After 16 months of swaying...

…I’m back! And very sorry I went MIA last year :( I had a huge fight with DH who decided he absolutely did not want another kid (we have a special needs son already) and then found out that 2 of my postings here never materialized (?? couldn’t find them anyway) and got extremely frustrated and just dropped everything right there and then… My apologies!
In late summer of 2017, however, I decided to start swaying again, just to be ready in case DH would come around at some point. And 16 months later… here we are! Had our first attempt a few days ago and I guess I’m officially in the 2WW now! :running:

Because 16 months of swaying (and experimenting a lot along the way) allowed me to gain a lot of experience, I really want to share with you what I’ve learned. But first, I would like to give you a quick overview of what I’ve been doing and ask a few questions, then I’ll be posting my insights in a different thread, which is going to be loooong LOL.

I seem to have pretty strong PCOS tendencies (cystic acne for 25 years, BMI of 22 but a good deal of abdominal fat, bad reactive hypoglycemia / postprandial syndrome which is indicative of insulin resistance - regular menstrual cycles though). So I switched to the LE PCOS diet and that is what I have been doing for about 16 months now.

Here’s what I'm doing…
• LE PCOS diet (60grams of fat, 50grams of protein, about 1600-1900kcals / day), cut out 95% of all added sugars
• cinnamon in my coffee, 2-3 cups of coffee/day
• peppermint tea CD1-14
• 1 gram of Inositol in the morning (only for the past 10 weeks), magnesium, folate
• 1 shot of Vodka/day (only for the past 10 weeks)
• overnight fast of 12-14 hours
• no snacking, juices, dried fruits, very little nuts and fried foods, replaced oat milk with soy milk, butter with margarine
• for the attempt we had recently: 3 day cutoff, Acijel, J&D after about 10 mins (I had huge amounts of EWCM and that was my guide for the attempt, ended up ovulating 3 days after the attempt though… bummer)

Because I’ll be 39 in a few months and DH is almost 50, I’m pretty sure the cutoff, Acijel, and J&D reduced our odds of conception to zero, so I’m expecting a BFN this time (would very much welcome success stories with a 3 day cutoff though!!). Next cycle, we’ll skip the Acijel and the J&D and I’ll try to make peace with my OPKs so we can BD closer to O (bought a brand I can’t wrap my head around yet LOL).

What I eat in a day is:
• after a fast of 12-14 hours - coffee, then breakfast: 3-4 small slices of wholegrain bread with some margarine, some whole fat cheese OR deli meat (½-1 serving) OR 2-3 ts of jam, sometimes an orange or some free veg
• lunch: potatoes + free veg or starchy veg like peas or carrots, homecooked & low fat
• on most days, a green smoothie to hold me over and add some cals (made from scratch, only leafy greens and 1 piece of fresh fruit, no “superfoods” like seaweed, nut butters etc.)
• dinner: classic low-carb dinner, like chili with lots of free veg + some extra lean beef (and no beans!), or a green salad + chicken, or chicken soup… maybe starchy veg like carrots or sweet potatoes, but no grain based sides like bread or pasta; all home-cooked

This basic principle - wholegrain bread for breakfast, potatoes + veg for lunch, (very little) meat + veg for dinner - is what I like best and could actually do for the rest of my life. And I think I might have to, given my PCOS tendencies! All in all, I have cut back on bread and dairy in a major way and get my carbs from healthier sources (fruit and veg).

What this diet has done for me is incredible. I lost 13 lbs and most of the abdominal fat. My skin cleared up like never before, and my eczema is gone too. I have so much more energy. My luteal phase went from 10 days to 13 days and I generally feel more hormonally balanced. In most cycles, I even O earlier (day 14) than before (day 17), and I have more EWCM.

My questions are…

1. If the LE PCOS diet + exercise makes me ovulate earlier and with lots of EWCM and just seems to be such a huge improvement health-wise, doesn’t that mean I’m getting “too healthy” for pink instead of lowering my fertility? Could my new lifestyle be too good for my fertility, thus swaying blue? Or should I just trust the diet and its limits on fat, protein, and cals? And, on the same note: Have I been swaying for TOO long? Could it be that my body just likes this lifestyle AND adjusted to it so there’s no sway effect in it any longer?

2. How bad is cheating with sugar on the LE PCOS diet really - when you don’t have full blown PCOS, but strong tendencies? I cheated a lot recently, had chocolate bars or cookies about 5-6 times in the past 6 weeks (Christmas season!!!) and occasionally a (very) small amount of jam for breakfast. Can that alone endanger my sway, or could I afford it if, for instance, I add in more exercise?

3. Right now I don’t exercise but I’m very active with my toddler, walking briskly for 1.5-4 hours a day on most days of the week. I would however like to add in the “real” exercise, but I would need more calories to do that (can’t lose any more weight, I’m already down to a BMI of 19.5). Should I up carbs or fat or both?

