Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, y'all. It's rich and Shelly from air to ground farms. And this is video number two in a three part series as we discuss our use of fitness continuous glucose monitors. In the video today, we're going to talk about two surprises, two lessons learned, and go over the comments from our last video from video number one.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Okay, well, big surprises. Yeah, I'll take the first one.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Okay, so here's my.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah. See your glucose monitor there? And I'll show you my absence of a glucose monitor. So they're fragile. That's the biggest surprise for me. I was walking through a doorway and knocked mine pretty decently, and it just quit working. On day what, five, I believe I was in. Yeah, it quit working. It said sensor. It doesn't work. Get a new one. So I was pretty bummed about it. But since we're doing this as a sort of stream and I knew we couldn't get another one here in time, I just said, okay, and we've gone with some alternative methods, but they are really fragile. And someone mentioned that.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And it wasn't like you knocked it off. No, it just bumped it.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: And in bumping it, whatever, whatever fragile little measurement, you know, measuring whatever's are in there, it just said, whatever the case, I.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: When I took it off, you can definitely see the computer chips in there. You can see that the filament was, you know, in the skin, all of that, and it was still very much intact on my skin. It certainly wasn't going to fall off. And it had the kinesio tape still on there, but it. Yeah, it just quit working. So I had to just, you know, bow out of that type of experiment, but not completely.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: What have you been doing?
[00:02:01] Speaker B: So, in lieu of having the continuous monitor, we bought a very inexpensive freestyle libreous, regular glucose trick, your skin kind, to make sure that the things that we had, the monitors that we were wearing were accurate. We're like, are these things really accurate with what we're seeing on the readings from the monitor? And they were. It was. It was accurate. So we had purchased this to see if the tests were accurate. And I said, well, I will just do some pricks, see how mine is doing before and after meals, like you would if you were seeing if you were diabetic or. A lot of pregnant women have to do it sometimes if they have gestational diabetes. So these are a very inexpensive way, if you can't afford these right now, the glucose monitor, the continuous monitors. These are a really inexpensive way to see how your blood glucose is doing, and I would recommend it.
It doesn't really hurt that bad. It's kind of a pain in the, you know, to do it, but it. It's effective. So that's what I have been doing, and I have data.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: So, biggest. So that's biggest lesson learned.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Number one.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Biggest surprise. Number one. I'll take this one. The biggest surprise to me was just how much our body is constantly. I mean, constantly adjusting our glucose levels. And I don't know that you see that anywhere else other than with a continuous glucose monitor.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Because even sticking my finger, I can see the before meal. I can see the mid during and then the after. But I can't see when we're out working cows or if I'm at the store or just driving or sleeping. You can't see all the. What's going on inside your body at those moments. You get snippets. You can capture snippets, but you can't see the constant adjustments. And that was mind blowing for us. And we were trying to think of other places in the world where you have an analogy to use. And I remember you talking about when you used to be on the tanker. When a fighter jet is on the tanker, it looks like you guys are both in cruise control.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's not it at all. So, for those of you who don't know, I've retired from the air force. I spent 25 years there. And during my time in the air force, I was an f 15 e pilot. And one of the things that we do is aerial refueling from aerial tankers. And Shelly actually got to ride in this anchor a couple of times and watch us refuel. And one of the things that she's talking about is, while on the tanker, I had two throttles. The f 15 was a twin engine fighter jet. And.
Yeah, sorry, it still is a twin engine fighter jet. When I was flying, it is what I was talking about. For me, it's in the past, but I. For those still flying, like Hannah, it's still in the present. But one of the things is I, in learning how to stay connected to the tanker, we're constantly adjusting the throttles. And the way that I learned to do it, they called it just walking the throttles. And so I would, between the left and the right throttle, I was constantly moving them. Constantly. And it would be, you know, left up, right up, right back, left back, left up, right up, right back, left back. And it was just this constant movement, like, the entire time on the tanker, it would be constant. The only time I didn't do that is if we were really heavy, like, say we had a combat loadout at that point, I would have to bump the left one. I would bump it into, you know, men afterburner, and then I could only adjust the right one. But that was like a. It was a weird one for me because I really got used to just constantly walking the throttles.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: But what you're describing is a lot, I think, is kind of how our bodies are working. So, um, whenever you were have. When you had a heavy loadout and you were heavy and you needed extra power.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Because of the thing that you were asking the machine to do.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: You gave it what it needed and made small adjustments.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: And what we're seeing on the glucose monitors is kind of that same thing when you're. When you're really, like, working animals or running after something or just high need for an activity.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Your body is giving it to you.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: So I was dismayed initially. Like, I was. I was sort of bummed because there. And I'll put the pictures up.
