A Dilapidated Old Wreck

~ Clarissa

First, I had gestational hypertension.

Then, I had gestational periodontitis.

And now I seem to have gestational diabetes.

For a person who never saw any doctors and felt great before pregnancy, this is getting a little too much.

And check this out: because of gestational hypertension I’m more likely to have an underweight baby. And because of gestational diabetes I’m more likely to have an overweight baby. So I’m thinking maybe it will all even itself out and I will get a normal-weight baby.

Jokes aside, though, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about this and I’m failing. I’ve been doing online searches and all I’m finding is a collection of variations on the Atkins diet. I think the Atkins diet is evil, and just the idea of trying it makes me unhappy. Nobody will convince me that giving up fruit and fresh fruit juices in favor of diet sodas (like the websites I’m finding suggest) is a good idea.

Or look at this sample diet. Reduced-fat milk, granola, low-fat cheese, margarine, peanut butter – this is all disgusting and, I am convinced, extremely unhealthy. I guess the problem is that I don’t understand the guiding principles behind this way of eating. On the one hand, every website suggests I avoid processed foods. On the other, they all recommend fat-free this and reduced-fat that. This makes me think that I don’t understand the meaning of the word “processed.”

And here are some suggestions from a governmental diabetes website:

  • Use mustard instead of mayonnaise on a sandwich.

  • Drawing of a bowl of cereal with a spoon in the bowl.Use low-fat or fat-free substitutes such as low-fat mayonnaise or light margarine on bread, rolls, or toast.

  • Eat cereal with fat-free (skim) or low-fat (1%) milk.

What use are these for me if it would have never occurred to me to put mayonnaise on a sandwich or to eat a sandwich at all? Who on Earth eats sandwiches at my age? (Unless they are a sincere sandwich fanatic). And margarine? How can I take seriously anybody who suggests people eat this nasty poison? When I imagine putting “low-fat mayonnaise or light margarine on bread, rolls, or toast”, I want to vomit. Do people really eat such things? Especially if they are pregnant 37-year-old people? As for cereal, I wouldn’t touch it to save my life, let alone with this tortured kind of milk.

I will eventually get to see a nutrition specialist at the hospital but I don’t believe that specialist will be of any use to me. Nutrition specialists are trained to modify typically US diets in order to make them healthier. I, however, do not eat like an American person.

Discussions about healthy eating always leave me frustrated because I feel like people are speaking a different language.

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Published by Clarissa

92 thoughts on “A Dilapidated Old Wreck”

  1. From what I understand gestational diabetes is fairly common. Two of my friends had it and it was OK. They mostly just upped their intake of fresh vegetables, ate less bread and pasta (though they both still ate that too) and cut out sugar almost entirely (so no desserts or sugar in tea or coffee–which was a big sacrifice for one of my friends.)

    Also, I don’t know if this is true but one of the women told me that gd was linked to stress so she made sure she relaxed and didn’t get too hung up on the whole subject. She went on more walks, meditated, did “pregnant yoga” etc. And that really helped her “numbers.” (Not exactly sure what numbers she meant–I assume blood sugar count?)

    At any rate, both these women are fine today and both gave birth to beautiful healthy babies.

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    1. Thank you, Evelina! I’m still hoping that the second test will show this one to be a mistake. I could have expected anything but this because I don’t eat desserts, can’t remember the last time I ate pasta, dislike bread, and devour mountains of fresh vegetables. I haven’t even been gaining any weight in the last 2 months of this pregnancy.

      I do eat a lot of potatoes, though. Can this be because of potatoes? I eat them every day.

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      1. I do eat a lot of potatoes, though. Can this be because of potatoes? I eat them every day.

        Yes! Potatoes convert to sugar. So this could definitely be linked to potatoes. Based on watching my friends, I wouldn’t say you have to cut them out completely–just eat them less frequently. (But I’m not a doctor so take that with a grain of salt!) But if my friend is correct, she said she got more health benefits out of yoga than she did by monitoring her diet too closely. She is a big pasta lover and just didn’t want to cut it out of her diet entirely. So she still ate her pasta. 🙂

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      2. If you like sweet potatoes, you could even switch to those (they convert to sugar less rapidly than white potatoes, strangely enough). You might want to look at the glycemic index; it rates fruits and vegetables on how quickly they convert to sugar. The lower on the glycemic index, the better those foods are for you if you are diabetic.

