the exercise enigma

Updated 12-31-24

Exercise for Natural Gender Selection is a complex and confusing issue. But when used wisely, it is an invaluable weapon in your swaying arsenal. Exercise has consistently been one of the most successful sway tactics, staying at or above 73% since 2010, when we started tracking that data on the former Gender Dreaming site.

Here are the numbers on exercise for pink sways through the end of 2024. Keep in mind that these are only the people who filled out our spreadsheet – many thousands of people successfully used exercise as a part of their sways over the past 15 years:

While we don’t have similar numbers for exercise for blue – I could never find a volunteer to tally up the blue stats – when something consistently sways 73% or better for pink, we can safely extrapolate that to blue sways as well, only in reverse. I have seen vastly superior results in blue swayers willing to do the correct type of exercise and much lower results in those blue swayers who were unwilling or unable to include the proper amount and type of exercise as a sway tactic.

Exercise can sway pink OR blue, depending on your body type and metabolism, your diet, how much and what type of exercise you do, and how it affects your body. Both genetics and life history can change the way exercise affects a person – some people gain muscle easily, others lose weight easily; someone who has never exercised will react differently to exercise than someone who is already very fit. As a result, we cannot just look at one type of exercise and say, yes, this sways pink for everyone all the time, or another type of exercise and say, this sways blue 100% regardless of overall environment. Don’t waste your time online searching for “do jumping jacks sway” or things like that.

If you read on any websites that “cardio sways pink” and “weightlifting sways blue”, this is WRONG. This info originally came from me and even though I have tried to explain the details more thoroughly, I think people felt like they had to simplify it and came up with that blanket prescription. But the truth about exercise and swaying is a lot more complicated, and just following those directions may hurt your sway or even your health!

Anything that grows muscle mass sways blue. Anything that shrinks it, sways pink. Cardio plus weight gain on a high protein, higher calorie diet can improve your muscle mass and would potentially sway blue. Excessive weightlifting, especially while losing weight on a lower protein diet, will shrink muscle – this is called overtraining and it’s the reason why weightlifters only lift twice a week – and could sway pink. Even not exercising at all can affect your muscle mass in a positive or negative way!

How Exercise Works: Your growing or shrinking muscle mass sends a signal to your body that times are good for producing one gender or another. If your body perceives that you are physically dominant, capable of fighting and winning, gaining weight with access to lots of nutritious food, your testosterone levels (or whatever it is that is swaying; we are no longer certain it even IS testosterone) will be on the increase and you’ll be more likely to conceive a boy. If your body perceives you are not physically dominant and/or are having to fight constantly just to survive and are losing those fights – it is believed that the body interprets intense physical activity without an increase in food intake as losing a competition for resources – if you’re losing muscle mass and eating a lower protein, lower calorie, lower nutrient diet, your testosterone levels (or whatever is actually swaying) will drop and you’ll be more likely to conceive a girl.

Aside from raising testosterone, exercising a lot also may “acidify” the body – though we doubt the pH stuff actually works any more, because it has no real scientific support. The theory is, when you exercise, your body first burns off all available carbohydrates in your body, then after the carbs are gone, it begins to burn fat, then after 45- 60 minutes, muscle. The byproducts of burning muscle are said to be highly acidic (although in terms of swaying, this is biologically improbable.) More probable is the effect of exercise on blood sugar levels. If you exercise longer than 45 minutes or so, your body stops burning carbs in your blood and starts burning stores of fat as fuel and eventually muscle. This has an effect on blood sugar and insulin response that is probably what sways, not anything to do with acidity.

But if you are a believer in the old school sway, electrolytes (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium) are lost through sweat and so swayers may end up further reducing their levels of these minerals by exercise. After doing a lot of research and observation, I no longer believe mineral levels to have any real effect for Natural Gender Selection, but it is what some believe.

BASIC EXERCISE GUIDELINES FOR TRYING TO CONCEIVE A BOY:

Focus on moderate exercise with emphasis on muscle building. Aim for 45 minutes of moderate cardio OR weight training OR a combination of both, 4-5 days a week. OR, you can split your exercise up into 30 minutes in the morning and 30 at night (that can be a way to fit in more exercise without running the risk of burning of fat/muscle for fuel, that you get by exercising longer than 45 minutes). At minimum, do about 30 minutes of cardio – things that also build muscle, like walking up and down stairs, or kickboxing, or HIIT style workouts are great – and then 15-30 minutes of muscle building 3-5 times a week.

