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October 2008 - Posts
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Back again with a lot of new information! For those of you who are here for the first time, welcome! Please read my blogs from the oldest first, so you will be able to follow what I'm babbling about.
Personal update - weight 138, pH 5-5.5! I have tested several times and gotten consistent results from 5-5.5 each time. I am definitely getting more acidic, it’s like magic to see that pH changing colors, from 6 to 5 in only a month, without taking any cranberry or Crystal Light at all!
Due to my milk supply issues, I had to relax my diet somewhat and I’m focusing more on carbs (more about the reasons behind this change later). Strangely, the side effect of this change in diet has been that my weight plateau has been overcome as my milk returned with a vengeance, even though I know I’m eating more calories than I was. I still feel that the best way to sway for a girl is to cut back on everything as much as you can dietwise, but breastfeeding does so much to sway for a girl anyway, why would I want to eliminate the benefits of that?
And now for something completely different - you may have been wondering, why, if blood glucose levels seem like such a sure way to control gender, then why aren’t scientists shouting this information off the rooftops? Why haven’t there been books written and millions of dollars made?
Enter, the maternal dominance hypothesis. This is another theory designed to explain the reasons behind the Trivers Willard hypothesis, suggested by Valerie J. Grant, of the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, School of Medicine, at the U. of Auckland (NZ). Grant does not believe that it’s the mother’s condition at conception that selects for a male or female fetus, unlike Elissa Cameron’s theories about blood glucose.
Rather, Grant’s theory states that dominant females (defined as women who tend to be influential, ascendant, prevailing, authoritative, and high in control) tend to have more male offspring, and that the improved condition in these dominant mothers is just a side effect of them being dominant to other females - they can outcompete the smaller, weaker females for the best food.
Underpinning the maternal dominance hypothesis are two suppositions that many scientists believe to be true. Firstly that dominance is a biologically-based personality trait that is strongly correlated to higher levels of testosterone, and secondly that testosterone levels can fluctuate due to changes in status and dominance - both biological changes (diet, weather, age, etc) and social changes can affect testosterone levels, leading to the birth of a boy or a girl.
Grant proposes that if you have higher testosterone, you’re more likely to have a boy, and if you have lower testosterone, you’re more likely to have a girl. And that any observable change in a mother’s physical condition is simply as a result of her dominance and social status controlling her access to the best and most nutritious foods - it’s not that better nutrition means more boys, but that higher testosterone means more boys, and higher testosterone also means coincidentally that a more dominant mother then gets the most nutritious foods. Grant believes that even though maternal condition seems like it is controlling gender, there is really a third, hidden variable that is controlling both maternal condition and gender, namely testosterone levels.
There is a lot of speculation about the hows and whys of why the maternal dominance hypothesis, but I’ll save that for a different post. For now, let’s answer the first and foremost question on all our minds. What does this mean for us and our sway?
Well, surprisingly enough, it doesn’t change things very much at all. To raise testosterone levels, people are advised to eat eggs, nuts, red meat, fruits and vegetables, drink alcohol in moderation, eat good amounts of healthy fats, get plenty of sleep, lift weights, and only do cardio exercise in short bursts. Sounds an awful lot like the TTC boy diet, doesn’t it?
And things that lower testosterone levels are either being very heavy or very thin, losing weight, smoking, breastfeeding, heavy drinking, smoking, having little muscle mass, intense short-term emotional stress, (long term chronic stress tends to raise testosterone levels), age, eating soy, and eating a diet heavy on carbs with very little animal protein. This is largely what we speculated would be a good way to ttc a girl anyway.
In the final analysis, it seems that it doesn’t really matter who is right and who is wrong, Cameron or Grant. We get the same results from both approaches, and amazingly, it isn’t too different from the traditional swaying diet we’ve been following all along.
Bearing this in mind, I’ve revised my plan a bit and will completely eliminate nuts, fish, and eggs (all of which I was eating in moderation), and continue eating very little meat. Since I’ve been forced to eat more empty carbohydrates to keep up my milk supply anyway, I will just continue doing this without the guilt I had been feeling, and just keep trying to lose as much weight as I can. I will continue breastfeeding while I’m trying to lose weight. And I will continue sticking with my cardio exercise, although I wish I could exercise more like 90 minutes a day, instead of 30, but with a new baby and two teenagers, I just have to do what I can do and be happy with that.
