Reclaim Your Rise: Type 1 Diabetes with Lauren Bongiorno

Audrey DeGuerrera was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2022 while working as a management consultant at McKinsey, averaging 80-hour weeks and traveling four days a week. The physical demands were a lot, but it was the mental load of suddenly living with a chronic condition that hit hardest. When she turned to her endocrinologist for support, they offered antidepressants. That's when she started questioning whether the healthcare s...

Alex Tolwinski… known online as @TypeOneAlexx… built a pretty recognizable T1D presence on social media by doing what everyone told him he couldn’t do: feasting on Crumble cookies, Chinese buffets, and dirty sodas, and posting every blood sugar along the way. But behind the funny viral videos is a guy who spent years feeling completely alone with his diagnosis, and who eventually found his way back through commu...

Argelis Milian Robles was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2025 — alone, without a car, on the brink of losing her job, and managing celiac on top of it all. And that was just the beginning. What came next tested everything she had. Her faith. Her will to stay. Her relationship with her own body.

In this episode, Argelis opens up about the moments that brought her to her lowest point and what it actually took to start buildin...

Angela Gaeddert was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at nine years old. For 23 years, she showed up to her endo appointments and filled in the gaps on her own. Along the way, she navigated diabulimia during one of the most isolating seasons of her life, and more recently, received a diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy.

In this episode, Angela shares how her meal spikes went from 220 to 170, her energy from a 5 to a 9, and her self-love ...

“I had no idea adults could get Type 1”. Sue May spent more than 20 years as a health coach supporting women through fertility, IVF, perimenopause, and menopause. But in her 50s, her own life took an unexpected turn when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes after missing symptoms like extreme thirst, rapid weight loss, and exhaustion, eventually discovering her blood sugar was over 500.

As someone who had spent her car...

In this episode, Meg Bomley shares her T1D journey from being diagnosed at 18 years old and spending eight years on MDI without a CGM, to becoming someone who feels deeply empowered in her body and her diabetes.

Meg first came on the podcast in 2022 after graduating from Risely coaching. At the time, she had just come out of a season of constant lows, burnout, and feeling completely overwhelmed after switching to a pump without the ...

Rafael Pepen was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 17, right in the middle of rehearsing for his very first musical in the Dominican Republic. Without access to a CGM or carb counting education, he learned to manage largely on instinct. Years later, he moved to the US, pursued his dream of performing professionally, and eventually landed at Disney, where he now performs five high cardio shows a day.

In this episode, Rafael sits down...

In this solo episode, Lauren breaks down one of the most common and frustrating T1D scenarios: correcting and still running high. She starts by validating why it's so hard, and how it’s not necessarily because of the high itself, but because of the "boomerang decision" it creates. 

Lauren walks through the exact decision framework she uses with clients at Risely to think through this scenario clearly. From checking your i...

About a month ago, Lauren went through a two week stretch of crazy work hours, disrupted sleep, missed workouts, and a few sick days. Her time in range started slipping and she had to figure out how to navigate it in real time.

In this solo episode, she walks through exactly what happened, how she recognized her insulin sensitivity was changing, and the three options she always considers when life throws her off routine. Because wai...

In this episode, Lauren walks through a recent day in Florida where a combination of late night pizza, an exhausting night with a newborn, a long tennis session without enough food, and a handful of chips sent her on a full day roller coaster that ended with a scary low at dinner.

Lauren shares the five things she always does to reset physically and mentally following a tough blood sugar day, and why how you respond matters just as ...

On April 3rd, in the middle of a regular workday, Lauren's CGM read 245 with double arrows up. She did not feel high. She bolused anyway. Twenty minutes later she was on her kitchen floor, chugging orange juice, with her blood sugar in the 30s, headed down fast. Her CGM had been over 100 points off.

In this solo episode, Lauren shares exactly what happened that day, why it scared her in a way that CGM issues never had before, and wh...

Erin Provost was living a busy life as a wife and mom when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 30. In 2023, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and spent the better part of a year fighting her way through it. Just when she thought the hardest part was behind her, a routine eye appointment introduced her to one more word she never expected to hear: retinopathy.

In this episode, Erin sits down with Lauren to talk about what it...

Coach Lindsey has lived with Type 1 Diabetes for 19 years and has been coaching with Risely for over two years. Lindsay was already a health coach in her primary role when she came to Risely as a client. She came through our group coaching program, found her footing with her own diabetes management, and knew she wanted to bring that same support to others. After completing the program, she went on to earn her National Board Certifi...

Many challenges with your blood sugars can be grouped into one of the two categories: habit or infrastructure. Until you know which one you're dealing with, you're likely doing patchwork (making changes that don't move the needle) and getting frustrated by nothing really changing.

In this solo episode, Lauren breaks down the foundational framework she uses with every coaching client to identify exactly where the leaks are coming fro...

Megan O'Neill is a physician associate who spent years in clinical practice before finding her calling at the intersection of diabetes care and psychology. While working at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Megan discovered the work of leading diabetes psychology researchers and it changed her entire practice, her perspective, and her passion. That foundation eventually led her to Abbott Diabetes Care, where she has spent th...

After coaching 2,500+ adults with T1D, Lauren discovered the T1D Archetypes. She notices there could be two people with the same A1C, and completely different remission experiences. The difference was never the numbers, it was the pattern underneath them.

In this episode, Lauren and Abby Cooper (Risely's Director of Coaching) unveil something 10 years in the making: the Risely T1D Archetype framework. If you've ever followed every p...

Dylan Leonard is a filmmaker, lifelong athlete, and person with type 1 diabetes who has spent the last decade traveling the world, often in remote and high-stakes environments, while navigating the day-to-day reality of blood sugars, supplies, and unpredictability. In this conversation, Dylan shares how his early diagnosis at 15, shaped a mindset that became his anchor: “I’ll figure it out.” That belief carried hi...

Loren was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 18, right as she was starting college. What followed were 15 years of highs and lows, not just in her blood sugars, but in her relationship with herself. From struggling with diabulimia in her early 20s to feeling anxious, burnt out, and alone, Loren shares what it was like to look “fine” on the outside while silently fighting her diabetes behind the scenes.

In this episode, sh...

For decades, people living with Type 1 diabetes have asked the same question: what would life look like if my body made insulin again? In today’s episode, Lauren sits down with Katie Beth Hand (13 years with T1D) and Chris (diagnosed at 10 months old, living 35 years with T1D), two of only ten participants selected for the first cohort of the Eledon clinical trial at the University of Chicago. As Patients 9 and 10, they recei...