Supersapiens - continuous blood glucose monitoring

These are interesting reads, thank you.

What bothers me about my readings is just that if, like today, I do four hours 3500kcal burned, then you can imagine how I was attempting to fuel. I was still not in the optimal range (that being 120mg/dl) for no longer than 20% of the ride. The supersapiens app also does not really distiniguish these phases either. My average glucose for the day is ofc way higher for days like today - but in realtiy this is skewed. The ride was tanked up, beforehand had sugar, and afterwards too - that is the deal for us lot.

Anyway, this CGM is really giving me some insights into my habits. I have some open questions now:

  • how does one really fuel to keep this high level? Sipping sugar water non stop for hours? No bolus?
  • post workout - within 30mins a high load meal/drink should be taken on board. How high? How much? My one today in fact set my levels through the roof - I was really surprised!!!
  • out of all the foods I have eaten, apart from the blindingly obvious like some veg, wholegrain pasta has given me the most stable response and satiety. In addition, my pre-ride meal of some toast with jam on, and a side of protein (yoghurt say, or seiden-tofu) works so well to give me a decent rise up to around 120 and then slowly peter off. Rice waffles, though so low in kcal, are absolute pyro for my blood sugar.

Only above 120 for say the first hour doesn’t seem quite right to me. Because your liver will be dumping glucose into your bloodstream too, probably around 400 calories worth. And you would have say around 1500 calories already in your legs. That’s if you started topped off like you said. Are you waiting to fuel into your ride, or are you immediately starting? Your liver glucose capacity should be lasting longer than 1hr.

Depending on the ride ill do either a bolus or simple sugars, with many rides combining both. My glucose stays 130-140 (finger pricks).

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I tend to wait about min 30 mins but usually about 75-90 mins before I start on the sugar water. Generally speaking, I think some fluctuations are surely fine. Activity level influences it of course. I saw today that after my breakfast, then heading out about 45 mins after - the activity more or less releases the sugar stored up and kept me fine for the SS intervals (for the 75 mins). Having it ‘live’ on my Garmin is really fantastic.

Very much experimenting still. Did 2 hours TR work, followed by somewhat easier for another 2 hours. The Clif bar after the workout caused an initial dip, but then working in tempo, I could see it kept my levels ca 120 for a good hour - this worked well.

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Really? I’m in the usa and to best of my knowledge a regulation like that doesn’t exist. Do they actually test drivers like you would for alcohol?

Might be because most our population is 6+ anyways. I like the idea, but the back lash to that being implemented would be huge.

From the diabetes.org.uk web site Driving when you have diabetes | Diabetes UK

“Five to drive – your blood sugars have to be 5mmol/l or above before you drive. If they’re between 4mmol/l and 5mmol/l, eat some carbs before heading out.”

“These rules are only about checking for low blood sugar levels – the DVLA don’t have any specific limits on high blood sugar levels.”

I belive, that it can line you up with being charged as “driving under the influence of drugs”, which is fair enough really, what’s the difference of being drunk/having a hypo (T1 living in the uk)

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What are you butting me about ???

Ah sorry, you made it sound like I said something wrong, I just didn’t lay out all the rules about being diabetic and driving (left that to the link) as thats not what they were talking about …

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Well, you don’t need to be worried because we weren’t talking about blood sugar levels. We were talking about hgba1c levels so you were arguing with yourself lol :joy:

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Not exactly. There is instrument variation, along with population variation so each lab establishes their normal reference ranges for a given population. You’ll see some variation in the decimal point range or no variation. In general 4.0 to 5.4 is considered normal and is effectively normal as far as health outcomes go. This individual is in the 4.3 hgba1c range with some ± which is incredibly good considering how hard it is for a type 1 individual. Even the glucose readings by finger stick and cgm has a ± 10 to 20%. If you wish to interpret the data correctly you’ll have to account for that and factor relative values into account because absolute values may never be that precise.

I agree. It’s important as it is basically a dui. Unfortunately, the scenario you mentioned is basically everyday here in the usa, minus the hypo stipulation. So yes, there would be way more backlash to that regulation being added than kids getting run over. :man_facepalming:

I’m not really understanding optimum levels for us folk here.

