Understanding Continuous Glucose Monitors (Sponsored)

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Transcript: Understanding Continuous Glucose Monitors (Sponsored)

Season 11, Episode 30  | November 13, 2025

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin.

And I’m David Freeman.

And in today’s episode, we are talking with a representative from Dexcom. We’re really excited. This is a sponsored episode of Life Time Talks. And they are the maker of Stelo. Stelo is a revolutionary glucose biosensor that tracks glucose 24/7 to reveal how food, exercise, and even sleep can affect your glucose levels.

And we’re really excited to dive into this topic on continuous glucose monitors. I know a lot of people may have seen those little — the things that on the backs of people’s arms and wondering, what are they doing? Do I need one? Should I try that? So let’s have a conversation there.

And David, you get to introduce our guest.

Yes. We’re super excited to have Cher Pastore. She’s a registered dietitian and certified within diabetes care, and education specialist as well. Currently serving as a director of clinical education at Dexcom. Cher focuses on the digital implementation of clinical education initiatives, conference, presentations, and clinical education partner strategy.

She has more than 15 years of experience within the private practice. She specializes in diabetes and diabetes technology, bringing a wealth of knowledge of expertise to her role at Dexcom. She is dedicated at advancing clinical education and improving patient outcomes. Welcome, Cher.

Hi. Thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Oh, we can’t wait to have this conversation. As I was saying in the intro, we see a lot of people — it’s becoming more common. We’re seeing people wearing continuous glucose monitors. We want to start our conversation by just getting level set on the terminology and making sure that we understand, is there a difference between continuous glucose monitors and glucose biosensors?

Yeah. We’re going to get into that. And before we get started, I just want to tell our listeners out there that I am, first and foremost, a clinician at heart. Literally, I spent 15 years helping people and being a dietitian. So even though I currently work for Dexcom, I just want you to know, I just believe in this so much. So I just wanted to say that.

I love that.

I love it.

So there are some differences. So when we talk about a continuous glucose monitor and a biosensor, the hardware is exactly the same. So the hardware is the same. And what is different is the software. And also the indications for use because the software is different. So the hardware in both cases is a tiny little filament. It’s called a glucose sensor. It’s worn on the back of the upper arm. And it’s just a little filament that sits right under the skin.

So that’s the same in both cases. Now with Dexcom G7, which is a continuous glucose monitor, it’s available with a prescription. So it needs to be prescribed by a health care professional. And that is indicated for people who have diabetes that are on insulin, even people who have gestational diabetes, who may or may not be on insulin. And Stelo, which is our biosensor, Dexcom’s biosensor, is available for people who are not on insulin. They could have diabetes or prediabetes, but they’re not using insulin.

And one of the major differences is that Stelo doesn’t have any alerts. So alerts in terms of a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, by whichever company a person is wearing, they’re there to keep the person safe. For example, if a person is on insulin, they don’t want to get hypoglycemia. So alerts are there for safety, either low or high.

And so Stelo doesn’t have that. And Stelo is mainly used as a behavior learning tool. So what did I eat? How did that affect my glucose? When I did my exercise, how did that affect my glucose? So Stelo was really for behavior modification to learn what’s affecting people’s glucose and also to give them insights.

I love the breakdown. And whenever I’m thinking about explanation, especially when we start to dive into things like this, I know sometimes people are like, oh man, talking over my head. I don’t really understand it. So I always try to break it down. So when it comes to CGMs and glucose biosensors, what they are and what they’re measuring, can you break that down for us?

Yeah, of course. So generally, now, I put them in the category of glucose sensing. I just think that makes it a little easier. And that’s essentially what’s happening. The filament is sensing glucose in the body. So basically, I like to just put it in that category. And what it’s measuring is it’s called interstitial glucose. And that is the glucose that’s in the fluid between the cells versus a blood glucose monitor, which is measuring capillary glucose.

So there’s just a little bit of a difference in the way it’s measuring it. But basically, what’s the most important thing is that we know that there are two different fluids. So there could be differences in what it’s reading. And I think we’re going to get into that. But the differences are fine. They’re accounted for in the systems themselves, and they’re both — and their extremely accurate.

