42]: Shush down mind monkeys. We wanna focus on supporting ourselves and looking after ourselves in the best possible way. I know self care has got such a bad rap, but when I talk about self care, that is really simple things like going for a wee when you need it, she says, doing a little wee wriggle, drinking enough water for your body so that you are hydrated, making sure that you are eating enough so you're not hungry every single minute of every single day, that you are sleeping well, that you are moving your body in a way that feels supportive, that you are, you know, looking after yourself if you are able to and choose to because it is a choice, and you do not have to perform these actions in order to be worthy of fertility care. But if you're choosing to do these things, that you do them in a way that feels helpful and that improves your quality of life, not just so that you can be a vessel for a baby, but so that you can live your life in a way that you want to, in a way that brings you some joy and some love and some excitement and some happiness because, ultimately, you absolutely deserve to feel happy and to grow your family. They do not have to be mutually exclusive. So in terms of fertility coaching, I've kind of gone on so many different tangents there of what it looks like. But, ultimately, it looks like ensuring that you have your needs met, whether that is through the actions that you take, the beliefs that you hold, the care that you may need to advocate for. It is ultimately about getting those needs met as a fat person because you absolutely deserve to have those needs met. Nicola Salmon [00:15:25]: And if any of this has resonated you, if any of this feels like, oh my gosh, like, I really want to have a feeling feeling more joyful, of feeling more cared for, of feeling more supported, of being able to go through this process knowing I have someone on my side, and I'm not battling everybody in order to get what I need, then I would absolutely love to support you. I'm currently taking on, some one to one clients. So if you are interested in working together, please get in touch. Send me a message, and we can pop in, like, a little chat, a little thirty minute free chat so we can get to know each other a little bit better. We can talk about whether it's the right thing for you. I am not on the hard sell. That is never my intention. My work is fully led from a place of, so you can absolutely choose whether this is the right thing for you or not, and both answers are equally valid. Nicola Salmon [00:16:20]: And I just want you to feel that support. I want you to feel that care, and I want you to be able to live your life joyfully whilst you're doing this. So sending you so much love. I would love for you to get in touch and love for us to have a chat. And I believe that this could be a really powerful next step if you are feeling confused, anxious, uncertain where to go to next. So send me a DM on Instagram at fat positive fertility. Send me a quick email, Nicola@Nicolasalmon.co.uk, and let's get that chat booked in. Thanks so much for joining me today for Fat and Fertile. Nicola Salmon [00:17:00]: If you want to learn more about how to have a fat positive fertility journey, then I'd love for you to check out my book, Fat and Fertile, How to Get Pregnant in a Bigger Body. It's available everywhere via Amazon, so just search in your Amazon store for fat and fertile, or click in the link in the show notes. See you next time.