Practical Applications of CGM Leading to Long-Term Lifestyle Changes, Pt. 4

In part four of this four-part series, Lisa Jones, MA, RDN, LDN, FAND and Grace A. Derocha, MBA, RD, CDCES, a certified diabetes care and education specialist and health coach in Detroit, Michigan, detail the practical applications associated with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), as well as the ways in which CGM can empower patients to potentially develop and maintain healthy eating habits for the long-term.

Listen to part one of this four-part series here. 

Listen to part two of this four-part series here. 

Listen to part three of this four-part series here. 

Transcript:

Moderator: Hello and welcome to Nutrition 411, the podcast, a special podcast series led by registered dietitian and nutritionist Lisa Jones. The views of the speakers are their own and do not reflect the views of their respective institutions for Consultant 360.

Lisa Jones, MA, RDN, LDN, FAND: All right. Well, welcome to episode four, Practical Applications of CGM and Long -Term Lifestyle Changes. I am lucky to have Grace back with us again for our final episode in this series. Welcome back, Grace.

Grace A. Derocha, MBA, RD, CDCES: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be with you again. You’re stuck with me now.

Lisa Jones: Yes, yes. Well, if you had to sum up the conversation that we just had in our last topic when we're talking about overcoming common client misconceptions about CGM, what would be the key takeaway?

Grace A. Derocha: I would say to offer yourself grace, not just me, but grace in the process as you are trying to navigate through using the CGM, learning about your habits and being flexible in the process.

Lisa Jones: Yes. And that's easy to remember, Grace, because we have you here to remember your name is great. You know, see how the relationship hits once we get us. All right. Well, let's talk about practical applications, shall we? How can CGM empower clients to make and maintain healthier eating habits over the long term?

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah. So in this process of using the CGM, and getting this data about your blood sugar levels, it can really help promote some self -awareness, right? Because you're getting immediate feedback based on your real -time glucose readings, how that food or meal timing or portion sizes can result in different outcomes. So, awareness, I think, and then making decisions to help is always good. And we've talked about this before, but I think in the long run, it really can help encourage and give positive reinforcement to a client about, you know, the tweaks and changes that they have made that they're now seeing improvements in their blood sugar numbers from that.

I think in the long haul, what people love, I always hear my patients say this to me, when we talk about the time and range of someone's blood sugar, being within that range for a longer period of time feels really satisfying, I think, for most patients and clients instead of seeing the roller coaster of their blood sugars. So the natural improvements that get to be made in the process of the long -term healthy habit changes. And you know what I'll say is, it's not just eating habits that change for people. It is a lot of things. People start to stay hydrated. They start to maybe sleep better or exercise more 'cause they notice So when they do that, they see improvements in their blood trigger levels too.

Lisa Jones: That is fantastic. It's like an overall improvement in other areas. So it's like the trickle-down effect of what else can it impact. And I'm sure it's, you know, a sense of accomplishment for these patients to look back and kind of see the trends over time when the dieticians are viewing that with them.

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah. And like before, you know, you'd have talked about this before, but back in the day we didn't have any of this stuff, and now being able to have it and as a dietitian working with your client to actually have all of that information available for us to talk about as opposed to just saying it in theory and for them getting to see when you do and make change you see improvements. It really is nice for them to get to have that feedback right away.

Lisa Jones: Yes, like this is a, this is the benefit of technology, right?

Grace A. Derocha: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Lisa Jones: Now let's talk a little bit about examples. I would love to hear examples of how clients have used CGM to modify their food choices and improve health outcomes. I'm sure you have a ton, but if you can just pick out a few.

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah, yeah, I do have a ton that come to mind. So definitely I think reducing the post meal or that post-prandial glucose spike. I've had patients and clients that have noticed they...I'll give you a real -life example. So she would eat oatmeal for breakfast, and oatmeal has great source of fiber, but only oatmeal in kind of a larger portion of it. And so she would see an after meal pretty big glucose spike. And so we talked about, you know, different nutrients of food, and maybe potentially having a little bit smaller serving of oatmeal and adding some protein or a heart healthy fat. So she did that. I think she would usually have like hard-boiled egg, a little bit of oatmeal and she would add some nuts or nut butter to her oatmeal and saw an improvement in her post -prandle, her post -meal glucose not spiking as high and stayed more within her time and range. So that's a pretty impactful one, I think, is she tweaked some of her nutrition for that breakfast meal to allow for better glucose stability.

Lisa Jones: Yeah, definitely, that's a really good example 'cause that's, I mean, how many times do you remember, like back in the day, I'm gonna take us back to the 24 hour recalls when you'd say, what did you have for breakfast? And some of you would say, I had a bagel. And then you'd say, well, did you eat anything else with it? And it was like, no, I just put some butter on it. And you're like, we have some work to do.

Grace A. Derocha: Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Lisa Jones: It's four servings of carbohydrate back in, you know, all this.

Grace A. Derocha: Exactly. Yeah. Now they make them smaller, I feel like, so that's good.

Lisa Jones: Yes. Yeah. They're not as big unless you go to a bagel store, but that's a whole other podcast episode talking about bagels. So anyway, thank you for sharing that example.

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, there's a lot. I've had, you know, some clients with alcohol notice like I am spiking, and then I'm dropping like what is happening, you know, and being able to adjust after we've talked about what are the things that you can do, like, you know, try to have your drink with your meal. And then they're like, why did that just work? And then, you know, being able to talk about it more, and they're like, oh, I love, I love when they can say, oh my gosh, you were right.

Lisa Jones; Yes, and like the light bulb goes off and you get to see it and witness it. Mm -hmm. Yeah. It's amazing. So what about resources or tools that dietitians can recommend to clients when they're using their CGM to support their goals?

