Gestational Diabetes: A Diet to Prevent Blood Sugar Spikes｜うぱ

A personal memo from someone diagnosed with gestational diabetes at their first prenatal checkup.
* This information has not been medically reviewed. Please consult your primary physician regarding any concerns.

What is gestational diabetes?

When you are pregnant, the placenta produces hormones that weaken the effects of insulin, which can lead to a form of diabetes that occurs only during pregnancy.

In short, insulin becomes less effective, preventing carbohydrates from being metabolized in the body and causing them to be passed to the fetus in excess. This poses risks to both the mother and the baby.

Therefore, when diagnosed with gestational diabetes, blood sugar levels are managed through diet control or insulin. In my case, 90% of the time my levels stayed within the target range with diet control alone, so I managed it without using insulin.

By the way, the outpatient doctor said, “Using insulin is not a bad thing, and in fact, because of the ease of management, there is also the approach of actively using it if you don’t want to be too strict with your diet or if managing it is too difficult. I think it’s best to decide this based on your own lifestyle and personal strengths and weaknesses.”
I found self-injection to be a hassle, so I decided to do my best with my diet.
My target blood sugar levels were ~95 mg/dL for fasting blood sugar and ~125 mg/dL for 2-hour post-meal blood sugar.

Toward stable blood sugar levels

How to eat

First, I was instructed to follow a balanced diet with the following composition.

Staple food: Rice (150g), bread (2 slices), noodles (1 serving)

Main dish: Meat, fish, eggs, soy products, dairy products

Side dish: Vegetables, mushrooms, seaweed

I exceeded the target values if I ate more than 60g of multi-grain rice or 0.5 servings of noodles, so I often ate bread. I followed the commonly recommended “veggie-first” approach to eating. I made sure to eat in the following order. The nutritionist told me that it is okay to eat the staple food after eating half of the main dish, so I didn’t strictly save the staple food for last, especially when eating rice.

Vegetables

Protein (main dish)

Staple food (rice/bread)

(High-protein yogurt)

(Fruit)

Extreme carbohydrate restriction is a no-go. I aimed for 20–25g of carbohydrates per meal from my staple food. However, when looking at the whole day, including side dishes and snacks, I wasn’t really deficient, and my weight remained stable or increased slightly. I never once tested positive for ketones in my urine, which is an indicator of carbohydrate deficiency.

Habits and foods better to avoid

Skipping meals or leaving too much time between meals (try eating smaller, frequent meals instead)

High-fat meals (yakiniku, fried foods, pasta, curry, etc.)

I was instructed to be careful with high-fat foods because, while they don’t cause blood sugar spikes, they cause a slow rise that peaks for a long time and takes a long time to come down.

At McDonald’s, I could eat a cheeseburger without issues as long as I was careful with the amount of fries, but the Chicken Tatsuta caused a surprisingly high spike in my blood sugar.

Things I learned from continuous blood sugar monitoring

Lack of sleep raises blood sugar

It also rises when you are stressed

There are foods that are better or worse for your blood sugar

In particular, lack of sleep tended to increase my fasting blood sugar in the morning.

Even after morning sickness in early pregnancy ended, I continued to feel unwell, so it wasn’t until a while after entering the second trimester that I could sleep properly, and lack of sleep really held me back.

Also, there seem to be significant individual differences—some people see spikes from bread, others from rice—so it seems necessary to use trial and error. By the way, not only did high-GI white rice and udon cause spikes for me, but medium-GI sweet potatoes did as well. I especially loved the chilled udon sold at convenience stores in the summer, so when I really wanted to eat it, I would eat vegetables and Greek yogurt first, then eat only half the udon, and save the rest in the refrigerator to eat as a snack later…

Foods that supported my stable blood sugar life

Since there was a deadline for my pregnancy, I ignored cost-effectiveness and thought about how to manage with things that were easy and readily available. Also, not having to cook was important. When you’re pregnant and exhausted, you can’t be bothered to plan menus or manage expiration dates for ingredients. ※ The links below contain affiliate links. ⬛︎ by Amazon Sea Chicken Smile L-Flake 50g x 6 packs

Basically, this is what my morning looks like. 104 mg/dL

⬛︎ [Refrigerated] Partheno Plain Unsweetened 1 case (12 cups)

Oikos is fine too, but I preferred Partheno because it’s smoother. Basically, it’s unsweetened Greek yogurt. This is also for protein. I ate the vanilla and honey versions early on, but since it was fruit season during my pregnancy… adding fruit after a meal always made my blood sugar rise easily, so I kept the yogurt unsweetened on the premise that I would be eating fruit. When I wasn’t eating fruit, I often ate the flavored Oikos. ⬛︎ Mugi no Megumi Whole Wheat Bread 8-slice

Since high-GI rice and udon caused my blood sugar to spike significantly, I mostly ate bread at home during my pregnancy. Bread was convenient and worked well for me because I could eat it within my allowed carbohydrate limit without having to measure portions. My appetite, which had diminished due to morning sickness, didn’t recover easily, so at first, I ate half of a 6-slice loaf. However, after a nutritionist advised me to ‘eat a little more for the third trimester and childbirth,’ I made one slice of an 8-slice loaf my base and started eating another slice when I was hungry or during snack times. Even white bread, which is more refined than whole wheat bread, didn’t spike my blood sugar that much, but I grew to love the nutty flavor and made it a morning staple.

