Carlee Hayes: The Power of Continuous Glucose Monitoring

Are you ready to decode the puzzle of your metabolic health? Join us on an enlightening journey with Carlee Hayes, a registered dietitian and Senior Nutrition Manager at NutriSense, in our latest podcast episode.

Discover how your unique responses to carbohydrates can shape your health. Learn why personalized nutrition is key and how Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) offer real-time insights into your body's reactions to different foods and meal timings.

Carlee shares actionable tips that can seamlessly fit into your routine, like starting meals with protein and vegetables to stabilize blood sugar, timing your carbs for optimal glucose control, and simple practices like taking a short walk after meals.

This episode empowers you to take control of your health with curiosity and informed choices. Tune in and unlock the tools and knowledge you need for a healthier future.

Listen now and take the first step toward mastering your metabolic health!

Florence's courses & coaching programs can be found at:
www.FlorenceChristophers.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome everybody to an interview today with Carly Hayes, who's a registered dietitian and she is the senior nutrition manager with NutriSense, which is one of several major companies that are supplying and working with people to utilize continuous glucose monitors CGMs to figure out exactly what's going on with their blood sugar so that they can personalize their diet and their lifestyle to optimize their blood sugar levels. I'll leave it at that. Carly has put together a presentation about blood sugars and continuous glucose monitors like a 101 for all of us, so I haven't seen it yet. I'm really excited to see it. So, carly, take it away.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Awesome. Thank you so much. I will share my screen really quickly and we'll get going. So today, what we're going to be talking about and I think this is hopefully helpful for everyone right, we're going to be talking about the art and the science of building a blood sugar friendly meal. So so often, I just talk about the science and what our blood sugar is doing in metabolic health, and we will dive into that today. But what I really want to focus on is how you and anyone can apply this to their every single day life, because that's the thing that's tangible, that's the thing that's actionable and is going to help us all be healthier every single day. So what we'll talk about is a couple of different strategies to optimize blood sugar responses, and we'll mostly be looking at postprandial or those meal responses. I'll touch on the other metrics, but we'll touch on the science behind it and the arts of making it happen.

Speaker 2: 1:40

Okay, so a little bit about me before we dive in and, as Florence mentioned, thank you so much. I am the Senior Nutrition Manager at NutriSense and I've been here since 2019, before we were even starting taking members, so when we were just a team of five people that really, really cared about metabolic health and wanted to help others be healthy. We kind of built this company and it's grown so much since 2019. It's really really cool to see where it's at. So, if you don't know, we are a company that leverages that continuous glucose monitoring or that CGM technology to promote metabolic health and just show people that your lifespan, your health span, is in your hands. All you have to do is know what to monitor and how to look at it.

Speaker 2: 2:26

So I, before this, specialized in bariatric nutrition, and what that means is I worked with individuals that were preparing for or after bariatric surgery. Way, way different, right, and I think that whole process showed me that, man, if I could have made an impact earlier on in these people's lives, where would they be now? Right, we need to act early to see those results. The earlier we act, the more we can focus on that proactive and preventative care, the better we can live our lives. So that's really what started my passion for metabolic health and just preventative health care in general my passion for metabolic health and just preventative healthcare in general. And when I saw that this company was doing that with CGMs, I just thought, man, that's the answer. So here I am today loving what I'm doing, truly think that it's one of the best life hacks that anyone can do, so pretty passionate about it. I did get my undergrad at WIU. I had an internship at the Memphis VA in Tennessee and again, when you're working at a VA, I think you see a lot of chronic diseases that again you just wish you could have been there earlier on in their lifespan to help them address that. So all of those different situations and experiences fueled my desire to be passionate about what I'm doing today. To be passionate about what I'm doing today.

Speaker 2: 3:48

So we're going to dive in to the basics of why it's important to maintain good blood sugar, and it makes me really happy that I think most people are kind of on this bandwagon. They're paying attention to blood sugar, they're at least aware of it. But really, metabolic health and when I say metabolism, when I say metabolic, I think that's this big, complicated word, but really what that means is how we're managing our energy right, how we're processing the energy in our bodies. So if we think about blood sugar or glucose, that is our body's preferred source, our primary source of fuel. So if we're looking at blood sugar, we're able to see how effectively we are managing that and how that relates to our energy levels, what we can do about it to optimize it. So I think we all sometimes feel that, oh, this doesn't affect me, I'm in a normal range, I'm good, right. But really I think we all know that we are in the states where metabolic dysfunction isn't necessarily abnormal anymore. Right, this is happening pretty frequently and just to give you a little bit of those stats 37.3 million Americans have diabetes, or 11% of the population. Prediabetes affects 38% of adults and 93% of Americans are considered metabolically unhealthy. Right, so they're not able to optimally process their energy levels. That's a lot, right, that is a pretty prevalent state of metabolic dysfunction. So, in my opinion and from what I've seen, monitoring and optimizing blood sugar is one of the lowest hanging fruit ways to optimize what we're seeing and promote optimal metabolic health.