Wishing everyone the best of luck in their ttc journey!
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Hi again! Personal update - weight 141, pH 5.5. I haven’t been making as much milk as I would like, and my weight seems to have plateaued. No matter how much I cut back, I don’t seem to lose any weight, and at the same time I am not producing enough milk, so I am going to have to increase my calories somewhat. I’m feeling a little discouraged right now, but I still feel that for any person not breastfeeding, losing as much weight as fast as you can is the way to go.
A couple of new and exciting discoveries I’ve come across -
Cranberry and Vit. C are both being studied by diabetes researchers for their potential to lower blood glucose. So not only may we be acidifying our bodies with our TTC girl supps, we may actually be lowering our blood glucose levels at the same time. Excellent for TTC a girl.
And I’ve been discovering more about why it is so important to fit intense exercise into our plans. Aside from blood sugar control, I’ve learned that when we exercise anaerobically (that is, very intensely, past the point where we’re out of breath) even for short bursts, we dramatically raise the levels of lactic acid in our bloodstream. Furthermore, at the same time, we are using so much of our glycogen (the fuel the body generally prefers) just to keep going, that our muscles begin making food out of muscle tissue instead. This is a natural response, because the body wants to preserve as much of its quick burning glycogen as possible. So intense exercise really does acidify the body, even when you‘re not losing weight at all.
The main purpose of my post today is to reexamine why it is, if weight loss truly tends to sway for girls, that bigger women often have many girls (an observation made by several IG members completely independent of each other - not trying to generalize or offend anyone). And how can a ridiculously thin woman like Victoria Beckham have 3 boys?
First, let’s revisit the idea of why very thin women might have more girls. When a person eats an inadequate amount for their level of activity, their bodies quickly burn off the available blood glucose and glycogen (the form of glucose stored in liver and in muscle tissues). Then, in order to manufacture the glucose a body needs for its metabolic functions, the body begins to cannibalize its own muscle tissue, breaking down the protein into its basic components, one side effect of which is releasing acids into the bloodstream. Add in frequent intense exercise that produces other acids as well, and it is easy to see how crash dieting and over exercise can make your body very acidic.
So, in the case of Victoria Beckham, she is probably just maintaining at a weight that is natural for her. Some people are naturally very thin, and their body chemistry is just accustomed to supporting her metabolism at that weight. Perhaps she even gains a bit of weight for health purposes just prior to TTC. Or she could tend to eat very alkalinizing foods that counteract her body’s acidity.
Still, even if we can explain away Victoria Beckham, clearly it would be completely counterintuitive to expect that any heavyset woman would have girls. In fact, just the existence of one overweight woman with all girls would completely negate the entire theory.
However, according to my research, it seems there are two paths to an overly acidic body. One of which, as I mentioned above, is losing weight. But the other path to acidity seems to be a high carb, low nutrient diet.
First of all, an excess of sugar in the blood feeds yeast and other microorganisms that release acids as they digest those sugars, so anyone eating a lot of sugar is pretty much turning their body into an acid factory.
Secondly, when a person eats primarily quick burning, empty carbs like white bread, candy, pasta, and so forth, as some overweight people do, their blood sugar goes up very high and very fast. This triggers an insulin response; the body releases large amounts of insulin to counteract the sugar in the blood. And then the blood sugar drops even lower than it was to start with - the body runs out of its preferred quick burning glucose/glycogen and begins devouring its own tissue for energy. This leads to intense cravings for sugary foods and just perpetuates the entire cycle again and again.
A diet high in sugar may actually cause low blood glucose, signaling to the body that a girl pregnancy is desirable and contributing to an acid environment. If this seems farfetched, you may be surprised to hear that researchers lowered blood glucose to dangerous levels in test animals by feeding them nothing but sugar.
Ok, so if both ways work, why don’t we just eat a bunch of sugar to get girls? Health issues aside, it’s because each individual’s body chemistry is just too different. Anyone with insulin resistance (meaning their cells aren’t very responsive to insulin‘s effects) might raise their blood glucose levels and end up conceiving a boy when they wanted a girl. But since every person’s blood glucose levels drop when they eat less sugar, lose weight, and exercise, it seems like that is the more reliable path to take when TTC a girl.
Wishing everyone the best of luck in their TTC adventures!
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Hi again! If this is your first visit, please scroll down to the first post and read the posts in order, it will really help you understand what all this is about.
