Kristin a few questions for you

[Coccinelle33]

Is there any real link to more girls being conceived when their mothers have a high calcium/magnesium diet or was the only study the French one on cows years ago?

Also is it better to stay the same weight and always just eat a lower amount or to eat a normal amount and then the week before ovulation and after to eat hardly nothing and actually lose a few pounds?

Last one... Salt... Do you have any links on why this sways boy and do you feel that it really does? Do sperm act any different when my is eating a lot of salt or something?

Thanks!!

[TTC5]

Hope you don't mind me popping in BUT this is my experience and I have 4 girls.

All my girls have been conceived after a period of time (few weeks at least) of intense cardio and drastic weight loss/muscle loss (I never did any weight training). Two of those times I went on a shake diet and BAM pregnant with a girl TWICE 15 months apart haha (there is a joke at the local supplier of these shakes between us that these shakes make me pregnant lol).

As for the calcium, I actually think more calcium = boys. I was always on diet/skim food that was low nutrient and definately very little calcium intake.

Salt - never added it and went for No added salt foods!

For me, I think I got my girls because my body was in famine mode and the boys would have had less chance of growing and surviving in this environment.. the girls are just a bit stronger ;)

[atomic sagebrush]

1) There are a couple studies done in rats that did seem to find high calcium = more females, but also studies that found that high sodium = more females, and also one that found that high sod with high calcium = more males. There is also the Dutch study and the studies done by the FGD people on human diets. The problem with the human studies is that the diets are not only different in mineral content, but are different in a lot of other ways (as in, leaving out red meat) and it's basically impossible to pinpoint one factor out of the differences and say, "this is the one thing that's causing a difference". Like, we also have seen that vegetarians as a general rule have more daughters than statistics can explain (tho I know that's not true for you personally) and the FGD people would claim that it is because they have higher calcium intake but that is totally unproven supposition. I believe that the FGD people cherry picked out cultures where the diets fit their claims and then ignored cultures that didn't, and used those cases to make their case.

I personally do not believe that high cal/mag is necessary or even desirable for TTC a girl because if that was true, cultures and countries that had high dairy intake like the Scandinavian countries would have more daughters and African countries where people eat very little dairy and in fact have a genetic profile that makes them retain higher levels of sodium in their bodies, would have more sons, and the exact opposite is true.

2)RE weight loss and timing it - we don't know. I think it's best to do the doable for yourself and your lifestyle above all. So if it's easier for you to do one thing over another, that's what you should do. in the long term it seems best to me to stay at the same weight, but if you're only going to sway for 3 months, losing weight might help.

3)I am doubting salt even more than I doubt cal/mag because people and all mammals have an almost unlimited taste for salt (earliest salt mines dating back to 6000 BC) and yet the gender ratio stays right at 50-50 and always has. People of African descent have a genetic predisposition to retaining sodium and yet have more daughters than people without this genetic predisposition. Also, high sodium intake causes the body to excrete a lot of potassium, so the FGD claim of high sodium and high potassium cannot both be true. Finally, high sodium intake may actually HARM sperm and overall fertility in both man and wife.

The idea with sperm carrying different electrical charges has been debunked http://genderdreaming.com/forum/showthread.php?1562-What-are-the-REAL-differences-between-X-sperm-and-Y-sperm

[Coccinelle33]

I am great with not eating protein because im not a big fan of cheese or milk and as you know don't eat meat anyway... i do eat soy and thats not a problem not eating. i hate breakfast foods so skipping is really easy now. i just drink a big glass of peppermint tea. i've lost 3 pounds this month and i really don't "need" to lose weight and even now that i've already ovulated and not skipping breakfast and having snacks i've stayed the same weight (not gaining it back)... around ovulation im eating very little. mainly just drinking and eating 1 or 2 small meals or 1 meal and 1 snack like salt free pretzels. i don't add salt to anything BUT i have a problem cutting out foods like chips, pizza, fries, tacos (usually soft tacos with sauce, lettuce, and green peppers), soup, and jalapeno poppers... which are not all very nutritious and not very fattening if it's 1 meal and im starving the rest of the day but the salt content is pretty high ya know? so do you think i need to cut this out of do you think that eating so little will sway girl either way anyway?

[atomic sagebrush]

I think it will sway girl either way, but you have to do what you can live with...some people have major regret if they do things in an unorthodox fashion and then get an opposite. But of course there are tons of people who did everything by the book and still had opposites.

[Coccinelle33]

yeah i think i will just try and eat those things less often but not cut them out... there's really just not much that i like or can eat. it's been hard. ttc so long is stressful also. it's so hard to know what's right and wrong when everything is so conflicting. is there some where to go on here that has a list of foods that sway pink that we can eat all the time? or is everything really ok as long as a low protein, low fat, low calorie, and low nutrient diet is followed? has there been any study done on how long this should go on? in one study i read that moms who;s diet was "low" and ate less had more girls but it was saying around ovulation... i wonder if thats good enough or not?