Speaker 2: 5:30

So some things that you might feel, or benefits of keeping good blood sugar. Number one, since we're talking here about sugar right, you can minimize cravings. So I think one thing to note is that if you are having a large response to a meal and your blood sugar, usually what happens afterwards is that your blood sugar will crash and that is what we are calling the blood sugar roller coaster. So when you're having these big dips and swings and spikes, that's going to cause your body to crave out more sugar to keep energy levels stable. So if we can keep blood sugar in a really stable range by optimizing those meal responses, a lot less cravings, feeling more stable throughout the day. The second thing and this is closely tied right is weight management. We know that how we're managing that energy or that metabolic health is really tied to maintaining an optimal weight. So if your metabolism is functioning appropriately, we can maintain, like that healthy weight balance and regulate how much energy we're using and how much energy we're storing.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Number three is disease prevention. So this is the not so sexy one right. We all know we should be doing this, but it's not the one that we see in the moment, so sometimes it can be harder to be motivated by this one right. But metabolic health is the key to a long lifespan. Poor metabolic health, on contrast, is high insulin resistance, high blood sugar, abnormal lipids and all of those things are related to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. So if we can optimize glucose that's one part of that that can really keep everything in our metabolism working effectively so that we can prevent or at least reduce our risk of those chronic lifestyle-related diseases, that we can prevent or at least reduce our risk of those chronic lifestyle-related diseases.

Speaker 2: 7:32

Number four and this is really tied to all of this but if we are having good use of our energy levels in our body, we're going to have good energy to fuel our day throughout the day. So the food that you eat, that's our usable energy. If we're using it well, we're going to feel good. We're going to be able to do the things and have the energy to do the things that we want to do. And number five is longevity aging. So this is one of the coolest ones that I think some cool research is coming out about. But maintaining a good blood sugar can help you age better, right, it can help you have a better aging process and keep you healthy for a longer period of time. And then, if you put all those together, right, that's improved quality of life. If you have controlled cravings, you're able to maintain a healthy weight, you're reducing your risk of chronic disease. You have good energy, you're aging well. That's a good quality of life.

Speaker 2: 8:25

So metrics to monitor and this is I'm just going to touch on the high level things here and we'll really hone in and focus on that. After meal blood sugar response, so that postprandial glucose. But the other things that we're looking at when it comes to glucose, you can see here there's a lot of them, but we're going to focus on just a couple. So the first one is your morning average. You can see right here, but this is most commonly known as your fasting blood sugar. So I think most of us are probably more familiar with this because this is the one that we get at our doctor's office, right, and this is still helpful to note because we want to maintain a really good level of blood sugar when we're at rest and fasting in between our meals. So that morning blood sugar, or that fasting blood sugar. You might know that a normal level is considered to be less than 100. But from all the research that we've seen so far, we really want to keep that between 70 and 90 for optimal values.

Speaker 2: 9:24

Glycemic variability so this is a little bit harder to understand if you're not using a CGM, and so this right here is what CGM data looks like, right, if you're looking at just a fasting blood sugar level. That's one point in time For CGM data. The benefit or the beauty of it is that you can kind of see this time lapse of all your data all in one space so that you can see how your body is managing that energy over time. So glycemic variability is kind of referring to how many shifts or swings in glucose and the degree of those swings that you have every single day. The important thing with glycemic variability is that those larger shifts, kind of like we talked about, are related to cravings, low energy, a lot of things. So we want to keep that as low as possible and kind of keep blood sugar in that really stable range.

Speaker 2: 10:17

The other thing we're looking at is average blood sugar, or time and range is also really important. But this just shows you what on average, is your blood sugar doing and if you've ever had a hemoglobin A1C taken at your doctor, this is kind of the same thing. It's looking at your average blood sugar over time. Super helpful to know. But it's missing the peaks, it's missing the lows. So any of those postprandial or meal responses are not going to be reflected in that value.

Speaker 2: 10:46

Which brings me to my last point and the thing that we're going to focus on most today and that's postprandial or after meal blood sugars. So this is one thing that's really cool about CGMs is that you know a lot of times if you're measuring blood sugar with a finger prick. You get one point in time, right. You get to see what your blood sugar is in a snapshot. You get one point in time right. You get to see what your blood sugar is in a snapshot. Cgms allow you to see it over time, which is really helpful for after a meal, and we'll get into that in just a second.

Speaker 2: 11:14

So what does a healthy meal response look like? Right, and there's an art and a science to this as well, because there's a lot of small little nuances that play into what we want to see here. So on the left you can see a really, really great blood sugar response and if you look at it, you can see it has kind of all those factors that we've already discussed. It's got a moderate swing, the peak is really low, and then the other thing that we want to see is that it returns to baseline or that premium value within about two to three hours. All of those factors together promote what we call an optimal blood sugar response and relating that back to metabolism. All that tells us is that our body is using our energy well, right, we're doing things that help our body use energy well, and we're going to feel stable throughout the day.

