It is probably one of the most worrying news to receive if your Gynae tells you that you’ve failed the glucose test and that you have Gestational Diabetes (GD). Having GD can cause problems for both you and baby during the pregnancy and might affect your birth plan.
Good news is, it can be controlled if you follow a healthy meal plan. Most often than not, the level of glucose will be reduced once you start eating right!
6 steps to reduce your glucose level
1. Eat small amounts of food about every 2 to 3 hours.
Spreading your carbohydrates evenly throughout the day helps keep your blood glucose stable.
2. In every meal and snack, include some healthy protein.
Protein helps you feel satisfied and full of energy throughout the day and helps even out your blood glucose.
3. Eat a very small breakfast, with a similar midmorning snack about 2 hours later.
When you have GDM, your blood glucose tends to be high in the morning. To offset this, your meal plan will probably have fewer carbs at breakfast than at lunch or dinner. For example, your plan may specify a breakfast that includes one milk serving, one starch serving, and some protein.
4. Choose high-fibre foods.
Good sources include whole-grain breads and cereals, fresh and frozen vegetables, and beans. Fruits are also a good source of fibre. Most plans include fruit in afternoon or evening meals and snacks.
5. Watch out for sugar and concentrated sweets.
Sweets raise your blood glucose quickly and significantly without giving your body the nutrition it needs. Here are some tips:
- Don’t drink fruit juice. Eat your fruit servings later in the day (not at breakfast). Although fruits are a healthy source of carbohydrate, their carbs are easily absorbed and tend to raise blood glucose levels quickly.
- Avoid regular soda, fruit juice and fruit drinks, nectar, regular Kool-Aid, Hi-C. Drinks like these have a lot of carbs and can raise your blood glucose quickly.
- Limit desserts such as ice cream, pies, cakes, cookies, and other sweets. These foods often have large amounts of sugar, honey, or other sweeteners such as sucrose, fructose, corn syrup, dextrose, molasses, or fruit juices.
- Read labels carefully and check them for total carbohydrates per serving.
6. Be careful about fat, especially if you’re gaining weight.
Follow these suggestions:
- Choose lean meats with lots of protein. Chicken, turkey, lean beef, ham, and fish are good choices. Skip lunchmeats, bacon, sausage, and hot dogs.
- Cut off all visible fat by removing the skin of chicken and turkey and trimming fat off meat.
- Bake, broil, steam, boil, or grill foods.
- Avoid frying. If you do fry foods, use non-stick pans, vegetable oil spray, or small amounts (1 to 2 teaspoons) of oil. Or invest in an airfryer if you haven’t – it’ll be your best friend during this period!
- Use skim or low-fat (1%) milk and dairy products.
- Limit or avoid adding extra fat, such as butter, margarine, sour cream, mayonnaise, avocados, cream, cream cheese, salad dressing, or nuts.
- Stay away from convenience foods. These are often higher in carbohydrate, fat, and sodium.
- Avoid instant noodles, canned soup, instant potatoes, frozen meals, and packaged foods.
Tips to stay healthy during your this period
- Follow the rest of your GD treatment. While diet is a huge part, it is equally important to follow your doctor’s advice for any daily testing, exercise or medicine.
- Keep taking your prenatal vitamins.
- No alcohol!
- Enjoy your pregnancy! Remember that even you may have GD during pregnancy, most babies are born healthy!
For more pregnancy and childcare tips, subscribe to our mailing list and like us on Facebook, to receive new articles for mummies like you every week!