So they just measure a little bit differently. But a CGM or a glucose sensor or a biosensor, they’re measuring the fluid. And it sends that reading to a display device. And it’s measuring the glucose continuously, so 24/7. Whereas, if you do a finger stick, it’s just going to be a moment in time. So it’s measuring that continuously. And it sends the reading to, in the case of Stello, a smartphone, whether it’s an iPhone or an Android.

So we have a lot of compatible devices. And that’s where the person would see what their glucose is reading.

Awesome. So let’s talk a little bit — we, on this podcast, have done a lot on blood glucose levels, and all of those pieces. But I want to talk a little bit about what is happening when our blood sugar spikes, dips or stay stable. Can you just walk us through, like, here’s what’s going on in the body, and then we can delve more into how then you would interpret that with your device?

Sure. So I think there are a couple of different things, a couple of different ways I want to answer this. So first and foremost would be the lived experience. So there’s very different experience, if the glucose is going up and down. So we call that glycemic variability. So we really would like the glucose to be — we call it flat narrow and in range, when we talk about interpreting data. Actually, the father of diabetes coined this.

So we want the glucose to be flat. So we want it to say be 90 as opposed to 90 to 120, drop back down to 80. So we want it to be more stable. So we would like it to be stable, and we would like it to be in range. And what’s happening is if the glucose is rapidly fluctuating with whether a person has diabetes or if they don’t, if they, say, eat a lot of carbohydrates, or they’re stressed or they do intense exercise, which I know we’ll get into. But there are different things that cause this glycemic variability.

And what it would manifest in the day-to-day is they might have decreased energy. They would feel like they’re on a roller coaster. They might have more food cravings. So it would manifest, in a lot of different ways, on the surface. But inside, deleterious things would be happening. It’s a precursor for something like heart disease. Obviously, it’s a precursor for prediabetes, then type II diabetes. And really, even at the very basic level, now, we’re seeing just glucose levels above 100, above 120, could lead to inflammation.

So there are a lot of things that can be happening, not just how the person feels, but that’s really going on inside.

And some of those things are invisible to us. You mentioned inflammation. We talk about that being just that little fire. It’s not really flaming up yet, but it’s starting to burn at a low-grade level and cause health issues we may not be aware of.

Yeah. We’re not. And we’re going to see a lot. And now, with the advancement now of more people having access to glucose sensing, we’re going to start to see this happening, and we’re going to know that, listen, we need to keep our glucose levels down. And this is really like the tip of the iceberg.

Right.

Yeah, Cher. Can you break this down? Because I know you was breaking down as far as how I was making the reading. How does it help distinguish the difference between a good spike versus bad spike, like from pre-workout carbs versus something that could be lacking within recovery or something along those lines?

Yeah. That’s an interesting question. So I think there are a few ways that we can look at that. Number one is we have to know. So if we did exercise, and we see it go up, and we see it come down pretty closely after exercise, we know why that happened. But what we don’t know is, what if somebody ate a very high fat meal. So fat, generally, delays absorption of glucose. And so glucose would stay high. So stayed high for three hours.

So that would be less desirable, staying higher, longer. Even though I don’t want it to go so up and down, it’s really still OK if we know it was because of adrenaline, if we know it was because the liver just thought out some glucose. So we know that. That’s OK. That’s the reason that happened. And we know that it comes down quickly.

But really, even things like stress — so I wear a Stelo. I wish I had one on. I don’t have one because I ran out of them. I have to order them. But basically, if I sit at my desk all day, which I do a lot, because I’m working, it’s very different what happens to my glucose than if I go for a walk, or I’m not stressed, or out and about, or it’s on a weekend. You can see these differences in the moment in real time. And you’ll start to look and you’ll learn. And then you can adjust what happens. And that’s the key to having this information.

I love that. I want to piggyback off that. Is that OK, Jamie?

Absolutely. Keep going.

Yeah. So do you think — because we use a lot of heart rate monitoring within our training. Do you think in the near future that glucose monitoring starts to become as common?

Yeah. So again, I work for Dexcom. So I can’t say anything that’s off label. But I think that that’s where we’re headed. I really think that that’s where it’s going. I think it’s going to be, hopefully, as common as wearing your watch, because we really need to see this information. Yeah.

Well, it’s affecting how we move through our daily lives or can influence. And we’re going to get into all of those factors. I’m particularly really interested to talk about the sleep factor, because that is something that I and David, you and I — you know this about me. It’s like the thing I’m constantly working on, I’m like, oh, I need to sleep better. It’s the first thing I compromise. So we’ll get to that in a little bit.