Speaker 2: 12:05

Now, here on the right, you can see what a large or less than optimal blood sugar response looks like, and from this you can see that it spikes really high, right. This yellow portion right here is above where we want to be. You can also see from premial values to the peak. This is a really large shift and it's those larger shifts that kind of get us into that blood sugar roller coaster where our body is really just trying to regulate and get back to that homeostatic range and that takes a lot of energy for our body to do right, to bring it back down, to get it back into the ideal range. A lot of energy, a lot of focus, a lot of attention drawn into that. The last thing you can see here is that it takes over. It's hard to see, but you can. It takes over three hours to get back to where we were pre meal value. So what that tells me is that it took a lot for our body to digest, that we were not equipped to adequately handle that meal, and so we want to pay attention to that. That's this little yellow flag that says, hey, pay attention. We need to tweak some things to keep me in that stable range.

Speaker 2: 13:13

One last caveat here we obviously want to keep this more often, right? This is what we are aiming for. If you have an occasional spike, that's okay. That happens to almost every single person, myself included. I think there sometimes can be some stress or anxiety around looking at your blood sugar, but I encourage anyone that does this just to look at it with curiosity. Right, you see this larger spike. It can be easy to get down on yourself, but really that's just an opportunity to change things and improve. One spike not going to hurt you. We just really want to focus on reducing the frequency of those spikes. All right, so now that we kind of discussed that science, we know what we're looking for. How can we actually improve our meal responses? And I want to say first that even if you are not wearing a CGM and that, as a reminder, is this little tiny device that you wear and it captures your blood sugar for 14 days you can still use these spikes. So no matter these hacks, no matter where you're at in your blood sugar journey. No matter your goal, these are going to be helpful for almost everyone and they can be applied in almost every single meal.

Speaker 2: 14:24

So let's dive in. Just as an overview, there are six main strategies we're going to talk about today. This is just scratching the surface. There are so many other things that we can do, but these are the most actionable strategies that almost everyone can apply. The first is to be cognizant of the order in which we eat the components of our meals. Number two choosing the right types of carbohydrates for you. Three, timing your activity around your meals in a way that works for your schedule. Four, eating your carbs during daylight hours, which we'll get into. Five, try vinegar before your meal. And lastly, break a fast with protein and fat instead of carbs. So, number one, this is just to be cognizant of the order in which you eat your meals, and it's been really inspiring because I think this hack is getting more popular.

Speaker 2: 15:19

There's a lot of Instagram influencers that are promoting this, and for good reason. This is effective for almost every single person that tries it, and that's because the order in which we eat the macronutrients in our meals so carbs, fat and protein, also called meal sequencing plays a huge role in how your body responds. Ideally, we want to eat protein first, then veggies and fats, and then, if you're having carbs in your meal, save those for last. So why exactly does this work? Right, let's dive into the science and then we'll go into the art of it. So there's been a couple of studies that looked at this, and one recent study found that meal sequencing, as this is called specifically consuming protein first before starchy carbs promotes the secretion of glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, which we hear about all the time now. But this hormone is secreted in the gut and it suppresses the signals of the hormone that causes our body to produce more glucose. Also, while it's doing this, it stimulates the secretion of insulin, which lowers glucose. So what does this mean? This is good, right, because this helps us prevent more glucose output and helps us control the glucose that we are consuming in our meal. Additionally, another study found that you had the similar impact when you had protein and non-starchy vegetables and then your carbohydrates. So you have a little bit of flexibility in how you want to apply this.

Speaker 2: 16:53

I think the takeaway here is protein and veggies first, save your carbs for after. So how do we apply this? How do we make this work actually in our real life? Whenever you're having a meal, first of all and I think a lot of us struggle with this but make sure you're having enough protein with it. Identify the protein that you're having in that meal first. Eat that first. If you don't have enough protein, if you're out to eat, order a side of protein and make sure you have that meal first. Walking through some examples, remember to opt for good quality meats. Maybe try high protein yogurt. Or, if you're vegetarian, try tofu, tempeh first, then your low carb veggies like a salad or tomato, avocado, greens, broccoli, all of those things next, and then, if you're having a carbohydrate, save that for last. So, after you've had protein and veggies, maybe try some whole fruit, some starches like rice or potatoes, or a small portion of dessert, if that's what you're including with your meal. This hack can make a huge difference and it can be applied in almost every single situation.

Speaker 2: 18:02

Number two choose the right type of carbohydrates for your body, and what I can say with absolute confidence is that, after reviewing thousands of members' data, one thing is very, very clear there's a lot of interpersonal variability in responses, especially with carbohydrates right. So what works for me might not work for you. What works for this influencer you're following on Instagram might not work for you, right? So factors like gender, microbiome, genetics, body composition all of those things influence our unique response to foods. So it's really important to know what works for your body. If we're looking at a study, it was a couple of years ago now, but it looked at glucose responses to over 100,000 standardized isocaloric meals 100,000 standardized isocaloric meals and it looked at those in healthy individuals, right? So what that means is that they gave the same exact meal to a ton of really, really healthy people and they saw huge variability in the responses.

