Guide to weight gain for blue

Guide to Gaining Weight for Blue! Update 10-4-22

Why do we want to gain weight for blue?

Gaining weight for blue helps you by increasing muscle mass and body fat. It can help raise your blood sugar as well. Plus, eating more food means you have more nutrients coming in, and that helps send a message to your body that a boy baby has a better shot at survival. Also, stored body fat binds toxins safely where they can no longer affect your fertility negatively. If you are conceiving girls because of previous exposures to toxins in your environment like pesticides or heavy metals, this is one easy way to sway effortlessly.

How much should I gain?

Weight gain for blue sounds great but it’s actually very tricky. Too much weight gain is bad for health and fertility, so it’s best to limit it as much as you possibly can. 3-5 pounds is plenty for most people; however, if you are someone who is chronically thin (BMI beneath 20) and/or a very intense exerciser, you may want to increase this to 5-7 pounds. I would advise limiting weight gain to 15 pounds maximum, for everyone UNLESS you are also exercising and certain you’re adding mostly muscle. And even then, BE VERY CAUTIOUS.

Is it possible to gain too much?

Yes, it is possible to gain too much weight. The Nurses’ Study II found that BMI of 20-24.99 was the best for fertility. Women with BMI of 25-29.99 were 32% more likely to have issues with ovulatory infertility and women with BMI of 30 or more were 35% more likely to have issues with ovulatory infertility than women whose BMI was in the normal range. BMI of 20-24.99 is ideal for blue. If you don’t know your BMI there are many calculators online that will help you figure it out.

Do I really HAVE to exercise??

Yes. Exercise (Vitamin X) is MANDATORY for blue. By doing regular moderate exercise (45 minutes a day, 4-5 days a week) you help build muscle mass that will raise your testosterone levels which probably sways blue. Contrary to what you may read on other websites, BOTH cardio and weight training are great for blue. Weight training builds muscle and increases your metabolism. According to the American Council on Exercise, a pound of muscle burns 7-10 calories an hour while a pound of fat burns only 2-3 calories. This doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but remember, this goes on even when you’re sleeping. Even better, during and after exercise – possibly for up to 36 hours after exercise – muscle burns up to twice as many calories as it does at rest, and if you eat a snack containing carbs after you exercise, which, on the HE Diet, you should be doing regularly anyway but especially after exercise, you won’t even store additional calories as fat. Instead it will go to restoring your body’s stores of glycogen (exercise depletes glycogen stores) which will fuel future workouts and muscle growth. Exercise enables you to consume more food without gaining weight, which is very important if you’re following the HE Diet approach.

Beyond that, exercise itself raises testosterone. This is especially the case if you are doing a form of combative exercise like kickboxing, where your body is actually going through the motions of fighting; your body may interpret those movements as fighting for survival and raise T levels even higher.

What if I’m already very heavy?

You have two options. One is to maintain where you are at (and if you’re just a bit overweight, less than 30 lbs or so, this is the best option for you.) and add in exercise to change the proportions of muscle to fat in your body. This can be challenging but it IS doable provided you eat enough.

If you’re over 50 lbs. overweight, it’s best for the sake of your sway and also for your health to postpone your sway for 6 months to a year (provided that you can do so and are not in a hurry to conceive due to advanced maternal age or family/job requirements, of course) to lose the weight on a balanced, healthy diet and become more physically fit and muscular. Then, you can start onto the HE Diet and your increased level of physical fitness and hopefully hold steady at your lower weight.

In between 30-50 lbs, go with what your gut instinct tells you. Weight on a scale can be somewhat misleading. If you know you’re pretty muscular, even if you’re closer to 50 lbs. overweight, you may wish to go ahead and sway, esp. if you’ve already conceived a son at that weight. If you know you’re lacking muscle and have conceived several girls at your present weight, it’s best to get some weight off even if you’re only 37 pounds over your ideal.

How soon before I sway should I start to gain weight?

