Hi Beth, interesting results but not uncommon. What this tells me is that your body is not processing sugars optimally. We become more insulin resistant as pregnancy progresses, which means that when there is sugar present in the blood stream and the pancreas sends out insulin to glom onto it and carry it into our cells for fuel, our cells aren’t responding, they are resisting the insulin. This allows more and more sugar to float around freely in our blood stream for a longer and longer time period. Thus our blood glucose becomes and remains elevated. What happens is that this glucose then gets carried to our brain making us feel foggy headed, tired and weak, sometimes irritable, and it gets carried to our babies. Our babies brains need glucose to grow ( and we need it to fuel brain and body) but when there is consistently too much glucose, babies get overly large, develop a dependency on the sugar causing them to experience withdrawal after birth which usually manifests as breathing difficulties and often nursing difficulties. In addition, babies that are receiving too much sugar in utero often do not mature their lungs at the same rate as others. Therefore a term baby may have the lung maturity of a 36 weeker.
All of this said, the numbers that you have are not diagnostic of gestational diabetes but rather of a pre-gestational diabetes status. In these situations it is usually manageable through diet and exercise.
So. Life changes ahead, which I probably had to make at some point anyway. I half-heartedly tried to switch to a healthier diet a couple of years ago but didn't really manage it. Now, though, I am not doing it for me, but for someone else.
Main changes:
1) "Avoid all processed carbohydrates". No boxed cereals, pasta, candy, cakes, 'treats of any kind' and most bread - two slices of whole grain bread per day is allowed. I['m going to ask about brown rice and whole grain pasta.
2) "Avoid soft drinks" - easy! - "...and juices always." D'oh. No more juice for me. I've got three open bottles of the stuff in the fridge, no idea what to do with them since Martin doesn't drink it.
3) "Eat a protein rich breakfast such as eggs, toast and whole fruit or thick cut whole oats, bacon, sausage". Tricky with ten minutes to work with in the morning. I can do eggs and fruit definitely. Maybe my two slices of whole grain bread will go in there. I have oatmeal but I don't think it's thick cut whole oats.
4) "Eat every 2-3 hours. Set an alarm if you need to." Easy. Lately I've been hungry every hour or two anyway.
5) "Always put protein in your mouth when you are eating." Examples given are:
Peanut butter and apple (I may have to force myself to like peanut butter.)
Cheese and fruit (easy one, I like cheese and apples together)
Trail mix (never liked this...)
Yogurt and nuts (not sure if this was together or separate - they are both protein, right? They sound awful together.)
Veggie stix (yum) and hummus or bean dip (ew. Another one I may have to force myself to like.)
Chips (ooh!) and bean dip. (oh.)
A protein bar if nothing else is available. (never had one of these.)
Glass of whole milk. (That I can do; at least I was already at 1% rather than skim.)
Cottage cheese and fruit. (Was never a fan of cottage cheese...may have to try it again.)
6) "Eat good fats. Whole milk is better than skim or even better than 2%. Avocado, nuts, whole yogurt, greek yogurt." Avocado I have sometimes liked; maybe I can mix it into a salad. I don't like most nuts (peanuts are usually OK) but may have to try some anyway to see if they are palatable. Whole yogurt - easy. Greek yogurt - have tried and disliked in the past...
7) "EXERCISE. This is probably the single most powerful thing you can do to keep your sugars under control and to grow a beautiful healthy baby!!!!! A minimum of 30 minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise is necessary. More is better. Walking, swimming, biking, hiking. IF YOU ARE NOT SWEATING YOU ARE NOT EXERCISING." This is where I have been falling down the most, I think. It's too cold to bike, and while Martin and I do take evening walks when he's not working, they aren't making me sweat. Mostly because I get uncomfortable moving too quickly. I may invest in a "bike trainer" which is like a stationary bike but only the pedal part. It'd probably be useful after the birth as well. But the decent ones cost a lot of money, like $150....Still, I think I need to do something like that.
8) "Eat a bed time snack that has calcium and fat---ice cream isn’t it! (everyone wants it to be!) smoothie, yogurt with banana. This will keep you balanced through the night." Woohoo, smoothies, yogurt and bananas! Some of my favourite foods. This one will be fun.
So now I need to make up some food shopping lists of acceptable foods and get them into the house, and probably also put away the ones that are not acceptable so I don't see them and want to have them. A lot of work ahead of me, but it'll be worth it.
It's a good lifestyle adjustment and it will be far from the last.
ReplyDeleteHealthy fats are your friend! Fat reduces the insulin response, so things like fruit and cream are great treats. Healthy fats won't make you fat either. I basically eat like this all the time though (nothing to do with diabetes, just a choice). I can give you a very simple cookie recipe that is low carb and would probably be good when you NEED a treat. ;)
ReplyDeleteThat should be fruit WITH cream, argh. Berries are better than most other fruits in this case too, as they have a naturally lower sugar content.
ReplyDeleteThat would be awesome, Christina, thanks! I'll email you in case you don't look at comment responses :)
ReplyDelete