Guide to Cheating for Blue and Pink!

Guide to cheating for BLUE!

Uh-oh! Cheating!

Whether it was an intentional cheat (just HAD to have that Diet Coke!) or on accident (got busy and missed a meal), cheating happens. And it’s OK! I promise you that none of us boy moms ate perfectly HE diets day in and day out. We missed meals and ate things that we probably shouldn’t have like bacon and Diet Coke. I know that I did! And I promise it is ok.

In case you need it, the HE Diet nutshell version is here: http://genderdreaming.com/forum/tryi...l-version.html

Oh heck! I had a diet drink!

I’ll let you guys in on a little secret - I don’t even think diet drinks sway pink. I think they’re totally neutral in moderation and may even sway BLUE when drunk to excess, particularly for those who have underlying autoimmune disorders http://genderdreaming.com/forum/gend...me-thread.html (please note, I do not want any blue swayers drinking aspartame on this basis. Thinking it’s a good idea to risk an autoimmune flare to sway blue...well, as someone who has an autoimmune disease I will tell you from the bottom of my heart - it is NOT a good idea. This is all sheer speculation on my part and it is NOT worth any level of risk to experiment with it!) My point is simply that if a diet drink finds its way down your throat on occasion it WILL NOT undermine your sway.

Oh heck! I had to eat (insert name of forbidden food here)!

Once in a while eating a forbidden food is not a big deal! When I warn you guys against things like bologna and hot dogs and bacon and ramen and rice krispies it’s because there are all those sway diets out there that are based on sodium and sodium alone where people are eating these awful meals of rice krispies with rice milk for breakfast, iceberg lettuce and tomato salad with bacon and ranch dressing for lunch, and Top Ramen with cut up hot dogs for dinner and thinking they are swaying blue because they’re eating a lot of sodium but they’re getting barely any protein or other good nutrients, and the fat they’re getting is a higher % of Omega 6 (many processed meats and ramen and rice milk and ranch dressing have lots of Omega 6 fats!). And that’s not to mention the health costs of the nitrates and sodium in those foods.

Things like protein and nutrient rich foods and a higher % of Omega 3 fat will help you have a better sway, and sodium has never been proven to sway blue AT ALL regardless of what other people will tell you. So when I warn you off of certain foods it’s to try and get you to not follow this style of diet and not because occasionally eating a hot dog will ruin your sway. Eating a food now and then is fine! Eating them all day every day is NOT fine.

Oh heck! I missed a meal or a snack!

That’s ok! Most of us with all boys, while we do tend to be all day grazers and have big appetites, did miss the occasional meal now and then. The important thing is that you do eat when you can and not make a habit of skipping meals regularly.

Oh heck! I really, really can’t bring myself to include full fat dairy!

While I do think full fat dairy is great for a sway, if you don’t want to include it, that’s at your discretion. I DO want to really strongly urge you to stay away from milk replacers, though. The reason for this is that some pretty good new evidence has emerged that indicates the kind of vegetable fats that are present in high amounts in milk replacers sway strongly pink and we saw lots of opposites among the people who were drinking the most milk replacers (especially almond milk, but I don’t know if it’s because almond milk is especially bad or if it’s because almond milk just happens to be the most popular).

If you aren’t having full fat dairy, I strongly, strongly urge you to stay well away from EPO, chia seeds, and flaxseed. I really don’t want anyone taking flaxseed powder or oil anyway as it is very, very likely harmful during pregnancy and I’ve all but given up EPO as again I think it’s making opposites, but it is especially important to avoid them if you aren’t going to be getting the good dairy fats present in full fat milk, yogurt, and cheese! EPO and flaxseed oil contain the vegetable fats that when you are ingesting higher amounts of them, may sway pink. So anyone who is not getting tons and tons of animal fats like those in full fat dairy, needs to stay away from EPO, chia seeds (occasionally is ok, I do not want anyone having chia seeds daily when swaying blue or pink either for that matter), flaxseed (stay away from this anyway in anything other than occasional dietary amounts), and drinking milk replacers in anything more than very occasional use.

Oh heck! I can’t eat 9-11 fruits and vegetables a day!

It’s ok. Most of us with all boys never got that many fruits and veg in a day either. It’s just a goal to aim at. If you eat 3 fruits and veg a day that’s better than zero! But by aiming high, even when you fall short you’ll still be getting a lot more fruit and veg than you were.

