Client Success Story with Vanessa

Transcript:

Brandy: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. I'm your host, Brandy Buro, a Licensed and Registered Dietitian here at Nutritional Weight & Wellness. We're a Minnesota based company that specializes in real food nutrition education and counseling for real everyday people.

And today we're diving into a really popular topic in the world of nutrition, and that is continuous glucose monitors or CGMs. We're going to be talking about how CGMs can give us real time insight, and we're going to talk about how we can leverage that awareness into changing habits that support our health for good.

What is a continuous glucose monitor? (CGM)

So if you're not familiar, a CGM is a small wearable device that tracks your blood sugar levels throughout the entire day and night. Most CGMs last for about two weeks. In the past, these devices have been used almost exclusively for people with diabetes, but now CGMs are available to anyone without a prescription, and we're seeing even more people use them as a tool to personalize their nutrition, to support better metabolic health.

As a dietitian, sometimes I suggest that my clients start testing their blood sugar with a CGM. Maybe to reverse prediabetes or support their weight loss goals or improve hormone balance. I think it's a wonderful tool with a lot of applications, and to bring this to life and hear how somebody without diabetes is using A CGM, I invited one of my clients to share their story.

Vanessa has been working with me for almost a year now, and she's been wearing a CGM for almost that entire time, so I invited her today to tell us about her experience, hear what she's learned, how she's applied that information, and the impact it's made in her health and her life. So welcome, Vanessa. I'm excited to have you here.

Vanessa: Thank you. I'm excited to be here too.

Vanessa’s success story

Vanessa’s background & some of her health goals

Brandy: I'm so excited to dive in, share with our listeners all that you've learned. So just to start, maybe you can share with our listeners a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Yeah.

Vanessa: I am 39 and I'm a high school teacher here in the Twin Cities. I really like hiking and camping; cooking for myself is something that I've done a lot more recently, in the last like 10 years. So I'm getting better; traveling. I'm pretty active. And also just love food quite a bit.

Brandy: Yeah. So you're an outdoors gal, you like to travel.

Vanessa: Oh yeah.

Brandy: And you're cooking good food to fuel all of that.

Vanessa: Yes.

Brandy: And as a teacher, I know that's a pretty demanding job.

Vanessa: Yeah, it can be. It can be for sure. I do have nights and weekends always off. However, to cook food for myself and to meal plan if I want to or not, it is difficult sometimes, but I also have time to focus on my health.

Brandy: Fantastic. Yeah. You make it a priority and that's why you're working with a dietitian, right?

Vanessa: Yes.

Brandy: So when you first started working with me, when you first decided I'd like to work with a dietitian, what were some of your health goals that you were trying to focus on through food?

Vanessa: I was already exercising what I thought should be an amount that would give me, I don't know, the, the goals that I, or help me meet the goals that I wanted to, like staying toned, maintaining a healthy body weight. But it just like wasn't for the amount of effort that I was putting in for in my fitness, it didn't seem like my body composition or my amount of tone was really reflected in that amount of work.

Brandy: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa: And I was interested in seeing the other side of that health journey and how nutrition could be, more finely tweaked so I could be seeing the, the fruits of my efforts I guess.

Brandy: Yeah. So you were pretty committed to exercise, but you weren't necessarily seeing physically like muscle definition that you would expect with how hard you were working.

Vanessa: Exactly.

Brandy: Like, what else could I do? Let's see what nutrition can do.

Vanessa: Right. Another reason I started coming to see you was, I had just gone to the chiropractor and, they did some x-rays and told me that my bone density was already, I mean, I'm only 39, my bone density was already starting to become like a concern. So I really wanted to know what I could be doing nutritionally to help slow that progress towards a degeneration of my bone density.

I also just wanted to, I mean, who doesn't want to have like a more stable mood, and energy levels throughout the day. So I was just curious about all of those things and how nutrition could play a role in them.

Brandy: Yeah. Fantastic. So recognizing nutrition could support your bone density, improve mood and energy. Yeah. Just some bonus side effects of getting your nutrition in alignment.

Vanessa: Right.

Brandy: So. Yeah, I remember we first met last spring. Do you recall when we first started talking about using a CGM or doing some blood sugar testing?

