Several different lifestyle interventions will be discussed in the following chapters. All are important for helping you not only reduce the risk of diabetes, but also optimize overall health and wellness.
Nutrition
Being aware of what you eat, particularly your carb intake, is one of the most important pieces to optimizing blood sugar values. A CGM can help you identify some of your biggest triggers so you can come up with a plan for optimization. More on this in Chapter 3.
Physical Activity
All types of exercise can help you ‘use up’ some of the extra glucose from food. Exercise can also be a powerful tool to ramp up insulin sensitivity, and this will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
Sleep
Chapter 5 will be all about reviewing the relationship between sleep and blood sugar. We will discuss sleep hygiene strategies to optimize sleep and support healthier blood sugar values.
Stress
Our bodies are complex machines that are designed to help us respond to stress by temporarily reducing insulin sensitivity and releasing glucose from storage to help fuel a ‘fight or flight’ situation. Both of these factors lead to increased glucose values, so in Chapter 6 we will discuss how important it is to regulate stress for optimal glucose levels.