HE diet Question

[TtcBlue18]

So just by reading the general guidelines of the HE diet, I've tried to put together my own eating plan. Since there are personalized swaying plans for purchase, I'm not sure if there are rules against posting an example of a typical day for me so I can get feed back and opinions about whether or not I have the right idea about the HE diet. Is that allowed? May I post an example as a reply to this thread?

[atomic sagebrush]

No not at all! Yes please post, I'd be happy to go over it and it may help others too. :)

[TtcBlue18]

Thank you! Here is what I've come up with.. I made sure to get in at least 11 servings of fruits/vegetables, and spaced them out a little at each meal.

Breakfast:
Cereal (with clusters, raisins,dates and almonds) with whole milk
Banana
Orange juice -no added sugar
I also take vitamins at breakfast (prenatal, folic acid and fish oil)

Lunch:
Salad consisting of spinach leaves, diced tomatoes, shredded carrots, shredded cheddar cheese and 1 hard boiled egg
Almonds
32 oz Lemon water

Snack:
Whole grain toast with organic butter
Apple
Grape juice -no sugar added

Dinner:
Stew made up of red meat, potatoes, carrots, broccoli and mushrooms
32 Oz lemon water

Snack (before bed):
Full fat, plain Greek yogurt with blueberries
Dark chocolate (just a little) with a glass of whole milk

When I put it into my fitness pal, it totaled 2,512 calories and 103 grams of protein.
All opinions/suggestions are welcomed and greatly appreciated!!

[atomic sagebrush]

It's looking great, what about fat???

If you're gaining weight too fast we'll cut back first on the juices and then go from there.

Salad dressing on salad?? If not, please do! The fat in the dressing will help absorb the nutrients.

[TtcBlue18]

Im a little confused... i thought eggs, yougurt, nuts, dark chocolate, cheese and avocados all had healthy fats..

Is any salad dressing good, or is there a "best"?

Also, with always eating protein with carbs (fruits/vegetables), wouldn't that make home made soups, stews, salads, tacos and cheeseburgers an A+ lunch/dinner for boy swayers? As long as it's full fat cheese and whole grain buns?

And I'm so sorry to add in yet another question, but there's a few random foods I was curious about. Do peanutbutter, sour cream and tortillas benefit the HE diet, or are those more of things to limit/avoid?

[atomic sagebrush]

They do, but you gave a tally of cals and protein in your post, was just curious how fat is coming out??

Any salad dressing that YOU like. :)

Yes yes homemade stuff like that is great! I ate tons of homemade soups, casseroles, etc when I got my boys!! Tacos, cheeseburgers, and so on! I ate it all!!

Those things are allowed on HE Diet, absolutely!! Enjoy!

[TtcBlue18]

Oh okay, great!!! With the fat, should I incorporate more?? Or will that happen naturally if I add in some extra stuff like peanutbutter?

[atomic sagebrush]

I don't know since I don't know how much specifically you're eating!!! ;)

The important thing when swaying blue to be aware of is that you need to get MORE than half your fat intake (whatever that may be) from ANIMAL fats not vegetable. For reasons we do not know, mammals who ingest more of veg. based fat in proportion to animal based fats have more girls. So I don't want you to just add in peanut butter willy nilly, only add it in if you're certain already you are getting a good amount of animal fats (butter, sour cream, meat, fish, full fat yogurt or milk)because you don't want to end up getting more veg fats like those in peanut butter. :)

[TtcBlue18]

Oh okay I must have overlooked that part of the diet because I had no idea animal fats were important. Thank you so, so much, Atomic!

So.. an easy way to incorporate more animal fats would be to drink a glass of whole milk every day and add butter or cheese to anything I want?

[maximbella]

Atomic, I somehow missed that as well - I thought it was just fat in general. This makes a lot of sense in my case. I have always eaten a lot of natural fats from avocado, peanut butter, etc., but hardly ever eat red meat, butter, and never full fat dairy (always ate 0% yogurts and skim milk until swaying this cycle). I didn't know about swaying when I conceived, but it makes sense for me since I have 2 DD's!

[atomic sagebrush]

Atomic, I somehow missed that as well - I thought it was just fat in general. This makes a lot of sense in my case. I have always eaten a lot of natural fats from avocado, peanut butter, etc., but hardly ever eat red meat, butter, and never full fat dairy (always ate 0% yogurts and skim milk until swaying this cycle). I didn't know about swaying when I conceived, but it makes sense for me since I have 2 DD's!

It's one of those things that is SO complicated I tend to gloss over it since most people are doing that simply by default as a result of the two diets but yes, a fair number of animal studies have indicated that it may make a difference.

[TtcBlue18]

Okay so I will skip my revised version (unless you would like for me to post it?) But my totals are now... 2,284 calories, 105 protein, 9.5 fruits/veggies, 71.3 animal fat and 13.7 vegetable fat, with protein and carbs at every meal. Potassium is over 3k and sodium is about 2,600.. all other nutrients are off the chart in comparison to my "my fitness" goals. 3 meals, 2 snacks (1 at bedtime).. Am I forgetting anything?? Just want to double check because as long as my cycles stay regular, my first attempt to conceive will be approximately 6 weeks from tomorrow!

