Yesterday, Joe and I made our way to Tripler for a class on nutrition and blood sugar testing. Come to find out, not many husbands go to these. =P Poor guy was the only one there, except for the LTC who taught the class. Anywho. Now that I've gone through the class, this is what my life consists of:
I have to test my blood sugar by pricking my fingers 4 times a day. {Can you say OUCH?!}
I have to keep a food log, counting how many carbs I've had for each meal and snack.
I'm allowed up to 45 grams of carbs for lunch and dinner, breakfast and snacks are up to 30 grams. Which means I'm constantly looking at these to see what I can/can't have.
{via}
It's not horrible, especially considering I was previously a calorie-counter. But trust me when I say that counting calories is far easier, if only because you have more food options. My biggest food problem right now {and it's been a day} is breakfast. Cereal for breakfast is a no-go because most, if not all, cereals have about 24g per serving. So, I could have cereal...if I wanted nothing else with it, like milk. I like milk far too much for breakfast... I've been drinking probably something like 14-16 ounce glasses for breakfast every day. Now I get 8oz. I miss it.
I've always been a carb eater, so this is going to be very hard for me. And let's not get started on all the sweets I can't have anymore...
As much as I miss eating all the "good" stuff, pricking my fingers sucks a little bit more. I am not a huge fan of poking myself with a needle 4 times a day. Which is why I'm praying that I can control my GD with diet and not need insulin. I don't even want to think about giving myself shots!
I know all of this is for the good of little miss Charlotte, which is all that's keeping me going. Because this is not fun. And the more I let myself think about how much this sucks, the more upset I get. And then I think about the possibility of getting Type 2 somewhere down the road and it just makes me sad, irritated, upset...you name it. I'm sure that not everyone who has GD gets Type 2 later, but my mom already has it and so does my uncle {her brother}. So chances are it's going to happen at some point in my life. And I'll probably have GD with my next pregnancy too.
Blech.
Have I mentioned that this sucks? I'm certainly not going to die from counting carbs and testing my blood sugar, and I know that doing this is only helping me and baby. Clearly this isn't something I was expecting to deal with, but now that I have it I have to remember that staying healthy is all that matters. And hopefully, in 9ish weeks baby and I will have normal blood sugar levels and this momma can go back to having cereal for breakfast. ;-)
If you have any good low carb meals/recipes, please share them!!! I have a feeling I'm going to run out of ideas quickly.
