Kayla Girgen: Why Women Over 50 Wake at 3AM, Lose Muscle, and Can't Lose Weight | #160
5/12/202658 min
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Your blood sugar is telling you everything. You just haven't been listening.
In this episode, I sit down with registered dietitian and certified personal trainer Kayla Girgen, one of the first clinicians to bring continuous glucose monitoring to everyday women who do not have diabetes. If you have ever eaten well, exercised hard, and still felt like your body was working against you, this conversation will change the way you see your metabolism forever.
What We Explore:
- How a CGM reveals what food, stress, sleep, and exercise are doing to your blood sugar in real time.
- Why pre-diabetes is one of the most under-treated diagnoses in women's health.
- Why fasting insulin is the number you actually need.
- What your blood sugar crashing at 3am has to do with why you cannot get back to sleep.
- How to eat enough protein without overhauling your entire routine overnight.
- Why rucking is one of the most practical tools for building strength, improving body composition, and boosting bone density.
About Kayla Girgen
KAYLA GIRGEN, RD, LD, CPT, is a registered dietitian, certified personal trainer, and founder of Sugar + Strength Academy—an online wellness community helping women balance blood sugar and build strength, one step at a time. She blends real-life tools, such as continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), with accessible movement, like rucking, to help clients break free from diet extremes and feel strong—both physically and mentally. Kayla's approach centers on progress over perfection and creating results that work in real life. Her upcoming book Ruck Fit shares how rucking became a catalyst for reclaiming her physical and mental health, proving that fitness doesn't have to be complicated to be life-changing.
Connect with Kayla Girgen:
Website: https://kaylagirgenrd.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaylagirgenrd/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylagirgen/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kaylagirgenrd
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaylagirgenrdld
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylagirgenrd
Book - RUCK FIT: Build Strength and Endurance by Walking with Weight
Available here: https://a.co/d/06vLg5nR
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
03:30 How Stress Shows Up on Your Blood Sugar
09:30 Why Pre-Diabetes Is a Five-Alarm Fire
13:00 Glucose Typing: Are You a Compensator or a Spiker
16:25 What to Do If Your Blood Sugar Spikes and Crashes
20:40 How Long Should You Actually Wear a CGM
24:00 How to Calculate Your Daily Protein Goal
29:10 GLP-1s and the Changing Weight Loss Landscape
34:50 Why Eating Too Little Is the Biggest Mistake Midlife Women Make
37:00 Rucking: What It Is and Why It Works for Women
40:00 How Adding Weight Increases Your Training Load by 10 Percent
45:00 The Top Three Priorities for High-Achieving Women Feeling Stuck
51:20 Rapid Fire: CGM, Carnivore, and Habits
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About Dr. Vonda Wright
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For over 20 years, she has helped women build muscle, strengthen bone, and extend their health span — with science, not guesswork.
Her mission is simple: help women age with power.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsVonda Wright· Host0:00
What food is secretly spiking blood sugar? This is a tough one. CGM: should every woman over 40 wear one?
Kayla Girgen· Guest0:08
Yes.
Vonda Wright· Host0:08
Kayla Gehrgen is joining us today. She was one of the first people to suggest using CGM to learn about our metabolism and our glucose metabolism. I do not think that we take prediabetes and being told that we're prediabetic serious enough. That's the smoke before the fire, people.
Kayla Girgen· Guest0:27
It makes me angry. You're on a rampage about bones. I'm on a rampage about blood sugar.
Vonda Wright· Host0:32
[laughs] With CGMs, continuous glucose monitors, what does the data actually show us?
Kayla Girgen· Guest0:38
It really shows us everything, what your blood sugar's doing in real time. If you're doing a fruit smoothie, all of that fiber is beat and torn up. That's going to impact your blood sugar a lot. Food isn't just about glucose or grams of protein. It's woven into our fabric of life, and when you're able to have the control to thread that needle like you want, it just helps make everything so much more clear.
Vonda Wright· Host0:59
What is the one habit that makes the biggest difference, beyond food and exercise?
Kayla Girgen· Guest1:04
Sleep.
Vonda Wright· Host1:05
Sleep.
Kayla Girgen· Guest1:05
Hands down.
Vonda Wright· Host1:06
I agree. Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming back to the Dr. Vonda Show. You know, I do a lot of things on here, and you see me doing a lot of things, and even though I don't have it today, it's like the first day in 18 months I've h- not had my CGM on. And so that is apropos to today's conversation because Kayla