Speaker 2: 19:09

And while there are some similarities, you know, if you maybe are consuming candy, you might always have a spike, right? But those different types of carbs are going to respond differently in your body, even if you think that they are supposed to be healthy carbs. So there's been a lot of times when you know we follow these food rules. Example is sweet potatoes are healthier than white potatoes, right? That's a food rule or a common lesson that we all get taught. When I monitored my own glucose, I found the exact opposite. I had higher responses to sweet potatoes and lower responses to white potatoes. Now I like white potatoes more, so now I know that I can include that in my diet and have a healthy response. So there is some science to that.

Speaker 2: 19:55

So how do we actually apply this right? There's a couple different things to look at, and the first one is quantity. And again, if you're not using a CGM, that's okay, you can still experiment with this, and what I would say is start very small with carbohydrates, so start with a third of a cup. If you are including carbs in your diet and if you're checking your blood sugar, you can see how your body responded to that meal and make adjustments accordingly. If you're unable to measure, you're not using a CGM, that's okay too. You can pay attention to how you feel afterwards, how your energy is, whether you had that blood sugar crash, feeling right. So that can help you gauge whether that type of carb was right, whether the portion size is right, and then you can kind of play around with each.

Speaker 2: 20:43

The second thing we want to look at is quality, and the thing I would say here is that the processing of your food matters. The more it's processed, the further it goes from that original source, usually the quicker we can absorb it and digest it in our bodies. So, for instance, a way that we could apply this is, if you're going to have oatmeal, try steel cut oats instead of instant oats. If you are a fan of rice, maybe try regular rice instead of rice crackers. Right, that processing causes your body to process it quicker, often resulting in a higher spike in glucose. And then one thing we all know is always include whole fruit over juices and dried fruits. Those are going to have a much larger response in your blood sugar. And, like I mentioned with the sweet potato example, I think it's important not to disregard our preferences and our desire for personalization, because that can make this sustainable right. If you find out that you like white rice better and you actually respond just as well to white rice as brown rice, that can give you a lot of freedom in what you eat, so that you're more sustainable and you feel satisfied from the meals that you actually have. So my advice there disregard all food rules and know that you have to test for your body to know what's right for you.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Tip number three is to time your activity around your meals. This is a huge one, so whenever possible, we want to pair our exercise with our meals, especially if they're higher carb meals. So carbohydrate containing foods have the largest impact on our blood sugar. So the more hacks we can kind of time around those, the better our blood sugar response is going to be. So our muscles are a huge sink for blood sugar, right, we can use energy from the meals that we eat to fuel our movements, and that muscle is going to be the way that we do that. So if we are moving before or moving after a meal, we're able to soak up that glucose and use it to fuel our movements. For example, one single session of aerobic exercise increases the amounts of blood sugar we can use for up to 48 hours, so that's going to enhance our insulin sensitivity for 24 to 48 hours. That's huge, right? Resistance training is also really, really crucial here, because the more muscle we have, the more sink we have for glucose, the more we can soak it up and use it every single day.

Speaker 2: 23:10

So how do we apply this? There's a couple of different ways, and the thing that I would recommend everyone do first is just take a realistic look at your schedule and ask yourself what's sustainable for you. Right, can you schedule a workout before your meal? If yes, if that works for your schedule, awesome. Always plan for that and you'll always have those benefits of improved insulin sensitivity due to that exercise. If not, what other ways can you add it in? And I think the big thing here, and the thing that I've personally found so helpful, is that even a 10 to 15 minute walk after your meals can help promote that enhanced insulin sensitivity and blunt your blood sugar response. So it doesn't have to be large, it can be really really small. Even standing instead of sitting after your meals can help your body use that glucose a little bit more effectively.

Speaker 2: 24:02

The last thing here is to plan your higher carb or your larger meals around when your muscles are going to be working the most and you're most active. So remember, we're more sensitive to insulin after a workout. So if you're not moving as much, keep your portion sizes of your carbohydrates maybe a little bit smaller. This doesn't mean you have to eliminate them, but just kind of titrate those to your activity level so that you can use what you consume If you're having a day with a lot of activity. I just went on a backpacking trip last weekend and I had a ton of carbs because my body needed it right. It was utilizing that fuel regularly, and so that helps me optimize and not feel restricted during that time.

Speaker 2: 24:49

Tip number four this is all about timing, but all food timing especially carbs matters. I think we focus so much on what we eat, but the when we eat is just as important. So the hormones that help us digest our foods are really closely tied to our body's natural circadian rhythms, and what this means is that we are more sensitive to insulin. We're going to have better responses to foods, be able to effectively process our blood sugar earlier in the day, and that's going to wane as the day moves on. So remember that our body is going to be primed for rest and digest mode later on during the night. So the earlier we can have those meals typically, the better we're going to see those responses.