That depends on a few different things. The conventional wisdom espoused on other sites is, you can start the diet 90 days before you start to sway because the egg has a lifespan of 90 days (grows from a tiny seed to a mature egg in that time) and the “egg priming” theory suggests there is some benefit to be gained by dieting for 90 days OR you can start diet 6 weeks out because the French Gender Diet/InGender Diet claim that your mineral levels take 6 weeks to change. I don’t personally believe in either egg priming or mineral levels swaying but just so you guys are aware of these options.

If you have a lot of weight to lose, you’ll need to start losing it up to a year in advance. This will give you time to take the weight off and normalize before your sway. Warning – while you’re losing the weight, be VERY VERY careful to use protection every time you have intercourse, even if you think you’re in a safe zone. The last thing you want to risk, is an accidental pregnancy when you’re losing weight.

If you are already very thin and eat poorly and have for years, you may also want to start a diet and exercise regimen sooner rather than later, because it may take time for your body to replenish itself and get in the best physical condition that it can. Testosterone and estrogen do take some time to increase so you need to allow time for that to happen.

I think you should start many aspects of diet and also exercise, as far in advance of your sway as possible. But when it comes to gaining weight, I would ~try~ to keep that for the final few months or even weeks prior to your sway. When I was TTC DS 3, we started trying in May but I didn’t conceive. I ate a ton of fertility-friendly foods, continued doing a lot of physical exercise (I had a very physically demanding job), and ended up gaining 3 lbs that month. Then in June, I got pregnant. This is pretty close to ideal for blue.

If you find you’ve gained weight sooner rather than later, that’s ok. Just try to maintain where you’re at rather than gaining much more. Remember, it’s best not to gain more than 15 lbs. and also to stay within the 20-24.99 BMI range.

What if I’m gaining TOO much weight on HE Diet??

The guidelines for the HE diet are 2200-2500 cals a day (reduce to 2000-2200 if you are already overweight or gaining weight too quickly), 90 grams of protein a day (vegetarian sources of protein are fine), increasing healthy fats and complex carbs while still staying in your caloric guidelines for the day, and trying for 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. You also need to eat 3 balanced meals and 2-5 snacks (breakfast is the most important meal and a bedtime snack is the most important snack), eating both protein and carbs at every meal and snack. That does seem like a lot of food, esp. for pink mamas who may not typically eat that much.

Firstly, on the HE Diet, you need to eat smarter, not harder. You don’t have to blow up like a balloon and many moms of boys are quite slim but still consume large quantities of food. You need to pick the RIGHT foods, in the right combinations, and eat wisely. Pick the most nutrient dense foods you can find so you get the maximum nutrients for the minimum calories. Avoid Franken-foods that are high in nitrites, transfats, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners….transfats in particular have been linked to increased obesity rates and the Nurses’ Study II found that the more transfats a woman consumes, the more likely she is to have ovulatory infertility. Combine foods to increase nutrients and also slow down rises and falls in blood sugar…eating protein and carbs at every meal and snack, can be as easy as a handful of nuts and a V-8, string cheese and grapes, or a hard boiled egg and a cup of fruit juice. You do NOT need to eat nuts, meat, dairy, fruit juice, and a baked potato at every sitting.

I repeat – You do NOT need to eat nuts, meat, dairy, fruit juice, and a baked potato at every sitting.

The foods suggested on some websites are TERRIBLE for TTC blue in addition to contributing to weight gain, and I actually think it’s miraculous that anyone conceives a boy eating that way. Diets consisting of Rice Krispies with non-dairy creamer, bacon, Campbell’s Soup, 8 glasses of fruit juice, rice milk, iceberg lettuce salads, and fries…people conceive boys in SPITE of those diets, not because of them.

The Nurses’ Study II found that women who ate primarily simple carbs (Rice Krispies, tomato soup, potato, rice milk, fruit juice) had lower fertility than those who ate complex carbs or simple carbs plus protein, and this finding is also supported by the blood glucose research. You need consistent, even blood sugar for a boy, not wild fluctuations in blood sugar caused by overconsumption of simple carbs that the traditional sway diets encourage. If you are going to follow the HE Diet, DO the HE Diet and not some halfway version of IGD/FGD where you stuff yourself with all the foods that either diet ever mentions. Trying to combine them WILL make you gain massive amounts of weight and is not going to help your sway any. Eating smarter means blue swayers may have to let go of some of the old ways of doing things.

