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. 