Speaker 2: 25:32

We've talked a lot about how blood sugar responses vary from person to person, and that is 100% true, but this is one of the rules that I would say is almost universal for every single person is that the later you eat, typically the higher response you're going to have. So how do we apply this? I know this one's sometimes a little bit challenging because we have families and schedules that we have to accommodate to, but just remember that there's ways that we can make this work for any single person. So if you are having a larger meal, if you're having a carb heavy meal, try and aim that earlier in the day. Maybe add a walk afterwards and have that later meal. A little bit more protein, veggies and the things that we know don't have as big of an impact on blood sugar. Again, schedules get crazy. So if you cannot eat earlier in the day, that's okay. You just aim for those meals that are going to be a little bit lower in carbohydrate, maybe a smaller portion size.

Speaker 2: 26:25

If you're a shift worker, I know this is really, really challenging. So do the best that you can Work with a nutritionist to find a schedule that works for you. But whenever possible, eat earlier in the day. And again, with work with busy schedules, I know that's challenging. But I would encourage everyone to stop eating at least three hours before bed and maybe to lean on some strategies, some hacks that make that dinner meal a little bit easier to get on the table sooner. So that's batch cooking your meats. You know, cook them all in a weekend, have them later on. Lean on ready-made salads, use instant pots for convenience and quickness. All of those things can really really help make this a little easier.

Speaker 2: 27:08

Tip number five and this one's a fun one If you like vinegar. If you don't, it's a little bit more challenging, but the research is ongoing. But what we do know is that for a lot of people consuming vinegar specifically apple cider vinegar before meals can really help blunt your responses to meals that contain carbohydrates. And the way that this works or the way that we think that it works is that acetic acid that's in apple cider vinegar or any vinegar right may help reduce blood sugar responses by inhibiting the enzymes involved in carbohydrate digestion in the GI tract. Now, if you don't like vinegar, this one might be one that you skip, but if you do like it or you want to try this one, some ways to do that add a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar to your water and consume that before the meal. Make sure to drink it through a straw to protect the enamel of your teeth, but that's a really cool one and if you like those types of drinks, that can be a really fun one. The other way, and the way that I prefer to do this, is just to mix it into olive oil, add it to a pre-meal salad. We already know that having those non-starchy vegetables first can be helpful. Then you add this to it. This can be a powerful, powerful tool to improve your blood sugar response.

Speaker 2: 28:24

Number six and our final tip and this one, I think, is very, very important but this is how you break your fast. And when I say breaking a fast, this can apply to you if you're doing longer fasts, this can apply to you if you're an intermittent faster or if you're just fasting from dinner to breakfast. How you break that fast is critical. Overnights, our bodies enter that rest and digest cycle, right. So when we break our fast, we are going to be less sensitive to the effects of insulin, right. So this can lead to higher glucose responses, especially when we're having carbohydrate-rich foods first thing in the morning or whenever we're breaking our fast foods.

Speaker 2: 29:08

First thing in the morning or whenever we're breaking our fast, if you think of a traditional American breakfast, what is it? Pancakes, toast, french toast all those things are so high carb. So it can really be challenging and we kind of have to go against the norm to apply this hack. But if you're breaking your fast with carbohydrates, you can almost always expect to have a larger glucose response than you would if you were breaking it with protein and fat. So how do we actually apply this? You might be sick of me even saying protein, because I know I've been saying that a lot today, but it really is critical, right.

Speaker 2: 29:39

So if you are having breakfast, or whenever you're breaking your fast, make sure your protein is consumed first. So eggs over pancakes, omelets over crepes, greek yogurt plain greek yogurt unsweetened over a fruit smoothie that's going to be really high in that sugar. Nuts and coconut over granola and cereal. And then one of the pro tips that I use I know this might be a little weird for a lot of people, but I almost always have leftover meat from dinner for my breakfast. So I'll still have my carbs whatever I'm having with breakfast that I like. I just add a little bit of that portion beforehand to optimize my response. This can really be tailored to your preferences. I think the big picture with anything is protein first. So just a quick recap of all the things we've talked about today.

Speaker 2: 30:29

Your blood sugar response to meals matters for your metabolic health, for your well-being, how you're feeling, how you're aging, and this can impact how you're feeling in the moment, so your cravings, your energy levels and just how you feel from day to day, but also your, your long-term health outcomes, right, your disease risk, your ability to process energy long-term. So it's really important to pay attention to this, if you're monitoring or not, and just kind of apply some of these strategies whenever you can. There's no one size fits all method for eating. Everything is personalized, so it's really important to experiment. But yeah, even if you don't measure blood sugar, these things can be applied every single day if you choose to.

Speaker 2: 31:13

So, breaking it down step by step, remember to start your meal with apple cider vinegar, maybe a little bit in your water or a salad first. Protein and veggies next. Keep those carbs for last. Choose a carbohydrate that works for you, minimize the processing, opt for those whole food carbs and then also make sure that it's last Time. Those higher carb meals for earlier in the day or around exercise, because you're going to be more insulin sensitive and promote a better glucose response from that. Limit eating at night and eat smart if you can't do that. So protein, veggies, all the things that have a lower response on blood sugar, those can be prioritized if you have to, last but not least, always break your fast with protein and limit those carbohydrates on an empty stomach when we're going to be more sensitive to them, and that's it. Thank you so much for tuning in, and that's it.

