I Tracked My Blood Sugar For Weeks – Now My 3PM Slumps Make Sense

The writer with a CGMWe hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.Some people with diabetes use continuous glucose monitors, or CGMs, to track their blood sugar. The small disc, which is usually placed on someone’s arm, can tell them whether their sugar levels are “crashing” or “spiking” in real time. But recently, I’ve seen a trend: people without diabetes have begun using CGMs, too. That’s because some scientists have posited that blood sugar “spikes” might affect everything from our kip to our insulin resistance.Speaking to HuffPost UK, Sophie Bertrand, a resident registered nutritionist at Lingo by Abbott, said: “We... have a lot of emerging data to show that tracking your glucose levels or being aware of the types of things that affect your glucose levels in terms of them spiking or dipping can impact things like our mood, our energy, and our focus. “It can impact sleep as well, which a lot of people don’t think about, and also stress. So the way that our body responds at certain points throughout the day, you know, a lot of people I hear have that kind of 3, 4pm afternoon slump, feeling very fatigued.” Sounds intriguing, I thought (at this point, I’ll try anything that might help to get rid of my brutal post-lunch fatigue).So I thought I, a non-diabetic, would try Lingo by Abbott’s CGM for a couple of weeks to see whether it was any use. Step 1: assembling and applying the tracker I received a sleep black box with two CGM packs. Each is meant to last you for two weeks – if they stop working at any point in that 14-day period, Lingo by Abbott says they’ll replace the tracker. Once I opened the pack, the instructions were pretty simple. I had to press one of the two cylindrical parts into the other to create a patch applicator, loaded with the CGM. This had a thin needle-like sensor which picked up my blood sugar levels, live. Did it hurt to apply? I’ll be honest: I spent a lot more time than I should have psyching myself up to apply the monitor.That, it turns out, was an overreaction. The mechanism works a little like those finger-prick tests that you push down on: one solid, determined bit of pressure, and it’s in. I found the process surprisingly painless. This was my biggest fear, so I was very pleased to discover it was unfounded. Once it was inserted, I turned on my phone’s Bluetooth (as of yet, the app is only compatible with iPhone 11 and newer). Voila! Tracking had begun (well, after about an hour: the CGM needed to get used to its new environment before it started reporting my blood sugar, live).I was also concerned that the monitor might feel “in the way” or affect my sleep. But I led on my arm multiple nights while wearing this tracker and didn’t remotely notice: in fact, after about half an hour, I stopped noticing it was there at all.Step 2: tracking and interpreting the numbersOnce the tracking was up and running, I started setting aside some time every evening to look at my blood glucose patterns throughout the day. “There is a glucose range that’s considered... normal or typical for metabolically healthy people” like me, Bertrand said. This, she explained, is between 3.9 and 7.8 milliboles per litre, which is represented in the app. What does it mean to go under, or over, 3.9-7.8 mmol/L? “You may notice levels at the lower end of this range whilst fasting and then up to around 7.8 after eating... Those without metabolic dysfunction stay there for most of the time,” the nutritionist told me. But “if you have something like a doughnut and it spikes up really, really high, we do want to be seeing your body bring that spike back down relatively quickly. “So while sharp upticks above the average glucose value indicate a spike, most healthy individuals will stay within that healthy range.” Sometimes (like when I had my leftover cornflake tart for lunch: don’t judge), my blood sugar did spike above 7.8mmol/L, but didn’t stay that way for long.In my case, this was fine. “You are likely to spike out of range” at some point after eating something very sugary or high in refined carbs, Bertrand said, “but as long as you’re coming down from that relatively quickly, that’s a good sign that... your body’s responding as it should. “If you’re having something high in, you know, simple carbohydrates or sugar, and you’re spiking and you’re staying above that healthy range for that healthy range for a prolonged period of time, that’s what we don’t want to be seeing.” A dip, meanwhile, often follows a spike. And dips “could spur the body on to seek very fast-releasing energy”, apparently – that might explain my 3pm slump and sugar cravings, then.What should I eat to keep my blood sugar levels stable?Once I learned what the highs and lows meant, I became interested in keeping my blood sugar levels more stable – mostly out of curiosity. I wanted to see if, as Bertrand suggested, it might help to keep my appetite, it might help to keep my appetite, sleep pattern, and focus in check. So, I asked her which foods helped to prevent spikes and dips (the Lingo by Abbott app also offers suggestions on these).“If you are having protein and fibre and healthy fats in the majority of your meals, then that would increase your chances of seeing more of a steady, stable glucose level across the day,” the nutritionist said.I began choosing healthier picks, like Greek yoghurt and berries for lunch and fish and whole grains for dinner. This did seem to correlate with my blood sugar levels: the above picture shows my glucose levels after the new diet approach.But, Bertrand warned, those aren’t the only factors to consider. “You could eat the same meal on two days running,” she said, but “you’re more likely to see increased glucose levels with that meal on the day that you’re stressed because high cortisol in the body can affect the way that we’re digesting food.” And sleep may have a circular relationship with blood sugar, too, it seems. “If you’re not sleeping well, we see kind of more dysregulated glucose levels the next day,” the nutritionist said. “However, if you’re eating to dysregulate your glucose levels, that’s going to have a knock-on impact on your sleep quality. So you’re kind of you could get stuck on a cycle.” Step 3: review – was it worth it?After sticking to the monitoring for a couple of weeks, I found it really did help to prevent my afternoon work slumps (which were, in a word, diabolical). It helped me to realise which meals seemed to keep me sustained and which ones left me crashing – and those changes actually did appear to correlate with my sleep and even mood. And my greatest concern (that it’d hurt or feel uncomfortable) did not come to be. The application was fine, and it quickly became completely unnoticeable to me.There are some cons, though. I won’t lie: this is not the most budget-friendly tool in the world, and if you’re not diabetic, it’s not medically necessary (useful as it may prove to be). It is important to educate yourself on what sugar “highs” and “lows” really mean before using CGMs, too, or else the data might be a little overwhelming. Overall, though, I did find the tracker basically painless, interesting, and educational. It really has helped me to optimise my diet for my lifestyle, and it’s helped me to check in with my body after eating; I think that’s the basis for a genuinely good habit change. This tool is not for everyone (if you obsess a lot about health metrics, for instance, I’d pass it up – the worry a normal blood sugar spike might cause could, ironically, lead to more spikes in someone who stresses a lot about it). But if you want a truly in-depth look at how your diet affects your glucose levels, and if you’re interested in working out how that might show up in your sleep pattern, mood, or fatigue, it is, in my opinion, well worth a try.Related...These £8 Sell-Out Beauty Tools Will Have You Ditching Professional FacialsWe Shop The Best Beauty Products For A Living, And These 7 Truly Wowed UsEarlier Mammograms Can Save Lives – Here's How To Get One Before You Turn 50

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