Why should people without diabetes monitor glucose levels?

Only 12% of the U.S. population is considered metabolically healthy. Today, more than 120 million Americans have prediabetes or diabetes, and 84% of people with prediabetes don’t even know they have it. What’s more, 9 of the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. are strongly related to metabolic dysfunction or are exacerbated by poor glucose control. In short, too much glucose can have serious consequences for anyone.

Fortunately, the beauty of striving for better metabolic fitness is that much of it is in our control.

Maintaining stable glucose ranges can improve energy, endurance, memory, mood, and cognitive performance. Levels’ goal is to help you improve metabolic fitness by alerting you to foods and lifestyle choices that negatively impact glucose levels, so you can make healthier, more informed decisions.

Read more about Levels’ theory of behavior change here.

Can’t I just look at a glycemic index to see how foods will affect me?

Glycemic index (GI) indicates how quickly your body processes the carbohydrates in a particular food, and can be a useful guide to what might cause a glucose spike. For example, potatoes have a high GI, so they can cause a spike even without added sugar.

But how we each respond to food goes beyond the macronutrient composition of the food itself. You might respond well to bananas and have a big spike when you eat rice, while someone else may have the opposite response. Individual differences, such as the composition of our gut microbiome, how well we sleep, exposure to stress, physical activity, and our genetics can all contribute to those unique reactions. The more you know about how your body responds, the easier it becomes to make healthy choices.

Why does Levels measure glucose and not insulin?

Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas that allows  glucose to move from our blood into our cells, where it can be stored or converted to energy. When glucose is too high too frequently, we produce too much insulin. Over time, that can lead to insulin resistance, a condition associated with serious chronic disorders including heart disease, cancer, stroke, dementia, and infertility.

However, insulin cannot be tested continuously at home. Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) makes glucose simple to measure yourself, and since the body releases insulin in response to glucose elevation in the blood, CGMs can help coach people to eat for fewer glucose spikes and therefore minimize excess insulin

What is a healthy range for glucose levels?

The International Diabetes Federation recommends that for people without diabetes, glucose levels should remain below 140mg/dL after meals and return to pre-meal levels within 2–3 hours. However, there are no standardized, universally accepted criteria for what “normal” or “optimal” 24-hour glucose values are for non-diabetic people wearing CGMs. 

Levels recommends maintaining glucose levels between 72–110 mg/dL, limiting post-meal glucose rises to no more than 30 mg/dL from pre-meal levels, and maintaining an average glucose of 100 mg/dL or lower. We based these guidelines on observed blood-glucose levels in several studies of healthy, non-diabetic people wearing CGMs. Remember, your optimal glucose levels are specific to you—talk to your healthcare provider about your target range.

Read more about recommended glucose levels here. 

Captured at on Nov 09, 2020 by Stacie Flinner Photography.

THINGS THAT AFFECT BLOOD SUGAR

What are some diet suggestions to keep my glucose low and stable?

Many aspects of our diet impact our metabolic response, including the amount of carbohydrates in a food, whether carbs are paired with fat, protein, or fiber, the body’s micronutrient status (vitamins and minerals are key metabolic factors), microbiome composition, and exposure to metabolic disrupting environmental chemicals that can be present in our food and drinks.

There are also many different diets that can support metabolically healthy eating, and a core Levels principle is recognizing that each of us reacts differently to different foods.

TLDR: Eat a thoughtful, clean, unrefined diet filled with fiber, protein, healthy fats, and micronutrients to support metabolic health from multiple angles.

• Don’t eat carbohydrates alone. Pair carbs with healthy protein, fats, and fiber. If you eat an apple, pair it with a nut butter or put it in a chia seed pudding (high fiber and healthy fats). If you have a sweet potato, add tahini, olive oil, flax seeds or nuts, plus some protein. 
• A diet that’s least likely to cause sharp glucose spikes is one that emphasizes whole, unprocessed foods. Foods made in a factory or that come in a package are likely to be refined, so are more likely to generate a glucose spike, be nutrient poor, and have additives that can damage our metabolism and microbiome.
• Eat a lot of low-carbohydrate vegetables (i.e. greens, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, Brussels sprouts), which are filled with micronutrients and are unlikely to have much impact on glucose levels. 
• Many research studies suggest that including fiber and protein-rich foods like beans, legumes (i.e., lentils), nuts, and seeds support stable glucose levels.  
• Fats in their whole-food form like nuts, seeds, avocado, coconut, and olives have little impact on glucose and may buffer the effect of of carbohydrates.
• Try small amounts of whole grains and low-sugar fruits to see how they affect your glucose, and try pairing them with fat, protein, and fiber to minimize any spikes.
• If you eat animal products, focus on wild-caught, small fish like sardines, anchovies, and salmon, and choose organic, grass-fed, antibiotic- and hormone-free beef, lamb, game meats, or eggs. These will have more omega-3 fats, which support metabolic health. 
• Avoid refined sugar of any kind. Beware: There are dozens of hidden types in things ranging from ketchup to bread to salad dressings to peanut butter. 
• Try to buy organic as much as possible, as these products tend to have a higher nutrient density and less pesticides, both of which can have an impact on metabolic processes. 
• Focus on healthy food swaps that allow you to have your favorite foods without the spike. Things like NuPasta, which is made from high-fiber konjac root, instead of white-flour pasta, or cauliflower rice instead of rice. 

If I just avoid sugary foods, can I avoid glucose spikes?

First, it’s important to know that hidden sugars go by a lot of names, including beet sugar and agave. Second, it’s not just added sugars: Anything made with refined grains or flour, like white bread, tortillas, crackers, or bagels; refined fruits like juice; and starchy foods like potatoes, sweet potatoes, instant oatmeal, or squash, can all spike your glucose, particularly when eaten without fat, protein, or fiber.

Our bodies convert all carbohydrates into glucose, regardless of whether they come from oatmeal, pasta, fruit, or a donut. A benefit of using a CGM is that you can learn to properly pair, time, and sequence foods effectively, and identify foods that cause a particularly high glucose spike for you, so that you can avoid or modulate them.

Read more about strategies for lowering your glucose levels. 

What about exercise and glucose?

Regular exercise has several benefits for metabolic fitness. It can help train our bodies to more efficiently switch from using glucose for energy to burning fat; we call that metabolic flexibility. Second, muscle contraction can enable our muscles to take up glucose from the bloodstream without additional insulin. Regular exercise can also increase the amount of fat we burn between meals and our number of cellular mitochondria (which process fat and glucose to make energy). 

And you don’t have to exercise profusely to realize these benefits. Multiple studies show that moderate activity for just 30 minutes, three times per week can improve insulin resistance and glycemic control. Research has also found that many short bouts of movement throughout the day can be more beneficial than one longer workout, so aim to be more active more frequently, even if it’s for just a few minutes. 

Read more about glucose and exercise here.

So then why does my glucose spike while working out?

Some people see a rise in blood glucose levels during intense exercise. That’s because workouts that push your body above around 80% VO2max stimulate the liver to release more of its stored glucose, and if that exceeds what the muscles need for the workout, you may see higher circulating glucose.

This isn’t something to worry about, however. High-intensity training actually improves both fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity in as little as two weeks. Additionally, glucose spikes during exercise are the result of a different chain of physiological processes compared to the body releasing insulin to metabolize a meal. 

