Gestational Diabetes, Part III: What I eat

Five quick thoughts on how I feel that I forgot about last night:
  1) I tend to have gall bladder pain so that I can feel my gall bladder swell and it kind of burns.  I haven't had any gall bladder pain since I changed my diet, and I eat the rich food that people with gall bladder pain are told to avoid.
2) I also suffer from heart burn during pregnancy so that I typically carry around the bottle of Tums in my bag.  With a few exceptions, I haven't had heart burn since I changed my diet either.
3) This probably isn't related to my diet, but maybe to my hydration, but my blood is thinner than normal at this point.  My fingers have gotten to the point that when I prick them, they don't stop bleeding immediately.  I usually have to run them under water or put pressure on them to get them to stop bleeding.
4) My face has been breaking out more than usual in the past year and a half.  Once I changed my diet, my skin cleared up.
5) I can go much longer between meals than I normally do, pregnant or not.  There are days when I eat breakfast at 0630 with Neil because I am hungry.  That is usually when I have had lighter foods the day before, especially at dinner.  There are other days that I do not eat breakfast until 9.  When I was in the hospital for monitoring the baby after we were rear-ended (she was obviously fine), I had to go 8 hours between lunch and dinner.  (When they finally brought me something to eat, it was a turkey sandwich on lame wheat bread, fruit juice, a fruit cup, and a pint of skim milk. It was all "healthy" and low-fat, but I couldn't eat any of it.  I ended up eating the sandwich on only the bottom slice of bread and giving everything else to my kids.)

One important thing to remember when eating for gestational diabetes is that if you are going to remove the calories that usually come from carbs, you have to replace them with something.  If you don't replace those calories the correct way,  you will feel like you are starving and you will crave carbs.  It will be more difficult to eat the correct way because eventually you will break and have to eat something that fills you up.  And once you eat a carb to fill you up, you will crave more carbs.  From the same hospital incident, I decided to eat an almond croissant from Au Bon Pain since I luckily  couldn't check my bs that night bc of the timing.  The next morning, I woke up craving french toast.

Another important thing to remember when eating for gestational diabetes is that fat slows the release of the sugar into your blood.  This results in a decreased blood sugar level after eating.  It turns out that fat is your friend.  It is not the enemy that you have been told it is for the last twenty years. (Insulin is actually the culprit for many, if not all, of the problems you have been told are attributed to fat.  It turns out that there is research going on right now at MD Anderson where they are testing a diabetes drug on cancer patients.  Not to be too technical, but the drug does something to the insulin, and it is slowing the spread of whatever cancer they are studying.)  One example of this is that 2% milk has the same number of carbs as skim milk, but gives me a lower blood sugar level.  Another example is having a croissant: the fat from the butter must work on the carbs in the bread because I can eat a croissant and have ok (not fabulous) results.  That is a worthwhile treat for me!  Finally, I can have a cinnamon roll with eggs and bacon, and be fine. I cannot eat a cinnamon roll on it's own.  Not even half of one.

The Paleo diet involves full-fat, high-protein, and no carbs, legumes, or dairy.  We did a month of Paleo last February-March, and we could see the benefits after a week.  Neil and I have many friends that live on Paleo.  They have all lost weight, and are in great physical and cardiovascular health.  Most people who do Paleo combine it with rigorous exercise.  The low glycemic-high protein diet is high-protein, not low-fat, and allows for low glycemic index carbs.   Research in the past few years has shown that this diet is especially successful at weight maintenance.  I have seen it work in friends.  The ones who lose weight on it have probably less than 30 g carbs/day.  I don't even know what the papers the nutritionist gave me said I could eat, but I do a combination of these two diets.  I would also say that diet isn't not the most accurate word because this is more of a lifestyle change than a strict plan for eating to lose weight that I normally associate with the word diet.

