Why I Make Every Client Track Their Glucose and Ketones After What Happened to My Son

I'll never forget the day I got my son's lab results back. He was 22, looked perfectly healthy, fit and full of life. But he wasn't feeling well, tired, exhausted in a way that didn't make sense for someone so young.

Something told me to run comprehensive labs anyway. That decision may have saved his life. We caught cancer early, when most people would have brushed off his symptoms as stress or needing more sleep.

He was so young. Too young. This shouldn't happen to someone at 22.

That experience changed everything about how I work with clients. It's why I'm so passionate about teaching metabolic tracking, and why I don't wait until someone gets a diagnosis to have this conversation.

The Metabolic War Most People Don't Know They're Fighting

Here's what most people don't realize: cancer might not be primarily a genetic lottery like we've been told. More and more evidence points to it being a metabolic disease, a problem with how our cells produce and use energy, specifically in the mitochondria. And this metabolic dysfunction happens before genetic changes occur.

Think about it this way: cancer cells are essentially fuel hogs. They gorge on glucose and can't efficiently use ketones for energy. This creates an opportunity. If we can shift our metabolic terrain, we might be able to make the environment less hospitable for cancer cells while keeping our healthy cells thriving.

The two main fuels that feed cancer? Glucose and glutamine (an amino acid our bodies use for cell growth and repair). Professor Thomas Seyfried at Boston College has done groundbreaking work showing how restricting these fuels can stress cancer cells metabolically.

The Glutamine Question: Why I'm Careful and You Should Be Too

Now, let's talk about glutamine, because this is where things get really interesting and honestly, a bit complicated. Glutamine is like food for your cells. Your body makes it naturally, and you also get it from eating protein foods like meat, fish, eggs, and beans. It's an amino acid, basically a tiny building block that helps make proteins in your body.

Here's the tricky part, and why I'm so careful about this clinically: cancer cells are like greedy bullies when it comes to glutamine. They grab it up to help them grow bigger and stronger. If glucose is like candy for cancer cells, glutamine is like their protein shake. They need both to survive and multiply.

But here's where it gets even more complex. Your healthy immune cells, the good guys fighting the cancer, also need glutamine to work properly. So there's this massive tug of war happening inside the body. Cancer cells are trying to grab all the glutamine, and your immune cells need that same glutamine to stay strong and fight the cancer. When cancer cells take most of the glutamine, your immune cells get weaker and can't fight as well.

This is why you'll hear conflicting advice about glutamine. Some experts say, "Don't take extra glutamine, you might be feeding the cancer." Others say, "Glutamine can help protect your healthy cells during treatment." And honestly? Both might be right, depending on the situation.

The research shows us that cancer cells can steal glutamine away from immune cells, and people with advanced or metastatic cancer probably shouldn't take extra glutamine supplements. But at the same time, some newer studies have shown that giving the right amount of glutamine might actually slow down certain cancers through mechanisms we're still learning about. It can also help protect your stomach and intestines during chemotherapy and reduce side effects like mouth sores and diarrhea.

So why don't I push glutamine supplements? Because think of glutamine like fire. Fire can keep you warm and cook your food, both good things. But it can also burn down your house. It all depends on how you use it. The same is true for glutamine. Your healthy cells need it, cancer cells want it, and taking supplements might help in some situations but hurt in others.

My approach is different: Instead of playing with fire by adding extra glutamine through supplements, I teach you to change your whole metabolic environment through fasting, food choices, and tracking. This way, we're not just focusing on one thing. We're changing the entire battlefield. Your body already makes glutamine naturally. When you fast or eat a certain way, you change how much glutamine is available in a safer, more controlled way than taking big doses of supplements.

This is exactly why I focus on what we CAN control and measure: tracking your glucose and ketones with the GKI, implementing fasting patterns that naturally lower both glucose and glutamine availability, eating whole real foods, running comprehensive labs to see what's actually happening in YOUR body, and working with your doctor on the big picture. We're not guessing. We're measuring. We're watching. We're adjusting based on your body's actual response.

Why I Make All My Clients Test

I tell my clients this all the time: you cannot manage what you don't measure. Fighting any battle blind is a losing strategy, and your metabolic health is no different.

This is where glucose and ketone meters become your most powerful tools. They give you real time feedback about what's actually happening inside your body, not what a textbook says should happen, but what is happening for you specifically.

And here's the thing that surprises people: we're all different. I can eat guacamole on a slice of regular bread and watch my glucose spike. But put that same guacamole on a Ryvita cracker? Barely any change at all. Two people can eat the identical meal and have completely different glucose responses based on their genetics, gut health, and metabolic history.

This is why I don't just hand clients a meal plan and send them on their way. I teach them to test, to track, to understand their own unique metabolic signature.

