Girl mums and Eating habits

[Loveychoc]

So I have been able to cut down meals to two (big) meals in a day and a coffee/milk before lunch which is my first meal of the day... But when you are eating your meal, do you stop before you're full? Or eat as you like because you are so famished already since your blood sugar level crashed?

Since adapting two meals a day... I can feel that my blood sugar level drops down heavily and i always feel very hungry between meals ... So has this tricked my body for girl conception? Although I find that I am still eating big portion ... Well including dessert!! And I don't do calories counting... But the crash in the blood sugar level is that something I should feel?

[mummypink]

Hi,

What diet are you following? For the LE diet you basically want to try and drop 300-500 calories a day and miss breakfast or another meal if it is harder for you to miss breakfast than lunch for example. You also want to reduce the amount of protein you are having to around 35g a day, that is the really hard bit! I've found it is actually hard to eat too much without going over the amount of protein.

You also shouldn't be having big meals if they are calorie heavy meals as they take your body longer to breakdown so your blood sugar levels will be higher for longer. The bulk of my meals are salad or white rice generally, I've been doing the LE diet for just over 2 weeks and I've lost about 8lbs. So you should notice weight loss with this diet unless you are already underweight, in which case you need to be careful as you don't want your weight to drop to a point where your fertility is massively reduced.

HTH but I am sure Atomic will give you loads of better advice!

[Loveychoc]

Hi mummypink,

I am supposed to follow the LE diet but I'm not quite TTC yet so I have not put so much effort into it, but the most intriguing and challenging part of girl diet is allowing yourself to go hungry and let the blood sugar level drop and literally eat "nothing", and for people who are not a "foodie" like me (who adores celebrity chefs and always salivating over so many cuisines!), being in the girl diet whether its the LE or InGender or French etc, I am somewhat lost!!!

How much should I eat? Can I snack thru out the day? Should I go hungry often to trick my body to favour girl conception, what can I eat etc.. I know the answers are all here in this forum, but when it comes to practice it is just so hard to do .. And I am over worrying that whatever I put into my mouth it may make a boy! Lol.

[Loveychoc]

Also because I like to feel satisfied from my meals, eating one kind of meal isn't enough sometimes, like today what I had for dinner was rice, mince chicken and cream corn soup plus a warm chocolate pie dessert and a few apple cinnamon rice crackers. I am eating within reasonable portion meal, but if I could have done it properly I should have cut off the chocolate pie and rice crackers...

[mummypink]

Hi,

My best advice is to read all the information Atomic has put on here about the LE diet, she makes it all fairly simple and easy to follow.
I absolutely love cooking and baking too so I've learnt to adapt meals so I can make something for myself with less calories, fat, protein etc and then a normal meal for the rest of my family.
You shouldn't snack on the LE diet, and you really need to try and stay within the 1500-1800 daily calorie intake otherwise you'll be swaying blue. I don't sit down and spend a lot of time calorie counting but I have learnt rough calories for different things and protein levels so now I can work out my meals for the day without any stress.
An average day for me is a cup of tea or coffee first thing with a sweetener, then nothing else until after 12pm when I have something like a crackerbread with low fat spread, a slice of low fat cheese, cucumber, tomato, with a glass of diet coke. Then for dinner I have cut out red meat completely, and I have limited amounts of fish and white meat. So I may have a jacket potato with salad or a small amount of chicken with white rice. I don't have any dessert as they would take up too many calories etc.
You can have strawberries so they are a good way of getting rid of any sweet cravings, as are low fat yogurts. I found after a couple of days I was getting full a lot quicker anyway, and now it doesn't really bother me having small portions.

Have a read through Atomics posts, then decide whether it is something you can do or not. Good luck! x

[atomic sagebrush]

So I have been able to cut down meals to two (big) meals in a day and a coffee/milk before lunch which is my first meal of the day... But when you are eating your meal, do you stop before you're full? Or eat as you like because you are so famished already since your blood sugar level crashed?

Since adapting two meals a day... I can feel that my blood sugar level drops down heavily and i always feel very hungry between meals ... So has this tricked my body for girl conception? Although I find that I am still eating big portion ... Well including dessert!! And I don't do calories counting... But the crash in the blood sugar level is that something I should feel?

It's best to count the calories. I know it's a PITA but it's the only way to really know how much you're getting (because you need to be sure you're getting both enough, and not too much.) It's ok to eat a big portion at mealtimes as long as you're meeting your overall goals for the day, but you have no way of knowing that without counting - your body can play tricks on you when you cut back on food and make you feel super hungry and this can cause you to overeat without even meaning to.