For easy-to-moderate efforts like walking, jogging or riding a bike, the body is not going to be stimulated to quickly release glucose from the liver, and will mostly rely on circulating glucose and fat for energy. So with low-intensity exercise (around 60% VO2max or less), people typically see glucose decline slightly or stay stable. 

What do sleep and stress have to do with glucose levels?

When we experience stress or don’t get enough sleep, our bodies sense a “threat” and release hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and epinephrine. This stimulates the liver to create or release glucose and makes the liver acutely insulin resistant. This may be an evolutionary response designed to ensure we have energy to fight or flee, since historically “threat” probably meant that we had to use our muscles to escape a dangerous situation, so this glucose in the bloodstream may have been beneficial.

Now, since our stressors are largely psychological—annoying emails, traffic, smartphones pinging—this extra circulating glucose is not helpful. That may be why you see higher glucose levels when you’re stressed or coming off a poor night’s sleep.

When we don’t sleep enough, our bodies become quickly insulin resistant. In fact, research shows that when people sleep just one hour less per night (6.5 hours rather than 7.5–8.5 hours), they have to secrete 50% more insulin to get the same amount of glucose out of the blood. 

Fortunately, techniques that help us deal with stress can also improve our metabolic fitness. Studies show that simple actions like twice-weekly meditations or 20-minute daily breathing can reduce fasting and post-meal glucose levels. 

Read more about glucose and stress and glucose and sleep.

Captured at on Nov 09, 2020 by Stacie Flinner Photography.

USING LEVELS

How does Levels help my metabolic fitness?

By pairing a continuous glucose monitor with the Levels app, you can get real-time feedback on how your diet and lifestyle affect your metabolic health. Simply seeing a value for glucose is only part of the story. To make lasting change, we need to put that data in context. 

Our glucose levels respond to more than just what we eat. Meal timing, sleep, stress, physical activity, medications, microbiome composition, and micronutrient levels all play a role. Being metabolically fit doesn’t just mean severely limiting carbohydrates, it means eating in a way that minimizes glucose spikes, and trains your body to produce and use energy efficiently—this is metabolic fitness. 

The Levels app allows you to log meals, workouts, sleep and other things that might impact your metabolic health, then gives you both a Metabolic Score (your day’s rating) and a Zone Score (a meal’s rating) so you can match your choices with your results, the best way to change behavior over time.  

Read more about achieving metabolic fitness. 

When can I use Levels?

We are currently in a closed beta, working to optimize the product with our early adopters. Sign up for the wait list and we’ll keep you updated on availability. We’ll open the product to more and more people throughout this year.

Read more about Levels Secret Master Plan. 

Have more questions? Send us a note on @levels on Twitter. 

The post 11 Common questions about food choices, blood sugar and Levels appeared first on Levels.

So she offers practical advice that delivers tangible results. “I love to focus on metabolic health because it allows you to understand better what you feel is best for you, regardless of the specific diet,” Greunke says. Regardless of someone’s individual habits, she adds, optimizing blood sugar is usually a primary goal. 

That focus led her to try Levels, and she quickly appreciated the value of seeing real-time feedback tied to food choices.   

“A continuous glucose monitor helps people better understand what’s going on in their bodies and adjust accordingly,” Greunke says. “For example, watch how different your responses are from a plain apple versus one paired with almond butter. Once you see the data, making better choices becomes a no-brainer.”

As a mom to two young boys herself, Greunke knows how much anxiety can come with parenting—especially newborns—and how much tracking your diet can help. “Objective information helps you feel less like you’re the victim of anxiety and more in the driver’s seat,” she says. “You can say to yourself, ‘Okay, I realize how much these fluctuations in my blood sugar are contributing to me feeling those symptoms that I identified as anxiety.” 

Here, Greunke shares some of the tips and systems she gives her clients trying to fit metabolic health into a hectic life. 

1. Shop by ingredients, not labels

As consumers, we have to be a little bit skeptical about the things that we choose to put in our bodies, which starts with being aware that what the label says doesn’t necessarily mean the food is better for you. 

Labels aren’t very well-regulated and may not be completely reliable, as we’ve seen with terms like “net carbs.” (Let’s also not forget that there are more than 56 names for sugar, so even if the label doesn’t mention sugar, it still could be in there).

The parents that I work with can overspend on packaged products thinking they will make their health inherently better. Packaged products might make your life easier, and can add variety, but don’t get caught up in what labels claim as health benefits.

Instead, turn over the package and look at the ingredient list and nutrition facts, because that’s really where the gold is. You want to know exactly what ingredients are in it, and ask yourself: Is this something that I want to put in my body? 

Unpackaged whole foods don’t have a label because they don’t need one. If they did have labels, they’d look much better than what packaged foods offer. 

2. Think about food in pairs

Snacking smart isn’t something that comes intuitively. To most people, apples and granola bars seem like great healthy snacks. Others try to stay low calorie to lose weight.

But it isn’t just about the calories, it’s about having a metabolic response that will ultimately help with willpower and cravings later. 

For example, you can add a bit of peanut butter or almond butter to that apple, and it might be a higher calorie meal than what you’re used to, but that’s going to help you make better choices throughout the rest of the day, because it will keep blood sugar more stable, and create more satiety. Instead of craving more food after an hour of a snack, you may be able to wait until dinner before you’re hungry again.

How do you actually make this happen? Preparation and awareness. If you want to eat healthier, you have to have more nutritious stuff in your house. So start stocking your pantry and travel bags to make pairing easy.

When you grab a bag of apples at the grocery store, think about what you can pair them with. Have a mental checklist: “I want to have carbohydrates with something fatty, and protein for my snacks so I can enjoy the energy over the longer term.” 

3. Divide your day—and your plate—into thirds

Breaking your day into thirds is a useful mental compartmentalization to help new parents—or any busy person—make blood-sugar regulation and metabolic health a priority. 

The first third of the day is about understanding the importance of having a good breakfast to set yourself up for the rest of the day.

Then break your meal into thirds. Stop and think: Does it have fiber? Does it have fat? Does it have protein? Protein and fiber help with satiety, necessary phytochemicals, and antioxidants. Fat helps stabilize your blood sugar. From there, add carbohydrates that are going to work for you.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you can choose plant-based options for protein like an organic tofu “egg” scramble or a high-quality plant-based protein powder. If you are a meat-eater, it could be things like eggs or breakfast sausage. It could even be leftovers from the night before. 

Parents think that they have to create all these recipes and elaborate meals, but when it comes down to just checking off those three components, nutrition becomes much simpler. Personally, I don’t do a ton of meal prep or recipe development, and I find that many of the parents that I work with don’t have the time or energy to do that either. 

Just make sure you’re having a balanced and complete meal in the morning versus just the last couple of scoops of your kid’s cereal. 

The second third of the day encompasses that lunch and after-lunch period. Using that ingredient meal framework, make sure you have a good amount of protein, a full plate of veggies, and then add fat.  

I have my clients test their lunch responses: How is their energy and hunger two hours after their second meal? If they’re hungry before that two-hour mark, then the meal composition wasn’t quite where it needed to be. Our goal is to extend the post-lunch satiety to three to four hours. 

