So it is with me and getting a CGM. I don’t have TY1 or 2 Diabetes, and am not Pre-Diabetic and as far as I can tell am not insulin resistant. Let alone at most times I am relatively lower carb than most and a lot less than many that work out and race as I do. Yea, I am the opposite of the ever increasing posts on working to convince people they need to take in more carbs than ever before. Where as for a long time the goal was to take in up to maybe 60gr or even maybe 80gr of carbs an hour the use now is for close to or over double that at 120+gr/hr. Now I get it - if your paradigm is carb centric and you are not willing to change that paradigm you probably only have one way to go - more and more carbs. But there is a way to go and it is one our bodies was designed to go - that is to use the fuel - fat or carb - that is needed for the effort or situation at hand. However after years of training our bodies to rely on one source, carbs, most have to make a n effort to get things back on track
My thoughts and plans for the CGM is to gain more info on how my body works to help my health and performance and also to help others in how to use carbs in a lower carb diet for health and performance. The Bernal plan is to just gather info for 2-3 weeks and then start experimenting with different foods and timings to see what doe best for any given situation and effort. In the midst of this will be my run and ride at the Gravel World’s Double the end of August and will be interesting to see what the data shows after the races. Unlike a certain company that pushes their CGM set up to drive what you do even in a race I am just going to observer what happened and use that data to compare to how I feel and make adjustments. The issue with making on the fly changes is that as context changes - temp, effort, fatigue and more - so does ones needs and it may not be the same from one time to the next.
As far as the CGM set up I chose I went with Levels. As a bit of info if you are not diagnosed by your doctor as diabetic or pre diabetic you will need to go the route of one of the CGM health companies to get a CGM as you can’t just buy them and your insurance will not cover it. While a topic for another day but it is interesting that insurance companies will only cover things when you are already sick instead of covering those tools that may help you not get sick - but that is how they work since sick people are more valuable to the medical complex. I looked at a few companies and finally decided on Levels as at the moment you had a choice between a Freestyle Libre or Dexcom 6 and for now went with the Freestyle Libre as the Dexcom 6. Some differences are that the Libre is a little smaller and needs to be scanned every 8 hours to down load the data while the Dexcom is live and downloads the data via bluetooth. Also, the Libre is good for 14 days before you need to change it while the Dexcom needs to be changed every 10 days. Then, depending on who you talk to one may be more accurate than the other but if Levels ever moves to Dexcom 7 which I hear is much better it will be good. As Levels, as with others, is a subscription based you get a new set of CGMs every month and you can change from the Libre to Dexcom when you like or even stop the subscription for a period of time. You do pay a yearly ($199/yr) fee for use of their software on top of the monthly fee for the CGMs ($199/mth). Again, you can put the CGM’s on hold when you like and then start again. My plan is to use one for 3-6 months then take a break then come back near the end of my year plan - actually got a free extra 2 months - and see how things are and decide what I want to do from there.
I am sure there will be more I will do as another aspect of this is to see how my system reacts to being fat adapted and what happens when working out and racing when lower on carbs. As I have said this is not to have the data drive what I do in real time, even though it may help adjust it over time, but help fine tune my fueling and cooperate what I already know and feel - or if the data says something else change what needs to be changed. IN working with Peter at Vespa we really want things to be organic and intuitive but also know that data helps to build a foundation that supports what we know.
That’s it for now as I head off to So Cal for work for a month - will be interesting to see how my body does when eating out for month on travel. I have to admit I am sort of a data geek so am really looking forward to this and truly hope that the info I discover will help others so stay tuned.
What is the plan - well as I said this is to be a journey to learn more about how my body functions and to be able to fine tune my diet and carb use for various situations be it just life or racing and training. The first 2-4 weeks will mainly just getting used to the data and collecting it so I know what my baseline is. Also, will collect data from the Gravel Worlds Double that is about 5 weeks away which should be interesting in and of itself. From there, and maybe even some in the 2-4 weeks, I will do some testing of certain foods and food combinations to see how I react. One thing I really want to find out is about what carbs work best when racing to give me the push I need. I have already found how some combos spike my glucose more than others - I do not noice it directly but can sure see it in the numbers.
I am sure there will be more I will do as another aspect of this is to see how my system reacts to being fat adapted and what happens when working out and racing when lower on carbs. As I have said this is not to have the data drive what I do in real time, even though it may help adjust it over time, but help fine tune my fueling and cooperate what I already know and feel - or if the data says something else change what needs to be changed. In working with Peter Defty at Vespa we really want things to be organic and intuitive but also know that data helps to build a foundation that supports what we know.
That’s it for now as I head off to So Cal for work for a month - will be interesting to see how my body does when eating out for month on travel. I have to admit I am sort of a data geek so am really looking forward to this and truly hope that the info I discover will help others so stay tuned.
Looking forward to this journey Tony. Between you, Jeff, Kevin and Jodie we are going to get some really interesting insights to further develop our program so we can be better and help others be better as a result. Thank you!
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