But I want to talk about how widespread insulin dysregulation is because this is a major issue in our population.

It really is. Yeah. The numbers for prediabetes are huge. They’re staggering. And some people don’t even know they have prediabetes. But there’s about 88% of the population that has some form of glucose dysregulation. So it’s a staggering number. And also, there’s something that we could do something about it now.

I used to think about this a lot. Now, we have the ability. OK, say I’m wearing my Stelo, I eat a high carbohydrate meal. My glucose goes up. Well, I don’t have to do that the next day, if I don’t want to. I can change that. Whereas, what if I didn’t have that information? Or what if I didn’t even see that spike? I wouldn’t be able to change that. So I think that’s the key right there, not just food. We are going to get into all the other things that affect glucose levels, but carbohydrate is a big one.

And that’s something that can easily be changed. And I’m not saying don’t eat carbohydrate. It’s different types, it’s amount, it’s quality, it’s timing. It’s all of these things which we can talk about further. But it’s looking and knowing and then knowing what change to make because something is happening, if that glucose is rising and staying elevated and not coming back down to a good range within an appropriate amount of time.

I want to go to what you said is like a lot of people are walking around with it and might not even know it, because, obviously, they need to get that reading to understand that. Is there any symptoms that an individual could probably be experiencing? And just blowing it off because they’re like, oh, I didn’t get enough sleep. That’s why I feel this way. So is it ways that somebody could probably say, oh, I’m having these symptoms. Let me now go get it checked?

Yeah. A person probably wouldn’t be symptomatic until their glucose was elevated for a prolonged period of time. So before it’s almost too late, they wouldn’t have these symptoms. You could feel funny, but you would make it to something else. Oh, I didn’t sleep enough or oh, I didn’t drink enough water. So really, until it’s too late, you wouldn’t know.

By the time you start — a person starts having symptoms, they’re either already prediabetes, probably even prediabetes, you don’t have symptoms. Once you cross over to type II diabetes, of course, type I has symptoms, but then you would start feeling it. And so all of these — that could be 10 years. So 10 years a person could have this happening and not even know not be walking around, think they’re fine.

And even if they took a fingerstick with a regular like a blood glucose meter, say they took a fingerstick at a moment in time and their glucose was 100, they could still be like, oh, everything’s fine. But what if they had on a sensor and they saw? Oh, my gosh. I go up to 180. I go up to 200. I stay up there. So they wouldn’t even know if they just took a finger stick and didn’t wear a monitor.

They wouldn’t know it. They wouldn’t feel it. And all of these things would be happening.

Think about that now. So I want you to give all our listeners the hack right now. All right. They’re going to their primary care physician. What should they be asking from their primary care physician to be looking at in their panels? And then also, you spoke a little bit about the range so they can be somewhat proactive in this space versus reactive.

Yeah. So if a person is going to their doctor, average glucose is going to be part of a normal chemistry panel, anyway. So average glucose is there. But further, they would ask for, it’s called a hemoglobin A1C. So hemoglobin A1C is the marker there. And also, they could take a fasting insulin level, if they want. But very commonly, it’s average glucose and hemoglobin A1C. That’s common.

And what we want, so glucose ranges for a person who doesn’t have diabetes is 70 to 140. This is measured in milligrams per deciliter. Don’t really need to know that. But on the reading, on the CGM, it would say 70, or it would say 80, or it would say 90. So it’s just going to say that number. And basically, we would like to keep — so fasting glucose is technically eight hours without food. It doesn’t mean if the person works the night shift, it doesn’t have to be a breakfast. It’s just whenever they’ve done fasted, had eight hours without food.

So that fasting glucose really, ideally, is between say 70 to 90. That’s ideal. A hundred is getting questionable. So if a person was wearing their CGM and they saw their average glucose was, say, 105, 110, I would like them to talk to their doctor.

So let’s say that you’re not someone who’s worried about that right now. You’ve been to your health provider. Your fasting glucose looks good, but you’re really health proactive. You want to be monitoring things. And again, like you said, it could be 10 years before you started to show signs or things. Why are we seeing this? Why do you think we’re seeing this rise in health motivated individuals embracing CGM as part of their healthy living routines?