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah. Gosh, there's so many. I feel like we're so lucky in this day and age with technology to help support our healthy habits and our lifestyle goals and help with our blood sugar values. So being able to track what you're eating, there's definitely a lot of different food tracking apps available. Oh, I dropped the ball. Of course, the CGM related app that is tied to whatever CGM you're using is always a nice helpful tool as well because it has all the information you need, the summaries of how your blood triggers have been running. So that's also there, the food tracking ones. And even if you food track before, but like don't have as much knowledge about food or food groups, there's so many different apps out there too that allow you to tap into what that looks like that are free. One of calorie king is one of my favorites. Remember that used to be a book. Look, I'm here myself now.

Lisa Jones: I still have a book.

Grace A. Derocha: I do too. But now they have it as an app and it's free, which is nice because there's like over 80 ,000 foods and they're always adding more, including like restaurant foods. So as people are kind of diving into what this looks like and piggybacking these different tools with each other. You can learn a lot in the process and then it just makes you more aware. I think people sometimes don't realize how much carbs or fat or protein or fiber are in different foods or how much there isn't. Then there's also an exercise like physical activity trackers. So this is another one too, where a CGM can come in handy for people is when they exercise, how is that impacting their blood sugar levels? And so having your exercise tracker along with your CGM can be important. And then, I've kind of mentioned this a little bit, but there are apps or, you know, stress relieving apps. I think I've used common headspace before because there are over 50 different things that can bring the blood sugar up. There's only one thing that brings blood sugar down, insulin, but being able to, you know, navigate through some of that as you're looking at your CGM and figuring out, like, why, why is my blood sugar running higher a little bit more naturally right now. And maybe it is 'cause you're lacking sleep. And maybe it is 'cause it's been a stressful work week. You know, so being able to look at that too as you're thinking about your blood sugar levels.

Lisa Jones: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely so much support that you're mentioning, like there's so many things. So what happens when you have somebody that's app resistant?

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah, so that's a good question. So if someone doesn't want to use the apps, they're like, "I don't want to download another app. I don't want it. I already have the CGM on my arm. Like I don't need anything else." I think reminding ourselves of support and accountability through people that we love and are willing to share with can be a useful tool as well that we forget about because we do dive into the app world and our phones. So reminding people that as you're, as the dietitian you're there for them, you know, reminding them or asking them who their support or accountability might be at home, whether that's, you know, a partner or their children, or their other best friend that's not the CGMs. And being able to remind them that, you know, people can be that support resource as well.

Lisa Jones: Yeah, I mean, with people and your, your support, your family, your friends, or supportive. Do you have an app that, as I know, like the CGMs, the different related ones have their own, but do you find that some are easier to use than others?

Grace A. Derocha: I think there's always like a learning curve when you're using like a new app or new technology, I, I think that like the most popular ones like your Dexcom or Libre both are pretty user friendly. Of course, like I said, with that learning curve, there is, I do love an app, it's called the Glucco, that you kind of put everything can kind of go into it, which it can connect to your CGM along with, if someone was using an insulin pump, but also has like a food tracker in it. So it's kind of a nice overall encompassing tool to help kind of simplify like glucose data interpretation. If you're nerdy like me and like would get into something like that. So there are a few like cohesive tools like that that people can look into as well.

Lisa Jones: Yeah, I like the one the one the all-in-one because I think it's I mean you're right when you were saying earlier Like there's so many apps out there and like, you know How can I just put another app on my phone? And if you had one that was like a like it's all-inclusive vacation, right?

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. We Okay. We love those.

Lisa Jones: Yeah. So, it just makes it easier. So then how can dietitians integrate the CGM data as part of a more holistic approach when they're personalizing nutrition and lifestyle counseling?

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah. I feel like this is, we've talked about some of it, but to kind of give a summary of all of that, Being able to gather all of that data, you know, along with someone's health history and when they think about their lifestyle, I think what is really impactful is then being able as the dietitian to continue to coach them, tweak some of those real sustainable things that become just a part of their life, you know, as they're kind of working through what is going to be best for me and what's going to allow me to be my healthiest. And you know what? And sometimes you'll get someone who really is like a pre -contemplative stage of changing. Because I think that's another part that we haven't really talked about is not only does the CGM give you all of this data and all this information and you're getting to do research on yourself and make these observations. But then really that next step is then what am I going to do about it and what feels right to me with where I'm at right now? So, you know, gosh, as a dietician, we are in a powerful place to help them connect all of those dots and then be their resource for not only education but support as you're looking at the long haul and then what makes the most sense, you know, in their process. Because not everyone is like all gung-ho and ready to make changes, right? So knowing that you're going to get each client in their individualized state of where they're at and being able to help them through it. Yes. And that's So powerful too. It's almost as if we're dot connectors, if we think about it like that.

Lisa Jones: Yes. Well, thank you so much. I really enjoyed the series. Learned so much. I'm sure our listeners have as well. And just wanted to end with, is there anything else, any other key takeaways from practical applications for long -term lifestyle changes that you want to share with the audience?

Grace A. Derocha: Yeah, I would just say, you know, let that CGM be another wonderful tool that you are getting to encourage your client to use and remind them that they're a whole person and that when you're working with them, that you are going to take that approach to helping them make successful long -term lifestyle changes that can help them be healthier and happier.

Lisa Jones: Yes, healthy unhappier is our goal. So thank you so much again, Grace.

Grace A. Derocha: It's been a pleasure. Lisa, thank you so much for having me. I have enjoyed our time together and I hope people enjoy these podcasts.

Moderator: For more nutrition content, visit consultant360.com.

©2025 HMP Global. All Rights Reserved.
Any views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and/or participants and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of Consultant360 or HMP Global, their employees, and affiliates.