What is glucose?
Glucose is a simple sugar or simple carbohydrate. In scientific terms, glucose is a "monosaccharide," meaning "one sugar."
When we eat carbohydrate-containing foods, the body breaks down those carbohydrates into glucose.
What is blood sugar?
Blood sugar, or blood glucose, is the glucose that circulates in the bloodstream. Glucose is essential because it's the body's primary fuel source.
Many systems and hormones are involved in glucose regulation. Insulin, for example, is a hormone released by the pancreas. Its primary role is to move glucose from the bloodstream into cells for energy. While insulin helps reduce blood glucose, other hormones, like glucagon and cortisol, can help raise blood glucose.
The body works hard to regulate blood glucose and keep it within a good and healthy range. We don't want glucose to go too high, but we also don't want it to go too low.
When blood glucose is too high, the body releases insulin to bring it back down. When blood glucose is too low, the body releases glucagon to bring it back up. Insulin sensitivity refers to how well our body responds to the effects of insulin, whereas insulin resistance implies the body is resistant to the effects of insulin. From a high level, we want to promote insulin sensitivity, as this is key to preventing chronic disease. (1, 2)
Many factors influence blood glucose, like stress, sleep, exercise, and diet. While the data gleaned from the CGM alone cannot diagnose insulin resistance, monitoring glucose is a proxy for insulin sensitivity. If you're interested in learning more information about insulin resistance and your unique risk, we recommend consulting your Primary Care Team. (3)
How can we use the CGM to help with weight loss?
After every meal, particularly carb-containing meals, glucose will increase and the body will respond by producing insulin. Insulin moves glucose from the blood into the cell, where it can be used for immediate energy or stored for later use. (4)
If we have more glucose than we can utilize at one time, our liver and muscles can store the excess as glycogen. However, glycogen storage space is limited. Once our glycogen storage space is full, glucose can then be converted and stored as fat in an unlimited capacity. Glucose is our body's preferred source of fuel, and if glucose and insulin are always in excess, fat stores may not be utilized fully. Over time, this may lead to an increase in fat and an increased risk of weight gain and obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. In summary, diet and lifestyle choices that produce consistently high glucose responses may prevent the body from burning fat appropriately, hindering weight loss success. (5)
Aside from what we eat, other factors influence glycogen storage space like when we eat, how much we eat, how often we eat, and activity levels. Ideally, we want to balance energy intake with other lifestyle choices to support weight loss and a healthy glucose and insulin relationship. By wearing a CGM and keeping a detailed log in the Nutrisense app, you and your nutritionist can dive more into the insulin-glucose relationship and connect the dots between food, activity, sleep, stress, glucose changes, and weight.
Get to know your glucose
The Nutrisense app monitors many glucose metrics. Your nutritionist will review these in more detail, but basic definitions are provided below. To find the metrics in the Nutrisense app, navigate to the "Insights" page. (6)
|
Mean |
<105 mg/dl |
This is your average glucose value. |
|
Median |
<105 mg/dl |
This is similar to average glucose but helps to remove any outlier values. |
|
Max |
<140 mg/dl |
This is your highest glucose peak. |
|
Sleep Average |
<105 mg/dl |
This is the average glucose during your fasting window. Your fasting window is a setting in the app. It can be found by going to "Settings" within the app. |
|
Morning Average |
70-90 mg/dl |
This is your average glucose during the last 2-hours of your fasting window. |
|
Standard Deviation |
<20 is okay, <14 is good |
This measures glycemic variability (GV) or swings in glucose. |
|
Time Within Range |
>95% |
This is how much time your glucose stays within the desired range of 70-140 mg/dl |
Note: The numbers listed here are for people without pre-diabetes or diabetes. Work with your nutritionist to personalize glucose goals based on your unique situation.
We encourage you to explore your glucose data with curiosity and intrigue, not judgment. The CGM provides information, and we get to decide what to do with it. If you find the data overwhelming, please let your nutritionist know. Our goal is to make this information digestible and easy to understand.
Beyond glucose
It's important to remember that while glucose monitoring is insightful, many other factors influence weight loss success.
When considering other factors that impact weight, we like to think of the acronym STAINS:
|
Stress |
How do you effectively manage stress? |
|
Time |
How much time do you dedicate to healthy behaviors like exercising and meal planning each week? How are you setting yourself up for success? |
|
Adverse food reactions |
Do you have food intolerances or sensitivities that might impact your energy, sleep, cognitive function, and weight loss efforts? |
|
Inflammation |
Is chronic inflammation affecting your metabolic health and ability to lose weight? |
|
Nutrition |
How is your current diet influencing glucose and weight loss efforts? Do you have nutrient gaps or deficiencies? |
|
Sleep |
How is sleep quality? Are you sleeping enough each night? |
Here at Nutrisense, we take a holistic and comprehensive approach to losing weight healthily and sustainably. Collaborating with your nutritionist is essential to creating a personalized glucose optimization and weight loss success strategy.