Why Balancing Your Blood Sugar Can Improve Your Health

It’s true! Balancing your blood sugar levels can significantly improve your health. It’s because blood sugar levels can affect so many different aspects within our body. 

You probably heard about people checking their blood sugar levels. Most of the time, we associate it with Diabetes, and most people don’t think twice about it. It all makes perfect sense, though, why would you care if you’re not sick. 

I will tell you why! Because your blood sugar levels, even perfectly normal ones, can tell you a lot about your diet, about your performance in the gym and just general wellbeing. 

Maintaining regular insulin and blood sugar levels can have a range of benefits: 

• Increased energy levels 
• Less cravings 
• Improved move
• Reduced fatigue 
• Improved brain health 
• Reduced risk of developing certain chronic diseases 
• Better skin health 
• Better weight management 

You can follow the good old track of prickling your finger multiple times a day- before food, after food, couple hours after a meal, before gym, after gym. There would be a lot of poking happening if you were to follow the traditional tracker route. However, in the past few years, the new type of trackers really started showing up. They are called Continuous Glucose Monitors. Well, they kinda did exist before, they were and are used by people with Type 1 Diabetes, and have a function of insulin pump to even out the levels. They look like this, and have a very specific purpose. 

We will not be talking about these ones. 

We’ll be talking about Continuous Glucose Monitors that look like this: 

How does it work?

How do those trackers work in the first place? The device usually consists of the monitoring device (or an app on the phone) and the sensor that gets inserted into the subcutaneous layer of the skin. This sensor creates signals using glucose oxidase reaction and produces a current which is proportional to the glucose concentration in the interstitial fluid (body fluid between blood vessels and cells). 

Diet

Diet is such an interesting part of it all. What you eat during the day might not have the effect that I would have while eating the same exact foods.

If you have any sort of  athletic goal, figuring out what foods work best for you can be that factor keeping you from achieving your highest potential. By using a CGM, you can get the information that you need to get to the next level. It provides you with real-time insights about your body’s response to the foods you’re eating, the times of the meals that work better than others and the effects of food if it’s consumed before or after the exercise. 

Fitness

Athletes are the new group that can hugely benefit from wearing the tracker, even for a month. CGM provides potential to increase performance, speed up recovery and be helpful in endurance training. 

Health– prevention of chronic illness

Improved Performance & Energy Levels:  CGM can allow you to have an almost instant performance boost. Instead of spending weeks or even months trying to figure out what works for your body and what doesn’t, CGM can give you information that you need to adjust your lifestyle instantly. 

Have you ever felt sleepy or sluggish after a meal? Most of us have. This can be correlated to a higher carbohydrate meal. It makes your blood sugar levels spike up causing Hyperglycemia, to which your body, in reaction to high blood sugar pumps insulin, to even it out, causing the blood sugar levels to drop really low (Hypoglycemia). This leads to the sleepy, foggy, unfocused feeling that we get after. Our brains are responsible for burning about 20%, sometimes even more, of the daily calories.

Metabolic Fitness: Metabolic fitness refers to the ability of our bodies to use different food sources for fuel in the most effective way. 

When the blood sugar rises, your pancreas secretes insulin, causing the blood sugar levels to be taken up by the cells of the body. If you are regularly having higher glucose levels and higher levels of insulin, there’s a chance of developing insulin resistance, which can in turn lead to metabolic syndrome and after that to Diabetes. 

What insulin resistance does, it causes less sugar to be taken up by the body, so then the actual blood sugar level is higher on average. Not only that but you’ll also have higher levels of insulin in the blood.  These factors can prevent fat from your adipose tissue from being mobilized and used as a fuel source. On top of that there are other issues like inflammation, oxidative stress and others. 

A lot of chronic illnesses are also rooted in metabolic dysfunction, some being- heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity. 

Some ways to determine good metabolic fitness include: 

• Blood sugar rising minimally after the mean and quickly returning to the baseline
• Blood sugar staying in the tight window where it ranges
• Having the fasting levels in the low-risk range

Tips for managing blood sugar levels (findings from wearing the glucose trackers and other studies): 

Tip 1: The Order in which you eat your food matters. Starting with fiber rich foods, like a salad before the meal, can aid in the digestion process and keep that sugar spike minimal. 

Tip 2: Meal composition makes a difference. Consuming only carbs can cause the blood sugar to spike, however, if it’s combined with some protein and fats, that can keep it from climbing up. 

Tip 3: Exercise can allow you to ‘cheat’. Even something like a low intensity steady walk can aid in keeping your blood sugar in check, especially if done after a meal. When it comes to high intensity workout, after that, you can basically eat a variety of combinations and not have blood sugar rise. 

Tip 4: Eating later in the day may complicate things. 6pm dinner and 10 pm meal have different effects on your body. Our bodies release melatonin (sleep hormone) in the evening to tell us that the bedtime is approaching. Not only that, but it inhibits insulin secretion by building on receptors on the pancreas. Late night hyperglycemia and following hypoglycemia can really disturb sleep. 

Tip 5: Poor sleep can spike your sugar. Following an unhealthy sleep pattern, not getting enough sleep or getting poor sleep can increase the variability of up and down movements of the blood sugar that following day. 

Tip 6: Meal pacing matters. Eating quickly on the go is something that is almost unavoidable these days, but doing that can also influence the blood sugar fluctuation. Eating your meal normally and really spending time doing it can aid in minimizing those fluctuations and keeping them in a tight range zone.  

Some people claim that it is the next big thing for optimizing overall health, longevity and athletic performance. Others say that it’s overrated and doesn’t provide the information that is needed. 

Where is the truth? Somewhere in the middle, like most things?

It just depends. It depends on your goals, how influenced you are by the information like the one that tracker will give you and really the need for this data. 

If you are someone who is easily influenced by the information, you obsess over the number of calories you burn, always trying to do better, you see your step goals and push to hit more and more steps, you track your food religiously and get triggered if you overeat, maybe adding another device to track your data isn’t for you. Also, if that is the case, taking some time off all the tracking can be beneficial. 

On the other hand, if you’re someone who works well with extra data and wants to improve performance, make sure nutrition is as balanced as it possibly can be and push yourself to that next level, then it is something to consider. 

Currently, there are a couple of different brands on the market, other than the trackers that are created for diabetics. Supersapiens (not for sale in the U.S.) and Levels being the biggest ones. Both are in the $200-300 range per month, and you receive a box with the tracker and everything else you need to get the party started. And for Levels there’s even a waiting list to be able to get this new piece of tech.

Either way there are some great takeaways just from learning to managing blood glucose spikes with or without these new wearables.\

P.S. Looking to optimize your health? Don’t forget to check out my Master Your Health Ebook with over 95 pages of nutrition tips, food lists, grocery list planner, meal plan organizer, workouts, recipes + so much more!