The Glucose Ketone Index: Your Metabolic Compass

The tool I rely on most is the Glucose Ketone Index, or GKI. It's beautifully simple: you divide your glucose reading (in mmol/L) by your ketone reading (also in mmol/L). That single number tells you what's happening on the metabolic battlefield.

Here's how to interpret it:

GKI above 9: Minimal metabolic stress on cancer cells, business as usual

GKI between 3 and 9: You're in a transition zone, heading in the right direction

GKI below 3: Strong ketosis, this is where therapeutic benefits kick in

GKI below 2: Seyfried's therapeutic target for cancer patients

What makes the GKI so valuable is that it integrates both pieces of the puzzle. You're not just looking at glucose or ketones in isolation. You're seeing the relationship between them, the balance of power in your metabolic terrain.

I tell clients: a single reading is information. But tracking over days and weeks? That reveals patterns. That shows you whether your fasting protocol is working, how quickly you achieve ketosis, and whether the changes you're making are sustainable.

How I Walk My Clients Through This

I work with each client to develop their own version of metabolic optimization based on their real life. Their work schedule. Their family commitments. Their current health status. Their goals. Because I take a purely holistic approach, we focus entirely on what we can actually control.

Fasting cycles that fit into their lifestyle. When and what they eat. Food quality. Strategic moments of metabolic stress that make sense for them.

And here's the key: we always track with the GKI to see if it's actually working. No guessing. No hoping. We measure, we adjust, we measure again.

The Beautiful Side Effects: Autophagy and Fat Burning

Now, here's where it gets really exciting. When you start implementing these metabolic strategies, tracking your glucose and ketones, and getting into those lower GKI ranges, your body starts doing something incredible: autophagy.

Autophagy is your body's cellular cleanup crew. It's the process where your cells break down and recycle old, damaged, or dysfunctional components. Think of it as your body taking out the trash at the cellular level. It's clearing out the junk, the damaged mitochondria, the proteins that aren't working right anymore.

This process is incredibly important for cancer prevention and overall health. When autophagy is humming along, your cells are cleaner, more efficient, and less likely to malfunction. You're literally cleaning house from the inside out.

And then there's fat burning. When your glucose is low and your ketones are elevated, your body shifts into fat burning mode. You become metabolically flexible, able to efficiently use fat for fuel instead of constantly needing glucose. This is huge, not just for body composition, but for giving cancer cells less of what they want.

Here's the thing though, and I'm really clear with my clients about this: weight loss is just the cherry on top. It's a nice side effect, sure, and many of my clients are thrilled when the weight starts coming off. But it's not the goal. The goal is metabolic health. The goal is creating an internal environment where healthy cells thrive and cancer cells struggle. The goal is prevention.

When we address the underlying metabolic dysfunction, when we get serious about glucose control and ketone production, when we support autophagy through fasting and quality nutrition, the weight loss often follows naturally. But it's a byproduct of health, not the measure of it.

Beyond the Numbers: The Full Picture

Now, I'm not going to pretend that glucose and ketone tracking tells the whole story. It doesn't.

I run comprehensive lab work, inflammatory markers like C reactive protein (CRP) and about 90 different markers that help tell us the complete story of what's happening in the body. I can't diagnose, but I can see patterns, create a clear plan, and work collaboratively with my clients' primary care physicians to address what we find.

What I do is see, plan, and treat with so much care.

Labs are incredibly important, but now we also have these amazing tracking tools, the glucose and ketone meters, that give us real time data between lab visits. Is it always fun to prick your finger multiple times a day? No. But is it important? Absolutely.

Because here's the hard truth: our lives in this day and age create more chronic disease.

The way we eat, the stress we're under, our sedentary jobs, the environmental toxins we're exposed to, it all adds up. And our current healthcare system and pharmaceuticals?

Sometimes they get to us too late.

We want prevention. We need prevention.

My son was proof of that. Young, so young, too young for this to happen. Feeling tired and exhausted when he should have been thriving. If I hadn't run those labs, if I'd just accepted "you're probably just stressed" as an answer, we would have missed our window.

What I've Learned Teaching This to Hundreds of Clients

Track early, track often. Don't wait for a diagnosis. The meter is your compass. It keeps your strategy on course and catches problems early, like it did for my son.

Expect your body to change. What works beautifully one month might need tweaking the next. Our metabolism is dynamic, not static.

Use multiple measures. Pair your GKI tracking with comprehensive blood work. The clearest picture comes from multiple angles. Those 90 markers I run tell us stories that glucose alone never could.

Stay humble. Improvements rarely come from one single factor. Be willing to give credit to the whole system, not just your favorite intervention.

Quality of life matters. Any strategy that makes you miserable won't last. Recovery is a marathon, and you need an approach you can sustain.

Remember why you're doing this. It's not about fitting into smaller jeans. It's about creating a metabolic environment where your cells can heal, repair, and function optimally. It's about prevention. It's about longevity. The weight loss is just a happy side effect.

