Hi there!

I just discovered this forum yesterday, and have been trolling through the archived posts. I didn't find anything on gestational diabetes, so I hope that I'm not repeating anything that's already been covered.

I've always been health-conscious about food, having been a vegetarian for 18 years (although admittedly not as up on the protein as I should be), and made the move to mostly organic food in the last few years. The vegetarianism was an ethical choice, and the organic one because it just seemed to make sense.

A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes-- I was disappointed but not entirely surprised as I had the big three risk factors: overweight, over 30, and with a family history of the disease.

My OB sent me to the Diabetes Resource Center at the hospital for a class, where I learned how to check my blood sugar, and they gave me a meal plan to follow (including the number of carbs to eat, etc). Well, a funny thing happened: when I stuck to their number of recommended carbs (1 cup of rice for dinner, etc), I COULD NOT get my glucose levels where they needed to be. So, I began eliminating things like rice, bread, etc, and suddenly, lo and behold, the glucose was below the target range. I e-mailed the nutritionist with this info, asking if she thought I was just carb sensitive... and have yet to hear back from her.

After realizing this, I began doing some research on the subject (the insane Diabetic Food Pyramid, anyone??), and also talked with the nurse at my school. It was she who told me about The Schwarzbein Principle, and basically validated my personal experience.

So. Here I am. I bought the cookbook yesterday, as my school has copies of the book to check out (waiting on one to come back), but my issue right now is figuring out how many carbs to eat per meal and also how many proteins with which those carbs should be paired. Also, even though I really didn't want to, I've begun eating low-mercury fish such as salmon and flounder, as I've been reading some disturbing things about soy.

Also, I wondered if anyone else had success with controlling their gestational diabetes through TSP; at this point, the nutritionist has recommended that I go on insulin at night and I would really rather not.

Apologies for the long post.

So glad that this forum is here!