How Does Blood Sugar Affect Your Hormones? – With Kara Collier

Dr. Mindy
Okay, let me start with this. I just so I, our listeners can know a little bit about your background, how the continuous glucose monitor world fascinates me. And the people that have come to it, or what I’m understanding, you guys are all coming from a lot of different backgrounds. So you’re a registered dietitian. Is that what your background is that and how the heck did you get into the CGM business?

Kara Collier
Yeah, so I am a registered dietician. And I started really kind of in the traditional clinical setting where I was working in hospitals, primarily in critical care, nutrition. So I was in ICU. And I was really frustrated with my experience in the hospitals, I felt like I couldn’t do the kind of work that I wanted to do. And that type of setting, you know, I was seeing a lot of what felt like unnecessary suffering. Most people coming into the ICU, we’re not because of a gunshot wound or a car accident trauma, but instead because of complications of lifestyle related chronic conditions, but we were catching them all the way at the end of the timeline, rather than earlier on. And then we were addressing it with, you know, treating the symptoms, trying to get them out. And it you know, and it wasn’t necessarily working, we weren’t addressing the root causes. So with that, I became really frustrated, but it was eye opening to see how things really work day in and day out. Yeah. And so from there, I really became kind of obsessed with the idea of what was driving all of this, like, how do we actually make a meaningful difference in such a massive problem, that’s not just in, you know, one hospital, not just in one state, but everywhere. And it really came back to metabolic health a lot of the time. So I always describe it as kind of like the core foundation of which your body is, you know, it’s the metabolic engine inside all of us. If your engine isn’t working properly, how are you going to fuel any of the processes you’re supposed to be doing day in, day out. So if we can address metabolic health in a way that’s actually meaningful and impactful, then that will have a big ripple effect where we can help prevent some of those people ending up in the ICU. So that was the angle I was going that was, you know, how do I really get to the root cause within the nutrition lifestyle world. And that’s led me to what tools are out there to address metabolic health and continuous glucose monitoring is, you know, what I believe to be the most interesting data point and technology available currently to help address this problem.

Dr. Mindy
I’m not Yeah, amen.

Kara Collier
Yeah, like myopic that like, okay, glucose is the only thing that matters. Of course, that’s not true. There’s always other pieces to the puzzle. But if we think of like the best bang for your buck, like that 8020 rule, if we can optimize glucose, a lot of pieces are going to fall in line, you know, we’re gonna have better sleep, we’re gonna have more manage stress levels, better diet, you know, all these things fluctuate, or in response to glucose levels. So it’s a really great metric to optimize to have that big ripple effect. And then traditionally, you know, these these devices are only used their prescription only in the US. And they’re mostly only written for type one diabetics, and sometimes type two, only 30% of type two diabetics have even warned of continuous really monitor, which is already like really alarming, like every type one and type two diabetic should it should be standard of care. But one metric you care most about should be monitored closely. But then only about you know, 1% of non diabetics have ever worn a CGM. And that’s really what we’re trying to change. Because we think this data is useful for anybody on the spectrum of metabolic health and not just when you get to the one end, and we need to like really address glucose levels. We want to see it earlier on and we want to intervene before we get to diabetes is the ultimate goal that I’m coming from,

Dr. Mindy
you know, it’s it fascinates me what the new world that’s emerging is all these really cool pieces of technology that we can start to use to understand where our health has is at. But if you go back in time, we literally had the scale like that was that, like, let me get on my scale in the morning. And let me let my scale Tell me if my food is working for me, in your opinion, how beneficial is the scale for overall metabolic health?

Kara Collier
Yeah, I think it’s a it’s missing a lot of the bigger nuance that’s involved. You know, I don’t think the scale is the best metric to go off of, and it’s also you know, we want to take into more nuances of what’s what’s happening on the inside and not just what’s happening on the outside, and when we get fixated on the wrong metric. And that’s what we become obsessed with it can lead to poor outcome. So there’s a lot of ways to lose weight that wouldn’t necessarily result in good health. And there’s also the term of like skinny fat, you could look good on the scale and the insides are not going to look so great. And you’re going to have the same outcomes, maybe as somebody who’s more overweight or obese. So it’s a metric that just isn’t capturing the bigger picture, especially when it comes to disease prevention. I think it’s incredibly important to actually be knowing how the mechanics are working on the inside and not just surface level.

Dr. Mindy
Amen. Uh, yeah, I feel like I did mic drops already. I and I, the thing about the scale, too, for women, and I really want to dive into what a CGM can do for a woman around her hormones and sleep. Because I really used it for the month of January, I looked at neutral sense, you know, up and down and really tried to analyze how it fit into my hormonal health. So I do want to dive in to that. But as women, we go, we get on the scale. And we have a number in our head that we think it you know, if my number shows up this that I’m good. And if my numbers above that, I’m bad. And there’s all this shame and guilt. But it really is not effective. I love what you said is not effective for disease prevention. And if you have a body that’s healthy, and metabolically healthy, it not only will you be the weight you want to be, but you will prevent disease, would you? Would you agree with that statement?

Kara Collier
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re so right, with like weight has such a stigma and emotional component to it. That can really backfire. As well, it doesn’t really help drive behavior change in a way that we’re looking for often I see so many people, and I’m sure it sounds like you’ve experienced this where if you’re one pound off, maybe because of water weight, or you know, hormonal fluctuation. It’s like, Oh, this is this is never gonna work. I can’t do this. And then it backfires. It feels hopeless. Where some normal fluctuations is normal, but it’s hard to explain that to people when it’s such an emotional number. And so something like glucose is not typically very emotional for people. And it’s actually you know, another thing that’s amazing about all these tools coming out, not just glucose, but anything that can be measured. 24 seven is just how much that drives behavior change. And that’s a whole, you know, different aspects that we can dive into. But when you get that immediate feedback, it helps to really course correct and build intrinsic motivation. You know, if your motivation for losing weight is because you want to look good for bikini season, that usually leads to yo yo dieting, and weight up weight down. And that’s 100%. What we always want to avoid, we want something slow and steady and consistent. And so we have to somehow build like intrinsic motivation so that it’s not the short term, external motivator driving you, but instead, it’s personally meaningful. And for a lot of people, when they’re seeing data come from their own bodies, you know, it’s not me telling them what to do. It’s not you telling them what to do. It’s not their doctor, it’s data from their own body. And that has a whole different level of motivation to really drive behavior change in a way that’s not as emotional.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, well said. So the one thing I love about your guys CGM is the app that comes with it. And even as somebody who knows a ton about health, you, I think it was a dietician that sent me like a weekly update and said here, all the numbers that you should be looking at, here’s the average. And here’s what your where yours is at. And it was so incredibly helpful. So let’s start off with what exactly is neutral sense measuring? Because it’s more than just, you know, here’s your blood glucose, you guys have a whole bunch of analysis, what are some of the most important ones that people need to know about?