I usually recommend a snack before dinner because dinnertime can be chaotic for new parents, and frankly, most people. This should be something more protein or fat-based, and if it is a carbohydrate, make sure it’s paired and not something that’s going to make you crash and crave.

Let’s not just have leftovers of your kids’ crackers, let’s have the crackers with some hummus or avocado on them. If you didn’t have a lot of protein for breakfast or lunch, this is a great time to have a grass-fed beef stick or protein powder. 

A good snack gives you the flexibility to put together a nourishing dinner versus waiting too long, getting hangry, and calling for delivery. 

For the final third of the day, we want to promote metabolic flexibility, and the choices made here can really make or break the day. 

We might have really great intentions, and start out with a solid breakfast and lunch, but as soon as that after-dinner hour rolls around, if we don’t have that definitive mindset of “Okay, we’re done, we had enough food for the day, we don’t need anything,” our decisions may completely overshadow our progress. 

The final third of the day is a matter of preventing a carba-palooza that will leave us going to bed feeling bloated and packed with energy when we don’t need it. Nighttime is a great moment to give your body to heal, rest, and repair. 

For most people, I recommend at least a 12-hour fast between dinner and breakfast. This could be as simple as stopping all eating at 6:00 PM until breakfast at 6:00 AM. 

4. Don’t forget that nutrition can be a lever for mood

Food is one of the most powerful tools when it comes to anxiety. We’re going to feel the impact of consistently putting our blood sugar in spike-and-crash cycles. 

When we feel mood swings, we might think it’s just a personal weakness. We look for ways to troubleshoot, whether through meditation, medication, breathing exercises, supplementation, or whatever. While these solutions can help, we need to get to the root cause of why we’re experiencing that irritability. 

Moms might not be getting enough protein, fiber, or fat during a meal, which then may lead to  a blood-sugar spike followed by a crash. We may have stretched the period between meals too long. Or the foods we eat aren’t setting us up for stable blood sugar. All of this could lead to mood instability.

If you can find ways to smooth your blood sugar, you won’t have to work so hard to counteract that sensation of anxiety that could be caused by swings in blood sugar. 

5. Teach your kids that what they eat affects how they feel

Kids, for the most part, can get away with more than adults can. They can get a higher amount of their calories coming from carbs without some of the more obvious negative health consequences. 

But they’re not immune from the same effects we get as adults. If they have refined sugars and unbalanced meals, they may have more tantrums, and they’re going to have to work harder to focus in school. 

Virtual schooling in particular can be very demanding for attention, and if kids are constantly swinging through hits-and-crashes of blood sugar, they’re going to have a much harder time with something that is already very hard to focus on. 

The solution isn’t to have your kid on a strict low-carb or keto diet, but to make sure their meals are well balanced, they’re eating regularly, and they’re avoiding those blood-sugar spikes and crashes. 

As adults, if we’re feeling shaky or irritable, it’s easier for us to understand we probably need to eat something to get our blood sugar stable. But for a kid, once their blood sugar gets too low, they have a hard time getting out of that tantrum. They can’t logic their way out of it.

As a mom to a four- and six-year-old, I’m starting these conversations about how food makes them feel and how sugar can make them feel a little bit more irritated or agitated after the initial energy boost. 

Ultimately, I’ve found that you can make life a whole lot easier for yourself and your family by being more mindful of your choices.

The post Stephanie Greunke’s nutrition advice for busy parents can help you, too appeared first on Levels.

Look at a traditional holiday spread—mashed potatoes, honey-baked ham, warm bread, pies—and every step is a glucose landmine, just waiting to leave you passed out on the couch, feeling bad. Instead, this year give yourself the gift of great eats and steady energy all day by making some simple swaps in your holiday menu. Don’t worry about a dinner table revolt: We promise each of these ideas is a delicious alternative, and can help keep your blood sugar stable, which means more joy now and for holidays to come.

The swap: Traditional Eggnog → Keto Eggnog

Why it’s better: Standard eggnog recipes call for up to a cup of refined sugar. That’s like eating a half-dozen candy bars. This recipe keeps all the eggy, frothy goodness, but replaces dairy milk with almond or macadamia nut milk and gets its sweetness from allulose, a natural sweetener alternative endorsed by Dr. Peter Attia. 

Credit: CleanGreenSimple

The swap: Regular crackers –> Flax-seed crackers

Why it’s better: Get the sugar-spiking refined white flour off the hors d’oeuvres table this year by putting out crackers made entirely of flax seeds. Whether you make your own or buy a box, this alt snack is loaded with omega-3s and fiber. And don’t forget to set out the crudités with lots of cruciferous veggies like cauliflower and broccoli, which contain a compound called sulforaphane, which has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity.  

Credit: A Saucy Kitchen

The swap: Mashed potatoes → Cauliflower mash

Why it’s better: It’s not just sugar that can spike your glucose levels; high-carb foods like potatoes can do it too. That’s because they tend to have a high glycemic index (GI), which means the body breaks down their carbs into glucose faster, which can cause a quick rise in blood sugar (of course, everyone’s glucose response to carbohydrates will be different, so you can test for yourself). Mashed cauliflower has a great nutty taste, is incredibly creamy, and has a lower GI. 

Credit: The Endless Meal

The swap: Traditional gravy → Mushroom gravy

Why it’s better: The roux that thickens gravy is typically made with white flour, a refined grain that’s typically not great for stable blood sugar. This mushroom sauce subs in cashews instead. Plus, a recent study found that white button mushrooms may alter the gut microbiome in a way that promotes better glucose regulation.       

The swap: Glazed ham → Grass-fed or game meat

Why it’s better: Search for “Holiday Ham” and you’ll find recipes that call for up to 1.5 cups of sugar in the glaze. If you eat animal protein, go for game meats like venison or elk, which are lower in fat; grass fed and finished red meat, or pasture-raised poultry, or salmon. In general, high quality meat means more omega-3s and no antibiotics — two things that are important in supporting metabolic health. Stick with simple roasting and skip the glazes and sauces, which can have a lot of hidden sugar.  

Credit: Minimalist Baker

The swap: Gingerbread cake → Almond flour gingerbread cookies, almond flour cake with caramel frosting, or black bean brownies

Why it’s better: One key to any metabolically friendly desert is to lose the refined flour. Almond flour has a lower GI, more nutrients and may have other health benefits. If almonds aren’t your thing, try black beans, which is high in protein and has a rich flavor that pairs well with cocoa. 

More great healthy ideas:

• Roasted asparagus and mushrooms – Eating metabolically well doesn’t just mean losing sugar, it also means getting plenty of fiber and micronutrients, which are plentiful in roasted veggies.
• Keto Cranberry Sauce – This recipe swaps out the sugar for natural alternative monk fruit 
• Beet sauerkraut – Fermented foods contain probiotics that can be beneficial to our gut microbiome, and this recipe adds beets for extra color and flavor. 
• Brussel sprout tahini salad – Tahini, made from ground sesame seeds, is a great source of healthy fat, which helps blunt blood sugar spikes. 

Your holiday-cooking cheat sheet:

What’s missing from Levels’ holiday meal suggestions? 

• Refined flour
• Refined sugar
• White potatoes 
• Starchy vegetables
• Refined seed oils
• Salads with dried fruit 
• Breaded/fried foods  
• Honey
• Maple syrup

What’s included in our pro-metabolic menu?

