Gestational Diabetes Diet: What to Eat to When You Are Pregnant to Prevent Gestational Diabetes

Disclaimer #1. First of all I want to say that you should NOT DIET during pregnancy in the sense that you should not try to lose weight. When I’ll be talking about dieting, I mean a certain way of eating that is healthy, sustainable (not a calorie-counting, restrictive type of diet), rich in nutrients and health promoting. This type of eating is not a short-term solution to one problem – to lose 10 pounds, or fix a certain health condition - it’s a life-long commitment to your health and wellbeing.

I feel lucky I did not get gestational diabetes, but I was at high risk. When I was pregnant with my son 6 years ago, I was very close to getting gestational diabetes blood sugar levels. I gained lots of weight, much more than I should, according to general guidelines. On average, a woman can expect to gain 25 to 35 pounds during pregnancy. I gained twice as much, over seventy pounds! All that while following well-meaning, but completely misguided and potentially harmful advice coming from various sources, which at the time all seemed like knowledgeable authorities on the subject of diet and pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes is a condition that affects growing numbers of pregnant women. It is a condition when a woman's blood sugar levels get too high. It can be dangerous because it can cause the baby to gain too much weight, and lead to premature delivery, endangering the health of the baby.

If you are worried about developing gestational diabetes, you should know that diabetes is preventable with proper diet and physical activity. The important part is understanding what you need to be doing, and then implementing that knowledge.

So, what should you be eating during pregnancy? Diet to prevent gestational diabetes does not differ from a healthy diet that we should all be following every day to ensure the best of health and well-being. It's a diet that is based mostly on fresh plant foods - raw fruits, vegetables, and greens, with small amounts of nuts, seeds, as well as whole grains, and beans. The bulk of the calories should be coming from unprocessed, lightly cooked, or raw plant sources. Even in pregnancy, animal proteins, should be consumed in limited amounts.

Although it’s commonly believed that carbohydrates have the greatest impact on blood glucose levels, it’s really fats that are responsible for the blood sugar problems, as they interfere with glucose absorption into the cells.

You may be wondering "How about the protein? Will I be getting enough vitamins, calcium and other nutrients on this type of diet?" Diet rich in green vegetables, green leaf salads, fruits and other natural foods, will provide you and your baby with all the nutrients you need need. Unprocessed plant foods contain all the proteins, fats, vitamins, calcium and other nutrients our body need in perfect proportions to properly function and stay healthy.

Read more how to maintain normal blood sugar levels on my blog. Also, visit my hubpage on Gestational Diabetes diet.

Diabetic blood sugar levels: the importance of blood sugar monitoring

If you are diabetic, you must be closely monitoring your blood glucose levels all the time.

Understand that even if you are taking your medications and following your doctor’s orders religiously, there are many variables that could result in a positive test for glucose in the urine, plus the fact that even if the urine was negative, the patient could still be suffering diabetic damage.

The urine becomes negative at a blood glucose level of 180 mg/dL, a level that could still cause damage.

Although you can achieve normal blood glucose most of the time if you treat your diabetes properly, there still may be times when, for no apparent reason, the glucose level is not normal.
There are many factors that determine the blood glucose level at any given time in a diabetic person. These factors include:

• Your diet
• Your physical activity
• Your mental state and stress levels
• Other diseases that you may have
• Medications that you are taking
• For women, the day of your menstrual cycle.
  

You have diabetes if your fasting blood glucose is greater than or equal to 126 mg/dL on more than one occasion OR your glucose after eating is greater than or equal to 200 mg/dL on more than one occasion.

Some diabetics claim that they can tell the level of their blood glucose by the way they feel.

However, the most common symptom of high blood sugar is having no symptoms at all! Which is why many people are living with prediabetes and diabetes without knowing about it! The fact is less than half of patients who try to guess come even close to the correct answer.

Sure, if your blood glucose is under 50 mg/dL and you have severe signs of hypoglycemia – you are sweaty, irritable, have palpitations and a headache – you know that your blood sugar level is low. And even then, you will not be able to tell for sure what your level is.

You must test yourself regularly and not depend on how you feel, or you risk one or several of the long term and short term complications of diabetes, such as excessive thirst, frequent urination, blurred vision, kidney disease, or nerve damage.

If you have type 2 diabetes, you should measure your sugar level a twice a day, before breakfast and supper. If you have type 1, measure it before meals and at bedtime. The more accurate information you have, the better will be your control over your glucose, and better chances of avoiding complications.

Frequency of monitoring of blood glucose level for people with diabetes:

• Before meals and bedtime for people with type 1 diabetes
• Twice daily before breakfast and supper for person with type 2 diabetes.
• Once daily for people with stable diabetes.
• Before meals and one hour after eating for pregnant woman with gestational diabetes or type 1 diabetes.