July 10, 2025 • 29 mins
Trying to keep glucose levels within a healthy and safe range as a person with type 1 diabetes is not easy.
In this solo episode I'm talking through five habits I've adopted over the many years I've lived with type 1 diabetes that have significantly improved my time in range, giving me more steady glucose levels which has consequently improved my quality of life. And I do not say that lightly!
The Habits Mentioned:
Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM)
THINGS MENTIONED
BERTIE Carb Counting Course.
Solo Podcast Episode: 14 Lessons that have helped me to live with type 1 diabetes.
JOIN THE TYPE 1 ON 1 COMMUNITY
Come and say hi @studiotype1on1 on Instagram.
Visit the Type 1 on 1 website.
DISCLAIMER
Nothing you hear on Type 1 on 1 should be taken as medical advice. Please consult your healthcare team before making any changes to your diabetes or health management.
SPONSOR MESSAGE
This episode of Type 1 on 1 is sponsored by Dexcom. Using Dexcom CGM has given me so much confidence to make informed diabetes treatment decisions in the moment.
You can choose to wear it on your arm or your abdomen, and all Dexcom CGMs have the share and follow feature even when connected to an insulin pump, so family and friends can see your glucose levels and get alerts, giving that extra bit of support when needed.
Head to Dexcom.com to request a free Dexcom ONE+ sample.
Always read the user manual for important product aspects and limitations. Talk to your doctor for diabetes management terms and conditions and terms of use.
In this solo episode I'm talking through five habits I've adopted over the many years I've lived with type 1 diabetes that have significantly improved my time in range, giving me more steady glucose levels which has consequently improved my quality of life. And I do not say that lightly!
The Habits Mentioned:
Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM)
- Carbohydrate Counting
- Pre-Bolus
- Trying not to overcorrect hypos
- Not eating too close to bed
- Lowering high glucose alert threshold
THINGS MENTIONED
BERTIE Carb Counting Course.
Solo Podcast Episode: 14 Lessons that have helped me to live with type 1 diabetes.
JOIN THE TYPE 1 ON 1 COMMUNITY
Come and say hi @studiotype1on1 on Instagram.
Visit the Type 1 on 1 website.
DISCLAIMER
Nothing you hear on Type 1 on 1 should be taken as medical advice. Please consult your healthcare team before making any changes to your diabetes or health management.
SPONSOR MESSAGE
This episode of Type 1 on 1 is sponsored by Dexcom. Using Dexcom CGM has given me so much confidence to make informed diabetes treatment decisions in the moment.
You can choose to wear it on your arm or your abdomen, and all Dexcom CGMs have the share and follow feature even when connected to an insulin pump, so family and friends can see your glucose levels and get alerts, giving that extra bit of support when needed.
Head to Dexcom.com to request a free Dexcom ONE+ sample.
Always read the user manual for important product aspects and limitations. Talk to your doctor for diabetes management terms and conditions and terms of use.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of Type one on one is sponsored by Dexcom.
More on that later. Just to say, as with every
episode of Type one on one, nothing you hear within
this podcast episode is intended to be nor should be
taken as medical advice, and you should absolutely seek the
advice and guidance of a healthcare professional before making any
changes to your diabetes management. If you want to come
(00:21):
and say hi, you can do so at Studio type
one on one on Instagram and I'd love to see
you there. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Type one on one,
a podcast that delves into the obscure, complex and challenging
world of life with type one diabetes. I'm Jen Grieves,
and each week, with the help of some brilliant guests,
(00:44):
I'll be showing that there is no normal when it
comes to handlink this whopper of a chronic condition, because
we're all pretty much figuring out the messiness of day
to day life with diabetes as we go, and most
of all, even though it doesn't always feel like it,
we are absolutely not alone. Hi everyone, and welcome back
to another episode of Type one on one. It's just
(01:06):
me today and if you're new here, I normally have
a lovely guest with me to chat to them about
all things type one. But today I'm going to be
talking about a few key things that have helped me
to personally increase my time and range.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Big topic.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I know this is much more practical than my normal
podcast episodes, but I'll explain the reasons why I feel
like this might be helpful, even if I'm not suggesting
in any way that anyone should do what I do
when it comes to living with type one diabetes. So
I've been living with type one diabetes for nearly thirty years,
(01:45):
which is a very long time, but I went through
about half of that time pretty unawares of what my
type one diabetes needed from me, beyond the basics of
testing my glucose levels through things pricks and taking my
insulin injections, which might sound quite wild in twenty to
(02:06):
twenty five, and beyond when we have cgms and we
have Instagram, and we have this wealth of diabetes information
available to us from all kinds of different sources. But
when I was diagnosed back in nineteen ninety six, that
just wasn't the case. So I went through quite a
substantial significant period of my type one diabetes life with
(02:30):
very much the basics and as I said, being pretty
unawares of what I really needed to do to take
care of my health in a more optimal way and
help my time in range as much as possible. Time
and range is something we all want, right as people
living with type one diabetes. We want to stay in range.
