We're Turning Our Blood Sugar Into Another Thing to Anxiety-Spiral About

Last month, I found myself staring at my phone at 2 AM, watching a little graph that showed my blood sugar had spiked to 130 mg/dL after dinner. I wasn't diabetic. I wasn't even prediabetic. But somehow, this tiny sensor stuck to my arm had convinced me that my body was fundamentally broken because I dared to eat sweet potato with my salmon.

Welcome to 2024, where we've managed to turn one of our body's most basic functions—processing food—into another source of existential dread.

The Latest Chapter in Our Optimization Obsession

Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) are having a moment. What started as life-saving technology for people with diabetes has morphed into the latest must-have gadget for the wellness-obsessed. Companies like Levels, January, and NutriSense are betting millions that regular folks will pay $400+ monthly to track every rise and fall of their blood sugar.

And honestly? I get the appeal.

For the first time in human history, you can see in real-time how that slice of pizza affects your metabolism. It's like having a metabolic crystal ball that promises to unlock the secrets of optimal health. Who wouldn't want that superpower?

But here's what nobody talks about: we're essentially strapping anxiety monitors to our arms and calling it wellness.

The Seductive Promise of Perfect Data

The marketing pitch is irresistible. "Optimize your metabolism!" "Discover your unique food responses!" "Take control of your health!"

I fell for it completely. As someone who spent years in tech, I was primed to believe that more data equals better decisions. The idea that I could hack my way to perfect health through glucose optimization felt like the ultimate life upgrade.

The technology itself is legitimately fascinating. Your blood sugar normally hovers around one teaspoon of glucose dispersed through 1.2 gallons of blood. When you eat, that balance shifts by fractions of teaspoons. A CGM can detect these microscopic changes and beam the data to your phone in real-time.

Dr. Tommy Wood, a neuroscientist at University of Washington, points out something crucial: "We can't tell if someone's going to have disrupted metabolic health just by looking at them. Even in people who're thought to be super-healthy, we often see impaired fasting glucose."

This is true and important. About 50% of US adults have diabetes or prediabetes. Many don't know it. CGMs can potentially catch metabolic dysfunction early.

But here's where things get weird.

The Reality Check Nobody Wants to Hear

Remember that sweet potato incident I mentioned? Turns out, a blood sugar spike to 130 mg/dL after eating is... completely normal. Revolutionary, I know.

"Blood sugar goes up and goes down," says Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, a board-certified obesity specialist. "That's what it's supposed to do."

Yet somehow, we've created an entire industry around pathologizing normal human physiology.

A 2019 study of people without diabetes found they spent a median of just 2.4% of their time with blood sugar above 140 mg/dL, and 1.1% below 70 mg/dL. These brief excursions aren't dangerous—they're biology in action.

But CGM companies have figured out how to monetize our fear of these natural fluctuations. Every spike becomes a "glucose emergency." Every dip triggers optimization anxiety.

Dr. Nadolsky says he's treated patients whose CGM data caused genuine distress: "They were scared when they saw any blip on their continuous glucose monitor. It's actually to a point of pathology because they stress so much over normal glucose excursions."

The Mind-Body Plot Twist

Here's where things get really wild. A Harvard study gave people with type 2 diabetes identical drinks containing 15 grams of sugar. Some were told their drink had 0 grams, others were told it had 30 grams.

The people who thought they consumed more sugar had significantly higher glucose responses—even though everyone got the exact same drink.

Think about that for a second. Our beliefs about what we're eating can literally change our blood chemistry.

"Subjective perceptions of sugar intake, even when incorrect, produce measurable biochemical changes," the researchers wrote.

So we're not just tracking our glucose—we're potentially making it worse through the act of anxious monitoring. The stress about the number might be more harmful than the number itself.

The Carb Demonization Problem

CGMs have an inherent bias: they make carbohydrates look scary and fats look innocent. Eat an apple, see a spike. Eat bacon, see... nothing.

