I'm absolute crap at keeping up with blogs. I just wanted to give some info I remember to anyone who may stumble across this.
I found that the breakfast smoothie I drank every morning needed to be tweaked as the weeks went on. Heck, even as the days went on. I began noticing my sugars got higher each time I drank the smoothie. Eventually I had to stop drinking it for breakfast because my sugars were getting higher than they should be.
But the fun things I found out were that I handled Pizza Hut personal sized pan pizzas just fine. I just got the plain pepperoni. I craved pizza so much during pregnancy and my oldest sister sent me a $30 gift card for Pizza Hut and it saved me some misery. That stuff was like crack for me. While there is definitely more fat on those personal pans than you should have, there's enough protein from the cheese and pepperoni to offset the carbs in the crust and tomato sauce.
Also if I really wanted fast food, I ate Carl's Jr (Hardees for anyone living in the south). I just got the Big Carl meal (it's a two patty cheeseburger that comes with everything but tomatoes, I don't like that stuff so I order it with just the cheese as a topping) with onion rings instead of the fries (the amount of carbs in the little bit of crumbs on the onions was less than what was in the french fries, you could also go for their fried zucchini which is a great choice if you want a veggie and something fresh, they only cook them when they're ordered). I got a diet coke to drink. I opted for caffeine instead of sugar for the drink. In this case caffeine was the lesser of two evils. While my sugars were a bit higher than normal, they were still well within range for the hour test.
So it's all what you order. At McDonald's it's probably best to skip the fries or just get a small pack of them and then get chicken nuggets instead of a burger and then a diet drink if you want a soda. And that's IF you want their bad food and not one of their salads or something. At Wendy's I love the spicy chicken sandwich. Order that without the sauce and just take off the bun. I get them plain. And go with the small size because they really don't have any sides that work well with it, unless they have little salads.
But just think high protein, low starch, low sugar and you'll be good.
Oh and for those of you who are being talked to about induction. If you've never been induced, and especially if this is your first child. I would sit down and write out all the pros and cons of being induced. I was induced because I was a day or two over 40 weeks. While I did get to go to within two days of 41 weeks thanks to scheduling conflicts, I still should have been allowed to go longer. My delivery was just awful thanks to the induction. I just did a persuasive paper in English class and used induction as the topic. I found that there are 7 risks of induction on first time mothers (I'm guessing there are at least some, if not all, of these risks for any induction) and I ended up with four of them. I developed an infection, my son's heartrate dropped due to lack of oxygen because of the pitocin causing such hard contractions, I had to have a c-section, and the last one I can't remember. It also didn't help that I was having back labor and my body processes some drugs so fast they barely have time to work. I ended up getting stadol and an epidural but neither worked very long (stadol 15 minutes, epi 2 hours even with pressing the button and having the constant drip upped). Ended up having to get this stuff that better than an epidural and went through some horrendous pain when it was first administered and every muscle in my torso seized and I couldn't breathe because of it. It worked like a charm but the first does lasted 2 hours, the second 1 hour, and the third 30 minutes. By the time that last does started to wear off I gave up on a vaginal birth. I was too tired and knew I'd not have the strength to push and I was still at 7cm after 46 hours in labor. Course it didn't matter because by then it had been 22 hours since my water had been broken and I'd developed an infection. From that the placenta became infected and my son was born with sepsis (blood infection) and he had to stay in the hospital for 10 days in order to receive antibiotics. I stayed with him the whole time since they moved him to pediatrics.
It was a very bad experience but it hasn't put me off having another and the next time I know to be wary of induction and I know that there's no point in having pain meds and racking up a huge bill thanks to them because they're not going to work. Oh and when I got into the OR and they were trying to put in the spinal block, it took them 10 tries to get the needle to go in right because my muscles were so tense from all the pain for such a long time that they kept bending the needle.
So yeah, do your homework about inductions. There are plenty of women who have been fine with them but it's better to know the risks than to listen to what other women went through, even me. Just go do your homework and make an informed decision. Don't let your OB or whoever talk you into something you don't know much about.
And this will be the last for this blog. Though if I happen to remember something great I'll post it. Hope those of you who come across this and read it find it at least somewhat helpful in getting you through your 12 weeks of gestational diabetes.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Hard Time
Again I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that in order to eat, I have to spend forever in the kitchen trying to find just the right things.
Plus, I'm sick and tired of eggs and string cheese.
8 more weeks. That's it. Stupid gestational diabetes has made me begin loathing this pregnancy. I just want it to be done now so I don't have to spend forever trying to get meals together.
