Managing Gestational Diabetes

lnorton84

Hey everyone. I am currently 29 weeks pregnant and was just diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I was wondering if anyone else has went through this and has any pointers for changing my diet. I know I need to increase my protein and decrease my sugar and carbs, according to what the nurse said, but I have not gotten an appointment yet for a nutritionist and really want to start eating more healthy now. I am not sure when the earliest appointment will be available for the nutritionist since I am awaiting a call back to schedule this appointment, so I know it will not be before sometime next week. The nurse said to stop all sugar, but everything seems to have sugar in it, even if it is only 1-3grams. I want to change goals on here and start using MFP again in order to help me monitor what I eat to prevent going over the nutritional requirements I should stay under but I do not know what these requirements are yet. So guess what I am asking is can you share your story with me and any dietary advice you may have to help me begin eating more healthy while awaiting my appointment with the nutritionist? I would like to go through all the settings on here to set exactly what my needs are but I have no clue where to begin I want to do what is best for my daughter's health. I appreciate any help and advice. Thanks!

TechyTwo

Hi I had it with both my pregnancies. Basically when she said stop eating sugar she meant brownies and crap like that lol. You are basically going to start counting carbs at each meal now now instead of calories. For me I had goals of 30 carbs for breakfast 15 for snack 45 for lunch 15 for snack and 45 for dinner. You are going to want to try and make these carbs come from fruits and whole grains and a little dairy. Eat lots of protein and veggies to fill up. Everybody's body is different though and you may find you can or can't tolerate certain food depending on what your blood sugar does...I did fine with whole grain bread the first 5 weeks and then it started pushing my sugars too high so I stuck to fruit. I also would recommend Holly Cleggs Diabetic Cookbook. It is amazing! It save my life both pregnancies with trying to cook for a family and stay on track. I use it all the time even though I am no longer pregnant or diabetic. Hope that helps!

atb0821

Pretty much what Techy said. I had to take my blood sugar 4x a day and really started noticing what made my blood sugar sky rocket. Cheesecake didn't, but jelly did; whole grains were always fine, etc. I ate lots of eggs and cheese and chicken. For sweets I ate berries and had no blood sugar spike from that. It'll be fine!

mcjmommy

I had gestational diabetes with my 1st pregnancy, but not my second. The doctor monitored my weight gain closely (I only gained 15 pounds with that pregnancy). I did not have to change my diet, but was eating fairly healthy to begin with.
Because I was concerned about weight gain and having a huge baby, I was careful not to eat extra sweets etc.
I was induced on my due date and had an 8 lb 4oz healthy boy. My second pregnancy, I was induced 1 day after my due date and had another 8 lb 4 oz healthy boy.
Call their office if you have specific questions to be sure you know what the goal is.
Best of luck!

reneeb816

Ughhh...I was diagnosed right around the same time. As hard as it was for me to eat right, I have to admit it was helpful in keeping me from gaining lots of extra weight in the third trimester.

I'm not real creative when it comes to food so I basically stuck with chicken and beef, cottage cheese, carrots, whole wheat bagels, crackers, cucumbers, cream cheese, whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter. That's all I can think of at the moment. Like I said, I'm not very creative and I was sooooo bored with food but I managed. Like you said, you're doing what's best for baby.

On that note, are you using MFP to keep track of calories? I'm still kind of new to this site but I'm not sure it's geared towards pregnant woman. What I mean is, I don't know if there are settings to support your nutritional needs. Maybe a more experienced MFP user would know. You just have to make sure you aren't deprieving yourself (and baby) in order to count your calories.

bethannien

I also had it. Weird things that caused sugar spikes were cheese and bread together (seperate they were fine. But if I put cheese on my scrambled egg sandwich, I had a spike). I tried to eat veggies with every meal. I snacked two to three times per day, usually a half peanut butter sandwich or an ounce of cheese. My blood sugar wasn't diet controlled though. Doc put me on Glyburide after a month of my sugars being too high despite my best efforts. However, once I was on that, I was pretty stable. My baby wasn't even all that big, which I've heard is a possible complication

