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If you were interested in receiving a seemingly endless stream of data<\/a> about your bodily functions, it used to be enough to buy an Oura ring. Now, wellness obsessives are tracking their blood sugar around the clock, too. While continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) were initially intended to help people with diabetes manage their blood sugar, they\u2019re now available over-the-counter<\/a> for anyone curious about how their body is responding to their breakfast. My Instagram feed is full of ads for direct-to-consumer CGMs from brands like Lingo<\/a> and Stelo<\/a>. Gwyneth Paltrow recently filmed herself wearing one<\/a> while making grain-free pancakes.<\/p>\n Proponents of CGMs will tell you that the main reason to wear one is to avoid \u201cblood sugar spikes.\u201d The influencer Jessie Inchausp\u00e9 \u2014\u00a0known online as Glucose Goddess<\/a> \u2014\u00a0has built a massive following based on her claims that blood-sugar fluctuations are terrible for your health even if you don\u2019t have diabetes. In addition to causing<\/a> excessive hunger, cravings, and fatigue, \u201ceach glucose spike,\u201d Inchausp\u00e9 claims<\/a>, \u201cincreases heart-disease risk.\u201d She says<\/a> balancing your blood-sugar levels will help you avoid developing prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, and also reduce your risk of Alzheimer\u2019s and cancer. She\u2019s now an ambassador for Stelo<\/a>, which makes a CGM specifically for people who don\u2019t use insulin and claims<\/a> that \u201ckeeping glucose levels stable is essential for maintaining your overall well-being.\u201d Getting more people to use wearables to track their blood sugar is also apparently central to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s \u201cvision<\/a>\u201d for how to make Americans healthier. Perhaps not coincidentally, Levels, one of the main companies pushing CGMs for people without diabetes, was founded by none other than Casey Means,<\/a> Trump\u2019s nominee for surgeon general. (Means has said<\/a> she will sell her stake in Levels if she\u2019s confirmed.) She believes that<\/a> wearing a CGM can help you feel better, lose weight, and avoid developing a vast array of chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n Given all the hype, I wanted to try out the wearable for myself. I decided to try the Levels app, which Means has said<\/a> she started after dropping out of her surgical residency in order to \u201cempower people to make healthy choices on their own terms.\u201d The app is designed to be connected with a Stelo CGM, which starts at $89 a month. While Stelo\u2019s device comes with an app that displays your blood-sugar readings, for an additional $288 a year<\/a>, Levels will interpret this data alongside information about your meals and exercise to provide AI-generated health guidance. After I downloaded the app and signed over my health data<\/a>, my CGM arrived in the mail a few days later. Each sensor \u2014\u00a0which lasts about two weeks \u2014 comes with an applicator that uses a needle to insert a small wire just under your skin on the back of your upper arm. While this made me a little queasy, putting it on was relatively painless.<\/p>\n My CGM sent blood-sugar readings to my phone every 15 minutes, and the Levels app quickly got to work generating a complex graph of my fluctuations after each meal and snack. Admittedly, this is fun data to have \u2014\u00a0at least at first. The feeling that Casey Means was judging everything I put into my body motivated me to be on \u201cgood\u201d behavior, avoiding sweets and eating chicken breast whenever I could. But it didn\u2019t take long for the app to start getting on my nerves.<\/p>\n In the first few days of wearing a CGM, I lost track of how many times the Levels app informed me that my blood sugar was spiking. For people without diabetes, it\u2019s considered normal for blood sugar to be anywhere between 70 and 140 mg\/dL, says Danielle Shine<\/a>, an accredited dietitian who researches nutrition misinformation at the University of Canberra. However, Levels apparently thinks that\u2019s too lax. The app was concerned pretty much anytime my blood sugar was above 110 mg\/dL<\/a>, and it constantly sent me alarming messages about it. \u201cDid something happen at 3:34 p.m.?\u201d the app wanted to know after I ate a cookie. I did not appreciate getting a push notification reminding me that \u201csome movement can help blunt the spike\u201d while I was in the middle of putting my daughter to bed or sitting in a car on the highway \u2014\u00a0especially given that, most of the time, my blood sugar was still in the normal range.<\/p>\n To optimize its \u201cinsights,\u201d the app also wanted me to log my meals. Levels claims to make macro tracking easier<\/a> by having you take a picture of your food and then using AI to calculate the nutrition stats. But this feature could use some work. The app thought my morning yogurt with chia seeds, chopped apples, and nuts was \u201ccream cheese with red pepper, bacon bits, and blue cheese,\u201d a meal I\u2019ve never eaten in my life. Another time, it thought the meal was \u201cimitation crab salad.\u201d It also didn\u2019t seem to care about portion size, logging a slice of pizza and salad as 1,715 calories. (Apparently, it assumed I ate an entire pizza crust.)<\/p>\n Then there were the scores. Levels rates each meal on a scale from one to ten<\/a> based on nutritional quality and glucose response. According to the app, meals with eggs, chicken, avocado, and nuts tend to score higher, while lower-scoring meals include cereal, noodles, and candy. These scores can be brutal. Thai takeout for dinner \u2014\u00a0chicken curry with rice and drunken noodles \u2014\u00a0earned me a one. \u201cBig spike,\u201d the app warned, recommending that next time I order out, I should \u201cswap white rice for steamed vegetables.