Gestational Diabetes

Early in my pregnancy I had a suspicion that I might have gestational diabetes. My husband handled my worry the way he handles a lot of things - he told me to ignore it.

During my first pregnancy I didn't know any better so before I ran out the door for my glucose test, in an effort to quickly get some food into my stomach, I hated up a small amount of leftovers. These leftovers just happened to be whole wheat pasta. My test came back with results that said I would have to take a 3 hour glucose test. I took it and all went well.

This time I was instructed by a nurse to have a breakfast with some protein. Her specific recommendations was eggs and toast. So for breakfast the morning of my one hour glucose test I made an omelet with mushrooms and a little cheese and had one slice of whole wheat toast with butter.

Once again my test came back, "a little high" (108). Another three hour glucose test was set before me. My husband personally did each of the five blood draws required.

I hadn't yet gotten the official diagnosis but from what I knew about how my levels came out - it wasn't looking promising.

This sort of dietary adjustment was something I was really unhappy about.

Just in case, before the official results came in from my OBGYN I chose to make an effort to begin educating myself and making the (very likely) necessary changed in my diet. Reading online that some of the big no-no's were high fat, saturated fat, trans fat, starchy foods, and sweet foods makes it sound like I'm never going to be able to eat or enjoy anything.

My diet frequently includes pasta and rice so finding suitable substitutes was going to be a priority.
Whole wheat pasta was mentioned but in the end didn't seem like quite the replacement I needed. I already ate whole wheat pastas and I was looking for whatever would make me feel I got the most bang for my replaced buck. Spaghetti squash, veggie ribbons, and zucchini "pasta" sounded like they would get me further away from my super vice, pasta.

Quinoa seemed like the best actual rice substitute - because it isn't rice. Eating brown rice instead of white rice felt a bit more like a band-aid that was going to require more carbohydrate counting vigilance than I was up for just yet. However when I looked at this chart that was part of this article it seemed like maybe quinoa wasn't going to be my best actual choice?


It was looking like this was going to be a ton of large adjustments that had to be made immediately for the greatest health benefit for my child.

Well, let the learning begin.