CGM's - worth the hype or not??
CGM = continuous glucose monitor
A snazzy device that sits on the back of your arm which allows you to monitor your blood sugar levels in real time. This literally means IMMEDIATE biofeedback on how your food, stress levels, and lifestyle impact your blood sugar. Pretty cool, huh?! So you may be thinking… why should you even care about blood sugar regulation anyways?
Your blood sugar regulation is intimately connected
to a multitude of different systems in your body. When not under control, blood sugar dysregulation can contribute to things like: energy crashes/ fatigue, inflammation, hormone imbalances, anxiety, headaches, cortisol dysregulation, underperforming in sport, thyroid dysfunction, and more. Blood sugar balancing strategies such as meal composition, meal timing, fueling strategies, and stress management is something that I end up implementing with each and every one of my private clients.
Here’s the 411 on blood sugar:
Our blood glucose (sugar) levels love to remain in a “goldilocks” range —> not too high, and not too low. Our body does whatever is necessary to keep our blood sugar within that goldilocks range. When we eat, our blood sugar rises. The hormone insulin (released by your pancreas) then goes to work to lower your blood sugar levels by transporting glucose into your cells where it can then be used to produce energy (ATP), stored as a storage form of sugar (aka glycogen), or stored as fat. During times when blood sugar gets too low (i.e. in between meals, overnight, while purposefully fasting, or when skipping meals) 3 different hormones are then released to help raise your blood sugar back to that goldilocks range (those 3 hormones = glucagon, cortisol, epinephrine).
Ideally, throughout the day we want a “kiddie roller coaster” style blood glucose curve: it gently goes up after eating, then gently comes down afterwards and before your next meal. A stable blood glucose response is one in which you don’t see huge spikes above your goldilocks range, and conversely, don’t see huge crashes below your ideal goldilocks range.
What we DON’T want is a “big kid roller coaster” —> this blood sugar curve would look like huge, sharp peaks followed by large, dramatic dips below baseline over and over again throughout the day.
Why don’t we want a big kid coaster, you might ask? Large spikes and crashes of blood sugar are extremely stressful on the body: like I mentioned earlier, when your blood sugar crashes below baseline (which is often preceded by a huge blood sugar spike), your body releases the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine (aka adrenaline) to help bring your blood sugar back up to baseline. Chronically elevated stress hormones send signals to your body to do a few things:
1) make glucose out of protein molecules if there isn’t enough of it stored as glycogen (yes, your body actually starts breaking down proteins such as skeletal muscle to help synthesize more glucose to keep you alive —> not great for those gainz you are working so hard on!).
2) down-regulate the conversion of thyroid hormone (T4) to the active form of thyroid hormone (T3), and upregulate the conversion of T4 to reverse T3 (and inactive form of T3). This can lead to symptoms of low functioning thyroid, and even a subclinical or clinical hypothyroid diagnosis.
3) create cortisol mayhem: chronically high levels of cortisol and epinephrine eventually lead to HPA axis dysregulation. This often looks like cortisol being high when it’s not supposed to be high, and low when it’s not supposed to be low. After being constantly taxed, eventually your adrenals stop outputting these stress hormones when needed. This leads to increased inflammation, immune system depression, as well as vitamin and mineral insufficiencies.
4) down-regulate sex hormone production: a need for constant cortisol production takes resources away from sex hormone production (your reproduction is not a first priority as compared to keeping you alive!).
When people experience this low blood sugar state, they can experience acute symptoms such as exhaustion, headaches, low-energy, anxiousness, nausea, brain fog, shaky, low-appetite, intense cravings, sleep disturbances, and low energy output during workouts (higher RPE).
When your blood sugar spikes high above baseline, insulin is released to bring it back down. Often times, due to the extremely high spike (and your body’s desire to get back to the goldilocks range), your body releases too much insulin (which results in that crash below baseline afterwards). Too much insulin over time leads to something called insulin resistance: a phenomenon where your cells can no longer respond to insulin, which inhibits the ability of glucose to enter the cell (think, an annoying neighbor who always ding dong ditches you- eventually, you just stop answering).
Over time, this back and fourth of high blood sugar spikes and low blood sugar crashes adds up: this eventually leads to period problems (PCOS, infertility, PMS, irregular periods), sluggish thyroid (plus often a resistance to losing weight), inflammation, skin issues, decreased performance in sport, low immune function, pre-diabetes, T2 diabetes, and many other metabolic concerns.
So… to say blood sugar regulation is important is an understatement!
The best way you can learn what your blood sugar is actually doing on a daily basis is to monitor it. That is where a CGM comes in: getting real time feedback on how the food you eat, stressors, training/ workouts, and daily habits affect your blood sugar is critical for being able to move forward with actionable changes. Seeing is believing: sometimes it takes us actually seeing physical data on how what we do impacts our bodies to be able to initiate change.
Interested in a cgm?
I’m partnered with Veri: the most affordable CGM company on the market. As a Clinical Nutritionist, I use CGM’s with my clients regularly, and get to monitor their data from Veri’s coaching platform! For private clients, I get to order CGM’s for each person individually at a discounted rate.
The Veri app gives you some pretty bada** metrics: you can even do a side by side comparison of your meals and see how each affected your blood sugar in different ways! If you are a data lover like I am, this is a serious game changer.
For non-clients interested in a CGM, Veri offers a direct to consumer option: use code “PURELYNOURISHED” at checkout to receive a discount, or click the link here to be directed to Veri’s site with the discount code already applied.
Interested in becoming a client to receive personalized support for blood sugar regulation and beyond? Click here to view my most popular package & for information on how to get started.
Until next time,
Amanda, MS