[ELP]

Just a quick note on the potassium and sodium, don't worry about feeling the need to get to a certain goal with them, they are more to do with old studies which I'm pretty sure have been disproven to sway, so whatever they turn out like with your diet is fine. Your meal plan looks great! :) Good luck for 6 weeks time, we have a blue chat thread if you want to sat Hi and speak to the other blue ladies who are attempting and getting ready to attempt soon :) Should be in my signature!!

[Jconger]

It's one of those things that is SO complicated I tend to gloss over it since most people are doing that simply by default as a result of the two diets but yes, a fair number of animal studies have indicated that it may make a difference.

Is red meat a really big deal? I thought it was just overall calories and gaining weight. I really focused just on eating more and seeing the scale grow as I lifted weights. I still did leaner meats due to my acid reflux. Only did red meat about once a week... too late now, but this has be questioning. Hopefully I did enough with everything else.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[atomic sagebrush]

Looks great to me TTCBlue18! Keep up the good work! Doing weights???

[atomic sagebrush]

Is red meat a really big deal? I thought it was just overall calories and gaining weight. I really focused just on eating more and seeing the scale grow as I lifted weights. I still did leaner meats due to my acid reflux. Only did red meat about once a week... too late now, but this has be questioning. Hopefully I did enough with everything else.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No, you can totally get boys eating just poultry and fish. A small minority of people refuse to take prenatals or multivitamins (due to the old-school sway advice) and for them, it ~may~ be better to do some red meat but it's ok not to. I got at least one of my boys without eating red meat.

[Jconger]

Ok good lol! Thank you


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TtcBlue18]

Looks great to me TTCBlue18! Keep up the good work! Doing weights???

Well I'm a stay at home mom and the gym doesn't allow children.. But I do lay on my back and do "airplane" with both my girls a couple times a day. I thought that was better than nothing lol..

[atomic sagebrush]

Yep! NO need for a gym membership, I've always worked out at home and gotten boys doing so. :)

[TtcBlue18]

I don't know why I haven't thought to ask this before, but when on the HE diet, should I stick to fresh fruits and vegetables or are canned just as good?
Many of the articles I'm reading are saying canned vegetables and fruit have equal or possibly more nutritional content because the nutrients are locked in while fresh fruits and vegetables nutrients can diminish quickly in the shipping process or during its shelf life...

[atomic sagebrush]

I prefer fresh for a couple of reasons. Firstly because the type of veg that are sold in cans tend to be lower nutrient just by their nature than the kind sold fresh. Corn/maize, green beans, those are not super healthy and nutritious. Things like broccoli, squash, dark leafy greens are not generally sold canned (well, spinach is I suppose) and yet they're quite healthy. Tomatoes on the other hand are actually even better canned because the lycopene works better after cooking.
Canned veg also tend to be carbier because they're cooked within an inch of their lives, and cooked veg can be more sugary. Carrots and beets are nutritious but again, they become quite sugary when cooked. I'd rather see you "spend" that same amount of calories on juice since that is often way more concentrated than a serving of veg.

So it's a combination of that you're going to end up passing up on things that are better, in favor of something that may make you gain weight faster. This doesn't mean you can never have them or should never have them, but eating 9 servings of canned corn and canned green beans is not going to have the same benefits for your sway as having 9 other different fruit and veg all colors of the rainbow and also some juice in there if you can.

A sway NEVER comes down to the difference in nutrients between fresh and canned veg though. Just not the kind of thing that really matters that awfully much - just by taking a prenatal or multivitamin you're more than making that up and then some!!

[TtcBlue18]

What about canned soups? I see on other sites they recommend canned soups for blue swayers (for sodium I think?) But I have found out (since joining this site) that high sodium is not necessary. So the part I'm curious about is...
Are canned soups nice to incorporate in the HE diet since they have high amounts of other nutrients, like vitamin A, potassium, etc? I use my fitness pal to track nutrition and I like to make sure all my vitamins are off the chart (except protein, I'm happy as long as it's between 90 and 120) and I often find that certain soups will help me catch up on a vitamin or two that I'm low on for the day. Is this a good idea, or is there any reason this may be doing more harm than good? Sodium is always around 3500, so not too excessively high.

[atomic sagebrush]

NO, they are not at all necessary. Of all the baby boys ever born, the vast majority was NOT to women slurping Campbell's by the gallon! :)

Now, it's fine if you want to eat them, I had them now and then since I like the Campbell's veg soup and have eaten that since I was like 5 years old. But don't treat them as a food that is really swaying in and of itself - it's an easy way to round out a nice lunch or something but remember, they don't all have much protein in them. I sprinkle cheese in my veg soup (it's better than it sounds) or the bean and bacon kind does have some protein. :)

[TtcBlue18]

Oh of course I realize they are not to be treated as some magic swaying food just because someone suggested it. However, I do find myself eating caneed soup almost daily now. At the end of the day, when I look at my overall nutrition, it's very easy to check the cabinet and pick out a soup that has a high amount of whatever vitamin I may be lacking for the day. I just wanted to make sure eating canned soup fairly regularly wouldn't sabotage my sway for any reason..

[atomic sagebrush]

I completely understood that you got that, I sometimes have to answer questions with the lurkers in mind, the people who show up on this site for a day or two and read only a few posts or else find this question via a Google search. So sometimes I give too much info for the original poster but it's just because I want every thread to be as packed full of info as I can for the benefit of whoever may be reading them. :)

Canned soup is fine as a part of a balanced diet. :)

[TtcBlue18]

Right, you're the best! :)