\u201d On the other hand, eating a salad with grilled chicken and avocado for lunch only got a seven. The app also wasn\u2019t that impressed when I ate Greek salad for dinner, suggesting that I \u201cconsider limiting higher-carb ingredients like chickpeas\u201d in the future. Still, it was hard to take Levels\u2019 recommendations too seriously, given that the same exact turkey wrap for lunch earned a nine (excellent) one day and a five (poor) another. After I logged an ice cream sandwich as a treat, the app thought I\u2019d be interested to learn that ice cream is high in sugar, directing me to a list of low-carb alternatives<\/a>. (Surprisingly, Levels said this post wasn\u2019t sponsored.)<\/p>\n As much as the Levels app annoyed me, the constant alerts that my blood sugar was out of whack did stress me out. After a bowl of popcorn resulted in a \u201cbig spike,\u201d I began to wonder if my cravings for \u201cnaked carbs<\/a>\u201d \u2014\u00a0Glucose Goddess\u2019s term for when you eat starch or sugar without pairing it with protein and fat \u2014 were slowly killing me. But the dietitians I spoke with said that, for people without diabetes, obsessing over blood-sugar readings usually isn\u2019t helpful. \u201cIt\u2019s information overload,\u201d says Shine. For nondiabetics, it\u2019s normal for glucose to rise after a meal, and it typically returns to baseline within an hour or two. \u201cThat\u2019s a healthy metabolic response.\u201d (Levels did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n According to Shine, what Levels deems a \u201cspike\u201d is often just a normal fluctuation. In fact, she says the term \u201cblood sugar spike\u201d is rarely used in a clinical setting at all. (It\u2019s worth noting that the American Diabetes Association doesn\u2019t set post-meal glucose targets for people without diabetes, since it\u2019s not recommended they routinely monitor their blood sugar.) While it\u2019s true that meals that are heavy in refined carbs can make glucose levels rise higher and faster, Shine says that occasional readings above 140mg\/dL usually aren\u2019t cause for concern. \u201cAs a dietitian, I look at the bigger picture and the person\u2019s overall dietary pattern,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The influencers pushing CGMs argue that every blood-sugar \u201cspike\u201d is dangerous. Mark Hyman, a functional-medicine doctor and adviser to Levels<\/a>, claims that frequent spikes lead to insulin resistance<\/a> and type 2 diabetes, and says that even sweet potatoes may need to be approached with caution. Glucose Goddess\u2019s feed is full of warnings<\/a> that having oatmeal for breakfast<\/a> is a recipe for feeling tired and hungry all day. She claims the order in which you eat your food matters, and that you should have vegetables first<\/a> to lower the spike. (She suggests<\/a> that bread at restaurants is a conspiracy so that you\u2019ll feel hungrier after your main course and order dessert.) Ideally, you\u2019d go for a walk after every meal, but if you can\u2019t manage that, she recommends you do some calf raises<\/a> to \u201csoak up the glucose.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to argue with the fact that pairing carbs with protein, fat, and fiber will keep you full longer \u2014\u00a0and keep your energy and mood stable, says Abby Langer<\/a>, a registered dietitian. \u201cDietitians have been telling people to do that for years.\u201d Going for a walk after eating is generally a good idea, too. But if you don\u2019t have diabetes, you don\u2019t need to manipulate your meals to avoid every possible \u201cspike,\u201d Langer says. Inspired by Glucose Goddess\u2019s \u201chacks,\u201d Shine says she\u2019s had a number of clients who insist on eating chicken or an egg before having a cookie. \u201cI always ask, Do you enjoy that? I have yet to hear anyone say yes.\u201d\u00a0While eating vegetables or protein first might result in slightly lower blood sugar, \u201cfor the average person, there\u2019s no clinical relevance whatsoever,\u201d says Langer.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that, in the long term, a diet that\u2019s high in refined carbs, added sugar, and saturated fat can increase your risk of developing insulin resistance. But there\u2019s no evidence that temporary \u201cspikes\u201d after carb-heavy meals cause insulin resistance in metabolically healthy people \u2014\u00a0or that keeping blood-glucose levels below 110mg\/dL, as Levels recommends, improves long-term health outcomes, says Shine. That said, if your blood sugar is consistently above the normal range, that can signal impaired glucose tolerance \u2014\u00a0which should be assessed by a doctor, not the Levels app. CGMs aren\u2019t approved for diagnosing prediabetes or diabetes, which requires validated lab tests conducted under medical supervision<\/a>. And diet alone doesn\u2019t determine your risk for developing diabetes, which has many contributing factors, including genetics, low physical activity, chronic poor sleep, chronic stress, smoking, long-term alcohol consumption, and excess body fat, says Shine.<\/p>\n Using Levels, it\u2019s easy to get the impression that you should aim to keep your blood sugar as low as possible \u2014\u00a0but that really isn\u2019t good for you. \u201cI think CGMs should come with a warning label,\u201d says Shine, who had one client who became so fixated on keeping her glucose levels down that she had to be hospitalized after fainting. (The same client also drank apple cider vinegar before meals \u2014\u00a0one of Glucose Goddess\u2019s signature \u201chacks\u201d<\/a> to keep blood sugar down \u2014\u00a0which eroded the enamel on her teeth, Shine says.) \u201cI think it can be profoundly damaging to our relationship with food and our bodies to drill everything down to numbers,\u201d says Langer. \u201cIt creates this total disconnect between how we feel and what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n By the end of two weeks, I was itching to rip my CGM off my arm and scrub away the grimy-looking residue from the adhesive. It was a joy to have a bowl of pasta without getting a scorecard afterwards \u2014\u00a0and I certainly don\u2019t plan to keep paying $24 a month to have every snack judged by an app that can\u2019t tell the difference between apples and bacon.<\/p>\n Stay in touch.<\/p>\n Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n