Peri-Normal

Perimenopause Glucose Diaries: Insulin Resistance + CGMs

• Stephanie Sprenger

Share episode

🎙️ Peri-Normal Podcast: The Perimenopausal Glucose Diaries: Insulin Resistance and CGMs

Welcome back to the Paranormal Podcast! In this episode, Steph dives into the wild ride of perimenopause, neurodivergence, and midlife—sharing her personal journey with glucose monitoring, hormone therapy, and the realities of being a single parent with ADHD.

What’s Inside:

  • Real talk about perimenopausal weight gain, hormone changes, and why the old tricks don’t always work anymore
  • Steph’s experience with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and what she’s learned from tracking her data
  • The emotional rollercoaster of health advocacy, stress, and self-acceptance

Key Takeaways from Steph’s Glucose Tracking:

  • 🍦 Some foods that should spike glucose (like ice cream) didn’t, while “healthy” foods (like oatmeal and rice) did—context and meal composition matter!
  • 🥗 Adding protein and fiber to every meal helps prevent glucose spikes
  • ⏰ Eating smaller, regular meals throughout the day keeps glucose more stable (no more skipping breakfast!)
  • 🧘‍♀️ Stress has a direct impact on glucose—both daily stress and even nightmares can cause spikes
  • 😴 Sleep quality and glucose are linked; tracking both gives a fuller picture of health
  • 🔄 Steph sometimes experiences hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), not just high—perimenopause and hormones can make things unpredictable
  • 🧠 She’s learned to trust her body’s signals: feeling flustered or tired often matches up with glucose data
  • 🏋️‍♀️ Moving more (even if it’s just dancing in the kitchen) and experimenting with carb cycling has helped with both mood and weight

Steph’s Tips for Navigating Perimenopausal Glucose Changes:

  • Eat breakfast—even if you don’t feel like it
  • Pay attention to how your body reacts to different foods (everyone’s different!)
  • Add protein and fiber to every meal
  • Move your body in ways that feel good (housework counts!)
  • Don’t be afraid to experiment and track your own data

Resources & Links:

Connect with Steph:

  • Leave a comment or review—your feedback means the world!
  • Follow Steph on Instagram: @stephsprenger or Substack
  • Got questions? Reach out and join the conversation!

Midlife. A DHD can be scary, but it doesn't have to be. Here on paranormal, we are demystifying neurodivergence and perimenopause. Plus, with candid conversations and advice from experts, join me for a no holds barred exploration of what it means to be neurodivergent at midlife. Let's redefine normal together. I'm Steph Springer, and this is per normal. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Paranormal Podcast where we are talking about perimenopause, neurodivergence, midlife, and all the growing pains that go along with our second adolescence. And today's episode is part of my Substack series called the Perimenopausal Glucose Diaries, and this is part one where I'm going to share a little bit about. One of my very specific struggles with perimenopause that is connected to my A DHD in some strange ways. So I have been low key venting about my perimenopausal weight gain for the past year, and I alternately embrace my desire to get my health under control. Like it's perfectly fine if I want to lose a few pounds. Damn it. Then apologizing for that fact. Please don't report me to the body. Positivity Police, the rollercoaster of it all is a fairly spot on encapsulation of perimenopause, hot and cold, high and low. I'm a living Katy Perry song, so I have been monitoring my glucose with biosensors. Um, another word for that is A-C-G-M-A continuous glucose monitor. I started doing this, I think it was the end of June. I decided to start using a CGM after my blood work had indicated increased fasting glucose and a higher A1C level twice in the past year. And, um, as so many midlife women do, I became my own detective doctor, um, which sucks. I am not bragging about this and I actively wish women were not left to be our own health advocates. Um, and I put the pieces together. So here were the clues. I was 46 years old. I had gained nearly 20 pounds in the past three years. The majority of the weight gain happened during the most stressful year of my life after my divorce. I have a history of diabetes in my family, and I had finally started exploring hormone replacement therapy because of night sweats and other symptoms. So with all of those clues, my conclusion was drum roll. I had perimenopause related insulin resistance, and my doctors agreed I was right on the borderline of having a pre-diabetic level A1C, which is a test that measures your glucose levels like the average over a period of three months. So it's not just like a one morning reading. And with my family history and this confounding weight gain, my doctor started me on metformin. I was also on a low dose estrogen patch as well as oral progesterone, and my weight was not budging. So I'm gonna pause for a moment and speak about estrogen.'cause a lot of people are like, estrogen is a dirty word. Don't take estrogen. It will cause breast cancer. So listen, I am a high risk for breast cancer. Um, because of my family history. I have beat this dead horse so many times with my doctors who continue to reassure me. It is okay for you to be on an estrogen patch. It is transdermal. It is not the same thing as taking oral estrogen as being on birth control. Um, basically the, the witch hunt of estrogen like that, that effect is still lingering. My doctors have told me repeatedly the amount of estrogen that I am on is safe. A lot of it has to do with the delivery system. This is a patch. However, if you are taking estrogen, you need to also have progesterone. Now I am on an IUD. I'm on the lta, so that's progestin only, so no estrogen. Now, technically, that should be enough to make my estrogen patch safe. However, I was still struggling with mood issues, sleep issues. The estrogen helped a ton with the hot flashes and the night sweats. When I started taking oral progesterone, it seemed I needed that, like the, the TTAs progestin was not enough. So I am also taking oral progesterone now back to that weight that is not moving. So I am a fairly healthy eater. Living in close proximity to Boulder, Colorado and being gluten-free are sort of prerequisites for being low key crunchy. And I have tried to be especially tuned into how certain foods affect my system, not just whether they are good or bad. I have weird food allergies. I have an autoimmune swallowing disorder and I deal with a lot of inflammation. So as a result, I am reasonably healthy and fairly nutrition savvy. To be fair, my exercise efforts had not been amazing since the divorce. Trying to get to yoga or go to the gym when you are the sole parent, guiding your kids through an intense crisis while also trying to suddenly work full-time is laughable. I did my best. But since June, I've been consistently exercising again with only meh results. In terms of weight, I've lost a little weight, or I had at the time that I, that I originally wrote this and I was feeling less stressed and sleeping better, ramping up. My exercise was not the panacea that it was in my thirties for weight gain. Neither was upping my intake of salmon. And she has seed pudding. Uh, not together. You. I think therein lies the dilemma with perimenopausal weight gain. Things that used to work suddenly do not, and I wanted the primary culprit of my midlife weight gain to be stressed, a scapegoat I could shrug off along with a dozen pounds as my life stabilized. And my doctor corroborated that she said as I uncontrollably sobbed in her office, that the majority of my health issues over the past few years was likely due to stress. And I thought that once I could tame the cortisol, the pounds would just disappear. And like so many things about midlife, it was a bit more complicated. And right now I'm finding it nearly impossible to disentangle the following factors as they pertain to my general health and wellbeing. A DHD, perimenopause, insulin resistance, single parenthood stress. Fun fact, there is a direct link between estrogen and glucose levels. When your estrogen is fluctuating wildly as it does during perimenopause, your glucose levels are going to do the same thing, and that sucks. So back to my CGM. Since June, I've been wearing glucose sensors to be specific Stello by Dexcom used within the Nutrien program. So I did a lot of research before I chose a brand. And full disclosure, I am going to share affiliate links in this post, and I want to be transparent about that for a few reasons. I love keeping my Substack column paywall free, my podcast free. Working with brands is a helpful way for me to do that while also not going broke as I work. But secondly, and this is really important to me, I only promote products that I feel strongly about, so I'm going to be very honest about my experience. They gave me the Nutrien app for three months and they gave me sensors for a month. I have been paying for the sensors on my own since then and continuing to use the app. So at this moment, I'm not currently being paid by Nutrien to continue with this program. I'm doing it because I am mildly obsessed with the Nutri Sense Program app, and I think it is honestly the most productive tool I've found to help me understand what's happening inside my body. This is the thing that I love because it's like so many, you know, influencers or podcasters. It's like, try this oil, try this powder, try this supplement. This is literally just you monitoring your body. And that's why I don't feel gross about promoting it because it's like, it's a continuous glucose monitor. It's biosensors that you wear, right? So there's 24 7 glucose monitoring via the app. I love that as I'm trying to promote this to you, I'm not trying to like sell you something to eat or drink, right? It's like, Hey, it is so cool for you. This is like the only way for you to see what is happening in your body when you were eating, when you were sleeping. Like I love it. So after tracking my data for several months, I started to figure out some patterns that I could never have discovered without continuous tracking. So here were my key takeaways. Now I'm gonna tell you, this is like part one, key takeaways from my Substack column that I wrote like a month ago. And in the last month, I've done some more stuff. So these were my first takeaways. The foods that give me glucose spikes surprised me. One evening after dinner, I went out for ice cream with my daughter, bracing myself for a spike. Nothing. Ice cream doesn't seem to impact me as much as other foods, but also having a full stomach after a protein and fiber rich dinner and walking around downtown with our ice cream may have helped. Then what shocked me, a healthy bowl of oatmeals sent my glucose skyrocketing. I was pissed. Same with rice or rice noodles. But I've learned a few tricks about that as well. Adding protein and fiber to every meal, prevented spikes, and so did eating frequently throughout the day. Now, what's cool is I'm telling you guys this because I watched it, like I saw it. It's not just like I closed my eyes and got in tune with my body and I sensed that my blood sugar was okay. No, like this is data. I have 24 7 data showing me the results of all my nutritional choices. So it was a really eye-opening way to keep me accountable. Having fried rice with shrimp and minimal veggies at PF Chang's was a bad move, but a Chipotle chicken, black bean and rice bowl with lettuce and salsa gave me enough protein and veggies to prevent a spike. And I also learned that if I mixed my steel cut oats with protein powder, hemp chia, flax seeds, dates, and apples, the fiber plus protein kept my glucose stable. Okay, my next takeaway, I know this is shocking. Please sit down. Stress impacts my glucose. Yep. Big shocker. I anticipated this would be the case, and it was true last week when I drove to my new doctor's office in downtown Denver for the first time when I arrived, my glucose was spiking and so was my blood pressure. The stress of driving in rush hour parking someplace unfamiliar and meeting a new doctor was something I couldn't shield my body from. The body as I enjoy cheekily commenting does indeed keep the score. This is crazy. One night I'd had, like, I didn't eat before bed. My glucose had been normal during the day. I had a spike in the middle of the night, and when I woke up I remember having like just this god awful nightmare. So because they've become like a, a data nerd. I'm also monitoring my sleep because I'm sleeping with my Apple Watch on and don't panic. It's like on sleep. It does not buzz, it does not wake you up, but it gives you all this amazing data. So I'm like, not only can I see how long I slept, it shows when your deep sleep cycles are. I'm not working with Apple, you guys. I'm just, I just love my fricking Apple Watch. It shows you when your REM sleep is. So I looked at my glucose spike and it was aligned with a REM cycle when I was having a nightmare. So literally my dream stress spiked my sugar. Isn't that nuts? Um, next takeaway. I learned that I am actually experiencing hypoglycemia some of the time, and this blew my mind, like I'm supposed to have an issue with my glucose being too high, not too low. When I first began to notice readings that dropped below 70 labeled low on the app, I was so confused. Even after I had started eating breakfast again and I was making sure to have frequent snacks, I would occasionally experience a significant drop. But as I've learned that glucose and estrogen wreak havoc together during perimenopause, it makes more sense. I'm working with my doctor on how to manage this. I spent the better part of the weekend with prolonged hypoglycemic episodes, followed by periodic spikes, and some of this is still a mystery, but having information about my body that I can trust to be legit, the data doesn't lie, helps a lot. Next takeaway, I can actually tell when my glucose is too high or low, like in my own body. So being able to check in the app to confirm what I'm feeling has been so validating. If I feel overly activated or flustered, it's often a sign that I'm having a glucose spike. And when the data confirms it, it helps me realize