Gestational Diabetes- Your ideas on breakfast please.

[nobodysfool]

My early morning reading is fine but the one after my breakfast goes high.
I have tried :

Day 1 - Bacon on wholmeal toast.
Day 2 - 2x weetabix and semi skimmed milk
Day 3 - Porridge
Day 4 - half size portion of above
Day 5 - porridge
Day 6 - 1 slice burgen toast with marmite

All have been too high and i'm at my wits end as to what i can eat within my targets.Will try 0% greek yoghurt in the morning with an apple afetr that i'm out of ideas......any advice or ideas will be greatly appreciated.Failing that,it's dust and fresh air for me

Could you try just protein? Some scrambled egg for instance? I'm surprised that porridge sends you high, do you put sugar or honey on it?

Thanks for answering.
I'm not a fan of eggs really but will try it-anything to get these blooming readings down.Guessing i cant have poached egg on toast just omlette.
Didn't have anything on the porridge which made it doubley (sp) annoying.Could it be the milk raising my levels or will that not have any bearing-can't you tell i'm new to this.

I don't really know what to suggest - i would have thought porridge was prety good too. Do you have a GD midwife - and if so can she/has she referred you to dietetics? They should be able to crack it surely.

HI there! I have 10 almonds when I just wake up, then one slice of cheese on wholemeal which seems to do the trick for me!
good luck

Porridge tastes ok made with half skimmed milk and half water, actually I prefer it that way. It can also be made with just water, but I find that a bit gluey. You could also try Quaker Oat Crisp without milk, it's one of the lowest-sugar cereals that I find appetising (I have type-2 diabetes).

I will try it half milk and half water.Will also find some Quaker oat crisp.
Just seems i cant find anything that will work for me.
I have an appt with the dietician on Thurs so hopefully she can come up with a magical solution

I had the same problem when pregnant. I had to have 1 weetabix and then some toast an hour or so later, that kept my levels ok.

oohhh thats sounds like a good idea.At least it sounds like a proper meal i can eat- albiet spread over a few hours.Thanks for that.

I used to have Greek yoghurt and a piece of fruit or porridge made with skimmed milk and no sweetener in - took a bit of getting used to but I got there. I was on insulin threetimes a day with 8 units slow release at bedtime so that may have have helped.

Towards the end of my pregnancy I was struggling to keep my sugar levels down with the porridge.

Thanks FB.
Have had Greek yog this morning and seeing what it does to my levels-testing soon.
I'm just getting so cheesed off as i can't find anything that works for breakfast.I know it's not for long but i really don't want medication for this one reading.

Have they given you a carb amount? I have Type II and have been put on insulin with my pregnancy, after 2 years of control by diet, so you might have to do that as well.

I would call your MW or diabetic nurse and discuss with her/him.

tee202
Thanks for answering.
I had a small pot of greek 0% yoghurt and my reading was 7.1 so thats better at least.But i feel so bloody hungry!
Just bought some Quaker oat crunch (rec by another mnetter) so will try a handful of that in my yog in the morning.
They haven'y given me a carb amount-seeing the dietician on Thurs so hopefully she will be the one to do that.It would be much easier if i had some guidelines to follow i just feel like i'm playing a guessing game.
I'm worried about any meds because of the affect on my baby-i don't even like taking paracetamol.Are there any problems that you know of?

Yes, dietician will for sure give you carb counts, until then, try not to worry to much, although I know its hard!

And any meds they give you will be fine with the baby. Diabetics have been having babies as long as everyone else. They haven't been as healthy until about 15 years ago, but 15 years is forever in the medical field!

My Endo wouldn't even consider oral meds, just put me straight away on insulin. And don't be afraid of insulin, its really not that hard to deal with. I manage by joking about it 'oops, can't eat yet, have to shoot up first!'

Feel free to ask me any questions you have!

Thanks tee.
Thats good to know the dietician will tell me carb amounts etc.Roll on Thursday.
I know apart from the diet side of things i know there is very little i can do but i feel such a failure.I know how pathetic that sounds.
It's only the reading after breakfast that is too high the other 3 are fine.
Just can't get my head round this.AARRGGHH!

I used to eat grilled bacon with scrambled egg andor grilled tomatoes and mushrooms. This always gave me low levels after breakfast. Also sausages - if they are good quality and don't have too much cereal in them. Not the healthiest diet I know but it allowed me to eat properly and control my diabetes with diet until the end of the pregnancy.

oh also - blt with lots of bacon, lettuce and tomatoes - seemed to do the trick with preventing a sugar peak.

Full english every morning!?
Will give that a try.It's got to be better than a tiny pot of bland yoghurt.I may actually feel full up for a change.
Thank you.

Really?
Dumb question alert.
Does the bacon,toms and lettuce off set the bread as i have tried toast in the morning and that sends my levels sky high.

well, I only had the GD from week 35 so was on maternity leave and figured it was only a few weeks - in the end I actually lost weight from my GD diet! 2k one week!

But yes - the dietitian explained to me that nowadays there are no "forbidden foods" apart from fizzy drinks and actual sweets. They said that if you eat something high in fat or fibre with your carbs it will slow down the absorption of sugar. So cheese on toast, or meat with bread or a chicken salad sandwich should all be ok. Like you I didn't want to go on insulin. If you do have any peaks above the levels that have set for you - it is good to be able to explain them - I had a couple of tens and elevens and I had written in my little notebook that they had been caused by eating rice or whatever. The docs let me away with those because they knew I was being careful.

So, the worst thing you could eat would be, say white toast but if you added a few slices of bacon, lettuce and tomato, then yes they will offset the carbs.

oh its all coming back to me now - I found that ginger nut biscuits didn't put my sugar levels up too high - also those Nairns ginger oat cakes (just like thin ginger biscuits really) these are low GI and good for snacks or grabbing breakfast on the run if you are in a hurry/feeling sick etc.

Also keep in mind that an occasional high will happen, and that won't hurt your baby. Its weeks and weeks of untreated highs that are damaging.

As for the morning numbers...there is a known issue called the Dawn Effect or Dawn Phenomenal. No one knows why, but a diabetics numbers are almost always higher before and after breakfast, no matter what they eat. My highest levels of insulin are before bed and before breakfast, to try and combat this. Its totally weird, but something about the dawn brings it on!

Wow.Had a whole day witgout going over my limits!!!!Breakfast wasn't much fun though, total 0% greek yoghurt .I'm going to try grill up in the morning and see how that goes.

Hey again nf. Don't expect you've read all the trials and tribulations of my breakfasts on the other thread, but I ended up living on an egg and a slice of wholemeal toast every day for breakfast. I couldn't have any old wholemeal toast though, and certainly not burgen, which is very high in sugar. Iirc it has something like 2.2g of sugar per slice. I had to have bread that was 13g of carbs per slice, of which only 1.3 were sugars (or less if you can find it obv). Waitrose do the best selection of bread for this IME, though larger branches of M&S have some contenders, and some branches of Tesco do an oatbran bread which is very low in sugars (0.9g per slice). If you shop in Sainsbury's then I'm afraid you're screwed .

Thanks for replying csws
there was me thinking Burgen was one of the good guys!
Can you remember the name of the Waitrose loaf?Will go into Tesco and get some oat bran bread.

Waitrose do a stoneground wholemeal and a wholemeal and seeds, both of which are good .