Ideas for what to eat-Gestational Diabetes

[Tevesie]

Ladies any ideas for what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner? What do you eat to keep your diet in check. :)

[jemma116]

Look at food labels and choose foods that have 3% or lower per portion of sugars and fats.

Be careful and read food labels.  Products that are marked as being "low fat" may contain more sugar.  So always read the foot label.

Cut out all sugary foods (you can have a small portion as a treat from time to time).

For breakfast you can have porridge made with milk or water and add some soft fresh fruit or a small portion of raisins and/or cinnamon.  Don't get the ready made porridge, they contain too much sugar.

Brown seeded toast with peanut butter; 1 or 2 Wheetabix with milk and some soft fruit of your choice.  Natural yogurt with soft fruit of your choice a drizzle of honey if you like.  Shredded wheat.  
If you do choose to have cereals, look at the labels and go for the ones with as little sugar as possible.  The ones I have mentioned above are fine.
Egg on brown bread seeded toast.

Have a healthy snack a few hours later - celery with some low fat cream cheese, or with peanut butter (choose the one that has no added sugar), or with almond or cashew nut butter (these are not really butter).
You can have a handful of unsalted nuts, handful of grapes, an apple, an orange or any other fruit you like - if you have a banana, have a small one.
Plain yogurt with soft fruit.

For your mid day meal you can choose to have seeded brown bread and make a sandwich with lean meat and salad.  If you have a cooked meal, choose lean cuts of meat, or fish without batter.  When you cook use as little oil as possible, or boil or roast.  Vegetables.  Soups are a good choice.

Have a healthy snack.

For your evening meal - any lean meat or fish, boiled potatoes, boiled rice, vegetables.

Evening snack.

You can treat yourself to very small portion of chocolate, some biscuits contain very little sugar.  Garibaldi biscuits have about 39 calories per 1 biscuit.  Small packet of crisps.  

Don't forget to drink your milk for healthy teeth and bones for you and your growing baby.  Milk does contain lactose and that is milk sugar.  You may be fine having semi skimmed milk (or even full fat milk, but watch your portions) or you may like to go for lactose free milks - there are soya, almond, coconut and I recently found a hazelnut milk in the store the other week.  Make sure too that you drink water.
Don't drink fizzy and sugary drinks.   If you like a fresh juice for your breakfast or any other time, half a small glass is fine.

Basically you will be eating a healthy and well balanced diet, but be careful about your portion sizes.  Vegetables (apart from sweet corn and peas as they are higher in sugar than other veg) and salads should make up most of your plate.  a piece of meat should be the size of a pack of playing cards.
Potatoes are not classed as veg, as they are a starch.  

Don't forget that any food is energy, so by moving and exercising (to your ability), swimming, walking, housework, will all help to burn the energy.  This too will help to keep the sugar levels down.  

When you do go anywhere, take a healthy snack with you, even a chocolate biscuit or low calorie bar - what you do not want is to get low sugar levels causing hypoglycaemia.  Symptoms of that could be headache, nausea and extreme hunger that sometimes may make you feel that you want to vomit.

You can find more information on the web about portion sizes and ideas for meals when you take a look at the diabetic web site.

Ask your doctor to refer you to a dietician who deals with people with diabetes.

Wishing you a happy pregnancy.

[Tevesie]

Oh awesome! Thank you for the idea. No I have not seen a nutritionist yet. I have so many appts and trying to keep work and appts balanced. Just trying to get some ideas. Thank you again. :)

[RockRose]

Has your doctor scheduled you with a nutritionist?

I had GD,  controlled through diet without insulin or other meds,  and was sent to a nutritionist consult.  

Basically,  limit your intake of sugars.  That includes white bread,  cookies,  candy,  cakes,  white rice,  sodas,  and other carbs.

For breakfast I had a tablespoon of natural peanut butter on whole wheat toast and a banana.  Lunch and dinner were cooked whole foods (baked chicken,  whole vegetables,  brown rice,  etc.)  Anything that is only one ingredient.  

I did really well on that and had a 7.5 pound baby.