Also, remember that coconut water, lemon water (provided you drink the equivalent of one lemon a day), fruit and vegetable juices, beans, and potatoes all count for fruits and veg in the way that we count them. And servings are smaller than most people think so you very well are getting more than you realize!

Oh heck! I ate some refined grains!

That’s ok. Refined (white) grains vs. whole grains is one of the big gray areas with swaying. We honestly are not sure what is better for blue. While we originally thought that whole grains were better for blue, we have had great results with PCOS pink swayers eating whole grains so it may be that whole grains sway pink anyway. And many of us with all boys ate white, refined grains like pasta, white rice, and white bread and got boys doing that (I know I did - especially pasta, I can’t stand whole grain pasta!) So if you prefer white refined grain products, go ahead and eat them, but they may make you gain a lot of weight on HE Diet and you’re probably better off not eating huge amounts of grains of any kind while doing HE and getting your carbs for your protein + carbs recommendation from those fruits and vegetables we were talking about!

Oh heck! I ate sugar!

That’s ok! While I know they say sugar sways pink on some sites, we have never found that to be true and many of us with all boys ate plenty of sugar. The important thing is that you’re eating MORE than just sugar when you eat it, like having sweets with a meal, or having something sweet that has protein with it (like a Larabar, or some nuts and dates). The patented girl mom meal of a Diet Coke and a candy bar is not a good idea for your blue sway because your blood sugar will rise and then crash and then be very low until you eat again.

If you do end up having a sugary treat without having any protein to slow down your blood sugar roller coaster ride, that’s ok. Just eat a little sooner. Don’t let yourself get shaky and hungry from eating sugar and then nothing for several hours. If your blood sugar goes up from eating sweets, just eat again before it has time to crash! So if you’re out and about and and eat a cupcake, that’s fine - when you get home, before your blood sugar drops, follow that cupcake up with a yogurt and your blood sugar will stay up - still swaying blue for you!

Oh heck! I can’t eat this much!

Are you feeling stuffed to the gills? Gaining weight and you’re only a few days into the diet? Don’t panic. It is fine to eat less. I had to make the HE Diet as thorough as I could and cram in every possible goal that may sway into one megadiet but it is impossible to do ALL those things every single day. It’s ok to do some of them one day and some of them another or to pick and choose the things that are going to work for you. All you need to do is eat more than you were eating and/or eating more than you were eating when you got your girls! It is not the rule that you have to eat all that stuff in one day or especially at one meal!

Remember, the important thing is the protein + carbs at every meal and snack. This can be meat and fruit or meat and a potato or meat and bread or meat and pasta. It does NOT need to be meat and pasta and a potato and a roll and a fruit salad at every meal and snack! NONE of us moms of all boys eat that much food at one sitting (usually although I’ve certainly had my moments LOL).

Another thing to consider is letting go of the magic foods approach. It’s really not going to be possible to eat BOTH the things that the old school sway diets advocate PLUS the HE Diet. It’s just too much food. This ends up with people trying to squeeze in 3 bananas a day in addition to the HE Diet (and trying to eat everything on the HE Diet every day even though you don’t have to!) It is just plain too much! Again, all you need to do is eat more than you were eating before (so if you have no children yet, just eat more than you have been) especially more than you were eating when you got your girls, if you have girls already. That’s IT! It’s just that easy. You don’t even need to count calories if you don’t want to!

Oh heck! I had to drink alcohol!

For alcohol to sway pink, we have to drink 1-2 drinks a day for weeks. An occasional drink or even a night out where you (or DH) really overindulges is not going to undo the good of your sway. If you have the option, it may be that red wine and dark beers are better for blue but it’s almost certainly very minimal and so I’d just have whatever you like when the subject comes up. Plenty of people have gotten boys when drinking moderately and it is fine to have the occasional beer or glass of wine or margarita when swaying blue.

Oh heck! I really, really can’t give up coffee!

Coffee has been a pretty strong pink sway for us. If there’s ANY way to give it up on a daily basis and switch over to tea (and it doesn’t need to be green tea which is not so yummy, it can be good old regular black/orange pekoe tea - I got 4 boys drinking that!) then that’s great. But let’s say you’re out and about and are dying to hit Starbucks...go ahead. It will be ok. Once in a while is fine! Just keep it sensible, skip the doubleshot and artificial sweetener, have full fat milk or even cream for a little boost of those good animal fats that sway. And be sure to have some real food sooner rather than later to avoid a blood sugar crash (especially if you have sugar in the drink!) Oh and maybe no cinnamon, not in coffee and not in chai tea either, since cinnamon can lower blood sugar levels. Unavoidable dietary amounts of cinnamon on occasion are fine, but if you have the option to skip it, skip it.

