Diet and Exercise, 8 weeks or 12?

[carmella_marie]

We are still on the fence about swaying again, but if we do here is what I am thinking:

1. PCOS Diet, skipping breakfast, no snacking

2. 60 minutes cardio daily (thinking about getting a step aerobics DVD from the library and a step off amazon, they're cheap and I can do it at home when the kids are asleep)

3. Daily alcohol in the form of a vodka shot before bed and two buck chuck white wine from Trader Joe's

4. Folate as the only supplement. No clomid, aspirin, zyrtec, vitex, etc.

5. One attempt at +OPK with compressed FR. but will probably also do every 4 days just to be sure as OPK's aren't always reliable for me (this will reduce my stress over the OPK issue)

I only have one concern: I'm not sure how long I should do these tactics prior to attempt. I know 12 weeks on the diet has kind of become the "gold standard," but I am currently at 115 lbs, and I know from prior sway attempts that my ovulation will get messed up if I get to 110 lbs as my BMI will be too low, so I don't have a lot of weight to lose. I have already lost 55 pregnancy pounds slowly over the last 10 months, I also just stopped nursing my daughter and I'd like some of the effects of BFing to help me get pink too. So I am thinking only do diet and exercise 8-10 weeks. Thoughts?

[carmella_marie]

I am also going to have blood work done for my thyroid soon. I get it done every 6 months or so to make sure my levels are in the normal range before my doc will give me a new rx for the next 6 months. I really think that my hypothyroidism contributed to my conceiving boys, atomic have you seen any science or anecdotal evidence to back this up? I will feel better knowing my thyroid levels are in normal range before I sway.

[Girlieplease]

Really interesting, I have a girl and two boys, I developed my thyroid problem after I had dd and before I had the boys, if hypo sways blue, I there any chance of a girl? Currently in the 2 ww, nervous about everything, just another thing to be concerned about, life is rarely straightforward! Following with interest x

[carmella_marie]

I had undiagnosed hypothyroidism for years. I would go into a doc and they wouldn't believe me but I felt so tired and yucky. They would test my TSH and say it;s normal so you're fine. I had 2 boys during this time. I finally got a doc who tested my T3 and T4 and diagnosed my hypothyroidism. My TSH was normal but my T3 and T4 will too low.

I got on medication and got my T3 and T4 numbers to the upper half of the normal range and conceived a daughter a little over a year later! I think (and I could be totally wrong here) it has less to do with whether or not you have a thyroid disorder and more to do with where your thyroid levels are. I want to make sure my T3 and T4 are in the upper 50% of the normal range because that's where they were when I got my girl. They were below normal with both my boys.

I am wondering if thyroid sways indirectly: for example When I was hypothyroid I gained weight easily and that could have swayed boy, KWIM?

[mandyp85]

We are still on the fence about swaying again, but if we do here is what I am thinking:

1. PCOS Diet, skipping breakfast, no snacking

2. 60 minutes cardio daily (thinking about getting a step aerobics DVD from the library and a step off amazon, they're cheap and I can do it at home when the kids are asleep)

3. Daily alcohol in the form of a vodka shot before bed and two buck chuck white wine from Trader Joe's

4. Folate as the only supplement. No clomid, aspirin, zyrtec, vitex, etc.

5. One attempt at +OPK with compressed FR. but will probably also do every 4 days just to be sure as OPK's aren't always reliable for me (this will reduce my stress over the OPK issue)

I only have one concern: I'm not sure how long I should do these tactics prior to attempt. I know 12 weeks on the diet has kind of become the "gold standard," but I am currently at 115 lbs, and I know from prior sway attempts that my ovulation will get messed up if I get to 110 lbs as my BMI will be too low, so I don't have a lot of weight to lose. I have already lost 55 pregnancy pounds slowly over the last 10 months, I also just stopped nursing my daughter and I'd like some of the effects of BFing to help me get pink too. So I am thinking only do diet and exercise 8-10 weeks. Thoughts?