Prevention: The Battle We Should Be Fighting

Let me be really clear about something: prevention isn't just about eating more vegetables and exercising. Those things matter, sure, but they're only part of the story. Real prevention means understanding what's happening inside your body right now, not waiting until something goes wrong. It means running labs when you're feeling off, even if you look healthy on the outside. It means tracking your metabolic markers regularly so you can see problems developing years before they become diseases.

My son looked like the picture of health. He was young, fit, active. But his body was telling a different story, and if I hadn't been paying attention to the numbers, we would have missed it completely.

This is what frustrates me about our current healthcare system. We wait for people to get sick, then we try to fix them. But by the time symptoms show up, by the time the tiredness becomes unbearable or the pain sets in, we've already lost precious time.

Cancer doesn't just appear overnight. It's been building for years, quietly changing the metabolic environment, shifting the balance.

Prevention means catching those shifts early. It means being proactive instead of reactive. It means taking responsibility for your own health instead of waiting for the system to save you. Because sometimes, by the time the system catches up, it's already too late.

Start With What You Can See: For many of my clients, I recommend starting with a Continuous Glucose Monitor, or CGM. These small devices attach to your arm and track your glucose 24/7, giving you a constant stream of data about how your body responds to food, stress, sleep, and exercise. You don't have to prick your finger constantly.

You just scan your phone over the sensor and see exactly what's happening. It's eye opening. You'll see your glucose spike after that "healthy" granola bar. You'll watch it stay stable when you eat eggs and avocado.

You'll notice how stress at work sends your numbers climbing even when you haven't eaten anything. This real time feedback is incredibly powerful because it shows you YOUR metabolic reality, not some generic advice from a book.

Once you understand your glucose patterns, we add in ketone testing and start calculating your GKI. This is where the full picture comes together. The CGM shows you one half of the equation constantly, and periodic ketone testing shows you the other half.

Together, they tell you whether you're creating a metabolic environment that supports health or one that could be setting the stage for disease.

Others wear it for a month, learn their patterns, and then do periodic check ins. The key is using it as a teaching tool, not a permanent crutch. The goal is to become so in tune with your body that you know how different foods and behaviors affect you, even without the constant monitoring.

Why This Matters, Even If You've Never Had Cancer

Here's my philosophy: why wait for a diagnosis to start paying attention to your metabolic health?

Cancer doesn't appear overnight. Those metabolic dysfunctions, the mitochondrial problems, the insulin resistance, the chronic inflammation, they build up over years. Sometimes decades.

What if we could detect those changes early? What if we could shift the terrain before cancer gets a foothold?

That's exactly what happened with my son. Feeling tired and exhausted, but looking perfectly healthy on the outside. The labs told a different story, and we caught it early enough to make a real difference.

This is why I'm so passionate about prevention. This is why I push my clients to track, to test, to pay attention now, not later when the conventional healthcare system finally catches up.

And honestly, even if cancer never enters the picture, these strategies matter. They matter for energy. For mental clarity. For longevity. For reducing inflammation. For maintaining muscle mass as we age. For keeping our brains sharp.

When you optimize your metabolism, when you support autophagy, when you become fat adapted, everything improves. Sleep gets better. Mood stabilizes. Energy becomes consistent throughout the day instead of spiking and crashing. Brain fog lifts.

Your Next Step

If you're reading this and thinking, "I should probably start tracking," you're right. You should.

Get a glucose meter. Get a ketone meter. I recommend blood ketone meters over urine strips, they're far more accurate. Learn to calculate your GKI. Start paying attention to how your body responds to different foods, different fasting windows, different stressors.

You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to hit a GKI of 2 every day unless you're actively fighting cancer. But you do need to start paying attention.

Start simple. Test your fasting glucose in the morning. Test after meals to see what spikes you. Experiment with skipping breakfast or trying a 16 hour fast. Check your ketones and see if you're producing them. Calculate your GKI and watch how it changes.

The data will tell you a story. Your story. Not someone else's. Not what worked for your neighbor or your sister or some influencer online. Your unique metabolic signature.

Because measurement is empowering. It transforms uncertainty into action. It turns vague health goals into concrete data. It gives you agency over your own biology.

And after what I saw with my son, after working with so many clients who've faced this disease, I can tell you with absolute certainty: the time to start tracking is now. Not when you get a diagnosis.

Not when symptoms appear.

Now.

Your body is already telling you a story. You just need the tools to listen.

The meters are inexpensive. The knowledge is available. The power is in your hands. All you have to do is start measuring, start tracking, start paying attention.

Because prevention isn't about perfection. It's about awareness. It's about making informed choices based on real data from your real body.

And who knows?

That simple act of checking your glucose and ketones might just be the thing that catches a problem early, shifts your metabolic terrain in a healthier direction, or gives you the energy and vitality you've been missing for years.

Don't wait. Start tracking. Start now.