Guide to Cheating for PINK

Uh-oh! Cheating!

Whether it was an intentional cheat (just HAD to have that burger and fries!) or on accident (got pushed into eating ham and scalloped potatoes at Grandma’s house), cheating happens. And it’s OK! I promise you that none of the girl moms ate perfectly LE diets day in and day out. They had bigger meals on holidays and when out at restaurants at times, and ate things that are not LE Diet approved like roast beef and milkshakes at other itmes. I know that I did sometimes in the weeks before I got my girl! And I promise it is ok.

In case you need it, the LE Diet nutshell version is here: http://genderdreaming.com/forum/tryi...l-version.html

Oh heck! I had to eat (insert name of forbidden food here)!

There ARE no forbidden foods on LE Diet. It is all about limits and limits alone. (please read the LE Diet nutshell version posted above for more on the limits!) People put themselves through endless levels of stress and tension because they can’t let go of the “magic foods” approach. It’s fine if you want to set yourself a (movable, flexible) goal of not eating Food X, Y, or Z most of the time but remember the 80-20 rule...you get 80% of the results from 20% of the effort and to get the remaining 20% of the effort you have to put out 80%

Now I know what you’re thinking…”Well, I want that remaining 20% because that is 100% and that means I will absolutely for sure get a daughter”. But that isn’t how it works. Swaying is NOT just diet alone, it’s diet plus lots of other things and one of those things is what some of us refer to as “testosterone” (but I am not sure any more that it really IS testosterone). I mean the personality stuff - being a complete control freak every second of every day over every morsel of food that goes into your mouth sways blue way, way more than a Snacky Smore that finds its way into your mouth now and then.

I swear to you that time after time after time, over the course of now ten years on two different sites watching thousands, probably tens of thousands of sways by now, that it is the people who swaycess over every bite of food they eat, the ones who do diet very nearly perfectly, who get boys, while the people who are more laid back get girls. The personality stuff matters A LOT. And we even have the data to prove the concept because we know that people who swayed for 2-4 weeks, even though those people were nearly always very, very strict during that short time, had the most opposites while the people on diet 12 weeks or longer had the best results even though virtually all of them cheated several times and/or relaxed on diet overall.

It is ok to cheat on LE Diet now and then. I promise! What is NOT ok is putting so much focus onto swaying every second of every day, going through your life in a cold sweat, white knuckled, on the verge of panic constantly, terrified that you are actively undermining your chances of success. If you cheat, it’s ok, move on to the next day.

To quote Katy Perry: “It’s no big deal. It’s no big deal. It’s no big deal. This is no big deal!”

Oh heck! I tried so hard to be good, but I cheated anyway! Now the entire day/week/month is ruined!

NO! It is NOT ruined! Let me tell you what people normally do (and how entire days DO actually get ruined!) Ya have a craving for something. But instead of eating what you’re craving (usually because people are SO hung up on the “magic foods” approach and forget that they can have whatever they want within limits) they try to fill up with “good foods” and eat 400 rice cakes smeared with 1 16 oz. jar of tahini and sprinkled with a pound of Craisins. At this point they suddenly realize they’ve just eaten 2000 calories of nothing, it wasn’t tasty or satisfying anyway, and they’ve blown the day. Might as well have whatever you want now, right? Start fresh again tomorrow??

And that’s exactly what people do. They then go on to have whatever it was they were craving, plus 48 other things they’ve been thinking about, and half a birthday cake for dessert. They end up way worse off than if they’d just had the thing they were craving in the first place!! If you are craving a food, EAT THE FOOD. 99 times out of 100 it is going to work out better for you (and this is true on ANY diet, not only LE!) You will be satisfied and you’ll end up eating far less. Plus, for pink swayers, you’ll do it without spending a day or more upset and utterly consumed with thoughts about food and swaying and again, this is WAY worse for your sway than maybe going a little over on protein or having a food that you swore you wouldn’t have.

