When it comes to preconception-prep and diabetes you can never start too early. And while many of us get caught up in A1C land, cleaning up our diet is equally important for both Mom and Dad! A healthy diet with conception in mind has been proven to improve fertility, prevent miscarriages, and support a healthy pregnancy. A good time to start is 6 months before trying to conceive (TTC), but if you can start earlier than that then praise be (handmaid’s tale anyone?)! That’s because the foods you eat today have a direct effect on the health of your eggs (and his sperm) 90 days from now. A diabetes preconception diet is a bit different than a non-diabetic preconception diet because we are really focusing on supporting the endocrine system, lowering inflammation, and loading up on vitamins and minerals that diabetes chips away at.

Diabetes Preconception Diet

1. Clear out the Junk!

junk-food

The big ones here are drugs & alcohol, and really anything that is toxic to the body. This also includes sugar, white flour, processed foods, sugar-free sweeteners, vegetable oils, and MSG. These toxins cause major inflammation in the body, especially in those with autoimmune diseases.

2. Focus on Nutritionally Dense Foods

nutritionally-dense-foods

Healthy Fats: A lot of us grew up in the low-fat era, so this is a bit of a mind shift, but fats are incredibly important for us. Especially for a healthy female endocrine system. Healthy fats help to fuel and feed hormones needed for a healthy pregnancy.

Some examples of healthy fats are olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, and avocados.

High quality protein sources: Ideally all our meat & produce would be organic, but sometimes that can be expensive. So if you can only afford one, focusing on your protein sources being organic will really give you the best bang for your buck! Livestock is where they use the most antibiotics, hormones, and chemical pesticides. So focusing on meats that are grass-fed & pasture raised, wild caught fish (as opposed to farm raised), and pasture raised eggs will greatly help reduce your exposure to these toxins.

Avoid Soy in any form (unless fermented like Miso and tempeh) and pay attention to dairy. For many of us, dairy is congesting to the body and a big source of inflammation. If you tolerate dairy well, then it’s important to make sure it’s full-fat and organic.

Organic produce: If you can’t afford for all your produce to be organic, then focus on the clean 15 and dirty dozen.

The clean 15 is a list of 15 of the cleanest produce, aka the least sprayed produce. If you’re not going to buy all organic produce, then these 15 foods are the ones to buy non-organic.

The Clean 15 (updated in 2022):

  1. Avocados
  2. Sweet Corn
  3. Pineapples
  4. Onions
  5. Papayas
  6. Sweet Peas, frozen
  7. Asparagus
  8. Honeydew Melon
  9. Kiwi
  10. Cabbage
  11. Mushrooms
  12. Cantaloupe
  13. Mangoes
  14. Watermelon
  15. Sweet Potatoes

On the opposite side of that… The dirty dozen are a list of 12 of the most heavily sprayed crops. These ones should be bought organic whenever possible!

The dirty dozen (updated in 2022)

  1. Strawberries
  2. Spinach
  3. Kale, Collard & Mustard Greens
  4. Nectarines
  5. Apples
  6. Grapes
  7. Bell & Hot Peppers
  8. Cherries
  9. Peaches
  10. Pears
  11. Celery
  12. Tomatoes

3. Supplements

prenatal supplements grass fed collagen

While having a clean diet will do WONDERS for your fertility, the carrot that you grow in your backyard today isn’t as nutritious as the carrot your grandma grew in her backyard 70 years ago. That’s because our soil isn’t what it used to be. Over farming and the heavy use of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and hormones have greatly impacted our soil, and not for the better.

That’s where supplements come in.

It’s important to buy your supplements from quality sources. And whenever possible, have them coming from a food sources (example, taking Cod Liver Oil instead of an omega 3 vitamin… or eating Nutritional Yeast instead of taking a B Complex MultiVitamin.)

I wrote in detail about the supplements I take during pregnancy here.

Liver is also a fertility superfood, but since most of us aren’t about to cook up a plate of liver and onions, desiccated liver capsules are a mama’s best friend. Make sure you’re getting it from grass-fed/pasture raised animals only. This is the brand I use.

diabetes preconception diet Pinterest

5 Comments

  1. Ashley Gardiner June 3, 2019 at 11:03 pm - Reply

    You said no soy whatsoever.. but what about vegetarian T1Ds? I currently eat soy curls (organic, non-GMO) a few times a week. Should I give these up if we are TTC?

    • T1D Living June 7, 2019 at 3:22 pm - Reply

      I personally woulnd’t feel comfortable eating soy during my TTC or pregnancy journey. But if you’re having a hard time finding good protein sources and don’t want to cut it out just yet then don’t <3 only cut it out if you run into conception issues.

  2. fitness health forever July 26, 2019 at 3:49 am - Reply

    Thank you for sharing such a very valuable information.
    Diabetic Patients Diet

  3. Tara June 11, 2020 at 1:04 pm - Reply

    Hi! Thanks for all this info. I’m not on Facebook. Are there other forums I can utilize as a pregnant T1? Also, I think some of the links are not correct on your supplement list. The first few all link to Cod Liver Oil. Thanks again!

    • T1D Living June 17, 2020 at 2:07 pm - Reply

      oop! I will fix now. Thanks for the heads up! I only used FB groups when I was pregnant so I’m not sure of any other platforms that have good T1D Pregnancy groups. But Piper Backholm has a great YouTube channel – she is a T1D mama and shares great content. Here’s a link to her YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnHnYRkNnc_al65V5YKAN0A

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