I hope you don't mind me asking but have you got meal ideas that you would mind sharing with me? I am going the pcos route and I was having a little trouble getting my head around the best foods to eat, I don't really want anything too complicated as I just don't have the time and want to keep it as simple as possible, it would just be nice to have a little food advice from someone who has got a girl on that diet :-) thanks :-)

[carmella_marie]

A few of my favorite PCOS meals:

baked potato with a little butter, sour cream and salsa
egg whites scrambled in 2 corn tortillas with salsa
cream cheese and cucumber sandwich on wholegrain bread
brown rice pasta with spaghetti sauce
cucumber and corn sautéd in a little butter in corn tortillas with canned green chilis.
Big iceberg salad with lots of cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, and some raisins and sunflower seeds to up cals
Hummus on rye crisps or dip carrots and celery into it
peanut butter sandwich (one slice of bread and easy on the PB)
I also ate a lot of apples and bananas. i would cook sliced apple with a little butter and cinnamon and it was like apple pie!
Cooked Spaghetti squash with lemon juice, capers and diced tomatoes

[ABC.2606]

Oooh great meal ideas, Carmella - thanks! I'll be starting the PCOS diet too in a few months from now & need ideas!!

[mandyp85]

A few of my favorite PCOS meals:

baked potato with a little butter, sour cream and salsa
egg whites scrambled in 2 corn tortillas with salsa
cream cheese and cucumber sandwich on wholegrain bread
brown rice pasta with spaghetti sauce
cucumber and corn sautéd in a little butter in corn tortillas with canned green chilis.
Big iceberg salad with lots of cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, and some raisins and sunflower seeds to up cals
Hummus on rye crisps or dip carrots and celery into it
peanut butter sandwich (one slice of bread and easy on the PB)
I also ate a lot of apples and bananas. i would cook sliced apple with a little butter and cinnamon and it was like apple pie!
Cooked Spaghetti squash with lemon juice, capers and diced tomatoes

Thank you very much for that, I am eating along similar lines to that so I'm happy, just trying to keep protein and fat at pco levels seems to be a challenge for me at the moment. How many times a day would you eat? I generally stick to just twice a day as it works well for me.

[carmella_marie]

I do lunch and a late dinner. If I have an earlier dinner I might do a snack late at night before bed.

[atomic sagebrush]

Hey, check out Popsugar fitness on Youtube, it's free and they have a lot of fun workouts on there. Some use weights but there are some straight dancy ones too.

Clarify for me "compressed FR" because I am not convinced anyone really knows what this is except me LOL I do want to point out that the ONLY reason I believe that has any better results than any other frequency pattern is just a fluke of statistics. I"m not at all sure it's worth the trouble to do it and it does really cut odds of conception.

Re diet - just do a very relaxed, vegetarian diet instead for part of that time. Don't lose weight during that time. REmember, there is no magic to LE Diet in and of itself, it's jsut that people wanted A DIET to follow. It's absolutely fine to just do a more relaxed form of LE - vegetarian, more protein and fat from vegetable sources, lower protein and fat, but without cutting calories. If you want to TTC more like 8-10 weeks that is fine!! It's really just the folks who did diet 2-4 weeks that did not see results with it.

[atomic sagebrush]

re thyroid - while I do not yet have the data I'd like to in order to prove all this, there is a known correlation with thyroid and PCOS, and PCO-tendencies DO sway blue as we know, so I believe any link between thyroid issues and more boys conceived to be a connection with the PCO tendencies and not the thyroid in and of itself. :)

[atomic sagebrush]

number of times to eat - do what works better for you. Both 2 and 3 times are both equally allowed. I always did 3, first meal at around 10-11 (I'd get up very early tho) then around 4-5-6 and then a bedtime snack. Others prefer 2 meals a day but I'd die on that haha. I even have people go up to 4 meals a day if they need to. IT is still WAYYYY different

What I want everyone to remember is that there is NO magic to eating twice a day or eating a certian number of calories for a certain number of weeks - it is not any of those things that sway. It's that signal you send to your body that matters. So please don't get so focused on X number of meals or weeks on diet that you end up a slave to the system instead of the system working for you. You can still get a girl eating 4 times a day and with 6 weeks on diet, the importnat thing is that you're eating pinker than you WERE even if you never make it into the LE Diet limits.

[carmella_marie]

Hey, check out Popsugar fitness on Youtube, it's free and they have a lot of fun workouts on there. Some use weights but there are some straight dancy ones too.

Clarify for me "compressed FR" because I am not convinced anyone really knows what this is except me LOL I do want to point out that the ONLY reason I believe that has any better results than any other frequency pattern is just a fluke of statistics. I"m not at all sure it's worth the trouble to do it and it does really cut odds of conception.