Yeah. I think really just because of the technologies here now. So we have it. There’s an awareness we can do something. And so now people can see that it’s really because it’s access. Right now, it’s available. It is available without a prescription. The information is good. It is really small. And you can get so much information.

So it’s something that is so small, but that can make a huge impact. So I think that people are understanding that, and they’re seeing. And then when they try it on, I think they like it. I love it. I was only going to put it on for two weeks. I’ve been, I don’t know, wearing it for six months. I like it. And then it becomes like your accountability partner. It helps you.

Sometimes, I don’t know, say, I eat like pizza, if I eat whatever. If eat pizza, I’m fine. I got a glucose spike, but I’m not going to eat pizza every day. So you learn and you make changes. For athletes, in particular, one of the biggest things that it can help, of course, is timing of meals. Did they eat enough? Did they eat enough carbohydrate? How are they going to fuel their workout? How are they going to fuel their workout, A, in terms of what is their glucose doing. But B, in terms of how they feel, how they sustain it.

So I think the implications for athletics is just going to be so important. And we’re going to try to optimize their training schedule.

Awesome.

You said something earlier, I want to come back to you. You said fasting. And we’ve heard intermittent fasting and things of that nature. When it comes to helping reset, if you will, the glucose levels, and understanding if we’re now doing that for a longer period of time and being intentional about it, is there a way that we can help support glucose levels to come back to what I would call normal or optimal?

So basically, I don’t want to get too much into fasting, but I want to get into is what is the person’s glucose monitor telling them. We definitely know that if a person is in a fasted state, their glucose will be lower. But I don’t know that that’s going to be the solution. So what I think is going to be the solution is what works for the person and what works for their body.

And that’s where we have the thinking. I call it, experience, experiment, and reflect. And what I mean by that is I want the person to put on a glucose sensor. I want them to wear it, do what they normally do. So say for the first week, they start to wear it, and they just eat their normal thing. They sleep, they exercise, they do everything like normal. And they start to look and learn their patterns.

And what their first want to look at is, what is my average glucose? So is my average glucose — and on Stelo, on the app itself, it has. It’s called a time in range. Time in range meaning time in glucose range. So it’s the time in range bar. And it tells you so you can set it. You can customize it. But it’s set at 70 to 140 for a person without diabetes.

So if they keep it there, they just look. So is my glucose in range? And then every day it tells you. OK, I was in range 95% of the time, was striving for 96% of the time. But it will tell you. And if you start and you’re at 85% of the time, you look, you wear your sensor, you see what caused your spike, and then you make a change, and then you see what happened.

So we were talking about smoothies. Smoothies, in many cases, cause glucose spikes, because there are a lot of just quick absorbed carbs. So basically, if a person eats at their smoothie and then their glucose goes high, the next day, they say, OK, I’m going to change. Say, they have two eggs with a little bit of avocado and maybe a half a slice of bread, that’s a smaller carbohydrate. And their glucose stays at around 100.

So great. That works for them. So that’s an experiment that I would want them to continue. So basically, what we’re trying to do is see what works for that person. So they can keep their glucose in that range. We would strive for 96% of the time, but I don’t want anyone out there to be worried if it is not 96% of the time.

I wear my Stelo. And honestly, it’s not that all the time, that’s what I’m going for. But if it doesn’t happen, I just see what can I do the next day to make sure that I can do that.

So I don’t want anyone to panic if it doesn’t happen. It’s OK. What you’re doing is you’re learning, you’re changing so you can get it to be in that range most of the time. And if someone out there is listening, and they’re wearing, or they do wear a sensor, and it’s not getting in range, that’s when something could be happening.

Are we talking about prediabetes? Is something else happening there? And that’s where they would want to possibly talk to their doctor.

So from there, you mentioned a little bit about what works for you. And I think it’s really important as we start talking about these major lifestyle factors that affect this. When it comes to food, what spikes my blood glucose may be very different from what spikes David’s. I could eat a sweet potato. And all of a sudden, I see my blood glucose rise.

For somebody else, it may stay in that stable range. Let’s talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. Sure. so when we talk about food and affecting glucose, the most important thing, so there is quantity, there’s quality, there’s amount, and then there’s order

So first, let’s talk about quantity, because I do think that there are a lot of people out there who subscribe to the all-or-nothing school of thinking. So if a person goes, I’m just going to go out and I’m going to eat. Say, they have an appetizer, they have bread, they have pasta, then they have dessert. Because they’re like, oh, it’s all ruined, anyway. The reality is that is very different than if a person does just go out and say, have a salad and pasta, but they don’t have bread and dessert.