• Thoughtfully sourced proteins
• Fiber (flax, beans) 
• Omega-3 fat sources
• Thoughtfully chosen sugar substitutes, like monkfruit and allulose, not artificial sweeteners like saccharin 
• Lots of micronutrient rich foods to support metabolic functioning 

The post Holiday recipes that won’t spike your blood sugar appeared first on Levels.

Johnson was already highly mindful of his nutrition, eating a low sugar and carb diet, when he started using Levels last summer at the suggestion of trainer to the pros, Mike Barwis. Johnson quickly found out how valuable personal feedback can be. He cut out berries that spiked him and realized pasta—a previously forbidden food—worked as long as he had protein with it.

“I just learned so much for two weeks, every day. I started getting lean. My energy was consistent,” he says. “I always thought I was honing in nutritionally, but this is the first time I’ve seen a significant change, because I’m finding out what works for Jack.”

Here’s what Johnson had to say about getting addicted to the Levels experience, preparing for life after the NHL, and finding his go-to order at the ice cream shop.

On his early attempts to eat well as a professional athlete:

When I was young I was fairly small, so I just ate whatever I could, trying to get bigger and stronger. I didn’t start paying attention to nutrition until I turned pro, when I was 20 years old. I was around guys that were more health conscious, and I started to learn from them. But really I was just mimicking what they were doing.

When the whole gluten fad hit, I thought, “Hey, maybe something miraculous will happen to me if I go gluten free.” Nothing did. Then I tried going no carbs and no sugar. And that didn’t change anything for me. I didn’t feel like my performance really changed. I was just hungry all the time. I’d get to lunch and think, “There’s only so many salads I can eat every day,” and I’m just bored with it.

With something as extreme as no carbs and no sugar, I at least expected my body fat to drop to, like, three percent, and it never did. My wife would laugh and tell me, “You literally look no different.” And I’d think, “Well, that was a waste.” All I did was make life more difficult.

I realize now I was just playing a guessing game.

On discovering Levels in the off season through his trainer, Mike Barwis:

I approached Mike about the nutrition aspect of my summer training and he said, “Hey, you’ve got to try this. It’s awesome. Just eat what you normally eat, and you’re going to learn from there where to go.”

After a few weeks, Mike said to me, “You look a lot leaner than you normally do. How’s it going [with Levels]?” And I said, “It’s great. I mean, I’m addicted to it.” I’m scanning my arm every half hour. My wife would joke, “Are you taking another picture of your food?”

I think the best I ever felt was this summer, when I started monitoring my glucose level, because I could eat in a normal way, monitor my glucose level, and I see that I was in the green. I just found things that worked for me.

No two human beings are genetically built the same. We’re just not. And so what works for somebody, doesn’t work for someone else. This is the first tool I’ve seen that you can really find out what works for you.

On Levels opening up his food choices rather than restricting them:

I was told years ago that a lot of players switch to rice instead of pasta for their pregame meals because it was lighter, it didn’t have as many carbs. It’s supposed to be better for you. So that’s what I did.

After I started using Levels, I was at an Italian restaurant and it was my splurge meal, so I ordered chicken Francese over pasta. It was unbelievable. I must have had four or five pieces of it. I was checking my Levels app, and I just kept waiting for the spike, waiting for the spike. A couple hours went by and no spike. What I learned was that there was so much protein in that meal, my body leveled out the pasta.

So last night we had a big family dinner, and there was a choice of chicken parm or salmon. Normally I’d be thinking, “Man, I can’t enjoy this dinner at all.” I’d grab my piece of salmon and sit at the end of the table, and everyone would look at me like, “What a weirdo.” But knowing what I know now about my body, I had a bowl of Alfredo, and a bunch of salmon to get my protein, and I never spiked.

Peanut butter was another big one. Apples and peanut butter are a main snack for me. I expected there to be enough sugar between the apples and the peanut butter for it to spike me, but the app would rate it as a zone score of nine [out of 10]. Now, there’s an ice cream place down the street we take the kids to on the weekends. So with this lesson in mind, I asked them, “Hey, do you guys put actual peanut butter in the milk shakes, or is it peanut butter flavored ice cream?” They said, “No, we put regular peanut butter in.” So I had them throw me a peanut butter milkshake, and my Levels reaction wasn’t terrible.

I feel like I’ve got so much more freedom to eat. By learning what doesn’t work for me, I’ve opened up so many more doors. I don’t have to worry as much, and feel like I’m limited to like five things on the menu.

On staying healthy after he retires:

This is something that’ll carry on way beyond playing pro. I mean, I’ve got a whole second half of my life to live after hockey, hopefully. And this is going to be a tool that I use for a healthy life. It’ll allow me not to stress out when I’m done playing, and think “Oh, man, I’m not burning as many calories. I can’t eat anything now.” No, I can still live a normal life.

On why anyone can benefit from Levels:

Dieting is hard for people because A, they don’t know any better—sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. Or B, they just don’t want to. And having Levels would allow them to maybe open some doors that they didn’t think were possible. So you can still have a sandwich, because maybe wheat bread doesn’t affect you like you thought bread would. Still having those things in your life might be an easier segue into getting healthy than just eating broccoli and going to the gym every day.

As a professional athlete, a lot of my job is performance, so this is tied to it. But anybody who wants to feel better or look better could use it. That could be a school teacher, or someone who works a corporate job—anyone that feels sluggish during the day. The reward for feeling better and eating what’s good for you? There’s no measure on that for whether you’re an athlete or somebody else. I mean, that’s a quality of life that’s priceless.

The post How NHL player Jack Johnson stopped stressing about his diet appeared first on Levels.

And while that sounds like a get-out-of-glucose-jail-free card, studies suggest these sweeteners can have metabolic consequences, influencing your body’s ability to process glucose and insulin over time, and even contributing to obesity.

The science on these substances is extensive, but complex and often contradictory. So let’s break down what we know and what you can do about it.

The Artificial Sweetener Universe

There are three categories of non-sugar sweeteners: artificial, natural and sugar alcohols. Artificial are the most familiar—as many as 40% of adults consume them—and the most studied. These include:

• Saccharin (Sweet ’N Low)
• Sucralose (Splenda)
• Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal)
• Acesulfame Potassium, or Ace-K (Sweet One)

Natural sweeteners also provide taste without calories but are derived from plants or fruit. Stevia is the most prevalent, but you may also see monk fruit or yacon syrup.

Sugar alcohols like xylitol and erythritol are found naturally as well. Unlike the others, these have some calories, but no nutritional value, so they’re more sweetener than sugar.

Will Sweeteners Raise My Glucose or Insulin?

Although dumping a pack of Splenda in your coffee won’t immediately spike your blood sugar, researchers have identified a few ways they can have a metabolic effect on your body.

One has to do with your gut microbiome, that collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi in your stomach that helps process food. We know there are links between bacteria composition and conditions like obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes. And we know that artificial sweeteners can affect the gut’s makeup. In one study, mice fed saccharin, sucralose or aspartame for 11 weeks showed changes to the bacteria in their gut and elevated blood sugar. When researchers transferred the altered bacteria to other mice, those mice also developed high blood sugar.