Vanessa: Yeah. I had talked about the fact that when I get home from work, I am absolutely starving. And I would just kind of stand in front of my fridge or in front of the cupboard and just like shovel as much food as I could get my hands on. Like immediately, because I felt like I was in crisis.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: I just was, I felt so like ravenous when I got home and I was like, why is that? I feel like I just had lunch like two hours ago. I just, I don't understand why that's happening. And then it's like my evening's kind of shot because then I'm too full and, yeah, it didn't seem like a sustainable way to, to eat.

And so, you were explaining to me the glucose, blood glucose rollercoaster ride I was putting myself through by letting my blood sugar get so low at the end of my workday that I would need to come home and fix it right away with a bunch of like ravenous shoveling.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: And then that would spike my blood glucose levels and then they just naturally drop themselves down after that. And then it's just on this up and down and up and down. And that’s like a big stressor for your body and your brain, it turns out.

Brandy: Yes.

Vanessa: So you are explaining that pattern to me. And, you know, people can explain things too, and you can even look at some cool diagrams about what you know scientifically is happening inside your body. But once you see it in real time, like you were explaining the CGM would do, then it becomes more my information.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: It’s personal specifically for my body. So I became interested in it after you explained that it would be so personalized.

Brandy: Yeah. And I that when we first started talking about like your normal daily routine, that experience you described getting home, just feeling so ravenous and not really choosing your foods intentionally because you were so hungry.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: This sounds like a blood sugar crash to me.  

Vanessa: Yeah. Right.

Brandy: And blood sugar testing is a great way to like validate that and also run some experiments to see how, how to correct that.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm. So I also, I also found out from you that my HAS funds can be used to pay for the CGM.

Brandy: Oh, yeah.

Vanessa: And I had a bunch of HSA money that I could, you know, use for this experiment to try one out. So I thought that would be a good use of that to get me more info.

Brandy: Amazing. Yeah. That was so cool to learn that your HSA funds actually would cover the cost of some of these monitors. So yeah. Kind of a no brainer.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: So you were able to just order one off the internet. You didn't need to get a prescription; you didn't need a doctor's okay to use one of these. So plus you had the funding to support it, so, yeah. Yeah. I think it made a lot of sense to pursue this in your, in your case.

Vanessa: At least to try it.

Benefits/patterns of the CGM that provided helpful insights (& also overviewing the easy process of use!)

Brandy: Yeah. At least to try it. So we kind of established that understanding your blood sugar patterns were important. There's some potential to understand your body a little bit better. So when you got that first monitor, what were you hoping to learn from that experience? What were you expecting to see from your blood sugar data?

Vanessa: I was wholeheartedly expecting it to just tell me how great I was already doing, expecting it to tell me that I was doing pretty good with my choices and it's not like I eat candy bars every day, so I mean, everything; it'll just tell me that I'm doing really well already.

Brandy: Yeah. Like some validation. Good job, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Right. It just, and now I'll have some data to back up what I've always believed about my good, good nutritional choices. But, instead it, it showed me a lot of things that, what I perceived as healthy choices were not actually, as healthy as I imagined.

Brandy: In terms of how it impacted your blood sugar.

Vanessa: In terms of how it impacted my blood sugar. And contributed to those wild swings up and down of blood glucose levels. I could see pretty clearly, when I was eating on a regular basis, food that I already knew was, was good and then, I also could see it right away when something was not a great decision.

Brandy: Yeah. Do you have any examples of what a “not a great decision” was? At least when you were checking out your blood sugar data.

Vanessa: Yeah. The, the monitor doesn't lie.

Brandy: Yeah, for sure.

Vanessa: It's really, it's really powerful what you, what you think you believe already. It's just, you, your mind is really, really powerful at believing certain things. And I think, for example, if I truly believe that three Reese's peanut butter cups in the afternoon on an empty stomach isn't that big of a deal, then it's easy for get to forget. They're easy, yeah, easy to forget that I even ate them in the first place.

When I'm reflecting back on my day and my choices, but the CGM lets me know that it definitely did matter and it had an effect on my mood and other subconscious decisions that I made for the rest of the evening after that. It just keeps on affecting me. And, yeah, my, my brain just erased it. The CGM data did not.

Brandy: Right. So something like a couple like fun sized candy bars, like a few Reese's peanut butter cups in the afternoon, easily forgotten.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: Kind of mindless. You don't think it has much of an impact. But here you have this, this blood sugar data that shows you oh yeah. I had some Reese's peanut butter cups at 2:00 PM; there goes my blood sugar.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: Not only that, but you were seeing it's impacting your patterns later in the evening.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yep.