When I was catching ducks, we rehomed our ducks to a friend's house to put in their pond and catching ducks, my glucose went up, and then working cows, my glucose went up.
Building the sheep's paddock.
There it goes. Blood sugar levels back up again. And I'm like, man, I don't know what's going on. The app that we use, ultra human, it's got, like, this zone in it from 70 to 110. And being a rather competitive person, I'm like, man, I bet I can keep my stuff right there in that 70 to 110 thing. And we eat a ketogenic diethouse, so I'm not going to be really spiking it with the food that I eat. And I bet it's going to just stay right in there, right in that 70 to 110. And, like, man, it's. It's up here now. It's not huge. It's like 120 or 130. Um, but, like, I. I can't control that.
I wasn't. I wasn't. I'm not being able to control where the blood sugar is. So that's like, you know, all of this to say a big surprise for me is just our body's constant adjustments in not based on what we're eating, but based on what's. Y'all. Every. Every night when I'm sleeping at 01:00 a.m. my glucose shoots up.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Like, well, mine did, too. The nights that I do have on, on record, both of us, at about the same time, got the same spike and drop, or vice versa, whichever. And both of us were like, wait, what's happening?
[00:09:08] Speaker A: So we mentioned in video one, we expected the dawn phenomenon. We expected a rise in glucose as we woke up. We are seeing that.
What I didn't expect was that middle of the night rise. And from the little bit of research that I've done on it, what it looks like is there's a hormonal response based on the different levels of sleep that you're in, and it will decrease your glucose. And then as you come out of that level of sleep, your body will react to it and say, oh, your blood sugars are getting low. Here's some blood sugar. Your liver will give you a shot. And here it comes.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: So a lot of that has to do. A lot of our dismay or our reaction to it just really comes from a place of ignorance or the lack of knowledge on what we should have been looking for. And then we, of course, got to researching it. What is our body really doing? Are these numbers high? And it turned out our body was functioning exactly like it's supposed to and nothing was spiking and nothing was out of control. Yeah.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Even talked about that. You know, are you adequately fueled? Are you properly fueled? And so what our bodies are doing as we're making, as we're doing these activities, our liver is saying, here you go, here's you. Some energy, you know, and we're not getting it from carbs because we really don't eat any, but our liver is just producing the glucose for us on demand, basically right as we need it. Here it is.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: It's pretty cool.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's go over some comments.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do that. So, one comment we got. We're going to go for comments, and there's some questions in here. Okay, well, do they have a date yet of when you can get it without a prescription?
[00:10:54] Speaker A: So, in the United States, continuous glucose monitors require a prescription. We got hours from our daughter in England. She sent them over to us. That was tricky, getting the apps worked out and stuff like that. But another reason why Shelly couldn't just put one back on is because we were getting them from England. So it was a bit of a pain.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: But the good news is, too, we looked into levels.
Levels health, and it does require prescription, and the stuff isn't cheap, but it's not difficult to get. It's basically.
