Help please! I'm panicking :(

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting. I sent Atomic a message but it's the middle of the night where she is (I'm in Australia) so I thought I would put it here in case anyone had advice.

Day 20 and still negative OPK and it's made me go into a bit of a negative spiral. I had to explain to DH that we want my body to think it's hard times, but maybe it thinks the times are too hard and that's why I'm not ovulating. This got him worried that maybe something I'm doing is risking the quality of my eggs and could harm our future child. This then got me worried and now I'm questioning everything I've done. The only concern really is that I might not have got enough fat, because I have had a regular amount of vegetables and fruit for most of the time, cutting them down in the last couple of weeks. I have never counted calories or fat at all so just tried to avoid it as much as possible. Also had psyllium or chitosan with every meal.

I am thinking of cancelling my sway for this month. What do you think about trying next month and trying to have higher fat for the next month? Am I being crazy? I am 36 so am wondering if it's been really silly taking any risks with fat. Or am I over-estimating the importance of fat??

Here's a run down on my diet for the last 12 weeks. (sorry it's not exact- didn't count calories or anything at all) Do you think it's too low fat?

For maybe ten weeks I had three meals a day, last 2 weeks I have only had lunch and dinner. (only had one of each item for each meal obviously)

breakfast (at 11 or 12 )
-rice bubbles (rice krispies) with rice milk 2 or 3 bowls. (only had these for the first six weeks bc I didn't realise how fortified these were)
- fresh raspberries and a grated apple with cinnamon
-apple pocket (fresh or tinned apple in low fat pizza dough or lebanese type wrap bread that is 1.3% fat)

lunch
-dense low fat rye bread- 2 or 3 slices
-home made dense low fat cinnamon raisin bread- 2 or 3 slices
-apple pocket
-corn thins (like rice cakes but made of corn) maybe 100 grams of them and they are 3% fat. With fat free tzaziki or salsa (occasionally low fat cottage cheese)
-fruit, either 3 nectarines or a bowl of cherries

dinner
-low fat curry (maybe 3% fat or something? only had a few tablespoons of oil) w white rice and pumpkin and broccoli
-low fat pizza w pumpkin, basil, tomato sauce and only a small bit of bocconcini cheese
-apple pocket or two
1st 9 weeks- 1 egg a week (don't think I've had eggs in the last 3 weeks)


occasional- low fat rice pudding, diet choc mousse, occasional 'cheat' while eating out, maybe once a week (but nothing really high in fat)
No nuts, no avocado, no cheese.
Have had aspartame only in the last ten days or so, two servings a day.

Thank you so much for any advice

Hi Wednesdays Girl,

To me that seems to be very low in fat, like under 20g of fat. With the LE diet aim for 50-60g of fat. Eating that low in fat your calories must be very low too.

this propably has convinced your body that times are too bad to even try and get pregnant.

I hope atomic or one of the more experienced swayer can give you some sound advice on how to proceed.

Can you try using My Fitness Pal to input what you have been eating to get an idea of what the total amounts of fat are on average? You can use the website or the App depending on what it easier. I find it really useful for counting my calories and also keeping track of the fat/protein amounts too.

Have you lost a lot of weight?

Thanks guys, I appreciate you taking the time to reply. The funny thing is in my normal life I am such a fan of healthy fats! (Hmm maybe why I have two sons) And I really didn't want to get into the mentality of counting calories and fat because I thought that would make me feel a bit stressed and get a bit obsessive, so I thought it would just be easier to not have much fat and just assumed there would be enough incidental fat in bread and stuff. But yes, I think you're right- it's too low. I'm annoyed at myself now bc I was feeling really ready to be done with swaying! I have lost 6 kg over 12 weeks, but I eat plenty and am almost never hungry. Thanks for the tip on the app, I will have to bite the bullet and start counting. Even if I just do all the counting once (I tend to eat the same foods all the time) so I won't have to count every day. I worry that it would stress me out- not good for my pink vibes! Anyway I feel a bit silly but thanks for your support :)

I tend to just count for a few days or a week to get the idea of what is ok and then not do it as much. I tend to get a bit obsessive about things so I understand not wanting to do it all the time! I am trying not to get too focused on TTC and swaying but it is hard not to!

