How many calories around Ovulation?

[GeCon]

Hi,

I have read on here that some ladies lower their calories even more around ovulation. Why is that? Is it necessary if already doing the LE diet? If so, how many calories should one be aiming for around ovulation and from when to when?

Thanks.

[rainbowflower]

it's not necessary for any diet, but the Trivers-Willard hypothesis is that your body will increase your chances of a girl when times are hard (when food is scarce), so eating a bit less around ovulation/conception gives another nudge in that direction. I wouldn't do it for any longer than 48hrs after OV - long enough for conception to occur

[GeCon]

How many days before?

[rainbowflower]

there's no set number - I guess it depends on how much weight you have to lose and how you function on lower food intake. If you are the sort who gets dizzy if you eat less, you might not want to do too many days like that, if you are overweight but cope well with lower intake you might want to do the whole fertile window

[atomic sagebrush]

YOU DO NOT NEED TO LOWER CALS AT OVULATION unless you want to. I am concerned that a sudden sharp drop in caloric intake at ovulation may disrupt the process somehow. No evidence to back that up, just a concern.

What you DO need to do is to be 100% certain to stick to the recommendations for keeping blood sugar low for a couple days before O and for 7-10 days after O (because XX fertilized eggs seem to develop best in a lower glucose environment,and the glucose from your body goes into your CM. People tend to overthink this but it's really quite easy:

1)Skip breakfast
2)Don't snack
3)Don't eat big huge meals that take forever to digest
4)Wait until you're actually hungry before eating again.

That is ALL you need to do in the 7-10 days after ovulation. No need to cut back or eat any differently.

If you were hoping to cheat during th 2WW, don't. Wait until AF comes or you get a BFP, and you can cheat then.

When you do get a BFP, it's ok to start eating normally again, but I would ease into it slowly for your own comfort and safety's sake. Esp. with the sodium - don't just start eating a ton of sodium all of a sudden, gradually increase it over a couple of days.

[NeedAGirl!]

On this topic - I have read the other threads about the low glucose. My question is regarding the mechanism. I understand that XX embryos do best in low glucose environments as they may absorb too much glucose if it is high and lead to chemical pregnancies. What about if there is a XY - will eating too much glucose also increase the risk of a blue bean sticking? (not that you are trying to do that but will it?)

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes, it seems entirely possible that could be the case. XY NEED more glucose than XX do because they can't suck up as much (and this is the one aspect of swaying that is 100% proven beyond a shadow of a doubt because researchers have seen it happen in a lab and can even use it as a test to tell apart XX and XY.)

Some people are worried that if they cut back too far and do conceive a boy, they will lose him and I do admit this is a possibility. But, in the same study that proved XX and XY need diff amounts of glucose, they also showed that the healthy and best-developing beans of either gender were the best at sucking up glucose (and those are the ones who are most likely to produce viable pg anyway). So a healthy boy who was going to go onto successfully stick, will STILL be able to suck up enough glucose to survive anyway even if it is less than optimal environment, and a boy bean that couldn't make it due to environment, very well may have not been destined to make it anyway.. A healthy girl will be GREAT at sucking up glucose so there is no "too low" for girls (your body does everything it can to make sure a baby has a shot of survival so it's going to keep pumping glucose into the CM). In fact, it may even be the case that too-high glucose is worse than too low, for BOTH genders.

My thinking has always been, A) it's silly to do everything we can to try to conceive a baby girl and then not do everything we can to ensure she has the best shot at survival and B) it's almost certain to me that if this mechanism exists (as it definitely appears to), then there is another, as yet undiscovered mechanism at play PRIOR to conception that takes note of glucose and works to ensure that you conceive a baby of the gender that your body is most likely to successfuly carry to term. Eggs are "biologically expensive" for your body to make and it doesn't "like" to just send them out willy nilly and risk miscarriage (even more "biologically expensive") - that is why swaying works to begin with, because your body only wants to chance a pregnancy/birth/child raising that has the best odds of survival. Obviously this mechanism, like all our body's mechanisms, are not foolproof, which is why swaying can never be 100% and people do have miscarriages sometimes unfortunately.

One of the first gals I helped with swaying info was one of those who tended to take things further than I would like - she stuck with the blood glucose stuff religiously and did it even AFTER her BFP (against my advice BTW) and her baby was a boy who is now 1 and perfectly normal in every way. So I have evidence that blood glucose does not cause healthy baby boys to be miscarried.

[Mumness]

Is a low everything diet for DH too?

[atomic sagebrush]

No, DH does not need to do an LE Diet and in fact it's best that he hold steady at whatever his present weight is, but if he were to give up meat, eggs, and fish, and eat more soy foods, it may help.