Russell Battles on Dialing in on Nutrition with the CGM Program

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"It’s been interesting to see what it was all doing inside my body and how my body was reacting to the foods I ate and the lifestyle I led."

Russell

Battles

Russell's Story

Hi Russell. Tell us about your health journey and how you found Nutrisense.

I’m a senior director of operations for a power plant maintenance contractor, and I found Nutrisense on social media.

But my health journey started a while before I stumbled upon the program.

It’s intertwined with my family history: my paternal grandfather passed away at 55 from a heart attack—he had his first attack at 49.

With my eating habits, my alcohol consumption… I knew the path I was headed down based on this. In December 2019, I was 49 and weighed 210 pounds.

That's when I stopped drinking, changed my eating habits, and joined the Fit Father Project, based out of Arizona and founded by Dr. Anthony Balduzzi.

And I lost 35 pounds with it. I went from over 30 percent body fat to 12 percent body fat.

Then a year and a half into the program, in August 2021, I had that heart attack. But because of the shape I was in at the time, I could recover completely within four weeks even though they said it would be a 12-week recovery period.

Around this time, Nutrisense started popping up on my social media, and I thought, ‘You know what? I want to take my diet to the next level, see what’s happening inside me, and fine-tune things.’

I did some research, and based on the reviews and cost of the three-month CGM program with Nutrisense, I decided it was the right fit for my needs, so I signed up.

And had you ever used a CGM or tracked your blood glucose before the program?

No, none of that. I knew very little about CGMs before I joined the program. I was aware of them from a diabetic standpoint as I have cousins who have diabetes.

But I didn’t know you could use them for so many other purposes.

So, what was it like looking at all that data for the first time?

It was easy to read the data in the Nutrisense app. But to comprehend exactly what it was telling me, I couldn’t have done that without the nutritionist support.

I worked with Amanda Donahue, who is phenomenal. She knows how to relay information in a way that’s easy to understand.

Without her support, I wouldn’t have known what was good, what wasn’t that good, what my target or goals should be, and so on.

Because initially, it can feel like you’re drinking from a firehose. There’s so much information—I would forget much of it. And then Amanda would remind me or explain it again, and it was so helpful to have that support.

The program helped me learn much about my health, nutrition, and lifestyle habits.

Can you tell us a bit about what you learned?

One of the primary things was that the standard calorie-protein-carbohydrate-fat ratios didn’t work with my genetics. I found I actually had to increase my protein, decrease my carbohydrate intake and adjust the fats according to how my insulin responded.

Another thing was learning about meal timings. When I had a pizza or even a cup of ice cream late at night, my insulin would spike for a long time while I was asleep, and then when I woke up in the morning, I’d have a dull headache, almost like a hangover. Before I had the CGM, I never knew what was causing it.

The CGM Program taught me that I shouldn't eat three hours before bed. That's the cutoff for my body to digest food, for the insulin to spike and then come back down. If I don’t do that, I wake up with a headache the following morning. It helped me fine-tune and watch how and what I was eating.

Another thing I learned was not to carb-load before a workout. I used to do that, but Amanda helped me realize it was not good for me.

Through some experimenting, she helped me see that eating carbs after I worked out was just more beneficial for my body than before.

How did your exercise routine change to reflect that?

I mix weight training, resistance training, and cardio throughout the week. I don’t hit it like an Olympic athlete, but I do enough for a 52-year-old man to stay in shape.

I do an hour a day now, but I was doing a lot more before—intense exercises six days a week—when I had my heart attack.

But I've got two stents, and I’m supposed to be careful of too much straining. So, when it comes to exercise, I do enough to stay in shape and build muscle, but I'm not doing it like a bodybuilder.

With what I learned from Nutrisense, I now don’t eat for about four hours before working out. I also started working out in the morning. I get up, have two bottles of water and a cup of coffee, and work out in more or less of a fasted state.

Were there any other takeaways from the program?

Oh yes. I also learned how much sleep I needed, which ended up being seven to nine hours for me.

And I also became more aware of what was happening with my insulin while sleeping. Generally, around three hours after I went to sleep, I would see spikes as my body went into rest mode, which was interesting.

Of course, the most important takeaway for me was breaking that stereotypical thought and learning that the protein-carb-fat-ratio is not a general fit for everyone.

It’s been interesting to see what it was all doing inside my body and how my body was reacting to the foods I ate and the lifestyle I led.

My journey with Nutrisense helped me maximize my health and dial in on my nutrition.

#joinnutrisense

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