Brandy: Yeah, that's, that's huge insight. And I know that you've been wearing a continuous glucose monitor like pretty consistently for a while now, so we've got a lot of data to reflect on. So how long have you been wearing this, a continuous glucose monitor?

Vanessa: I would say that, with a lot of consistency about a year. I've bought quite a few because the information I was getting from it was kind of fun and also really revealing, and I, and I kept on feeling like, okay, well I'm going to, I'm going to keep on trying different things, experimenting with different patterns of eating and times of eating things and orders that I'm eating the types of food in my meals and see how all of that affects it. And I just kept on discovering more stuff.

Brandy: Wow. So the, pursuit of discovery really motivated you to keep testing your blood sugar. You just continued to learn information about yourself and you knew that there was more to learn. That's awesome.

Vanessa: Each one lasts about two weeks.

Brandy: So when you put on your first monitor, what was that like? Can you walk us through that experience?

Vanessa: It's much simpler than I thought it was going to be. It comes in a little box and it gives you super detailed instructions about everything, but I just downloaded the app and then they give you like, I don't know how many steps, very, very few step-by-step directions to install it.

You just open the pill box, unscrew a little thing, and then press it against the back of your arm in like a fatty spot. And then you press a button and there's like a clunk sound of a spring. And you don't really feel anything. And then it's just on your arm. You just take off the little application device, that's trash and then it's just on there.

Brandy: Yeah. So that, that clunk that the spring makes, I mean that's, I remember you saying that's like the most dramatic part of the whole process because it really doesn't hurt, right?

Vanessa: No, it's, it's like that's the only sensation is hearing the clunk, really. It's probably a, a bit of a distraction device, but it doesn't feel like anything at all, and it goes so quick that there's nothing really to feel.

Brandy: Sure.

Vanessa: So then you just put a little strong, adhesive sticker on it, and it pairs with Bluetooth on your phone, and then in about 20 minutes it starts giving you readings.

Brandy: Fantastic. So easy, easy to put on, painless, you can use it pretty much immediately.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brandy: And just to clarify for our listeners, the CGM that Vanessa has been using is the Stelo by Dexcom. That is one of the few CGMs that is available without a prescription. So yeah, what she's describing is that that specific device, so we can't necessarily speak about the experience for all the, all the CGMs, but I imagine there's some similarities.

Vanessa: Yeah. I've, I've only had this one for the whole time, all of the applications I've done in the past year. And it's been very easy. I, I even ordered some, cute little like pastel colored, stickers to put over them.

Brandy: Fashion.

Vanessa: Yeah. So they're also fashion.

Brandy: That's great. So yeah, you can buy different adhesive patches to like switch up the look or if your existing one gets a little dirty you can just kind of keep it looking fresh.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yes.

Brandy: Now once you put it on, it's on there, what is it like to actually wear, like do you notice it, is it annoying to have?

Vanessa: I don't feel it at all. You know, I'm just, walking around doing my job, doing whatever. I don't notice it at all. Sometimes, like when you're taking like tops on and off, it's just good to be conscious of it. So it, a seam doesn't like tug at it too hard or you're like, bra strap doesn't, you know, get caught up in it.

Because that can, over time, over the, a couple times of allowing it to kind of get yanked around, it might make the adhesive come off a little bit quicker, but it's really stuck on there. It's really strong when it comes time to like take it off. It's off after like two weeks of it being the same.

Brandy: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa: Sticker on there, the same patch, it's often still like, kind of tough, hard to remove. Use some baby oil or rubbing alcohol or something. But it's really on there.

Brandy: Yeah. So it, it, you can't feel it to the point that you forget about it and you have to be really careful, conscious of it when you're like removing clothing so you don't like, accidentally like lift it.

Vanessa: Yeah. Just kind of lift your clothing over it and you're fine. But otherwise when, if I'm not doing anything like that, it's like I completely forget that it's on.

Brandy: Amazing.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: So it sounds like you barely notice it. Do other people notice it? Do you ever get comments about what is that?

Vanessa: As a teacher, kids have asked. I have high school students and I'm sure younger students would ask too. I've had high school students who have asked me what it is. And I usually just tell them it's a measuring tool. And it, measures the amount of sugar in my blood, the amount of energy in my blood, and, they're just like, oh, cool. I also teach biology and we are talking about like cellular respiration and how it takes glucose…

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: …to make ATP to make energy in your body. And that's just telling me how much is in there, ready to be made into energy for my body.

Brandy: Fantastic. What a great connection. Great way to demonstrate that to your class.

