A young woman just asked how to handle Holiday eating with her gestational diabetes. Her idea was to skip testing her blood glucose that day and then she just wouldn’t know. That may seem like a way to avoid thinking about diabetes, but it is still there – if you don’t test you won’t know, but your baby will.

Holiday food can be a challenge. Do not just load up your plate with everything you see, be very picky. Here are some tips to deal with it:

• Eat only “Holiday” foods, those that are only made special for the Holidays, like turkey, dressing, ham, tamales – don’t eat common foods that you can get all year
• Think before you eat – potatoes don’t really taste like much plain, it’s just a way to get butter or gravy in your mouth
• Don’t waste your carbohydrates on store bought foods: If someone went to the trouble to make homemade yeast rolls, I might eat one. But if they stopped at the last minute to buy grocery store rolls, I won’t.
• Same with desserts: Homemade pie or biscochitos maybe, store bought, no
• If a food doesn’t taste exactly the way you remembered it at that first bite, stop – eating it all will not make it any better
• Make trades: If you leave off the potatoes and store bought bread, you can have a piece of pumpkin pie – there is nothing you can’t have, you just can’t have it all
• After dinner, organize a group to walk the neighborhood and look at the Holiday lights

I live with Type 1 diabetes every minute of every day.  I use these tips in deciding what to eat and it really helps me sort through Holiday foods.

Though our Holidays are food focused, reframe it in your mind as a day to spend with friends and family and give thanks for all the good things in your life.