Have you ever tried measuring your blood glucose?
There’s never been a better time to use cutting edge technology to quantify and optimize your health.
But instead of jumping straight into invasive dystopian technology like brain implants (turning us into the Borg), we can actually use tech as a tool to improve our habits.
It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, and it’s quickly becoming easier and cheaper to track heart rate variability, sleep quality, fitness, blood sugar, and much more.
And what’s most important is how we use our data to modify our daily practices.
So joining us on the show today is Kara Collier, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Certified Nutrition Support Clinician, and the Director of Nutrition at NutriSense where she’s also a leading authority on the use of continuous glucose monitoring or CGM technology.
On this show with Kara Collier, we’re chatting about:
- How to use technology as a tool to quantify and optimize your health
- The benefits of tracking blood sugar with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM)
- Why you’re stealing energy from the next day when you have that ice cream or extra booze late at night
- Why drinking oat milk is almost as bad as sugar-laden soda once it hits your bloodstream
- How stress impacts blood glucose levels (and what to do about it)
- Why it’s a good idea to test your blood glucose after eating manufactured keto products
- And tons more…
Let’s go hang out with Kara.
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Where To Find Kara Collier
If you’re curious and want to try a continuous glucose monitor for yourself, be sure to check out Nutrisense.io. You can read through the blog, learn how a CGM works, and sign-up when you’re ready to get started.
Kara and the team at Nutrisense share tips and tricks to dial in your health on their social media channels, so be sure to follow and be friends on all the socials, including on Instagram @nutrisenseio, on Twitter @nutrisenseio, and on Facebook @nutrisenseio. And follow Kara on her adventures over on Instagram @karacollier1.
And once again, be sure to check out Nutrisense.io to learn more, and sign-up if you’re interested in getting started with a CGM.
Before You Go
Here’s a note and a question that came in from Stacy, who has been crushing it in the Wild Challenge. She says:
Hi Abel, I feel good. I am down 17 lbs in just 45 days – so awesome. More importantly my clothes fit better and I just feel so much better. I have been following you for quite a few years and really enjoy your podcasts as well.
I just have a question when you have a sec. I do intermittent fasting just about every day as I’m just not hungry in the morning. I really restrict carbs – not veggies though and sometimes I just feel either really tired or really hungry. I often skip my weekly cheat meal, too. I often think about a sweet potato with butter lol. Any thoughts?
Stacy, I’m thrilled with your results. Thank you so much for writing in. And that is an excellent question. I actually get it quite a lot.
So with intermittent fasting and carb restriction, certainly calorie restriction, sometimes those things go together. If you follow that road too far, if you do those things too hard or too long, then you can run out of gas, and sometimes hormones can down regulate.
I know if I go too low carb for too long, I experience a lot of the same feelings, like my hunger isn’t in check, I don’t have the energy that I otherwise would, and so there’s nothing wrong with a sweet potato refeed.
And keep in mind, as we discussed on this show with Kara, that certain carbs and starches and sugars affect people completely differently.
For example, as Kara explains in this episode, sweet potatoes set her blood glucose straight to the moon, whereas I’ve done some experiments and sweet potatoes seem fine for me, at least so far.
So experiment with different carbs, and don’t be afraid of getting in a nice balance of macros, especially on a cyclical basis.
I like doing carb refeeds post workout, that’s when you’re going to be in the best state to accept those carbs and sugars into your muscle and liver glycogen stores.
So there are ways to go about this where you can eat your carbs and still maintain a great lifestyle and also body composition.
Don’t be afraid of carbs. I know that keto has been the craze for the past few years, but it’s not necessarily the answer, not for everyone.
One quick little tip, if you’d like to reduce the glycemic load of your starches when you’re eating them, make sure to do the low temperature methods, more like the steaming, boiling as opposed to frying and baking, the high temperature methods.
That’s going to have a more favorable effect on your system, from a blood sugar point of view.
We dig in more in today’s show, so be sure to give this one a listen.
And Stacy, thank you once again for the question.
For you folks who are out there, if you’d like to join us in our next Wild Challenge, we have many giveaways coming up.
We’ve given away some huggable bacon plushies already, and you can get the next one, they’re absolutely adorable.
And Alyson does a great job putting together these prize packages, so make sure to get in on the next challenge.
You can go to fatburningman.com/app and use the code WILD25 to join our next challenge for 25% off.
You’ll get done-for-you meal plans, daily guidance in the palm of your hand, and we’ll even enter you into our next giveaway for a chance to win huggable bacon plushies, signed copies of The Wild Diet, as well as superfood supplements from our very own Wild superfoods.
Here’s one last quick note that came in from Nikki, who recently completed her first Wild Challenge. (Congrats Nikki!) She says…
I feel fantastic! This clean eating challenge was just what I needed to reboot my health.
I look slimmer (still a ways to go to get to a healthy, leaner self), I feel slimmer, my skin looks healthy, my energy and mood are great, I feel and look healthier than I have in years. Enough so that people around me have noticed a change and comment on it.
Being able to bend over and not feel like my gut is bloated and in the way is AMAZING. I plan to continue on this track!
Thanks for the help!
– Nicki
Thank you so much for getting in touch, Nikki, and all of you who have joined in our Wild Challenges.
We’re really trying to make our whole business based around community and interacting with you, so I would love for you to join in our next Wild Challenge, get in touch, there’s a lot of interactivity built into our app.
You can send me a message from right inside the app, and you can even link it up with the various fitness trackers out there.
So if you’d like to get in the fun, one more time, you can go to fatburningman.com/app, and don’t forget to use the coupon code WILD25 to save 25% off. I’ll see you there.
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And if you haven’t tried red light therapy yet, now is a great time to get results for less.
One of my favorite cutting edge bio-hacking technologies is red and near infrared light.
Light at specific wavelengths has been proven to spark a physiological healing response throughout the body.
Healing with high-powered light sounds a little wacky at first, but I started feeling relief from aches and pains almost immediately. In a world of hype, it’s refreshing to find tools that actually deliver.
And here’s some great news, my favorite portable infrared device, the FlexBeam, is finally ready for sale, and it’s changing the game.
I use the FlexBeam’s focused pulsing red and near infrared light to relieve my sore neck after long recording days, soothe stiffness in my hands and even once upon a time, the FlexBeam helped me recover from a nasty black widow bite.
Unlike large red light panels, the FlexBeam is portable, battery-powered and thankfully, far less expensive for early adopters.
You can even wear the FlexBeam while you’re working out.
So, if you’d like to heal your body and recover faster with the world’s first targeted infrared light device, for a limited time, you can get an extra 25% off and a free travel case when you click this special link.
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In my experience, the FlexBeam is a gizmo that actually over-delivers on its promises, so I can’t wait to hear how you like it.
What are your favorite tech tools for quantifying and optimizing your health? Have you tried tracking your blood glucose with a CGM? Drop a comment below!