We want to feel good, we want to feel like
(02:50):
we're doing the thing and kind of able to go
out there and live and feel good. But I'm sure
you are aware if you are listening or watching this
that time arrange sometimes it's very elusive, it can be
very tricky to get hold of and certainly tricky to
keep hold of. So these are personal, lived experience things
(03:13):
that have helped me over the years to improve my
time in range. But obviously, and this is a big
but this is just my personal experience. I'm absolutely not
a medical professional. This isn't advice, this is an education
or instruction. It's absolutely just kind of how I've come
to be and live with my type one diabetes. And
(03:34):
I think for every person living with type one diabetes,
there is a unique way to live with it. So
just to be clear, you absolutely must speak to a
medical professional before you make any changes to your diabetes
management or healthcare. So way back when, probably about eighteen
years ago now, when I was fingerpricking and doing kind
(03:56):
of the basics, which is what I thought I needed
to do. I was doing what I'd always done, which
had been okay when I was a child and I
was first diagnosed, but certainly did not fit the body
that i'd grown into the lifestyle that i'd developed. You know,
we're talking about being at UNI, coming out of UNI,
trying to figure out who you are and where you're
(04:17):
at in the world, and it just wasn't a great time.
I've talked about that on previous podcast episodes, so I
will try and link some below if I think they
might help fill you in a bit for context. But
as I said, I just didn't know what I didn't know,
and I didn't know I needed to take greater responsibility
for my health. I didn't know there was so much
more that was in my control and actually my responsibility
(04:38):
to do in regards to my health, and that investing
and working with my type one diabetes was actually going
to improve my quality of life rather than take away
and distract me from the life or the type of
life I believed I wanted to live, but actually the
two kind of go hand in hand. But beyond all
of that, what I absolutely didn't know was that I
(05:00):
wasn't the only one feeling like this, and I wasn't
completely alone, and I really did feel that in relation
to my type one diabetes, that it was just me,
and yeah, I just don't want anyone else to feel
like that. So I want to chat through a few
of the things that once I did get to know,
they really did help improve my time and range. And
(05:23):
that is to say that it's all relative. I understand that,
but my glucose levels are infinitely better now on an
ongoing and a day to day basis, and that has
kind of compounded into creating quite a healthy quote unquote healthy.
