All About Continuous Glucose Monitors

Transcript:

Melanie: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. Today we're diving into a topic that we're excited about and has been increasing in popularity in recent years in the health and wellness world, and that is continuous glucose monitors or CGMs for short. And you may have seen people wearing small devices on the backs of their arms and wondered what they were.

I know I did until I knew what they were. And you may have been curious about trying one yourself, but not sure if it's right for you or how to use it. So why someone without diabetes would care about their blood sugar and what it really is telling you about your health, that's the deep dive we're going to take today in this episode because we're going to explore why CGMs work and how they help you give a little glimpse into your own health. And we also, I know Britni and I want to talk about insights as dietitians, both personally and with clients because we get to test them out.

Britni: Yes, it was fun.

Melanie: It's fun. I want to do it again. So, what we love about CGMs and how you can use this technology to support sustainable health habits, is that kind of the topic of today. But first let's take a few minutes. I'm Melanie Beasley. I'm a Registered and Licensed Dietitian, and joining me today is Britni Vincent, who is also a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. So it's going to be fun.

Britni: Yes. Very excited about this topic. And excited for more people to try them. And I see so many people wearing these now, especially like, I went on vacation to Florida a few months ago; all over the place. Now that weather's warmer, I'm noticing them. So they are definitely increasing in popularity and a lot of people, as we're going to talk about today are just doing it to optimize their health. And learn more about their body.

Melanie: I see this sort of trend where it went from we were eating ultra processed foods. We're eating a lot of sugar and carb foods, a lot of wine. And then disease started to happen, and people became much more aware of their health and the impact that blood sugar has on their overall health. I mean, with social media, it's everywhere.

Britni: It is.

Melanie: So now it's trending to have a continuous glucose monitor to see how your body responds. And this is a trend I can get behind

Britni: For sure. Love it. And I mean, just working with clients, typically we are working with the client to develop a plan, and then they're just trusting our knowledge. And we're just using our knowledge at best to figure out what's going to work best for their body. But now we have a tool that's really telling us in real time how their body is responding to different foods. And it's so cool to see.

Melanie: It's so fabulous that we don't have to wait six months for their labs.

Britni: Yes, exactly.

Melanie: The client gets to say, oh, hey, it really does make a difference when I do this. It's instant gratification.

Britni: It's, and I think too, you know, there's something about knowing in your head, well, I know if I eat that food, my blood sugar's going to increase, but seeing it actually happen I think really drives behavior change even more.

Melanie: Yeah.

Britni: Even for myself.

Melanie: And if you're at all competitive with yourself, this is a really fun tool. Because I am very competitive with myself and so seeing, well, how low can I get my blood sugar? Oh, that spike was not where I want it. And yeah.

Britni: Yeah it's really fun doing little experiments.

Melanie: It's the best little gaming app on your phone, is what it is that you get to play with. So for people with diabetes, it's of course necessary to measure blood glucose throughout the day. But nowadays, anyone can track their glucose and see how their, not only their food, but their lifestyle factors affect them, and we're going to talk about our own experience.

It's really a game changer in the world of nutrition. What I love so much is I got to see by working with myself all the tips and tricks I give my clients, and then I used it on myself and could say, oh hey, it does work. I'm telling them what I know from research, but then I get to see, yes, it does work. You know, just a little for instance, your blood sugar goes up. And then I tell my clients, just do after a meal, just do 20 air squats. And so I could do it, and then I would watch. Your blood sugar starts coming down. I'm like, it does work. It was, it's exciting. We're nerds, but's still exciting.

Britni: We are data nerds for sure, but I can say the clients that have tried these CGMs, they too are very interested in the data and and it's really, it's allowing them to, like you said, see that instant gratification with the choices that, that they're making in their body.

What is a continuous glucose monitor & how do they work?

And so before we dive a little more into these stories of what we've noticed and what we've seen with our clients using them, I just want to give a little bit of background on what is a continuous glucose monitor? So a CGM, sometimes they're also called glucose biosensor.

It's a medical device used to monitor and track glucose levels in the body continuously throughout the day. It consists of this small sensor that you insert into the skin, usually on the back of your arm, which will wirelessly transmit glucose data to your smartphone app. It's crazy, the technology of how that works.

Melanie: You know, and it's also your, the needle is not something that's staying in your skin.

Britni: No. No.

Melanie: So I think that's daunting for a lot of people to think, well, I just have this needle sticking in my, no, it's a tiny little filament. It's not the needle itself.