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  2. Garbanzo beans, black beans, cooked vegetarianly, lower fat than meat. Bunch-o-vegetables, yes. Carrots and spinach. Apples and pears. A lot of hearty cooked vegetables, I hear.

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  3. What idiot recommended diet soda?

    From my understanding (and I’m not a doctor) – more fresh veggies are good (but you seem to already eat a lot of those). With fruits, some naturally have higher sugar content than others, so maybe you want to cut down on the ones with highest sugar content (off the top of my head I think grapes and pineapples are among them, but check). I think you’d have to cut back on potatoes. Also there are certain times of day I think when you’re likely to experience high spikes in blood sugar level, like the morning – so fewer carbs in the morning.

    Some exercise is good too. You have to ask your doctor about what you can do at your stage of pregnancy. In general, walking is good.

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    1. I knew the potatoes would have to learn to play a smaller role. 🙂

      Do you know anything about watermelons? When it’s hot, I eat them in industrial quantities. I’m even ashamed to say how much watermelon I eat. 🙂

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      1. An important consideration is glycemic index – or how much a food increases blood sugar level after consumption. Watermelon does have a higher-than-average glycemic index compared to others fruits, so I don’t think you can eat it in industrial quantities. It’s still a healthy fruit with loads of nutrients, and maybe you can enjoy a smaller serving each day.

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        1. I love lemon water and drink it all the time now. And cucumbers.

          Of course, I could go easier of watermelons but it’s very hard for me to do things I don’t understand. I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that fresh fruit can be bad.

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        1. “It’s neither bad nor good, just not recommended for you in industrial quantities at this particular point in your life.”

          – It really helps when you put it this way. Thank you!

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  4. You could also try to google up Spanish nutritional websites and see what Spanish recommendations are for a diabetes diet (I imagine they are probably totally different than US ones).

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  5. I hate giving advices, especially to a pregnant woman. I think that you eat well enough already and that you will be fine during the rest of your pregnancy.

    So I will only write that my mom had gd when she was pregnant and look how smart and handsome her son turned out to be.

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  6. Periodontitis: on her first visit to the dentist after she gave birth to our son my spouse discovered that she had 12 cavities.

    I would not like being pregnant.

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  7. Clarissa: I am so sorry. But what you can do that will really help is cut way back on sodium and sugar. Find things you love to eat that have very little salt or sugar in them. Screw dieting. That’s just an obsession that you don’t need to worry about right now. Drink a lot of water.
    And be kind to yourself.

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  8. I support the idea of a low-carb diet but the idea of replacing fruit by diet soda is a raving lunacy. Serious low carb diet is about replacing large amount of sugar in deserts and processed foods by more fatty food.

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    1. Corrected:

      I support the idea of a low-carb diet but the idea of replacing fruit by diet soda is a raving lunacy. Serious low carb diet is about replacing large amount of sugar in deserts, juices and processed foods by more fatty food, not reducing the fruit consumption, au contraire!

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    2. I’ve seen people on Atkins and they all drove themselves to huge health issues because they avoided all fruit and vegetables and only ate meat on top of more meat. The scariest thing I ever saw was a sandwich made out of a pork chop with different kinds of sausage on top and absolutely nothing else. It even looked disgusting!

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      3. Avoiding fresh fruits and vegetables sounds insane.

        The way you eat is healthy. I suspect that if you make any changes it’ll just have to be some adjustments in the quantities of certain foods (or adding some other nutritious foods like beans) rather than a complete overhaul of your eating habits.

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  9. I’ve eaten well with little salt intake for years. Just take cheese, for example. You can find fresh mozzarella that has 0% sodium. With tomatoes and basil, basalmic vinegar and a little olive oil, you have a good salad that really does not need salt. Emmentaler has only 2% sodium/ounce.
    Z’s suggestions are great. Throwing together a garbanzo bean salad is something I often do.
    My palate is adjusted to a lower sodium intake, and restaurant food all tastes oversalted to me now. They put so much salt and msg in the food.

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    1. You are absolutely right about restaurant food. It is extremely oversalted, and that doesn’t depend on the price range of the restaurant. Everything is always oversalted.

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        1. “This is a good idea to avoid restaurant, especially in America, and more especially in the Midwest.”

          – But then imagine spending your entire life stuck at home. Even for the most sedentary of us, that gets a little daunting. 🙂 🙂

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  10. “Use mustard instead of mayonnaise on a sandwich.”

    Bad idea.