Kara Collier
Yeah, it’s a great question, because it can be overwhelming when it’s a new metric that you’re not used to measuring 24. Seven is like what’s optimal, what’s, you know, a diminishing return, a lot of people want a flat glucose line. And I always say it’s okay to have some fluctuation, we just want it to be within a healthy range. We want your body to be responding appropriately. I always explained to like, if we had a continuous lipid monitor, and you saw fluctuations, and you wanted that flatlined as well, we would be left with nothing to eat. So some points are, oh, well, we just want them to be, you know, within a normal healthy range. So within the app, you can see your glucose graph, that’s just a 24, seven data, you know, of your glucose happening day in, day out. And within that, we want to look at a few different metrics. So we have statistics and analytics that correlate with that graph, both for the whole day time ranges but also broken down by meal. So If we’re looking at, like the bigger picture, what should your glucose values be? There’s kind of three different areas we’re looking at. The first is sort of what’s happening in a fasted state. So this is usually technically without food for about eight hours. And we want to see glucose mostly between 70 and 90 when we’re in that fasted state, a lot of people because they’re not used to seeing their glucose values overnight, when they’re sleeping, where they’ll eat, like three hours before bed, and then at 1am, they’ll be like, Oh, my glucose was 100, it should be 7299. Well, we’re not quite like really fast, because you ate like three hours before that. So it can get a little confusing. But yeah, it should be, you know, at least a couple hours without food 70 to 90 is what we’re aiming for some minor fluctuation when you’re fasting is totally fine and normal. And then we’re looking at kind of, you know, your 24, seven average glucose value. And that’s really helpful and important to look at, kind of in the traditional medical world, our equivalent to that is a hemoglobin a one C, which a lot of people are probably pretty familiar with, which is a lab that gives you kind of a three month average. But what a lot of people don’t know is that that lab has some flaws to it. It’s making the assumption that your red blood cell lives for three months, 90 days, which is what it’s calculating off of, but a lot of people actually have red blood cells that live longer or shorter than that, which can skew the results. Yeah, even things like anemia, you know, or blood loss, for some reason, smoking, vitamin B 12 deficiency, there’s a bunch of things that can skew red blood cell life, and then that can make it you know, off from your actual average glucose value. So

Dr. Mindy
if you’re trying to bring your a one c down, and you’re frustrated, then something like a CGM would be a more nuanced tool to be able to actually see what’s going on. Is that Yeah, absolutely.

Kara Collier
Yeah. And if we think about averages in the first place, like an average is just capturing the middle, right, so you could be having really high glucose spikes, and then big glucose dips, you know, reactive hypoglycemia be swinging all day, and your average is, you know, somewhere in the middle, or someone could have very small variability and their average is also the same. So average also doesn’t take into account swings, which are really important and are unfortunately, really hard to capture with traditional metrics. So that’s another big reason, you know, if it’s skewing higher, or you have any symptoms of dysregulated, glucose, then seeing that 24 seven snapshot is the best way to pinpoint maybe where the problem is, you know, is it while I’m fasted? Is it after my go to lunch meal? Is it snacking, you know, is it all of the above stress, so you can really help pinpoint kind of the Achilles heel is what I usually say love it. But kind of going back to metrics. So we have average glucose, which is still important, we want to know how much exposure you’re having to glucose, on average. So if that’s too high, but maybe you’re never having any big spikes, it’s still an important metric to look at. The other metric we have is what’s called standard deviation. And this helps capture glycaemic variability. So again, this is a term that is only applicable to continuous glucose monitors, because you need that 24 seven data to measure variability. But essentially, it’s those swings, you know, that average isn’t capturing how far from your average are you going throughout the day. And glycemic variability is actually the best leading predictor of cardiovascular outcomes. So we know that, you know, anybody who’s diabetic insulin resistant has a significantly higher increase of cardiovascular disease. And this is where there’s multiple reasons why that’s connected. But this is a big reason is that those big swings create a lot of oxidative stress and damage to the endothelial tissue tissues, which raises cardiovascular risk. So this is an independent metric that we want to monitor and people and we use standard deviation and our app to capture this. And it’s also a good proxy for kind of your overall insulin exposure. Because insulin and glucose tend to match each other fairly well. They’re not perfect matches, but they’re proxies. Unfortunately, there’s no continuous insulin technology out there yet. When there is we will be all on that. But it doesn’t exist at this point in time. Amazing. Yeah, measuring a hormone continuously is much more complicated from a technology standpoint, then, yeah, so unfortunately, but in general, you know, that standard deviation and your glucose graph is a good proxy for how much insulin exposure you’re also having. So kind of your your area under the curve for postprandial insulin, so that it’s

Dr. Mindy
also it’s also really important to for menopausal women, which we work a lot with because what I think menopausal women are not aware of is that as estrogen goes down, you become more insulin resistant, and you lose that cardio protective capability. So what if you just elevated my thought to seeing that if we’re just looking at like a little prick your finger, take a measurement and you’re not getting that very what you call it a glucose variability, then you don’t really know how your glucose and insulin levels are contributing to heart health, which is so important for women over 40.

Kara Collier
Yeah, I yeah. And we’ll dive more into, you know, the topic of women. And that’s so important. But I always tell the story of you know, before I was wearing my first CGM, I was, you know, pricking my finger trying to assess how I’m responding to certain foods. And I always give the example of I was checking my glucose an hour after trying to food to see kind of what happened, I was trying a bunch of different fruits, and I had pineapple and before the meal, it was about 90 and then an hour after it was about 100. And I was like, I respond really well to pineapple, it’s really high glycemic index. And I was like really surprising to me. But that I tried while wearing a CGM, and is actually I was having a massive glucose spike, it was just happening really quickly, and then coming back down. So it’s completely missing that on my glucose meter. And so it’s hard to capture sometimes what that peak glucose value was. And so it’s just there was a lot of things that I thought I understood when I was only using the glucose meter that became much more clearer when I actually had the full, you know, 24, seven data to fill in, fill in the dots there.

Dr. Mindy
Oh, I love that. I love that. And I hadn’t even realized that. So again, just I’m learning as you’re talking as well. So that that’s awesome. Okay, what else? Is there anything else in there? I

Kara Collier
mean, they sent me like a list of like five things. Yeah, there’s a bunch of things. So those are the big ones, not the big ones all to see, we’re definitely looking at kind of how your body is responding in a fasted state. How your average glucose exposure, overall standard deviation for glycemic variability, and then we’re really looking at how you’re responding at meal time. So yes, we haven’t touched on that yet. But in our app, when you log a meal, you also get additional metrics for that meal time. So it’s kind of that two hour postprandial window. So when you log a meal at the beginning, and then that two hour window afterwards, we want to see what’s happening in your glucose specifically in that timeframe, because that tells us a lot about how you’re tolerating whatever it was you were eating.