You CAN eat sugar/sweets when you TTC blue, you don’t need to avoid them all together, but just make sure you eat them as a PART of a meal. Dark chocolate in particular is a very boy-friendly food, but dark chocolate BY ITSELF will cause your blood sugar to rise and then crash afterwards. Eat it as a part of a meal containing some protein.

Full fat dairy foods are proven to aid in weight loss and it may very well be that by limiting/avoiding calcium, blue swayers are actually causing themselves to gain more weight than they would otherwise. I have not been as vocal about calcium for blue swayers because I believed that your body would simply rob your bones to take the calcium it needed, but we’ve been having too many failed blue sways with people who had limited calcium even tho they ate otherwise HE Diets, for my liking. Blue swayers on the HE Diet, from now on, you MUST include 1 serving of full-fat dairy a day minimum and I strongly suggest getting calcium from other sources as well – supplements are not that well absorbed, so choose other foods like salmon, broccoli, and almonds instead of or in addition to calcium supplements. The Nurses’ Study II found that women who ate ½ c ice cream 2 times a week had 38% less risk of ovulatory infertility. DO NOT consume skim dairy, you rob yourself of fertility-friendly nutrients and skim dairy may be harmful to fertility.

Above all else do NOT exchange dairy for milk replacers. We have seen tons of opposites in the group of women drinking the most milk replacers, particularly almond and rice milk. I cannot recommend milk replacers any longer in anything beyond dietary amounts (2-3 servings a week) because I strongly believe the vegetable oils in them are swaying strongly, strongly pink. Give up dairy if you must, but please don’t make up for it with milk replacers.

Excessive sodium is also a big no-no on HE Diet. Thus far I’ve been tolerant of the sodium but again, I think we’re having too many failed sways with people doing HE Diet while trying to stick to IGD/FGD mineral recommendations and I think I’m going to have to emphasize a sane sodium intake more than I have been. Sodium is NOT good for fertility, it’s NOT good for potassium and in fact causes potassium to leach from your body, it’s not good for your folic acid/folate levels, and it’s NOT good for preventing weight gain because it makes you retain water and also stimulates the appetite and makes you hungry. There are studies that show higher sodium intake in rats = more girls conceived. Logically speaking, sodium intake cannot even sway by the mechanisms the FGD authors claim, because X and Y sperm don’t have different electrical charges and therefore cannot be attracted by sodium ions in cervical mucus or semen, either. I got a baby girl eating TONS of sodium, after a failed sway with DS 4 where I was limiting sodium.

Portion control is very important when swaying blue. Serving sizes are actually much smaller than most people realize. If you find yourself gaining weight or feeling stuffed, stop and analyze how much you’re really eating. It is a great idea to count calories to make sure you’re not getting massive amounts of calories and also to help yourself get a handle on what the appropriate serving sizes even are. A serving of fruit juice should be 8 ounces, one measuring cup, not a 32 oz. Big Gulp. Also, where fat is concerned, remember, while fat is unlimited, calories are NOT unlimited on the HE Diet…since fat has calories, you do need to be aware of how many cals you are consuming, even with healthy fats. Low carb vegetables are unlimited and you do NOT need to count any calories in low carb vegetables at all. Asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, spinach, fresh tomato, zucchini are examples of low carb vegetables that you can eat as much of as as you want. Avocado is low carb but DOES have fat, and so the calories in avocado do need to be counted.

Don’t forget the Vitamin X! Exercise 4-5 times a week, 45 minutes a day. It IS possible to add in more exercise if need be, but break it into two 45 minute blocks rather than all at once.

