Saying Goodbye to Favorite Foods

One of the biggest struggles a GDM mom-to-be has (in my opinion), is saying goodbye to those favorite foods that are considered "bad foods" for your blood sugar levels. All those foods you were loving before your diagnosis, when you were relieved from having to be on a diet, and could "eat for two". Food like donuts, ice cream, yummy-gloppy, cream sauce pasta, pizza, Big Macs, bananas, and bbq ribs that serve to soothe cravings, fill a preggo-mommy hunger, and make us happy. Heaven for me before diagnosis was Dairy Queen Pinapple soft serve sundaes. Yum.

I know I had trouble in the first few weeks, and again right near my due date. Seeing a co-worker glomming on a sesame seed bagel with cream cheese and lox made me want to rip my hair out, and I crossed the street to avoid looking into the chocolate shop, bakery window, or lineup at McDonalds. And do not get me started on my husband eating Miss Vickies beside me when I was seven months pregnant and couldn't look at a potato chip without both salivating and fearing the BS spike. *evil glare*

Yeah, I love my food, can you tell? *pinches spare tire*

Eating well, and refraining from "bad foods" is by no means insurmountable, of course. You are giving up the foods temporarily, and its not about you, its about your growing baby. You do it for them, and its a good thing. You can feel empowered when you pass up the Oreos in favour of something better, like carrot sticks, or fat-free yogurt.

But, I know that the tempation is there. Having the knowledge that you must eat well does not make it easier to say no to that Oat Fudge Bar when you order your skinny decaf latte on a Monday at work when a whole stack of nonsense arrives on your desk, your spinach salad is about as appetizing as lawn clippings, and you want to repeatedly smash your forehead on the keyboard and scream omggivemestrengthktxsbye. Let's face it. You are pregnant. You have cravings. Your nerves, emotions, sleep patterns, and body are freaking out all the time, and you just want something to make it all better. Right. Now.

The dietician and Diabetic nurse I worked with during my first pregnancy gave me some great advice for coping with those urges to inhale an entire tub of cool whip using a chocolate bar as a spoon. I thought I would share them.

1. She outlined snack choices and alternatives I could live with. Things like sugar free chocolate, stevia, strawberries, avocado, and a whole list of "free" foods. They were yummy, not bland, diet-carboard and made it bearable.
   
2. She outlined the "wait five minutes" technique before cracking open the box of Honey Nut Corn Flakes. If you are craving something that you know you can't have, wait five minutes, distract yourself with email or a quick walk (waddle) around the block. Then, likely the craving will be gone.
3. She encouraged me to drink more water if I was hungry, and that technique I still use today when I feel hungry outside of normal snacks and meals. I drink a glass of water instead, and the hunger usually goes away to the point I can think and make a sound choice.
4. She encouraged me to tell my spouse, friends, and co-workers about my dietary needs, so that if I was finding my willpower at nil, they could prop me up and help make the better choice. This helped me a lot. My spouse became the Diabetic cook-extraordinaire, and gave me a look (which worked) when I wanted to reach for the peanut butter.
5. She gave me a summary sheet of the GI Index. It rocks. I wish food labels had this in their nutrition information. Not all low GI foods will be suitable, but you can make great choices this way, based on how your GDM reacts to foods.
6. She showed me how to Carb count. I did this instead of counting calories or portion size of my carbs. Anything under 15 g of carbs was ok for me in one meal. And if it had high fibre carb content, then yahoo! It was good.
7. She surprised me by telling me it was ok to grieve. I know this sounds melodramatic, but she said it was ok to be uspet about not being able to eat whatever you want. If you get the anger and disappointment out of your system, it makes it easier to move on and be successful as a GDM mom-to-be.
8. She said EAT! It can be scary to measure every bite of food that goes into you, and worry that the 1/4 cup of rice will hurt the baby. But do NOT starve yourself, or not eat balanced, full meals, because that can be more damaging to your baby than GDM, in the long run. And being hungry all the time is no fun either, and makes "cheating" more likely.
   

Every GDM mom-to-be has a different set of food triggers. One mom can be sensitive to potatoes, another sensitive to fruit of all kinds. The severity of the GDM, your body type/shape, and familial risk factor have a lot to do with it as well. I knew several GDM mom-to-be's that could safely eat carbs and fruit, just in small quantities, and no insulin was necessary.

I hated those moms.

I had to cart around needles, insulin, and testing kits. My tummy had track marks like a drug addict, and made bare belly maternity shots impossible. I felt a little hollow when some moms could walk into the weekly Tuesday afternoon consult with the Diabetes doctor, a double-double and a donut in their hand, seemingly ok with the juxtaposition they were displaying. I would pull out my thermos of water, hard boiled egg, slice of spongy Betty Bread and some low fat cottage cheese and glare at them from inside my mind. Partially because I wondered how they could have that and not spike their BS through the roof, and partially because they were making poor choices when I was struggling so much not to.

Saying goodbye to those foods, albeit temporarily, is hard. As a GDM mom-to-be, you have to make some really big sacrifices, and add a level of complexity to your life to safeguard the health of your unborn child. Altering your diet, and balancing your nutrition untimately is a great big accomplishment, and one that should not go unnoticed. You should be proud that you can do it.

And in the end, when you greet your wonderful, normal weight, happily squalling baby, you will know that every time you traded Fibre 1 no sugar cereal for waffles, it was worth it.