Gestational Diabetes – Part 1

So the goal is to be under 120 2 hours after eating a meal. You don’t have to test after a snack.

My doctor said to keep the blood sugar steady, so not skipping meals and not restricting carbs. She was very firm that this is NOT a low carb diet. (I mean, your body needs carbs for the baby to grow, so I’d hope not.)

When I got the news it was incredibly hard not to immediately go back into my old thinking habits. Back when I logged and weighed and measured and counted every calorie I ate in my app. When I was eating 1400 calories a day (too low) plus working out. When I’d see that I was close to going over my “calorie goal” for the day and then I’d just stop eating. When I’d workout EXTRA hard to burn extra calories to “Earn” a special meal (like if we were going out to dinner on a Saturday night or ordering a pizza).

And it definitely brought my brain back to the two-ish years I was doing Keto. I know I’ve written about keto a LOT. I will say this: I did not notice or realize just how disordered keto was when I was doing it. I just didn’t. It was recommend by my doctor at the time, everywhere I turned people were talking about keto and losing a ton of weight on it. My instagram feed was eventually FULL of all keto people–influencers, keto cookbook authors and recipe developers.

Now, instead of tracking calories, I was obsessed with carbs, net carbs and fiber counts. I’d look at an apple and then scoff at it and be like “I can’t eat that apple” because of the carb count. When — I’m sorry– but APPLES ARE HEALTHY. I used to eat an apple every day for my mid-morning snack. I like apples. They are healthy. They had fiber in it. They taste good. Oh! And don’t eat carrots on keto. Carrots have too much SUGAR.

But instead of that apple or carrots, I was looking for pre-packaged keto foods. That, honestly, do not taste great. Instead of having a piece of my amazing homemade sourdough bread, I was spending $7 on a loaf of keto bread because it was low carb and 50 calories a slice. Who cares that it tasted like cardboard.

So when I got the call that I had to start checking my blood sugar I immediately panicked and my first thought was, “I have to go back to no carbs.” It was such a hard thing. I’ve done so much work this year to heal my relationship with food, my body, etc. I had honestly gotten to a pretty good spot when I got pregnant. Earlier this year I’d stopped tracking my calories but I was still doing it in my head. After a few months I was able to stop doing it in my head. And I didn’t gain any weight. Then I got pregnant. Where you gain weight no matter what.

I am glad that GD does not mean low carb. I discussed a lot of this stuff with the nutritionist and my doctor and they all agreed that I don’t need to log my food/calories or weigh stuff or track carbs. I know how to do it in my head anyways. It’s more about pairing the carbs with something.

For example, I had half a BLT sandwich on my homemade sourdough bread and cottage cheese and my blood sugar didn’t spike high. So if I want to eat my apple, I have cheese and/or peanut butter with it. So REALLY, I am not changing my diet too much, just making smarter choices to pair foods. Which we should probably all do, even non-diabetics. Pairing carbs with a protein is just a general healthier way to eat carbs.

If you are pregnant, thinking about getting pregnant, or want to know more about gestational diabetes, this podcast was very good! Informative, not judgmental and good info.

I had a phone appointment with *I* guess my GD caseworker??? I have no idea honestly. But she’s the one going over my numbers each week and chatting with me. She said my numbers on the 3 hours test were just barely over the line and so far my daily testing results seem fine–no red flags yet and I haven’t even changed my diet yet. She DID say that I need to eat more snacks and not just 3 meals a day. So I need to change that.

I’ve had blood sugar issues for a really long time. I usually have low blood sugar issues. I go from normal to “hangry” (dizzy, lightheaded, starving) in a blink of an eye. One thing this whole diagnosis has taught me is that I need to eat more often. For too long I’ve gone really long times in between meals, letting my blood sugar drop, then eating (sometimes too much or not the best options). The goal of monitoring my GD is to KEEP MY BLOOD SUGAR STEADY. One thing the nurse told me was to have a bedtime snack. Which seemed weird to me, but it has been working well.

While I am not thrilled by my pancreas basically shitting the bed on me 😉 it’s not the end of the world like I thought it was. I am managing it well without much of a change. Checking my blood is a pain in the butt but not the end of the world. And it’s a short window of time. 9 weeks left, not a lifetime.