Pregnancy and Menu for High Sugar women

   We are in our 17th week and finally I have a baby bump showing. :-) In addition to getting new clothes and looking for pre-natal yoga and pre-natal massage services, there are a few more things that I have to worry about.

 
 I get it now... pregnancy is not easy! Some breeze thru but mine is just a tiny bit challenging. I was diagnosed with high sugar level.  Thus, I have to alter my diet. I cried for a while as it means that I would not be able to eat white rice, pasta and bread.... most of all, any kind of sweets.

   What's interesting is that God really prepared me for this... All my experiences in preparing menus and my love for cooking helped me in putting together something that would help me maintain my sugar level so that I can make sure that I have a healthy pregnancy.

    Because I want to get gestational diabetes, I have started researching and cutting down on my sugar. With the research that I made, here are some details that helped me.

   A gestational diabetes diet looks something like this:
   -- Don't go over 30-45g of carbs per meal, 15 carbs per snack
   -- Always have protein and/ or fat when you have a carb
   -- 3 meals a day, 3 snacks per day
   -- avoid fruit before lunch

    I'm still in my adjustment phase as I have not completely digested all of the information yet but this is what I have gathered.
   -- Fruits are a high source of sugar so I have to minimize my intake of fruits except for lemon, lime or berries.
   -- Fruit juices are just as high in sugar.
   -- I can still eat carbs as long as they are made of grains. Ex. brown rice, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat and sugar free bread
   --  Choose chicken and fish more often
   --  Protein should be the dominant food in your meal but there should about 1/4 cup of carbs
   --  Monitor your sugar and carbs intake.
   -- Don't skip any meal
   -- Its better to cook your meals and portion it already so that you are sure of what's in the dish and the amount that you will be consuming
 
    I will share my meals as often as I can so that pregnant women going thru the same thing so that they don't feel deprived.

   For monitoring, I use My-Fitness Pal. Its primarily a calorie counter but I find it most useful for now as it has a good database of food choices and there's a barcode scanner that can help in the input of the nutritional information. Just make sure to go the Nutrition section and look at the Total Carbohydrates and Sugar lines.