So the all-or-nothing in quantity is extremely, extremely important. And when a person wears their sensor, they’ll see that.

Now, second is quality. So as you mentioned, say, a sweet potato. But still even a sweet potato could maybe is fine for one person, but isn’t fine for another person. But generally speaking, when we talk about quality, we would want something to be higher in fiber, because fiber helps plant the glucose response. So we would want say, legumes versus cookies. That’s basic.

But still, even within that, if somebody does eat something, if you wear a monitor, and I wear one and we’re talking, and I’m like, yeah, I had this and you’re like, oh, I can’t eat that. So it’s very individualized. But also timing, there’s a lot of research now that’s showing that the timing affects how a glucose, how high it will go and how long they’ll stay high. So basically, we would like to eat protein and fiber first, followed up by carb. So not don’t have any carbs.

I know that there’s going to be a lot of people listening to us out there and a lot of people do have very particular ways that they eat. Some people follow Keto, some people do fasting, intermittent fasting. So I’m not going to recommend any of those. I only recommend wearing a monitor and doing what works for your body. So if that works for you, great. But I want it to be based in data. I want it to be based in science, and I want it to be based on things that are good for our body.

So I just want to make sure everybody knows that.

Absolutely.

Well, I’m big on the things of what I would call the power of three. You already used yours when you were talking about experience, experiment, and then reflect. I believe that when we say it the first time, people hear you. The second time, they’re listening. The third time, they’re ready to take action. So the thing that I want to throw at you now is a lot of athletes or just your everyday individual that’s trying to be healthy, they struggle with weight loss simply because they’re not able to regulate their blood sugars all over the place.

So when it comes to blood sugar regulation, why does it matter so much when it comes to losing weight? And how can a tool like Stelo, actually, help someone connect the dots between nutrition, training, and then overall long-term results in this space?

Yeah. That’s multifactorial. So thanks for that. That’s a really complex question. The second half is easy. It’s not 100% clear how glucose regulation affects weight loss. When we talk about Stelo, which we’ll get into the back half. That’s clear. If hormones, they’re not regulated, and they’re out of control, it makes it harder to lose weight.

So basically, there’s a hormonal effect. And it could result in an increase in glucose. The metabolic pathways are just not working as efficiently. So that makes it harder. But it also could be that the person is eating just too much or not the right things for their body. And that would be manifested in seeing what their glucose is.

But when we talk about Stelo in terms of it helping a person with their weight, it’s mostly in terms of two things. One is behavior modification. And it’s behavior modification because they’re wearing the device, they see their data, and then they are able to respond in real time as to what they can do, in terms of their food and in terms of their exercise, even in terms of hydration. Most significantly.

Other things, of course, again, are stress and sleep. And they do have deleterious effects on glucose. Generally speaking, they increase glucose. Even one night, even one night of less than seven hours without sleep can increase glucose levels. So also things happen. The person has more cravings if their glucose is high. If it’s going up and down or, say, even their glucose is low, then a person would be more hungry because you want to eat. It’s just an innate response I need to eat to get my glucose up.

So it really manifests in what they’re eating, what their glucose is doing, and then what behavior they’re going to do. And Stelo, it gives you your glucose number, and then it shows you your trend, and then it shows you, overall, how much in range you’ve been. And then we have this learn tab.

We also have photo logging. So a person can take a picture of their food, and it comes into the app. And then it’s correlated with their glucose. And Jamie, I know you mentioned sleep. And we also are integrated with an Oura Ring. And the Oura Ring tracks your sleep.

So these things all go together. And it’s a really nice holistic system. So you can see your food, you can see your sleep, you can see your stress. And then you manage it accordingly.

Nice.

Yeah.

That’s awesome.

I really love that integration because we know that health is so interdependent on so many different factors. So making sure we understand that blood sugar is not just about what you eat. It is about sleep. It’s about stress. And I’d really love to delve into stress a little bit because that’s something we know when we’ve got cortisol chronically running through our body, if we’re chronically stressed. What is that doing to us potentially?