The study suggested a similar effect in humans. Researchers found gut bacteria from people who ate a lot of sweetener looked different from people who didn’t. And when they transplanted that sweetener-modified human bacteria into mice, those mice developed high blood sugar. What we don’t know is the exact way that sweeteners change the microbiome, and if that change in fact causes metabolic conditions.

Another notion is that these artificial sweeteners break the association between sweet taste and caloric consequences—a connection our bodies have spent millennia developing. So, for example, when something sweet hits your tongue, your body releases insulin (known as a cephalic response). If an artificial sweetener triggered that response, your body then has no glucose to process, which could lead to excess insulin. The actual mechanisms at play are much more complicated—involving multiple signaling pathways and hormones—and researchers haven’t yet found the smoking-gun link to metabolic conditions.

A more recent idea revolves around the fact that we actually have sweet taste receptors in our gut. Research shows that sweeteners can trigger these receptors and cause the release of certain glucose-related hormones, but it’s so far not clear that this causes a change in blood sugar in humans.

What’s more, artificial sweeteners may unfavorably alter metabolic hormones. Research in rats has shown that artificial sweetener consumption can cause a decrease in the release of hormone GLP-1, which is involved in appetite regulation and blood sugar. When GLP-1 is low, it can promote increased food intake and high blood sugar, and over the long term, may increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

It’s also important to note that many studies in humans have shown increase in body weight associated with artificial sweetener use.

What About Natural Sweeteners?

Here’s some potential good news: Studies suggest stevia may not suffer these same drawbacks. In one, test subjects showed lower levels of glucose and insulin after a meal when they ate stevia first compared to people who ate sucrose or aspartame. Other research has even shown it can lower blood sugar in diabetics. (Though other studies disagree.) Similarly, sugar alcohols seem not to show negative metabolic effects—they can, however, cause digestive issues at high doses.

So… What Should I Do?

There is a lot of research tying sweeteners to negative outcomes, but also a lot of variables. One thing appears clear: sweeteners are not all created equal, and some may have real metabolic consequences, particularly the class of artificial sweeteners. Natural sweeteners like stevia and sugar alcohols like erythritol are likely the safer choices, but still may tap into our reward pathways that make us crave sweet foods.

If you’re using a continuous glucose monitor to track your blood sugar, you might not see an immediate glucose spike when you substitute artificial sweeteners for sugar, but there may be metabolic effects compounding under the surface, related to the microbiome or hormones like GLP-1. The best this to do would be to avoid the artificial sweeteners all together.

Fortunately, research shows that cravings for sweet foods significantly decrease over time when individuals limit carbohydrates, so trying to gradually wean towards less sweet foods may decrease the cravings all together. What’s more, there may be certain naturally-sweet foods that don’t cause a significant glucose spike for your body, and pairing sweet foods like fruit with protein, fat, fiber, or cinnamon can offset the glucose spike.

The post How do artificial sweeteners affect my glucose levels? appeared first on Levels.

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The post Nat Eliason: 6 things Levels continuous glucose monitoring taught me about how to eat healthier (video) appeared first on Levels.

In the summer of 2018, Aynul left his full-time job to start ZenQualify. As the increased stress of running a startup added on, so did the weight. 

“I got up to about 25% body fat, and I wasn’t doing any tracking like resting heart rate or anything,” comments Aynul. “The only way my startup could be successful in the long-term is if I’m healthy, alive, and focused on running it– I became very focused on a fitness routine, started measuring my calories, nutrients, and glucose levels.”

Aynul set out on a mission to learn and gamify his metabolic health.

“I wanted to change the script from simply just buying groceries and eating into finding out what food was actually the best for me, and what gave me the most significant increase in life quality,” says Aynul. “My idea in my early twenties has been like, after I hit it big, I’m going to hire a team of nutritionists and figure it out. In reality, you can do this by yourself without spending a lot of money; all you need is the visibility of your data.” 

The Lean Startup Meal

Aynul’s approach to his perfect nutritional strategy started with a search to blueprint the perfect meal. 

“I like food, but food variety probably isn’t going to 100x or 10x my life if I’m already eating healthy,” says Aynul. “I was looking for a tremendous upside; if I optimize one meal, I can put more time and focus into my startup or other things that may provide that asymmetrical upside.”

Aynul’s one-meal approach was primarily aimed at easing the cognitive load of deciding what to eat on a daily basis. 

“The psychology of sticking to one meal at a time is that it frees up much more time for me to focus on my startup,” explains Aynul. “It’s one less thing to think about.” 

Aynul began using Levels halfway through a two-month health and wellness sprint, in which he lost 20 pounds. Developing metabolic awareness, Aynul believes, helped lock him into his future maneuvers of replacing foods and iterating recipes with confidence. 

First, Aynul used BiteSnaps to measure out and maximize his micronutrients in his daily meal, followed by an amplification of his macronutrients.

“I started eating the same meal once or twice a day, every day, to learn how my body interacted with a single recipe over a long period, and then I would work on iterating it for added benefits,” says Aynul. 

One meal at a time isn’t uncharacteristic of Aynul, someone who describes his intense discipline as a common element in his personal and professional approaches throughout the years. 

“My first meal probably wasn’t even that healthy,” admits Aynul. “It was pretty basic– just white rice, chili beans, broccoli, and chicken. It eventually evolved into sunflower seeds, chickpeas, salmon, and green beans. I basically reverse-engineered the Mediterranean diet, which was kind of cool because I discovered the benefits of the diet along the way rather than just reading an article on the Internet.”

If one doesn’t have visibility into how things are actually impacting them, Aynul emphasizes, you’re basically shooting in the dark.

“A big part of America’s health problem is that we’ve normalized making important health decisions based on Googling articles, the production of which is easily incentivized by the food industry,” challenges Aynul. “The reason why so much nutritional information online is successful in promoting fads and inefficient, or even dangerous health practices, is because people can’t really tell if they work or not. So many people are basically just winging it– if they had the data, they’d actually see what works best for them rather than making sweeping assumptions about their health.” 

Aynul soon learned that potatoes, regardless of their form, spike his glucose levels. 

“I learned that potatoes, regardless of their form, can impact my blood sugar the same way as a can of soda,” states Aynul. “I had a baked potato that spiked me significantly. I assumed that the preparation of the potato was what made it unhealthy, like fries are bad but baked potatoes are good, but they spiked me just the same. That was probably my strongest moment of loving Levels. I also learned that most processed carbs and white carbs mess with me, but surprisingly eating white rice and beans was less of a spike than a healthy potato meal, so I stick to what’s good for me.”

“Wearing a CGM and having your metabolic data so accessible is so much easier than checking a glycemic index at every meal,” says Aynul.  “I don’t use calorie-tracking apps anymore, so I feel like I’ve self-actualized at that front.” 

Fasting: From Zero to One

Aynul became interested in food minimalism, citing two important motivations: how many renowned entrepreneurs utilize fasting in one form or another, and how fasting may impact chronic neurological conditions. 

“My family was not strict about fasting during Ramadan, so I didn’t do it until Levels made it obvious glucose spikes were bad, scaring me into it,” says Aynul. “Now, fasting is no big deal to me. I’ve been doing 36-hour fasts regularly and basically do a 24-hour fast with my one meal a day.”