Dr. Mindy
So there’s you to come back down. Should it be back to normal? Yeah, within two hours. So you, whatever. So you, and that’s what I love about your guys, do you have like a graph where you can start to see if it came back down? And then you know, if that means work for you?

Kara Collier
Yeah, exactly. Yes. So there’s a few different components. One is what was that glucose level at two hours, like, were you able to return to normal, it tells me a lot about somebody’s metabolic system, if we eat maybe like a relatively healthy, but carbohydrate containing meal. So like, let’s say you have a piece of chicken and a sweet potato, and your glucose goes to 120. But it comes back down to 92 hours later, you were able to break down that glucose, it’s gonna be you’re gonna see a glucose increase, which is normal, because you had carbohydrates, but your body was able to process that respond to it, and it didn’t have any sort of like, you know, rebound effect. Whereas if somebody eats a sweet potato and a piece of chicken and their glucose goes to 120, and it comes back down to 95 hours later, that tells me a lot about your state of your metabolic health. It tells me that your body is having a really hard time correcting from what would be kind of a normal amount of carbohydrates. So maybe you’re not super insulin sensitive, we’re on the road of insulin resistance, or maybe you have some sort of condition or situation going on, that makes you less insulin sensitive, like hormonal changes, which we’ll touch on, but also, you know, like pcls, it’s just not as carbohydrate tolerance, also want to take into account your key glucose value in that two hour window. So how high did your glucose go? And this is a metric that’s not really captured in traditional markers very well. So if we’re diagnosing diabetes, we’re looking at fasting glucose, or your average hemoglobin a one C, and sometimes an oral glucose tolerance test, but they’re only looking at that two hour postprandial window. But that peak value is very important. If you have a big glucose spike, even if you come back down to normal that can also potentially be damaging to those endothelial tissues. So that’s causing that oxidative stress and that damage to your blood vessels, and it also creates an increased risk for impaired glucose tolerance and insulin resistance. We know this from study The research, but it’s just not caught up with traditional recommendations, unfortunately. But we want to look at your peak glucose value. And we really recommend staying below 140 most of the time, and this is really about repetition. So if you have a glucose spike to 151 time, and it’s in response to something we would expect to see a glucose spike with so you ate some stuff, you drink some soda, or you had, you know, a bunch of gummy worms, that glucose was gonna spike. If that happens once in a while, it’s okay, you know, we have systems in place to correct that. But if we’re seeing that glucose exposure above around 140, or above that daily, or even a couple times a week, that’s when we really need to tweak something. So that it’s, it’s really actually occasional and not on a repeated basis, because that’s when we start to see damage as well. So we’re looking at that peak value the to our value. And then we also have a metric called area under the curve, that’s just capturing your glucose exposure in that two hour window. So you know, you could have gone up but come back down really quickly, or you slowly rose and then slowly came back down. But we want to see that that quicker return to normal and area under the curve also helps capture that as well.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And what I would recommend to our audience when they get one is I tested every food on it. Like I was like, let me get all my and you know what I was shocked on because we are keto, low carb community. And the thing that blew me away was the cauliflower chips and the cauliflower, like the grain free products spiked my blood sugar higher than a gluten free version of that. And I just I’d like literally, I went around my house just testing everything to see what was working. There’s no way I could have ever done that by pricking my finger over and over and over again.

Kara Collier
Yeah, first of all, yeah, it would be really painful and annoying to

Dr. Mindy
prick your finger. That’s great. Though I’d be willing to do it.

Unknown Speaker
I just,

Dr. Mindy
yeah, I don’t think it’d be accurate.

Kara Collier
But that’s Yeah, the other problem is, you’re not really you can’t be confident that you’re capturing the whole picture. And that’s exactly what I would recommend as well is just experiment, because that’s something where we’ve been just our minds have been blown by how unique everybody is, and how differently we respond to the same exact foods. So you know, I have a dietician team of about 20 at neutral science, and we’re all you know, healthy insulin sensitive, but I can eat a banana and have a glucose spike of only 20 points, where my colleague eats it and has a huge glucose spike, or I have the spike to pineapple and they don’t, you know, we’re it’s extremely variable. So I always recommend when you have your first sensor, of just trying things, you know, understanding what your favorite foods or things you might eat every once in a while might do to your body, rather than you know, starting in with like tackling an issue first. It’s I really encourage learning and experimenting, and then taking that information to build a plan that’s sustainable moving forward. Yeah, so trying all the things and I won’t call it any brands, but there are some keto products out there. That might not be so keto. So definitely try anything that you might normally consume.

Dr. Mindy
Yep. Fascinating. And I, we have several of our patients that are doing I think you guys have a 90 day program. And they’re doing and it’s been so fun. Okay, we’ll try this fast. Okay, try this food. Okay, let’s do this. And so I’ve been able to work really closely with them, and then they give me feedback. How’s the detox going? We have a biohacking center where we’re like, Okay, get in the sauna. Let’s see. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s so fun. It’s the greatest tool for for us understanding lifestyle, and what’s going to be the best. And I think we are in a world, our healthcare system used to be a one size fits all. And we’re really moving into this and have one or bio individuality and you’re This is just so cool for that. So

Kara Collier
yeah, and that’s so important to us, you know, that’s a core value of ours is that there is absolutely no one size fits all, you have to have the right tools and the right expertise with that, to learn really how you should best build your routines and habits. And you have to come in with a curiosity mindset of testing and experimenting to learn to be able to build that plan that’s truly personalized. A great,

Dr. Mindy
so Okay, let’s talk about hormones. Because I have a couple of questions around what it did like the week before my cycle, I saw some changes. I also saw some changes, like at two in the morning. You know, I did it right after the holidays. And I noticed that at two in the morning, I think I assume it was my liver dumping. I saw a spike but then as I cleaned my diet up within a month, it stopped doing that and the liver is such an important organ for hormones. So with women and hormones and liver health, how can we use it to understand those better?

