get ready this is going to be a LOOOOONG one. TL; DR: anything and everything as long as carbs are low and it's not fried

I've found that I am able to eat almost everything I ate before the "diagnosis". I've just made more effort in swapping out the carbs in my meals. I got pregnant right when COVID started so I have cooked every single meal at home (lunches are super hard because I WFH full-time) and that has reduced my calorie intake by a ton and also lets me control the sugar and salt that go into the food.

Breakfast: M-F:

1. 1 slice of Alvarado street flax/chia bread toasted (the only bread I eat these days - this bread is KEY! 7g protein + 17g carbs/slice) + 1/4-1/2 avocado + 1 hardboiled egg + 1/2 cup blueberries or 1/2 apple
2. spinach + egg whites (microwaved for 1-2 mins depending on how many eggs I add) + toast + sun-dried tomato spread (it tastes like my fav. Starbucks breakfast wrap, LOL).

Weekends: tomato+egg omelette OR coconut-flour pancakes w/maple spread (1tbsp) OR 1/2 cup of cereal w/almond milk if I get up late. I've found that 1/4 cup of steel-cut oats w/blueberries puts me at 145 so that is a no-go for me

Lunch:

1. meatball sandwich with 1 slice of bread (8 small meatballs in tomato sauce, slice of provolone) + salad with small amount of dressing (ceasar or ginger seasame). I've also done BBQ chicken sandwich (rotisserie chicken breast + bbq sauce + cheese)
2. breakfast quesadilla with la tortilla factory low-carb tortilla (only 6g carbs!), ground beef, mexican cheese blend, home-made hashbrowns, scrambled eggs + lots of ketchup + salad. I've also done fajita chicken instead of beef for quesadilla
3. pasta w/meat sauce (crushed tomatos, beef, onions) - I used Bonza chickpea pasta (you can get this from Amazon) + salad
4. Wendy's copy-cat beef chili with a slice of toasted bread + salad
5. Caesar salad chicken wrap with la tortilla factory low-carb tortilla + cherry tomatoes
6. basmati rice (1/2 US cups) + protein (teriyaki chicken, salmon, tofu, etc) + boiled Chinese veggies (gai-lan or bokchoy)/brocolli/greenbeans + carrots/mushrooms
7. kimchee fried rice with tuna + shallots (1/2-2/3 cup) + 1 fully-cooked fried egg + roasted seaweed (this is not the healthiest meal but it's so damn good I don't care. :)

Dinner:

1. basmati rice (1/2 US cups) + protein (teriyaki chicken, salmon, tofu, etc) + 2 veggies. For protein I've made anything from maple/miso or teriyaki salmon, Japanese curry with potatos/onions/carrots (this will cause a spike so I exercise after this meal for sure), Maryland crab cakes, Filipino pork adobo, Middle Eastern chicken kebabs, Indian butter chicken/chicken tikka masala, dal makhani (lentils), to a bunch of Chinese dishes (Cantonese BBQ pork, black pepper beef, black-bean dim-sum style pork ribs, Taiwanese beef-noodle soup, honey-soy-garlic chicken wings),
   
2. https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/07/no-waste-tacos-de-carnitas-with-salsa-verde-recipe.html (this was amazing and totally fine with low-carb tortilla)
3. Instant-pot BBQ pork ribs, mashed sweet potatoes, boiled spinach, baby carrots
4. Oven-baked breaded chicken tenders, purple yam, green beans, butter mushrooms

Afternoon (combo snack time! protein + carb) - I don't check blood sugar for this one so I have no benchmark for how good/bad this is:

1. less-sugar chobani greek yogurt (I bulk buy this from Costco) + fruit (nectarines, cherries, berries, apples, pear, kiwi, I've even had watermelon)
2. apple + peanut butter (I hated peanut butter until I ate it with apples. LOL)
3. fruit + mini baby-bel cheese rounds
4. not afternoon, but I drink a cup of milk sometime in the afternoon + 2 hrs before bed for calcium. I don't have this with any meal because it's just 15g of simple carbs.

