One Month Using the Lingo Continuous Glucose Monitor For "Fun" & Health

So I today is a two post kind of day; this post and I also participated in Joyce's Hodgepodge Wednesday.

I wore a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) from a company called Lingo for 2 weeks in December and 2 more weeks in January. I bought a "one month subscription" but since the monitors only last two weeks before you have to change them out and each one comes with 2 weeks connection to the app I was able to split that one month subscription into 2 2-week segments. 

I've had people ask but no this was not suggested by any doctor; best I can tell from the app my glucose levels are very good. Normal glucose levels (measured after fasting) are below 100; most mornings mine is around 65/70. Now the monitors aren't typically as accurate as a blood glucose readings since they use the interstitial fluid (which is the fluid between cells) and diabetics who use both find anywhere from a 10-20% difference in the readings. But most health professionals agree that CGM allow for a much broader understanding of how your body handles glucose since it's not just a one time (or couple times a day) type of reading. 

The Lingo app summarizes it's finding each week into several reports that show overall trends. 

After a week it said that most of my time each day is in the healthy range and weirdly I have more time in the low range than in the high range--  meaning very few spikes.

Over a 7 day span my average is 84-- again under 100 is "normal" range

I had been eyeing continuous glucose monitors for a few years; ever since I read Glucose Revolution from Jessie Inchauspe (also known as the glucose goddess). Then when I read Good Energy by Casey Means she also talked about the effect of glucose on the body and mentioned the benefits of CGMs. I was curious about my own levels and how my body handles certain foods.  But most monitors are really expensive so when I heard that Lingo had a one month Black Friday special I decided to try it out but only for one month because any more than that just does not make financial sense for me-- even with the special it was just over $80! 

Now having read those two books I knew various "tricks" to keep my glucose from spiking too high; eating vegetables and lean proteins first and carbs last, exercising within 10-20 minutes of eating a meal, choose complex carbs, etc. 

The suggestion is to just live life as normal and eat as regular the first few days and then the app starts making suggestions but I wasn't doing that at all since I was hyper aware of those numbers right from the start! I went right in making sure to eat my salad (with just vinegar/oil) first and then my main meal trying to keep carbs to the end. I added in exercise after each meal and of course my meals were very veggie heavy (as they usually are!). 

As you go about your day you can check the app on your phone at any time and get real glucose data; often after any meal regardless of its makeup or the order in which I ate my foods I'd find my levels in the low 100's. 

If I ate anything with carbs or sugar-- a cookie, a slice of toast with my veggies and eggs, etc. I'd see my glucose levels spike. 

Lingo uses two colors for the spikes-- purple means your sugar is high and they count towards your lingo "score". When starting the app it wanted me to keep my Lingo Count under 60 for the day but after the first week it adjusts to make it a challenge for ME to meet it so by week two my lingo number was 20.  I  had many days where my Lingo count was zero and rarely went over 7. 

On this day my Lingo Count was 4

 

Below is a day with both blue and purple spikes; the blue spikes are times when I was working out (though I did find by accident that even if I didn't do the exercise I claimed it still turned blue so it seems like the body wouldn't know the difference either?).  But blue spikes don't count toward your Lingo score whereas purple ones do. 

Lingo "scores" spikes based both on how high the spike goes but also for flatter spikes on how long they last so even flattening spikes like the Glucose Revolution book suggests didn't seem to have any sort of positive effect on the monitoring. In fact, I found that by flattening my glucose curves my daily average glucose value often went up and resulted in an elevating trend by the end of the first two weeks. 

 

It took me until the 3rd week to figure out how to both keep my Lingo Count and my daily glucose score low, and that was by eliminating all carbs and sugar.

After my first two weeks using the monitor and app I had lost 3 lbs.. which I gained right back over the 2 1/2 weeks of Christmas celebrations-- mostly from sugar consumption I'm sure! It felt like a relief to put another monitor on New Year's Eve day as it just helped keep me more accountable and remember to by-pass the sugary sweets and meals for healthier choices. It also prompts me to drink water and to remember to exercise (of course it often suggested a walk which I was rarely inclined to do in the middle of winter but I would pick up hand weights or do some yoga). 

 Like this:

 But the weather looked like this at the day/time the prompt showed up:

By the 4th day of wearing my second monitor I had shed all the pounds I gained back over the holiday and with eating meals like these I kept a consistent low daily average glucose and omitted all spikes (except one night when I had a handful of mixed nuts with an apple-- because even natural sugars like apples can spike levels). 

veggie omelet for breakfast

 

1/2 cup berries with yogurt, chia seeds, handful of raw nuts

 

pot roast, asparagus, mashed cauliflower

salad with pork chop & broccoli

I was uncertain why sometimes it seemed like my glucose was bit high but wasn't flagged as a spike, I think there is a certain number it must hit before it's flagged... 

There are challenges you can sign up for most week and earn badges too. One week I tried the "Put Your Habits to the Test" challenge, the "get moving" challenge another week, and the "Reach for the Greens" at Lunch another. 

 

 

My final challenge was the "Close the Kitchen." It has a tracking page to monitor how well you are doing. There are lots of challenges to pick from and each one has a lengthy description with suggestions on how to achieve it. 

The Lingo app has tons and tons of articles, recipes and even videos to teach and help you along the way. 

I enjoyed this experiment a lot and hope I can keep most of these lessons going!  
 

Linking up with: Thinking Out Loud, Spread the Kindness,