The Best Snacks for Gestational Diabetes *Dietitian Approved*

Have you just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes and you have no idea where to start or what to eat? Don't worry. Stay tuned because I'm revealing the best dietician approved snack for gestational diabetes so that you can keep your blood sugar in check and feel your best. I am a healthy mom, happy family, and I am a registered dietician and a certified diabetes educator as well as a mom of three. And I know that pregnancy alone is a rollercoaster of emotions. And then once you throw in that failed glucose tolerance test and you've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, your stress levels are probably through the roof. And it's hard enough to think. And now you have to figure out what to actually eat and how to balance your blood sugar. So that is where I come in. I wanna take the stress off your plate and I have rounded up the ultimate list of snack ideas for gestational diabetes that are gonna support the growth of your baby but also help to prevent spikes in your blood sugar. And I'm gonna walk you through each and every one of them. Now, before we dive in, I just wanna ask that if you are looking for tips and tricks on managing diabetes or simple recipes, go ahead and subscribe and hit that notification bell so you never miss a new video. All right, so let's dive in. Now, first, I just wanna talk about what gestational diabetes is because if you are new to this diagnosis, it can feel a little bit overwhelming. So gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that can develop during pregnancy. And what happens is the body is just unable to produce enough insulin to meet the increased demands of pregnancy and the hormonal changes that come with pregnancy. Or your body can also just be less responsive to insulin which leads to elevated blood sugar levels. Now, when you're pregnant, you go in as part of your routine prenatal care, you take a glucose challenge test. And this usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. And this is how your doctor can figure out how well your body is handling the large dose of sugar at that challenge test. Now, if you have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, if you have a strong family history or if you've had gestational diabetes before, you're at a greater risk. Now, if you've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, I don't want you to panic. You can control your blood sugar during pregnancy and having gestational diabetes does not mean that you'll continue to have diabetes after pregnancy. However, it does make you more at risk for developing type 2 diabetes later in life. So learning what to eat now during your pregnancy to support your health as well as the health of your baby, but also continuing to focus on balancing your blood sugar after pregnancy is gonna be key for preventing a future of type 2 diabetes. All right, so now let's dive in and talk about snacks because snacks are so important when you have gestational diabetes for balancing blood sugar. But they're important during pregnancy alone because you wanna make sure you're getting in the nutrients you need each day. And those smaller, more frequent meals can really help, especially if you're suffering from any kind of nausea or indigestion with pregnancy. Now, when it comes to snack planning with gestational diabetes, balance is really of the utmost importance. So what this means is you wanna balance slow digestive carbohydrates. So carbohydrates that are rich in fiber, complex carbohydrates, you wanna balance them with proteins and healthy fats. This is gonna slow down how quickly they're digested and it's also gonna slow down how quickly those carbohydrates are converted into simple sugars in your bloodstream. And then you can keep a more steady balanced blood sugar, more steady energy, and it also can help with appetite regulation throughout the day too. So what I wanna show you is some of the best snacks to really give you that slow, steady energy and steady blood sugar throughout the day, help you to feel your best, and also to really combat any of those cravings you might have during pregnancy as well. Now, for this snack list that I am providing you with, in general, these snacks have about 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrate per serving because what you wanna remember is that you do not need to avoid carbohydrates. You wanna choose the right carbs with the right balance. But having carbohydrates throughout the day can help to make sure you have enough energy to sustain your energy levels as well as your growing baby. So we wanna make sure there's balance. And what I'm gonna show you with this list of gestational diabetes friendly snacks is these are slow digestive carbs and they're paired with those healthy fats and those lean proteins to give you that balanced blood sugar and that fullness while also really maximizing your nutrition so that you're giving your baby what it needs. Now, I'm also gonna link below to a printable list of all these snacks that are on my website. So this is an easy way to just have it as a resource, print it off, and that way, whenever you're craving a snack, you have a list of what you can go to. So one of my first favorites is apples and almond butter. It's a really great way to satisfy that crunchy and that sweet craving. Apples are low in the glycemic index scale, which