Plus, I'm sick and tired of eggs and string cheese.
8 more weeks. That's it. Stupid gestational diabetes has made me begin loathing this pregnancy. I just want it to be done now so I don't have to spend forever trying to get meals together.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Finally! Low After Breakfast Sugars!
The smoothie seems to be great for my blood sugar. I think I mentioned in the first post about it that an hour after drinking it my sugars were only 84 mg/dL and that was with 52g of carbs.
An hour after drinking the light version today my sugars are only 108 mg/dL. For breakfast, that's low. It's the first time my sugars after breakfast have been below 125. Two days ago I had 1/2 no sugar added apple sauce, 3 Tbsp whole almonds, 1c milk, and 1 bacon slice. I missed my 1 hour but my 2 hour blood sugar test was 107, which meant my 1 hour would have been in the normal range between 125-135.
I have half a mind to make up all these other kinds of smoothies and instead of eating, just drink those! Haha! They're definitely more satisfying than what I've been having and they're quicker to make.
An hour after drinking the light version today my sugars are only 108 mg/dL. For breakfast, that's low. It's the first time my sugars after breakfast have been below 125. Two days ago I had 1/2 no sugar added apple sauce, 3 Tbsp whole almonds, 1c milk, and 1 bacon slice. I missed my 1 hour but my 2 hour blood sugar test was 107, which meant my 1 hour would have been in the normal range between 125-135.
I have half a mind to make up all these other kinds of smoothies and instead of eating, just drink those! Haha! They're definitely more satisfying than what I've been having and they're quicker to make.
Updated Banana Chocolate Smoothie
Made this again for breakfast and used the minimum ingredients this time. And went to Calorie King and used the info there for a medium banana to find out calories.
This is pretty much a complete breakfast, according to my meal guide. It's just missing 1 serving of fat. This was just as delicious as last night's recipe, just lighter in texture and chocolate.
- 1 c 2% Milk
- 1/2 Medium Banana
- 1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 Packets Splenda
This is pretty much a complete breakfast, according to my meal guide. It's just missing 1 serving of fat. This was just as delicious as last night's recipe, just lighter in texture and chocolate.
Banana Chocolate Smoothie
I still have yet to eat all my meals in a day. With the way I normally eat, it's not a problem because I just grab whatever I want throughout the day. Right now, though, it's tedious to have to look at my meal guide to see how many servings of what I can have, then having to read food label after food label. So I do tend to just wait longer between meals than I should.
Today I skipped lunch, but the snack I had was pretty much lunch due to the amount of carbs it had in it.
So I made a triple berry smoothie last week, halving it since there was so much orange juice in it. I made it from this package from Yoplait. You can find it in the freezer section next to the juice I believe. Well, I wanted something fairly quick and yummy and I had been thinking about cocoa powder a bit today, knowing I could have some. Then I remembered we got fresh bananas. Yoplait also has a chocolate banana smoothie pack and the numbers on the nutrition label aren't bad, but you can definitely make on with better for you stuff and better numbers at home and I'm sure it would taste just as good.
Thinking of all that, I decided to give it a try. If I had been able to use a syrup I would have been able to make an amazing one! Having worked at Starbucks for two years I got to test a lot of stuff and figure out measurements in order to make stuff at home (I can tell you how much chocolate syrup made with the mocha powder you can buy from Starbucks goes into how many ounces of milk by having you measure it in a shot glass).
But the Hershey's chocolate syrup had too many carbs to really be worthwhile. So unsweetened cocoa powder and Splenda it was!
I decided to use some of the non-fat Greek yogurt instead of milk, but with how much powder I used I had to put in a whole banana to make sure it wasn't overpowered, so with the yogurt it was a bit thick. So I ended up adding 1/2 a cup of 2% milk. It was still thick, but it turned out really good.
Here's my recipe, I suggest you tweak it to your own liking. Next time I will use less cocoa powder and maybe crush up some ice in a bag so the Magic Bullet my mom has can really blend that in there. I discovered with the triple berry smoothie that whole cubes just don't work, haha! I ended up popping some ice cubes into the cup when I was done and giving it a stir to make it nice and cold.
Banana Chocolate Smoothie
So this could be made for lunch or dinner. You would have to add something else to get a little more fat and protein and possibly something to give you more calories. Also I didn't taste the vanilla flavoring. I added it because my dietician said she sometimes uses vanilla flavoring to sweeten things. The Greek yogurt is pretty tart. Luckily the banana adds quite a bit of sweetness but when I put in only 2 packets of Splenda, it was still tart. Five packets doesn't make it incredibly sweet, it's still got that bit of bitter flavor from the cocoa powder with a hint of tang from the yogurt.