Kara Collier
Yeah, it’s a great Question, it’s an extremely important to talk about because, you know, women and men are going to respond differently to a lot of things. And glucose is included in that. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, you know, I’m also in the camp of being a woman. But in general, you know, women tend to be less carbohydrate tolerant and tend to have more glucose variability and higher glucose responses to the same thing that you know, a man might eat. So if we paired somebody of the same age, same physical activity level, and the only difference was gender, I would probably bet that the woman is going to have slightly higher response to the same exact meal. And there’s a few different potential mechanisms going on here. Two big ones is the difference in body composition, and hormones involved. So I know we can touch on both of those. But starting with body composition, which is of course also impacted by hormones this a cycle here, but women tend to have less skeletal muscle mass and a higher adipose tissue mass than men. And this is a huge determination of how your glucose values are going to turn out. So this is why I’m always a huge proponent of everybody doing some strength training, but especially women, to build up some of that lean muscle mass, you know, our skeletal muscle is really involved in glucose metabolism, 80% of our circulating glucose values are taken up by the muscles. So it’s a huge organ system for regulating glucose values. And when we’re using our muscles, when we’re building our muscles up, we just have better insulin sensitivity and better glucose values. So that’s something that is in our that, oh, but we’re in a maybe a little bit of a lower starting place. But I think it’s really important for women to understand the importance of strength training. So that’s one component.

Dr. Mindy
And could we would we be able to let’s say, I’ve got this for 90 days, I start a strength training program, I should see the the number I would see is that I’m I’m I’m able to eat a meal and recover from that meal quicker, like, what would be the measurement of success that my skeletal muscles grow? Yeah,

Kara Collier
definitely. So you have better responses at those meal times and average glucose should also improve. So we tend to have better like resting glucose values when we have more muscle mass that’s been engaged often. So we were looking kind of at that 24 hour snapshot, but also meal responses, you know, especially, you know, if you work out and then you eat a meal, that’s one of our most insulin sensitive, you know, we just stimulated our muscles, we just burned energy to great time to then refuel and have that lower glucose response. So if some people are like carb cycling or doing like a cyclical keto approach, timing those carbohydrates after your workout is always going to lead to a better postprandial glucose response.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, I love that. Let’s talk about fasting and hormones. So I have something really exciting to share with you guys. Hopefully, you know that I am obsessed with fasting. I’m also obsessed with helping women and men, but women need a little more assistance in this time, they’re fast around their hormonal needs. Now, if you just look at women in general, we all have different hormonal needs, a postmenopausal woman has a different hormonal need than a 25 year old woman trying to get pregnant. And so being able to understand what our hormones are doing and how to time are fast to that how to time are eating styles to that. And even you can even time your exercise around your hormonal needs, becomes this incredible tool to not only be the healthiest version of you possible, but it also is a way to heal your hormones if your hormones are feeling out of balance. So I am teaching the month of May in my reset Academy, I am teaching everything you need to know about hormones for all ages. And I am going to be doing it around a new tool I created called the fasting circle. I haven’t taught the fasting circle on any other platform, it’s actually going to come out in a new book in on in 2022. But I’m teaching it in my Academy in the month of May so that you all can really dial in your lifestyle to maximize these superpowers called your hormones. So come join me in my Academy. I will leave a link in the notes below. You can also go to Dr. Mindy Pels calm and hit the reset Academy and sign up there and just know we’re diving into hormones I want you to to really master this because once you can tie your lifestyle to your hormonal needs. You’ll never worry about imbalanced or lacking hormones again, so see in my Academy, Okay, what about will we see a difference? According to our cycle, like the week before, will we have? Will we not manage glucose as well? How can we use it to have an indication into our own hormonal health?

Kara Collier
Yeah. And we’ve seen, you know, 1000s of people’s data at this point. And one of the things that’s really interesting at neutral sense, as you mentioned, is every new customer gets paired with a one on one dietitian, so we get to really work with clients one on one and see their story understand the nuances. And this is something that is in the research, but we also see with just about everyone is that we tend to have higher glucose levels during the luteal phase of our cycle. So just to lay some groundwork, you know, luteal phase is week three and four. So between ovulation and menstruation, so women typically see their highest glucose values right before their periods firing.

Dr. Mindy
Why do you think that is?

Kara Collier
Yeah, so it’s most likely the hormonal changes to lower estrogen levels of progesterone is peaking. And if we think about then what also happens during menopause, when estrogen is low, is that that leads to higher glucose values. So in general, estrogen tends to have a direct effect on insulin sensitivity. So it’s involved in actually in the beta cells in the pancreas on insulin release. And our influence sensitivity, which helps us dispose of that glucose is increased when estrogen is higher. And it also has a role in glycogen turnover. So glycogen is our stored form of glucose, we can do it in the muscles and in the liver. And when estrogen is higher, we tend to have better glycogen turnover, meaning that we can use that stored glucose for energy. And we can store some when we need it, rather than it being in circulation. So there’s research on this that it’s harder to tap into those stored glucose stores in those lower lower estrogen phases, so that also leads to higher glucose levels.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, and I love this because our resellers they I’ve been teaching them how to fast according to their cycle. And I always say that in the follicular phase, and that first half, you can go keto, you can fast like estrogen wants you to be insulin sensitive, it’s really you’ll see those numbers go down, you’ll be more effective. But as you come out of ambulation, then you really need to mind your progesterone and you actually were designed to eat more carbs there. There’s a reason in order to build progesterone, you need to be able to eat more carbs. So it’s interesting that you are already seen that in in how the body is, is using glucose because it needs to have I believe a higher glucose in order to make progesterone. Would it? Would you agree with that?

Kara Collier
Yeah, and I think that’s definitely true. And some people see this effect more dramatically than others, too. So some women will see like, just like a five or 10 point increase in glucose levels, or something much more dramatic. And I think that also correlates pretty well of like, how the side effects you have and how affected you seem to be from the hormonal shifts. But many women see this as well, the you know, just like you’re saying of when we’re in that phase, it’s higher glucose levels. And if you understand the physiology, it starts to make sense that there’s probably a reason that our bodies are doing these things. It’s not usually random or for a reason,

Dr. Mindy
right. And we crave carbs for a particular reason, like our higher Yeah, all these things that we villainize and like, I got PMS. It’s actually our body doing exactly what it needs to do. You think you could use this to tell when you’re when you ovulate? Because that’s a big thing that women are trying a lot of women missing their periods don’t know when they ovulate? Could you use a CGM to be able to tell that

Kara Collier
it’s possible? You know, we haven’t used it for that application? I think if you can track it well enough. There’s there’s certainly a correlation. Like we definitely see that increase. I don’t know. You know, I’d want to see more like probably formal research on that to say anything with confidence, but I don’t think it’s without like, the realm of possibility.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. I’ll I’ll we have so many resellers that are now using this. I’ll have to see if there’s a way to correlate it with like a mucus test or an ovulation kit or something to see if there was there was. And what about toxins? Do you think that if you have a high toxic load that you’d be able to tell that on your CGM? Are there going to be pieces there that will be affected?