Britni: Yeah, that's a great point. And I mean, I was like, oh my goodness, is this going to hurt? And it really, it didn't hurt.

Melanie: No, it didn't hurt.

Britni: I was surprised at how easy it was to insert it by myself. And it's also waterproof, so you do not need to worry about showering or taking a bath. And it, you can swim with it up to eight feet deep.

Melanie: Mm-hmm.

Britni: And they last about two weeks and then they're discarded and you can replace it if you want to and keep continuously tracking. And what is happening is the sensor is measuring glucose levels in what's called the interstitial fluid, and that's the fluid that surrounds cells in the body. So this is going to very closely reflect the glucose levels in your bloodstream, but there is going to be about a 10-minute lag time.

So if you were to use a glucometer and do a finger prick, the blood glucose sample compared to what you're seeing in your CGM is never going to be the same 'cause there's that 10 minute lag time. So just keep that in mind if you are somebody that also uses a glucometer, and then it depends on the specific continuous glucose monitor, but readings are continuously monitored and then updated in the app.

And in the specific app that we have used called Stelo, it updates every 15 minutes in the app. If you have a CGM that was prescribed to you by your doctor, that will likely update more frequently. And you know, so this is, like I said, continuously measured versus using a glucometer is one little snapshot in time and I was surprised even five minutes, five, 10 minutes how much your glucose could actually change.

Melanie: I was too.

Britni: So using a glucometer is still very useful information, but it's not giving you anywhere near the in-depth information that you're going to get from a CGM.

Melanie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we at Nutritional Weight & Wellness have just bought in a glucose biosensor called Stelo by Dexcom, and as part of our product offering, so you can pick one up in one of our Twin Cities locations. Or you can order it through our product website, nutrikey.com.

Check Out Our Continuous Glucose Monitors!

And we've been trying them out on ourselves as you can, as you've heard us say. And recently, it's been really fun and interesting to see the result. One of the things, I mean, I've always eaten pretty well in balance and don't eat a lot of processed carbs, but Easter I had some of the gluten-free almond crackers that everybody eats and I had a goat cheese roll that was rolled in blueberries.

And so as I'm preparing what we're eating, I was eating some of the crackers and the goat cheese. And then all of a sudden my phone gets this alert that says your blood sugar is spiking. So I, that was the first time it sort of went out of range and all I had, I mean, I wasn't going ham on these crackers. I literally just had a handful, I would say handful, that was with goat cheese, so it should have been “balanced”.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: But the difference between a processed carb and a regular carb, 'cause you and I were talking, I also would do a salad that had maybe a quarter cup of quinoa and a quarter cup of black beans in it, and a whole bunch of vegetables and chicken did not spike my blood sugar. Because I say don't eat a naked carb, you know, you always wrap it in some sort of protein, fiber and fat. Which that salad does. But just having those crackers with a little bit of goat cheese, it was not enough. So that cheese and crackers that to replace your dinner, not a good idea.

Britni: Not a good idea. And yeah, so one of my, I wasn't really surprised by anything. But my friend invited us, my family over to celebrate her daughter's one year birthday, and she told me they was, she was serving pizza and ice cream and I thought she would have a salad as well.

She did not. So, I had a little bit of pizza and a little bit of ice cream and no surprise, of course, that spiked my blood sugar. But what I was surprised at is the next day my glucose was just maybe like five to 10 points higher than it typically ran. So I was surprised by that, that it carried over and affected my glucose the next day.

Melanie: That is so interesting because I had the same thing when I had that spike from the crackers and goat cheese is the next day, it just, the blood sugar seemed slightly elevated, but what I did do when it spiked because I wanted to see if this worked, is I did those 20 squats. Which my family was making fun of me, but I did those 20 air squats and then when it clicked in that 10 minutes later, sure shooting down came my blood sugar started coming back down and that was just within minutes of activity from the spike until 20 air squats. And then it started coming down. So man, moving your body really makes a difference with your blood sugar. We've always said it, but to see it real time, it is very gratifying.

How might you benefit from a CGM? (Looking for optimal patterns in glucose)

Britni: and I think some people are probably listening and thinking, okay, I don't have diabetes or prediabetes, how would I benefit from wearing a CGM? And I think it's really what we've been talking about for you and I, we're doing it to learn more about our body, to really optimize our health and then also, like you said, we're doing these little experiments to see if what we recommend for our clients actually work.