Yea. So before I answer that, let me start with, there’s this interesting article. It was based on people who have diabetes, but it’s 42 factors that affect glucose levels, literally 42. And sometimes in practice, some HCPs aren’t even aware of all of these things that could happen. So the common ones, of course, we’ve talked about, it’s food, it’s lack of sleep, it’s stress. But other things like hydration, caffeine, where a woman is in her menstrual cycle, hormones, alcohol.

So there’s so many things that do affect glucose levels. And so what the important thing is, again, is how high is it going? And how quickly can I get it down into a range and keep it in that range? So if a person is stressed — I used to have this patient. And he was in dental school. And he would come into my office. He did have diabetes.

He would come into my office. Anytime he had to take an exam, his glucose would be over 250. That’s very high. So his glucose was over 250 anytime he would take an exam. And he had to ask — I worked with an endocrinologist. He had to ask the doctor, what can he do. And in this particular case, she had to prescribe him just like a little bit of anti-anxiety medicine when he took the test.

So I’m not suggesting people take anti-anxiety medicine. But what I’m saying is that stress has such a significant and profound impact on glucose levels that we really need to know how high it’s going and then make a change. So other things that could happen that we could do to lower stress, that don’t involve taking a medication. Of course, going for a walk, trying to do deep breathing. Maybe you can do yoga. Maybe you do meditation. But the important thing is, A, recognizing that it’s happening. And B, saying, what can I do about it?

So that’s the most important thing.

Yeah. And I know our listeners are in that stage of curiosity. And the dope part of what you said earlier, again, you’ve experienced it firsthand now. So you can speak from that experience, and you can also speak to the reflection of the value that you got from it. So for those who are on edge, I’m thinking about doing this, I want to understand this better to help manage my health and optimize it, I want you to speak to those individuals.

But on the same side, is there, also, anyone that you think that this might not be advised for?

So generally speaking, I feel like this technology could be for almost everybody. People, though, who would wear Stelo would be different than people who would wear a Dexcom G7. So people who have diabetes, people who are on insulin would be on a continuous glucose monitor.

Anyone who is either interested in their glucose, who is interested in their metabolic health, who might want to improve their energy, who is interested in losing weight through behavior change. all of those people, I would want to try out this technology. Some people who wouldn’t be anyone with problematic hypoglycemia. If there is a documented case of an eating disorder, it maybe they wouldn’t want to try it. I just don’t know. It could make them a little more anxious.

But on the whole, I would say everybody else. I love it. I do. I love it so much for so many reasons, even exercise. So a lot of people out there, you can learn. So sometimes people think that all exercise lowers glucose. That’s not really the case. So we know that intense cardio or maybe intense power lifting could have an adrenaline rush increase in glucose.

So not suggesting that I wouldn’t want anyone to do that. I just want them to monitor their levels and to know what’s happening. And how do I treat it? And how can I adjust for it? Do I space it out longer? Or do I eat differently? Do I make sure I recover faster? Do I get more hydration? What would I do to help just mitigate it as much as I possibly can?

So I think it’s so important to learn. I don’t know. I changed my breakfast. Throughout my life I’ve done so many different things with food. I’ve been vegetarian, I’ve been vegan. I didn’t eat this. I didn’t eat that. But now I’m pretty mainstream. But there are times when I might not eat as healthy as otherwise. And so this really helps me to just get back on track faster.

But most significantly, not even my food, it’s my stress, and my exercise because it’s not good if I sit at this desk all day. And I know there are a lot of listeners out there and our listeners maybe they go to the gym like one hour a day. But OK, what about the whole rest of the time? So really, that’s important.

You don’t even realize that sometimes just one hour of activity might not be enough. We need to build it into the day-to-day. And it doesn’t need to be like anything crazy. But you get up from your desk, you march in place, you do go for a walk. You don’t sit down right after eating. Little things like that help, and it just helps so much.

And then you build it into your lifestyle, and you see that it works, and then you get motivated. And then it’s just a good cycle that feeds on itself.

Yeah. You just said right there, you build it into your lifestyle. And I think that’s where you mentioned earlier. These are meant, I think, two weeks for where. But how long do you recommend people potentially monitor for to get a really good baseline of what’s happening in their body? And then you said you can take pictures. Do you also recommend like journaling alongside it to be really clear about what’s doing what?