Oh heck! I have to go to my (insert name of friend or family member here) house and they will make me eat (insert name of delectable treat)

That’s fine! EAT IT. Cheating is not only allowed but encouraged on LE Diet and do you know why? It’s actually several reasons. First and foremost it is because of situations just like this. When I was back on Ingender I would read these threads where people would spend DAYS, literal days, plural, planning and plotting and scheming about how they were going to trick their friends or relatives into not noticing that they were actually eating cottage cheese and cucumbers instead of a lasagna and garlic bread just like everyone else at the party. EAT the dang lasagna already. The control freakishness that comes from sitting around making these elaborate scripts in your head, and then enacting them (successfully or not) is soooo much worse for your sway than a hunk of lasagna would be.

There is also additionally a huge mental benefit in having a food you want when you want it. In the long run, it actually prevents you from cheating because you don’t feel so deprived constantly that you end up trying to fill up on tahini, rice cakes, and Craisins and end up inhaling a roast chicken and half a pie in the dark of night (see section directly above!)

Plus, the occasional cheat gives your body a chance at some nutrients you may be lacking on LE Diet. While most nutrients are either stored by your body or present in adequate amounts on LE Diet, a few nutrients you really do need regularly but may have a hard time getting - zinc, potassium, iodine - and others, if you’ve been on a sway diet a while your stores may start running out - iron, Vit. D, B12. Not to mention a bit of extra cals, protein, and fat if your body needs them.

Cheating is not only allowed but encouraged on LE Diet!! It. Is. Encouraged! This is not carte blanche to eat whatever you want, of course, but we hardly ever HAVE that problem with LE Dieters anyway. The vast majority of LE Dieters are cutting back too far and being too hard on themselves. Cheating is allowed.

Oh heck! I have to go out to eat! What should I have?

Vegetarian or vegan options, salads (even with a small amount of meat on them), pasta, stir fries are all good choices. And don’t forget that shellfish is atomic’s #1 approved meat cheat so have prawns or a lobster tail or shrimp cocktail or something for an entree and fill up on bread! If you can’t have any of these options, if you get roped into going to a steakhouse or whatever, don’t panic. Just eat your meal and call it a cheat (see above section). Cheating now and then on diet is allowed!

A couple tricks when going out to eat - firstly, this is my own personal method of not overeating while saving money at restaurants. I find that most of the time I prefer appetizers or salads or soup or even side dishes, and desserts (main courses are huge, expensive, and are often disappointing whereas appetizers and salads are usually more consistent) so I just order an appetizer or a salad or a bowl of soup or a side dish (think: french fries or a baked potato if you’re not sure what I’m talking about here) and a dessert. If people think it’s weird, I say I want to save room for dessert. Then, if you want, when it comes time for dessert you can suddenly decide you’re full or just order something small like a cookie. It works really well and honestly since I decided to start doing this, I get out of even expensive restaurants under $10 usually and I’m never stuffed and miserable. If you ask them they’ll bring your appetizer/salad/soup/side dish when everyone else is having their meal and you’ll often end up finishing your meal at the exact same time as everyone at the table anyway.

Another tip when going out to eat is the doggy bag method - if you see something you really want, order it. Then eat half of it or even just a third of it and plead that you’re full. Take the rest home and you have meals for the next day or even two (or feed it to the dog, or the kids, or your husband!). And no one thinks anything of it. Either way you are getting out of a restaurant (even the dreaded steakhouse!) without completely blowing your diet.

Oh heck! It’s the holiday season! Should I take the next few months off and start diet all over?

No. We have found something interesting about eating over the holidays - because everything feels special, and everything feels like a bit of a treat, it is actually easier than most people think it will be to stick to diet over holidays. If you go out to a cocktail party skip dinner and you can have some mixed nuts or some veggies or cheese crackers or chips and dip and a couple Christmas cookies and a glass of wine (alcohol is allowed, people!) and that’s probably pretty much the same in terms of calories, protein, and fat to what you’d have eaten for dinner that day anyway and you’re still in LE Diet range! You feel like you had a huge splurge but NO ONE ever goes to an event at a friend’s house and eats like a vacuum cleaner anyway LOL.

And as for fancy Christmas foods and candy in the house, pace yourself. Put some of those things into the freezer and you can have them for MONTHS after that at a reasonable rate of consumption. Remember, it is feeling deprived that makes you splurge; if you give yourself permission to eat even things you had vowed not to eat (because there are no forbidden foods!) and know you can eat those things in moderation tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, then you never feel that pressure where you think you’ve blown everything on diet so you may as well eat everything in the whole entire house!