If possible, aim at least 2 days a week off – so two days without any exercise at all. You can arrange your exercise on the other days to be all cardio some days, all weights some days, or small amounts of both. Your choice.

For people who are really having a hard time with weight gain, I sometimes will have them do weight lifting 4 days a week, and cardio 4 days a week (doing a combined workout on the 7th day); however, this is not my preference as it gets dangerously close to overexercise. It is better to control excess weight gain by eating less overall, while focusing on more nutritious foods. You do NOT need to eat meat and potato and dried fruit and banana and whole grain bread and a gallon of fruit juice plus twenty other things in one day to get a boy.

I am sometimes asked if it is ok to do 15 minutes of exercise for blue. While it’s better than nothing, I prefer to see you guys work up to at least 30 minutes of exercise. Part of this can be cardio, to help prevent excess weight gain on HE Diet, and part muscle building, if you really do not have time for both.

For those of you who do not have reliable Internet access, there are some great old exercise videos out there for blue including Tae Bo and the Firm. They focus on building muscle and cardio fitness at the same time. If they are too intense for you, Walk Away The Pounds is another easy to find option. Walking steps/doing step exercise programs are also good because they provide cardio and the stepping works the large muscles of your lower body. And even just walking around the neighborhood for 45 minutes can build a surprising amount of muscle.

For those of you with the ability to stream workouts, check out Blogilates and PopSugar Fitness on YouTube for great, FREE workouts. (Seriously, I do these myself and they rule – I gave up TaeBo totally in favor of Blogilates and PopSugar!) Walk Away The Pounds also has online workouts if you need something that is less intense, and Caroline Jordan is also good for less intense but still challenging workouts.

Many of these workouts are classed as 60 minute workouts, but part of that time is warmup and cooldown and so it doesn’t really “count” as a full 60 minute workout. In those cases, you can use a “60 minute” workout as a 45 minute one – but I would not let it extend beyond that!

Diet Tips for Blue Swayers Currently Exercising – No matter the type of sway diet you follow – though I recommend the High Everything Diet for Blue – aim for higher protein, higher calorie, higher nutrient, and a higher intake of Omega 3 fats to help build that muscle mass. Aim for 2000 calories a day or more – the more you exercise, the lower weight you were to start with, the more you should be eating. But keep in mind it only has to be more than you were eating before you were swaying. If you only ever eat 1500 calories a day, and go up to 1800, it may be that 1800 is enough for you. Same with protein – if you always ate a low-protein diet and have increased protein, that is all that matters. Don’t worry if you can’t get up to the high amounts of protein some blue swayers eat.

Weight Gain/Loss for Blue Swayers While Exercising –

If you are on the thin side, you will need to gain weight. Even just 3-5 pounds of muscle in the months before swaying will make a difference. I would suggest skipping cardio totally and focusing just on muscle building alone.

If you are already overweight, try to maintain your weight (don’t lose weight) while building muscle mass. It is TOTALLY possible to gain muscle without losing a pound, if you eat higher protein foods, and lift weights. Cardio in addition to weight training is extra important because it will enable you to burn off some extra calories and because you are carrying some extra weight, the muscle building effects of cardio for lower body muscle building are even more effective.

NO ONE should gain more than 10-15 lbs absolute max while swaying blue. Huge weight gains are not more effective than moderate weight gains. In fact for some people, excess weight gain may cause PCOS flares and possibly even sway pink. Many of our blue sway opposites have been in people who really gained a lot of weight quickly while swaying. The good news is that exercise can help prevent that rapid weight gain.

The Benefits of Doing Nothing for Blue – if you are a person who has a lot of girls and have always exercised to excess, it is time to give your body a break instead. Exercise much less and at much lower intensity, or if that is difficult for you (for example, if you have exercise bulimia and tend to get carried away), stop exercising all together. You should still try and gain 3-5 pounds and eat a high-protein, high nutrient, high calorie, high Omega 3 fat diet, because this will help your muscles heal and recover. If it takes you several months to get pregnant, you should resume moderate exercise after a brief – no longer than 6 weeks – recovery period or you risk losing muscle mass from inactivity. I have observed what I call “an important minority” (a small but remarkable subset of swayers that sticks out curiously in the larger group) of chronic exercise enthusiasts among both our blue swayers as a whole, and also our opposites, even with otherwise good blue sways. The extreme exercise really does produce more girls, so if this is you, do your best to let it go for a few weeks.

