Ryan Sax is tracking his glucose response to everything he eats for the next 30 days. He’s on a mission to find out if $250 and 1 month with a CGM will make him a better human.

Starting today, I’m spending 30 days tracking my body’s response to everything I eat. I’ll do this by continually measuring my glucose levels, using Levels Health and Dexcom G7 glucose monitor.

Why am I doing this and is it worth it? I’ll explain and I’ll discover. But first, if you aren’t familiar with glucose monitoring, here’s the gist:

A glucose monitor is a tool developed to allow diabetic individuals to track their body’s glucose levels, so they know when they need insulin (to lower them) or need to consume glucose (to raise them). They used to have to prick their fingers and draw blood to do this. Inconvenient and painful.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) developed and popularized since the early 2000s make tracking much easier and get you real-time information. The device is implanted into your upper arm, and uses cool science to calculate blood glucose levels.

So what about for non-diabetics? There is evidence that elevated blood glucose, over a long enough period of time, amplifies your risk of chronic disease. And repeated spikes, along with the accompanying rise in insulin, may have negative consequences themselves.

Tim Ferriss, the OG self-experimenter and leader of bro science, started experimenting with glucose monitoring way back in the 4-hour body (just like when he recommended taking AG1 according to his ads). Peter Attia uses one and makes all of his patients wear one (I’m not famous or a billionaire so not working with him yet). And I’m sure you’ve heard Huberman promoting Levels in his podcast ads.

But to answer your original question, here’s why I, a non-diabetic, am spending $250 to track my glucose levels for the next 30 days.

1. Curiosity

As a health nut and former engineering student / current management consultant, I’ve always been interested in tracking my health health with data. I have a sleep tracking app with over 3 thousand nights logged. I used a Whoop for 1.5 years. Every workout I’ve done over the last several years is logged.

Using a CGM with Levels health offers me another insight into my body. Do my beloved sweet potatoes send my glucose through the roof? I hope not. How does my meal timing, composition, exercise, etc. affect my blood glucose levels?

I’m both excited and scared to see what I learn. Everyone’s body responds differently, but throughout these 30 days I’ll document and share how my body responds to different stimuli.

2. Mental clarity

One of the many reasons people use CGMs is to prevent energy crashes. A large glucose spike, then corresponding drop / insulin spike can cause an energy dip and negatively impact productivity.

I work a demanding management consulting job, exercise whenever I can, and explore other projects when I’m not working.

At times I’ve felt torn on how I can manage this schedule alongside other interests: friendships, writing, job search, exercise, dating life, etc.

Everyone wants to be more productive. Will Levels help me get back some of my precious time?

3. Help with my diet while I’m not exercising hard

My current routine is nothing like my typical routine. Instead of running ~50 miles a week, cycling a couple of days, and sprinkling in some lifts, yoga, and swimming, I’m stuck on crutches with a stress fracture. Bummer.

My typical self is burning at least 3k calories per day, eating loads of food. However, I can only do so many pushups as a weak runner while I’m on crutches. I can’t eat the same volume I normally do.

I have pretty good self control around most things. Not food. I do like mostly “healthy” food, but I eat a lot of it. Bananas? Healthy. 4 bananas per day? Questionable.

I’m hoping tracking everything with my CGM will prevent me from overdoing it thanks to the Hawthorne effect, the phenomenon whereby people modify their behavior when they are being watched.

I won’t be running by the end of the 30 days, but hopefully I’m putting miles in on the bike, and get a better view of my body’s response when my muscles use up the glucose.

4. No other posts have addressed my questions

Obviously, we can’t all spend millions of dollars to optimize our bodies like Bryan Johnson. But what can we do? What is worth spending money on?

Should we buy Athletic Greens like every health influencer is paid to tell you to do? Should we track our body’s response to food with a CGM? Or should we just focus on doing the work, ignoring all this fancy stuff and just exercise, eat whole foods, and get 8 hours of sleep?

I’ve debated getting a CGM for the last 1.5 years and finally sent it. There are a few posts documenting people’s experience using a CGM. Some of them are great, but most do not answer my question of if it’s worth it. So, because I’m one curious dude, I decided to find out myself.

Wanna follow along?

Over the next month I’ll be documenting my experience right here.

I’ll write a post each week about my spikey foods, productivity levels, fitness, and a bunch of other stuff.

At the end of the 30-day experiment I’ll write a big recap, which hopefully will become a resource for anyone interested in doing the same.

And ultimately, I want to answer the burning question, is it worth spending $250/month to track your glucose levels as a non-diabetic?