So what we're really looking for with the data is the patterns. It is very normal to see a little bit of an increase in your glucose after you eat, but we're looking at how much it increases and then how quickly it comes back down.

Melanie: Because the beauty of this app is it shows you the range you should stay within.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: And you know, you with your ice cream pizza situation. Me with the go cheese cracker situation, definitely we went out of range. So when you do that time and time again, that's where the detriment to your health long term happens. You know, the roller coaster, the, the deep hills and valleys of the rollercoaster spikes is really what we want to avoid because that's where we start doing damage to the body.

We've said it over and over in many podcasts, that's a very stressful event to the body. And it creates problems with heart disease and damage to our organs. Cardiovascular disease brain inflammation. So you know, the occasional holiday, we're okay. Everybody's okay.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: But if it's something that you're doing on the regular, it's good for you to have that knowledge of, oh, every time it gets above this range, I am creating damage in my body. And then you become sort of competitive with keeping it in range, which benefits you in the long run.

Britni: Exactly. Yeah. And you know, having those spikes, so thinking about it, every time you have a spike, that's inflammation in your body in that moment. Our body has to create more insulin and remembering insulin is our primary fat storage hormone.

Melanie: Yes.

Britni: So if weight loss is one of your goals, we really, really want to prevent those huge spikes and those drops, because that's just making that insulin resistance even worse.

Melanie: So every time you're bathing your cells in insulin because of these spikes, you are creating a situation that's going to lead to insulin resistance and then down the road prediabetes, diabetes. So it's information for you if you have someone, a professional, like one of us telling you this is what's actually happening.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: This is why you’re insulin resistant. This is why you're developing an insulin resistant belly that you can't seem to get rid of. And when you can see it real time on your phone, you're like, shoot, that's not, that changes things.

Britni: Yeah. I have a client that started to use a CGM two or three months ago, and I just saw him last week, and he has lost between 10 to 15 pounds since he started wearing his CGM.

Melanie: Wow.

Britni: Because for him, it's knowledge. He saw how much, how many spikes he was getting from the foods that he was regularly eating. And then he has decided to continue to wear one because there's a level of accountability there for him as well of, okay, I'm wearing this. I don't want to eat that food and see what happens. And, and so it can be a really powerful tool. He also got his A1C redone and it's already gone down quite a bit.

Melanie: That's fabulous.

Britni: Yeah, so it's really fun to see. And he's feeling better.

Melanie: You know, that's the thing is you have all, you have loved ones who are just the nag bloomers in your life and nobody likes those people. And this is like your own accountability. You're not sharing it with anyone. This is very private data.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: It's just for you. And then you take the steering wheel of steering that car around, of how it's going to be. You get to be the pilot of your own health.

Britni: Yeah. And that I, yeah. For him, this is his choice and that makes much more sustainable changes.

Melanie: Yeah.

Britni: You doing things because you have that intrinsic motivation versus somebody just telling you to do something.

Melanie: I love that because it's, you're not just taking our word for it.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: You get to see it yourself in black and white. The data is right there. But we've got to take a break and then we'll be back and we'll talk some more about this fun, fascinating device.

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Britni: Welcome back from break. We have been talking about continuous glucose monitors or CGMs and sharing our own personal experience and what we have seen with some of our clients that have used them as well.

What factors can affect blood sugar? (Food, sleep quality, exercise, stress, mood, sequencing of food & more!)

Melanie: So this is real-time data that shows them what their blood sugar is doing. Even foods that are thought to be healthy, like berries, root vegetables, or whole grains can spike your glucose surprisingly high. And my clients are often surprised when I tell them that more than just food affects your blood sugar.

Britni: Yes.

Melanie: For example, sleep quality affects your blood sugar. I had a night of really poor sleep and my blood sugar was wonky. That's the clinical term. The entire day it ran, I would say five to 10 points higher. And then exercise of different kinds will affect your blood sugar. For example, lifting weights versus taking a walk. I found taking a walk to be the one that really bottomed your blood sugar.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: Although in the morning, I would do a smoothie that had fat in it and a half cup of blueberries and my blood sugar would start on the rise. And then I would go directly to do a vibration plate workout. And it would plummet it 10 points. So moving your large muscles, so walking you’re using your legs, which are larger muscles. When you use your large muscles, they consume the most sugar.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: Thus the air squats that I was saying earlier, you're using large muscles, but there's, it can be different lifting weights versus walking versus running, but the timing of when you do these, those activities, I'm sure you do the same thing. I tell people when you're done move 10 minutes after a meal.

Britni: Yes.

Melanie: And then their stress and your mood can affect your blood sugar. Even the order of foods that you eat in a meal, this is key, if possible, can really affect your blood sugar. So for example, when you, I mentioned earlier, a naked carb. So when you have a meal of steak, potatoes, maybe a green salad with some vinaigrette in it, you may get different re results depending upon the order you eat your food.

And we have a podcast on the order of eating if anyone really wants to take a deep dive in this, but generally speaking, start your meal with protein or a salad first, or a vegetable that has fiber and that fiber and that protein and the fat in the meat is going to mitigate that rise in blood sugar that you get from the potato or the grain or the fruit.

So if possible, now if it's chili, it's really not possible. But if it's possible to order eat, at least start with your vegetable. But I know when you sit down to a meal, you want to stick that fork in those mashed potatoes.

Britni: Of course. Yep.

Melanie: But this will give you pause to say, oh, and you get to play with this when you're wearing a glucose monitor. So while you're wearing that CGM, I always encourage my clients, treat it like an experiment because each body is very individual, how they respond and try out different combinations of foods.

Try different types of exercise before or after a meal and then, make note or jot down how you slept and it, if that affected your numbers. I loved what you said about when you had the ice cream and the pizza, it wasn't just one spike.

Britni: Exactly. Yeah it carried over. Yeah.

Melanie: Yeah. So it's fascinating to see there's a long-term effect. It's not just this spike and then it's over.

Britni: Yep. So imagining if you had those high sugar foods or processed foods more frequently, that's going to cause your glucose to always be high. Versus like you said, doing this occasionally, your body's resilient enough to recover and all is good. And so with the app and many of the other CGM apps, it allows you to add your food in there, your exercise, or any other notes. So like you said, sleep or your mood. I had a client and anxiety we would see an increase when she was anxious.

Melanie: Interesting.

Britni: Which is really interesting. And so we just, we saw that pattern enough. The other thing I noticed is a meal; of course I batch cook and may eat the same thing multiple times in a week, but the time of day you ate that same meal may change things.

Melanie: Ooh, what did you see?

Britni: I can't remember the meal off the top of my head, but I know one of the meals I had earlier in the day versus I think for dinner one night. And at dinner it didn't create a spike by any means, but there was just a little bit larger of an increase than there was at a different time of day.

It could have to do with sleep, exercise that day, all sorts of things. Or again, just the time of day. At night we are not able to utilize our carbohydrates as efficiently. So those would all be things to kind of keep in mind. Like I said earlier, we're really looking for patterns here.

Melanie: And how your specific body responds.

Britni: Yes.

Melanie: I liken the app to that you can put, when you have a spike it, you can “add an event”, that's what it calls, add an event and you can put in there I had stress or I ate, you know, it was Easter and I ate, a goat cheese roll and a bunch of crackers. Or you can add your own event.

And it lets, and then you can definitely see that what that pattern is. You can also connect it with your Smartwatch. And it can track it in your Smartwatch as well.

Britni: Yeah. So I really think this is important to use this as a learning tool, not be afraid to try different things. And I think the first time that you use it, I would just live life as you normally do. Because then it's giving you the data of what's actually typically happening with your glucose. And then in the future when you use another sensor, you can start to, to tweak things a little bit more based on what you, you saw with that first sensor.

And they do come in a pack of two. So that you're able to use that and I have another client who also, she did it once. She was really surprised by the information and her glucose just ran higher than she was expecting all the time, and she said, I'm putting on another one right away 'cause I want to know what's happening and this is helping me again with that self-accountability.

What blood sugar ranges should be aimed for?

Melanie: You may be wondering what ranges are we aiming for? So let's talk about that. So the app gives a range. And it's just showing peaks and valleys. And so ideally when you wake up in the morning, it'd be great to have your blood sugar under 90. That would be ideal.

Britni: So then, you know, like I mentioned earlier, it is absolutely normal to get a little increase after we eat. But we don't want it to increase more than 30 points from before you ate. And then, and when you add these events, it will be able to, it will allow you to see this data really easily. And then we want to make sure our glucose goes back to where it was before we ate within two hours.

Melanie: Yep.

Britni: So maybe that meal doesn't increase you more than 30 points, but you stay elevated for hours. That is not ideal either.

