Blood Sugar and Human Design: Use Your Chart and a CGM to Reveal the Root Cause of Cravings and Fatigue

Kelly Harrington, MS, RD
Jun 5
7 min read

Updated: Jun 6

Blood Sugar, Human Design, and Weight Loss

As a registered dietitian and human design guide, I’ve seen how traditional weight loss advice often ignores two major factors: blood sugar balance and individual energy patterns. Of course gut health is also a major factor, but that's for another blog (or read Nutrition to Improve the Gut Microbiome).

When you combine objective blood sugar data with the insights of your Human Design chart, you gain a personalized map that reveals what’s actually driving your energy dips, emotional eating, or stubborn weight.

But first, if you don't already have your human design chart, get your free human design chart here. This human design chart from my website is unique and special because it provides customized with insights about your individual nutrition, health, and digestion information, which makes this bodygraph.

Why Blood Sugar Spikes Matter

Your blood sugar is a big predictor of your energy levels, mood, cravings, hormone health, and long-term metabolic health. Optimizing your blood sugar is the #1 most effective way to lose body fat. Having high blood sugar levels or peaks and valleys in your blood sugar makes weight loss extremely difficult.

Your blood sugar naturally rises and falls throughout the day, but big spikes cause problems. Every time you eat carbohydrates, your body turns them into glucose. A low to moderate rise in blood sugar is normal, but large blood sugar spikes trigger a rapid insulin release to bring blood sugar back down. This often causes a crash and a cycle of cravings, fatigue, mood swings, and inflammation.

Frequent blood sugar spikes over time can contribute to weight gain, insulin resistance, poor sleep, brain fog, and increase the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and Type 2 diabetes.

The good news? You can measure these swings and make changes to balance your blood sugar for better health.

What a CGM Can Reveal that a Food Journal Can't

Over the past 25 years, I have done thousands of hours of nutrition counseling, and what I've learned to be the most effective way to asses nutrition is photo-based food tracking. In addition, using a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) to track a client's blood sugar with specific meals gives objective data, and has been especially effective for weight loss.

A CGM is a small sensor you place in the back of your arm. It tracks your blood sugar 24/7 without any fingersticks.

With real time feedback, you can see how your body responds to specific foods, beverages, alcohol, food combinations, portion sizes, and meal timing. The CGM data also allows you to observe how stress, exercise, and sleep affect blood sugar. The CGM can help shift people from guilt to data-driven awareness.

Real Life Story: I was helping two clients at the same time who coincidentally both loved popcorn. In one, popcorn caused a fast, large blood sugar spike. In the other, eating popcorn didn’t increase blood sugar much at all. These are individualized blood sugar responses only a CGM can know, and they make a huge difference on reaching goals or not.

Human Design Layers that Influence Blood Sugar and Cravings

Human Design shows you how energy moves through your body. Blood sugar is one of the most sensitive physiological indicators of energy balance.

When your energy is out of sync with your design, you may unconsciously eat to cope, leading to blood sugar spikes, crashes, and fat storage.

Real Life Story: I was working with a client whose human design chart was strongly individual. All of her five channels were in Individual Circuitry, which is focused on self-empowerment. Three of those channels were in Individual Integration Circuitry, which is uber independent. Her conscious and unconscious Sun gates were also individual gates, and when you consider her independent, fixed 4/1 profile, she has a major theme in her life of needing stability and purpose on her own terms. When this client neglected her personal passions, didn't take care of her needs first, or compromised her independence, her health suffered. The misalignment made her feel drained mentally and physically, and resulted in poor eating decisions (which resulted in frequent blood sugar spikes). When she did prioritize herself as a form of self-empowerment, things shifted. Her mental state was lighter, her energy improved, and her eating habits became more balanced.

Sacral Center Energy

The energy from the Sacral feels different depending on whether your center is defined (colored in) or undefined (white). Either way though, really tune into the difference between your body’s physical hunger vs mental hunger vs emotional hunger. Allowing mental and emotional hunger to make food decisions isn't always the best idea, but if someone is disconnected from their body or their body's physical hunger cues, making aligned food decisions is difficult in the beginning.

With a defined sacral center, it’s so important to respond and not force, especially around food timing and what to eat.

Those with an undefined Sacral Center can “push” themselves into exhaustion, leading to cravings and possibly overeating. The undefined Sacral Center can also pick up an urge to eat from others, even if their own body isn’t truly hungry.

Real Life Story: A Splenic Manifestor told me she can experience hunger out of the blue when she is in a group of people. She noticed she will graze more or eat more frequently when she's in aura with Generator Types.

Root Center Energy

The pressure from the Root feels different depending on whether your center is defined (colored in) or undefined (white).