By visualizing the data behind the impact of fasting, Aynul was able to draw correlations to his overall feeling, corresponding to his overall feeling and focus throughout the day. 

“My short-term goal was extreme mental clarity,” explains Aynul. “I felt I had maybe four hours of it, but now I feel like I’m up to eight hours, and I think a significant reason is because I’m not on three rollercoaster meals per day. Not having to worry about what I’m going to eat helps a ton.” 

Fasting is fairly popular in the startup community, whether done on accident or with intention. Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and Jack Dorsey, Founder & CEO of Twitter and Founder & Square CEO, regularly fast until dinner. Phil Libin, Founder of Evernote, does prolonged periods of fasting and dropped 85 pounds. 

“Another pleasant side-effect of maximizing my lifestyle by minimizing food is my food costs have dropped significantly,” says Aynul. “I’m like a startup– minimizing my burn rate takes away a lot of financial strain that may come with putting everything into a startup. I’m not even sacrificing anything, I’m eating nicer, better, tastier, and healthier food for less money, and in effect, extending my odds of survival over the long-term. I’m very symbiotic with my company right now, and I feel like I’m just extending every number that matters to me.” 

Aynul was motivated to close his nutritional feedback loop and close any gaps in knowledge. 

“I’m the type of guy who reads NIH articles for fun,” laughs Aynul. “I’m fascinated by how fasting can impact neurological disorders. My dad had Parkinson’s growing up, and it was hard for me to watch my dad’s mental health deteriorate over three decades because he is the smartest person I know. I’ve always been paranoid about what goes on in my body– ironically, Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel, once said that ‘only the paranoid survive’ and was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s.” 

“You can pretend that chronic diseases just happen, but I have a hunch most diseases are connected to our lifestyles and preventative care goes a long way. It just so happens that people start considering the impact their lifestyle has on their health until it’s too late. I noticed music and fasting were used as treatment so I thought it might be possible to minimize my risk, preventatively. I’m confident we’ll find out more of our lives are in our control and that we can do things about it earlier, but only if we have courage.”

Solving Small Problems by Solving a Big Problem

By narrowing his sights on finding his one perfect healthy meal, Aynul has been able to weed out other negative eating habits, such as eating too much sodium or sugar, and receive a wide variety of benefits such as better sleep and skin quality. 

“I genuinely believe Levels has put several years on my life,” says Aynul. “It reinforced what I was doing right, and helped me eliminate what I was doing wrong.” 

It’s estimated the human body needs just 500 milligrams per day of sodium to perform its vital functions, whereas the average American consumes 3,400 milligrams per day. 

“By fasting and eating just one meal a day, I went from about 3k milligrams of sodium to under 1500,” notes Aynul. “It didn’t really require a concerted effort, it basically happened on autopilot. Someone might phrase quitting sugar or quitting salt like a habit, but in reality, that’s just a side effect of doing all of this other stuff like eating one healthy meal a day. Focusing on your metabolic health is like a health hack that takes care of all these other mini-hacks.” 

Aynul has also reduced the conflict between slumping energy levels after heavy meals and quick caffeine pick-ups. 

“In the first year of working on my startup, I was probably drinking three or four cups of like black tea every day,” says Aynul. “I realized I was basically fighting the grogginess that comes from eating food that was otherwise impacting me poorly. Instead of fighting the food with caffeine, I just needed to eat better and less.” 

Through a combination of reduced caffeine intake and an overall more metabolically healthy approach to food, Aynul has also improved his sleep quality. 

“Mornings used to suck, I used to wake up not wanting to get out of bed,” says Aynul. Now, I wake up, and I’m pretty Zen’d out. A good morning just  changes the fabric of your whole day.” 

Further, Aynul claims his skin has cleared up significantly. 

I used to have minor acne my entire life, and I feel like it was a function of food,” says Aynul. My skin just looks healthier and tighter. Recently someone was shocked to learn I was 31 because they thought I was 22, and that’s just pretty awesome.” 

Final Thoughts

Aynul was motivated to re-think his nutrition from scratch, and began methodically challenging his intuition by experimenting with a variety of foods and lifestyle changes. 

“I wanted to get far away from bro-science and Reddit science and test things on my own,” says Aynul. “There is a lot of snake oil out there, and many people just buy into the idea of something and start to perpetuate biased word-of-mouth recommendations, and it’s tough to make an informed decision just by reading stuff online.”

Aynul views metabolic health as a stepping stone in an overall goal to live a longer and healthier life– and that all starts with one perfect meal. 

“Levels is helping me close the loop and actually eat the right food,” concludes Aynul. If I only eat one meal a day, which I do, it needs to be powerful. I genuinely believe that we can live to 150 and 200 years old one day with radical technology advances, but to get there, you need to have your wellness momentum already in your favor.” 

Today, Aynul is focused on his entrepreneurial ventures while making minor tweaks on the quest to uncover a deeper understanding of his metabolic health.

The post Choosing the right diet shouldn’t be Russian roulette: an interview with Aynul Habib appeared first on Levels.

David Lee studied biology in college and wrote a paper about how a ketogenic diet can affect epilepsy and seizures. If keeping insulin sensitivity high and blood glucose levels low could potentially prevent these processes from happening in the brain, David wondered what other longevity benefits one could receive. He tried a strict keto diet, but as a collegiate soccer athlete always chasing better performance, he realized his athletic output requirements needed more juice. 

David learned that a typical keto blueprint didn’t work with his sprint-heavy workout routines. He soon embarked on a mission to find a way to leverage the potential long-term benefits of keto while also getting explosive sprint energy.  He started following people like Tim Ferris, Peter Attia, Dom D’Agostino, and others who were experimenting with CGMs. 

“In January 2020, I did a DEXA scan that put me at 18.5% body fat,” notes David. “I was spending a lot of time at work and eating liberally, and decided to make a big health push. I started using Levels around June 2020 to refine my understanding of nutrition. I dropped about 13 pounds in about two months, and being able to visualize the metabolic journey with Levels was insightful.” 

David credits the new perspective of his metabolic health as an impetus for envisioning a stronger connection between food and energy. 

“I am big on using data to make informed decisions about my general wellbeing,” remarks David. “I want to have a lot of metrics to develop feedback loops that lead to actionable improvements. Levels helped me summarize a very important component of my biochemical profile. The objective data is great to connect perspective and personal performance to drive actionable insights.

Metabolic Health as a Keystone Habit

For David, the best metabolic health approach is to build a flexible set of habits built on short feedback loops based on data, rather than a rigid pass-or-fail goal tracking system. 

“As a data scientist, I try to view all data as being part of a system. I think a lot about systems and habits,” says David. “If you have good habits and a finely-tuned autopilot system, you’ll directionally be pretty good. Levels helped me get that instant feedback loop and hone in on my habits and make sure I was going in the right direction.”

Being directionally correct has allowed David to eliminate the extra worry that may come with optimizing his personal nutrition so he can focus on stringing together positive days. 

“James Clear’s book Atomic Habits helped me bring a lot more awareness to the actions I was taking on a daily basis, particularly how I could rewire my days around a certain keystone habit,” believes David. “If you set metabolic health as your keystone habit, you’ll end up driving much more awareness and accountability to every other aspect of your life: sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress, and so on. Before you know it, you’re stacking other healthy and beneficial activities together while attempting to optimize your metabolic health score in the app.” 