Breakfasts:  If I have a zero-carb breakfast, then my carbs come from milk.  If I have carbs, I just have water to drink.  (15 g carbs, unless I have a croissant or cinnamon roll as a treat, which is extremely rare, but a great treat!  It still stays below 30-35 g carbs.)  Also, learn to avoid sweet things, including fruit, at breakfast.  If I eat fruit, it's at lunch, and it's only berries.
1 Croissant (!) with a few pieces of bacon (I happen to love Costco croissants warmed in the microwave.)
2-3 scrambled eggs with an ounce of shredded cheese, served with either a few pieces of low-sodium bacon or browned breakfast sausage, and 6 ounces of 1 % chocolate milk or 8 ounces 2% white milk (This is what I eat the most often.)
2 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, 1 Pillsbury cinnamon roll (!)
4 pieces of bacon and chocolate milk (When I am in a hurry.)
French toast made with 2 slices low-carb wheat bread and a serving size of sugar free syrup (you could add sugar free whipped cream and butter)

There is no breakfast cereal, granola, or oatmeal that I can eat, with milk, that fits in my carb allowance.  

Lunches: I understand that a range of 0-45 g carbs is not very specific, but if I had a croissant for breakfast, I wouldn't want many carbs with lunch.  On the other hand, if I wanted to splurge, lunch is the time to splurge.
2 Trader Joe's Low-Carb Wheat Tortillas with mayo, lunch meat or bacon, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo. (Sometimes I might add homemade guacamole, especially if I am having lunch meat.  This increases the "healthy" fats that will keep me full.)
2 slices low-carb wheat bread served with lunch meat or bacon slices, mayo, cheese, and lettuce.
(I might add 1/4 c blackberries, some baby carrots, and some sweet potato chips to make a meal.  Sometimes I just have the wraps/sandwich without everything else.  Both the blackberries and carrots are carbs, so I usually trade the sandwich bread for the fruit/vegetables.  Nice, I know.)
Lettuce Wrap BLT (Make a blt but in lettuce wraps instead of bread.)
2 sliders, 2 slices of cheese, lettuce, ketchup for dipping (I live on this meal at home.)
2 Grilled Cheeses (!) with low-carb bread and 2 slices of cheese, each (Again, I usually just have one, but I have been known to trade the full amount of carbs for lunch for two sandwiches rather than have fruit or carrots.  Refer to the whole 12-yr old palette thing.)  
Salad.  It's on the bottom of the list, but it's not because I never have this. I throw leftover taco meat or even a hearty chili over the salad.  I don't use dressing, but add shredded cheese and sour cream, sometimes pico de gallo or guacamole to the taco meat.  I also happen to live on this at home.

Dinners: Remember that I can have 0-50 g carbs for dinner, but that I try to stick to 30.  Basically dinner is some kind of meat and at least two different vegetables.  My kids might get white rice or pasta, but I won't have any of either of those.  
Salad (same as at lunch)
Steak, pork chops, grilled chicken, ribs (all grilled, no bbq sauce) served with 2 vegetables/or a salad (This is what we live on, for the most part, for dinner.)
Taco wraps (make burritos, but wrap in lettuce rather than a tortilla)
Pork chops and gravy (I use cream of mushroom soup and serve this with rice for my kids, but I just go light on the gravy and have no rice.  I serve it with a salad and vegetables.)
Sliders (same as at lunch)
Meatball Wraps (When my kids have spaghetti and meatballs, I put the meatballs, some extra marinara, and shredded mozzarella into a lettuce wrap, or sometimes just over torn lettuce.  Basically, I throw everything I can into a wrap.)
Homemade Chicken Nuggets: google any recipe, but swap the flour/bread crumbs for almond meal. Yum.  
Pot Roast: Put  roast in crockpot with can of cream of roasted garlic and can of golden mushroom soups (maybe 1/2 can of each), lipton onion soup mix, and lots of carrots (you could add diced sweet potatoes).  Cook on low for hours.  Serve with green beans.  Done and easy.  I just take it easy on the gravy.
White bean chili: My family loves a white bean chili that I make.  I make it exactly like I used to except that I omit the corn.  My kids eat it over fritos.  I don't.  The only carbs in it are the carrots (minimal amount of shredded carrots from the mirepoix) and the white beans.  

You could (and should) have fish, but I only prefer freshly caught fish straight from the farmer's market, so I don't have it often in the winter.  

