What's more important...

[shiningstar]

Just a curious question I have...

What do you think is more important when trying to conceive:
The foods you eat OR the pattern you eat them

For instance what would be worse for ttc a girl:
Eating some of the "bad" food (potatoes, bananas, red meat) but eating it in small amounts, skipping breakfast, and no snacking. Basically only eating when you are really hungry and just eating a smallish meal with no snacking inbetween.

OR

Staying away from all the boy friendly foods but always eating breakfast and snacking inbetween meals.

Of course I know it's probably best to stay away from boy friendly foods AND eat more infrequently... I'm just curious.

I'm having a boy this time (wasn't swaying). I probably ate red meat 3X a week (though not huge amounts) and I ate bananas & potatoes probably 2X a week max. However I wasn't eating a lot. Never ate breakfast. No snacking. I probably would only consume 1800 cals at most. I lost around 6 lbs the months leading up to conceiving. Probably lost about a pound each month. I know that's not a lot but considering I wasn't exercising I think it's a decent amount. I wasn't eating many healthy foods either. It was winter so fresh fruits were $$. The only veggies I really had were the occasional potato and green beans. Just wondering how much my diet made me more prone to have another boy.

[Wanting-a-girl]

Snacking all day on the LE makes your blood sugar stay elevated and that's what you are trying to avoid on the LE... There are no "no-no foods" on the LE so definitely the pattern of eating

[atomic sagebrush]

Well, I don't know that you can really quantify it that way BUT I do think that you can get a girl eating meat (people do it every day) while eating in pink-friendly eating patterns. So I think it's more eating patterns and not "magic foods".

My mom got girls skipping breakfast, never snacking, but she ate a balanced school hot lunch every day and then a dinner that had meat in it most of the time. She didn't eat a huge portion and she never really ate more than 2 meals a day.

I have also seen a lot of celebrities diets (Jessica Alba comes to mind) where people tell me 'look, she ate meat and has girls' - but I've never said that you can't get girls eating meat, it's just that meat makes it harder to stick to the diet as a whole. She eats like a miniscule amount, and doesn't snack, so her overall diet as a whole is totally pink friendly. jsut because she has a piece of meat now and then - there are no magic foods.

I got a boy eating hardly any red meat (or any meat, we were poor then), but I ate breakfast, snacked a lot, drank a lot of milk and ate tons of bread and pretty much just ate all day long. (this was DS 2)

Then when I got DD, I ate pretty similar to how I ate when I got DS 2 - actually probably more healthy and varied than that really (no milk though). But I skipped breakfast, never snacked, my meals were smaller, and I was thinner and losing weight rather than holding steady a little above my idela weight (like I was with DS 2).

At the end of it all, there are OTHER things besides diet that can sway (if your lifestyle and environment is sending signals that a boy has a better shot of survival) and also luck comes into play - even if swaying could be 90% effective (it isn't) there would still be a lot of boys conceived.