However, building habits can be difficult if they come with the responsibilities of tedious rote work such as manually logging food and exercise, and then trying to correlate it with an additional response data set, such as blood glucose. 

“What I liked the most about Levels is that it helped make eating healthy and making good choices less neurotic,” comments David. “Snapping a picture of your meal is so easy– otherwise I would hate logging anything because it’s just tedious. Even logging workouts is tedious. I set up templates for these things because individual logging is so annoying.” 

The nuances of nutrition can be tricky to nail down without a real-time cause and effect. David had a functional understanding of how what types of foods were good for him in theory, and seeing his metabolic data helped him develop a more granular understanding. 

“Prior to tracking my metabolic health, I basically just relied on intuition,” says David. “One of the most significant eye-openers was the impact white rice and white flour could have on me. Whether it was enchiladas or sushi, or anything that was white rice based, I would spike up. So now, I plan to have that at the end of the week or before or after a really hard workout.” 

As long as he was eating directionally good, David found a delayed gratification piggy-bank effect on his metabolic health. 

“I could have a cheat meal with minimal metabolic impact because I had basically built some sort of credit with my body, explains David. “Recently, I had a Blizzard from DQ and it didn’t do much, whereas maybe if I had like two bad days in a row, my glucose levels would have probably exploded.”

Optimizing Workout Strategy

David is very principled and strategic about his workout routines and nutrition. He found that by reducing the cognitive load of deciding his workouts and nutrition, he was able to focus more on how he can better optimize his athletic endeavors by prioritizing his metabolic health.

“I liked seeing which things are working well, which ones aren’t,” says David. “With Levels, right away, I was able to see validation that I ate well. Seeing those green metabolic health scores drove my other behavior. It became easier to connect data sets. I noticed that if I had a great workout one day, I also tended to have a green metabolic score– I also felt overall better and more accomplished on that front. I focused on making life decisions that gave me better metabolic health scores because they were linked to overall positive results in many other aspects of my life.”

Being able to see a single objective data makes it easier to quantify subjectivity. If we can ascertain a positive impact from our actions on our overall well being, we’re able to focus on the things that give us more long-term enjoyment in life. 

“I found that having accessible metabolic data just makes you a more conscious and thoughtful eater,” concludes David. “It also gives you a ton of flexibility. For example, if I’m about to eat something I’d consider bad for me, I better enjoy it because it’s going to bomb the score. Better yet, I can plan to take actions after something that spikes me to minimize the negative impact while also getting a stronger burst of energy.”  

Planning his daily workouts in one sitting a month in advance, David found that he was able to reduce the daily requirements of deciding what to eat and how to work out. 

“The first thing I did when I woke up was check my workout and be locked into it,” comments David, “That would roll into the rest of my day’s nutrition. I would pair my meal types with my workouts. I found this reduces the necessity to think of it on a daily basis, and I think it created a really good synergy of accountability to yourself.”

In action, David found that he could coordinate his meals with his type of workout to maximize his athletic output and set reasonable expectations.

“I tried to monitor how HIIT versus low-intensity longer duration exercise impacted my glucose levels,” explains David. “If I was doing HIIT exercises like sprints, I wanted to see that big spike. If I was doing long runs, I’d look for my levels to be fairly flat. If I saw myself crashing, I would eat foods to replenish my glycogen. This all connects to my daily nutrition and planned workout as well.”

“The objective data makes it easier to make directionally good nutritional decisions, and that makes it so much easier to be consistent without the added mental stress of calculating calories and living a rigid lifestyle because of your diet.”

By using the Zone Comparison feature in Levels, he could see how his HIIT versus longer-duration impacted his energy levels, and that information influenced how he would eat before, during, and after a meal.

“If I didn’t see a big spike in my HIIT exercises, I felt that I probably could have ran a little bit harder, or that I should have done the exercise with more effort or giving myself a shorter break. I wanted to see that large spike, I wanted to be huffing and puffing. I wanted to visualize the glucose being broken down. If it was a longer-duration exercise, like a 90-minute run, I expected to see a long and slow breakdown.” 

Final Thoughts: Directionally Good Metabolic Health 

David Lee is on a mission to feel better and live longer, and he’s found that by focusing on his metabolic health and setting the goal of being directionally good, achieving his other goals becomes much easier. 

“My nutrition plan is simple now and picking food is so much easier now: these are the foods that make me feel good, hopefully I can cook them well so they taste good too, and these are the meals that make me feel bad,” laughs David. “Instead of having to do a lot of the manual labor these insights would usually require, I can build a real-time awareness of where my metabolic health is at any given moment.” 

Without the immediate response, David posits, he would end up trying to retroactively piece together meaning over weeks and months. The shorter the feedback loop, the easier it is to focus on making improvements rather than just monitoring and logging.

“Metabolic health and overall wellness go hand in hand,” comments David. “At the end of the day, it becomes much easier to stack good days together in a row versus trying to set a vague long-term goal over a period of weeks or months. Having that feedback loop makes it so much to stack good habits together, which leads to more good days.”

The post David Lee: Using CGM to build keystone habits for athletic performance and metabolic health appeared first on Levels.

Most people, due to chronically elevated insulin from eating processed carbohydrates and sugars frequently, are “stuck” in “glucose burning”—this is the most common state of metabolic inflexibility. Essentially, the person is still burning glucose as the primary fuel even during a fasting period (i.e., hours after eating). This is a disease state associated with numerous health problems, such as insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, infertility, and more.

Interestingly, long-term adherence to a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (KD) can cause a sort of “reverse metabolic inflexibility”. In this state, rather than being stuck in “glucose burning”, the body shifts to be almost exclusively in “fat burning mode” as a result of low insulin levels. This is a healthy state—the body is operating perfectly fine with prolonged reliance on fat as the primary metabolic fuel. However, this does mean that a load of glucose takes longer to clear. In other words, if you’ve been adhering to a KD and you suddenly consume a substantial load of carbohydrate, you can expect to see a higher-than-normal rise in glucose. This is expected—after all, you’ve shifted your metabolic function to rely on fat for fuel!

There is no need to fear this “reverse metabolic inflexibility”, but it is important to be aware of the phenomenon. For example, if you’re about to take an oral glucose tolerance test with you doctor, you may want to shift back to true metabolic flexibility by increasing your carbohydrate consumption in the three or so days leading up to the test. By doing this, you’ll likely have no problems on the glucose tolerance test. For some people, maintaining true metabolic flexibility may be sufficient reason to “carb cycle”, though there is no evidence that such a strategy carries long-term benefits vs. a traditional ketogenic diet.

The post What should I expect to see on my continuous glucose monitor if I’m on a keto diet or in ketogenesis? appeared first on Levels.

A firm believer in self-improvement through data, Cory describes himself as the type of person to always put himself through quantitative health challenges. Cory initially found out about Levels through the Wearable Challenge, a 28-day accountability challenge that has participants deposit a lump-sum up-front, and they’re refunded a portion of that total each day if they stay within a metabolically healthy range on the Levels app.

“I was hooked on the idea of this challenge,” says Cory. “I was surprised to see how not only different foods affected my blood sugar, but sleep, wine, and stress had their impacts. I’ve been underestimating the possibility of health metrics my entire life. Now, I have a more precise estimation.”

