Richard on Using CGMs as Real-time Feedback

“I love how much control the CGM device gives you over your whole metabolism. Just by having instant feedback you can just tell what’s working and what's not working. For me, it's a continuous evolution.”

Tell us a bit about yourself and why you signed up for Vively.

I’m a beekeeper and I’ve been prediabetic for about 15 years. I’ve been looking for ways to manage it for a long time. Once CGM systems came along, I had a look around and found they were mostly available from companies in the States, but then I found you guys and I thought I’d give it a try. It worked out really well!

What worked for you? Was there anything you weren’t expecting?

It was really interesting. I found that some foods that worked for me, didn't work for other people. I was quite surprised by that, I thought everyone was the same, but that’s not true at all.

The CGM sensor was really good. I used it all the time!

I've been doing intermittent fasting so it was really helpful to get immediate feedback on that. I'd never had any feedback apart from doing my finger pricks in the morning and that doesn’t give you real-time information. You're working in the dark.

So, I changed my diet from three meals a day to two bigger meals to give myself a longer fasting period. I found this helped to lower my morning blood glucose levels.

I was also surprised to find that my intense hour of morning yoga increased my glucose initially, but then went down quite rapidly after that. I found that meditation also increased it slightly too but then decreased it afterwards.

How has stabilising your glucose levels improved your health?

I was noticing that my eyesight changed a lot before I started this — one day I could see really clearly and the next day my vision would be blurry. This has stabilised now because I’ve got a fairly good handle on my glucose readings.

I love how much control the CGM device gives you over your whole metabolism. Just by having instant feedback you can just tell what’s working and what's not working. For me, it's a continuous evolution. I keep changing things and refining, so it’s going to be interesting when I get my next CGM monitor.

What are you going to experiment with next?

I want to look more in-depth at my glucose graph and experiment with different foods and supplements. I've got some ideas of some supplements that I want to try out, so I want to see what they actually do. I’m looking forward to testing out a few things to see what works!