means they're not gonna spike blood sugar. And they have about five grams of fiber. So it's that complex slow digestive carb. Now, we don't wanna eat the apple just by itself. Pairing it with the almond butter gives us a good source of protein and healthy fat, which will help to keep you more full, but it'll also slow down how quickly those carbs in the apple are converted into sugar in your bloodstream. So that's a really great winning combo. Another snack I absolutely love is Greek yogurt with berries and hemp seeds. Now, this is a really great way to get more protein in, and especially if you're struggling to meet your protein needs during pregnancy. Now, some people tend to have an aversion to meat during pregnancy. Greek yogurt has 13 grams of protein per half cup. It's a really great way to balance blood sugar. Then when you add the berries, which give those complex carbohydrate and more antioxidant, and the hemp seeds, which give a healthy fat as well as more fiber, that gives you that crunchy, sweet type of balance that could be a snack or it could even be a meal. Now, I love smoothies too, when you think about pregnancy and eating, because sometimes just skipping on something throughout the day is easier if you're busy or if you're dealing with any kind of nausea or indigestion. So a green smoothie can be a great choice. Now, when you're building a smoothie for blood sugar, you want the framework of carbs, protein, and fat. So in a green smoothie, you can put in spinach for the greens, and then you can pair it with a fruit. I love apples or berries, and then Greek yogurt along with a fat. You could do diced avocado. You can do nut butter. You could do chia seeds. Any of those combinations together will make a really great green smoothie that will keep your blood sugar balanced. And if you want more smoothie ideas, I'll link below, but I have a whole video on the best smoothies for managing diabetes that you can find a lot of recipes that you might enjoy as well. Now, another great snack is chia pudding. If you haven't made chia pudding before, it is so easy to do. You can set it up the night before, leave it in the fridge, and grab it the next day. But chia seeds are a fantastic source of protein and fiber as well as healthy fats. And there's so many ways you can make chia pudding. So you can satisfy your sweet craving. You can make it savory, but they are really, really filling between the fiber and the protein and the fat. And it's so easy. I like to say the way you can save time, especially during pregnancy, anything you can do to save time, the better. So if you make a batch of chia puddings and you have them in there for the week, they're good. I actually have this amazing low-carb chia cheesecake pudding on my website that I'll link to below. It's really, really good. And it will not spike your blood sugar, but it also has that sweet satisfaction too, so it feels like a dessert. Now, if you're really in the mood for chocolate, which I know during my pregnancy, I love chocolate, dark chocolate-covered blueberries and walnuts are such a great snack. So what you can do is you can just melt down some dark chocolate. And the darker the chocolate, the less added sugar. And mix it together with either freeze-dried berries or regular berries, fresh berries, frozen berries, up to you. Sprinkle a little bit of chopped walnuts, let the chocolate harden, and you have an amazing snack that you can take with you throughout the day. You can even sprinkle a little bit of coconut on top if you wanted to do that, some shredded coconut, give more flavor and give more of those healthy fats. Cottage cheese is a great staple during pregnancy and it's a great source of protein. You get about 13 to 14 grams of protein per half cup and then pair it with fruit. So fresh berries with cottage cheese, peaches, depends what's in season, depends what you're in the mood for, but cottage cheese with fruit is a really great winning combination of the protein, the fiber, the fat. And you can incorporate it in a variety of ways for that variety, right? Different fruits, different vegetables you can pair with the cottage cheese makes for a really great snack that's versatile. Another really simple snack that you can have is whole wheat toast with peanut butter and chia seed jam. So instead of using regular jelly or jam, which tends to have a lot of added sugar and can spike blood sugar, you can make your own jelly or jam with chia seeds. So you can mash up strawberries, add in some chia seeds, let it sit in the refrigerator and it comes out very much like a jam spread. Put that on top of whole wheat bread with some peanut butter, natural peanut butter, almond peanut butter, it's up to you. And that makes for a really delicious, easy snack, takes less than a minute to make. Now during pregnancy, getting more vegetables in is important so that you're getting enough nutrients and antioxidants for you and the baby. So just having vegetable sticks by themselves might not really fill you up, but when you pair them with a Greek yogurt dip or with hummus, that's a great way to add more of the protein, add more of the fiber so you can get those veggies in, but also keep your appetite and your blood sugar balanced. Now adding more fish to your diet two times a week during pregnancy is a great way to get more of those heart-healthy and brain-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. So