Vegetables for dinner:  (Vegetables to avoid-peas, corn, any potato other than a sweet potato)
1.  Sautéed vegetables: Cut up slices of bacon, sauté in pan over med-high heat, add spinach, shredded green cabbage, shaved or chopped brussel sprouts, add seasoning.  Sauté until desired doneness.  I sometimes add garlic or onion powder, salt and pepper, but you could add any seasonings you prefer.  
2.  Sauteed broccoli: See the test kitchen recipe for how I make it.  I think you can google it.
3.  Roasted butternut squash/carrots: Use either baby carrots or pre-cut butternut squash, put into a casserole dish, place a few pats of butter around the dish, and sprinkle a tsp of maple sugar all over.  Bake at 425 until desired doneness.  After 15-20 minutes, stir the vegetables to toss in the liquids in the bottom of the pan.  Check regularly.  Sorry for being so specific.
4.  Roasted asparagus: Snap off rough ends, lay on jelly roll sheet, sprinkle with grapeseed or olive oil, salt and pepper,  and toss with your hands.  Bake at 425 for no more than 20 min, but after 10, check every few minutes until they reach desired doneness.  The longer they bake, the smaller and crispier they will be.  This is especially delish served with crumbled feta over the top, but I can't have feta.  You could substitute for shaved parmesan.
5.  Sweet potatoes:  You can make mashed sweet potatoes just like regular mashed potatoes.  I like to add a tsp of maple sugar (found at Trader Joe's)  You can serve a baked sweet potato like a regular baked potato, with butter, cheese, and crumbled bacon, sour cream, chives.  Yum.  You can also peel and then slice sweet potatoes lenth-wise, toss in olive oil, add salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of cumin and paprika, to make fries.  Finally, peel and chop width-wise, so that you end up with circles.  You can roast those the same way as the butternut squash.
6.  Green beans: I put green beans in the crockpot with chicken broth, onions, and bacon, and cook on low for a few hours.  Easiest vegetable ever.  
7.  Spaghetti Squash:  I don't make this often because it is incredibly time intensive, but if you need pasta, this is the thing to have.  Google a recipe-probably martha stewart makes the easiest to follow recipes.  Serve with a no sugar added marinara sauce and turkey meatballs.  You can just read the label, not actually buy a no sugar added jar of sauce.  And you can buy frozen meatballs or make your own.  Just read the label for the meatballs.  
8.  Squash:  You can sauté sliced summer squash and zucchini in olive oil, add salt and pepper.  Done.  Or you can mix cream of celery soup (1 can) with pico de gallo and shredded cheese, and pour over sliced squash in a casserole dish.  Add salt and pepper.  Bake at 350 until bubbly.  You will want to go light on this because of the carbs in the cream of celery, but it's a yum way to eat squash.  

A note about salads: Full-Fat Ranch has fewer carbs than the healthy raspberry vinaigrette dressings we have been told to love.  That said, you can easily make your own salad dressings.  Just google it.  I don't eat a lot of salad dressing because I prefer something that adds taste like pico, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, or queso, or even the marina sauce from meat balls. Stay away from Craisins!  They show up in everything, but are full of sugar.  Substitute fresh pomegranate seeds.  They are delish and low-carb.  I add celery, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers to salads.  

A note about portions: Unless it is a carb, I don't look at portion sizes.  I eat until I am full.  If it is a carb, of any kind, including fruit and carrots, I am very conscious of portion size.  When you stop eating carbs, and fill up on vegetables and protein (and fat), you actually need fewer calories to meet your caloric and satiety needs, so your stomach shrinks and you get full faster.  Without being hungry.  Ever.  It's awesome.  If you are worried about cholesterol, eating this way creates cholesterol that is too big and fluffy to stick into the little cavities in your artery walls, so it passes on through without building plaque and causing other harmful cardiac problems.  

