Jen Robe Writes

[Technical note: My doctor considers blood sugar in units of mmol/L. In the US, it is usually measured in mg/dL. The conversion is a factor of 18. So if your doctor talks about blood sugar numbers like 90-120, mine would be talking about numbers like 5-6.7] The main goal of monitoring blood glucose levels is to make sure that your blood glucose levels remain stable.  It is scary when you realize that your Blood Glucose Levels have spiked beyond the safe levels you where given.  In the beginning, as I was experimenting with my food, I was occasionally getting numbers that were a little over the guidelines I was given.  I was supposed to have 6.7 or below and would get 6.8 occasionally.  That didn't bother me too much, I just knew to have a smaller portion or avoid that food in the future. The first time, I was worried about a number was when it went over 7 for the first time. It was definitely caused by my diet, but my concern was how can I get it down? The second number that scared

One thing that was important for me with my diagnosis was to make sure that we could still enjoy our normal meals.  Stirfry is one of those dishes that I often do to use up our remaining ingredients.  It is great for that last little bit of roast chicken I’m not sure what to make with or vegetables that need to be eaten. So I was thrilled when I found that I could easily adapt stirfry to fit my diet.  The most important part for me is rice.  I have found using brown basmati rice and knowing what portion I can eat important.  So for example the brand I have has 68.5 carbs per serving.  A serving is ½ cup of dry rice or 1 and ½ cups of cooked rice.  This means that I can have ½ serving at 34.2 carbs.  So I know if I cook 1 cup of dry rice I can have 1/4th of the finished product.  I try to figure out my portions before starting whenever possible.  It allows me to know how many other items I should add.   So this is a bit of a kitchen sink recipe where I through in different things based

Children are expensive! It is currently estimated to cost $300,000 in various countries to raise a child to 18 years old.  That is a lot of money! Luckily the cost is spread out, but it all adds up, so today I'm going to talk about how I prepared for a baby on a budget.  We moved internationally about a year before baby was born, and we were still working on building our community, so we did not count on having a registry or hand-me-downs at all.  We did get some, but we prepared to purchase everything ourselves.  Buying used items was probably the number one thing that we decided to do to save money.   But is it safe? Yes, for the most part, I felt very safe buying all of our baby items used.  One of the first steps in deciding to buy used is deciding what items you are comfortable buying used, and what items you want to purchase new. For us, the car seat and the cot mattress were the most important items we wanted to buy new.  We also decided to buy a new cot, because most of the

I thought I was hungry during my first trimester until I hit the third trimester.   I feel like I cannot stop eating the past week or so.  Week 32 has been nonstop hunger.  Not a great combination with Gestational diabetes, but I'll tell you what I have done to help and what you can do.  There are lots of ways to add extra volume and extra calories to your diet.  To begin, you want to start looking at the composition of your meals.  Are you maxing out your available servings of carbs? You can probably have 30g-45g carbs per meal and 15g-20g carbs per snack unless directed otherwise. For me, my favorite breakfast is a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.  I normally have an open face sandwich, but because I was so hungry I started adding a second slice of bread and some avocado. I was still under my target glucose levels and I was full for longer.  Make sure you are also consuming lots of fats and proteins as well. More complex carbs and low GI carbs are also better for satiety.  They

So I have to admit I don’t have as much experience camping while pregnant as I would like.  With the timing of my pregnancy, we had to cancel several trips for a few reasons.  We are living in Australia and we had really bad bush fires, one of the worse years on record.  Several trips got canceled because the area was not safe, or we did not feel comfortable with the smoke in the area we planned to go.  The bushfires resolved because the rainy season started much earlier than expected.  We had more rain in the first quarter of 2020 than our area had in all of 2019.  While we believe there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad preparation, we decided to pick a drier weekend to go camping.  When the weather got nice again, COVID-19 hit.  We decided to start isolating a little before the official guidelines and then our area banned camping.  When I was 32 weeks pregnant our area allowed camping again, but at that point, we decided it was best not to.  We had also planned to spend East

Finding dessert that is gestational diabetes friendly can be rather difficult.  I find that I do ok with normal ice cream, but it has to be small portions. And a lot of people find that icecream in any capacity gives them spikes.  So in preparation for making a nice birthday dinner for me, I asked in a gestational diabetes group if anyone had any favorite treat recipes.  I got this amazing dessert recipe that I have permission to share.  It is seriously amazing.  It has very few carbs in it for the entire thing. Less than 10 grams of carbs for the entire dish, this means each serving is basically carb free. The main factor in the number of carbs is the cream cheese that you use.  If you want to make it into a carb snack you can add a biscuit or two with it depending on your biscuits.   Ingredients 1 package of cream cheese room temperature 1/3 a cup of thickened cream (also known as heavy cream or whipping cream) 1 packet of flavored Jelly Lite (flavored Sugarfree Jello) mixed with 250

Gestational Diabetes can be tough, especially when you don't have a lot of time to dedicate to meal planning and cooking.  This will be talking about strategies and things you can do to make sure you are managing your numbers while still managing your time.  If you don't have time in your day, there's nothing I can say to change that. So I'm not going to be telling you to find the time, I'll talk about what you can do in the little time you do have.  We will start with preparing meals at home quickly.  There are lots of things you can do to eat quickly while at home or to take things for the road. The first options are ideal for nights you don’t have time or anything prepared and the second part requires some prep work but can be quick after the initial work.  Quick breakfast options Overnight oats with things like chia seeds and nuts and seeds and see if that works for you.   Greek yogurt with fruit and granola.   Half a bagel or a slice of toast with cream cheese

Mistakes I’ve made with Gestational Diabetes  Gestational Diabetes is a learning process.  It takes time to adjust to the schedule and dietary requirements.   I’m going to share some of the mistakes that I’ve made with Gestational Diabetes.  Hopefully, it will be something you can empathize with and hopefully avoid a few of these mistakes.   Food Related Mistakes I’m sure it is no surprise that I have quite a few food-related mistakes.  Gestational Diabetes revolves around food and what you eat and when you eat it.   I think the one that most people can relate to is not calculating carbs in something before you eat it and ending up with a high reading.  I was trying to find a quick and easy lunch the other day and decided on a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  I knew that two slices of bread fit into my meal servings so I thought I would be fine.  Did you know that a medium banana has about 27g of carbs in it? I discovered that after my blood glucose level was much higher than expect

Being diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes can feel super lonely at times. Especially at first when you are still figuring everything out and aren't sure how to manage it.  It is really nice to have a sounding board who has been in the same position as you.  Even though gestational diabetes is fairly common, somewhere between 2%-10% of pregnant women get diagnosed with gestational diabetes, You may not know anyone who has talked about having it.  The internet is amazing and full of great places where you can join the community and find people to talk to.   I'm on Instagram, @jenniferRlifestyle. Come follow me and ask any questions you have! There is a great community if you follow #gestationaldiabetes. You will find lots of women in the same position at various stages of their GD journey.  Instagram is probably my favorite because I love looking at the pictures of the meals everyone is eating and seeing pictures of the sugar babies of women who have ended their GD journey.  It i