You know, I still go out and enjoying myself, but
for the most part, quite a balanced and what I
perceived to be helpful lifestyle. When it comes to the
(05:47):
balance of living the life I want to live and
taking care of my health, it definitely takes time and
investment on my part, and that's ongoing. You know, the
work is never done when it comes to Type one diabetes,
but it's definitely got easier and as I've witnessed the
outcomes I've had in my time and range, but also
in other areas of my life, I would definitely say
it's been worth it. I'm also on a hybrid closed
(06:09):
loop insulin pump, which has made a world of difference
when it comes to my time in range, so I
think that's a significant factor. And if someone's on injections
for their own personal reasons or it suits them, I
don't want to undermine that. So I will say that
on an average, it is achievable for me to reach
(06:31):
around eighty percent time in range. Not every week and
not all the time, and I certainly have days that
are way way below that, but I also have days
that are above that. But I'm giving that as a
ballpark figure for where I'm at now. And as I
said back then, I actually had no idea, but I
know I used to run what I would consider to
be out of range because I think there were so
(06:53):
many unknowns going through a day to day. The main
thing I was trying to avoid was hypoglycemia because that
would interrupt my day. So with that, I think there
was a lot of time that I was way way
way above what I would consider to be in my
personal range now. And you know, I would just do
that fingerprick at lunchtime with really no idea of what
that glucose meter was about to say. You just wait
(07:16):
for that five second countdown and hope for the best,
and it could be anything from four to fourteen, you know,
and sometimes way above that. So yeah, that's kind of
the ballpark where I'm at at the moment. So things
that helped me improve my time and range as a
person living with Type one diabetes. So the first thing
is actually a precursor. I'm not counting it because I think,
(07:37):
as I speak to you in twenty twenty five, the
benefits of CGM are so clear, and certainly the availability
in the UK is such that it really is a
no brainer. A continuous glucose monitor as opposed to the
fingerpricks I was on before that I have kind of
referenced here. I would do a handful of finger pricks
(07:57):
a day, some days more than others, and I it
would just be a number like plucked out of nowhere. Essentially,
because as many people know listening to this, a CGM
will tell you where your glucose level is at. But
it also tells you where it's been, where it's heading,
and how fast it's heading there. And I think having
(08:17):
that information has been such a big piece of the
puzzle for me in terms of being able to take
action and make decisions based on that information to hopefully
negate some of those spikes or drops and improve my
time in range. But certainly, if you're in the UK,
you should be entitled to a CGM if you are
living with type one diabetes through the NHS, that is
(08:40):
my understanding. If that's not happening for you, then do
some research, do some digging, speak to other people online,
speak to healthcare professionals and find out what's going on there.
So my official number one is carbohydrate counting. It's not sexy,
but actually none of this is sexy. Typewe diaryetes just
is not sexy. It's very boring. But it's something that
(09:01):
I did not do for a very very very long time,
and to this date, I still have not been on
a carb counting course. Twenty nine years into my life
with type one diabetes. I kind of think I've missed
the boat there. But when I realized how key this
was or that it even existed, I went and found
a course online that's run by Bournemouth NHS trust, I believe,
(09:23):
and it was free at the time. I shall dig out.
It's called Bertie. It's an online version of the Daphne.
As far as I'm aware, if I'm saying words to
you that don't make any sense, DAPHNE is Dose Dose
Adjustments for Normal Eating, which is essentially a carb counting course.
And again I do believe that your healthcare professionals may
be able to recommend you. And for me, understanding the
(09:45):
grams of carbohydrates that I'm eating in relation to my
insulin doses alongside the CDM data has been incredibly, incredibly
key for me, and I went for so many years
without knowing about carb counting. It wasn't a thing when
I was diagnosed, and as I said, it just wasn't
introduced at any point down the line. I don't know
what happened, but here we are. Carbo hydrate counting may
(10:07):
sound really obvious to you if you're listening and you've
been diagnosed in recent years, but yeah, I'm putting it
out here because you know, sometimes we're guestimating. Sometimes we're
out and about and we can't.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Weigh our food. But I think the more more.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I've practiced with carbohydrate counting, the easier it has become
to also guestimate. And I've done a lot of traveling,
and a huge part of that traveling was eating out
and eating on the road and eating quickly and adapting
to foods that were available and around me without you know,
weighing scales or being able to measure.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Properly or look at the back of food packets.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
So that's my personal experience, and just in terms of
my practical experience. If I'm at home, I will weigh
out my carb hydrates. If I'm out about I will
work out the carbohydrate serving from the nutrition information on
the back of the packet. And in terms of racking
it all up, I use my fitness power as an
app to calculate my total carbohydrates for that meal or
(11:05):
for that snack or whatever it is, or to find
out the carbohydrate content in the first place. If, for example,
the nutrition information isn't available, I can select something from
my fitness power that might be similar. And as I said,
I've got a pretty good gauge on the size of
things and portion sizes. And I definitely was woefully underrested
(11:29):
in mating my carbohydrates before I came into carbohydrate counting.