Re diet - just do a very relaxed, vegetarian diet instead for part of that time. Don't lose weight during that time. REmember, there is no magic to LE Diet in and of itself, it's jsut that people wanted A DIET to follow. It's absolutely fine to just do a more relaxed form of LE - vegetarian, more protein and fat from vegetable sources, lower protein and fat, but without cutting calories. If you want to TTC more like 8-10 weeks that is fine!! It's really just the folks who did diet 2-4 weeks that did not see results with it.

For "compressed frequent release" when we got my daughter I had my hubby release outside me and then did our attempt (one attempt at +OPK) basically right after, with less than 30 minutes between the 2. He also had released that morning and the night before (all outside me) we are young and fertile LOL. True FR for 7-10 days is too stressful for us and I don't think it's worth the hassle. I don't know if this CFR helped much in getting our girl but my husband claims he feels like there's "less" when we did it that way.

Diet: I said PCOS diet because I am more following the PCOS diet more than traditional LE diet: eating some full fat dairy, egg whites, and always whole grain bread, but not being crazy about it. I am avoiding all the sugary junk food a lot of people do on LE diet--I did that when I got my son and I felt terrible on that diet as I think I have PCOS tendencies. But I am not being strict about it, just trying to be mostly vegetarian and do 2 meals and fasting in between. Not really counting cals but just watching the scale instead.

[carmella_marie]

re thyroid - while I do not yet have the data I'd like to in order to prove all this, there is a known correlation with thyroid and PCOS, and PCO-tendencies DO sway blue as we know, so I believe any link between thyroid issues and more boys conceived to be a connection with the PCO tendencies and not the thyroid in and of itself. :)

Very interesting!

[atomic sagebrush]

For "compressed frequent release" when we got my daughter I had my hubby release outside me and then did our attempt (one attempt at +OPK) basically right after, with less than 30 minutes between the 2. He also had released that morning and the night before (all outside me) we are young and fertile LOL. True FR for 7-10 days is too stressful for us and I don't think it's worth the hassle. I don't know if this CFR helped much in getting our girl but my husband claims he feels like there's "less" when we did it that way.

Diet: I said PCOS diet because I am more following the PCOS diet more than traditional LE diet: eating some full fat dairy, egg whites, and always whole grain bread, but not being crazy about it. I am avoiding all the sugary junk food a lot of people do on LE diet--I did that when I got my son and I felt terrible on that diet as I think I have PCOS tendencies. But I am not being strict about it, just trying to be mostly vegetarian and do 2 meals and fasting in between. Not really counting cals but just watching the scale instead.

Ok that's hurry up FR, not compressed. Plus a little extra :agree: Compressed FR is supposed to be 2-3 releases 2-3 days in a row before one attempt and that one attempt should be second batch of day and NOT a hurry up FR.

I agree with what you're doing on diet. My point is that if you are scared of losing too much weight (which is a very real risk on PCO-type diet otherwise I'd use them for everyone!) then the solution is for part of that time, to do a more relaxed version of diet where you focus more on just going vegetarian and not as much on the limits and stuff. :)

[carmella_marie]

Ok that's hurry up FR, not compressed. Plus a little extra :agree: Compressed FR is supposed to be 2-3 releases 2-3 days in a row before one attempt and that one attempt should be second batch of day and NOT a hurry up FR.

I agree with what you're doing on diet. My point is that if you are scared of losing too much weight (which is a very real risk on PCO-type diet otherwise I'd use them for everyone!) then the solution is for part of that time, to do a more relaxed version of diet where you focus more on just going vegetarian and not as much on the limits and stuff. :)

hurry up FR, gotcha. Well it worked! :)

[atomic sagebrush]

THe hurry up FR of all the patterns is really a nice, easy one to do. :agree:

[carmella_marie]

Ugh.
SO I got my period today. I thought I had a few more weeks since my cycles used to be long (40-50 days) but this last month was 28 days exactly.
I have only been on the diet 1 week and just started cardio today.
If my cycles continue to be 28 days that means I can attempt in 6 weeks but that would only give me 7 weeks on diet and 6 weeks of cardio. I could wait another cycle so I'd be 11 weeks on diet and 10 weeks of cardio...
But I really dislike the diet and cardio, and I know I'll start to cheat. Would it be better to do 6-7 weeks very strict or 10-12 weeks swaying more relaxed?

[atomic sagebrush]

I do not have the data to say for sure, I'm sorry.

What I DO know is that most of the 12 week + ladies (and esp. the ones who'd been on 20 weeks or more) were more relaxed over time and still got girls.

[carmella_marie]

thanks atomic!