And something interesting, after an hour, maybe slightly over, I checked my sugars and it was only 84. For 52g of carbs that's pretty low. Especially since my dinner was a normal meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, a roll, and regular soda. An hour after dinner my sugars were 159, I'm sure at two hours they were higher (like the other day when I had Wendy's and it went from 150 at 1 hour to 170 at 2 hours). But that shows that my pancreas does kick in, it just takes longer.
Hope you enjoy this little idea. And from it think of all the different kind of smoothies you can make with the fruit you have. Like try something interesting like apples and lemon juice (lemon juice having about 1.3g of carbs per tablespoon) with some yogurt and sweetener. I have frozen, cut up mango in the freezer, too, so I could use some orange juice, pineapple chunks, and mangoes to make another. The Greek yogurt is a great staple for these smoothies because it's under the protein section so no meat, string cheese, or eggs.
I'll keep working at coming up with recipes and ideas to put in here. I'm a little overwhelmed still and it doesn't help when I get a sudden craving for bad things like soda and fried chicken.
Today I skipped lunch, but the snack I had was pretty much lunch due to the amount of carbs it had in it.
So I made a triple berry smoothie last week, halving it since there was so much orange juice in it. I made it from this package from Yoplait. You can find it in the freezer section next to the juice I believe. Well, I wanted something fairly quick and yummy and I had been thinking about cocoa powder a bit today, knowing I could have some. Then I remembered we got fresh bananas. Yoplait also has a chocolate banana smoothie pack and the numbers on the nutrition label aren't bad, but you can definitely make on with better for you stuff and better numbers at home and I'm sure it would taste just as good.
Thinking of all that, I decided to give it a try. If I had been able to use a syrup I would have been able to make an amazing one! Having worked at Starbucks for two years I got to test a lot of stuff and figure out measurements in order to make stuff at home (I can tell you how much chocolate syrup made with the mocha powder you can buy from Starbucks goes into how many ounces of milk by having you measure it in a shot glass).
But the Hershey's chocolate syrup had too many carbs to really be worthwhile. So unsweetened cocoa powder and Splenda it was!
I decided to use some of the non-fat Greek yogurt instead of milk, but with how much powder I used I had to put in a whole banana to make sure it wasn't overpowered, so with the yogurt it was a bit thick. So I ended up adding 1/2 a cup of 2% milk. It was still thick, but it turned out really good.
Here's my recipe, I suggest you tweak it to your own liking. Next time I will use less cocoa powder and maybe crush up some ice in a bag so the Magic Bullet my mom has can really blend that in there. I discovered with the triple berry smoothie that whole cubes just don't work, haha! I ended up popping some ice cubes into the cup when I was done and giving it a stir to make it nice and cold.
Banana Chocolate Smoothie
- 1 Medium Banana
- 1/2c 2% Milk
- 1/2c Non-fat Greek Yogurt
- 2Tbsp Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 5 Packets of Splenda
- 1tsp Vanilla Extract/Flavoring
So this could be made for lunch or dinner. You would have to add something else to get a little more fat and protein and possibly something to give you more calories. Also I didn't taste the vanilla flavoring. I added it because my dietician said she sometimes uses vanilla flavoring to sweeten things. The Greek yogurt is pretty tart. Luckily the banana adds quite a bit of sweetness but when I put in only 2 packets of Splenda, it was still tart. Five packets doesn't make it incredibly sweet, it's still got that bit of bitter flavor from the cocoa powder with a hint of tang from the yogurt.
And something interesting, after an hour, maybe slightly over, I checked my sugars and it was only 84. For 52g of carbs that's pretty low. Especially since my dinner was a normal meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, a roll, and regular soda. An hour after dinner my sugars were 159, I'm sure at two hours they were higher (like the other day when I had Wendy's and it went from 150 at 1 hour to 170 at 2 hours). But that shows that my pancreas does kick in, it just takes longer.
Hope you enjoy this little idea. And from it think of all the different kind of smoothies you can make with the fruit you have. Like try something interesting like apples and lemon juice (lemon juice having about 1.3g of carbs per tablespoon) with some yogurt and sweetener. I have frozen, cut up mango in the freezer, too, so I could use some orange juice, pineapple chunks, and mangoes to make another. The Greek yogurt is a great staple for these smoothies because it's under the protein section so no meat, string cheese, or eggs.