Kara Collier
Yeah, we definitely see higher glucose levels if there’s some sort of toxin exposure going on. So if we think about kind of like, if you take a step back, a broad view, like the big buckets that are affected by glucose is, of course our diet, exercise, sleep, but then there’s this whole category of stress and I would Really lump that into stress, you know, it’s a stressor on the system. And there’s, you know, a lot of research to back up the fact that toxins, molds, even like parasites dysbiosis. So a lot of things that might be dis regulating the gut microbiome, but also environmental toxins like air pollution. We saw this actually, a lot when they were having the California fires were that people were experienced higher glucose values. So people we had on our platform for months before that, and then the fires were going on, and they’re breathing in all of this toxic air, and they can’t get away from it. You know, they’re like, fires in my house, and I still can’t, and they’re seeing a rise in their glucose values. So that was just kind of like anecdotal, but we saw that so much, that there was clearly something going on there. But just that’s so cool. Yeah, going on the air quality, there’s there is a lot of research to show that connection of air pollution. So people living in cities with high air pollution, it’s directly correlated with higher fasting glucose and average glucose levels. But we saw that, you know, directly during that time, which was, I think, very frustrating for people, but also eye opening that you you can see how it’s not just a diet, you have to look at this whole picture, you know, your diet can be awesome. But if you’re breathing in these toxins, you know, that’s, that’s going to wreak havoc as well. So there’s a lot of things going on here from a mechanism standpoint, but they tend to, you know, toxins tend to disrupt the endocrine system, because so they can damage the beta cells of the pancreas, which would decrease our ability to produce insulin, but it can also block insulin receptor sites. So if something’s being blocked, and we can’t use that insulin appropriately, it’s mimicking what’s happening during insulin resistance, when you know that that signal is being blocked. And then we tend to see higher glucose values because insulin can’t do its job appropriately. This is especially true of kind of the most common toxins like BPA and things like that.

Dr. Mindy
You actually have me thinking now the next time I wear one, I’d be interested to try to go around and like maybe test different waters, like you know, in different filters. I also there’s a lot of evidence coming out showing that air fresheners and perfumes are causing insulin resistance and affecting testosterone production like now I actually want to look at it from a toxicity level and see if I can see changes according to that. Do you think it would be that immediate if I like sprayed some, if I maybe I walked through the Cologne department at the at the department store? And

Kara Collier
it’s hard to say for certain I would definitely be interested in hearing here like no one results from that. So Well, no. But you know, a lot of the times you know, the dose makes the poison. So it’s possible that if you have a pretty strong immune system, or good detoxification pathways that you could be exposed to that and your body can deal with it, even though it’s not ideal. And so maybe we don’t see that response with the glucose levels. But if you’re someone who’s has a compromised gut, or compromised detoxification pathways, autoimmune issues, it might be as simple as walking through that department. And you would see that effect because you’re on that U shaped curve of exposure. That would be my theory, at least Yeah.

Dr. Mindy
Interesting thought. Yeah. Okay. What about stress? How does stress affect our blood sugar? Because it’s not just food or toxins, we stress can have an impact as well.

Kara Collier
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, you know, as the dietitian team interacting with the customers, that’s what we’re trying to kind of always explain, cuz I think what makes the most sense to people is food, and carbohydrates, especially because it’s like, that makes sense. That’s clear. But there’s those other pillars that are just as important, you know, the exercise, sleep and stress. So if we think about what’s happening, when we’re stressed, you know, when you have an acute stress response, like you’re in a traffic jam, or someone’s yelling at you, we’re gonna stimulate cortisol. And that’s going to flood the system with an acute glucose response. And this is normal, you know, this is acute, acute stress response. This is what our bodies are primed to do. And what happens is you get a bunch of glucose, but then we use the glucose and it should come back down to normal. So people will see this on their CGM, you know, they’re having a fight or they’re, you know, some sort of incidents going on something at work, they’re giving a presentation and they’ll see this glucose spike, but then it usually comes back down to normal doesn’t mean it’s optimal. We still want to kind of minimize those and try to manage stress. But the real problem comes with chronic stress when we’re constantly elevating that cortisol response and we see constant elevation and glucose. Because of that, and this is this is, unfortunately, something we see often. So one of the most common reasons that somebody might have just baseline elevated values, especially in the fasted state is because of stress. So if someone has a relatively good diet, and they’re not, you know, a diabetic, the first question I’m going to ask if they have higher fasting glucose levels is what their stress looks like what stressors they have going on in their life, and also how they’re sleeping, because those things are going to drive that cortisol response and drive glucose up. So fasting glucose and cortisol are very, very tightly related. And we have to be able to address that. And I think it’s something important that before some of the wearables, you know, HRV does a really good job of measuring kind of this as well. But before some of this data points, stress was so like, um, tangible for people that it was hard grew, it was hard to address and actually acknowledge, you know, if I just feel stressed all the time, that’s just my normal, you don’t even realize that, like, you could feel a different type of way, a lot of people are going going going high stress life, they don’t know what it feels like to not be stressed. So when I ask them, you know, what is your stress like, and then Okay, I’m fine. Like, I don’t really feel that stressed. But then you ask them for a day by day of, you know, what’s going on in their lives, and it sounds very stressful, and we see these elevated glucose values, we can help quantify something and make it more apparent to that person that this is actually maybe an issue, and we need to work on some stress management.

Dr. Mindy
And you actually now have me thinking because we do a lot of wearables to with our group, and I’m wondering, and HRV is a number we’re chasing all the time, especially menopausal women were like, have I get that HRV? up. So if you’re not sure how to bring your HRV up, you’re not really sure where stress is getting you would a CGM, then be another tool to see what time in your day, maybe it’s when you’re driving? Maybe it’s when you’re interacting with your spouse, like, how would we know it? Can we use it to that level?