[atomic sagebrush]

Hi,

What diet are you following? For the LE diet you basically want to try and drop 300-500 calories a day and miss breakfast or another meal if it is harder for you to miss breakfast than lunch for example. You also want to reduce the amount of protein you are having to around 35g a day, that is the really hard bit! I've found it is actually hard to eat too much without going over the amount of protein.

You also shouldn't be having big meals if they are calorie heavy meals as they take your body longer to breakdown so your blood sugar levels will be higher for longer. The bulk of my meals are salad or white rice generally, I've been doing the LE diet for just over 2 weeks and I've lost about 8lbs. So you should notice weight loss with this diet unless you are already underweight, in which case you need to be careful as you don't want your weight to drop to a point where your fertility is massively reduced.

HTH but I am sure Atomic will give you loads of better advice!

Goals for LE Diet are 1500-1800 cals a day for the average person (short people or people with a lot of weight to lose may drop down to 1200-1500 cals a day, tall people or peopel who are exercising may need 1800-2000), 40-50 g protein, 25-60 g fat (20-30% of your day's cals from fat). You also need to be sure you're getting a minimum of 700-1000 mg sodium and 2500-3500 mg potassium a day, don't cut back any more than that or you can make yourself very sick, even die from it.

You can have 2-3 big meals as long as you're meeting those goals. When I say to avoid big meals, I mean the kinds of holiday dinner type meals that have massive amounts of calories, protein, fat, and take forever to digest. If you're eating 1500-1800 cals a day, there's just no way for you to eat those kinds of meals. If you need to cheat for some reason, that's fine, just make sure the cheat is small and sane and not a huge meal that will take you hours to digest afterwards.

[atomic sagebrush]

Hi mummypink,

I am supposed to follow the LE diet but I'm not quite TTC yet so I have not put so much effort into it, but the most intriguing and challenging part of girl diet is allowing yourself to go hungry and let the blood sugar level drop and literally eat "nothing", and for people who are not a "foodie" like me (who adores celebrity chefs and always salivating over so many cuisines!), being in the girl diet whether its the LE or InGender or French etc, I am somewhat lost!!!

How much should I eat? Can I snack thru out the day? Should I go hungry often to trick my body to favour girl conception, what can I eat etc.. I know the answers are all here in this forum, but when it comes to practice it is just so hard to do .. And I am over worrying that whatever I put into my mouth it may make a boy! Lol.

Low Everything does not mean NO everything! you should NOT be eating nothing, you need to eat the reasonable amount of food that I described above. This is the amount of protein/fat intake that is the lower limit of normal and is advised by the WHO and Web MD as safe for women. The caloric intake is the amount recommended by reproductive endocrinologists as being a safe intake for women going high tech.

Snacking is not allowed and you should skip breakfast if you can, but you should still eat 2-3 good sized meals a day. This is not starvation, starvation is not allowed!

There are no magic foods that make you have a boy - it's the overall diet you eat that matters, not any one food.

[atomic sagebrush]

Also because I like to feel satisfied from my meals, eating one kind of meal isn't enough sometimes, like today what I had for dinner was rice, mince chicken and cream corn soup plus a warm chocolate pie dessert and a few apple cinnamon rice crackers. I am eating within reasonable portion meal, but if I could have done it properly I should have cut off the chocolate pie and rice crackers...

That does seem like a bit much unless your portions were quite small. You don't need to restrict yourself to one type of food and there are tons of diet suggestions and recipes in the Dream Members section along with the complete LE Diet.

Personally, I think it's best if you go fully vegetarian - firstly because it may help your sway to do so, and secondly because meat has a LOT of protein for very few calories, so if you eat a lot of meat you quickly meet yoru protein intake for the day but have only had a few hundred calories and then have nothing to eat for the rest of the day - even things like bread, pasta, and rice have some protein, and dairy has a lot.

[n710]

Try adding a lot of cut up veggies and fruit maybe too as you're getting used to eating less. They'll be mostly water (celery especially) and you'll still feel like you're eating but it won't be a lot of calories or protein. Maybe dessert could be apple slices with cinnamon sprinkled on them?

[atomic sagebrush]

Great tip!

On the LE Diet, remember, low carb veggies are actually free, you don't need to count them. Higher carb/starchy veggies and fruits, count cals but not protein or fat, and only on high protein/high fat veg do you need to count any protein or fat (and also cals in those.) You can always fill in any gaps with low carb veggies.

[Loveychoc]

Thanks for the advices atomic and everyone! I totally forgot about the dream
Members section and I will sign up ASAP! I think I know why I tend to eat big meals - I am generally a very fast eater, i don't chew my food properly and don't seem to let my mouth chew and taste every single grain of stuff therefore I eat wayy too fast and before my brain and tummy declare full I am already reaching for that second portion. I should calm
Down and slowly enjoy my meal!