A note about low-carb food:  If you buy food that says "low-carb" on the label, it is filled with other things that aren't that "clean" that are an attempt to add taste, etc.  If you buy "gluten-free" foods, they still have carbs.  Rice flour can actually be worse for you than regular wheat flour.  You won't have the reaction to the gluten, which is good, but it will still mess with your waistline.  (Ask the friends you know who go gluten-free and end up gaining weight...)  Even sugar-free candies, that are marketed for diabetics, have too much sugar for my diet.  If you do a low-carb, low-fat diet, you will starve, your body will probably start conserving energy (and probably water, at the very least), and you will not maintain that for long.  Better to go without the carbs and eat until you are full with vegetables and meat.  You need the protein and fat for satiety.  If you just eat turkey and chicken, you will find that you are still hungry. If you buy "low-fat" foods, they are filled with carbs to add taste that makes up for the missing fat.  It's better to just eat as clean as you can.

Things I eat and buy, or don't:  I tried making corn chowder, this meal that I thought was so healthy because it was low-fat and full of vegetables.  I even used butternut squash instead of potatoes.  It raised my blood sugar higher than I have ever had it.  Practically 170.  The only corn I can eat is the 1/4 spoonful from Chipotle.  Maybe it has to do the GMO's in corn.  Regardless, stay away from corn at all costs.  There is some humus that I can have, but I can't have very much.  On the other hand, I can have quite a few tablespoons of spinach-artichoke dip and 5-layer dip from Trader Joe's.  I would rather have that.  I can have the frozen Chimichurri rice from Trader Joe's.  I usually only have about 1/4 c, but it's better for my blood sugar than white rice.  And more filling.  It's nice to put with a taco salad or fajita wrap.  I eat pinto beans on occasion and refried beans, too.  But not often and not in large quantities.  Just enough to add some flavor or fullness to a meal.   I have a recipe for a sweet potato soup that is similar to split pea soup.  It is paleo friendly, but generally lacks enough fat to overcome the carbs in the sweet potatoes.  I am going to try it tonight made with heavy cream.  I'll let you know. I eat Cashews and almonds, roasted and salted, for snacks.  I eat Costco Sweet Potato chips, sometimes.  They are fine on my blood sugar.  No other sweet potato chip or fry is as clean.  This has oil and salt.  Every other sweet potato chip has some kind of flour, if not sugar.  I made a salad with grilled chicken, clementine slices, pomegranate seeds, shredded mozzarella cheese, lettuce, and light on the lite poppyseed dressing.  It was delish, but made my blood sugar sky-rocket.   Cheese has no carbs in it.  I now have cheese on everything.  Well, maybe I try to have moderation, but I eat more cheese now that in the past few years.  II cook in butter (love grass-fed Kerry Gold Butter) or bacon, or healthy oil (grapeseed or olive) or coconut oil.  I generally don't use canola, or whatever, oil.  That's mostly for baking, and since I am anti-baking at the moment, it doesn't happen often.   I do use a canola cooking spray for convenience, although I do have olive oil in a self-pumping mister, so that I can cook with that.  

Snacks:  I needed more snacks at the beginning.  Some days I might only have one snack a day.  I seriously eat less food than I do when I am not pregnant.  As in, it's now almost 10am and I haven't eaten yet today because I'm not hungry.  But you should never starve yourself-your baby needs to grow and you need calories.  Eat whenever (really, whenever, as in every time) you are hungry, just choose well.  Some days, especially if I wasn't hungry the day before, I need all 3 snacks and have huge meals.  And always drink lots of water.  For so many reasons.  But you will eat less and be less hungry than if you ate carbs and no fat all day long.  