Edited to add: I also ate avocado a few times a week. My sugar would always be borderline high after, but I have gallstones and had to maintain a pretty low fat diet. Giving the baby good fats is important and that was one way I did it

lnorton84

Thanks Techy. I actually don’t eat a lot of sweets like candy, cookies, etc, but since being pregnant I had been drinking a lot of apple juice daily and I never realized how much sugar is in those juicy juice apple juices. I also love pasta and bread, so I guess those may have contributed. I know now to change to whole grain breads and watch the sugar count still and same goes for pasta. I will have to look into that cookbook cause I don’t want to get bored with my food or tempted to eat stuff I shouldn’t. I meet with a nutritionist next week sometime hopefully, but in the mean time you really helped by giving me an example of how many carbs you ate for meals. I want to start eating more healthy now not a week from now or whenever they can fit me in at the nutritionist office and unfortunately I do not know where to begin, but you have helped with that

Hi I had it with both my pregnancies. Basically when she said stop eating sugar she meant brownies and crap like that lol. You are basically going to start counting carbs at each meal now now instead of calories. For me I had goals of 30 carbs for breakfast 15 for snack 45 for lunch 15 for snack and 45 for dinner. You are going to want to try and make these carbs come from fruits and whole grains and a little dairy. Eat lots of protein and veggies to fill up. Everybody's body is different though and you may find you can or can't tolerate certain food depending on what your blood sugar does...I did fine with whole grain bread the first 5 weeks and then it started pushing my sugars too high so I stuck to fruit. I also would recommend Holly Cleggs Diabetic Cookbook. It is amazing! It save my life both pregnancies with trying to cook for a family and stay on track. I use it all the time even though I am no longer pregnant or diabetic. Hope that helps!

lnorton84

Renee, I had actually stopped using MFP because of being pregnant and was not keeping track of my calories at all, but now I am planning to use MFP to help keep track of what my body needs. I have only gained 6lbs so far with this pregnancy and I’m over 6 months pregnant now, but I never noticed just how much sugar is in everything. I rarely eat sweets and thought I was eating healthier by mixing up what I ate and still avoiding most sweets, but I never considered how much sugar is in everything we cook. I do not know of an app that offers the same resources that MFP does for pregnant women, so I am going to try to change the settings on the goals to customize them to my needs. I know I won’t have any weight loss and do not intend on that being my goal right now at all, but hopefully this will at least help me to keep a more accurate record of what I eat and where I stand on my counts daily. I appreciate your advice on the different foods to eat. You actually mentioned a lot of foods I already eat that I was uncertain about, like cream cheese on bagels, so I am glad to know I can still enjoy some of the foods I enjoy. Thanks!

Ughhh...I was diagnosed right around the same time. As hard as it was for me to eat right, I have to admit it was helpful in keeping me from gaining lots of extra weight in the third trimester.

I'm not real creative when it comes to food so I basically stuck with chicken and beef, cottage cheese, carrots, whole wheat bagels, crackers, cucumbers, cream cheese, whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter. That's all I can think of at the moment. Like I said, I'm not very creative and I was sooooo bored with food but I managed. Like you said, you're doing what's best for baby.

On that note, are you using MFP to keep track of calories? I'm still kind of new to this site but I'm not sure it's geared towards pregnant woman. What I mean is, I don't know if there are settings to support your nutritional needs. Maybe a more experienced MFP user would know. You just have to make sure you aren't deprieving yourself (and baby) in order to count your calories.

Oriana33

Hi there, I already had insulin resistance before I got pregnant, then they told me to stop my medication and guess what happened...my glucose is rising. Because of my history and twins, doc checked me early and sent me for a gestational diabetes class which I completed today. I am glad I did, I did find out I can still eat carbs, just need to control portions. Then, I hurried here to change my settings. I am hoping it will be easier for me to keep track of sugars here. My plan is based on 2200 calories a day (6 means a day)...I did receive a plan which tells me total carbs per meal. Do you already have a glucose meter? That would help you have an idea of the different foods are affecting your glucose. I was told to check fasting, 2 hrs after breakfast, lunch and dinner.

lax75

I had it for both pregnancies, and was fortunate enough to have been able to control it by watching my diet. Seemed like I was testing constantly, but after a while I got used to it and it became reassuring when the ##s were in the right range. This was long enough ago that there was no resource like MFP to help!!