Vanessa: Kids love it.

Brandy: Alright, well we have just kind of gone over what it was like to put on the CGM, what it's like to use the CGM. We've got a little bit of insight about what you've learned while wearing it. I know you have more to share, so we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to take a deeper dive into the data.

What did you learn from the data? How have you applied it? You are listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. I'm here with Vanessa; she's one of our clients here at Nutritional Weight & Wellness. We're talking about CGMs, blood sugar testing, and how you can do this at home and apply that to your everyday life. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. This is Brandy Buro. I'm your host today and I'm with one of my clients, Vanessa. She is sharing with us her experience using a continuous glucose monitor, and so far, we've kind of talked about the experience of putting it on what it's like to wear, but now I want to dive a little deeper into what you learned, the data.

Overviewing data Vanessa learned while wearing the CGM

So maybe you could walk us through what a typical day is like using your continuous glucose monitor. What are you looking for on the screen, you know, the app where it's showing you your blood sugar numbers?

Vanessa: Yeah. Now that I've had it on for quite a long time. I think I check it less office often throughout the day. I have notifications turned on that tells me of a glucose spike that it's sensing. And so most of the time now, since I have a lot of experience with it, it's like no news is good news. And I don't need to really think about it.

But in the beginning, it shows you kind of the upper level of what your blood glucose should be and the kind of the lower level and trying to keep it between those two levels, kind of like a little bit of a video game. You're just trying to keep your car on the road and not veer too much this way or veer too much this way. So that was like kind of added to the kind of like the fun of it, the gamification of keeping my blood sugar levels on target range.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: So that was kind of fun. And like if I was going way too high, it made it seem like, oh, I'm, I'm not playing this video game as good as I as I could be.

Brandy: Right. You're losing.

Vanessa: Yeah. I’m losing. So, that was like kind of fun too at the very beginning, like getting all that info, but also getting better at keeping my car on the road, being better at keeping my glucose in that range.

Brandy: I just love that analogy of this being kind of like a video game. It's the input though is your effort in eating and movement. You are responding to the feedback that the data is giving you. If you're seeing spikes, it's like, okay, something caused me to get off track. How do I, how do I realign this turn, steer the ship?

Vanessa: I would take like really, really good notes about what kinds of things I was eating. And when I was eating it. And you can do that in the app too. Everything you eat, you can say like, oh, this is the moment at which I ate this and this and this.

And that was also helpful information when I was talking to you later on about what kinds of things I was eating when this major spike happened, what kinds of things I was eating when I was keeping it relatively level throughout the day.

And that was also good information that I had to voluntarily put into the app, but it also gave us better reflection points, so that when we did meet, we could talk about what kinds of things happened this Saturday when things went a little haywire or, like what were you doing on Tuesday through Thursday? Like, you stayed in range the whole time, like that kind of thing.

Brandy: Right. So, yeah, in the app you are able to enter events where you can add like a meal or if you exercised and that just adds context to the data that you're seeing.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: And I would agree, like that is such valuable information, not only for you, but especially for me, when you and I looked at the data together during our appointments so that we can look back 10 days ago and see, okay. You had amazing control…

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: …during these days. So that, that's great insight, not only monitoring the data, but also adding the context so that you can interpret it accurately.

Vanessa: Yeah, yeah, and now that I’ve done it more often, I, I take fewer notes. Because I usually have more of a stronger instinct as to what kinds of foods or what amounts of foods are going to have the effect on my glucose levels. So I, I can guess more often now about that without having to just see the effects and see the, see the levels and, I guess more often correctly now because I have had that data for so long.

Brandy: Yeah, that's fantastic. I think one of the most valuable parts of using a continuous glucose monitor, and if you are committed to doing it for a while, you start to understand what your, I like to say recipe is for a good blood sugar control.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: So you have kind of this phase where you're assessing your baseline, like this is what my blood sugar is doing with my normal patterns.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: Then you're making some adjustments and then seeing how you respond to that and then you kind of have your new normal.

Vanessa: Yeah. Right.

Brandy: So it sounds like you're kind of in your new normal where you know what behaviors result in what blood sugar numbers.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: That's fantastic.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: So this is all such great information. You know, and when we first started talking about using the, the CGM, I always encourage watching for patterns. You know, don’t get so hung up on the specific number of your blood sugar. But what we want to start recognizing are patterns.

The connection between not just what you're eating, but also what you're drinking, how exercise impacts those numbers and patterns, how stress and sleep impacts those patterns. So are there any patterns that you discovered during this process?