I'll keep working at coming up with recipes and ideas to put in here. I'm a little overwhelmed still and it doesn't help when I get a sudden craving for bad things like soda and fried chicken.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Breakfast Food
Breakfast is the hardest time for me. Normally I just want a bowl of cereal and I'm good. Now, though, I'm having to scrounge for stuff and my breakfasts come out so odd.
I'm sick and tired of eating eggs. I stopped liking the yolk years ago and after a few month stint where I made and egg and cheese sandwich for a snack every day after school, I've grown tired of eggs in general. So I'm looking for other ways to get protein.
But I did see somewhere someone talking about quiche. Now, I like quiche, yes it has egg yolks, but with the other flavors it's not very evident. Quiche would make a lovely breakfast meal. It might be the only thing you can have, depending on the serving size, but I'm sure it will satisfy you.
I love quiche like bacon, broccoli, and cheese. That's my favorite. But I also like the ones with spinach. So I'm going to see about making some mini quiche. Maybe bacon, cheese, and something besides broccoli, even though I love it so!
Also, I was thinking that crepes would make a wonderful breakfast. They're thin and the batter usually has quite a bit of egg in it. My favorite crepe I've ever had was this one at a stand at the Portland, Oregon farmers market called C'est Ci Bon (mean's something like It's So Good, C'est means it is and Bon means good, so even not really knowing what Ci means you can get the gist of the title).
Anyways my sister got this crepe that had melted cheese, bacon, onions, and mushrooms in it. On top they added some salad greens. The crepe was thicker than I had in French class and was folded into a nice square package, encasing all the deliciousness inside. It was amazing! I did love my crepe of lemon curd with sliced strawberries and whipped cream on top, but the savory crepe was definitely the best. I wish I could have it again.
But crepes are delicious with fresh fruit or some canned stuff. I really enjoyed the one I had in French class with canned peaches and whipped cream. It was so light and fresh tasting. It didn't overpower the taste buds (neither did the savory crepe at the farmers market, though) but wasn't so light as to where you felt like it was pointless to eat.
Just thought I'd put these up here as an idea.
Oh! Beware crepes that seem rubbery. Those have way too much egg in the batter and are a pain to eat. There's a crepe vendor where I live who will sometimes be at the farmers market but I usually see them at the fair. I was not happy with their crepes at all. I was extremely disappointed. The egg was so evident in the crepe that I was having a hard time eating it. But I ate that stupid thing because fair food is way too expensive here. I couldn't even roll the thing up and eat it because it was just rubbery and didn't do right. And the presentation was definitely a 1 out of 10. It looked like an oversized thin omelet to me. Definitely not worth it.
I'm sick and tired of eating eggs. I stopped liking the yolk years ago and after a few month stint where I made and egg and cheese sandwich for a snack every day after school, I've grown tired of eggs in general. So I'm looking for other ways to get protein.
But I did see somewhere someone talking about quiche. Now, I like quiche, yes it has egg yolks, but with the other flavors it's not very evident. Quiche would make a lovely breakfast meal. It might be the only thing you can have, depending on the serving size, but I'm sure it will satisfy you.
I love quiche like bacon, broccoli, and cheese. That's my favorite. But I also like the ones with spinach. So I'm going to see about making some mini quiche. Maybe bacon, cheese, and something besides broccoli, even though I love it so!
Also, I was thinking that crepes would make a wonderful breakfast. They're thin and the batter usually has quite a bit of egg in it. My favorite crepe I've ever had was this one at a stand at the Portland, Oregon farmers market called C'est Ci Bon (mean's something like It's So Good, C'est means it is and Bon means good, so even not really knowing what Ci means you can get the gist of the title).
Anyways my sister got this crepe that had melted cheese, bacon, onions, and mushrooms in it. On top they added some salad greens. The crepe was thicker than I had in French class and was folded into a nice square package, encasing all the deliciousness inside. It was amazing! I did love my crepe of lemon curd with sliced strawberries and whipped cream on top, but the savory crepe was definitely the best. I wish I could have it again.
But crepes are delicious with fresh fruit or some canned stuff. I really enjoyed the one I had in French class with canned peaches and whipped cream. It was so light and fresh tasting. It didn't overpower the taste buds (neither did the savory crepe at the farmers market, though) but wasn't so light as to where you felt like it was pointless to eat.
Just thought I'd put these up here as an idea.
