I visited the nutritionist yesterday and she was kind of mean to me. Okay, that's not really true. But she did say several things that made me think, "Well that's just mean to say to someone who's 8 months pregnant." Mostly it was obvious to me that what she does probably 99% of the time is educate people about diabetes IN GENERAL, not about gestational diabetes. And maybe you're thinking, "Elsha, isn't gestational diabetes pretty much the same thing as diabetes in general?" Which, yes it is. HOWEVER. She focused on many things that I don't think are all that big a deal if I'm only looking at eating like this for the next 6 weeks.
For instance: I eat a lot of eggs right now. And she was concerned that too much egg yolk would be high in cholesterol. Yeah, if I were looking at this diet as a permanent, lifelong change I would worry about that too. But when it's for 6 weeks (or less!) and eggs are one of the few things that for sure don't spike my blood sugar? I don't really care about yolks.
She also told me I shouldn't cook things in butter or put cheese on everything. COME ON. I can't eat dessert, or cold cereal, or pasta, or have juice or my nightly hot chocolate! Why do you want to take away two of the GOOD things in a low carb diet? Plus she was very concerned about weight gain, which, um, I'm pregnant? Shouldn't I be gaining some weight still? (She recommended 1/2 lb over the next 6 weeks!) (My doctor nixed that recommendation today, btw. She said my weight gain has been fine and not to worry about it.)
ANYWAY. She did also tell me that it seems like I've done a good job educating myself, and she was impressed that I've already been keeping track of my blood sugar and keeping a food journal. (This is the engineer in me. I hit google as soon as I found out I'd failed the 3 hour.) She was also impressed with how familiar I am with reading labels- do other people not read labels? Doing Weight Watchers twice has made me VERY familiar with labels. AND she said I'm close enough to the end of pregnancy that I don't need to do a follow up visit with her, so that's nice. Still not convinced this visit was worth it though.
For somebody who works with people, that nutritionist sure doesn't know how to work with people. Blerg.
ReplyDeleteI applaud you for not plastering her car with high cholesterol eggs afterward. I probably would have.
Ha! I love the opening sentence of this post.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness this just confirms what I was already thinking. Most people aren't with it enough to educate themselves and so people like this lady assume that you won't either. When in reality you have. And you have the added advantage of living with and knowing your body. So I say ignore her.
And um...1/2 lb weight gain in 6 weeks?!?! That's ridiculous!
Nutritionists in general annoy me. And I don't mind some last few weeks pregnancy complaints. :)
ReplyDeleteNot cool, lady. You think if this is her job, she'd know more about it (like pregnancy weight gain).
ReplyDeleteI did have a hard time finding information and recipes that weren't geared toward regular diabetes, i.e. weight loss, and that was frustrating. My nutritionist didn't mention cholesterol though, that's funny.
ReplyDeleteI say eat some cheese.
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