Kara Collier
Yeah, you could definitely use it to help identify those acute stressors when you’re seeing that glucose spike. So that is it when I’m getting ready in the morning. And I’m acutely stressed, or is it when I’m rushing around at the office. But if it’s the chronic stress, it’s going to be that low grade elevation and glucose, or it’s going to be harder to pinpoint. And instead, it might just be that you’re in a chronic state of stress. And we have to address it from you know, a bigger picture view. But you can definitely see those acute stressors

Dr. Mindy
could could you go like wear it in your day to day life, and then wear it on vacation and see, like if you manage glucose better when you’re in a relaxed state, would that be a helpful way to use it to

Kara Collier
definitely, and a lot of people will see huge variations in their baseline values between the weekdays and the weekends, as well. And sometimes for opposite reasons. And so sometimes the weekdays are really stressful, and then weekends, everyone’s just kind of hanging out, and they’re way lower. Whereas sometimes the weekdays are actually kind of calmer, and then on the weekends, maybe you have a lot going on in your personal life. And it’s more stressful. But that variation between weekdays and weekends, a lot of people see contrast there as well. But definitely the vacation thing is another great way or whatever relaxes you, you know and see kind of how that contrasts.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, and I, where I see us recommending this, and I hope all the resellers that are fasting with me are hearing this is I do a YouTube live every week, and I get question after question about like, I can’t get my blood sugar down, I can’t get my blood sugar down. And there’s a variety of reasons why. And now I’m thinking this is really an opportunity for people to take a snapshot over a month, three months and really get an idea of why their blood sugar may not be going down. Because it may not be that you’re not fasting long enough. It may not be that you’re not eating the right foods, like there’s so many variables. Would you agree? Oh, many variables?

Kara Collier
Yeah, it’s really nuanced. And that’s another reason that we pair kind of a human expert to help you along, kind of explain things help to answer any questions because it is so nuanced. There’s so many variables to consider. We have a lot of people that Yeah, they’ve been picking their fingers for years, and they still can’t get it down. And they’re like, you know, I eat relatively healthy, low carb, and I’m still frustrated with these higher numbers. But it’s just because there’s so much more to it than that though. We have to consider and it’s hard to capture that information if you’re not seeing it. 24 seven, yeah.

Dr. Mindy
And what Okay, so what happened at two in the morning when my blood sugar spikes? Is that is that truly the liver dumping? Is that what’s an IF? Does it mean I had too much excess sugar and it just delivered stored it there and it decided to dump or is there something bigger going on there?

Kara Collier
Yeah, it’s most likely the liver dumping and it could be for one or two reasons. It’s definitely it tells me More inflammation that you saw worse after the holidays, and then it kind of was lower. So that definitely tells me that we’re probably oversaturated the system if it was lower, while like if you had well managed glucose values while eating holiday foods, that’s a good sign that you’re relatively insulin sensitive. So you were able to handle those foods. But then when you’re in a fasted state, the body’s like, we’ve got a lot of stores here to get rid of. But typically, we do see a surge in glucose values, usually between like, three to seven, and depending on your sleep wake cycle. And that’s the normal, you know, Dawn phenomenon that many people have probably heard of. And essentially, you know, I equate it to your body’s natural alarm clock, where we have a surge of cortisol and adrenaline and a few other hormones that kind of cause the liver to release some glucose. But then, if you’re insulin sensitive, it also is followed by some insulin release, and glucose levels come back down, we usually see lowest glucose values about an hour after waking up, if they don’t come back down after waking up and moving around, then it’s a little bit of a red flag for maybe some potential insulin resistance, you know, your body’s not responding to that counter regulatory process. But if you’re seeing an even higher surge at certain times than others, and that’s just not like your normal go to overnight response, then that can certainly be reflective of kind of what you did the day before. One thing that we see all the time is those high glucose surges in the middle of the night, when you’re sleeping, if you had a late night, especially higher carbohydrate meal. So our insulin sensitivity actually works on a circadian rhythm. Just like other hormones, like you know, melatonin, we’re probably more familiar with working on a circadian rhythm. And a lot of people will have those delayed and elevated glucose responses, if we’re mismatching that insulin sensitivity with our circadian rhythm, so those bigger, heavier, especially carbohydrate containing meals later in the evening, usually cause this delayed surge in the middle of the night, because our insulin sensitivity just isn’t as great. No, we’re not meant to be processing a bunch of food at 11pm, or, you know, midnight, especially in the middle of the night. So if we’re seeing that big surge, one of the first things we’ll do is look at what time they ate the day before. And try to bump that a little earlier. You know, a good rule of thumb is to try not to eat at least three hours before bed. I know with family schedules in life, it’s not always easy for everybody, but really trying to make that evening meal earlier. And if you can’t adjust the timing, make it a little smaller, and definitely lower carbohydrate. So try to Front Load your calories earlier in the day if you can’t help it. And that can really help those overnight values.

Dr. Mindy
So if if I’m not sleeping well, and I’m waking up at two or three in the morning, then I could play with my dinner, the quality of my dinner food and the timing of my dinner and see if that affects when I’m getting a sugar dump. Is that how we could really get into the specificity of this to sleep better? Yeah, it’s

Kara Collier
a great first place to start. Like, that’s usually helps majority of people, you know, there’s always nuances, but that’s would be the first thing I would tackle in that situation. Yeah, I love that I again, I hadn’t really thought about using it as a tool, because we use again, you compare it so well with a wearable, because you’re seeing where you’re getting deep sleep. And you can see where you’re spiking and waking up that Yeah, so yeah, hold the thing, those two together, our goal is to better integrate some of that information that is so closely related, like you’re saying, especially sleep data, especially HRV and heart rate, and be able to see that side by side within our app. So that is very high priority for us, kind of in the product timeline is to have a better integration with these key metrics so that it’s not just glucose, you know, you’re getting that whole picture. And you can really make those correlations and connections.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, what what should we see after exercise? Because we have seen a lot of people say, hey, it went up after I exercised what is that what we’re supposed to see?

Kara Collier
Yeah, and that can be totally normal. So don’t be alarmed if you see a glucose spike after you work out. It really depends how we should expect to see your glucose respond during exercise depends on the type of exercise. So if you’re doing kind of steady state cardio zone two or going on a walk, you should see your glucose either stay the same or decrease a little bit because your current energy availability in the system is enough to meet the demands as they exercise. But if you’re doing you know high intensity interval training, if you’re doing a heavy weight lifting, if you’re running at a pretty quick pace, we would expect to see glucose rise during that situation because The current energy availability in your system is not enough to meet the high demands of the exercise. But this isn’t the same as a glucose spike from food, there’s totally different mechanisms in place. You know, if you think about, let’s say, I just ate a bowl of cereal and my glucose spikes, then I just kind of sit there and let my body try to figure out what to do with this extra energy. But if I’m doing high intensity interval training, and my body’s like, we need some glucose fast to power this energy, then my body, my liver is going to produce that glucose and break down my glucose stores to fuel the activity. And that glucose is immediately going to fuel that activity. It’s not just sitting around. And a lot of that is not even insulin mediated when we’re exercising because of, you know, the different receptors that are turned on or off when we’re exercising. So long story short, if you’re doing a higher intensity exercise, then we would expect to see a glucose increase. And that’s totally normal. I actually think it’s kind of awesome, because it shows us that we don’t necessarily have to eat carbohydrates before during, we don’t even have to have food in our system, you know, we could be completely fasted because our body has the systems to fuel that workout, you know, we have mechanisms in place to give it the energy it needs to do what it needs to do. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be coming from the outside. You don’t have to constantly be feeding yourself to fuel that. Yeah, we’re so what this is

Dr. Mindy
what I love about all these wearables is you just get to know your body at such a different level. And you just you can just sit back and awe of how intelligent we are. You know, and I don’t think we’re out that enough. So I absolutely agree on that. What Why don’t you guys test ketones? This is another one thing and I’ll tell you in the biohacking movement in the health influencer movement, what I’m actually seeing is a lot of people moving away from the ketone readings. And because they find that that continuous glucose monitoring is so much more effective than looking at ketones. Is there? Is it hard to to put those two devices together? And why don’t you test for that?