Blue Friendly Exercise For Hubby: Moderate exercise such as weight lifting may help sway blue, particularly if an overweight man loses fat at the same time. Please take precautions, since “heating up the jewels” doing exercise, particularly jogging and biking, has been proven to sway pink in scientific studies. If there is any way to have your husband forgo jogging and biking while you are swaying blue, it may help. And for those husbands who are serious amateur or professional athletes, planning your pregnancy during his off season when he doesn’t need to train so intensely may really help.

IMPORTANT Warnings:

As I already mentioned above, a notable chunk of our blue sway opposites have occurred in women who refused to give up extreme exercise (particularly cardio), who stopped overexercising for a while and then panicked after gaining some weight and resumed exercising, or who got pregnant very quickly after having just stopped extreme exercise. Please be sure to give yourself six full weeks on the sway diet and without extreme exercise before trying. And if you know yourself, and you know that gaining weight will be very hard for you, then please be very careful with your diet so you don’t gain too much weight too quickly and find yourself tempted to exercise to extremes again. 3-5 lbs is enough weight gain for most people, and certainly no more than 10-15 lbs. Gaining 30+ pounds is not necessary and will potentially wreck your sway, not to mention your health and fertility.

BASIC EXERCISE GUIDELINES FOR TRYING TO CONCEIVE A GIRL –

There are two main options for exercising when swaying pink:

Excessive exercise or 60 6-7. This requires a minimum of 60 minutes a day, 6-7 days a week (and yes, it does need to be in one 60 minute block if at all possible so you stop burning carbs and begin burning fat/muscle for at least part of the workout). Straight cardio without weights is best but if you are already fit and need to add some light weights in order to get a really taxing workout, you should. Use the lightest weight needed to achieve the results.

Couch Potato or Do Nothing. In 3 days without exercise, your muscle mass begins to shrink. In 6 weeks without exercise, you can lose up to 60% of muscle mass. Please note, we have seen significantly inferior results with no exercise than we have with excessive exercise, so if there’s any way to include the exercise, please do that.

• If you are very very fit and muscular to begin with, while we once believed it would be better for you to go couch potato and do nothing, we have seen such stellar results with the exercise that you now should continue exercising, even if it is not an increase in exercise for you. Keep in mind that even if you got boys in the past at that level of exercise, your diet and other lifestyle factors will be different.

• If you can’t get up to the 60 6-7 minutes of exercise, we have still seen acceptable results with as few as 4 days. It is still best to get up to 60 minutes if at all possible.

• If you find that you can’t really stick to exercise at least 4 days a week, STOP exercising right away and do nothing (unless you have PCOS, insulin resistance, or more than 30-50 lbs to spare). Be honest with yourself about your diet, though, because weight gain on a higher protein diet WILL sway blue, and if you stop losing weight and start gaining it when you stop exercise, that will completely undermine your pink sway.

• If you do have PCOS/IR or have a fair bit of weight to spare (30-50 lbs), please exercise even if you can’t get up to the full 60-6-7 or even the 4 days a week. The benefits to you for blood sugar control and weight loss for you are so huge that you should exercise even if it’s moderate. We have seen great results with small amounts of exercise for this subset.

Diet Tips for Pink Swayers, Exercising or Not – Whether or not you’re exercising or going couch potato, you will find yourself in one of these dietary categories:

Most swayers should follow a low calorie, low protein, lower (but not NO) nutrient diet, with an emphasis on carbs; aim for 1500-1800 calories, 30-60 g fat, 40-50 grams of protein.

Swayers with PCOS/IR, those with poor egg quality, who are over 40 or even over 38 with concerns about fertility, and those with more than 30-50 lbs to spare: 1500-1800 cals a day, 50-60 g fat, 50-60 g protein, have full fat dairy only (no skim or part skim dairy), limit sugar, and focus on whole grains instead of white refined grains.

Swayers who are very tall or are breastfeeding, or those who are losing weight rapidly, increase calories to 1800-2000 (or beyond if needed) and grams of protein and fat to 50-60 g. It is best to start off eating more than you think you need, and you can always reduce over time.