Vanessa: I think at the very beginning I couldn't really even process how to connect how I was feeling with the numbers that I was seeing in the app. But I, I, I'm noticing it more that I've had all of this experience with it. Like if I’m in a bad mood or if I have really low energy, I can just look back at my blood sugar that day and see that I had periods of it being really low or it was really erratic.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: And, and that just turns out that I needed to eat. I, I can notice like what foods will spike my blood sugar or like what makes me feel not great. And also when I'm feeling good or happy, I'm not always checking my blood sugar because I feel good.

Brandy: So that's interesting you are saying that you started to notice erratic blood sugar patterns or even like low blood sugars when you were also going through like a, a dip in your mood or a dip in your energy. So there was a correlation there. Yeah.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: That's great. That's great insight. And then it's a clue like, okay, got to eat if I'm feeling hangry or irritable. It's not necessarily my fault. I just really need to eat.

Vanessa: Yeah. Another, another thing that I saw as kind of a pattern is, on periods of time or just days when I didn't get enough sleep, I'd make some not typical choices in what I was eating. And that would affect my, my, blood sugar quite a bit too. It's all connected.

Brandy: Absolutely.

Vanessa: Just getting enough sleep, feeling you have enough energy and then having the brain power and energy and decision making ability to make good choices with what you're eating. All of that is so connected.

Brandy: A hundred percent. Yeah. We know if you're sleep deprived, naturally your blood sugar is going to be a little dysregulated outside of the food that you choose, but it is harder to make sound choices when you are not feeling your best.

Vanessa: Right.

Brandy: And that can just kind of perpetuate that blood sugar dysregulation. Did you run any specific experiments just to kind of like challenge your blood sugar and see kind of like what are some extremes that could happen?

Vanessa: Yeah, one of the biggest experiments that I did was testing out and kind of incrementally increasing and decreasing how much like sugary and carb heavy treats I could have without it disrupting my blood sugar. I really love a pastry. I really love a cookie. I saw that there was a patisserie down the street as I was driving here and I made note. So I started off at the very beginning, you know, being really “good” when I had my CGM on.

So I did no sweets. No, kind of like, just like sweet treats in general when I first started it, but then it's like in my environment there just is sweet treats that I'm going to want to eat. And it's not like nobody who's healthy is just always swearing off sweet treats all the time. That's just not it, that's just not the reality.

Brandy: It wasn't realistic for you to eliminate sugar forever 100%.

Vanessa: Right, and I just don't think it's like, it's like possible for a lot of people. It might be, but I just want to, I want to have a sweet treat. And so I just took a little bit of a experiment and said I'd have like one bite of like something and see if that, wait like an hour and see if that affected my blood sugar.

Okay. Well the one bite didn't. But then I also noticed that I, I had had the one bite after I had had like a chicken salad for lunch and saw, you know, enough greens, enough, like lean protein, some vinegarette; I was already full of all the stuff that I should have been eating.

Brandy: Yes.

Vanessa: And then I had a bite.

Brandy: Okay.

Vanessa: Didn't affect it at all. So then I, I'd kind of experiment maybe with the next meal I'd do the same thing, but then have two bites of something. And now I've gotten to like a specific volume of food that's like a really carb dense, sugar dense food. And that's like about what fits in like my pointer finger in my thumb connected.

Brandy: Okay.

Vanessa: Yeah, about like two…

Brandy: Like a silver dollar coin?

Vanessa: Like a silver dollar size.

Brandy: Or a POG.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yes. A POG size amount of sugar and carb dense stuff. I can eat that without having like a bunch of crazy erratic patterns after that. But that's also because I already ate the good food first.

Brandy: Yes, yes. So I love, I love this example because it highlights a couple things that are really important strategies for good blood sugar control. If you want to enjoy a higher carb food or something that has sugar in it, it's always best to have it immediately after a high protein, high fiber meal. So you figured that out.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: And then you took it a step further and figured it out precisely your limit, your threshold of like your portion size.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brandy: So it's probably not going to be the entire pastry. But it may be a third of the pastry.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: You can still enjoy that.

Vanessa: Or share it with someone else.

Brandy: And share it with your friend and still enjoy that delicious treat.

Vanessa: Yeah, that's right.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: And I think I remember you saying too, that like, after a couple of bites, it kind of loses its appeal anyway.