Kara Collier
It’s a good question right now, yeah, the technology is not there to have there. There’s no continuous ketone monitor out there, that technology’s not quite there. I don’t think it’s too far off or to be pretty close. That is possible, because it is an easier metric to measure measure continuously, like glucose, whereas like insulin is a different category and ballpark. So I first see that it will happen one day, but right now the technology is just not there yet. So that’s part of the reason we do support, you know, if you’re using a, like a keto Mojo with Bluetooth that syncs automatically into our app. So you could see your glucose curve, and then automatically your your ketone measurement from your keto Mojo is going to show up on the graph. So you can easily correlate it, but I am in the camp that I don’t think ketone measurements are the end all be all. I think they’re interesting. I measure mind sometimes definitely. And I think it helps you get a good starting place of like, am I actually in ketosis when I’m doing x, y, z, but I don’t think we know enough about like, is the level of ketones in our blood system reflective of what we’re using. So that doesn’t necessarily mean if we’re like asking you workout, your ketones are low, because you just use them for energy. That’s not a bad thing. So like a low ketone is not a bad thing, like, so I think when we chase high ketones, sometimes we get in the wrong mindset. You know, I can eat, like, I can drink MCT oil all day and have really high ketones. I certainly think that I’m at the best outcomes. Yeah. So I think we have to be a little wary. I think it has a use case for sure. But I don’t think it tells us the kind of information that like glucose does.

Dr. Mindy
So well said I hope everybody heard that because I get another another question I get all the time is like, Oh my gosh, all of a sudden, my ketones are dropping and my big pieces. Yeah, but your body’s becoming more efficient at using them. So that’s exactly the only good thing. So how do people typically use you guys do you do do is it best to do a 90 day period is 30 days enough? Like just so that our resellers kind of can dip into this and figure out how they can maximize your product?

Kara Collier
Yeah, I think it depends on where you’re coming from. So some people know we have two different options. One is just one CGM which last 14 days and then there’s like no recurring payments or anything. So two weeks is not enough time to like make changes or test all the things you want to test. But it is enough time for you to see like if you like it if this kind of monitoring is something that’s interesting to you and kind of give you a quick snapshot of maybe how you are like what what are your values look like in your day to day routine? So the two week program is great if you’re not sure if you want to commit not sure what it would be like where then we have have monthly programs. So we have a month to month with no commitment, you can cancel at any time. And that is more expensive because it’s month to month. That’s great. Again, if you’re pretty knowledgeable, maybe you don’t really want to change your diet very much. But you want to see how your body responds and day to day life a month is probably enough time for those people. But for everybody else, I would say at least doing the three month program, you know, we have three, six and 12 month options, where three months is a good amount of time to do a bunch of experimentation to really learn about yourself, and then to try different routines you might actually do in the long term and see how that plays out. So I think a three month is a good place for most people. But it kind of depends on how much you want to actually change at the end of the day and how much you probably already know about this stuff coming into it. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
yeah, I found that the two week one was, I was just getting my groove. And then I did another two weeks. And that’s when I started testing everything. And now you got me thinking I want to wear it again and test a bunch of other behaviors on it. Because it You’re right, we have no sense of what our lifestyle is doing to our blood sugar, we literally have the assets, and yet it’s the most important metric. And that we have to change that. I mean, that’s crazy.

Kara Collier
I know. Yeah, just like the lack of Yeah, the lack of knowledge and information out there about this, this metric in general, let alone the technology to monitor it. 24 seven is something that you know, it’s my ultimate goal to change that. Yeah, and everyone needs to be wearing a CGM 24 seven, that’s not my goal. My goal is that you get that information about yourself. And you can make meaningful changes based off that data. Because just like you said, there’s there’s really no way to know unless you actually do it and see it.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And you know, my audience knows this. But I’ve been preaching over the last year that the number one measurement of poor immune health is being an metabolically fit, we only have 12% of Americans that are metabolically fit, we have to change that. And if you don’t know how to change it, put one of these meters on and you’re going to start to identify really quickly what’s working and what’s not working. So I, this is to me, a much bigger than just a cool little hack. This is a life saving tool that if we could get into everybody’s hands, we would not only change chronic disease, but we would end pandemics and we would create a healthier, happier human race. So I’m a huge fan. And I’m so happy, they’re finally available to us. So thank you for that.

Kara Collier
Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate your support, you know, we’re on the same page, I really think that this can be not just something where it’s like, oh, I learned a few things. They can be game changer, and how we live our lives and a lot of traditional recommendations like take my plate or the USDA dietary guidelines like you try those out. And you’ll see really quickly that maybe they don’t actually match up to good outcomes. So you can let your own bodies speak for itself.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, well said. So okay, last thing, I always end with five questions. They’re customized to you. So don’t worry, there won’t be anything too that you can’t answer. So let me fire away at you. What for you. Personally, I assume you were a CGM, or four and one a lot. What do you think has been the most surprising lifestyle habit that you’ve seen in your own personal CGM?

Kara Collier
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I mean, I guess a little bit more about like myself, I tend to do kind of like a cyclical keto approach. So there are times where I’m doing higher carbohydrates. And I think just like, to me, what was most interesting was when I was trying all the carbohydrates, Whole Foods, nutrient dense carbohydrates that I could think of, and how poorly it matched up with the glycemic index. So I do buy from pineapple, which is not a surprise, but like, the food that I have the lowest response to in like, a fruit category is bananas, which is like super surprising, lower than berries, you know, lower than all the low glycemic fruits. And I was just like, I avoided bananas all my life, because I thought they were super starchy. And, you know, here it is, or it’s like, it’s, it’s not how I respond individually. And that to me was just like, you know, mind boggling of how different my responses were, you know, everyone is like, teen sweet potato, and I don’t actually really like sweet potatoes that much. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I was eating them. And like, that’s huge, because response to me, and I was like, Okay, well, I’ll pick something really interesting.