Melanie: It tells us something about metabolic health that we want to work on.

Britni: Exactly.

Melanie: As practitioners, then we can give you tips and guides to what we want to do to start increasing your response time to be a better within that two hour range of recovery.

Britni: Yep. And it might just be tweaking the meal, maybe adding more fiber or reducing the amount of starch that was in the meal. There's all sorts of modifications we can make to try to, like you said, recover faster.

Melanie: Yeah. I love that you said about fat because it takes me back. I'm older than you; to the low fat era. You can see using these CGMs how fat will slow the blood sugar response. It, it buffers that blood sugar spike. And so I think back to the low fat era where everybody was almost literally fat free.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: Depending upon what they believed, which we were all preaching low fat. And shortly thereafter, we started seeing increased rise in disease, diabetes, hyperlipidemia. So we need that healthy fat and we need it before we eat the carb.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: Along with the protein and fiber.

Britni: Plus, it makes everything taste more delicious.

Melanie: Yes, it does.

Balance eating for balanced blood sugar

Britni: And so we're going to really generally see those spikes from high sugar, high starch foods. So like you mentioned, Mel, we're really looking at a balanced meal. So having that fiber in the form of veggies, some fat, some protein, those are all going to reduce the amount that the starch or the sugar, if you're having fruit, is going to increase your glucose.

It slows down the absorption time. So combining all of those things and avoiding the naked carb, you're going to just by doing that, you're going to see a big change in your glucose numbers.

Melanie: And it's not that we're pulling out foods. It's we're being wise about the order that we have them or the volume that we eat in certain ones.

Britni: Yep. And the combination.

Melanie: The combination. We all need more fiber.

Britni: Oh yes.

Melanie: We all need more fiber. And this is encouraging you not only to watch your blood sugar and your carbs, but to say, hey, if I eat a lot of fiber in a leafy green salad prior to my meal I can get away with a little bit more of what I thought I had to eliminate, the carbs. Carbs are not the enemy.

Britni: No.

Melanie: And they're delicious too. But it all has to be packaged in this wonderful blood sugar balancing package for there to be optimal health.

Britni: And then, as you see your glucose improving, you're going to feel a difference too. You're going to have better energy throughout the day.

Melanie: You don't have that mid-afternoon tank where you just feel like, oh, I could take a nap.

Britni: The cravings may completely go away. Blood sugar, I would say is the biggest cause of cravings.

Melanie: Oh, I would agree with that. Totally. Alcohol.

Britni: Yes.

Melanie: Do you get to see how does that cocktail on the weekends or the wine at night affect your blood sugar and also your cravings of course. But it's all such great, wonderful information about how your body responds to everything.

More on factors besides food that impacts blood sugar (#1: the sleep connection)

So let's dig more into factors besides food that could impact your blood sugar because that's something that we work with our clients also and we at Nutritional Weight & Wellness work on a lot, work a lot with our clients is improving sleep quality.

Because sleep is really one of the major lifestyle macronutrients we need to focus on, and these CGMs can really help to notice patterns in your blood sugar that may be disturbing your sleep or the other way around: how your sleep is affecting your blood sugar. So let's say you eat a dinner high in carbohydrates, like a pasta or a pizza meal. It's a Saturday night, you went out to eat, or maybe you have a bowl of ice cream for dessert or something that's super common is popcorn.

Britni: Yes.

Melanie: In the evening while you're watching TV, in all of these cases, your blood sugar will likely spike above the ideal range. Then in the middle of the night, it crashes, and boop, you wake up. So when I work with clients on getting in more balanced meals and not eating that naked carb, sometimes a bedtime snack is needed, sometimes not, but they find that their sleep through the night is better, and so many people don't make the connection between their diet and their sleep quality because you can't do better until you know better.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: And that this is actually a thing that affects you. But better sleep will actually improve your insulin and your blood sugar levels throughout the next day. Not to mention a whole host of other benefits, which in turn prevents cravings, stabilizes your mood so it's easier to make healthy food choices.

It's all this package deal that works together. I'm always working with my clients, and Britni, I know you are too; improving that sleep, you can see the difference of how it affects your blood sugar. Or how your blood sugar affects your sleep.

Britni: Yeah. Both. Yeah.

Melanie: Wisdom is power.

Britni: It is. Yeah. I am, I'm, I have had so many clients over the years just by focusing on this balanced eating, their sleep magically improves.

