There's an interesting article over on the BBC health site about blood glucose monitors. 

When these launched we noticed more and more people wearing them. We noticed as we'd assumed they were only of use to diabetics. We later found out that many people were wearing them purely to get data on their blood sugar level, not for any kind of insulin related reasons.

Quick sidebar. Your body breaks most food down into glucose. It happens at various speeds depending on the food, quickly in the case of sugar and slowly in the case of vegetables. In order for your body to use and store this energy your pancreas releases insulin into your blood. This allows your cells to use the glucose. Whatever isn’t used right away gets stored for later.

Things can go wrong in different ways. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas makes little or no insulin. In type 2, the body becomes less responsive to insulin, and over time the pancreas struggles to keep up. Both mean glucose stays higher than it should.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but you get the general idea. The continuous blood glucose monitors that otherwise healthy people use are just to keep track of changes in blood sugar. They are not used to time medication or for medical intervention.

So when it comes to whether you need a blood glucose monitor the phrase 'Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted' comes to mind. Which is what the BBC article is getting at. 

The Kelly Starrett book we reviewed previously used a simple test that they called 'metabolic flexibility'. The idea being that you should be able to skip a meal and still work out. Or consume something like a Frappaccino that's high in fat or sugar, or both, and not feel ill. Basically that your body can deal with maintaining a healthy blood glucose level. That's not medical advice but it's an interesting take from someone who has spent their life in the world of physical performance.

It feels like there's a lot of these 'over monitoring' articles popping up. We even posted about it a few months ago. And this study wants a word. So we'll just point out that all this health stuff is supposed to improve your life, not make it worse.

Simplicity for the routine and the win. Eat well. Sleep well. Move.

Article here.