Diets: IG, FGD, LE. How did you decide?

[rainbowflower]

I originally planned to do the FGD... but now I'm having some doubts.

Which did you choose and why?

[bodhi]

I chose low-everything because I have a dairy allergy and also because it makes the most logical sense to me. All of the diets are restrictive (and the exact opposite of how I normally eat), but I find this one a bit easier to follow. I get stressed just looking at the the other diets.

[queen-of-harts]

I agree,LE just makes the most sense,its the opposite of how i ate before my boys and the other diets just stress me thinking about them!

[happyheart]

I chose the LE diet. It completely makes sense to me. Several of my girlfriends that have girls swayed girl and didn't even know it. Most of them have a lifestyle/diet very similar to the LE diet. I truly believe that the LE diet is the one that will most sway girl for me. It FEELS right when all the others didn't.
:kiss: THANK YOU ATOMIC!! :) :)

[mis2ninos]

I chose the LE diet too. However I will also be a vegan while doing the LE diet. The LE diet describes exactly how I ate when I conceived my only DD so it makes perfect sense to me. GL!!

[swish]

The LE diet also makes more sense to me, it is the opposite of how I normally eat and alot of mums with girls I know eat this way. Also I feel the missing breakfast and not snacking is essential as this is SO different from normal for me as I would have grazed all day!!!! It is also easier (although not easy!!!!) to follow than others)

[rainbowflower]

thank you for your thoughts so far! LE seems to be the favourite at the moment :)

has anyone done either of the other diets and has opinions on those?

[Sassy]

The LE diet also makes more sense to me, it is the opposite of how I normally eat and alot of mums with girls I know eat this way. Also I feel the missing breakfast and not snacking is essential as this is SO different from normal for me as I would have grazed all day!!!! It is also easier (although not easy!!!!) to follow than others)

Exactly what swish said! I basically looked at my diet when I conceived my DS's and looked for the opposite. As I am prone to stress, I didn't want to pick a diet that would have me so frazzled that I'd end up resenting the process and probably sending my testosterone levels through the roof! I looked at the IG diet however the restrictions seemed excessive to me.

[mandicane]

I started out doing the IG diet and just couldn't stick to it. It was to restrictive for me and imo it didn't really make a lot of sense. The LE diet is much easier to follow and scientifically makes sense. And when I think about the women I know who have all girls, this is pretty much how they eat.

[Out of the Blue]

Low blood sugar and low testosterone diets for a girl seem to be backed by some data and make the most sense to me so Low Everything is the winner in my book. I was originally going to try the I.G. one before I knew this one existed but I just couldn't really believe in it b/c I couldn't find a lot of data that was convincing to me. I think the LE diet is also easier to follow for most people. GL to you, rainbowflower!!!

[Emmy2012]

Low Everything diet fan here....but then again I also did the IG diet last time and had my beautiful boy Noah....so I thought I would go a different route!

[rainbowflower]

I think I'm worried about how I'll cope with the LE diet - I do love meat and chocolate - giving up the chocolate I can just about cope with, but to give both up? I'm worried that meals will really bore me. I've been trying to make a list of vegetarian meals, but need to come up with some nutritional data for them too to see if they are likely to fit in with any diet.

Also, the studies I've read about vegetarian diets show that vegetarians do have more girls but only by a few %. One which showed more success than that was apparently dismissed as a "statistical fluke". It seems like it could be a lot of pain for not so much gain, unless it does have a drastic effect on the body with the weight loss and hormone balancing which will have a cumulative effect on the swaying chances of success. Even the Oxford diet has been criticised saying that the breakfast-boy link is not statistically significant: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1660/1211.full

Sorry, I'm having a wobble right now. Not sure what to do for the best! Good thing I don't start my diet, whichever that is, for another month ;)

[Layla]

GL rainbowflower and thank you for all the other studies you have been posting. I am a blue swayer but you really helped me in my decision to go with the FGD. For me it was the opposite of what I ate when I conceived my 2 girls. I did eat less meat than that to be honest with you, but i did drink 3 cups of milk everyday and ate French home made vegetable soups. GL to you in your decision.

[Out of the Blue]

rainbowflower - Sorry you're having a tough time sorting through everything and finding a good decision. You could always just try to abstain from red meat while incorporating other types in. Or you could just try to cut out meat little by little as you get more veggie recipes. I think you'll be fine as long as you keep your protein down to 40-50g. Also, http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ has a wonderful food database. Also, I used it to create my own "Girl Sway" recipes which showed me the cals/protein/sodium/fat, etc. in my recipe. It's super easy! Coming up w/the recipes is the hard part, lol.

Best of luck to you!:HH: I know all this swaying stuff can really drag you down. Just try to stick w/what's best for you...go w/your gut!

[zanacal]

... and because you're not swaying yet you can go back and forth and be unsure on certain things but by the time you're ready to ttc you'll have done your research and figured out what feels right for you and you will be less stressed by the whole thing. This is what I've found - I started looking into swaying in April and didn't begin the diet until June with a plan to ttc in September. GL!

[swish]

I think one of the reasons the vegetarian thing alone wouldn't work is most vegetarians eat a lot of high protein foods. Maybe you could reduce meat gradually, gl!

[rainbowflower]

thank you ladies you're all so lovely and I really appreciate your wisdom.

