In September, I found myself standing in front of an open fridge, starving but struggling to decide what to eat. What I chose could trigger a spike in my glucose levels, according to a new app on my phone, and I was determined not to let that happen.
I had just started wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), a small device that sticks to your arm and uses a needle to measure your blood sugar in near real-time. While CGMs are mainly for people with diabetes, these days, they’re also marketed as wellness tools, so I decided to give it a try.
Should I have an apple? Too sugary. A granola bar? That would spike my glucose. Cheese, however, was the answer. A few days of wearing the CGM had shown me that cheese didn’t affect my blood sugar.
“Is this thing putting you on the keto diet?” my husband asked, having seen my frustration as I tried to figure out what to eat without triggering my glucose monitor.
Pretty much. By focusing on protein and fat, rather than carbs, I was avoiding glucose spikes. But since I wasn’t aiming for a strict ketogenic diet, I still had trouble deciding what to eat. In the first week, my scale showed a 3-pound drop in weight, likely because I was so nervous about what to eat that I hardly ate at all.
As per the Leaders Asia sources, CGMs have been a game-changer for people with type 1 diabetes, helping them monitor glucose levels and adjust their insulin doses. But this year, the manufacturers of two major CGM brands, Dexcom and Abbott, released biosensors for people without diabetes. These devices, like Dexcom’s Stelo and Abbott’s Lingo, are available without a prescription for about $89 a month and can provide insights into how food, exercise, stress, and sleep impact blood sugar levels.
I was excited to try it. Applying the CGM was easy, and just an hour later, I could check my glucose levels in real time on an app. “117,” I texted to Dr. Jody Dushay, who had offered to review my results. The app told me that was within a normal glucose range, but Dushay had cautioned me that glucose levels could vary from person to person, especially in healthy young adults.
Over the next few days, I couldn’t stop checking the app. Every time I ate, I watched my glucose levels rise. The app tracks something called Lingo Counts, a measure of how much your glucose fluctuates throughout the day. I soon found myself trying to keep my Lingo Count as low as possible, with the app encouraging me to do squats after meals to help balance out my numbers. But after a while, I relaxed and stopped obsessing over keeping it too low.
Some of my readings were surprising. A salad with quinoa and peanut dressing caused a huge spike, while pizza and wine didn’t affect my glucose much at all. “Your values are perfectly normal,” Dushay reassured me when I sent her my data. “What you’re seeing as spikes are just natural fluctuations.”
The real question, though, was whether these fluctuations could help me improve my health. Could the CGM help me find better food choices, improve my energy, and lower my risk of disease? Or would it simply confirm that my pancreas was functioning normally, as it should?
Opinions on the usefulness of CGMs for people without diabetes are divided. Some experts believe that monitoring glucose can help prevent metabolic diseases, while others think that for most people, spikes within a normal range are nothing to worry about.
As per the Leaders Asia sources, Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, believes that keeping glucose levels steady is important for everyone. “If you keep your glucose down,” he said, “you keep your insulin down, and when you keep your insulin down, you prevent fat storage and chronic disease.”
After wearing the CGM for four weeks, I decided to take a break. I realized I had been eating abnormally, adjusting my meals in response to the data, rather than just observing how my body was responding. I decided to use the final monitor to track my usual habits without the pressure of constantly checking my glucose.
One week, I stopped looking at my glucose levels and just recorded my food, entering it into the app at the end of the day. In the second week, I made small changes to my routine. I noticed that some meals, like banana bread for breakfast, caused a steady increase in glucose, while others, like Greek yogurt or chia pudding, didn’t.
But overall, I found that the biggest benefit of the CGM was encouraging me to stop snacking mindlessly. I didn’t want to track every bite of graham crackers I had with my kids, and the app’s feedback motivated me to be more mindful of my eating habits.
“I think there’s a place for CGMs in behavioral management,” said Dr. Nicole Spartano, a researcher at Boston University. “We’re just in the early stages of understanding how this tool can predict long-term health outcomes.”
