Optimize your performance: Discover 5 secrets of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM)
Hello Vibers! Today we want to talk about how continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) have become a tool that can help athletes optimize their nutritional strategies before, during, and after exercise, thereby improving their physical performance and promoting more effective recovery. In this post, we’ll explain the 5 ways in which the use of CGMs can contribute to crucial aspects of athletic performance.
1. Understanding the individual response to different foods
Although high or low glycemic index foods have traditionally been used as references, the reality is that two individuals can experience different responses to the same food. Therefore, the individual variability in responses to foods challenges general recommendations for controlling blood glucose levels. This is where the use of CGMs comes into play, offering a unique perspective on how different foods impact glucose levels individually. This valuable information allows athletes to tailor their food choices (pre-, intra-, and post-workout) more personally, ensuring an optimal energy supply during physical activity.
Moreover, thanks to this cutting-edge technology, athletes can assess how different fuel sources in the form of carbohydrates (gels, fruit, bars, isotonic drinks…) impact their glucose levels. This enables them to make real-time decisions about food choices during physical activity, strategically adjusting intake, maintaining stable glucose levels, and optimizing performance.
2. Pre-exercise nutritional planning
Reactive hypoglycemia is a physiological phenomenon characterized by the occurrence of a hypoglycemic event associated with high carbohydrate intake. In these situations, blood glucose levels rise followed by a rapid drop, falling below 70 mg/dL (usually occurring within 120 minutes after the start of intake).
We know that this phenomenon can affect an athlete’s performance. Therefore, the use of CGMs emerges as a practical tool as it identifies cases of reactive hypoglycemia and allows for the refinement of nutritional strategies to avoid these events.
We suggest trying different nutritional strategies during your training sessions and observing how your glucose levels vary, as long as your next competition is not imminent.
💡 We recommend experimenting with different nutritional strategies during your training sessions and observing how your glucose levels vary, provided your next competition is not imminent.
3. Prevent hypoglycemia during sports practice
Hypoglycemia (blood glucose levels below 70 mg/dL) can negatively impact athletic performance, even if it occurs for just a few minutes. This is where CGMs become a valuable ally in prevention. By monitoring blood glucose levels in real time, we can detect a drop in glucose minutes before hypoglycemia occurs and take preventive measures through the intake of carbohydrate-rich foods (solid or liquid). In this way, CGMs can serve as a predictive tool, enabling athletes to make informed decisions about what and when to consume different foods during training sessions and competitions. By preventing the fatigue associated with low blood glucose levels, performance can be optimized, and adverse symptoms like dizziness and nausea can be avoided during physical activity.
In conclusion, CGMs help provide continuous visualization of glucose levels, allowing for the detection of declines in blood sugar and serving as a reminder to consume carbohydrate sources. In endurance sports, identifying these moments will help refine the fueling strategy tailored to each athlete’s individual needs.
4. Designing nutritional strategies to enhance recovery
Maintaining glucose levels within specific ranges facilitates efficient glycogen replenishment, contributing to faster and more effective recovery. This, in turn, supports muscle repair and optimizes protein synthesis. Additionally, real-time data on how different fuel sources affect post-exercise glucose levels allows for precise adjustments in nutritional strategies to maximize recovery benefits.
We’ve observed in our athletes that after intense training sessions and/or competitions, if they do not carefully manage their intake to ensure proper glycogen recovery, there is a tendency to experience increased nocturnal hypoglycemia. As we will discuss in the next section, this can affect sleep quality and, consequently, compromise muscle repair and recovery mechanisms, creating a vicious cycle where athletes feel more fatigued.
It’s important to note that within the Glucovibes app, you can analyze the macronutritional content of post-exercise intake, evaluating whether the intake aligns with the nutritional recommendations tailored to each sport.
5. Sleep quality
We’ve discussed the importance of proper rest in several posts. For athletes, performance depends not only on a well-structured training and nutrition routine but also on factors like stress and rest. Additionally, sleep quality and glucose control are interconnected. Therefore, the data collected from continuous glucose monitoring during sleep provide a unique perspective on how nutrition and exercise affect nighttime glucose stability.
As mentioned earlier, athletes who do not maintain proper nutritional planning during training days often experience a decrease in nighttime blood glucose levels, which can lead to nocturnal hypoglycemia (glucose levels below 70 mg/dL). Being aware of nighttime glucose levels through the use of CGMs can serve as an alert to detect patterns and trends where nutrition can play a crucial role in improving performance.
In the world of sports and nutrition, being able to visualize blood glucose levels in real time is a highly valuable tool, especially in endurance and long-duration sports where proper nutritional planning is crucial for performance. Moreover, understanding individual variability allows athletes to fine-tune their intake more precisely.
In summary, CGMs offer an innovative opportunity to understand each individual’s physiological responses to various daily situations and factors. This tool not only helps optimize athletic performance but also guides athletes toward more informed and healthier nutritional choices.
Optimize your relationship with food and take your performance to the next level with real-time blood glucose visibility!
References
- [1] Holzer, R., Bloch, W., & Brinkmann, C. (2022). Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Healthy Adults-Possible Applications in Health Care, Wellness, and Sports. Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 22(5), 2030. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22052030
- [2] Lee, I., Probst, D., Klonoff, D., & Sode, K. (2021). Continuous glucose monitoring systems – Current status and future perspectives of the flagship technologies in biosensor research. Biosensors & bioelectronics, 181, 113054. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2021.113054
- [3] Altuntaş Y. (2019). Postprandial Reactive Hypoglycemia. Sisli Etfal Hastanesi tip bulteni, 53(3), 215–220. https://doi.org/10.14744/SEMB.2019.59455