Have you ever heard of a Continuous Glucose Monitor, or CGM? If you don’t know it by that name, you’ve probably seen health influencers and wellness enthusiasts, including myself, walking around with a small circular device and bandage on the back of their arm. The CGM is one of the latest health and wellness trends that is anchored in science, aims for disease prevention, and for that reason, I support it and think it’s here to stay.
In my functional medicine practice, one thing I often hear from my patients is they are curious if what they’re eating is causing their symptoms and health issues. They typically ask about food allergies and sensitivities, but what I often find to be the culprit is dysregulated blood sugar based on their eating habits and how their body responds to their food. When it comes to blood sugar, people often think of the metabolic disease of diabetes, and while upwards of 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, of that, 10% have type 2 diabetes.
Why I wore a CGM to track my blood sugar:
Metabolic health is a spectrum and not a binary situation between diabetics and non-diabetics. You don’t just develop diabetes overnight out of nowhere. It’s a process that brews under the surface that can be caught early for proper intervention. Unfortunately, the traditional medicine approach is wholly inadequate in offering long-term solutions, only knowing what to do until you’re labeled with a metabolic disease that fits within the system.
Historically, glucose monitors have been used strictly for people with existing diabetes. We know that diabetes is heavily influenced by diet, lifestyle, and chronic blood sugar dysregulation, making a CGM one of the best, most effective, and influential functional health devices for non-diabetics to learn about their metabolic health and determine biological aging, which allows you to get personalized metrics so you can be proactive in stabilizing your blood sugar in a sustainable way and adapt your lifestyle to prevent chronic disease.
Get to know the signs:
In addition to monitoring your glucose, it helps to know the early warning signs of dysregulated blood sugar. By knowing what to look for it will help you know if there are things to modify within your lifestyle. Here are some things to look out for, and if many of these are true for you, I suggest you investigate your blood sugar:
- you crave sweets and bread… like a lot
- you feel like you get puffy or “gain weight” just by eating a carbohydrate
- you get “hangry” if you miss a meal
- it’s difficult to lose weight
- you need caffeine or stimulants throughout the day
- you quickly get agitated or upset
- you get tired after eating
- you often feel lightheaded and jittery
- low sex drive
- you have brain fog or poor memory and recall
- you have difficulty formulating sentences
- you’re impulsive in your decision making
- you wake up periodically in the middle of the night
More and more people are interested in knowing more about their metabolic health, and tapping into and tracking your blood sugar levels allows you to gather personalized data and see firsthand in real time how your body and your metabolism respond to the foods you eat as well as a response to your daily stressors, sleep, exercise, and overall lifestyle.
For the last few weeks, I have been diving into learning more about my own metabolic health by using a continuous glucose monitor. To learn more about this journey and to follow along, follow me on Instagram!
