I went in to meet with the diabetes educator and nutritionist as instructed. First, the educator went over the basics of gestational diabetes with me and handed me a fancy little booklet packed with info and tips. One of the first things I told her was that I hoped to control my sugars with diet and exercise. She stopped short of snickering, but were we in a less professional setting, I'm sure I would have heard uproarious laughter. At the time of the appointment, I was around 15 weeks into the pregnancy. She pulled out the chart you see above and put her finger on the line around the 15 week mark. "Here's you." She traced the line with her finger. "And here's where you're headed." Oh my goodness. At 15 weeks, according to the chart I was actually at a point of needing *less* insulin than normal...and from there, my insulin needs would increase sharply and steadily. Needles and shots and sugar lows, here I come!
After bursting my bubble, she then presented me with my new leash. It's the FreeStyle Lite - which is actually really tiny and easy to use and comes in a handy dandy little carrying case. (Actually, come to think of it, all blood sugar monitoring machines these days probably do.) The educator walked me through the steps of self-testing and then made me do a trial finger prick on myself. She was shocked to see that my one hour post-breakfast blood glucose reading was 107 - which is great! (The target is for one to be under 140.) Based on my one hour glucose tolerance test results (250), she had figured my sugars would be WAY out of whack.
Then on to the nutritionist. I figured she was going to read me the riot act on what I couldn't eat and what I needed to be eating that I wasn't. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was fairly content with my daily diet. Since getting the lap band, I've been keeping food records, so I was able to give her a rather good sense what my daily eating looks like. She was pleased that I was already compulsive about tracking - so adding the blood sugar numbers into my record wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
Based on my diet, what she did tell me to do was to add a couple hundred more calories to my diet, to increase my carbohydrate intake and NOT to add any extra exercise to my regimen. Holy cow! NOBODY has ever in my entire lifetime suggested I eat more. Ever. I hardly knew what to make of it.
Below is the plan she gave me:
Breakfast: 30g carb
Snack: 15-30g carb
Lunch: 45g carb
Snack: 15-30g carb
Dinner: 45g carb
Evening Snack: 15-30g carb
Total: 180g carbs, 1800 calories.
Before, I'd say I was eating around 90g carbs and 1200 calories. Wow. Pretty serious change.
For the first couple of days, I wasn't even sure how I could possibly squeeze in that many carbs without resorting to highly refined carbs such as white sugar and flour, but since then I've more or less figured out how to incorporate more whole grains and starchy vegetables into my diet.
Interestingly, changing to this way of eating didn't cause me to gain any weight. The weirdest part was having to eat a bedtime snack (a big no-no according to lap band education). Generally, I simply don't feel like eating one and it takes a lot of effort and discipline to just go do it. Who would've thought I'd ever find myself complaining about having to eat?!?