The key to not splurging on ANY diet, let alone LE Diet, is to give yourself permission to have what you want when you want it in a reasonable amount rather than falling into a binge/purge cycle where you deprive yourself of everything and then freak out and eat everything you can get your hands on.

Oh heck! I’m going on vacation or holiday and I am going to ruin my diet!

No, you won’t! The key to surviving on trips is by combining the strategies for restaurants and holidays. Most people have found it is strangely easy to stick mostly to diet on trips because again, just like restaurant food and holiday eating, everything feels like a treat! Many resorts and destinations (like Disney and cruise ships) can make even the most simple, sensible, lite meal taste like it was prepared by angels. So by making sensible choices for your meals (vegetarian/vegan choices, salads, seafood etc) and not ordering everything on the menu you are going to be sticking very close to LE Diet principles anyway.

Plus, another advantage of being away from home is that you do a lot less mindless nibbling during the day. So yes, you may end up eating a few fancy meals, but you’re not eating the leftover sandwiches on your child’s high chair tray or going back for that other half of the bagel you had left over from your first meal. You’ll likely be busy all day doing fun and interesting things and won’t be sitting around thinking about how much you’d like to eat a massive bowl of Cocoa Puffs right that minute.

To illustrate: for breakfast (which you can skip, if you like, but I wouldn’t bother during that short time you’re away) let’s say you have fruit, which is usually fresh, delicious, and gorgeous at resorts and destinations, and coffee! Totally within LE limits! You have a big fancy salad for lunch and shrimp scampi with rice pilaf for dinner along with some wine. You don’t feel deprived, you feel like everything was a splurge, but I bet if you tallied it all up, you were barely over the limits of the diet if that even! It works out, and we KNOW it works out because I have seen soo many people getting girls while on vacation that eating like this simply cannot be undoing the good of a sway!

And a reminder - alcohol sways PINK anyway so don’t worry if you have a little extra alcohol on your holiday. It’s fine!

Oh heck! I have to eat breakfast (or lunch, or a snack) for exercise or work!

Go ahead! I have the full guide to fasting here which will probably answer most questions http://genderdreaming.com/forum/ttc-...al-folate.html But keep in mind that skipping breakfast is just one little thing. It’s NOT the most important thing, it’s not even the most important aspect of diet, and we have had plenty of people who ate breakfast for whatever reason and still got girls doing that.

And as for exercise, since exercise has been a great sway tactic, if you need to eat to do exercise, that is a great trade! Eat before exercise or after exercise, not both, and you will be a-ok. Whichever option is easiest for you to stick to.

Oh heck! But what do I TELL people about all these things!?!

Part of the problem with being on a diet is that people make comments about your eating patterns. But I think that most people worry way more about what people MIGHT say than what they actually DO say. I have seen people worry for weeks about a get together and what people will say if they don’t eat turkey or ham or roast beef or lasagna and then they go to the get together and nobody even notices or if they do, they don’t say a word! I mean think about it, how often do you personally peer at someone’s plate of food and make a comment about what they’re planning on having for dinner? Not very, I bet.

Now, some people may make an offhand remark but an offhand remark does NOT mean they are even giving your eating habits much if any thought! They will probably forget they even said anything within the span of 3 seconds. So what I do NOT want you to do is spend a week plotting and planning out what you will say IF someone says something because they probably won’t, and also I do not want anyone to then, in the off chance someone does say something, spend the next week mulling it over and over in your head and thinking of all these snappy comebacks. That’s that boy mom control freakiness rising to the surface, and again, it is worse by far for your sway than if you had just eaten the ham or lasagna in the first place. So PLEASE, please please just err on the side of eating the darn food rather than dwelling on not eating it both before and after the event occurs.