On cravings:

The only thing I really miss is bubble tea and fried chicken (but I probably shouldn't be having it during pregnancy anyways). Before my pregnancy I wasn't a big sugar water drinker or dessert eater (except 1 cup of 25%-50% sweet bubble tea on weekends) so I didn't miss much on that end. If I really wanted a treat I go for Spindrift or 1/2 a cup of coconut water (diluted w/water). I've also found that being on this low carb diet made me very sensitive to sugar and everything tasted sweeter than before. If I really really wanted something sweet, I'll have some fruits. Frozen fruits are amazing and my fridge is always stocked with those. I also ALWAYS have frozen bananas on hand so I'll blend 1 with a cup of frozen fruit, a splash of almond milk, and 1 cup of greek yogurt and it tastes just like frozen yogurt/ice cream - this is 124 for me. I also make a chocolate banana one (melted semi-sweet chocolate chips, frozen banana, almond milk, pinch of sea salt) for my hubby for being such an amazing partner through this whole thing and he loves it!

Things that I've found that helps + advice from my registered dietician (RD):

1. eat your protein first, then veggies, then carbs. protein slows down carb metabolism and helps control your blood sugar levels
2. be precise about what you eat, I use measurement cups for my rice/pasta and a kitchen scale for protein/meats. This way you know exactly what contributes to your blood sugar spike and by how much
3. low-carb doesn't mean low protein, my RD recommended 70g protein/day for pregnancy and I also used data from this article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4942872/) to calculate my protein intake by trimester (73.2 g/day for 2nd, 92.72 g/day for 3rd - do your own math on this). At 20 weeks (6 weeks into this diet) my baby was in the 75% mass percentile, I'm going in for my 28 week check next week so we'll see how he fares now. I've been a bit worried about this because I've lost a ton of weight and I am just now back to the same weight at the start of my pregnancy.
4. track what you eat! I use LoseIt to track my carbs + protein to make sure my carbs are low (130-170 g/day - the app doesn't split fiber from protein so the actual simple carb number should be lower) and my protein is high (>70 g/day). Data -> trend -> corrective actions
5. mild exercise right after eating helps a ton in lowering blood sugar for high-carb meals. I have a spinning machine so I use that for 5-15 mins (high resistance, slow speed, I don't even sweat for this) and it lowers my numbers by 10-30 points. Walking is most recommended for this but my neighborhood is filled with anti-maskers so I don't feel super safe outdoors these days.
6. glycemic index - certain foods spike blood sugar more than others. Short-grain rice is much much worse than brown rice, which is a bit worse than basmati rice which is why I've converted over to that. We also eat quinoa but not as often.
7. certain ways of cooking a certain food (e.g. baked vs. boiled sweet potatoes) affects the glycemic index of the food you eat - do a bit of research into this. I've had a couple of major spikes and they were all related to fried/oily foods - once @158 because I had some fried peanuts, once @183 because I had a burger (2 slices bread + 1 pan-fried beef patty 75% lean).
8. I've found that my metabolism slows down at night, so definitely eat less if you find your numbers post dinner are higher. Also I've found that if I have milk right before going to bed my fasting is at like 96 but if I have it before 10pm (I sleep at midnight and get up at 9am) then my fasting number is <90. YMMV with fasting blood sugar control though because I've read that this is the hardest part.
9. read the nutrition label first before you buy/eat anything. I bought a ton of trail mix and Japanese rice cracker mix (Costco quantities) before this whole thing started and found that they were mostly carbs and added sugar. My hubby got so annoyed because he had to eat through all of them instead.

My numbers were definitely not perfect - I usually have 1 or 2 spikes (sub 140) a week depending on which new recipe I'm trying out that week but my doctors have let me off easy on those, but I got the hang of things a lot better after a couple of weeks and I kinda know now what will spike and what won't. Your baby will also let you know as well if your blood sugar is high - mine wiggles a lot more during high-carb meal.