⬛︎ [Functional Labeling Food] KOUBO Low-Carb Plus Trial Set, 12 pieces, room temperature storage, low-carb bread, emergency food, sugar-off, Locabo, meal replacement diet, reduces body fat, long shelf life, yeast bread

I eventually got tired of eating whole wheat bread every single morning, so I tried some low-carb bread I saw at the supermarket. I bought Pain au Crème (a Danish pastry filled with custard), and it was actually quite delicious. The downside is that it’s a bit expensive, making it hard to buy regularly. Even with a meal low in vegetables, my blood sugar levels remained good.

⬛︎ SOYJOY 12-flavor assorted set, 1 bar each (12 flavors total)

If your blood sugar exceeds the standard value when eating a full portion of a staple food in one meal, you should try splitting your meals. Reducing the amount per meal helps prevent blood sugar spikes and hypoglycemia when hungry. There seem to be various patterns for when to include snacks, such as between breakfast and lunch, between lunch and dinner, or between dinner and bedtime, depending on the person’s lifestyle rhythm and blood sugar levels. Since my blood sugar rarely exceeded the standard value at every meal, I didn’t practice split-meal eating, but because of my lifestyle rhythm, the long gap between lunch and dinner made my blood sugar prone to rising in the evening, so I added a snack during my afternoon break. My nutritionist recommended SOYJOY, so I ate them little by little. My favorite flavors are below.

⬛︎ [Refrigerated] Yukijirushi Megmilk 6P Cheese with Iron, 90g

Processed cheese is heat-treated and safe for pregnant women, so I ate it as a snack. Please be careful with dessert cheeses as they sometimes contain Western liquor. Since the amount is extremely small, I ate them without worrying, but please do so at your own risk…
It was good for snacking and adding to salads, and I chose ones with added calcium and iron for peace of mind. However, cheese is high in salt, so be careful not to eat too much.

⬛︎ [Domestic Low-Oxygen Roasted Barley Tea] Tea Bags, Slim Pack, Non-caffeine, Petit Gift, Relax, Pack, Cold Tea, High-grade, Special Selection, Tea, Mugicha, Cold Brew, Gift [cards]

I basically didn’t drink sweet beverages. I once had a blood sugar spike after drinking straight fruit juice, followed by what felt like a hypoglycemic state, so I’ve avoided them since then. I used to drink Tsurube’s barley tea or Muji’s barley tea, but after trying this one, I became addicted to its nutty aroma and refreshing taste. The tea leaves come in a shape that fits into a plastic bottle, so it was also great to be able to make a single serving of barley tea by putting it in a 500ml bottle.

⬛︎ Root Vegetable Chicken Salad Wrap

When I was stuck while eating out, I went to Starbucks. 203 kcal, 9.6g protein, 22.7g carbohydrates. They are almost never sold out, and Starbucks on weekdays is usually empty, so I used Starbucks for meals when I was in trouble. I tried to be careful and drank non-caffeinated Passion Tea, but thinking about it now, a decaf Starbucks Latte might have been fine too… (I don’t really like Passion Tea)

⬛︎ Yogurt with a refreshing taste and banana chip granola

179 kcal, 11.5g protein, 19.6g carbohydrates. I often made a meal by combining the chicken salad wrap mentioned above with this yogurt. The total carbohydrate count for the two is 40, but perhaps because it has plenty of vegetables and low fat, my blood sugar two hours after eating stayed around 100 (standard value ~120 mg/dL).

These were my measures against blood sugar spikes during my pregnancy.

Since I had been eating a fixed diet for about a year while attending RIZAP, it was a huge advantage that I didn’t find it difficult to loosely fix my diet this time as well. I imagine it would be very difficult to have to solve nutritional puzzles with a wide variety of meals and control blood sugar levels…

Actually, I had a glucose tolerance test at the end of last month as a postpartum follow-up. I’m nervous because I’ll hear the results when I go to the outpatient clinic in two weeks. Since patients with gestational diabetes are said to have a high risk of developing diabetes in the future, now that the birth is over, I want to get back into the habit of exercising.