Speaker 1: 32:11

Thank you so much for tuning in. Hope you got a lot out of this questions. Thank you so much. Uh, carly, if you want to stop sharing your screen, sure, yeah, okay, good, that puts you back in in the bit. They can see you big, wonderful. Thank you for that. Really great. And I do have a few questions for you, for people, people that aren't familiar with CGMs can you tell us a little bit more about it? The common questions are do they hurt? How do I get one? What if my doctor won't prescribe it? I guess those are the top three questions that we could start with.

Speaker 2: 32:39

Yes, excellent questions. And what a CGM is is a continuous glucose monitor. So it is something that you wear, so you insert it and it's a little tiny sensor. It looks like two quarters stacked on top of each other and it just lays on your skin with an adhesive and measures your blood sugar or your interstitial fluid sugar for 14 days. There is no needle that stays in your skin.

Speaker 2: 33:05

I think that's always a big concern that I hear. It's just a little tiny microfilament, and to the question that I always get is like, does this hurt? I would say no, I've never. And I can't speak for everyone, because if you have a very, very small fat percentage, sometimes inserting into the muscle hurts a little bit more, but for me I've never felt it. There is a sound when you apply it and I think that's the scary thing because you hear it insert, but again, there's no needle in your skin, so you don't feel it. It's literally just sticking there all day long and you can do all your normal activities, so sauna, workout, shower, all those things. You just have this little buddy on it and what's cool about it is that you can scan it with your phone, or some of them automatically transfer the information to your phone and you can see what your blood sugar is doing at any time of the day. So instead of that like one point in time, you get 14 days of data so you can see what your blood sugar is doing overnight when you're sleeping, your meals like we've kind of talked about today and just all those other things like average, and so you get the full picture of how your glucose is playing around with your metabolic health.

Speaker 2: 34:12

And then to answer the question about insurance, yes, this is the red tape for CGMs and this is what we're trying to solve. It is challenging to get a prescription for a CGM because they do require a doctor's prescription, at least in the US, in Canada and some areas of Europe. You can get them over the counter Not a huge deal, right, but here they're still only typically prescribed if you have a very, very progressive doctor or if you have type 1 diabetes or poorly controlled type 2. So what our program does is try and eliminate some of that red tape. So we have a doctor on staff that reviews all of your health information and approves that prescription for you so that you can get it sent to your door. You don't have to go through all those hoops to get it. But yeah, hopefully my goal is to bring awareness to this technology and what it can do for us so that they can be available over the counter here as well.

Speaker 1: 35:05

There's just no reason. I mean, I'm in Canada, I could walk into any drugstore anywhere. Yeah, just walk in. Could I have a CGM, no problem.

Speaker 1: 35:21

So one of the things I found with my CGM is that it became a little bit addictive. I was like constantly scanning it, I was constantly curious and of course I gave myself sort of this challenge I want to be 80% of the time in my zone, which was about I think it was 72 to 104 was kind of my range and to stay with that 80% of the time. And what it does is eventually you become your own, you become your own nutritional guru. You figure out, okay, what do I need to do to stay in that zone and what foods that you think, oh, that's not a problem food for me.

Speaker 1: 35:51

And then you see it soar up to 170 and you're like what? Yes, I never would have guessed. And weird foods that you're just being really, really react glycemically reactive to. So that's kind of one of the interesting things. What would you say is the highest? I sort of within that safe zone, the highest you'd want to see a food pusher or a meal pusher blood sugar up into, is it 140, 150, 110? I hear all kinds of different numbers.

Speaker 2: 36:18

Yes, and I think there's a lot of opinions on this. But from the research that we've seen, we really want to keep blood sugar glucose under 140 most of the time and just like anything that's going to be. We really want to keep blood sugar glucose under 140 most of the time and just like anything, that's going to be different from person to person because you might feel better at a lower range, right, you might be more sensitive to those glucose shifts. So from the research that we've seen so far, below 140, most of the time is good. That's where we want to be kind of that 70 to 140 range and that's the range that I mentioned we were.

Speaker 2: 36:47

Body really tries hard to keep us in that homeostatic range and when we're pushing above that or even below that, that's that little yellow flag that says hey, pay attention to me, something is not working. I can't keep glucose in that range. And that could be that our body's just not processing the foods that we're eating while we're eating, not great foods, we're timing foods inappropriately. There's so many different factors but again, that's just your little sign to be curious, pay attention and start to tweak some things to see if you can optimize it. And I mentioned this in the presentation.

Speaker 2: 37:18

But one thing I'm really passionate about is making sure people don't get hung up on that or feel food shame from that spike Because I have seen it right up on that, or feel food shame from that spike because I have seen it right. If you are really trying to improve your metabolic health or you're scared that you're going to develop some chronic disease, seeing that spike can be really scary. But remember that you're looking at it with curiosity. You just want to test it, see what you can optimize, and one spike isn't going to make or break you. It's all about repetition frequency keeping it below 140 as much as possible.