Personal update - Weight 142, acidity 5.75! We’re making progress! Still having trouble finding time to exercise as much as I would like. My milk supply has been a little low at some points, but recovers quickly with increased caloric intake and slightly higher carbs. I’m working on finding that magical balance between losing weight and keeping my supply strong. Exercise is still a little hit and miss.
Now - onto the main course. I’ve been doing a lot of research since my last post, and I am totally stoked with what I’ve uncovered!! It turns out that things I was suspecting might be true, actually are!! We are on our way towards getting the gender we’ve been dreaming of!
Blood glucose level may just be the most important factor in a good sway. According to the studies of Elissa Cameron, a scientist currently studying Trivers Willard and gender ratio in mammals at the University of Nevada at Reno, low blood sugar levels = girl, and moderate levels = boy. (High levels don’t count, because your body doesn’t like having high glucose levels and immediately releases insulin, drastically lowering your blood sugar. You know that awful feeling you get an hour after eating a candy bar? That is the sensation of your blood sugar crashing.)
Glucose is a moderately sweet sugar that your body uses as its primary source of fuel. Glucose is found naturally in things like fruit and honey - so just avoid fruit and honey and get a girl, right? Well, unfortunately, it’s not that easy.
The main source of glucose is glycogen, a substance your body makes out of any carbohydrate, and stores in the liver and in your muscle tissue. So between meals, once your body has burned off all the available glucose, it starts breaking down its stored glycogen into glucose and uses that for fuel. Your body likes to have quick energy, and glucose/glycogen is the quickest and safest energy at its disposal. Your body stores between 375-475 g of carbohydrates, a tiny amount as blood sugar, but the vast majority in your liver and muscles as glycogen. This is enough for you to run for 20 miles, just using your body’s stored carbohydrates as fuel.
But what happens when your body runs out of glucose and stored glycogen? Your liver begins to manufacture glucose out of amino acids it gets from your fat and muscle tissue (which is why you tend to lose muscle mass when you’re crash dieting.) And the side effect of manufacturing glucose from amino acids?? Acidosis, a buildup of acid in the blood!!!
According to the Trivers Willard hypothesis, mothers who are in the worst physical condition due to a lack of abundant resources have more girls. And according to basic human biology, when you are losing weight and living off your stored fat and muscle tissue, your body becomes more acidic. So if worse condition = more girls and more acid in the body, it isn’t much of a leap to conclude that more acid = more girls. So all the ttc girl swaying we were doing with supps and douches, trying to lower our pH levels, wasn’t just old wives tales and superstition. It is based on scientific fact!! Pretty cool, huh??
Ok - now the downside. (of course there’s always a downside…) It isn’t healthy to have too much acid in your body for too long. So when we sway by losing weight, we must be very careful to eat at least some carbohydrates every day, either by eating some low carb vegetables or even a half a slice of whole grain bread with our protein based meals, or by allowing ourselves one higher carb meal a day. (Don’t worry, your body will release insulin to deal with the higher carb levels, and actually keep your blood glucose low) I think right before bed is the perfect time to do this, because we will have many hours of no food intake afterwards, and won't experience the unpleasant sensation of a carb crash. And since some of us may even choose to skip breakfast, that would give us a nice long time period with no glucose coming in.
Do not eat both high levels of simple carbs and high fat and protein in the same meal, you will be counteracting your sway with that. (Unless you are trying to TTC a boy, in which case that’s what you should eat at every meal!!) For TTC a girl, either eat a small amount of complex carbs like lower carb veggies or whole grains with your meal (keeping your blood sugar still low overall), or eat just simple carbohydrates (raising your blood sugar quickly but then the release of insulin will drive the level back down again, maybe even lower than it was to start with.)
And even more important - when you are in the 2ww you must! And I repeat must!!! Eat carbs at every meal! I mean it!!! You can hurt your baby if you have extremely low blood sugar at this point!!! As soon as you’ve O’d and DTD, stop dieting, cut back on exercise, and start adding in a slice of bread or some fruit at every meal. Don’t go overboard and gain weight, just start eating in a balanced way again. You can always resume the diet should Aunt Flo arrive.
Remember, millions of women have conceived baby girls by doing absolutely nothing any differently than what they‘ve always done. We don’t need to become “swayorexic” and destroy our health, we just have to do enough to send our bodies the message that a girl pregnancy would be preferred. 
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