1st timer

[Chessika]

Hello hopeful13,

I also swayed after my failed high tech attempts, so I can relate to your situation very well. I hope my answers are still up to date, since my first swaying attempts were a while ago.

- I have not had breakfast at all and have eaten only twice a day most of the time with no snacks. I don´t drink coffee so I don´t know anything about that.

- Do you mean whole corn with brown bread? It is best to eat white bread, white rice or white noodels. Blood sugar raises fast, but also drops very fast. I ate fruits and vegs in moderation trying not to eat "too healty". I ate mostly cucumbers and sometimes peppers.

- I limited my milk products. I mainly ate fat free yoghurts and low fat cheese.

- I ate a lot of sweets. I often used them to get calories in without having protein or fat. I found gummi bears ideal for this purpose. However, it is necessary to control the amounts and the nutrion of your sweets, since you can easily go overboard with them. It is the same with the white bread. Simple carbs raise your blood sugar, but it drops quickly again.

- I think atomic offers meal plans which you can buy. But since this is new for me, I cannot say anything about them.

- I don´t know enough about the supplements to give any advise.

- Fizzy Drinks are fine. I often drank light drinks. But when you need to fill up on calories, normal fizzy Drinks (like e.g.Sprite) with your meals are a good way. But only with your meals.

Generally, I would recommend to use a tool to track your food intake. I only paid attention to the overall calories, carbs, protein, and fat amount. After a while you get a feeling how much and what you can eat. Of course, you should not obsess about it, but I found it helpful especially in the beginning. I never limited my salt intake.

Hope this helps you a little bit and my knowledge is not outdated. Feel free to ask me if you have more questions.

All the best,

Chessika

[coralsky]

Ok so far what I think I've learned

Fasting am till noon with no cereals allowed as full of sugar or porridge as no oats. What do people eat generally then?? I'm not a morning eater but usally a coffee at 10 is this allowed??

Brown bread low in salt, no meat or fish or tomatoes.
Fruit and veg ok and also rice and pasta pref brown with keeping meals to 2 portions and no snacking.

Is not dairy right? I drink lactose free milk in coffee is this ok? What's the story with sweets and biscuits is it a complete no as it boosts bloods sugars? Is there a menu with things people did eat as looking at this most things are out.

Is it ok to start tracking my cycle in a diary now with it been the first after a fet?
Clomid, Zyrtec and folic is there an amount and days to be taken?? I'm currently on 200mg coq10 is this ok??

I think fasting till noon (or as long as you can) is good... coffee is fine, but best with skimmed milk & sweetener if you can (no sugar). White bread is best, unless possibly if you are worried about egg quality or have fertility issues (such as pcos) then I think brown is better - either are ok though. Yes no snacking and limiting meat (esp red) and limiting fat (stay within limits - approx. 1500-1800 cals, 40-50g fat, 40g protein if I remember right?). Other than that you can pretty much eat what you want, but you will likely find that keeping within those limits will mean low-fat, and minimal amts of meat most of the time.

Dairy is ok in small quantities (ie. to stay within limits) - if you have fertility/egg quality issues then a little full-fat dairy can help those... I did include a little (but I got DS2! lol) if I were you I would start lower in dairy (unless you don't have much weight to lose) and then add in a little extra if you don't fall pg within a few months. For lunches I mainly had a salad wrap, and dinner usually rice/pasta based with veggies and either my own sauce or a store-bought one which was low-fat/cal (the stir fry sachets are usually good but check labels). Once you have been at it a few wks you will get more used to it, and start to see what works for you. I started with a diet spreadsheet to track but then found after a while I "knew" amts in my go-to meals roughly. I think some ppl use myfitnesspal to track.