6 baby carrots, cucumbers, celery, etc., with ranch dressing, if needed
cashews/almonds (I have a handful every day)
4 graham cracker squares with peanut butter on each square (I live on this)
Fiber One bar (yum for when you need a treat-i needed them more often earlier on, but haven't had one in at least a month-the fiber cancels out a lot of the carbs; not good for blood sugar as a breakfast bar, though)
Nature Valley Protein bar (has fewer carbs than fiber one bar, better as a breakfast bar, but not great, croissant is better on bs, actually...that is awesome)
cheese cubes
2 cups white cheddar popcorn from Trader Joe's
Haven't tried this, but sugar free whipped cream with blackberries
16 wheat thins with Alouette cheese square
Quesadillas: I can have a low carb wheat tortilla with cheese in it and I can add refried beans.  But I can only have 2.  I tried having 4 the other day.  My blood sugar wasn't bad, but still in the high 120s.   
Diet hot cocoa
1 Trader Joe's Mini Dark Chocolate Bar
Reese's Pieces or Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Minis(!) Just look at the label, see how many you can have and still be within your carb allowance.  It's nice to not have to check your bs after a snack!  That said, I haven't had these in weeks, and it was only when I really needed something sweet that didn't taste low carb.  I think it's the fat in the pb that helps.  I can even have a few peanut m&ms.  Really-a few, like 3, but sometimes, worth it.  Atkins makes indulge candies that are made with sugar alcohols.  They aren't as good as the real thing, but great for if you are going to a movie.  


Going out?
McDonald's sausage and egg biscuit, eating only half the biscuit.  (I usually chose to eat the smaller half.) 
Five guys little bacon cheeseburger with lettuce, mayo, and ketchup (I eat only the bun from the messiest side of the burger.  I might have 5 fries if I have no bun at all.  I usually eat this with a diet coke, and I am full.)

Big Mac (I know you all probably hate this, but I don't. And I eat this with no buns at all, with a diet coke.  I don't do this often, but it's good to know when you are in a hurry and need to eat.  I cannot do a Whopper with just one bun, but have not tried it with no bun.  I can do a Wendy's cheeseburger with one bun, but my bs is on the high side of the range.)

Chipotle salad: lettuce, steak, pinto beans (have fewer carbs than black beans), 1/4 spoonful of corn salsa, shredded cheese, no dressing

Moe's salad: lettuce, taco meat, pinto beans, diced cucumber, diced tomatoes, sour cream, and queso for dressing.  (Love a diet where queso is approved! That said, I ask for just a little sour cream and I generally just dip my fork into the queso, not pour an entire few ounces of queso over my salad.)

Chick-Fil-A(!): An 8 piece nuggets is 1 carb exchange, or 15 g carbs, a small fry is 2 carb exchanges, or 30 g carbs, with a diet coke.  (It made my whole month when I got to have CFA.  I knew that I could technically have the entire meal, but 1) I could not bring myself to eat more than 4 fries, and 2) the fries did not taste as good as I remembered them, so they weren't worth the carbs anyways.  After eating this, my bs was 95, which is phenomenal.  Next time I am going to try a 12 piece nuggets and steal 1 fry from my kids.  This has been my favorite discovery.)

Anywhere else you eat, order meat (probably not lean meat of any kind so that you feel full), vegetables and a salad with a sugar-free dressing, or ranch.  Now you see why I never go out to eat for a sit-down dinner, especially when Neil can grill a steak better than most restaurants, short of Ruth's Chris, and he can give them a run for their money.  The trick is the igrill and high-quality meat, but that's another story for another day.

One last thought: You cannot save up carbs from the day and eat them all at once.  Carb loading is actually never a good idea.  Marathon runners can get away with it, but it's not as if your body knows,"Hey, I better store these for the right kind of energy for the big race tomorrow."  They get processed just like all carbs you consume.  However that is.  All I know is that it involves insulin, your cells, and nothing good.  It's better to derive your energy from fat and protein.  Especially fat.  Who doesn't want that?  My thighs would be better if that's where my energy came from.  But when you eat carbs, your body won't use fat as an energy source first.  So, if I skip a meal (bad idea) I cannot make up the carbs I missed out on.  However, sometimes I eat a late breakfast.  Like today.  I ate breakfast at 11.  (The life of a sahm.  All I do is eat bon bons and watch my picture shows while I lay in a hammock, you know.) So I basically skipped breakfast, but what I will do is eat a snack in a few hours if I get hungry, eat lunch at 2, probably not eat an afternoon snack, and then eat dinner at our normal time of 7:30.  This way, I still get to eat all the carbs I'm entitled to, and am not missing out on what the baby needs to grow. 

Ok, that is all I can think of for now.  There are probably more dinners and more vegetables than I have listed, but this is a good start and representative of what we live on right now.