Layla - nice of you to say so, thank you :)
OOTB - that's a good website! can you share some recipe ideas? I haven't been able to find too many so far
zana - yeah the months thinking time will still help. :)
swish I was thinking that too about the high protein... I might try reducing it gradually

[mis2ninos]

I can't wait to start seeing the BFPs and pink bundles resulting from the low everything diets here! Its so exciting :)

[rainbowflower]

mis2ninos - me too! how many ladies have already had a BFP after doing the LE diet? I think I've seen at least one?

[Sassy]

I'm going to second the myfitnesspal site - its also an app on my iphone where you can scan barcodes of foods and it will automatically bring up all the nutritional information about that food - makes tallying calories, sodium, fat, carbs and protein super easy!

[zanacal]

I'm going to second the myfitnesspal site - its also an app on my iphone where you can scan barcodes of foods and it will automatically bring up all the nutritional information about that food - makes tallying calories, sodium, fat, carbs and protein super easy!

Wow, that's great!

[angiesscripts]

How long do we need to be on the LE diet? I know IG's is at least 6 weeks. What do you guys recommend? Thanks!

[zanacal]

I think many aim for 6 weeks on the LE diet also.

I'm doing it for longer because I have lots of weight to lose and I want to try and get to my lowest ever pre conception weight. I believe others try to be on the diet for 3 months in case there's some truth to the theory that an egg is produced primed to accept either a boy or girl sperm - and an egg takes 90 days to develop.

If you're planning a girl sway come and join us on the ttc pink chit-chat thread :D There's a diet thread too if you're interested.

[rainbowflower]

I'm going to do 3 months on the diet (whichever I pick) before TTC since eggs take 90 days to mature (or something like that)

[atomic sagebrush]

I think I'm worried about how I'll cope with the LE diet - I do love meat and chocolate - giving up the chocolate I can just about cope with, but to give both up? I'm worried that meals will really bore me. I've been trying to make a list of vegetarian meals, but need to come up with some nutritional data for them too to see if they are likely to fit in with any diet.

Also, the studies I've read about vegetarian diets show that vegetarians do have more girls but only by a few %. One which showed more success than that was apparently dismissed as a "statistical fluke". It seems like it could be a lot of pain for not so much gain, unless it does have a drastic effect on the body with the weight loss and hormone balancing which will have a cumulative effect on the swaying chances of success. Even the Oxford diet has been criticised saying that the breakfast-boy link is not statistically significant: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1660/1211.full

Sorry, I'm having a wobble right now. Not sure what to do for the best! Good thing I don't start my diet, whichever that is, for another month ;)

Not sure how I missed this thread to begin with but I jsut wanted to reassure everyone regarding the Oxford study - the reason why it was criticized was because it did not include dietary data from DURING pregnancy (they weren't even studying gender ratio, they were studying something else and only noticed the gender ratio stuff after they had collected the data for another purpose) and the researchers were accused of cherry picking the evidence to support their theory. But as we all know, once you are pregnant, gender is already determined and a diet when you're like 3 and 4 months pregnant has NO bearing on your baby's gender. It's actually quite ridiculous that they were criticized for this, but there are political reasons (a lot of scientists don't like anything about determining gender because they think everyone will use it to pick boys.)

Fiona Matthews is designing a new study that will not include data from during pregnancy and we will just have to wait around for that!

PS - I think the FGD people really DID cherry pick their data. :/

[atomic sagebrush]

GL rainbowflower and thank you for all the other studies you have been posting. I am a blue swayer but you really helped me in my decision to go with the FGD. For me it was the opposite of what I ate when I conceived my 2 girls. I did eat less meat than that to be honest with you, but i did drink 3 cups of milk everyday and ate French home made vegetable soups. GL to you in your decision.

Just gotta chime in here again to say that I too drank 3 cups of milk minimum with my DS 1 and 2 and with DS 3 I ate 4 oz. of cheese for lunch most days (I was at work and it was easy), and had either a huge breakfast cereal with milk or a big bowl of full-fat yogurt with blueberries as a bedtime snack every day. With DS 4 I was swaying pink and taking very large doses of cal, mag, Vit. D.

[atomic sagebrush]

I think one of the reasons the vegetarian thing alone wouldn't work is most vegetarians eat a lot of high protein foods. Maybe you could reduce meat gradually, gl!

Thank you, that is a total fact. Not only that but they eat a lot of healthy fats and fruits/veg/whole grains/legumes, all of which sway blue.

I live down the road from a 7th Day Adventist academy and the teachers at that school have SO many girls it's carazy.

[atomic sagebrush]

mis2ninos - me too! how many ladies have already had a BFP after doing the LE diet? I think I've seen at least one?

There really weren't that many people doing it at first...we're only just now getting to a lot of people TTC. Most of the people at the beginning were wanting to stick with the FGD/IG style diets and just encorporating skipping breakfast, etc.

[atomic sagebrush]

How long do we need to be on the LE diet? I know IG's is at least 6 weeks. What do you guys recommend? Thanks!

6 weeks to 90 days - I see you already got some great responses and explanations. I tend to err on the side of 6 weeks rather than 90 days because MOST pink swayers will be doing a lot of other things that will make it hard to get pg, so it may be best to start sooner rather than later in case it takes you 2-3 months to get a BFP.

[rainbowflower]

who is Fiona Matthews and how long do we have to wait? ;)

[atomic sagebrush]

She's the head researcher behind the Oxford study. I really feel sorry for her because she was eviscerated in the media and did not deserve it. :(

[rainbowflower]

that's the media for you... :(