    “Use low-fat or fat-free substitutes such as low-fat mayonnaise or light margarine on bread, rolls, or toast.”

    At least, they are better than regular mayonnaise and regular margarine, but a reasonable amount of butter would be better.

    “Eat cereal with fat-free (skim) or low-fat (1%) milk.”

    If you absolutely want to eat cereal, this is a good idea. But you should replace cereal by something more fatty.

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    1. This is a very interesting table, thank you!!! It says lentils and chickpeas are good. I like lentils and chickpeas but almost never eat them for some reason. I think I need to buy them tomorrow.

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        1. People’s metabolism is what it is. You can’t change it by moving. 🙂 🙂

          I believe that people who do these vegan diets have mental issues, to be honest. This requires their entire lives to be about food and that is definitely not healthy. Of course, the craziest folks are the raw food fanatics. Those turn absolutely everything into a food-related masturbation extravaganza.

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        1. If they just did this in the privacy of their own homes, then whatever. But have you noticed how the second a raw-food person appears at any social event, the discussion is dominated 100% by their food habits? I now just run away whenever such a person appears in sight.

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      4. All the studies that I know about it find that vegan diets are at worst as healthy as the best non-vegan diet possible. This is about facts, not meat-brainwashing.

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      7. “All the studies that I know about it find that vegan diets are at worst as healthy as the best non-vegan diet possible. This is about facts, not meat-brainwashing.”

        Where do they get their vitamin b12 from?

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        1. Are those the same people who confirmed that ketchup was a vegetable? 🙂

          I’m sorry, I can’t trust the scholarship produced in the unhealthiest country in the world on matters of health.

          In any case, what’s the point of discussing this? I find the idea of giving up animal products completely bizarre. Other people should do what they want but for me this is ridiculous.

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      11. I don’t talk necessarily about american studies.

        You have the right to find vegan diet bizarre. I find that bizarre myself and I’m not myself a vegan, but the fact is that it’s possible to have a very healthy diet within a vegan diet. (altough it’s also possible to have a healthy diet within a non-vegan diet)

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  15. I suggest plenty of exercise, salads made up of leafy vegetables, tomatoes, clery, cucumber, no red meat of any kind, salmon, trout, chicken without fat or skin, apples, pears, strawberries, bananas, peaches. No salad dressing, gravies or sauces of any kind. Little salt. No processed or canned foods of any kind. No alcohol, no caffeinated drinks, no sugary sodas, orange juice, lemonade. Keep an eye on quantities of everything.

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    2. I suggest ignoring any and all recommendations that contain “no x”. You’re pregnant, not dying. Won’t do anyone the slightest amount of good if you spend the summer miserably forbidding yourself foods. Figure out which of the foods you eat have a high glycemic index and eat less of those and more of similar but lower-glycemic-index foods. You don’t sound like the sort of neurotic who, when told she should eat less of X, doubles the amount of X she eats, and therefore can only manage by not eating any X whatsoever.

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  16. “I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that fresh fruit can be bad.”

    Not bad in and of itself – just the ‘industrial quantities’ of some may not be ideal now. And I sympathize. Most people in my family like watermelons, but with my dad it’s a love affair – he can eat huge amounts of it in one sitting 🙂

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  17. 1% skimmed milk is not more processed than 3.25% fake “whole” milk. If your goal is to reduce fat, this could good if you don’t replace it with artificial sugar.

    In fact, we are not sure that cow milk is appropriate for humans. Some studies has pointed out that cow milk drives osteoporosis.

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  18. 1% skimmed milk is not more processed than 3.25% fake “whole” milk. If your goal is to reduce fat, this could be a good idea if you don’t replace it with artificial sugar.

    In fact, we are not sure that cow milk is appropriate for humans. Some studies has pointed out that cow milk drives osteoporosis.

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  19. I heard that a Mediterranean diet, like we have in Israel, is very healthy. May be google “a Mediterranean diet pregnancy” too?

    RE sugar: (water)melons contain huge quantaties of it, as well as numerous other fruits: grapes (not a fruit, yes, a fruiting berry ), peaches, etc. I googled “high sugar fruits” and found:

    “However, if you are very much overweight or are insulin resistant, he recommends that you initially limit high sugar fruits (grapes, bananas, mangos, sweet cherries, apples, pineapples, pears and kiwi fruit) from your diet until your weight starts to normalize and your health improves. Try to include more vegetables in lieu of the high-sugar fruit. As per his previous recommendations, dried fruits contain excessive sugar, and from the table below, you can see they more closely resemble commercial candy than their fresh counterparts. Note that some fruits (avocados, lemons, and limes) are very low in total sugar and should not be restricted.”
    http://thepaleodiet.com/fruits-and-sugars/

    Whether the reason to limit sugar is being overweight or having gestational diabetes, according to my understanding, shouldn’t matter. The above link has a table of sugar content, seems useful.

