Talk root cause to me, baby...

Last year I sent out a survey asking people like you for their biggest health "UGGGH!" In other words, if you could wave a magic wand and fix one health issue...what would it be? The number one answer?

WEIGHT LOSS (like, duh)

It was followed closely by ANXIETY, and coming in third....THYROID ISSUES.

So I quickly got to work on ways to clearly and effectively help people control their.... blood sugar.

Wait...what? But what about weight loss tricks? Mental exercises to combat stress? Supplements to heal your thyroid?

Well, the thing you need to know about me is that after years of being a pharmacist - filling prescription after prescription and then having conversation after conversation with patients - I realized something. LOTS of those meds were being taken without any discussion about the importance of the root cause of what was causing their symptoms to begin with. I don't play those games anymore. I left a well-paying job and started an entire business to avoid that healthcare model.

And you wanna know a very common root cause of stubborn weight, feelings of anxiety, and thyroid madness?

Dysregulated blood sugar (I'm going to guess you saw that one coming you smarty pants!)

Now, fixing your thyroid health and ridding yourself of anxiety is rarely this simple -please don't misunderstand me. I mean, that would be GREAT if you could get your blood sugar under control and all of your health issues would go away! But we are complicated beings, not machines where you can simply adjust a lever or push a button and reset to factory settings.

So, if your goal is weight loss, it often looks a little more like:

• REGULATED BLOOD SUGAR + CALORIE DEFICIT + NUTRIENTS/RECOVERY

Anxiety?

• REGULATED BLOOD SUGAR + REMOVAL OF TRIGGERS + COMMUNITY & SUPPORT

Thyroid dysfunction?

• REGULATED BLOOD SUGAR + REMOVAL OF TRIGGERS + NUTRIENT REPLENISHMENT

And for all of these conditions, adding prescription meds may be a good and necessary thing. Even with all that I've learned and researched, I truly believe that.

On the other hand, trying to fix any of these issues without addressing your blood sugar?

Yeesh.

Because blood sugar control is not something that you have to pay attention to only if you are a diabetic - it is one of those foundational, root cause things that is easy to ignore until it goes terribly wrong (eg: diabetes and all of the downstream problems it can cause).

Now I realize that the actual process of getting your blood sugar back into balance is not always fun or easy - discomfort rears its ugly head almost anytime you make a big change in your life. But I would venture to say that a big part of the "hard" is because even when you start doing all the right things...you can't see or feel your progress right away.

And this where Continuous Glucose Monitoring enters my story. As I was creating this solution for my friends and family, the thing I kept coming back to was - "How do you keep people motivated?"

True change takes time, but we are only human...and humans like to see change NOW! Well, Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) checks that box.

With a CGM, there's no more waiting 3 months for another blood test to check your A1c and see if the changes you've invested in have made a difference. You get to see within a matter of minutes what the things you eat, your nightly walk, or your daily news consumption does to your blood sugar (and yes, you can see symptoms of stress on the CGM as well!).

• Eating vegetables? --> Boring.

• Running mini experiments to see if eating vegetables before my meals improves my blood sugar? --> BINGO. I'm in!

Seeing immediate results of your actions also means that you can make change....immediately. Creating new, healthy habits requires repetition and positive feedback.

So my only question now is....why wait any longer to get started?

Happy learning,

Krista

Krista Robichaux, PharmD