If you are very petite and only ever eat 1500 calories a day or if you’ve plateaued with weight to spare, you may drop as low as 1200-1500 calories a day. Please note this is a very small percentage of people – only 1-3% of people need to eat this little. I strongly urge you, particularly when exercising, to start off eating more than you think you need, and you can always reduce over time.

Weight Gain/Loss for Pink Swayers While Exercising – Provided you are over BMI 21, you should try to lose at least a small amount of weight. Even just a couple pounds will help. You will ensure you actually have lost muscle mass that way. At BMI 21, you should stop losing weight, but if a small amount of weight sneaks off, it usually doesn’t hurt anything. The absolute “do not pass this mark” BMI is 18.5…do whatever it takes to prevent excessive weight loss. By BMI 18.5, particularly with exercise involved, most people experience disruptions in their menstrual cycle. Stop deliberately losing weight at BMI 21 and DO NOT GO OVERBOARD.

If weight is flying off (even if you’re above the BMI guidelines), you are experiencing changes in your cycle, or you drop below BMI 21 and especially BMI 18.5, do what you need to do to slow down weight loss and better yet, stop it completely. Eat more, and exercise less, if that’s what it takes. It is much better to start off eating more than you think you need to prevent this state of affairs, however. If you let your weight loss get out of hand, the only remedy is to relax on diet and exercise a lot, plus regaining weight, which can undermine your pink sway. Be proactive and do not let things get this far.

Your body composition may matter more than weight. When I was swaying with DS 4, I lost a lot of weight but I still had a great deal of muscle mass in my arms and legs. I then gained a bunch of weight when I was pregnant with him and I lost it all over again. I found that my arms and legs were much flabbier and less muscular than before. At that point I conceived my daughter. My weight was only a couple pounds different, but my body itself had changed. If you have had a failed sway, all is not lost. It may be that your body will act differently the second time around even if the number on the scale is all but identical.

The Benefits of Doing Nothing for Pink – As mentioned above, if you really cannot exercise, your muscle will begin to shrink in just 3 days of being a “couch potato” and you can lose a lot of muscle mass in 6 weeks. But keep in mind that just day to day things like walking, lifting children, etc. do give your muscles somewhat of a workout. This does NOT mean you should therefore stop doing normal day to day activities and huddle in a dark closet staring at your computer obsessing about swaying. I repeat, DO NOT stop doing normal, everyday activities to retreat into obsession – that is a very big red flag for failed sways. I only mention it to urge you guys to exercise if at all possible because that will get you superior results.

We know the excessive 60 6-7 exercise is ~best~ for pink. But no exercise is much better than moderate exercise plus gaining weight on a higher protein diet. So be honest with yourself and if you aren’t able to exercise 60 minutes a day, at minimum 4 days a week, stop exercising (the exception is those with PCOS, insulin resistance, or other blood sugar issues as described above). Also, if you know that you are losing too much weight or that you will lose too much if you do the extreme level of exercise, it may be better for you to skip exercise to prevent your cycle from getting messed up. Overexercise with weight loss can suppress your ovulation too far and make it stop all together (and it doesn’t take much).

Regardless of the amount you exercise, even if you do no exercise at all, if you are losing weight on a lower protein diet, your muscle will be shrinking. But again, please continue to live your life normally. No one should stop going for walks with their children or anything so extreme! Remember, swaying needs to fit into your life and not the other way around. The people who make their whole worlds revolve around their pink sways are also the ones whose sways do not work out. “Swaycession” (an out of control obsession with swaying that affects primarily pink swayers) is a real thing that happens to people, and it is a huge marker of sways that will produce blue opposites.

Pink Friendly Exercise For Hubby: Jogging and biking have both been proven to sway pink. If your husband can incorporate these things into your sway, it will only help. If he has sperm health issues, or if you are not getting pregnant and don’t know why, he may need to skip this tactic since jogging and biking can lower sperm health too far.

If your husband lifts weights, that is fine. He can safely continue doing that. Weight training and building muscle mass appears to sway blue for wives, not husbands. While we don’t have the same high quality scientific studies about weight training that we have proving jogging and biking sway pink for males, we have observed many, many weight lifters with all or mostly girls (including a lot of very buff and manly Hollywood celebrities and pro sports stars). PLEASE do not make your husband give up things that he enjoys that are meaningless to your sway, because the more you ask him to do, the less likely it is that he will comply.

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