Reclaim Your Rise: Type 1 Diabetes with Lauren Bongiorno

What if the way we treat type 1 diabetes right after diagnosis could help someone keep producing their own insulin for longer?

In this episode, Lauren sits down with Samuel Reich, CEO of SAB Bio, to talk about SAB-142, an investigational therapy being studied to protect the insulin-producing cells someone still has when they’re diagnosed with T1D.

Sam breaks down why researchers are racing to protect the insulin your body still...

Pregnancy with type 1 diabetes comes with tighter blood sugar targets, changing insulin needs, more appointments, and a whole new level of attention to your diabetes. But what does it actually look like to go through the entire experience?

In this episode, Lauren sits down with Risely Coach Katerina Harmon, who recently welcomed her daughter, Lydia, to talk through her experience from preparing for pregnancy all the way through labo...

In this episode, Lauren sits down with Dara Melnick, a licensed therapist who has lived with T1D for 38 years, to talk about the side of “good” diabetes management beyond the numbers.

Dara spent years trying to keep her numbers as perfect as possible. She tested her blood sugar up to 30 times a day before CGMs, developed strict rules around food, and eventually stopped eating breakfast to avoid the spike. Her A1C looked ...

In this episode of Reclaim Your Rise, Lauren sits down with Kelsey Lynn Stokes and Francesca Spinello, co-founders of Calycanthus Lingerie, a company creating feminine, functional insulin pump holders for women who wear tubed pumps.

Kelsey’s story with Risely started years before Calycanthus existed. After living with T1D since age 13, she came to Risely at one of her lowest points with diabetes. Through 1:1 coaching, she brou...

Jasmine Jones was five months into treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer when she ended up in the ICU with DKA and heard another life-changing diagnosis: Type 1 diabetes.

As a CrossFit athlete, coach, and military veteran who had always built so much of her identity around health and strength, Jasmine suddenly found herself learning how to manage insulin while she was still going through chemotherapy.

In this episode, Jas...

Every pump user knows they should have a backup plan. But how prepared are you actually if your pump stops working tonight?

Lauren found out the hard way when one task she’d been putting off left her without a working pump and scrambling to switch back to injections before bed. What seemed manageable quickly turned into a middle-of-the-night diabetes disaster and a reminder that having backup insulin isn’t the same thing...

Elizabeth Elder knows what it means to carry a lot as a mother. Her two oldest children were born with a rare genetic condition, and in 2021, she lost her daughter Annabelle to complications of that condition at just eleven years old. About a year later, her son Clark, her third child, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age five. For Elizabeth, who had already spent years navigating the world of medically complex parenting and h...

Drew Mendelow was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 13 and left the hospital overwhelmed by how much he was suddenly expected to learn and calculate on his own. So he built the tool he wished he’d had: T1D1, a free app that takes the mental math out of insulin dosing for people who are newly diagnosed or managing with injections.

Now a student at Georgia Tech, Drew joins Lauren to talk about what’s actually next in diabe...

Lauri Beale never imagined a routine visit would end with her 5-year-old daughter being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. What followed was an 11-month honeymoon phase that left her family in a constant state of uncertainty. While her daughter was still producing some insulin, every day felt unpredictable, and Lauri found herself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In this conversation with Risely's Director of Coaching, Abby Cooper, ...

Kenna Porter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 13, and for years she did everything she thought she was supposed to. She followed a strict paleo diet, worked out consistently, and built her life around healthy habits. But every time she went to the endocrinologist, she still couldn't seem to get her A1C below 7%.

Together, they talk about the frustration of feeling like nothing was working despite doing everything "right,", lear...

Last week, Lauren went for a 30-minute run and left her phone at home.

No CGM. No way to check her blood sugar. Just two glucose tablets in her pocket, a plan she trusted, and confidence in the patterns she'd learned about her body.

For most people living with Type 1 diabetes, our phones are never more than an arm's length away. They're where our CGM lives, where we bolus insulin, and how we make hundreds of diabetes decisions every ...

When your child's CGM alarms at 2 a.m., does your body go into panic mode before your brain has a chance to think?

If you're raising a child with Type 1 diabetes, you know the constant mental load. The carb counting, the overnight alarms, the second guessing, and the pressure to get every decision right.

In this episode, Lauren and Risely’s Director of Coaching, Abby Cooper, sit down after spending  three days at the Frien...

Kate Makinson has lived with Type 1 diabetes since 7th grade and has spent the last 33 years building a life of absolute adventure. She’s a PE teacher, runner, mountain biker, and someone who has always found a way to figure it out, whether that meant finishing a half marathon with a failing CGM or managing nine days in Europe after her insulin pump broke with nothing but short-acting insulin.

After 12 years away from the diab...

Chris Roome was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 12 after waking up in the ICU, but for years, managing his T1D wasn’t his priority. Through his teens and early adulthood, he struggled with teenage rebellion, addiction, an A1C of 12, and eventually reached a turning point that changed the course of his life.. Within a year of getting sober, his A1C dropped to under 6.

Today, Chris has completed multiple marathons, 50+ mile ul...

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...