4. DH thinks swaying is ridiculous and he certainly won’t help. He’s very muscular, lifts weights daily, eats Paleo (only free veg, nuts and meat, NO exeptions) and takes supps like zinc and vit D. What is the current take on DH’s influence on baby’s gender? I’m kinda worried because I know two very ambitious, influential Type A women in upper management positions with 3 daughters between them and no boys - both have very mellow house husbands… :/ Makes me wonder if I have a chance at all…

I'm sorry, this is a long post! I very much appreciate all input and if you, Atomic, could point me in the right direction, that would encourage me big time! Thank you so much in advance!

Yes can you please bump this for me?? It's a little long and I've been working for several hours, would like to go at this thread fresh! Thanks!

Best of luck

Agh I clicked this again when it's really late - please bump for me!

Thank you, Princess Mom! Wow, 2 sons and 2 daughters, you ARE blessed!! :awe: I'll be lucky if I get ONE of each! Would love to have more, but DH isn't up for it. It was hard enough to convince him to try for a 2nd :)

Yes, I'll bump it in a few days, thank you so much! And Happy New Year :)

Bump! :) I'm sorry I'm pestering you, Atomic! Hope it's not too early to bump, but I realized that I have only 2.5 weeks left till my next attempt and I so, so want to have the best sway I can... :/ Thank you so much for your willingness to reply and go over my questions! I’m wishing you and yours a blissful, successful, joyous 2019, and, above all, good health always! And the same to all fellow swayers on here, Happy New Year and may you all get healthy babies of your desired gender :)

In the interest of full disclosure, I think I'm pregnant already, but in case I'm not, here it goes... the short version of my questions, to make it easier for you :) :

a) After 16 months on the LE PCOS diet (had pretty bad IR) I feel brilliant - a lot healthier and with more regular cycles, more EWCM etc. Isn't that a bad sign? Shouldn't I bring down my fertility???
The thing is, there is no bringing down my fertility. It's invincible. I’m a recovered anorexic (sways blue :() and nothing has EVER made me not ovulate (sways even more blue) or even just delayed ovulation by more than 2 days. As a teen, a BMI of 18 and a diet of 400 calories/day never disturbed my menstrual cycle. 2-4 hours of cardio everyday never stopped my ovulation. Peppermint tea, fasting and what not... still ovulated every month. (Only time I stopped ovulating was when I took 4 grams of Inositol every day! Needless to say I’ve long scaled down to 1gr max. Ovulation came back right away). Please either give me hope or tell me again how I have to expect an opposite regardless of how hard I'm swaying. Because I counted the statistical successes on this site with peppermint tea, spirits, 1 attempt, J&D, inositol, and the PCOS diet and did it ALL and now I have a 420% chance to get my girl, right??? "sigh I KNOW this is not how it works, though... I could cry right now. Especially because I so clearly see how I'm a horrible Martha damned to have 15 boys before one single girl... *sigh

b) If I want to add in exercise - should I add carbs or fat? Probably carbs, right, like an extra slice of bread and piece of fruit every day?

Please disregard my question about how DH influences the chances. I decided to not sweat anything that is totally out of my control.

Thank you again, Atomic and everyone who’s reading this long rant of mine and even remotely considering to reply, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for everybody!

So I got not only a BFN but also my period a few days ago and I'm officially back in the game! I posted here a few days ago but can't see it yet. Anyway, bumping this thread, hoping for inspiration for my sway - next attempt is dangerously close :)

No not pestering me at all, I have to time it with the long posts sometimes.

I want you on the PCOS Diet. It's gotten better results if you can stick with it. Dont' worry about how you feel or how fertile you think you are. A)we don't know that and B) we don't know that that is how it works. These are just theories, or not even that, really. They're notions. Ideas. Guesses! When your cycle is irregular due to IR that sways BLUE, so normalizing it in that case is actually a step in the right direction.

Yes, exercise. Anyone with PCO/IR tendencies needs to exercise if at all possible.

Are you eating 50-60 g protein and fat already?? If so, add carbs, but you may be better off also upping pro and fat slightly (like, to 65) instead or simultaneously.

I think you know this already but yes, not the way it works. You do always have a chance of an opposite even with ideal circumstances so go in with eyes open, hope for the best, expect the worst, and hopefully we will get a happy surprise.

Sorry about your posts not showing up - forums are sometimes twitchy but we do our best to keep things up and running smoothly. if that happens just let me know as sometimes the posts don't show up to you, but i can see and approve them. I just have to know where to look in order to do that, though.

Please let me know if I miss anything as I sometimes do.

Pep tea - I do not recommend this for anyone over 35. It hasn't worked and has really seemed to cut odds of conception. Your call, but has been dropped more and more from my recommendations over the past few years (with no drop in results) and I'm giving it up totally in 2019.

