Back
By Nick Briney, Fitness Professional
Regulating blood sugar has always been something that interests me. As a fitness junkie and a former athlete with a poor diet, I can personally speak to the changes in my health after learning more about how to regulate my blood sugar with better nutrition and exercise habits.
Recently, I had the opportunity to get connected with a CGM and use the Levels Health app to monitor my glucose. Glucose monitoring provides real-time feedback on your blood sugar and is the best way to see how efficient your metabolism is running.
Metabolism is life; it regulates our sleep, our appetite, our weight, and our energy levels. With the help of a CGM, you are able to get real-time updates on how nutrition and activity habits affect your metabolism. By using this data, you can make more informed decisions by learning how certain food and activities affect your metabolic health.
The thing I was most excited to learn about and see was the objective difference in blood sugar that goes with testing UCAN vs. higher glycemic alternatives. I’ve been using UCAN products since 2013 and have always trusted the science behind the products. Like most who use UCAN, there is definitely a noticeable difference in the energy it provides you vs. the alternatives I mentioned.
Even though I know that UCAN products provide longer lasting energy without the spike or the crash, I still wanted to see it in real time.
NOTE: LIVSTEADY is the one-of-a-kind energy source in UCAN products. It’s a low-glycemic, complex carbohydrate made by a patented cooking method applied to a specific strain of non-GMO corn. This process allows LIVSTEADY to deliver steady, long-lasting energy and maintain stable blood sugar levels without a spike and crash.
Top 3 Takeaways About UCAN
Focus
As an athlete and business owner, it’s vital that you have steady energy throughout the day. When I’m going back-to-back with clients, UCAN is a go-to for quick and clean energy to help me stay focused and deliver at my best. Here is a situation where I ate a very heavy meal for dinner and wasn’t hungry in the morning, so I subbed my typical morning toast or oatmeal with UCAN Protein + Energy to get by until lunch.
Here is an example of when I had a UCAN Energy Bar for breakfast with coffee and collagen at 7:30 AM:
Compared to my next meal being a jar of overnight oats around 11:00 AM:
You can see the larger spike and crash in blood sugar with the oats compared to UCAN. When I use UCAN as my main carb source, I feel satiated and ready for whatever the day will throw at me. Pairing UCAN with other macronutrients (healthy fats, protein, fiber) gives me hours of stable blood sugar and optimum physical and mental energy.
Performance
Avoiding glucose spikes before exercise puts your body in an optimal metabolic state to burn fat. With UCAN, you’re getting enough carbs to fuel your workouts, but still allowing your body to use fat stores for the bulk of the workout by getting a smaller bump in glucose levels rather than a huge spike.
Here is an example of a full body strength workout where I drank 1 scoop of UCAN Energy Powder before:
Normally there would be a much larger spike associated with the same type of workout without the presence of UCAN. We all want to perform well on the golf course! Here I had UCAN Protein + Energy during the middle of a round of golf. I played great on this day and the shake held me over until lunch.Â
Recovery
Sleep should be your body’s foremost rest and recovery state, but when your body is fighting to regulate its blood sugar all night, you are not allowing it to repair and recover as much as you need it to for optimal function. Having UCAN Protein + Energy will stabilize blood sugar post-workout and allow your body to get into recovery mode quicker (especially important for evening workouts). Snacking on sweets before bed can cause a rollercoaster of blood sugar levels all throughout the night and negatively impact sleep and recovery. Here’s an example where I snacked on candy and other carbs throughout the night. Lots of spikes and drops!
I have spent years learning how to optimize metabolism and worked with hundreds of clients on bringing it to life. Even with all of that experience, it is amazing how much I learned in 28-days by monitoring my glucose. Read more about Nick’s experience wearing a CGM and his top 6 takeaways here.
