Parties

As I discovered Friday evening when we went to a get-together at a neighbor's house, eating at parties can be a challenge. The hostess knew I have gestational diabetes, but I told her not to worry about making anything special for me. I was still learning the diet at that point and just figured I'd work something out.

I figured there would be plenty of carbs in the form of crackers since it was an appetizer kind of event, and that there would be cheese for my protein. But I needed carbs from either milk or fruit and I didn't know if there would be fruit (and I was pretty sure they wouldn't be serving milk), so I just took some milk along with me in one of my son's thermos straw cups.

But when I got there, I looked at the crackers and pita chips and realized I had no idea how much I could have. I asked the hostess if she had the package from the pita chips, and she did find the nutrition info for me. I had about 6 pita chips which was under 30 g of carbs, and added a couple of Triskets. Then I loaded up on cheese and veggies and dip. I also found some little smokies, but just had 3 since I figured there was sugar in the sauce on them. There were jalapeno poppers that looked good, but I didn't know how many carbs were in the breading, so I just had one. I skipped the spanakopita, even though I figured the filo dough probably didn't have too many carbs.

I took my timer and my glucose monitor with me and tested after one hour. I was well under 130, so I apparently made good choices even without knowing all the nutritional information. I tried to err on the side of having more protein that required since I thought that would help if I had too many carbs unintentionally.

Aside from the milk I brought with me, I just drank ice water, which was fine with me. One neighbor who knew I was pregnant said she had meant to bring sparkling cider for me. I said that was OK because I couldn't have juice anyway. Later the hostess worried about finding something for me to drink besides water and even checked if they had diet soda around when she found out I couldn't have juice. I don't much care for artificial sweeteners and rarely drink diet soda, but I do get tired of only drinking water, milk and tea and will have diet soda if I want something sweet and carbonated.

The other issue that I find at parties is that I need to load up my plate at the start to control what I'm eating. I can't estimate my carbs and protein if I don't see it all on the plate at once and it's too easy to overeat if I keep going back for more. I'm used to grazing when I'm at social gatherings, so it's challenging to pack my plate at the start and then stop eating when I'm done. I know when we had a get-together here last weekend with some friends, I loaded up my plate at the beginning and after testing my glucose, I limited my snacking to low carb goodies like meats and cheeses and just very little bread until close to my nighttime snack.

I had thought on my way over to my neighbors' house the other night that surely it's OK to be more relaxed at a party, that it's unreasonable to follow the diet strictly all the time. But it's summer and there are going to be more social gatherings. I can't let my blood sugar spike every weekend just because we are going to a party. But I found it's not too hard to make good choices at a party, even without being able to read nutritional labels.