Melanie: Yeah.

How does exercise & cortisol affect blood sugar?

Britni: Yeah. It's wonderful. And we talked about exercise earlier, so light exercises, especially that walking can really significantly reduce that glucose. 10, I've seen even 20 points if you do that after a meal. However, like if you're doing a more high intensity exercise, then you might see an increase in your glucose as the glucose is being released by your liver. And that's a normal response.

Melanie: Yes.

Britni: And that's completely healthy. Your glucose should return within a couple hours and so seeing that rise may not always necessarily be a bad thing. It's just kind of depending on what you were doing that day.

Melanie: I'm glad you brought that up because something I noticed, there's this, the cortisol phenomenon is when you are sleeping, and then you wake up that you get a cortisol bump and that cortisol not a bad thing. It's designed to get you going in the day. Well that cortisol bump encourages your liver to release glucose. I noticed I would wake up, my glucose would be fabulous and I'd get up, I always get ready for the day before I go down and eat breakfast, and my blood sugar would just start rising.

And I hadn't eaten a thing. So a lot of my clients who are just, they're fit, they eat in balance, they're doing really well, and then they go to get a fasting blood sugar because they're going to the doctor.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: And they're fasted. So then they go in, they're like, Melanie, my blood sugar was up. Well, when you're, this could be the phenomenon that's happening, then they'll take it just from a glucometer later in the day and it'll be 85.

Britni: Yeah. It makes total sense just based on biochemically how our body is working. And that exercise piece. So exercising also makes your body utilize insulin more efficiently for up to 24 hours afterwards.

Mel: Wow, that's interesting. It say that again.

Britni: It is interesting. Exercising will allow basically push the glucose inside your cells more efficiently for up to 24 hours afterwards.

Melanie: 24 hours is great.

Britni: So that movement, even if it is just walking, makes a huge difference.

Melanie: Motion is lotion.

Britni: Yep.

Melanie: And the more we move, you know, they're saying that muscle is your longevity organ now.

Britni: Yeah.

Melanie: So we want to be using those muscles and it's very, very important for more than just how we look in a skirt or a shirt. It's really about metabolic health. So you can experience a spike in glucose during times of high stress, regardless of what you have or haven't eaten. It's your body's evolutionary way of preparing you to be able to run away from danger.

The body doesn't know the difference when you're under a lot of stress or whether or not we're in physical danger. So it just releases glucose into your bloodstream for your muscles to use the fuel to run to safety. And like we mentioned earlier, it's that cortisol response when cortisol’s higher, insulin's job of bringing down blood sugar is dampened.

So the problem is that in modern times, in time of chronic high stress, typically does not mean physical danger when we're in need to be running away, and we're not running physically away. But if you have chronic stress, this can cause that glucose to be released to be used for energy because it's perceived danger. But here we are sedentary. The stress may be an office job.

Britni: Yes.

Melanie: It could be your children. It could be caring for sitting by a parent who's ailing. So over time, all the stress causes chronically elevated blood sugars leading to weight gain. And eventually even contribute to developing prediabetes or type two diabetes. So I have my clients that are sedentary move every hour, some sort of movement. Air squats is an easy one. Go to the bathroom and do pushups on the handicap bar when you're at the hospital. You know, things like that can really, like you said, help usher that blood sugar into the cell much more efficiently without so much insulin.

Britni: Yep. Now we know this is a lot of information to take in. So if you decide you want to try a CGM I highly recommend working with a dietitian like one of us so we can help give you some insight into your data, help you identify some patterns and trends, and give you some ideas of how to improve your glucose levels.

And it's important to note that everybody is different and may respond to different foods and other factors, and I've seen this from client to client. We, our bodies are so unique to ourselves. So it is definitely not a one size fits all approach and that is why this tool can be super helpful.

But with or without a CGM, our body is always giving us clues about our blood sugar: hunger, energy, fatigue, cravings, sleep. I really think blood sugar is a huge foundation for our overall health.

Melanie: Having the information and having a professional that can help you figure out what's going on in your body. And then come up with strategies to optimize your health so you don't have to be concerned. That's what we're here for. You can visit our website at weightandwellness.com.

Schedule Nutrition Counseling

You can give us a call at (651) 699-3438. We'd be happy to work with you to help you strategize. We want to thank you for listening today. If you're interested in meeting with us just give us a call or visit our website. Thank you for listening and have a great day.

Britni: Thank you.