You probably want to slow down the weight loss as if it take a while to conceive you may run out of weight to lose. I recently lost 5kg in 12 weeks (with a different diet) but now I'm aiming for just 1kg a month as I'm already in the healthy weight range. It depends on how much you have available to lose though.

Thanks Purple :) Yeah I am down to the lowest weight I can be now so will have to keep an eye on it.

Hi Wednesday.. Just curious.. Is this your first month using opk tests? I find them pretty tricky. Do you monitor other signs for ovulation like cervical fluid or temperature? The first month I used opk tests I never had a positive. I'm still trying to get them right. I know I ovulate by my other signs though..


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I have only used them once before- last month and I got a positive on day 18. I tried tracking temp a few years ago when I was about to conceive my last child, but never noticed a pattern. Before I was swaying I had lots of EWCM but now I'm swaying I don't so I don't think I can tell that way.

Day 20 is still early and you could definitely still O. I wouldn't worry yet at all.

Your diet seems to me to be VERY low in fat if that's what you're eating everyday. You really really need some fat. It wouldn't hurt to count calories, at least roughly either, so assure you that you're not overeating since fat is pretty high cal.

At 36 you might want to consider Atomic's fertility version of the LE diet, but even on the regular LE diet you can't go too low fat! Put some full fat dairy, eggs, cheese back in there. Your body needs fat to be fertile.

I second the rec for My Fitness Pal, plug in what you're eating (don't bother counting the low starch veg) and see what you get for macros. Without actual numbers you're just panicking over an unknown right now. When you actually know then you can adjust.

Also, one wonky or anovulatory month doesn't mean much by itself. Even perfectly normal fertile young women can expect an anovulatory cycle once a year.

Without knowing portions it's hard to say, but you could be a bit too low in fat. However, if you eat enough cals your body will make its own fat. Swaying is well known for delaying O plus you don't know when you were Oing before. I would NOT jump to assume that you won't O. You still have time.

If you don't want to count cals etc, the meal plan sounds ideal for you.

I wouldn't worry about harming egg quality, a couple months eating low fat won't do that. I'd definitely attempt this month!

thanks for all the great responses, already replied in Custom Forum!

Thanks everyone. I have asked Atomic this in the custom forum but since I probably won't hear from Atomic for 24hrs I might put it here too. I am trying to figure out if I should have an attempt this month if I get a positive OPK. I'm happy to wait til next month if that makes more sense, but then while researching I found this article that says 'the timing that you can affect your egg health is between 90 days and 20 days before ovulation.' So if that's true then whatever I do from now (eating more fat) won't have very much of an affect on my next egg (if my next ovulation is about 28 days away)

Ugh wish I didn't stuff up this sway so I wouldn't have to drive myself nuts overthinking this stuff!


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I third myfitnesspal. Thats the only way i am managing to stick to the LE diet lol. I plug in ideas on what i will eat for meals for the day and adjust accordingly

I just wanted to share the reply I posted to WG in her private forum because I know some people worry about this:

There is a lot of info on line about "improving egg quality" but the fact is that most everyone's egg quality is 98% affected by age and genetics and that is all. Please do not feel like you need to do anything or take anything to "improve egg quality" because what happens is, (with the exception of those going high tech who need to be able to make 30 eggs all at once) your body stops ovulation LONG before your diet really truly affects egg quality negatively. We are talking about people in famines or anorexic for years, not a slightly lower than ideal fat intake for a few months. We need to get you ovulating again. THAT is our goal here. Do not start to stress or obsess over egg quality because your body can and does make one healthy egg per month even on a less than ideal diet.

Put this out of your mind. Don't sit there doing complicated math equations and so on. Your egg quality is fine. Your body has stores of fat it uses to make eggs with and it can manufacture fats too. Eggs are miniscule, it doesn't take much. Your diet has affected your body's "desire" to ovulate because it's "worried" that you don't have enough nutrients coming in. That is what we need to concern ourselves with and I don't want you to get off on this tangent.