A few strategies that have worked for other people:

“I’m not feeling well today and meat doesn’t sound good”
“I’ve been having eczema and I’m trying a food elimination diet.”
“My doctor has recommended that I give up processed carbs for a while.”
“The last time I ate that I had food poisoning and I have an aversion to it.”
“I’m just not in the mood for that today.”
“I want to save room for dessert.”
“I like potatoes (or green beans, or salad) the best anyway so I decided to double up.”
“What a strange question!” (and then laugh)
“Who are you, the food police?” (and then laugh)
“Because I’ve been replaced by an alien and we are allergic to that.” (and then laugh)

Whatever seems to work in that moment, with that person. And remember they are almost certain to forget ever having asked the question within a few minutes; it’s we who remember and dwell on it all. Just toss out an answer and move on. The only reason why it seems like such a big deal to us is because we know about swaying. If they don’t know about swaying, it isn’t a big deal to them, they’re just being curious buttinskis and should be treated as such.

Oh heck! Since I cheated what I’m going to do now is become really restrictive and make up for it!

Don’t do this. SERIOUSLY, don’t. I have to stop people from doing this all the time. There is NO benefit to doing this and we know there’s no benefit because if it was possible that things we did for a week or two made any difference, we would not see the results we have seen with 2-4 weeks on diet (and again, generally these people were super strict) getting the lowest results and then everyone on diet 12 or more weeks getting good results (even though, again, most of these people did cheat and relax on diet over time)

If anything we did for swaying mattered for a week or a day or two we’d only sway for a week or a day or two. This approach just doesn’t work and what is worse, getting super strict can cause your body, which is already a little bit “nervous” about this diet and exercise stuff, decide that now is not a good time to get pregnant and it will simply delay or even stop ovulation.

When you have a cheat, it is fine for all the reasons already discussed in this essay. When it happens, simply regroup and move on to the next day. Cheats happen, they are allowed and in fact encouraged, and the occasional cheat is taken into account in the structure of the LE Diet itself. Do not try to make up for it, because even if trying to be super strict right before your fertile window opens doesn’t delay ovulation (which it very often does) this only sets you up to fall into a binge/purge cycle where you alternate back and forth between starving yourself and overeating.

Oh heck! I’m having insane cravings in the 2 week wait (or around ovulation or when period arrives)!

This is totally normal. Research has found that when you’re higher in progesterone (as happens during the 2ww) your willpower is lower and cravings intensify (warning, it’s also a time of the month where many of us find we spend more money than we should.) It’s also very normal to be extra hungry at ovulation or during your period. Just do your best and if you slip up, let it go and move on to the next day.

Now, all that having been said, I do not want you guys going off the diet in the 2WW. People regularly ask me if this is ok and no, no it is not. We know that 2 weeks on diet has gotten very poor results and so it makes no sense for me to have you guys on diet 2 weeks and off for 2 weeks. But this is not what we mean when we say “cheating”. A cheat is a meal or even an off day and that is allowed. It is NOT going off diet totally 2 weeks of the month which is not allowed.

Additionally, I want you to be very, very, VERY careful in talking yourself into believing you are pregnant right after ovulation and thus giving yourself liberty to go off diet. This is a bad idea, I don’t care what your symptoms are, it has happened time after time that people who had thought they were pregnant went off diet before they could have even possibly had any pregnancy-related symptoms. Progesterone makes pregnancy symptoms and so when your progesterone rises after ovulation, you may have symptoms that seem pregnancy-ish but are not pregnancy. Please wait to go off diet until you are looking at a BFP!

A great time for a cheat is the last week of the cycle before AF arrives. That way you’ve given your XX time to make it to the uterus and implant or else you probably aren’t pregnant anyway. It’s a great idea to even plan for a special cheat that week as a reward - whatever you really really want and are craving the most, have it! Totally free and clear.

Oh heck! I’m not ovulating regularly!

This is why it is always best to start off higher than you think you need (even as much as 1800 calories to start with) instead of diving into the deep end and starving yourself. Cutting back too far is a recipe for disaster and you will stop ovulating (this can happen even at higher food intake than you might think.) Start off eating more than you think you’ll need and cut back slowly over time. You may be very surprised to find you lose weight fast even at 1800 calories!

If this happens you will HAVE to eat more. Period, end of story. Eat more calories and also add in a serving of full fat dairy every day, 4-6 eggs a week, and a serving of salmon if you like it and red meat if you don’t. If you aren’t ready to add in the meat, just do the milk and eggs. This is not cheating, this is just our fix for spotty ovulation and shortening luteal phase. Remember, this is NOT CHEATING. Cheating is in addition to this fix, not instead of this.

Cheating occasionally can help prevent loss of ovulation because it gives you the chance now and then at a bit of extra nutrients that may help keep your fertility up.