Dr. Mindy
What do you think that do you think your microbiome I mean, there’s so much research showing that your gut bacteria so the glycemic index, as is sort of nada is becoming non relevant anymore, because it’s your microbiome that will control how you take in the sugars from these foods. Is that what you guys understand as well? Yeah,

Kara Collier
and I’m sure we’ll uncover more factors that are probably influencing this like interpersonal you know, difference But definitely things are pointing to probably the primary factor is the microbiome. There’s, you know, a lot of research to back that up, which is really interesting. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that my microbiome was worse or better than yours. It’s just different. You know, it’s like a fingerprint. And mine likes certain things more than yours. Like certain things. Yeah. So it’s really fascinating. So

Dr. Mindy
cool. So cool. Okay, what was the one food that you absolutely love, but your CGM didn’t?

Kara Collier
Yeah, that’s a good question. Cuz there’s always the things you love. And then you’re like, I’m gonna eat it anyway, because I love it.

Dr. Mindy
And then you got it. You got it. You go look at your app, you could decide to not look at it that day. Yeah, for sure. And so

Kara Collier
I guess, like, one thing that I always think about is okay, so I love like air pop popcorn. Like, I’ll like literally just like pop and do like olive oil and parmesan cheese. And it’s like my, like Friday night Street. And it doesn’t have a huge glucose response, but it’s like, very delayed. And so like, I’ll have like a slightly elevated glucose response for like, five hours. And I know it’s not optimal. But I and I was kind of surprised because I was like, Oh, I didn’t spike. And I was like, Oh, it’s still going. And I tried to like five times, and it’s the same every time. Oh, yeah. But I still do it sometimes. Because I love it. But I know I’m like, Well, I had a higher carbohydrate day that day or didn’t exercise. It’s like a no go. So I can be more mindful about like the best way to do it. But

Dr. Mindy
that was a little bit sad. Maybe you need to pour some more butter on it. Yeah. Have any more.

Kara Collier
They do eat like posting beforehand, in an effort to volunteer a little bit. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
one of the things that I noticed from my own self is I had years ago, a friend had a, she has a type one diabetic daughter, and they were switching out her continuous glucose monitor. And so she’s like, hey, do you want to try her old one? So I did. And whenever I ate protein, my my blood sugar spiked. So high. Well, this go around my, whenever I ate protein, my blood sugar dipped? It was really interesting. And so my thought was, it’s got to be a change in my microbiome that’s affecting this differently.

Kara Collier
Yeah, I was gonna ask if you feel like your like health was any different in between those time periods? And you feel like you’re healthier now that definitely healthier now?

Dr. Mindy
Yeah,

Kara Collier
yeah, we tend to see that like, generally healthy people either have a stable or glucose response to protein or a slight dip. And then people who maybe are like, not quite as insulin sensitive tend to see a little bit of a rise, because both insulin and glucagon are being released in response to protein, which is interesting. But they should do like counterbalance themselves. But if you’re not as insulin sensitive, you have a hard time counter balancing. And you might see that rise, it doesn’t mean you should avoid protein, still do it, because it’ll help you get to that mode of healthier, but it’s just something to be aware of.

Dr. Mindy
So cool. Okay, I’m trying to repattern 2020. So we can talk about the good things that happened. So what personally were some of the AHA is like the beautiful things that you learned out of the life changes that happened in 2020.

Kara Collier
Yeah, you know, and yeah, 2020 was a whirlwind. But a lot of positive things happen for me in 2020, as well, I mean, I love the freedom that everyone gets from working from home or having an option potentially, like, what we saw in clients was now they’re like, I just got an hour extra of sleep every night because I don’t have to commute or like, get ready. I’m like, you know, I now have to do all these things, like people were sleeping more, because I have more time, more freedom over their time. So I guess that’s one thing where I’m just like, I’m a huge proponent of kind of people being in charge of their time and how they want to spend it. And I think that a lot of organizations probably never would have let their employees work from home unless they were forced to sometimes it takes like a force to make, you know, big organizations change. And I think for a lot of things, you know, there’s some things you can do from home, and people still need to go in. But I think that that was a really positive change, both for myself and for others. Well, it makes you It forces you to have better communication skills to be able to communicate better if you’re not in person. Yeah, I

Dr. Mindy
definitely agree. Okay, what’s the one health book that you think everybody should read?

Kara Collier
Oh, that’s a great question. I love reading. I’m reading all the time. Health books are hard, because sometimes they’re such a hit or miss,

Dr. Mindy
but I know Well, okay, so what, what, what, what like impacted you

Kara Collier
the most, but when I think of like early on, which isn’t even really like nutrition, but Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, I read like a long time ago, and it just changed how I thought about food production and the way we eat and I just realized, like, you know, you go to Whole Foods, and you think like, this is super healthy. But then when he’s talking about like, mass scale, organic and how that’s different than, you know, actual, like regenerative agriculture, that really stuck with me, I still think about that, and I read it a long time ago. So that’s a good book.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And he what I love about his books is he’s got all that philosophy of food in there too, which is so important. food isn’t just something that satisfies our taste buds. So, yeah, that’s good. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, last question. If you had one message for the world that you could get into everybody’s brain, what would that be?

Kara Collier
Another good question. Um, I always want people to feel empowered. So the message that I always want people to know is that like, you have control, like, good metabolic health can be a choice. And this isn’t something that you, you know, both my parents had diabetes, I’m going to get diabetes, or you know, I’ve been overweight for 30 years, I’m never going to lose this weight, like, you can totally be in control. If you have, again, the right tools and the right help. I think anything is possible. And this is not a death sentence, you know, given potential other histories that you’ve seen happen around you. So what I want people to walk away is just like feeling empowered, that they can choose their own outcomes.

Dr. Mindy
Yep. Oh, that’s my message to is like, give people the power back, we have a healthcare system that has set us up to believe that we don’t have any control. And this is why I love products, like what you guys are doing. You. I literally think if we could get a CGM on every person, and help them understand this, we would dramatically change the medications people are on the diseases, they’re getting the things they’re dying from, like this. This, to me is the wave of the future. And I just hope more people hop on to it. So just please, please tell your team and everybody there. You guys are awesome. And we are 100% behind you. So thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me, Kara.

Kara Collier
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it’s really appreciated. And it’s always fun to chat. So thanks for having me on.

Dr. Mindy
Hey, resetera, I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. And those of you that have left me comments on iTunes. I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you’re enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I’ve learned in just interacting with so many people is that we’ve really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, the resetter podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say give you guys a shout-out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me. Because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it’s impacting your life. So please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you to make it better. We are now officially in season two. And we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have that mindset changers can give and to really deliver you something that you’re not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube from the bottom of my heart. I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you and let’s get healthy together.