Vanessa: Yeah. I mean, if I'm eating it so fast that I don't notice like that I've eaten the whole thing, was it really, was it really that good in the first place? And also, did I actually enjoy all of those bites?

Brandy: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa: Why am I eating something so fast, you know? If I really, if I know that I have two or three bites total to, to spend, I guess, on something like that, then I'm going to enjoy them more. And take more time with them, with those bites. And I'm also not probably going to waste it on something like a Hy-Vee or a gas station donut. You know, I'm going to make it something really delicious that I actually want to eat.

Brandy: Make making wise choices, choosing your carbs wisely. And savoring it when you do.

Vanessa: Yes.

Brandy: Well, I think you have discovered a lot of really impactful things about your body through this experience. What would you say was one of the biggest takeaways that you learned from wearing your CGM?

Vanessa: I think when I leave, like my food choice is just up to chance, and are not intentional with them, it's reflected in my blood sugar, which is also reflected in my mood. If I'm just constantly experiencing crashes after spikes, I'm not having a good time.

Brandy: Right.

Vanessa: I just need to be intentional and that means discovering what snacks I like that I can eat so often and pack for myself because I consistently buy them, and keep them in my house and keep them on my body, or keep them in my lunch bag and just have them available to me. The more I can do that, the less I end up like hangry or just making bad decisions like seeking out somebody's candy jar.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Or just random snacks that just appear to me in my environment at school. Sorry, teachers, but you keep too much sugar around. It's just incidental and they're not going to be the best choices I can make when somebody else is making the choices for me.

Brandy: Right.

Vanessa: So I just have to keep some reasonable snacks on me, with me all the time, and packing enough so that I don't feel like deprived.

Brandy: Right.

Vanessa: I don't feel like I'm a scavenger. Because they would, I remember in my past, I like often felt that way at work. I was like, ugh, where can I get just something?

Brandy: Where can I get some calories?

Vanessa: Right now. And that was, that's a lot.

Brandy: And if it's what's available in your work environment, it's probably going to be a candy jar or some pastries in the break room.

Vanessa: Exactly. Yeah. Right. It's always someone's birthday.

Brandy: Isn't it?

Vanessa: There's always birthday cake somewhere. So if I can just like avoid that.

Brandy: Yeah. So you learned that you do need to plan ahead and pack some balanced options so that you are prepared and you're not leaving it up to chance.

Vanessa: Yes.

Brandy: And then like honoring your hunger and enjoying those snacks when it's right.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: Yeah. So I think that's a very valuable lesson. And you figured out what snacks really help you feel stable.

Vanessa: Yeah. For me that's like a meat stick or a cheese stick, and then some piece of fruit, like an orange or an apple, a couple cuties, a couple clementines with me. And then I eat them, like in that order, I'll make sure to eat the meat stick or the cheese stick first, and then like the higher sugar content snack after that. But having all of those fat, protein and, carbs together in one snack, that's, that's the ticket.

Brandy: That's the magic recipe. That's the blood sugar control recipe.

Vanessa: And those don't go bad in your pocket, and you can just take them anywhere you want.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: And even if you're at someplace where there's no outside food allowed, like you're at like a concert or, you know, bar or something, by the time like a, somebody comes over to tell you that you, you shouldn't be eating that, like you've already shoved that in your mouth and you're done eating. And honestly, I don't think that someone's going to be like, hey, stop eating that apple like I just can't imagine that.

Brandy: Right. So I hope that there are no apple police out there.

Vanessa: So that's my hack.

Brandy: Yeah. No. So packing snacks. Bringing them with you anywhere so that you're always prepared.

Vanessa: A cheese stick in the bra. I mean, you can really go crazy with it.

Brandy: I, I love it. We have to normalize snacks. I know I personally have been known to have a meat stick on the dance floor.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm. Yep. That's a great choice, Brandy.

Other valuable lessons learned from this experience for Vanessa

Brandy: Well, is there anything else that you learned through this experience that challenged what you previously believed about your body or your health or your habits?

Vanessa: Oh yeah. Like related specifically to snacks, I used to believe that having snacks in between meals is just added calories, and that's not going to help me with my weight loss or maintaining weight goals.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: And I should just always be in a calorie deficit if I want to see some kind of results. And that's just not true. And it shows in the kind of erratic patterns of my blood glucose just spiking and falling. And spiking and falling. And if I could just have something little in between.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Like a reasonable snack.

Brandy: Then you're less likely to experience those crashes that have led you to like mindless eating; often things that were not great for your blood sugar.