More often than not, our levels will be elevated as a result of high workout intake, pre and post workout supply, and then recovery mode where elevated cortisol is likely to result in higher resting levels.

Am i making sense here? I do see both variations. When I’m training a lot, or experiencing high volume and thus body stressors with often lots of daily fuelling, highish levels. I do see though my fasting levels be about the recommended normal. But this takes a while. I do high volume (800 - 1000 tss per week), so this is somewhat expected, right?

Interesting it’s now got a Connect IQ app for Garmin. So now I’m interested.

Can it tell you when your energy is about to dip and therefore power will begin to drop?

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This is not so straightforward to gauge for the reason that activity level and intensity, say an interval or rest phase, will also change the monitoring level. Going for a walk simply can bring it up but then quickly down, so the temporal change is rather hard to understand at first. However, it can help you in this direction. I used it for my morning workout to gauge how much some of SS work needs.

Picture below shows how it looks on an edge 530.

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My Brother in law uses the G6 and he says there is no delay either.

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Thanks @admigo really appreciate an actual pic too.

What do you think about long sustained efforts, like 1hr + efforts where you want to keep an almost constant power and consistent stream of fuel intake - do you think it would helpful to show if you fuelling strategy for that is falling apart and you maybe need to up the intake, or even ease off the intake as you’re well loaded for the time being?

That’s absolutely the use case. Being able to see your levels and the trend rather than guessing or just blindly fuelling. Also helps to experiement with different fuel sources and your reaction to them - for example taking a gel that spikes your levels causing an insulin response that then actually inhibits fat oxidation.

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In that case this makes it super interesting. I have to try this. The trial pack will last 2 weeks… do you think one sensor might be able to last a bit longer than that? What’s the deal with the shelf life on this thing?

Basically I’d need to pick out a 2 week period over the summer and run smash fests, long multi hour tempo and sweet spot and threshold efforts. Could learn a lot I’m thinking here. Just wish they could get the price down a bit, can’t see me paying this much all summer unless it really helps me smash long sustained rides in a way I haven’t managed to before (which could be the case, I very often under and over cook efforts by being too wary of my fuelling or not fuelling enough).

UPDATE: Looks like you can now order a trial pack of just one sensor, it was previously a pack of two. Each sensor will last 14 days from when it is activated, this can not be extend. The app works on both iPhone and Android but check the device compatability. Initialisation is done via NFC, data from then on is streamed via Bluetooth if the phone is in range or can be manually scanned once back near the phone (again uses NFC for that). The sensors I have in desk at the moment expire March 2022, so there is a shelf life, but it isn’t too short. You need to be careful with the sensor, if you knock it off inside the 14 days you are hosed - it can’t be re-applied - you just have to remember you have it on. There’s a super helpful facebook group you probably want to join.

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One thing to note on the Garmin integration - right now it requires your phone to bridge between the sensor and the Garmin device - so you have to have your phone with you. Also the glucose level is NOT written to the activity file, so don’t expect to find the data if you export the workout event to a .FIT file.

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So i got the trial pack… contains a single sensor which lasts two weeks.

Although intratraining fuel is a big win, i have to say that has been relatively easy to dial with this. Take a bottle of sugar water, sip as required. For low intensity efforts, not necessarily needed. Very cool to see was my body changing substrate utilisation: i went for run, felt light headed, but then felt ok after 10 mins. This was perfectly reflected by the data - little drop, then back to normal level presumably using fat sources. @Shrike for those long efforts, it’s exactly what you need. However, my q is open at what this level should be. SS suggests 120 mg/dL.

More interesting though to me is outside of the workouts. I’m surprised how my training and food intake is really causing some trends. Some days i am constantly elevated, and it perhaps correlated to fatigue in my body. Honestly don’t know. One day, i woke up and my level overnight was super depleted. And like clockwork, the workout i had scheduled, no amount of sugar could wake my body up in the time i had, and i felt it too. RPE through the roof for tempo!

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