tuna salad can be a really great go-to. You can take tuna and you can mix it in a couple different ways. So you can do the traditional with mayonnaise. I love to do tuna with mashed avocado and then put it as a spread on whole grain crackers or whole grain toast, really fun and easy snack, and that's gonna be a great way to make sure you're getting in the protein, the fat, and fiber as well as those omega-3 fatty acids. Now if you are a big fan of crunchy like I am, air-pop popcorn is a great go-to. Three cups only has 15 grams of carbohydrate and it has a good source of fiber. And then you can mix it with some almonds. So you could do almonds, popcorn, and if you wanna get a little crazy, you can put some dark chocolate chips in there and that way you get the salty and the sweet cravings all out of the way. But it's a really fun snack that you can take with you whether you wanna munch on it throughout the day or have it in the evening. But very well-balanced when it comes to blood sugar management. Also consider eggs when it comes to snacks. Hard-boiled eggs by themselves or hard-boiled eggs paired with vegetables and fruit, great choice to have. You can even do deviled eggs. But eggs are a great source of vitamin D. You can get omega-3 fatty acids from eggs and they're also a good source of choline which is needed for your baby's brain development. I love to recommend eggs as a quality source of protein. It's an affordable source of protein and it can be used in meals or in snacks. If you want something on the go that's a little bit more savory, turkey lettuce wraps are really fun. Instead of a regular wrap which has a lot of carbs in it, you can wrap up lettuce with high-protein turkey and you can also add in things like shredded carrots, balsa. If you want to have the wrap, you can. You can just go with a higher fiber wrap, so a whole grain wrap. Some of the lower carb wraps are made with higher fiber. They can be made with whole wheat flour or sometimes you'll even find them made with bean flour or additional protein. But that could be a really fun take-with-you-on-the-go type of a snack for more of those savory cravings. String cheese is also a really easy go-to and you can pair it with raw vegetables and fruit. One string cheese has seven grams of protein by itself with a little bit of fat. And then if you have it on the side with your banana or your apple, that's a great way to get that complex carbohydrate with the protein and fat pairing and it's easy to take-with-you-on-the-go. Easy, time-saving, that's what you want. You want to stock up on these really simple things that you can snack on throughout the day so you don't feel more stressed during your pregnancy. Another great snack to consider if you love something crunchy is roasted chickpeas. Now you can buy these already made or if you want to save on grocery costs, you can make them yourself. But a half a cup of chickpeas is an excellent source of fiber. They're rich in iron. You're getting 7% of your daily iron needs, which is incredibly important during pregnancy. And then you can flavor them in any way you want. So whether you want to make them with garlic or with a little bit of salt and pepper, I've even put on just a little bit of cinnamon to make them a sweeter option. So many great things you can do with those roasted chickpeas and you can also buy them pre-made in a variety of seasonings, but they're easy once you make them, keep them in an airtight container and you can take them with you on the go, whether at work or at home or even in the car. And if you are looking for some packaged snacks, you don't have to make yourself, things that are easy to keep on hand. There's some things to look for our bars like the Health Warrior Chia Seed Bars, the kind that's in spice bars, lower sodium beef jerky. You can get single serving packs of nuts, string cheeses, cheese crisps, pre-made trail mix. Now, if you do get pre-made trail mix, just a word of caution, look at the label, make sure it doesn't have a large amount of added sugar. I personally find making my own trail mix is a bit of a better choice because I can make it with popcorn and nuts, a little bit of dark chocolate, a little bit of no sugar added dried fruit, like diced prunes or raisins. That can be a great way to make a more blood sugar friendly trail mix as well. But all of these options out there are great when it comes to balancing blood sugar. So that is one big list of gestational diabetes friendly snacks. It is not an all-inclusive list. There are so many more ideas out there. I'm gonna link to my website where I have an even longer list of snacks that are great for managing gestational diabetes and comment below and let me know any questions you have as well as snacks that you've enjoyed that are keeping your blood sugar level stable. And just remember, the most important thing is talk to your doctor and your registered dietician about the best snacks for you. Check your blood sugar, look for your own individual blood sugar response to these foods to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. Because this is an overall list, but it's not individualized to you and your needs. So always listen to your doctor's advice and your registered dietician's advice. If you found this video helpful, I would love for you to subscribe and hit that notification bell so you never miss new tips, tricks, and recipes. Thanks for being here.