Oh heck! Now my sway will be ruined because I have to eat more!

No. If you aren’t ovulating and/or you’re having a short LP, you NEED MORE food to get and stay pregnant with any baby, boy or girl. Swaying is like a radio dial - infertile from hypothalamic amenorrhea (not eating enough) on one end and infertile from severe PCOS on the other. When you have swung the dial too hard one direction that you’ve rendered yourself infertile or practically infertile, you HAVE TO turn the dial back the other direction. If you’ve swayed so hard that you can’t get pregnant, you have to go back the other way in order to get pregnant. This does not then mean you’’re swaying blue, per se, it means you’ve gone too far with your pink sway and need to gently, gradually turn the dial backwards in the other direction. But there is a LOT of turning between hypothalamic amenorrhea and severe PCOS. You have the room to turn that dial little by little and while it feels like you’re swaying blue, you aren’t, you’re just making yourself fertile enough to get pregnant again!

This isn’t cheating! This is a course correction. Cheating can be a strategy to help make this course correction but no one should ever feel guilty or that their sway will fail if they’ve taken diet too far and have to go back a little way the other direction in order to get and stay pregnant.

Oh heck! I suspect I am dying because I am not eating enough (insert nutrient here) and I have now decided that I must totally give up on diet and sway blue because I am harming myself and my unborn baby if I don’t.

This is the polar opposite problem. I see this fairly regularly among the most tightly wound pink swayers. They seem simultaneously convinced to do every bat-sh-- crazy thing they’ve ever heard about on other sites for swaying (even extremely dangerous things that cut their odds of conception to nil) but at the same time have an irrational terror of the LE Diet and are convinced that I am trying to harm them or their baby by suggesting it. The LE Diet is based on recommendations from the World Health Organization about what a minimal healthy pre-pregnancy diet should look like for a woman of childbearing age and guidelines from reproductive endocrinologists about what is a safe intake for weight loss prior to pregnancy for their own clients. It is a safe and balanced diet when done correctly (no starving yourself!) The LE Diet is NOT an unhealthy diet, it is simply the lower level of normal, and anyone who needs more calories and protein and fat (such as women who are tall, women who are nursing, women who are exercising a lot, etc) can always modify it to include more food. All that is fine and allowed! And remember, cheating is not only allowed but encouraged!!

But despite all this some people just get this idea in their heads that LE Diet is not safe. A few times a year I will get a message from someone who is convinced based on some vague symptom that they are dying from (insert vitamin deficiency here, I’ve heard them all by this point) and their solution is to totally give up on LE Diet and go onto a very, very healthy blue-friendly diet and resume taking 9 million herbs and megadose vitamins (virtually all of which are by far and away more dangerous than the LE Diet is.) Interestingly, this is often after only a few days or a couple weeks on diet! And while it is possible for a very thin person to go onto a 1200 calorie diet and stop ovulating right away, it is not the typical experience after only a few days or a week on LE Diet if you’re in a normal weight range and eating 1500-1800 calories or beyond that. And it is CERTAINLY not the typical experience to be on diet for a couple weeks and to suddenly become severely anemic or low in B12. Your body stores months to years of many nutrients and most others are present in more than adequate amounts on LE Diet.

Don’t do this, ladies. It’s swaying and dieting messing with your head. You know how I know this, is because several of these people have gone to the doctor and had their levels tested and they did not have any vitamin deficiencies whatsoever. And others who have had vitamin deficiencies who had no symptoms at all (including some blue swayers who were eating HE Diet and taking prenatals!!!)

I have had this experience myself; I go onto a diet to lose weight and then I lose about 10 lbs and I suddenly think “Wow that was easy, I wonder if I have cancer?” Then I go down this rabbit hole where I think “my Gosh I am surely going to need to conserve my strength for this terrible ordeal I am facing” and all of a sudden I’ve gained that 10 lbs right back again.

If you really think you have a vitamin deficiency make an appointment and get your levels checked. You will probably be surprised to find that your levels are all perfectly fine. Boy moms tend to be tightly wound and very anxious and swaying really, really aggravates this tendency to extremes. If you can’t do that for whatever reason, then why not compromise and take a prenatal or multivitamin 3x a week? It’s not my favorite approach but it simply has to be better than worrying nonstop about improbable vitamin deficiencies or giving up on diet totally!

And for Pete’s sake, have a cheat now and then, would you?