Elite cyclist Tracey Jacobs, a seasoned athlete with national championship wins and over two decades of training experience, began to notice a troubling trend during her easy training rides. What should have been simple intervals started to feel like all-out efforts, leaving her feeling fatigued and overwhelmed. Jacobs, 57, knew something wasn’t right, and it was frustrating for her.
The root of the problem, as Jacobs discovered, lay in her pre-workout habit of carb-loading with sugary foods. Driven partly by anxiety and partly by the belief that as a lean endurance athlete, she needed a quick source of energy, Jacobs found that eating too much sugar too quickly was backfiring. She likened it to overfilling a car with fuel, overwhelming her body with food and carbs without allowing time for digestion and hydration.
Seeking a solution, Jacobs turned to a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) after a fellow athlete recommended it. CGMs, initially FDA-approved in 1999 for people with diabetes, have become increasingly popular as a tool for tracking blood sugar levels in real-time. With the recent FDA approval for over-the-counter use, the market for CGMs is projected to grow significantly in the coming years.
For Jacobs, the CGM was a game-changer. By monitoring her body’s response to food, she was able to adjust her diet to include more complex carbs, eat earlier, and have lasting energy for her training sessions. The fatigue she had been experiencing vanished, and she found herself with increased energy and power in her muscles during long rides.
The importance of blood sugar levels extends beyond just managing diabetes. Wellness companies like Levels and Nutrisense argue that blood sugar is a key metric for overall health, impacting factors such as diet, sleep, and exercise. By tracking blood sugar levels, individuals can gain insight into how their daily habits affect their health and performance.
Gayle Pagano, a 56-year-old Florida resident, found success in using a CGM to address weight gain and joint pain. By tracking her blood sugar levels and making dietary changes with the help of a nutritionist, Pagano was able to lose weight and improve her overall health markers significantly.
While CGMs offer valuable insights into blood sugar levels, some experts caution against letting these metrics dictate extreme or unhealthy eating behaviors. Constant monitoring of food intake could potentially lead to orthorexia, a harmful fixation on “clean” eating. It’s essential to strike a balance between using CGMs as a tool for health optimization and avoiding obsessive behaviors around food.
As the popularity of CGMs continues to rise, questions remain about their long-term effectiveness and impact on overall health. While some experts believe that CGMs will become a standard metric for health monitoring, others are skeptical about the actionable insights they provide beyond what we already know about healthy eating habits.
In conclusion, while CGMs can offer valuable data on blood sugar levels and their impact on health, it’s essential to approach their use with caution and balance. Understanding how our bodies respond to food and lifestyle choices is crucial, but it’s equally important to maintain a healthy relationship with food and avoid extreme behaviors driven by data alone.