Speaker 1: 37:50

One of the other things that was very surprising for my clients at UCGMs is that they'll get these surprising episodes of low blood sugar, like they always thought. Oh, of course my blood sugar is high and I eat too much carbs and I know I do but they didn't expect to see how many low blood sugar episodes they were having, often in the middle of the night, which would wake them up, or when they were just suddenly feeling irritable. If they're feeling a little irritable or just, you know, a little bit more temperamental, boom they. They check it and they could see they were having sort of a bit of a blood sugar, low blood sugar moment. And the other thing that happens is when they first get their CGM. Often there's an alarm and for people that are more prone to those lower dips, it's like going off in the middle of the night and their husband's divorce.

Speaker 2: 38:35

It's terrible. Yes, yeah, and that's the thing that we see too. We see sometimes reactive hypoglycemia or just hypoglycemia in general, where your blood sugar is going lower than desired, and this can be due to a lot of different conditions that you might have. You know there's hypothyroidism. That can definitely, you know, interplay with that hypoglycemia. Or, if you are, one thing that we see sometimes is that if people have a large influx of liquid carbs or simple sugar carbs, the body can overreact by secreting too much insulin because they're like, ah, the body says I got to get this down really quick, this is too much and it over compensates for that spike. And we see that drop below baseline and that's where you feel kind of shaky and irritable and not great. So that's again a sign it's going below where we want it to be. If you don't feel well, how can we address that and kind of prevent that in the future?

Speaker 1: 39:32

And one of the things we discover as we start to play with our CGM is that the exercise has a profound impact on our blood sugars, and so does sleep, and so does stress. And so it's not just about food. A big piece of it, huge, but it's not just about food, not just about food, a big piece of it, huge.

Speaker 2: 39:51

but it's not just about food.

Speaker 2: 39:51

Do you want to speak to that? Yes, 100%, I think this is where. So NutriSense and not to you know sound like a NutriSense ad. But this is why I think that we're set. We set ourselves apart because we have that human to point out all those factors. You know there's a lot of different apps, like the Libre app, can kind of point you at different things, but only a human can kind of look at all of those factors and help you identify which ones impacting your blood sugar.

Speaker 2: 40:13

If it's not food. Food's the easiest one to identify, because you eat something, you see it right. But stress or poor sleep can impact your baseline values and how you respond to meals the next day and how you respond to meals the next day. So if you are not getting enough sleep, if you're stressed, your insulin sensitivity is going to be lower, so you're gonna have higher responses to meals that maybe you typically do well with and that can be, I think, infuriating because it's not objective, right, it's subjective. You have to kind of be self-aware to identify that and to address it.

Speaker 2: 40:44

But yes, I always say that metabolic health is like this, this pillar, and it's held up by four tiers food, and that includes the timing, what we eat. When we eat all that stuff, exercise or movements, sleep and stress and all of those are equally supporting our metabolic health. So if one of them falls, the whole thing could tip over. I think it's so easy for us to say, oh, sleep isn't as important, I'll just focus on diet, and that seems more of an in our control. But really all of those things are equally as important. Mm, hmm.

Speaker 1: 41:18

What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're first getting the hang of wearing a CGM and using a CGM for getting the hang?

Speaker 2: 41:27

of wearing a CGM and using a CGM, the first one that comes to my mind is the instant desire to eat perfectly Whenever we know that we are being monitored, or even if it's us monitoring it, no one else is looking at it. We don't wanna see a spike, we don't wanna see it go above. So I see this all the time, as people will eat perfectly and that's not what they normally eat but because they're looking at it, they eat perfect. No bad foods, cheap foods I hate that term but no fun foods that they would normally include. And I think that's really doing them a disservice, because one of the benefits maybe the most important benefit of wearing a CGM is that it provides accountability for you long-term right. So when you see that spike, that tells your brain, hey, I need to make some adjustments here, and you're going to remember that when you try and choose that food or that habit or whatever it is later on.

Speaker 2: 42:20

I only wear a CGM periodically now, you know, once a month, once every three months kind of depends on where I'm at, but the learnings that I've had from CGMs are in my mind every meal of every day. Oh, I'm going to plan this. I'm all these hacks that I just talked about. Those are always in my mind, and that's the beauty of it, right, you don't have to do it forever, but you're going to learn based on what your body's telling you, and that's a beautiful thing. So test all the things, see all the spikes, look at them with curiosity and then experiment, tweak, get curious. I think that's the thing that most people do wrong.

Speaker 1: 42:56

Very, very right, right, don't. Don't waste your money, like if you go test those foods like be a scientist, yes, or people will be traveling.

Speaker 2: 43:04

They're like I don't want to see it while I'm traveling, I'm like no see it. You know what I mean, but there is a layer of like. You know, if it's going to cause you more stress than good, then okay, take a week off, take two weeks off, that's totally fine. But I do think it's important to see that so that you have that power and knowledge moving forward.

