I'm not diabetic or even pre-diabetic. A1C is at 5% and always had healthy blood glucose readings from labwork. But I have been making some healthy choices lately to lose weight, exercise more, and eat a little better, and I wanted to see how my body reacts to food.

If you haven't used one before, it's a little tab with a small needle or catheter that sticks on your arm and connects to your phone to give blood glucose readings. I accidentally got an older model that used NFC and required me to tap my arm every 8 hours to get the full history, but there are new ones that use bluetooth to get the readings without any tapping. The battery lasts 2 weeks. It was like $70 to get a 2-pack that lasts a month.

- I was surprised that my blood glucose doesn't respond as much to what I ate as much as how much I ate. One Saturday morning I had 2 donuts on an empty stomach and thought that would cause my sugar to spike, but it went up from like 80 to 100. But one night we had spaghetti and meatballs and I ate a lot, and that spiked up to 150 briefly (That was the highest reading I had with the monitor by far). I also would barely see any bump from a bowl of cereal, which I thought would cause it to go up sharply.
- I had a 2 or 3 low glucose events. One time it was lunch time and I was out and got a reading of 60 (the lowest reading I had), so I decided to get fast food and see how it responded. (Supposedly french fries can really cause a spike). But a burger/fries/shake meal only bumped it up to the 90s.
- It also took a while to regulate things back down after a big meal or a lot of snacking. I noticed sometimes when I ate a lot that it would bounce between 90-120 for hours after the meal - even while I was sleeping.
- Intermittent fasting seemed to help a lot. Most weekdays I eat between Noon and 6PM and then fast 18 hours until the next day. That resulted in really smooth glucose readings throughout the night and the next morning. It was probably also the cause of the low glucose event above (although one of those came before dinner during the window that I was eating). But I'd have no wild swings or spikes throughout the day when I was fasting, even after my meals. Most days it would hover in the 80s or 90s and maybe go up to the low 100s. So I guess my pancreas is working fine and fasting helps it do it's job.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Maybe I'll do it again in a year to see if it's any different. It would also be interesting to have one if you were binging food, like on a cruise, to see how much you are abusing your body while on vacation or something.