What's your name and your basic health, and they will give it to you.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So levels uses Dexcom, ultra human, even, like we're using ultra human through the UK, ultra human through the US, same thing. It's easy to get a prescription. They use the freestyle libre. I think the pricing is about the same. It, like, some of them require a monthly subscription and some of them don't.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Like ultra humano, as we all know. Like this thing was like $20. That didn't used to be the case. Right. The prices are going to come down over time. It is a technology that is being widely used and it will come down. So it's just a matter of patience.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: The direct answer to the question when is it available in the US without prescription? Is still summer of 2024. And Dexcom is at least advertised to be the first one with the freestyle libre to follow shortly. And that's the best information we've got.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Same comment that probably our blood glucose is going to be low and boring, and that kind of turned out to be true, or it has pretty much been low and boring, but except for one instance, and I'll give that, I'll fill you in on that in just a second.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Now, low and boring, though I was a little bit freaked out because it, it does do these spikes and it's outside of that, that little very narrow range.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: That very narrow range is app specific to fitness.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: And trying to optimize your thing fitness wise. But as far as a healthy body is concerned, in the medical industry, low and boring is pretty much what it is. That's fair.
Alternative sugars. How does our bodies respond? How have they responded to alternative sweeteners?
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah, so we've used so far, alulose and erythritol are the two alternative sweeteners that we've talked about on multiple podcasts. And we have eaten with the monitor on with no response at all to the artificial sweetener.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Another question, or maybe we should kind of COVID was where's your reader? Someone was concerned that we didn't have a reader for the continuous glucose monitor. And on these, it's all through your phones. There is an app, actually, there are two apps, and it's just directly wired to your phone, Bluetooth, basically. And so we use our phones as a reader, and that way we get constant stream of data.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Not, not all phones work. Our newer, new ish iPhones are fine. There's a freestyle Libre app, the phone bluetooths to the freestyle libre. The app gathers all of the information it's got about a. Yeah, I think it's advertised 33 foot bluetooth range. And then our ultra human app talks to the freestyle Libre app.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: I was a little apprehensive about getting the data and wearing this. I think I mentioned to everyone I wasn't sure I wanted the information. The information turned out to be really good. I started actually liking it.
Didn't weird me out in any way, which I was glad about that. I was kind of disappointed when the thing broke because I was enjoying seeing what happens even when I'm sleeping and what's really going on. So if you are hesitant, I would say get one and try it and see how it does for you. I wouldn't mind having that information all the time, especially if it was cheaper. I would do it if it was a little bit cheaper, for sure.
The stomach.
If you're a stomach sleeper or a side sleeper and you're wearing it on that side of your body, it can affect your data coming in.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a compression thing, and it mashes on your arm. The pressure on your arm restricts the blood flow, and with the restricted blood flow, you don't get the glucose to that portion of your body and the app can actually detect that and it will tell you, I think there's a compression issue going on. You know, change the way that you're sleeping so that the person who made that comment absolutely spot on. And I have had to adjust the way that I fall asleep. I normally fall asleep on my left side, and it would be compressing my.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Left arm after having babies, being pregnant, I sleep on my left side, you know, I mean, it's just habit from just the way it happens. And so I was having kind of the same problem, too. I would probably put it on my right arm next time.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah, this should be interesting. I agree. Can't wait to see how it works. I agree. And then you can take the last one.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
The one that first CGM was the freestyle libre. Sorry, I didn't like it at all. Way too. Took way too long to pair and start reading. I was always bumping my arm on things and knocked them off. Never using that one ever again. I currently use Dexcom and I like it so much better. And I feel like I would do the same thing.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: And totally experienced that you were spot on, and here we are. So I would for sure try the Dexcom. I think that the information coming in was good, but we don't, we don't know it against anything else.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah. We had another comment that said, I can't wait to see how it. The. How it's going to do with showering and stuff like that. So I'll I'll just show you mine.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Well, this stuff is kind of fraying a little bit, but we have more of these. And after taking mine off, that can be replaced very easily. Come to find out those little, those little disc things are stuck on.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: So the kinesio tape, this is the tape that I put on. It's fraying a little bit after a week of showering and farming, and it's, it's not. No, no issues there at all with, with the showering and such.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: So thank you so much for the comments and the inputs. If any other questions as we go in the next week, please keep them coming at us. If we've, you know, if we've said something that has triggered another question, please ask and let us know.
Biggest surprise number two, we love to drink raw milk.
