What can you learn about your health and metabolic state from wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM)? Turns out a lot! I wore a Stelo CGM biosensor for a month and was surprised by my findings.
What I learned From Wearing a Stelo Continuous Biosensor
First, Stelo is designed (by Dexcom) for those without diabetes and can be ordered without a prescription. It’s designed with the same technology as the Dexcom CGM. It is designed to be used by adults not currently on insulin.
Stelo is super easy to apply to your upper arm and there is no pain involved. The instructions walk you through it all in just a few minutes. Next, the sensor is easily paired to an app that will constantly monitor your glucose and give you feedback.
Wearing a CGM or biosensor like Stelo for a few weeks, can give you surprising insights into your metabolic health. Even if you “eat well” and exercise often, there is still plenty to learn about your body.
How food affects your blood sugar
You might assume that a bowl of oatmeal and a bagel might affect your glucose in the same way, but that is not necessarily the case. Using a CGM or biosensor can show you how specific foods and “healthy choices” affect you. For me, I learned that oatmeal does not spike my glucose but eating a whole wheat, high fiber English Muffin with an egg does spike my glucose. I also learned that the order that I ate certain foods also made a difference.
If you’d like to read more about how the order of your food consumption can affect your glucose, check out Glucose Revolution for an informative read.
The role of stress and sleep
Does a bad night of sleep having you craving carbs? Does a high stress situation leave you feeling sluggish? Your monitor can show how cortisol can lead to blood sugar surges even if you don’t change your eating.
The Role of Exercise
Even a short, post meal walk can drastically lower your glucose. You can also view how your regular exercise routine impacts your metabolic health.
All about timing
Late night snacking might give you a much higher morning glucose reading. Is fasting helping or hurting you? Meal timing can play an important role in honing in your metabolic health.
Wearing a CGM is like having a personal health consultant. The data I received helped me and smarter choices and hone in which foods were best for me. I liked the ease of using Stelo without a prescription and the ability to use it for as long or as little as I chose.
Oh, thanks for this review! This is so interesting! I love body stats (as you know, I’m addicted to my Garmin), but this CGM is a whole new world. I can imagine how interesting it must be to see how different foods affect your glucose.
Did you test exercising in a fasted state? Or would that have resulted in extremely low glucose readings?
It depends on the person-our bodies do not all respond the same. I am personally not a fan of fasted exercise for me. But yes, very interesting to learn how certain foods impact your glucose.
This seems interesting! Sometimes I feel like we are in data overload with all the information we can get these days. But I do think this would be helpful for learning how to make some improvements to your individual health.
Yes we are inundated with data sometimes. I would not do it all the time but I really enjoyed learning so much and I know it will help me make better choices for me going forward
This is so interesting! I would never think of monitoring my glucose since I don’t have diabetes. Great information.
This one is especially designed for those without diabetes. You can really learn a lot about your metabolic help while tracking with one.
Very interesting. Do you plan to continue to use it? I’m sure that’s a super interesting compilation of data, especially over a period of time.
It was really interesting and I learned a lot about my insulin levels and metabolic health. I would use it again from time to time to check in on myself.
Sounds fascinating!
I did really learn a lot