At around the 7th month mark of my pregnancy I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It’s a pretty awful conversation to have, the specialist I saw was pretty blunt. The bad effects of gestational diabetes is you could end up with a permanent case of diabetes, your baby could be born with diabetes or, could be stillborn.
That’s not something that is not in any case easy to hear.
In fact when I heard it, it was really upsetting and unsettling, if I remember rightly, I didn’t even sleep that night.
Every day I was on edge, if my baby didn’t move for a couple of hours I was on high alert, it almost drove me and my husband to insanity.
After that, they sent me to see a dietitian, who looked at me sceptically when I told her my regular diet, I didn’t eat a lot of junk, I ate a lot of salad. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I’m a chubby woman. But I am so due to a contraceptive implant, not because of poor diet, I do binge on my days off with my husband but when I say binge I mean I could eat a big bar of chocolate once a week or 2 cinnamon buns for breakfast. She did not believe I didn’t eat piles of fries and burgers and huge bowlfuls of pasta. I ended up telling her I did actually eat a lot of pasta just to appease her scepticism. She told me to quarter my pasta intake, avoid white bread and to count carbohydrates.
Easy enough right?
Wrong, we went out and bought seeded bread, sugar free juice and sweetners. But easy meals with the right amount of carbs can be tough. So here are a few tips, meals, snacks and even treats that you can get away with if you’re like me an have to deal with diet control.
So-Breakfast-
So a few easy breakfast start ups which are good for the light eater
One slice of seeded bread, toasted, with peanut butter
Chocolate wheatabix 1 with a 1/4 cupful skimmed milk
A little more filling breakfast with taste can be
1 slice of toasted seeded bread, 1 egg scrambled (add skimmed milk), with chopped cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. (If you don’t have a taste for feta a handful of cheddar will still give it better flavour)
The scrambled egg is one of my favourites, but you can add anything to the scrambled eggs, spring onion, or even 1 sausage, even just Italian herbs to the mix will give it a good flavour.
(The ‘safe’ feta cheese you can get from tesco)
Lunch-
Any type of salad sandwich, on brown bread/breadcake (Even a squirt of mayo or salad cream)
1 rustlers burger (for those on the go)
1 slice of seeded toast, 1/2 cup of beans/tinned spaghetti
1 slice of seeded toast and 2 poached eggs
(No cold cuts, no ham, nothing that hasn’t been cooked thoroughly. Asda’s own mayonnaise is made with pasteurised eggs)
Dinner-
(These are quick and easy meals for the busy woman, totally plausible if you’re having to cook for not only yourself)
Asda’s own beef lasagna and salad (With mayo and salad cream is acceptable)
Chicken grills (Try birdseye or similar, with bbq, sweet chilli or original) Sweet potato fries (A handful) and salad (With salad cream or mayo)
Birdseye or similar Fish cakes, 2 or 3, with sweet potatoes (Fries, mash or roasted) with salad. (Boil in a bag fish with parsley sauce is also very good)
2 or 3 sausages with sweet potato mash and peas and a little gravy.
For roasted sweet potatoes, chop sweet potato into cubes at least 1 inch thick, use frylite spray to line the baking tray and spread the sweet potatoes evenly, spray the top with frylite, dice 1/2 red onion and sprinkle over the onions (to maintain moisture) and bake for 20 minutes at 200′ (180 for fan ovens)
Snacks
Fridge raiders chicken
Baby bells
space raiders
skips
For a treat, Thorntons low sugar chocolate (Preferably dark, even if you don’t like dark) and munch on one after dinner with a decaff coffee, letting the chocolate melt with the coffee in your mouth good to satisfy a sweet craving without over doing anything.
Also for a quick fix of sugar, a teaspoonful of chocolate spread or peanut butter.
I hope these tips are helpful, I know that it took me a few weeks to get to grips with my new diet, and being mostly on plain food at the beginning of pregnancy to help with my morning sickness felt like I’d been a little cheated. All I wanted to do was drink ribeana and eat a cinnamon roll for breakfast. It’s a lot easier to cope with diet control when the food you’re eating isn’t tasteless.
Any questions please don’t hesitate to comment.
Salutations
Quirky note 