Right. And according to Ron Schmidt, in his book the Untold Story of Milk, he asserts that raw milk is the healthiest thing that you can drink.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: Healthiest food there is. Yeah.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Oh, the healthiest food there is. Okay, so I did a little experiment.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: And my. I I had not eaten yet and drank a pint of, a full pint of raw milk and to see what it would do. And, oh, boy, did it shoot up.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: It did.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: My glucose went from about, somewhere in the 90 range.
Straight up.
Pretty straight up on the graph is straight up to 240.
That was pretty impressive. It came right back down and did, it was almost like I was at a glucose tolerance test for being pregnant. And it came right back down. Over time, my body responded exactly like it was supposed to. I was interested to find out that it didn't continue down. Oftentimes when we overload our body with sugar, you will get so much insulin that it will go too far down. And that didn't happen. It actually helped put the graph on the screen. But as, as it went down, it got back to a normal level and it just. It leveled off pretty quick, too. Yeah, pretty, pretty quick. So I was glad to see my body respond to it properly. And it didn't drive a hyper insulin scenario. So that was good.
So we tried another thing, and the next day.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So lesson learned, number two, has to do with raw milk also. And what we did is we used techniques that we learned about in a book, glucose revolution.
And in the book, Jesse talks about the timing of when you eat foods matters, and fiber first, fat first, and then carbohydrates. So, like, when you eat, it really does matter. So then what we did, because raw milk is important to us because we happen to believe that it's very healthy also. And we want to it to be part of our diet. So after watching what it did by itself, we decided, okay, now we have to figure out how we're going to incorporate it. So what we did was we cut the serving size down from 16oz to eight, and then from there, we added it at the end of our breakfast meal. So we would have scrambled eggs and sausage or bacon or whatever. Eggs. And, I mean, we normally eat eggs with some type of fat that the eggs are cooked in, whether they're scrambled or fried, and then some type of meat from the farm, be it sausage or bacon or pork chops or whatever.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: We're having that more like a brunch timeframe.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And then at the end of that meal, we added in the milk. And our bodies did not do that huge spike that Shelly experienced the first time. It went up more than just the meal itself, but it did not go into the, like, really high.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: No, it really didn't even go. It didn't go very high at all. So we. So we were both very pleased to see that. That we can. We can have that.
We thought so, but now we know.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And our. Our meal with the milk did not even take us outside of it like it was. It would be a still low carb glucose response.
It was higher than just the meal itself, but not, like, crazy not high.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: So right now, we're on the journey of learning.
When we eat food in the order we eat, food matters, how our. That affects how our body is going to respond. Yeah, pretty much. And this book is excellent. You can follow her also on the glucose goddess on Instagram.
I think she has her own webpage and YouTube.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: She's been on a few podcasts. I'll leave the details for the book so that you can find it.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, she's done a lot in this space and has a lot more information than we do.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So this is, as I mentioned, video two of three. Next week, we'll put together the last video in this, and in that we'll wrap everything up. If we've had any additional surprises, any additional lessons learned. I think this week we'll probably do a bit more experimentation.
The first week, we wanted to just basically play it like normal.
What is our body's reaction to what we normally do?
This week, we may play around a little bit more with timing of foods and different types of foods, different specific.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Foods to see what our bodies. Our body does.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So we'll.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Or yours.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: We'll be able to get you that information next week.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: And then I think the final thing we'll talk about is a discussion we've been having so far is how, what are we doing next? How far are we taking this? Are we going like into full biohacking? Are we going to get like a keto mojo where we're tracking glucose and ketones and, and like really, really, really trying to dial everything in? Or are we just going to say, that's great information. We learned a lot. We're going to apply that as we step back away from this constant monitoring back into our, say, normal life. As normal as you get for us in a low carb, ketogenic lifestyle.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So as we go forward in the next week, we'll, we're, we're in the decision making on that.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And we'll let you know what, what we decide when we see you next week.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Hope this information has been useful for you guys. If it has been useful, please make sure you subscribe and hit the thumbs up. That kind of, that's kind of cool, too. And we love the comments, so keep them. And until next time. Bye, y'all. Bye.