Oh! Beware crepes that seem rubbery. Those have way too much egg in the batter and are a pain to eat. There's a crepe vendor where I live who will sometimes be at the farmers market but I usually see them at the fair. I was not happy with their crepes at all. I was extremely disappointed. The egg was so evident in the crepe that I was having a hard time eating it. But I ate that stupid thing because fair food is way too expensive here. I couldn't even roll the thing up and eat it because it was just rubbery and didn't do right. And the presentation was definitely a 1 out of 10. It looked like an oversized thin omelet to me. Definitely not worth it.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Six Pounds in Two Weeks!?
I weighed myself before I ate today. I'd lost six pounds in two weeks. Needless to say I was very concerned. So concerned that I went and got myself some fast food. I could have found something full of calories at home, but I'd also had a dentist appointment earlier and for some reason I always want fast food after I visit the dentist.
Around 4pm I had an appointment with my dietician. I brought up the six pound loss with her as we went to check my weight. Because I'd just eaten, my weight had gone back up four pounds. But she still sat down with me and helped me figure out my calories.
The day we looked at had be getting roughly about 1,500 calories. For being overweight from the beginning that was too little. What was a bit worse about that day's calories was my dinner for that day was normal. I'd had lobster tail, a little less than 3oz of steak, corn, and asparagus. So on normal GD diet days, I wouldn't be consuming that many calories with a meal.
She suggested I up my caloric intake by getting more nuts and oils (like canola or olive) in my diet. That would up the calories by a few hundred, putting me over 1,800 which is the least amount she wants me to get.
I asked several questions I'd come up with in the week I'd not seen her. One of them was about my breakfast sugars and if I could do anything to lower them. They've been between 125-135 each time. She said there's not really anything I can do. Exercising will help, but it's not going to do much overall since the pregnancy hormones are making it harder for my pancreas to produce enough insulin fast enough. And it seems that higher blood sugar readings is the trend with GD patients.
So if your after breakfast glucose levels are higher than the rest of the day, don't stress over it too much. But don't count out exercise. I've begun trying to get in 20 minutes of bike riding a day, at least. It's not much, and I could do more, but I get up so late and I end up taking a nap usually that I don't get much of a chance to do more than twice a day (10 minutes each which is about 2 miles for me going at a moderate pace). I'll do something once after breakfast and then again after 9:30pm when my mom and her husband have gone to bed. We have a stationary bike in the TV room but from 4pm to about 9pm the room is occupied by my mom's husband and her and I have no desire to sit in there with them watching boring TV.
The dietician said exercise can help my body's cells open up and be more ready to take in glucose. One of the reasons why our blood sugars are higher in the morning is because our cells are more resistant to taking in glucose. We might be awake but that doesn't mean our body is, too.
Around 4pm I had an appointment with my dietician. I brought up the six pound loss with her as we went to check my weight. Because I'd just eaten, my weight had gone back up four pounds. But she still sat down with me and helped me figure out my calories.
The day we looked at had be getting roughly about 1,500 calories. For being overweight from the beginning that was too little. What was a bit worse about that day's calories was my dinner for that day was normal. I'd had lobster tail, a little less than 3oz of steak, corn, and asparagus. So on normal GD diet days, I wouldn't be consuming that many calories with a meal.
She suggested I up my caloric intake by getting more nuts and oils (like canola or olive) in my diet. That would up the calories by a few hundred, putting me over 1,800 which is the least amount she wants me to get.
I asked several questions I'd come up with in the week I'd not seen her. One of them was about my breakfast sugars and if I could do anything to lower them. They've been between 125-135 each time. She said there's not really anything I can do. Exercising will help, but it's not going to do much overall since the pregnancy hormones are making it harder for my pancreas to produce enough insulin fast enough. And it seems that higher blood sugar readings is the trend with GD patients.
So if your after breakfast glucose levels are higher than the rest of the day, don't stress over it too much. But don't count out exercise. I've begun trying to get in 20 minutes of bike riding a day, at least. It's not much, and I could do more, but I get up so late and I end up taking a nap usually that I don't get much of a chance to do more than twice a day (10 minutes each which is about 2 miles for me going at a moderate pace). I'll do something once after breakfast and then again after 9:30pm when my mom and her husband have gone to bed. We have a stationary bike in the TV room but from 4pm to about 9pm the room is occupied by my mom's husband and her and I have no desire to sit in there with them watching boring TV.
The dietician said exercise can help my body's cells open up and be more ready to take in glucose. One of the reasons why our blood sugars are higher in the morning is because our cells are more resistant to taking in glucose. We might be awake but that doesn't mean our body is, too.
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