    I am surprised you thought that eating *lots* of fresh fruits is good. Vegetables, probably (some people have sensitive stomachs and feel bad after eating uncooked vegetables). But not fruits because of their high sugar content.

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    1. Apples and pears are not among the fruits that have the highest glycemic index. It’s important to look beyond the sugar content and at glycemic index too, because not all sugars elevate the blood sugar level in the same way. Apples and pears may have sugar, but your blood sugar level won’t go up as much as with watermelon, pineapple, or papaya.

      Keeping an eye on portions is good in general.

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    3. Now, who can possibly force themselves to eat a lemon instead of cherries and a watermelon?

      “I am surprised you thought that eating *lots* of fresh fruits is good. ‘

      – They are fresh and natural. How can that possibly be bad? I live in a country where everybody at the grocery store checkout has stacks and rows of boxes and cans. When my turn comes, the cashier never even knows the names of all fruit I’m buying. And yes, I consider this to be very good, taking into the account alternatives.

      I don’t eat any desserts, any cookies, any cakes, any baked goods at all. If I give up the fruit, what will be left? I mean, realistically, what’s left? Lemons are not a realistic substitute.

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      1. I don’t mean fruits are bad. But eating *too* much of them is bad. F.e. entire half of watermelon or a melon a day, huge amounts of pineapple, etc. A body doesn’t need such amounts of sugar and whatever good things one gets from those fruits, will be in sufficient amounts in smaller quantities of the fruits.

        Don’t you like tea with a piece of lemon?

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  21. “This pregnacy diabetes is a temporay condition. No big deal here.”

    True, it’s temporary, and I don’t think it requires drastic changes to already healthy eating habits. But some tweaks for the sake of caution, yes.

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  22. “I don’t eat any desserts, any cookies, any cakes, any baked goods at all. If I give up the fruit, what will be left? I mean, realistically, what’s left? Lemons are not a realistic substitute.”
    I don’t think you need to give up watermelon or fruit. As some people commented up thread, you _do_ have a healthy diet and your baby is benefitting from that diet. You may want to adjust the quantities of certain foods but I think that’s all. I really do think that a common sense approach is best here. And most importantly: don’t get too nervous or stressed. I applaud your decision to avoid most pregnancy books and I think you should apply the same logic here. Let your body be your guide. Listen to your cravings, eat healthy, take care of yourself, and strive to be as happy and stress free as possible. Treat yourself to a little luxury–a new book, a beautiful piece of jewelry, a face mask–and just spoil yourself. I bet that will do just as much good as limiting watermelon. 🙂

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    1. You are right, this is the very first time in the entire pregnancy that I have become stressed.

      I need to go relax and stop freaking out about this.

      Thank you, this is a great and very helpful comment.

      What would I do without my blog? 🙂 🙂

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  23. Nobody will convince me that giving up fruit and fresh fruit juices in favor of diet sodas (like the websites I’m finding suggest) is a good idea.
    I agree. I drink water, coffee with cream and sugar, tea, some fruit juice and a very very occasional pop (less than once a month). Diet soda is the most pointless of indulgences; it’s horrible for you without even tasting good. I also loathe fake sugar. Fruit has fiber, I would not give that up.

    . On the other, they all recommend fat-free this and reduced-fat that. This makes me think that I don’t understand the meaning of the word “processed.”

    It is possible to find reduced fat stuff that isn’t processed. However it is impossible to find nonfat yogurt, sour cream, or cheese that isn’t processed to hell (they just add in starch) and doesn’t taste disgusting.

    Natural peanut butter just has peanuts and salt, needs to be refrigerated and must be stirred.

    The sample diet you linked sounds bland and horrible. Low fat cottage cheese tends to be high in sodium (my dad eats this because of his diabetes.)

    Nutrition specialists are trained to modify typically US diets in order to make them healthier. I, however, do not eat like an American person.

    THIS. I tell my mother if she wants to modify her diet she needs to go to someone who understands what she eats.

    Relax. You’ll be fine. The baby will be fine.

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