Finally, when swaying blue, most people should be getting pregnant MORE quickly than you have in the past. We are doing something wrong with the blue sway, when blue swayers are taking LONGER to get pregnant than pink swayers are. I strongly urge all blue swayers to let go of tactics that have been debunked like timing and baking soda finger, that serve no purpose other than preventing pregnancy. Your odds of getting pregnant from one attempt on O day are less than 8% and sperm do NOT thrive in baking soda (if they did, your body would make baking soda at ovulation rather than EWCM!!) Staying on the diet for awhile is fine if you’re very thin and need to restore your health, BUT if you’re already packing a few extra pounds, every month that passes is simply more opportunity for weight to creep on.

Since that covered a lot of ground, here’s the nutshell version: to prevent excessive weight gain while on the HE Diet

a) stick to the overall dietary guidelines of 2200-2500 cals a day and reduce to 2000-2200 if you gain too fast
b) include fat intake as part of your day’s calories…while fat is unlimited, calories are not and fat does have calories! But DO NOT eat transfats or large amounts of vegetable based fats, especially vegetable oils
c) eat smarter, not harder and pick nutrient-dense foods so you get more bang for your buck, and avoid highly processed Franken-foods with lots of artificial chemicals in them
d) combine foods to increase nutrients and eat protein and carbs at every meal to keep blood sugar stable
e) remember, you don’t have to eat EVERY boy-friendly food in existence at every meal
f) limit simple carbs and/or always eat them with protein
g) full fat dairy at least once a day and also other calcium-rich foods but limit/avoid milk replacers
h) limit sodium
i) watch portion sizes
j) exercise
k) get pregnant fast!

What about DH?

For men, higher estrogen (more body fat) lowers testosterone and sperm count and so his being a little on the cuddly side (or a lot) can sway pink. Somewhat annoyingly, when men lose weight, they often lose mostly fat while preserving or even increasing their muscle mass. Testosterone levels increase accordingly. Also, less body fat can mean lower temperature in the testicles which helps raise sperm count and quality. So if your husband is overweight, having him drop a few pounds can help your sway. He does need to lose the weight in a slow, healthy way while eating protein and healthy fats rather than crash dieting, however. No artificial sweeteners, transfats, or soy foods if possible. Lower sugar intake, and more fresh fruits and vegetables will help.

If DH is severely underweight, he should also try and gain a bit of weight, esp. while lifting weights. Thin guys tend to add muscle long before they add fat, and so for a thinner man to gain weight, oftentimes only will add muscle and increase his testosterone levels. Thin guys also need to increase intake of protein and healthy fats and fresh fruits and vegetables while eliminating artificial sweeteners, soy foods, and transfats.

If your husband is more in-between, it’s best for him to hold steady at his current weight, because having him gain weight might mean adding body fat/estrogen, and losing weight might mean he will shrink his muscle mass and lower testosterone. It’s different for every man of course, but it’s just not worth the potential risk. It’s still good advice for him to eat more protein, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables, and avoid artificial sweeteners, soy, and transfats.

Is this sort of diet healthy?

As long as you limit your weight gain to less than 15 lbs while exercising to ensure most of the weight gain is in the form of muscle rather than fat, the HE Diet is safe and healthy to follow indefinitely. It will boost your fertility and the high intake of fruits and vegetables, complex carbohydrates, lean protein, and healthy fat is in line with a well-balanced and healthy prepregnancy diet. It is a bit higher in saturated fat than the type of diet most cardiologists might recommend in the long term (altho eliminating transfats should more than make up for that!) and may be a little too high in calories for some people’s liking, particularly with the inclusion of full fat dairy, but overall this diet is excellent for fertility and will not harm health. The tiny (theoretical!!) increase in cardiovascular risk and possibly higher risk of breast cancer, from eating more saturated fat will be more than compensated for by improved bone health and possibly lower risks of other cancers as well (diets high in fruits and vegetables and also complex carbohydrates have been shown to reduce odds of some cancers.) The addition of exercise will help to remedy any small disadvantage for heart and breast health that the increase in saturated fat may carry with it.

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