Vanessa: I just had an epiphany. Like a lot of emotional eating comes from you just not having good blood glucose level control.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: I just, of course you're emotional.

Brandy: It's like, yeah. Not only are your…

Vanessa: You're dysregulated.

Brandy: Yeah. Your blood sugar's low. You feel low.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Brandy: And then what many people feel is emotional eating may just be eating in response to low blood sugar.

Vanessa: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I, I just put that together.

Brandy: We're always learning.

Vanessa: Okay. All right.

Changes/outcome Vanessa experienced from utilizing the CGM

Brandy: That's awesome. So what changes or even like outcomes have you experienced from all this work that you've put into using the continuous glucose monitor, monitoring your patterns and adapting to what you're seeing?

Vanessa: One of the things that I've noticed is, I was recently diagnosed with a baker's cyst in my knee. And that is inflammation.

Brandy: Yes.

Vanessa: And if you can keep your blood glucose levels like in, in range, then you can also reduce your inflammation. Which I also, I, I did not make that connection beforehand. But there was a time that I ate like a bunch of refined carbs.

There was a, some pizza that was offered for free at like a knowledgeable meet, and then there was a bunch of like Reese's and all kinds of just delicious treats that were super processed carbs and lots and lots of sugar, all great choices that just kind of like flew my far flung. That's how I would, I would categorize my glucose levels that day.

And then after that I was so drained. I came home and I had some instant ramen, and it was just a lot of refined carbs all day long. And it was like my blood sugar showed too in the app. It was just a bunch of spikes and a bunch of drops. And then I would go back for some more Reese’s and a bunch of, you know, a bunch of spikes and a bunch of drops. But it wasn't just that. It was also like in the middle of the night, like my knee started hurting so bad.

Brandy: Mm.

Vanessa: Like it was like throbbing, aching pain and it like had not been that bad before. But it was so bad that I like had to like wake up and put like a heating pack on it. I also like tried to put like an ice pack on it for a while and just, it was like I, I lost so much sleep that night.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Because I caused myself so much more inflammation than I had ever caused before. So it's like I, I nearly called off work the next day because I, I just lost so much sleep. And that was just because I was making like pretty horrible choices that day.

Brandy: Yeah. And that, that was what was in your environment, it was like the pizza party.

Vanessa: Yep.

Brandy: And then, it just like you said, kind of led into some less desirable choices that evening. I'm sure that's a common experience for a lot of people.

Vanessa: Oh, for sure. It's like, I've already ruined it. I've already ruined the day. It's like, and then you just continue until you go to sleep. And it's, that was not it. That was, it's additive. It's not like, oh, tomorrow I'll do it over. It's like just, it's additive right now.

Brandy: It all counts.

Vanessa: It all counts.

Brandy: Yeah. Well, that's a, I think as unfortunately for as painful as that was and how disruptive it was, it was such an important learning experience for you, because it was a clear demonstration of this happened with my food and my blood sugar. This is the inflammation that it caused.

Vanessa: Right.

Brandy: And that's that serious consequence.

Vanessa: Yeah. It's, I mean, do I want to feel that way again? No. Like I, I, I definitely don't want to hinder my ability to sleep and work.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Because I just decided to run wild one day and not bring food that I knew would be good for me and just kind of, yeah, let myself like graze to the wind, you know?

Brandy: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa: I was just flying around, eating whatever was available.

Brandy: It really reinforces that, that idea that you brought up before that planning ahead and packing your food is so important for you to feel your best.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it's true.

Brandy: Would you say that you feel more in tune with your body now that you have this, this data kind of reflecting or to match up with your lived experience?

Vanessa: Yeah, I think it's so much more freeing to understand what, like order and how much of something I should be eating. It's like, I mean I can make a really delicious, balanced meal of like some vegetables and some meat and, you know, not too much rice or whatever.

But then if I go back for seconds or thirds, then that's also not going to keep my blood sugar in, in its, target range. So it's like, I think I also have like really seen that it's not just like the types of food that you're eating, but also the, the amount of food that you're eating affects your blood sugar too.

It's like if I have another serving, then my blood sugar will go out of range. If I just stick with this and just like I am satisfied with what I've already eaten, then it will stay in range and it's, it's like that kind of, that's further information for how much I should be eating, I guess.

Brandy: Yeah. So you're, you're beginning to listen to your body more in that if I eat until I'm full and satisfied, like that does correspond to good blood sugar control. If I eat beyond that point, I can expect blood sugar's going to get a little, a little, out of bounds, so to speak.