With a defined Root Center, pressure comes from within. It’s the pressure you put on yourself to do things. With an undefined Root Center, you can place pressure on yourself, but you are particularly susceptible to feeling amplified pressure from the people around you.

Whether your Root is defined or undefined, the pressure to do and “keep up” can spike cortisol. This has a HUGE impact on the entire body! Cortisol prompts the liver to release stored glucose into the bloodstream, resulting in high blood sugar, even if you haven't eaten.

Cortisol can cause blood sugar to fluctuate more quickly, which causes a release in insulin. When insulin circulates in the bloodstream too often, it promotes fat storage making weight loss difficult.

Irregardless of what is causing the stress, effectively managing your stress everyday is critical for health.

Read more about the Root Center and the Adrenal Glands, including the Defined vs Undefined, Root Center not-self talk, wisdom of the undefined Root Center, and caring for the Adrenal Glands.

Emotional Solar Plexus Center Energy

Your Solar Plexus is the home of emotions. Whether your Solar Plexus Center is defined or undefined, pay attention to how your emotional state impacts your eating decisions. Emotional stress can increase blood sugar even in the absence of food, primarily because of cortisol and adrenaline, the stress hormones.

On the other hand, some people lose their appetite with emotional stress. As blood sugar decreases due to fasting, your body's normal survival, physiological response is to crave sugar.

I have gate 30 in an undefined Solar Plexus, and I have noticed I crave sugar when I’m happy and want to celebrate. I have also noticed I desire highly palatable types of foods to soothe my emotions, primarily at the end of the day. As I've deconditioned my undefined Solar Plexus, I have drastically reduce this habit, but it has been a conscious process.

If you have gate 42, channel 41-30, channel 36-35, or any of the individual gates in the channels, this blog about expectations and unmet desires is a must read!

With a defined Solar Plexus, waiting for clarity can help avoid reactive sugar intake. Find non-food ways to cope with your emotional wave.

With an undefined Solar Plexus, you easily absorb other people's emotions, which can feel overwhelming and/or uncomfortable. When this happens, there's a tendency to reach for sugar and highly palatable foods for relief. It's a way to avoid feeling your feelings, and this is also influenced by the hanging gates you have in your undefined Solar Plexus.

Human Design Type

While everyone benefits from stable blood sugar, certain patterns can emerge based on Human Design Type. These aren't hard rules. Rather, they’re invitations to explore how your energy interacts with food, stress, and your environment:

Projectors tend to have an inconsistent energy flow and may feel energized or drained depending on who they’re around and how their day unfolds. Pay attention to this because a draining energy is impacting your cells. Regularly including high-quality protein foods can help sustain energy, support mental clarity, and prevent crashes, especially when paired with intentional rest and alone time to discharge excess input. Being in a healthy state overall helps bring out your signature theme of Success.
Manifestor energy often operates in bursts of internal initiation, followed by a natural need for rest. Blood sugar instability can trigger irritability or fatigue that interferes with your creative momentum. Supporting a calm nervous system state with meals that include healthy fats, fiber, and protein may create more ease in your initiation cycles. Being in a healthy state overall helps bring out your signature theme of Peace.
Reflectors are deeply sensitive to food, people, and places. Because your system can reflect the environment around you, a stable, consistent glucose rhythm (without intense spikes or crashes) may help create a stable internal baseline, improving clarity and emotional resilience. Use your human design Determination and Cognition to improve the teflonness of your aura. Make an effort to minimize your exposure to toxic ingredients in your environment (ie: laundry soap, lotion, synthetic fragrances, cleaning products, etc.). Toxic buildup in the body can cause blood sugar dysregulation.

These tips are best applied alongside your full human design chart, lived experience, and body feedback.

How to Acquire a Continuous Glucose Monitor

Through a company called Theia Health, anyone can order a CGM without a prescription and without needing a specific diagnosis! This is HUGE! Until now, getting a prescription for a CGM has been difficult unless you had a pre-diabetes diagnosis. Many of my clients asked their doctors for a CGM prescription and were told no.

Here’s how it works:

Click my personal link
Fill out a short questionnaire (height, weight, birthday, etc.) You will be approved.
Receive your CGM sensors by mail
Start tracking and learning!

You can view your blood sugar data on a desktop or mobile app. In your Theia personal dashboard, you are also able to log food/activity/feelings, which allows you to spot patterns and trends in your blood sugar response so you can make appropriate modifications.

Your dashboard shows key glucose metrics, and each day you will receive a daily score based on how long it took your glucose to stabilize, your peak glucose levels, and your average 24-hour glucose.

Personalize Your Health

Use a CGM + your human design chart to identify how to design a blood sugar-stabilizing day based on your chart. Remember: you don't need another diet. You just need the right map and a little guidance to find your way back to health and vitality.

Ready to personalize your health journey? Work with me to explore how your chart and biology can work together to support the healthiest version of you.