EWCM yes just not a good way to time ovulation. Too variable. Cn you use OPK?

If you don't want to do OPK we can go to e4d in the "every 96 hour" pattern instead, although you won't be able to do timing with that.

I would be real careful with the dried fruit with the insulin resistance. Very sugary. (oh wait rereading this I think you're saying NO dried fruits)

How much soy milk?

Do you have any ballpark totals on your nutrients for the day?

1)No. There is more than one way to think of "reduced fertility" and reduced fertility from PCOS-tendencies sways BLUE. So you fix that and you may have normal cycles but you're still swaying pink. If your cycle is wackadoo from PCO tendencies, then you go onto a more IR-friendly diet, you have FIXED the problem (both fertility and for pink). You will be swaying pink because you're moving in the direction of less but there is a huge middle ground (where most of us get pregnant at) where you're fully fertile but still more pink friendly.

I cannot answer if you've been swaying too long. I have the concern that in some cases people do adjust over time, but I don't have the data to know how long that takes (probably different for every person anyway) and certainly not enough to tell you personally if YOU have been swaying too long. Just beyond my ability to know. I would keep doing what you're doing as the PCOS-type diet and inositol both have gotten good results.

2)It's not terrible, let's keep it minimal though. It's a continuum, not a pass/fail, if that makes sense. Some people can tolerate quite a bit of sugar provided they're doing well on diet in most other ways. Some people can't, and still others have to really cut carbs entirely (mostly grains). I'm sure you're ok to carry on, esp. given the cinnamon and inositol.

3)Play this by ear. Both, probably, but this can vary pretty dramatically by the individual.

4)Most of our husbands would do nothing to help. I don't think DH's diet matters much if at all. I agree with your take to let go of the things you can't control anyway - that is KEY! Way more important than anything DH does.

And thank you for your patience by the way!

Ooohhhh, thankyouthankyouthankyou Atomic for your long and thorough replies! You really have given me hope that I can conceive a girl, after all. I was hoping that fixing my irregular cycles through the LE PCOS diet would be a step in the right (pink!) direction. Thank you for reassuring me on that.
I'm quite sure I'm getting 60 grams of fat and about 50-60 grams of protein (only counting dairy & meat - both of which I have daily in small to moderate amounts - and the occasional egg). Daily calories is anywhere from 1600-1900. Soy milk is only like 3oz a day because I don't like my coffee black.
Also wanted to mention that the coarse black hair on my chin never grew back after I plucked it in November and that this time, AF showed up in the afternoon instead of at night (I have ALWAYS started my period at night since I was a young girl). Just re-read the thread about the possible connection and thought I'd share this piece of info with you!
Yes, I'll buy OPKs again and try to have 1 attempt (hopefully DH will cooperate!!!!), but no Acijel or J&D this time! I really hope I'll conceive this time! I'll keep you posted!! :) :fingers::fingers::fingers:

:agree: ok then that level of soy is fine.

I think you're on the right track - keep up the great work!

Thanks again, Atomic! This cycle I'm just drinking peppermint tea for a few days, not the entire follicular phase (finding it so hard to drop it completely because it seems to lower free testosterone pretty efficiently, according to the research I found online).
Oh and I also stopped eating tofu which I did once or twice a week instead of meat (good quality meat is so expensive!!!).
Attempt will have to be on Sunday because DH was told today that he'll have to fly out of town on Monday to attend a conference... :( Well, provided I ovulate on CD14 or 15 like I pretty much always do, we still have a chance to conceive this month. I'll know more next week! :)

Well, I understand the research that was done, but the thing is it didn't work for us and really messed up people's cycles, and even when it didn't, people just mysteriously didn't get pregnant for many many months while using it. Plus, testosterone has never been proven to sway anyway. I know they make it sound like such a sure thing, but the needed research has never been done, and I think it wisest for you guys to focus on doing what has actually worked rather than chasing totally unproven theories that have actually very little support backing them up.

But, I understand that ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Good luck!

Well, that's scary about the peppermint tea. I really, really want to do everything I can to conceive a girl, but a) you know more about the real life effects of pep tea than I do and b) I realize that in my situation - with an uncooperative DH who's gone back to doubting we should have another kid at all - the hardest thing will be to conceive at all. So I really need to have my priorities straight and drop everything that could hinder conception (and doesn't really sway in and of itself). So the pep tea had to go, had it just 3 times this cycle. Thank you again for all the things you do and the info and hope you give to so many women everyday!

Ah yes, that is a big wrinkle and in that scenario I agree it's actually by far the best move to focus on getting pregnant fast. DH's do sometimes change their mind, and swaying as a way of life + lots of BFN seem to make them change their mind even faster so I think that's the right call.