This feeds directly into diet culture's latest obsession with villainizing entire food groups. I've watched friends conclude that fruit is "bad" for them based solely on CGM data, while mindlessly munching on processed meat products because they don't spike glucose.

As obesity researcher Dr. Stephan Guyenet puts it: "Blood glucose is easy to measure and understand, so people focus on it, like the person looking for their keys under a lamppost."

We're optimizing for the metric we can see, not necessarily the one that matters most for long-term health.

The Orthorexia Pipeline

Here's my biggest concern: CGMs can fast-track susceptible people toward disordered eating patterns.

I watched it happen to myself. What started as curiosity about my metabolic health gradually became obsessive food monitoring. I found myself avoiding social dinners because I couldn't predict how restaurant meals would affect my numbers. I started categorizing foods as "safe" or "dangerous" based entirely on glucose response.

Dr. Lauren Kelley-Chew from Levels acknowledges this risk: "People who have a history of disordered eating or anxiety around diet or lifestyle choices should consider whether having this kind of data is the most helpful tool for them."

The parallel with other tracking technologies is striking. Researchers have coined the term "orthosomnia" to describe people obsessed with achieving perfect sleep scores. How long before we're dealing with "orthoglycemia"—the compulsive pursuit of perfect blood sugar?

Reframing Our Relationship With Health Data

I'm not anti-CGM. The technology can provide genuinely useful insights, especially for people at high risk for metabolic dysfunction. But we need to get real about what we're actually optimizing for.

Dr. Andy Galpin, an exercise science professor who's worked with elite athletes, puts it perfectly: "My honest intuition is, there's a lot of people who have a lot of problems when they start introducing tech to their health."

The people most excited about CGMs—healthy, affluent, already health-conscious—are often the least likely to benefit from them. Meanwhile, the psychological costs of constant monitoring might outweigh any metabolic insights.

A Practical Framework for CGM Decision-Making

If you're considering a CGM, here are the questions I wish I'd asked myself:

What specific problem am I trying to solve? "Optimizing my health" isn't specific enough. Are you trying to identify a food sensitivity? Rule out prediabetes? Understand why you crash after lunch? Get clear on your actual goal.

How will I use this information constructively? Knowing that pasta spikes your glucose is only useful if you have a plan for that information. Will you eat smaller portions? Add protein? Time your carbs around workouts? Or will you just feel guilty about liking pasta?

Do I have a healthy relationship with health data? Be honest. Do you check your step count obsessively? Get anxious when your sleep score is low? If you're prone to optimization anxiety, a CGM might amplify that tendency.

Is there a simpler way to get similar insights? Sometimes the answer is embarrassingly low-tech. Notice how different foods make you feel. Pay attention to your energy levels. Trust your body's feedback systems—they've literally evolved over millions of years for this purpose.

The Permission to Be Imperfect

Here's what I learned after my CGM experiment: my body is remarkably good at managing blood sugar without my micromanagement. Those scary spikes? They resolved within hours. My metabolism didn't break from eating fruit or birthday cake.

Dr. Kelley-Chew offers this perspective: "Eating a dessert and having a blood sugar spike is not going to ruin your metabolic health. Your body knows how to deal with a surge of glucose."

Maybe the most radical thing we can do for our health isn't tracking every biomarker—it's learning to trust our bodies again.

The Bottom Line

CGMs represent everything fascinating and frustrating about our current wellness moment. We have incredible technology that can provide unprecedented insights into our physiology. We also have a culture so anxious about optimization that we're turning normal bodily functions into sources of stress.

The technology isn't the problem—our relationship with it is.

If you decide to try a CGM, approach it with curiosity, not anxiety. Use it as a learning tool, not a judgment system. And please, for the love of all that is holy, don't let a machine convince you that your body is broken because it responds normally to food.

Your blood sugar is supposed to fluctuate. Your metabolism is supposed to adapt. Your body is supposed to be resilient, not optimized.

Sometimes the most radical act of self-care is putting down the tracking device and just... living.

What's your relationship with health tracking technology? Have you noticed it enhancing your wellbeing or adding stress? I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments.