Who Needs a Gestational Diabetes Meal Plan?

Statistics have shown that roughly five percent of pregnant women may develop gestational diabetes, a condition in which a woman who doesn’t suffer from diabetes, suddenly becomes diabetic during and usually in the second half of her pregnancy.

When something like this happens, blood sugar monitoring should be done regularly to avoid any complications that may arise during labor.

How Effective is a Gestational Diabetes Meal Plan?

When a woman develops mild gestational diabetes, it is important that a proper diabetic meal plan is implemented with the help of a professional nutritionist to help control blood sugar levels. If the diabetes is allowed to progress into a stronger condition, insulin therapy may need to be introduced to help lower blood sugar levels.

How do you Design a Great Gestational Diabetes Meal Plan?

There is tons of information on designing a diabetic meal plan, but you should always take care to make sure that you get a balanced combination of carbohydrates, protein, minerals, and vitamins.

Because it’s not only you that is being affected by Gestational diabetes, but also your unborn baby, you should really seek out professional help to make sure that you are both getting all of the nutrients you need, while keeping your blood sugar levels in check at the same time.

Gestational Diabetes Symptoms

A good majority of the time, there are no symptoms, or very mild. These can include:

Weight loss – even though you are eating more!
Blurred vision
Nausea and vomiting
Increased thirst and Urination
Increased infections, particularly of the bladder and vagina.
Fatigue
Raised blood sugar, which will generally stabilize after the birth

Causes of Gestational Diabetes.

If you are carrying extra weight prior to becoming pregnant
If you have a family history of Diabetes Type 2
If you fall into the category of ‘Pre-Diabetes’ which is raised Blood Sugar, but not high enough to be classed ‘Diabetic’ (Read More about Pre-Diabetes)
Women over the age of 25 are more at risk.
If you have previously given birth to a baby that weighed more than 9 pounds.
If you have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.
If you are a Pacific Islander, Hispanic, African American or American Indian.
You have given birth to a stillborn baby in the past.

A Sample Diabetes Meal Plan

If you are brainstorming for ideas for the meal plan, here are some tips:

Breakfast
Get yourself some starchy vegetables along with whole wheat bread, drink some milk to get a good intake of protein. If you want, you may also add a bagel spread with a teaspoon of jam.

Lunch
You can grab a sandwich made with whole wheat bread with two ounces of protein-rich meat, such as roasted turkey, lean roast beef, or fresh tuna. You can use a tablespoon of salad dressing or mayonnaise along with your sandwich for flavor. Finally, add a cup of nonfat yogurt or some milk to get your dairy requirement for this meal.

Dinner
You may want to get more protein and having some grilled chicken or salmon (approximately three ounces) would be a great start. Next, you’ll want to get your carbohydrate of choice, with suggestions of either a cup of pasta or large baked potato and to this add a cup of steamed asparagus or some tossed salad with low-fat salad dressing.

Lastly, for dessert, you can enjoy a cup of fresh apricots, melons, or other fruit.

Snacks!
If you feel hungry, you may want to get some snacks like whole wheat crackers or tortilla chips to help tide you over between meals. If you choose to go this route, just remember to keep the snacks small, so that your gestational diabetes meal plan is effective while at the same time enjoyable!

How to Create Sugar Free Desserts for Diabetics

Sugar free desserts for diabetics may seem like a myth, and at the same time godsend for diabetics.

Unfortunately, many diabetics believe that a healthy diabetes diet plan simply cannot include having great dessert. This is not the case, with desserts that both taste great and are sugar free.

Using Fruits to Create Sugar Free Desserts for Diabetics

Fruits are great ingredients for making low carbohydrate desserts which are delicious and nutritious. The sweetness in the dessert comes from the fruit, but there is an added benefit; the fruits aid your digestion since they are also rich in fiber. This fiber also helps to stabilize your blood sugar levels.

Some of the more favorable fruits to be used for dessert include:

Raspberries
Strawberries
Blueberries

Sample Menu of Sugar Free Desserts for Diabetics

A great option for dessert is having pudding. If you love having pudding, you may want to try making bread pudding with orange or chocolate.

The ingredients are:

Two cups of whole wheat bread, cut into bite size pieces
Half a cup of semi sweet chocolate chips
One and a half cup of egg substitute
One cup of low fat milk
One fourth of a cup of sugar substitute
One table spoon of cinnamon and a table spoon of orange zest

Simply prepare and spray eight custard dishes with nonstick cooking spray. Mix the ingredients together and then distribute the mixture evenly into the custard cups and then put them into an oven that has been preheated to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

The total cooking time for this sugar free pudding is forty five minutes.
After the pudding has cooked, let it cool for a little bit before serving this excellent example of a great sugar free dessert for diabetics.

Keeping track of Ingredients for Sugar Free Desserts through the Glycemic Index

If you want to maintain a good diabetic meal plan, remember to check the glycemic index (GI) of the ingredients used to create your dessert. The glycemic index shows how certain carbohydrates are digested in the body and form glucose. If carbohydrates in a certain ingredient has a low GI (55 or less), they will be digested slower than those with higher GI and are better for people with diabetes. To give you an idea of what we are talking about so you have a better idea of what you can use in your desserts, some example of the best low GI foods are:

Bran cereals,
Oatmeal
Barley

What are Good Diabetic Menu Plans?

Need a good diabetic menu plan?

For most diabetics eating right isn’t a choice – it’s more like it’s part of their lives. Without the proper diet and exercise the diabetic’s body will begin to suffer damage and the end result will be a rather short and miserable life – not a pretty picture!

Common Diabetes is a very serious non-communicable disease that is currently spreading over the United States and the entire world.

One Simple Rule for Your Diabetic Meal Plans

If you want to have a great diabetic menu plan, you only need to follow one golden rule – avoid anything that is colored white.

Breads and potatoes are examples of this main rule. These foods are stuffed with complex sugar and will drive your blood sugar level to the sky. White sugar, and anything that has white flour in it are also items that you really need to stay away from.

That means the following should not appear on your diabetic menu:

Donuts
Buns
Cupcakes
Anything Sweetened with white sugar
Bagels

The bottom line is that a healthy diabetic menu isn’t that far off from the popular Atkin’s diet. Carbs and sugar are the enemy, while protein, vegetables and limited portions of fruit are the answer.

Why Diabetic Menu Plans are SO Good!

If you haven’t tried eating and following the rules on this page, perhaps you should. You might be doing yourself a massive favor. Not only will you start to feel better, your skin will likely become more clear, you’ll sleep better, you’ll have more energy, you’ll be more relaxed, you’ll feel lighter.

There’s a whole bunch of benefits to eating like this even if you are a non diabetic. So, don’t be afraid to mix things up in the kitchen and try eating like a diabetic.

Key Elements of Diabetic Menu Plans

Meat:
Lean protein is one of the first things to consider when putting together a diabetic meal. So this means, that chicken, turkey, pork and fish are in, and beef is out. That’s not to say that beef can’t be served on occasion, but generally speaking, sticking to the leaner meats will be the perfect way to start.

Veggies
Remember to add in some good veggies to your meals, but skip the temptation to add the potato – because it’s white! Another important thing to keep in mind here is that your veggies can be sliced up and eaten as snacks throughout the day if you find yourself getting hungry.

Dairy
Milk and cheese are all good, but try to stick to the low-fat options as much as possible. Yogurt is another great diabetic friendly food that can be added to any meal, and combined with some fresh berries makes for an excellent dessert or snack.

Dessert and Sweets:
There are a number of different ways that you can sweeten your food without using white sugar. You need to be careful here not to trick yourself that while not using white sugar you may be using something that is equally refined and damaging to your body.

Fruit is a really good option because it’s sweet and also delicious and has not been processed or refined. When you are choosing fruit, berries are some of the best because they are naturally very high in antioxidants.

Once you have weened yourself off of sugar and salt addiction and your sense of taste has started to come back you’ll be amazed at how flavorful and sweet some fruits really are! I remember from my experiments with diabetic meal plans that cherries were so super sweet and full of taste that I almost couldn’t eat them. Once you have transitioned to a more natural way of eating, it’s almost like you’ll have a chance to rediscover how food tastes again for the first time – truly amazing!