What I learned wearing a continuous glucose monitor
Some personal insights
Recently, my husband and I decided to venture into the world of continuous glucose monitors (CGM). We had heard the hype through fitness and health gurus, but that is not the driving factor for us trying this little experiment.
For those who don’t know, a continuous glucose monitor is a small device you place on your arm or abdomen and it continuously reads your glucose levels in the blood. You download an app on your smartphone and sync the monitor to the app in a pretty seamless fashion. It provides minute by minute data on your blood sugars so you can monitor exactly how certain foods, activities and even stress or sleep can affect your blood sugar.
Why did we try this? For a few reasons. One of which is we are always striving for optimal health; through diet (of course we enjoy our fair share of ice cream here and there), fitness, healthy sleep patterns, reading, praying, the list goes on and on…and we had heard about the use of CGM’s in the medical field (as a PT I’ve had many patients use them). David’s family history includes diabetes, while I have my own history of gestational diabetes and periodic episodes of hypoglycemia throughout the years.
So we figured why not give it a go and see where we landed in the realm of blood sugar control.
Here are some insights on what I learned, and I’ll also list some pros and cons to the use of these devices.
Certain foods raised my blood glucose more than others (and some of these surprised me!). For instance, one night I made a homemade potato soup with all healthy and whole ingredients…the result? A slightly prolonged and elevated (but still within a healthy non-fasting range, 70-180 mg/dL) blood sugar! I tried a couple of scoops of ice cream and a slight spike occurred with a quick recovery to baseline. Go figure?! One thing I noticed is when pairing a carbohydrate with a protein, my sugars seemed to stay more stable. It’s food for thought and could serve as a benefit to you to know what foods may affect your blood sugar more than others.
Hunger did not correlate with blood sugar. There were times that I felt ravenous and I actually did not have a “low” blood sugar and at times I felt satisfied but noticed my number was running a little bit lower than expected. I really never had a “hypoglycemic” episode during this two week trial so it’s hard to say if my usual symptoms correlated with my blood sugar. Either way, I found that making mental notes of how I felt before checking my blood sugar was interesting.
Exercise often initially raised my blood sugar. Let’s keep in mind this was temporary! After some thorough reading, I found most sources said blood sugar may initially rise with exercise secondary to an increase in cortisol and other hormonal changes that occur with exercise. For me, the end result however, was a lower blood sugar by the end of the sweat sessions. There’s enough research out there to show us regular exercise helps keep blood sugar stable, improves mobilization of glucose into the cell and helps maintain a healthy weight. Also, a simple walk after a meal consistently reduced my blood sugar.
I had an unhealthy pattern of obsessively checking my phone. It’s bad enough that we live in a world of obsession with our phones, and the fact that the CGM connected to the phone caused me to check and pick up my phone more frequently. Eat a bite of sourdough? Check your phone. Go for a walk? Check your phone….you get the gist. If I complete a “round two” of using a CGM I will make a conscious effort to limit the amount of checks per hour (you can review your values at the end of the day).
It’s normal for your blood sugar to raise after eating. This will not lead to diabetes or certain death. I’m being slightly facetious here (the certain death thing), but the fitness/nutrition world has gone to a whole new level of crazy over blood sugar spikes. There’s a lot of information out there saying if you spike your blood sugar, you’ll have inflammation of blood vessels as well as consequential insulin resistance, which is simply not true in a normal, healthy individual. Your blood sugar SHOULD increase after eating carbohydrates but it doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong. Prolonged (greater than 2 hours after eating) elevation of blood sugar over 140 mg/dL is abnormal, as well as fasting blood glucose values that are above 100 mg/dL, indicate a potential problem with your ability to regulate blood sugar, and the cell’s ability to use insulin and break it down.
I listened to a great podcast recently with Paul Saladino (with Mike Fave) regarding fructose and how it has been villainized in the health conscious community, along with normal physiological raising of blood sugar. They actually discussed how avoiding carbs long term could lead to insulin resistance and people who actually increased carbohydrates (while also adjusting/lowering their fat macronutrient daily grams) had an improved response in the cell to insulin. (You can find Dr. Saladino’s podcast online).
An alarm will sound when your blood sugar is out of range. This counts as a pro and a con. The first night, I woke up multiple times to an alarm stating my blood sugar was too low. This led to me getting up and eating a few carbs to keep me in a healthy range. Well, turns out it was likely a fluke. The CGM needs time to adjust to your body and within the first 24 hours it warns you in the instruction manual that it may not be super accurate in the initial hours of wear. That seems like a large problem if you truly have a blood sugar issue. However, after the first day, things seemed to level out and I never had another issue. If you ARE struggling with blood sugar stabilization, it is important to note some discrepancies that first day may occur and it’s also important to keep your phone within range so the readings will be accurate!
Overall, I feel a CGM is a great option for gathering data in regards to your health, gaining insight to which foods affect you more than others, and how certain symptoms you’ve experienced (lightheadedness, weakness, tiredness, shakiness, headaches, etc) correlate to your blood sugar. I believe it encourages you to be hyper aware of what you put in your body and if you are a diabetic, it serves as a wonderful reminder of where your blood sugar levels are sitting throughout a day.
I hope you enjoyed learning about my experience and maybe you can give it a try if you feel it would benefit you!
Shannon Calenberg, PT, DPT, OCS, CMPT
* This is not medical advice and does not substitute consultation with a medical professional.
*My writing here is completely separate from my employer.