Vanessa: Yeah. I, I mean, I love, I love eating food. I love eating lots of food actually. I really, really love eating. And it's like I know now what foods I can eat a lot of without it affecting my, my blood sugar in a negative way.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Like, I could probably eat as much, you know, vegetables as I wanted to without any repercussions or any seeing any kind of problems on my glucose levels. I could probably eat a bunch of just lean meat.

Brandy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So if, yeah. If it's a vegetable, eat it. You know, that's a good takeaway.

Vanessa: Yeah. If it's a vegetable, eat it. Yes. I would say that. Yeah.

Brandy: Well, I have so enjoyed hearing about what you learned from all of this data. Every single person's experience is probably going to be a little different than yours, but, I think that people can walk away with some really important insight from your experience. If you were to guide anyone that wants to use a CGM and give them some advice preparing for their experience, what would you tell them?

Vanessa: I would definitely say try it if you have, like, especially if you have an HSA or if you have the money to just try one. Just go ahead and do it. I would recommend it. I would recommend trying to, you know, use it with fidelity and, and do the whole two weeks, that one monitor kind of allots you. And if you're not ready for someone to ask you about it or whatever, just wear long sleeves or have like a set explanation ready if you don't feel comfortable talking to people about it.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Just like prepare, like a one sentence.

Brandy: Yeah, a one liner. If that's what's holding you back, then, yeah.

Vanessa: Yeah. There's ways around that.

Brandy: Absolutely. I think you have to also be fine with finding out that you might be fibbing to yourself.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: You might be just like telling yourself little lies all the time, and you have to just be open to finding that out about yourself.

Brandy: You have to be open to the truth that the blood sugar data reveals to you.

Vanessa: Yeah. It'll, it'll be revealed. It will just tell you. Yep. And it's not like it's a gotcha, either, it's just information that helps you understand more about what your habits are and habits are just that; there are things that you've done a bunch.

Brandy: That's right.

Vanessa: And it's not that your habits define you or are like your identity, they're just things you've done a bunch. And, if you can really, you know, be okay with finding out what the habits are and what habits are not serving you.

Brandy: Yeah.

Vanessa: Then I think that this is going to be a really powerful tool. And it lets you know how food works and what it's doing for you. And also what it might not be helping you accomplish too, if like stable mood is part of your, you know, goals.

Brandy: Mm-hmm.

Vanessa: It'll help you with that.

Brandy: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So I love to hear this encouragement, you know, it's, it's not a judgment tool. This is an awareness tool.

Vanessa: No. And if, if you are the only one who's looking at the data, like it's definitely, it can't be a judgment tool. Don't judge yourself either. It's just data. It's just numbers, baby.

Brandy: Yeah. It's just numbers, baby. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, really thinking about this as an awareness building tool. It might challenge some of your beliefs. But that's where growth happens, right?

Vanessa: Mm-hmm.

Brandy: Well, is there anything else that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Closing thoughts from Vanessa’s positive experience using the CGM

Vanessa: I guess, like before I was like literally just guessing. Like everything I was like eating the amounts, the order, the, you know, supposed nutritional value or benefits or whatever. I feel like I was just, just guessing or basing whether something was going to help me in my life nutritionally by just like a thing I heard one time from I don't know, maybe not even a professional.

Brandy: Right.

Vanessa: And now that I have the numbers, I just, I feel so much more confident. And it's more, yeah, it's just more empowering to know what food can do for you.

Brandy: Hmm. I love that sentiment. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. I know that so many people are going to learn something, maybe even feel inspired to try a continuous glucose monitor for themselves and discover what it can do to change their life and help them on their health journey.

Well, thank you so much again for being here and to everybody listening today, I think this is a great reminder that tools like CGMs are not about being perfect. They're about building awareness about your own self. It can be a way to better understand your body, what makes it unique, and the choices that you can make to help yourself feel better and reach your goals.

Here at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we know that it can be a challenge to navigate all of this on your own. And that's why we are here to help you and guide you in the process. If you are interested in learning more about how certain foods or habits impact your health or your blood sugar and what that means for you, reach out to us.

Give us a call at (651) 699-3438, or you can visit our website, weightandwellness.com to get started.

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Well, that is a wrap for today's episode of Dishing Up Nutrition where we help you make that connection between what you eat and how you feel. It's a very simple but powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you so much for tuning in today, and we'll see you next time.