“The combination of tracking and incentive is just freaking brilliant,” says Cory. “People hate to lose. They want to win games; they want something to strive for. If you’re pushing yourself to be metabolically healthy, especially in the context of community gamification, you’re focused on winning. These types of challenges are ripe to create a global movement.”

The Wearable Challenge also enabled Cory to connect with another important facet of his life: his 12-year-old nephew, who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

“Seeing my family go through the heartbreaking experience just made me want to understand how my nephew feels,” says Cory. “He’s been formally diagnosed with diabetes for about a year, but likely had diabetes or some degree of metabolic dysfunction for years before that, or his entire life.”

Cory and his nephew

Prior to the changes after the Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis, Cory’s nephew Max was bothered by behavioral issues, which Cory believes was linked to his blood sugar being regularly high. His diet consisted of typical kid-foods like high-sugar cereal and desserts after dinner, which only exacerbated the issue. Today, Cory describes his nephew as being a calm and collected kid living a normal life with friends and doing typical kid things like going to sleepovers.

“I don’t wish Type 1 diabetes on anybody, but my nephew getting his metabolic health sorted has been the best thing that’s ever happened to him,” says Cory. “I wanted to walk in his shoes– I started doing everything like sticking myself with the needle, wearing the patch, showering with it, going to the ocean with it. Going through the CGM experience with my nephew was fun. I would let him teach me about stuff I pretended not to know–’you know some fruits are worse than you think!’– and the nuances of applying the CGM. He was really excited to teach me about it.”

Cory was determined to show his nephew that there are people committed to health and what he’s doing is good for life in general, not just for diabetes. As far as discipline goes, Cory says he can convince himself to do anything for a month. The social aspects of wearing a CGM and patch, however, were a unique novel experience. His thoughts often revolved around the social psychology surrounding diabetes.

“I noticed first-hand the attention I got from people wondering if I had diabetes and became aware of the stigma that comes with the condition. The way checking my blood glucose became normalized for me made me think a lot about how any stigma around diabetes prevents otherwise healthy people from taking steps to focus on their metabolic health and ensure their overall well-being.”

Any impetus to make positive changes, Cory posits, such as building healthier eating habits at 12-years-old, should only be viewed through a positive and constructive lens. The insights Cory gained from experiencing the glucose management lifestyle of his nephew have given him profoundly positive results.

Today, both Cory and his nephew share the experience of being metabolically aware of how food can impact their overall well-being and mood, and Cory does not shy away from sharing his story.

“People ask me about glucose constantly and I love telling them about it,” says Cory.”Levels is like a game, it’s fun, it’s cutting edge. Venice Beach is a really fitness and health-conscious neighborhood– it’s a hotbed of innovation and social change. I have no shortage of people asking me about it and wanting to do it themselves.”

Building a Metabolic Health Playbook for the Road

Cory lives the travel and fun-filled lifestyle his company Woodies emphasizes. In his experience with Levels, he gained some unique insights that any globetrotter can utilize.

“I started Levels during one of the most stable environments of my life thanks to the COVID pandemic lockdown,” says Cory. “I’m usually in-and-out of new AirBnBs every week. I saw what my baseline metabolic health was for the first three weeks, and then experienced how haywire my glucose levels could get in the last week, where I flew to London and then Rome.”

Here are a few of his tips.

On Food:

Currently spending time with his girlfriend’s family in Italy, Cory is routinely bombarded with delicious authentic Italian foods that may make your glucose levels spike from just reading this sentence.

“If I had the sensor on me, it would be a disaster right now,” Cory jokes. “I think the key to metabolic health when traveling is looking for la quantita justa– just the right amount– that’s what I repeat to myself when I go through a meal. I want to eat absolutely everything on my plate because it’s delicious, but I try to keep in mind what the right amount for me is.”

If you’re committed to a low-glycemic diet, you can generally find a delicious option that appeals to you wherever you are.

“There’s no excuse for blaming bad diet choices on a culture or location. It’s an easy culprit to try to blame, but it comes down to you. Life always comes down to choices,” Cory explains. “Being in Italy, I have the choice between pasta or a delicious spinach drowned in olive oil. Every culture has a healthy side to it: Mexican food– focus on guac and fajita type stuff. Greek, Mediterranean, and Lebanese food all have phenomenal low-glycemic alternatives.”

Viewing the world through a metabolic lens has given Cory some insight into the Western world’s health problems.

“Surprisingly, the worst food is probably in the Western world,” says Cory. “Everything in the UK is a pie for some reason. In the US, we have low-quality meat wrapped in an abundance of carbs.”

On Sleep:

“I saw my sleep schedule was completely thrown off during time changes, and that had a huge effect on my blood sugar,” says Cory. “This was the first piece of empirical evidence of the negative impacts of jetlag. When I’m on a normal sleep schedule, my body can process my blood sugar to keep me within normal bounds. When jet-lagged, the same food would shoot my levels up like a slingshot.”

Travel Hacks:

“Commit to a fast during airplane time,” recommends Cory. “From gate to gate, just drink water. Suck it up, just do it. There’s no need for energy on a flight, all you’re doing is sitting. I lead the league in water intake. I get the gold medal for trips to the bathroom on the plane.”

“Before I get on a plane, I would probably have something like cheese and nuts,” says Cory. “The last thing I want on a flight is alcohol and sugary stuff. When I get off, I’d have something similar– more nuts like almonds and healthy fats.”

“A tool in my metabolic arsenal I frequently use when I have less control over the ingredients of my food is fasting,” explains Cory. “There is also something about that golden 20-minutes of opportunity after you finish a meal. If you get a little bit of movement, you can help your body clear some glucose and minimize a spike.”

“I’ve also changed my alcohol preferences to be more metabolically healthy because I noticed I feel better overall,” explains Cory. “Alcohol is part of my life that probably won’t go away anytime soon, but I steer completely away from mixed drinks, sugary drinks, or the sweeter European stuff like limoncello and amaretto. Dark, deep, almost bitter red wine tends to have a really positive effect on my blood sugar.”

Final Thoughts

Cory continues to view the world through the lens of self and community improvement. By establishing a firm relationship between food and physiological and mental results, Cory feels much more grounded in his lifestyle decisions. With this metabolic awareness of self, however, Cory feels the weight of the United States’s pressing health issues.

“We need to make some major changes as a country,” says Cory. “Our society normalizes unhealthy lifestyles, and views prescription pills as a routine solution. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that starts with building an awareness of what the problem is. Another cliched expression is ‘what gets measured, gets managed,’ and we really need to normalize and promote at least metabolic awareness if we want to see some change.”

On a lighter note, Cory now playfully imagines others through an imaginary glucose score.

“If I see someone being a real jerk, I just think to myself, that guy’s probably in the 300 mg/dL range,” laughs Cory. “If someone is friendly and calm, like holding a door open for you, I think, thank you, 85 mg/dL glucose level.”

You can catch Cory on Instagram, or visit the library of personal development he’s working on on the Venice Beach boardwalk.

The post “We need to make some major changes as a country.” Woodies founder Cory Stout on why glucose monitoring helps develop a “metabolic arsenal” for optimal health appeared first on Levels.