Speaker 1: 43:22

Yes, I agree, and it definitely does that accountability piece to yourself. There's no outside pressure, this is your own body telling you oh, that was too much, or that was the wrong kind or wrong timing or whatever, and it's just your body talking to you and it's hard to sort of say oh, please like, oh, it's data, it's data.

Speaker 2: 43:46

You can't hide from the data. You just you can't. And I think what I have seen and I think is really cool, is that sometimes that leads to a better relationship with food. If people can see oh, I don't have to avoid bananas because this article told me that I had to, or that it was a high glycemic food, I actually respond really well. If you know what your body's doing and how your body's responding, that negates any food rules that you've ever read and can help you feel more in tune with your own body.

Speaker 1: 44:14

Oh, so cool. And I had a client once who's been on the whole food path, kind of lower carb, lost a hundred pounds, really, really committed, doing great. And she wore it. She's worn a CGMm periodically and she recently decided to put one on because it was summer and she was thinking she might want to expand the kinds of fruit she eats, away from berries to more like peaches and stuff that were in season. And she's like, okay, I'm gonna put on a cgm just to see what happens here.

Speaker 1: 44:40

And she ate a peach on an empty stomach just she knew it was just the peach like there was no, there wasn't going to be anything that was going to bias the number and there wasn't much of a lift at all. She's like what is this thing working? Like what's happening here anyway? So she, she, she, uh. She tried it again and same thing it was really relative, almost no lift. So then she ate two, the slight more lift. Never got above 110. And then one day she tried it and I think it was after a meal and there was a bit of a lift and then there was a drop and then there was another lift. There was like a double spike and it came down and she's like what is happening? I'm like honey, your body's telling you you are metabolically healed and well on the way of like you're healing. You're genuinely doing this. Look at you. You can't even make a peach spike. You now.

Speaker 2: 45:36

That's huge. Oh, that's awesome, and I think those are the cool success stories. Right, it's like now I have more food freedom, or I can apply these tweaks to meals that don't do well for me, but I don't have to eliminate them entirely. Right, I think that's huge.

Speaker 1: 45:51

Yeah, she has more flexibility with your fruit stuff. She isn't going and being silly because she's on the sugar addiction spectrum and knows that she's playing with fire. She doesn't want cravings to come back. She doesn't want to tempt fate and send her herself back to metabolic problems, right, but so she was eating them at the end of meals and doing all the proper order etc. But she knows it's confirmation your hard work. All those times when you say I know I'll take a pass, I'll have the salad instead or I'll have some extra protein please, instead of whatever you know, it really really can be proven to yourself with a CGM that you are. The work is paying off.

Speaker 2: 46:27

Yes, I always tell that to people too is like when you're trying to lose, when someone's trying to lose weight, right. How frustrating is it when you're doing all the right things quote, unquote right things and you're seeing no or little movement on the scale. Some of those metrics or you know, maybe you're trying to improve fasting glucose Some of those metrics take a really long time to see your benefits pay off. Or all those hard work efforts to see it actually in your labs or in your weight, whatever it is. And that's the cool thing about the CGM is you see it immediately. Oh, I did not make great decision here. Or wow, this was awesome. I added this walk afterwards and look how much lower this got. That's going to motivate me to continue that you don't have to wait around for results. You can see in real time how your decisions affect your health and then, of course, see it improve over time. But I think that's part of why it's so helpful for behavior change in general.

Speaker 1: 47:20

Totally, totally agree. So, just as we're wrapping up here, I just want to put a little bit of a shameless plug in for NutriSense, partially because they agreed to be on our summit and share their expertise and their tens of thousands of individuals that they've worked with. They're gathering the data, they're looking at the data, they're researching, they're contributing to the sort of open source world of people talking about blood sugars and what all of us trying to better understand. But if you don't have a doctor that will prescribe it, nutrisense can help you. And even if you do have somebody, a medical doctor, who will prescribe it, the first time you, the first two weeks, there's going to be a lot of questions that come up, even though we've covered the basics.

Speaker 1: 48:13

There's going to be little tiny things that will come up that it's really helpful to have somebody who's go ah, here's what we found, or try this, or oh, this is the science behind that. So it's just good to sort of be held. You don't have to do this forever. Again, it's an intervention that you can choose to use every now and then. But those early weeks, those early weeks, it can be really helpful to have someone grab you by the hand and walk you through make the most of this CGM experience. Carly, is there any final words you'd like to say before we wrap up today?

Speaker 2: 48:38

I guess I would just end by saying I hope this has inspired you, wherever you're at in your blood sugar monitoring journey, just to make some of these actionable tips applicable for you. And then, as a reminder you have the power of your health in your own hands. Don't wait for anyone else to help you with that. You can get support if you need it, but you have the power to make a change in your health today.

Speaker 1: 48:59

Thank you so much, Carly, for your time today.

Speaker 2: 49:01

Thank you so much.