Yeah you can start tracking cycle to get a rough idea, esp. while getting used to diet etc, then hopefully you will have a rough pattern in mind before actively ttc (some ppl believe being too obsessive about it can sway blue).
Clomid is good for pink. I could be wrong but I don't think there would be much benefit to zyrtec with clomid as it might reduce conception odds too much - or maybe just the first month only? (Atomic will tell you better current advice on that one) folic is good - I took 2000mcg on atomic's advice but not for swaying just for fertility I think. coq10 *may* sway blue I am not sure on that one - I think atomic will advise you better, but in the meantime you could maybe reduce to 100 a day as a compromise (I had fertility issues and atomic advised 50 for me, eventually I did increase to 100 cos it took a while to get pg)

Hope that helps a little, and not too overwhelming! PM me anytime hun, rooting for you xxx

[coralsky]

I'm not really a drinker but I can start lol.is it just limited to water or is squash allowed and assume no fizzy drink

I think alcohol can be good for a pink sway, and good way to increase cals without adding too much fat/protein (sweets also good for that - I got addicted to jelly beans! lol) squash and fizzy are fine I think as long as they have no real sugar, ie diet drinks. Some believe aspartame is good for pink, but you don't want to have too much either as its not great health-wise. I think roughly 2-3 glasses/cans a day are ok.

No idea on the dhea or metaformin though, hopefully atomic will advise on this.

xxx

[atomic sagebrush]

bump this for me please

[hopeful13]

Bump

[hopeful13]

Thanks so very very much chessika & Coral sky, so today is day 1..
Going to take a while to get my head around this. So the big thing really is no snacking not even an apple, no red meat and v limited white meat. Should coffee be de caf? Sweetner for coffee and skimmed milk. Think I'm going to be so fed up of lettuce in a few days

[coralsky]

Thanks so very very much chessika & Coral sky, so today is day 1..
Going to take a while to get my head around this. So the big thing really is no snacking not even an apple, no red meat and v limited white meat. Should coffee be de caf? Sweetner for coffee and skimmed milk. Think I'm going to be so fed up of lettuce in a few days

Yes you want to avoid snacking at all costs, and try and eat/raise blood sugar only 2-3 times a day. I never minded missing b/fast too much, so I used to have lunch & dinner, and then if I was super hungry in the evening sometimes I would allow myself a 200ish cal mini-meal (ok, snack- usually sweets! lol) but that wasn't every day, and I included intense exercise so I could afford a few more cals while still losing weight. In between meals I would have coffee with sweetener or Fanta-zero or occasionally sugar-free polo mints to help me through if I was hungry. You can include snacky type foods (eg. apple) but have it with a meal when blood sugar is being raised anyway, and within your daily limits. As far as I know caffeine is fine - I certainly didn't limit it, I think most people don't these days, some even believe a lot of caffeine can be good for pink.

I forgot to say yesterday, but the other thing I used to often have for lunch (or sometimes as my evening mini-meal) was toast with lighter than light flora (just a tiny scrape) and strawberry jam. I think I read others had things like bagels, rivita, pop-tarts, etc too. I am sure I read a quote somewhere (think it was atomic) that stuck with me- when eating - think vegetarian teenage girl, and how she would eat!

It really isn't as bad as you first think, and after a while I actually quite liked it - well, as far as dieting goes! lol. The hardest thing for me was the sheer length of time it took! But I am sure it wont be like that for you xxx

[hopeful13]

Thanks a million coral sky. I've a shopping list done so will get on with it tomorrow's. Today went fine except now I'm watching the transformers with the boys while they have popcorn and jellies but it's habit rather than hunger. I need to get around dh but if I succeed it will be end of March roughly as work will count as exercise.

[hopeful13]

Atomic is it 0% yogurt or low fat yogurt that's allowed and what's the difference between semi skimmed milk and low fat milk. Is the lactose free milk def not allowed. Also are bananas allowed.

When you have time can you give me pointers on meds and what types of testing opk ect I need to buy. I know you will get to my plan when you have time

[Chessika]

Hi hopeful 13,

your question made me curious, so I googled it. According to Wikipedia it is a different wording. In the US they use "fat" in the UK they use "skim". Both countries differ a little bit with the fat amounts in the milk that can be bought. I used both, almost fat free and low fat (here it is 1.5 percent fat).

Beside the fat it is very important to limit milk due to the high amount of protein. The sampe applies for cheese.

If I remember correctly, bananas are ok in moderation. It is the ingender diet, that is very strict with potassium.

Good luck for your sway!

Chessika