[atomic sagebrush]

Me too lovey, that's exactly what I do. Then I end up stuffed and miserable afterwards!! I read it takes like 20 minutes for your brain to receive a signal from your stomach that it's full, so when we eat quickly our brain hasn't caught up to our actual level of fullness!!

[pebmcpd7]

Great tip!

On the LE Diet, remember, low carb veggies are actually free, you don't need to count them. Higher carb/starchy veggies and fruits, count cals but not protein or fat, and only on high protein/high fat veg do you need to count any protein or fat (and also cals in those.) You can always fill in any gaps with low carb veggies.

The only veg I eat is mushroom, courgette and some cucumber.
Can you define low carb, high carb veggies and fruit.

[atomic sagebrush]

Sure! (we have so much babbling about low carb diets in the US that I sort of took it for granted that everyone knew what that meant! Sorry!!)

Low carb vegetables are any vegetables that are low in carbs/high in indigestible fiber. They're low cal, low pro, low fat, and are free foods that do not need to be counted.

•Sprouts (bean, alfalfa, etc.)
•Greens – lettuce, spinach, chard, etc.
•Hearty Greens - collards, mustard greens, kale, etc.
•Radicchio and endive count as greens
•Herbs - parsley, cilantro, basil, rosemary, thyme, etc.
•Bok Choy
•Bamboo Shoots
•Celery
•Radishes
•Sea Vegetables (Nori, etc)
•Mushrooms
•Cabbage (or sauerkraut)
•Jicama
•Avocado (NOTE - THIS IS NOT TYPICALLY EATEN ON LE DIET DUE TO HIGH FAT CONTENT, BUT CAN BE A GREAT RESCUE ON A DAY WHEN YOU'VE MAXED OUT ON PROTEIN AND ARE IN DIRE NEED OF FAT, CALS, AND POTASSIUM)
•Asparagus
•Okra
•Cucumbers (or pickles without added sugars)
•Green Beans and Wax Beans
Fava beans
•Fennel
•Cauliflower
•Broccoli
•Peppers
•Green Bell Peppers
•Red Bell Peppers
•Jalapeno Peppers
•Summer Squash
•Zuchinni (courgette)
•Brussels Sprouts
•Scallions or green onions
•Snow Peas/Snap Peas/Pea Pods
•Tomatoes
•Eggplant (Aubergine)
•Tomatillos (these are the tiny green tomato-looking things in paper husks)
•Artichokes
•Spaghetti Squash
•Celery Root (Celeriac)
•Onions
•Leeks

Higher carb veg are ones that taste sweet or starchy. All fruits are sweet tasting and fall into this category. Count cals but not protein or fat.

•Carrots
•Beets
•Peas
•Winter Squashes, such as acorn and butternut and pumpkin puree
•Water Chestnuts
•Parsnips
•Potatoes in all forms
•Sweet Potatoes
•Corn
Hominy
Yams
•Plantains

All fruits

High protein vegetables - count cals and protein but not fat (unless you have added fat)

Field beans (kidney, pinto, white, black, navy beans)
Peas
Split peas
Lentils
Chickpeas
Black eyed peas

High fat vegetables - count cals and fat, not protein

Avocado (see note above)
Olives (ok to use 1-2 as a flavoring agent on top of a salad but don't go overboard)

Count EVERYTHING:

Edamame/soybeans
Products made from soybeans like tofu.

[weeziewoozles]

I've been filling my plate with such low carb veggies as I don't seem to have enough calories but am always heading close to 50g protein. I'm definitely finding it hard to get to 1500cals without going over the 50g so am adding in random biscuits and lemonade etc to get there. Is that OK or should I try and eat higher carb veggies instead?

[atomic sagebrush]

Random biscuits and lemonade are fine! So are high carb veggies! Whichever you like (or change it up and eat them both!!) 50 g protein is fine, the range is 40-50 g.

If you're not getting enough calories, then low carb veggies are not going to help you because you're not supposed to count them...You don't count them at all, not even the cals.

[Dreamofpink]

Just what I was looking for, thanks for the info on low carb veggies! :)

Sent from my LG-E400 using Tapatalk 2

[atomic sagebrush]

I was just thinking that same thing!! :)

[Dreamofpink]

Lmao at supersize v superskinny on channel 4 earlier (uk)! Mum of two only eats high carb diet, 1500 cal a day weighs just under 7st and what does she have? Two girls!!!! Haha!!!! Just more evidence (albeit anecdotal) that the le diet is the way to go for ttc pink :bigsmile: