What worked for me
Hi! I just graduated and thought I’d share things that worked for me to manage my GDM without medications. By far the most important thing is that I
got lucky with a mild case. Here are some other things that made my road a bit easier. I also have an incredibly reasonable and supportive OB who was willing to talk options and gave me a lot of autonomy in making decisions.
Continuous Glucose Monitor
I’m in the US and my OB didn’t recommend a CGM because even though some are FDA approved, there isn’t great guidance on how to use them in GDM. But we talked and she’s very reasonable so said I could try and see how it went. Insurance didn’t cover one,
so my friend who is an endocrinologist recommended the Dexcom Stelo. I paid $90/month and if the monitor number was within ~15% of being out of range, I would double check with a finger stick.
Malama App
I used the Malama app to record my meals and sugars. I didn’t share my CGM/AccuCheck data directly with the app - just entered the numbers manually then emailed the tables it created to my team every 1-2 weeks. I will say that the last few weeks, the app stopped sending me text reminders to check/enter my sugars and that was not ideal. It’s in beta still and I made no effort to fix the lack of text messages, so there may be a solution I don’t know about.
Exercise
I am a Peloton girlie and it was a huge part of my GDM path. I was shocked by how much it impacted my sugar (easy to see on CGM). I did my usual workouts in the morning, then throughout the day if I had time, I would add in 10–15 minute classes, especially if I ate something I thought would spike me. These were my fave short class categories:
- Rebecca Kennedy’s 10 min low impact cardio
- Rebecca Kennedy’s 10 min standing core
- Any instructor 10 min arms & light weights
- 10-15 min lanebreak rides (I did these at night bc I found them less stimulating than having an instructor talking to me.)
Foods
So many different ways to approach this. I don’t have any dietary restrictions so had an easier time finding foods that kept me in range than others might. I tended to weigh my portions because I have a food scale I use for baking.
Breakfasts: Fage Whole Milk Greek yogurt (170g) + 10g Nutrail Nut Granola + 8g agave syrup +/- 1-2 berries; 2 scrambled eggs + 1 slice whole grain toast + generous schmear of cream cheese + lots of everything but the bagel seasoning; Catalina Crunch protein cereal with whole milk
Lunch: 2 hard boiled eggs with tajin + bell peppers and hummus + 1.5 oz cheese + small portion of fruit; madras lentils + 1/4 C quinoa + riced cauliflower; trader joe’s brown rice cake thins + buffalo chicken dip or chicken salad
Dinner: Normal stuff but subbing not grains for grains (e.g., riced veggies instead of rice, low carb tortillas with tacos, lettuce wrap instead of bun). This was my most chaotic meal and it was just “girl dinner” a lot of times.
Snacks: full fat cottage cheese (113g) + 1 tsp strawberry jam; 8 peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets + premier protein drink; carrots + hummus; fruit + meat stick
Now I’m just waiting for that postpartum 2 hr glucose test in 8-12 weeks, and hoping it’s normal!!
Good luck, everyone. Do what you can without destroying your mental health. I wasn’t perfect, but my baby is, so give yourself some grace.