What Wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor Taught Me About My Own Body

By Tina Chagoury, Clinical Dietitian · 5 min read · 2026-09-21

If you had told me six years ago to wear a glucose monitor, I would have called it extreme. Those few months changed how I understand my body permanently.

If you had told me six years ago to wear a continuous glucose monitor and track my blood sugar, I would probably have rolled my eyes and called it extreme. I know some of you still think that, particularly if you do not have diabetes.

Here is why I changed my mind.

What happened first

In 2019 I gained around seventeen kilograms, as a result of the treatment I had and the induced menopause it put me into.

And I am a dietitian. I genuinely did not know what to eat.

So I did what I always do: I adjusted my habits. And nothing happened. My weight did not move.

What I did not have at that point was sufficient knowledge about menopause and everything connected to hormonal change in women. That gap is what pushed me to specialise in hormones.

The single most important thing I learned

Blood sugar is one of the most important factors determining how well a woman's hormones can be regulated.

Not the only one. But close to the foundation.

So I wore a monitor

A continuous glucose monitor tracks glucose continuously rather than at a single moment. I wore one, and I discovered how much my blood sugar was actually driving.

Three things I learned that I could not have learned from a blood test:

How I personally respond to carbohydrate. Not how you respond. Not how she responds. Every woman responds in her own way, and the differences are considerable.

Which foods kept my levels steadier, in real conditions, in my actual life, rather than in theory.

How much else affected it. Poor sleep, stress, skipped meals and even exercise all moved my glucose in ways I would never have attributed to them.

What I changed, and what happened

I reduced carbohydrate intake substantially. I increased protein considerably. I started weight training, which matters enormously for a woman at this stage.

I lost the seventeen kilograms.

And more importantly than the number, my menopausal symptoms became far easier to navigate. Hot flashes in particular. Losing weight stopped feeling like an uphill battle.

What I want to be clear about

I have not worn a monitor since. I do not think every woman needs one.

But I can say honestly that those few months permanently changed how I understand my own body, and that is why blood sugar regulation is one of the foundations of everything I do now, both in my programme and in the meal plans I design.

Not because every woman needs the device. Because every woman benefits from understanding, and ideally experiencing, what regulated blood sugar actually feels like.

If you want the information without the device

You can get a good deal of the way there with:

• Fasting glucose and fasting insulin together, which allow HOMA-IR to be calculated
• HbA1c, for the longer term average
• Paying attention to the symptoms that indicate instability: the post meal slump, the constant hunger, the afternoon sugar pull, the brain fog, the puffiness

And you can act on it without any testing at all: protein within the first hour of waking, protein at every meal, three structured meals, a ten minute walk after eating, and resistance training.

That is most of the benefit, available to anyone, starting tomorrow.

This article is nutrition education, not medical advice.

Tina Chagoury is a licensed clinical dietitian who specialised in women's hormonal health after her own experience with breast cancer and treatment induced early menopause. She is the creator of the Hormone Reset Method™. Learn more and start here.