Last March one of my patients introduced me to a company that made a CGM – continuous glucose monitor. Traditionally used for diabetics, these are now being used by health fanatics to as another way to hack their health.
I have used a CGM for a total of 4 months. And will wear one again when I need to figure something out in my body.
I prescribe them to all my program patients now. It has helped us to figure out what is causing:
- afternoon fatigue
- sleepless nights
- impossible weight loss
- mood swings
- fertility issues
- cravings
- an insatiable appetite
A few things I have figured out about myself…
I had been waking up in the middle of the night for an hour or two, sometimes I would go eat something (I knew it was a sign of low blood sugar). It was very frustrating. I was supposed to know how to fix everything. One weekend we went to Carmel last summer. I had the CGM on – I never really eat real ice cream. I thought, because I had it, I would test it out and se what happened.
I woke up the next morning after 8 straight hours of sleep. I was shocked. I thought my blood sugar would spike at night and then drop in the middle of the night. What happened was that it went up to 104, and then hovered around 95 for the duration of the night. It was the combination of the sugar and fat.
This was a huge aha for me. I couldn’t figure out why my blood sugar had been dropping so low in the middle of the night. It turned out that I hadn’t been eating enough carbs at night. Ice cream was obviously not a long term solution! It also turned out that the protein shake I would sometimes have before bed, or even when I would wake up would drive my blood sugar even lower. So I was able to make some changes to the shake by adding some nut butter to fix the problem.
Eating cherry tomatoes made my blood sugar spike. So I started choosing regular tomatoes and having less of them.
It turned out that eating Korean food with refined oils (worse than sugar!!) make my blood sugar go up to 180!! I tested it out by eating the leftovers and the same thing happened a day later. The scary thing is that I was choosing chips with refined oils over sweets for my kids when they wanted junk food. I started shifting what I would let my kids eat.
Seeing all of my patients experiences has shifted my advice to them. I can see now that a good blood sugar range for one person may not be a good blood sugar range for another person.
A recent patient whose blood sugar was hovering mostly above 100 and was having a hard time losing weight, did a detox – her blood sugar dropped under 60 (and may have even gone into the 40’s) – it was very erratic and way too low. So we pivoted and changed how she was doing her detox. Since then her blood sugar has been hovering under 100 and is steadily losing weight.
Patients are clearly able to see what is making their blood sugar tank in the afternoon causing their energy dips and quickly able to fix it.
The CGM has become a staple in my programs. Now I am just waiting for a continuous insulin monitor to reveal even more!!
If you are curious about your health and need some help untangling things fill out this application to see if we can help!