The most helpful practical advice I got from the nutritionist was to "give the sugar something to land on." (My sister got married that summer so there were lots of parties and goodies.) The idea is to digest the sugar over as long a time period as possible to avoid spikes/valleys, so if you combine it with protein/fiber that takes longer to digest you'll absorb the sugar more slowly. Obviously you won't want to be eating massive amounts of it anyway, but you may not have to give it up altogether. If you have an apple, put peanut butter on it or combine it with some cheese. I used to have a big glass of milk right before going somewhere that I wasn't sure I would have a lot of healthy options - don't know if it helped the sugar absorbtion per se, but at least when I arrived at a shower or a party I wasn't starving, so probably ate less anyway. As someone pointed out, you'll start to get a handle on what your particular foods are to avoid, based on your blood tests, and probably even be able to tell from the way your body feels whether you've overdone it a little. And when you meet with the nutritionist s/he will be able to help you with your choices - I remember being told to avoid watermelon and bananas if I wanted fruit and to pick an apple or berries with more fiber.

Good luck - however annoying this is for now, once that beautiful baby arrives it will have been worth every bit!

ldrosophila

Not officially diagnosed with GD, but my blood sugars have definetly increased at 23 weeks. I notice if I focus on protein and fat, and avoid all simple sugars and eat small servings of fruit my fasting is about 100. Remember do not drink anything that has calories in it so no juice, gatorades, powerades, or soda. Portion out the carbs. 1/3 cup of pasta, rice, potatoes, and 1 oz of bread is about 15g of carbohydrates. You can probably push it to 30 grams of carbs a meal, but I wouldnt go higher than that. 0-15gms of carbohydrates a snack.

Trying to keep the carbohydrates at about 30%.

zussteele

I've got gestational diabetes, and I'm 8 weeks up the duff. I am still waiting to be booked in to see the doctors at the hospital
( Public = long waiting!!). So my GP sent me off to get a glucometer straight away and urged me to go see a dietician, which helped ease my worrying. This is my 4th day testing my sugar levels, and they are all over the place. I found out fast that pasta is a huge no no! got a reading of 9.8 after that meal.
I have to test at waking ( fasting) and 2 hrs after every meal. My dietician said to move within that 2 hour period to help with my glucose levels. I havent told my workplace that I am pregnant yet, so I am ducking off to the toilet to do my exercises! LOL All I do is stand up, and sit down repeatingly for about 15 times, every now and then. It's really difficult for me, because I am soooooo tired all the time, it's hard to find any motivation to move my butt.

The thing that is confusing me is, do I not eat anything after my meal in that two hour frame while I wait to test?????

lnorton84

Oriana33,
Thanks for your comment. I went yesterday and met with a nutritionist to get a meal plan and changed my settings on here today to help me keep track. I’ve actually lost 5 lbs in the last two weeks after cutting out most of the sugar from my diet. The only sugars I have now are very low and in occasional meals when cooking like frozen veggies or peanut butter. The nutritionist told me she doesn’t want me to lose any more weight though, so hopefully that won’t be an issue. I go in Friday for an ultrasound to see how my daughter is measuring so hoping everything is right on track  I was able to get a glucose meter and started testing my own blood sugar levels today. I tested my fasting this morning which was 84, an hour after breakfast it was 111, and hour after lunch it was 110, and an hour after dinner it was 104. I also found out my fasting number the day of my 3 hour glucose test was 87 which the doctors say is a good sign that hopefully this will only be an issue during my pregnancy and not an ongoing issue. The doctor gave me an option to either check one hour after each meal or make sure it was under 140 or two hours after each meal and make sure it was under 120, so I chose to try doing the one hour since it was easier for me to keep up. I am hoping this stays under control. This is my first pregnancy, so everything has been completely new to me and this new way of eating seems healthier so I’m going to keep on doing it after the baby is born in hopes it helps me lose weight. How are along are you in your pregnancy?
Laura

Hi there, I already had insulin resistance before I got pregnant, then they told me to stop my medication and guess what happened...my glucose is rising. Because of my history and twins, doc checked me early and sent me for a gestational diabetes class which I completed today. I am glad I did, I did find out I can still eat carbs, just need to control portions. Then, I hurried here to change my settings. I am hoping it will be easier for me to keep track of sugars here. My plan is based on 2200 calories a day (6 means a day)...I did receive a plan which tells me total carbs per meal. Do you already have a glucose meter? That would help you have an idea of the different foods are affecting your glucose. I was told to check fasting, 2 hrs after breakfast, lunch and dinner.