- Your health care provider will prescribe a diet to regulate your blood sugar and keep it stable--or send you to a nutritionist. Your gestational diabetes diet will have you eat several small meals and snacks--including one after dinner--throughout the day.
- Begin every day with breakfast since blood sugar levels are lowest in the morning. Your prescribed breakfast might include eggs or peanut butter for protein, whole-wheat toast (complex carbohydrate), and a slice of melon.
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Choose whole grains over refined flour. Refined carbohydrates and sugars are the chief contributors to spikes in blood sugar.
As carbs are broken down into glucose, it is important to monitor the amount eaten to ensure the body can break the carbs down.
Use the following basic carbohydrate counts as a general guide:
Breakfast: 15 grams (about the size of a small bagel)
Snacks: 15 to 30 grams (about the size of three graham cracker squares)
Lunch: 45 to 60 grams (about one-fourth the size of a large baked potato and a cup of corn or green beans)
Dinner: 45 to 60 grams (about a cup of pasta or rice and two-thirds of a cup of lima beans) - As much as possible, cut simple sugars--such as desserts, fruit juices that are not 100 percent juice, flavored teas, soda and other high-sugar foods--from your diet. They elevate blood sugar very quickly, which can cause the body's systems to overload and cause symptoms including extreme fatigue, nausea, excessive thirst and blurred vision. Check with your health care practitioner before substituting artificial sweeteners for sugar.
- While avoiding foods high in sugar, make efforts to consume high-fiber foods such as dried peas, legumes, beans, whole-grain bread and pasta, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. These types of foods are digested slowly by the body and therefore keep blood sugar levels more even.