that I am in tune with my body's signals. And then alternately, when my glucose drops, I often feel tired, dizzy, clammy, and I lose focus it. It's wild. So those are the primary things that I learned in my first couple of months of tracking, and I have to say it has been absolutely worth it. I thought I might stop after a few months, but as my hormones and glucose continue to fluctuate in a baffling dance routine, I don't think I am quite done keeping tabs on it. I've been observing over time the impact of a few key lifestyle changes. Number one, eat breakfast even when I don't want to. Two, pay attention to the foods that affect my glucose levels, whether or not they are considered good or bad. Everybody truly is different and you can't know how your meals are impacting your glucose until you are monitoring your data. 24 7. Eat frequently throughout the day. I now eat smaller regular meals rather than realizing it's 1:30 PM and I haven't gotten hungry all day. A DH ADHD meds plus hyper focus mode makes this a real problem for me. Number four, add protein and fiber as much as possible in every meal. Now, weight loss or not, I am trying to go to the gym when I can, and I will be honest. It is hard for me sometimes. I am overwhelmed. I am overloaded, but I am trying to move my body. I will give myself credit for doing housework. If I'm dancing, I'll start my Apple Watch to set it to a workout. I will get pissed if I haven't met my move goal. I will go walk my dog. I will dance alone in my kitchen. I have weights and like, oh my God, like this whole PT corner with my stability ball and my, you know, myofascial rounds and all this other shit. Dumbbells. I will do that while I watch tv, so I am trying to move more. I thanks to a reader who shared a podcast episode with me that I will drop in the comments. I listened to this episode, it kind of blew my mind and I'm currently listening to the book, change Your Diet, change Your Mind. Now, like I said, I'm like semi crunchy, but I also, I'm on a lot of meds, you guys. I take meds for A DHD. I take meds for anxiety. I take metformin. I'm on oral progesterone, and I wear an estrogen patch like I am not crunchy Kathy over here, but. I'm reading about this and she's basically talking about how carbs, especially refined ones, are just like absolute trash for your body and brain. And she's talking about it from an insulin resistant standpoint, which is me and also A DHD. And I'm like, fuck. So I have tried over the last few weeks experimenting with, sometimes I'm going into actual ketosis. Don't panic. I'm not doing anything weird or freaky, and I'm actually burning fat instead of carbs. It is a big adjustment on the body. I've done the ketogenic diet before and you, you hear about the keto flu. It was like a good solid week for me and I felt like shit. I had headaches, I was cranky. Um, I wanted to murder a few people, and as it's stable, I feel calmer and focused. Ultimately, my goal would be to do carb cycling, where some days I'm burning fat and some days I'm eating carbs, but I'm being careful about what types of carbs. Since I've started doing this, I have lost eight pounds. Since I started tracking my glucose and all this other stuff. So that's pretty significant to me, but I'm also feeling a lot better. The other thing is I went to my gynecologist last week as I've been experiencing breakthrough bleeding and cramping, and I went in there and my gynecologist like, so how is life treating you? And I open my mouth and I just start sobbing. And she's basically like. Babe, you're gonna need some more estrogen. You're on the tiny, tiny baby dose. You're on the actual lowest, like we gotta get this up. And so I am in the process of upping my estrogen as well. So I got some, some significant carb reduction happening and some increased estrogen. And I am going to, and before I report back for the perimenopausal glucose diaries, part two. Let you know what is happening in my body, let you know what's happening on my glucose, my CGM data. Okay? But as for the Nutrisystem program itself, you guys, I love it. I really do. The stello by Dexcom sensors are super easy to use, and the Nutrisystem app integrates with them and it integrates with my Apple Watch, so my sleep data and workouts are in there. I can manually add in my meals to see where they line up with spikes and dips. I can save my meals, so I'm not like typing it in over and over, and I'm like, no. The milk unsweetened. Cashew milk, not regular cashew milk. Like I fucking love this app. They also have nutritionists you can work with who accept most major insurance companies, which is amazing. So you can have a professional work with you. Tailor nutrition to you based on your data. It's a pretty fricking cool program. So whether you are diabetic or pre-diabetic or have insulin resistance, or you're just perimenopausal and frustrated with your weight gain, I truly think glucose monitoring is a very useful tool. And you know, I'm incapable of lying, so believe me when I say I really can't recommend Nutri Sense enough, I have a link that I'm gonna put in the show notes where you can save 30% and then I'll get a commission too. So that's a win. Now if you have questions for me, I would love to answer them, so leave me a comment. Leave me a review too. This podcast is just getting off the ground and if you rate it and leave a review, oh my God, it makes such a big difference. And if you're not subscribed, make sure you are, you can follow me on Instagram at Steph Springer and ask me any of your questions. I am really excited to talk about this stuff with you guys. Because it is one of the few things that has made me feel like I'm actually getting a grip on my health. So thank you for listening in. If you didn't catch last week's episode with Brit Ballard, oh my God, you're gonna need to hear that. She is incredible. So catch me next time on the Paranormal Podcast. Thanks for being here. Together, we're going to make midlife neurodivergence less of a mystery.