Getting curious about your blood sugar—and what it can teach you about your body.
What if some of the symptoms you’ve been chalking up to stress, getting older, or “just having a busy life” are actually clues from your metabolism?
Maybe you’re exhausted after lunch. Maybe you find yourself desperately hungry a few hours after eating. Maybe you get shaky, sweaty, anxious, or irritable—and suddenly feel much better after you eat.
Or maybe you’ve noticed that your weight is creeping up, your sleep isn’t what it used to be, or your energy and mood seem to be all over the place.
You may have never thought to connect any of these things with your blood sugar. But blood sugar can impact all them.
The blood sugar story starts earlier than you might think
It’s estimated that a significant portion of adults have insulin resistance—and many people don’t know they have it.
Insulin resistance happens when your cells become less responsive to insulin, the hormone that helps move glucose from your bloodstream into your cells. In response, your body may produce more insulin to keep your blood sugar in the normal range.
And here’s the tricky part:
Your blood sugar can look completely normal for quite a while.
That means you can be moving toward metabolic dysfunction before anyone tells you that your blood sugar is “high.”
Risk is higher if you have things like excess weight, a family history of type 2 diabetes, a history of gestational diabetes, or PCOS. But metabolic health is not only a concern for people who are overweight or have diabetes.
So how do you know if insulin resistance is happening?
This is where things get interesting.
We have well-established blood sugar thresholds for diagnosing prediabetes and diabetes. But insulin resistance itself is more complicated. There isn't one universally accepted test or cutoff that tells us, “Yes, this person is insulin resistant.”
Depending on your individual situation, your clinician may consider several different pieces of information together.
Hemoglobin A1c: Gives us an estimate of your average blood sugar over roughly the past 2–3 months. An A1c below 5.7% is generally considered in the normal range.
Fasting glucose: Measures your blood sugar at a single point in time. A fasting glucose below 100 mg/dL is generally considered normal.
Fasting insulin: Measures how much insulin your body is producing while fasting. This can provide additional information, although there isn't universal agreement on exactly what fasting insulin level should be considered “optimal.”
HOMA-IR: A calculation using fasting glucose and fasting insulin that can provide an estimate of insulin resistance. It can be calculated as: Fasting glucose (mg/dL) × fasting insulin (µIU/mL) ÷ 405. HOMA-IR calculator
Triglycerides and HDL: Your standard lipid panel can provide additional clues about metabolic health. Some clinicians also look at the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio as part of the bigger picture.
Glucose tolerance testing: This test measures how your body handles a glucose load over time and is used in certain situations, including pregnancy.
You don't necessarily need all of these tests. The right testing depends on your history, symptoms, medications, and individual risk factors.
But there's another way to learn about your blood sugar...
You can actually watch it happen.
Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) used to be something we thought of primarily as a tool for people with diabetes. Now, some CGMs are available over the counter, giving people another way to learn about their own glucose patterns.
Devices such as Stelo and Lingo are worn on the back of the upper arm for approximately two weeks. A tiny filament sits just under the skin and continuously measures glucose, sending readings to your phone.
And this is where things can get really interesting.
Instead of simply looking at one fasting glucose number from your annual physical, you can start asking questions:
What happens to my blood sugar when I eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast?
What happens when I eat eggs and vegetables instead?
Does a walk after dinner make a difference?
What happens when I don't sleep well?
Does that afternoon “crash” actually correspond with a change in my glucose?
A CGM can turn blood sugar into real-time biofeedback.
And rather than thinking of the data as a list of “good” and “bad” foods, I like to think of it as an experiment: What does YOUR body do?
Because your metabolism is uniquely yours.
So what can you do to stabilize your blood sugar?
The good news is that you don't need to overhaul your entire life overnight.
Start with the basics:
🥦 Prioritize whole, minimally processed foods.Build meals around vegetables, protein, healthy fats, and high-fiber, complex carbohydrates.
🍳 Get enough protein.Protein helps with satiety and can help support more stable blood sugar after meals. Your individual needs depend on your size, activity level, age, and health goals. For most people, aim for 30-40 grams per meal.
🥖 Be mindful of refined carbohydrates.Foods like white bread, white rice, pasta, sweets, and other highly refined carbohydrates can cause a more rapid rise in glucose for many people.
🥗 Think about the order you eat your food.Starting a meal with fiber-rich vegetables and protein before eating your starches may help reduce the glucose response.
🚶 Move your body.Exercise improves insulin sensitivity, and even something as simple as a walk after a meal can be a useful tool for blood sugar management. And after a workout, your body is more sensitive to insulin for 24 hours or more.
😴 Don't forget about sleep.Sleep and metabolic health are closely connected. Poor sleep can affect appetite, glucose regulation, and insulin sensitivity.
The goal isn't to fear food—or obsess over your numbers.
It's to understand your body.
Your blood sugar is constantly responding to what you eat, how you move, how you sleep, stress, hormones, and countless other factors.
That's actually empowering.
Because it means there are many things you can influence.
And the earlier you start paying attention to your metabolic health, the more opportunities you have to make meaningful changes—before a borderline lab result turns into a diagnosis.
Want to go deeper?
At Bloom Health Studio, I created the Metabolic Reset Program for people who want to take a proactive approach to their metabolic health.
It's a 3-month, personalized telehealth program that combines laboratory testing, CGM data, nutrition and lifestyle strategies, and one-on-one coaching to help you understand your metabolism and make sustainable changes.
Instead of guessing, we collect data. Instead of following a one-size-fits-all diet, we experiment. And instead of waiting for something to go wrong, we work on your metabolic health now.