Yeah. Again, I think it’s really different for everybody. Let me just say that, generally, the change can happen very quickly. So within one week to two weeks. So Stelo is worn for 15 days. I think probably wearing it, say, from one to three months, initially, would be a good place to start, because then you look and you learn.

Because if you just wear it for two weeks, you might not have enough time to make a change or to see what that sustained change did. So I would say, yeah, probably three months. If you love it, obviously, I would want you to keep wearing it. For athletes, they could just — if they want to just do it before a big event.

Sometimes we work with cyclists and the training period leading up to the event. They put it on, they wear it, they optimize their schedule. And then when they do the event, they don’t wear it during that time. And then afterwards, up to them. So it’s definitely intermittent, and it’s individual.

But if anyone has prediabetes, I would want them to wear it and continue to wear it. Because if they don’t, then they would develop very likely type II diabetes in a much shorter fashion. It’s pretty individual. But I think, there’s going to be a lot of people out there who I think are going to love it. And be like, oh, I want to just keep wearing it. Or say, you wear it for three months, and then you’re like, OK, let me just take a break, and then you go back to it. So there’s a lot of differences that could happen there.

I don’t even know that I have it on when I have it on, so I don’t know, it’s just there. It’s like my iWatch and my Oura.

If you don’t, I’m going to ask, since you’ve been wearing it, was there anything surprising that you learned about yourself in some of the patterns that you saw for you as someone? You’ve been wearing this for a while.

Yes, but I can’t really tell you, though.

[LAUGHTER]

 

No. I would say, honestly, I think for me, I think it was the biggest thing was like that the sitting at the desk. That was really the biggest thing. Because I studied nutrition, so I know a lot about food.

Yes.

So that wasn’t a big thing for me. I think the sitting at the desk, and, I think, really just seeing hormones. Hormones are really big for women. Sometimes like the week before, I would notice my glucose was like significantly higher. And I’m like, what’s happening? And then as soon as get your cycle, it drops. So there’s a lot of differences.

But I think it’s like the sitting at the desk. That was just like, oh, my God, what am I doing?

Yeah. I think that one is so eye opening for people, in general, is like that just reminder. It’s like, get up every 90 minutes at minimum and get move and just get a few steps in, whether it’s like walking to the bathroom, do a couple laps in the office, whatever that looks like.

Significantly, yes. And you can see. It drops it pretty quickly. And there’s some research out there that even for people who after meals, like, it’s just a 10-minute walk. If they can just go for a 10-minute walk, significantly lowers glucose levels. Because I know sometimes people are like, oh, if I can’t do a half hour or an hour, it’s not going to do anything.

That’s just not the case. Literally, the data shows 10 minutes.

That’s doable.

Yeah.

Well, Cher, we hit on a good amount of items on today’s list. So is there anything that we might have missed that you want to add for our listeners?

No, I think I just want to say, I would really encourage anybody out there who’s listening to at least try this technology to see if it works for you. Because like we said, things could be happening, that they don’t even know about. And it’s something really small and easy that could make a huge impact. So I think that’s all I want to say.

You can find me at cherpastore@dexcom.com, if you have any questions. I’d love to talk about nutrition, diet, diabetes, technology. And I really am there for people because I just believe my whole heart in this technology.

Well, Cher. Before we wrap, you got something special that we do at the end of every podcast. It’s called a mic drop moment. Are you ready for it?

Oh, my God, I don’t know.

Yes.

OK.

All right. Here we go. You ready? Rub your hands like this. Rub your hands like this. All right. Yeah. It’s going to be a good one. All right.

Cher, so after everything you’ve seen in the private practice, and, now, at Dexcom, if you can leave one sticky note on your own fridge about blood sugar, what would it say?

Oh my God. One?

I love the visualization of seeing like, imagining this right there.

What would I say? I would say, think before you eat.

I like the simplicity of that.

It’s like the key. Because a lot of times, eating is — nobody’s thinking. And I would just think about it. Yeah, if I put that on my refrigerator tomorrow morning, I would want to see it, because I would probably just maybe eat the first thing that was in there.

And my mom is visiting. And there’s a lot of not good stuff in it.

[LAUGHTER]

It’s that whole idea of mindful eating, paying attention. I love that. Oh, goodness.

Well, Cher. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re so glad to have you.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah. We appreciate you.