Number two in terms of increasing my time and range
was pre bolissing and I am pretty on it when
it comes to pre bolissing now, but again something I
didn't know about for many, many years. In fact, it
was another member of the diabetes online community that mentioned
(11:52):
it as the single biggest thing their consultant had told
them that had helped them. And when I heard pre
bowlus that were for the first time, I had no
idea what it meant. I knew what a bowlus meant
by that point in terms of taking an insulin dose,
taking an insulin injection alongside the food I was eating,
but I had no idea what pre bolus meant. So
(12:13):
I do remember going away and googling it. So I
think I was about twenty four when I first heard
this word, and I was diagnosed with techno diabetes at
the age of eight. So if you think you don't
know anything or you're behind, like please let me reassure
you that you know there is a lot to learn
and it takes time and I still don't know everything.
(12:35):
Pre bolus was one of those that just got mentioned
in passing that my goodness, it changed the game.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So a pre.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
BOWLUS, as I understand it, is taking your insulin dose
a little ahead of when you are going to eat
your food. That you are taking that insulin dose four.
And what's happening there is that you take the insulin,
it's in your system and it has a bit of
a chance to start working so that by the time
you take your food in, your blood sugar doesn't spike,
(13:04):
or my blood sugar doesn't spike quite as steeply or dramatically,
and then I'm chasing that postmeal glucose spike less and less.
When I was on injections and I realized how much
pre bowlising was improving my post meal glucose spikes, I
would inject in the queue of the sandwich shop to
(13:25):
just give that novo rapid time to start working before
I would then sit down and eat the sandwich. I
just found little ways where I was taking my pre
BOWLUS even if I wasn't in the ideal scenario. But
again that's all personal preference. I think the recommended standard
pre bowlust time is around fifteen minutes, but caveat caveat
(13:47):
caveat the timing of a pre bowlus is for you
to speak to your care team about and get medical
advice on. But for me, pre bowls timings have been
different with different insulins that I used, so I needed
a lot longer to pre bowlus for the insulin to
kick in and start working on nova rapid than I
do now on FISP, which is why I actually switch
(14:09):
to FIAS because it gets to work a lot faster,
which suits my lifestyle better. But again, in the spirit
of sharing information, I didn't even know that there were
different types of insulin that could work at different speeds
and that there might be one more suitable to my
lifestyle than the one I was on. So yeah, that
has also changed. With my insulin pump and the different
(14:30):
type of insulin pump i'm on the pre bowlist, timing
has also changed there, so again that's something for you
to go and speak to your.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Care team about.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
But for me, pre bowlus has been a really significant
piece of avoiding those postmeal spikes as much as possible.
Certainly I don't necessarily stay in range, but when I prebolus,
I absolutely have a better chance of not spiking so
high after the meal and not having that afternoon, like
chasing the highs, trying to get that high glucost level down,
(14:58):
and you know what, that rollercoaster like, it just doesn't
feel great. So I'm trying to avoid that essentially as
much as possible, and prebollus is a big part of
what helps. Prebollusing can be tricky for me when I'm
out and about or if I'm at someone's house and
I don't know when the food is quite going to
be ready, and I don't want to ask because I
think it seems rude to be like, when's.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
The food coming?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So that's something I sometimes have to work around. And
I'm quite like aware in restaurants, like I'll look around
the other tables and see how fast the food might
be coming out, which does take me out of the
present moment and can be annoying, but I think, to me, again,
it's just something I've got used to being aware of.
And sometimes I will have a little bowlus like a
(15:42):
if I don't know how big the meal's going to be,
or I don't know what the carbohydrate content is, or
I don't know how big the portion is, I will
have a baseline minimum dose for around say fifteen or
twenty grams of carbohydrates and get that into my system
so that something is working away, and then when the
meal comes, I will try and calculate the dose that
I need to take the remaining dose on top of
(16:04):
what I've already taken. And for me, that has generally
worked quite well. But I think for a lot of
people they might be understandably concerned about taking insulin and
then crashing into a hypo. So again it's for everyone
to figure out their own unique way of handling this.
But on the whole, certainly, if I'm at home and
I'm cooking my own food, preballus is something I don't skip.
(16:29):
This episode of Type one on one is sponsored by Dexcom.
Using DEXCOMCGM has given me so much confidence to make
informed diabetes treatment decisions in the moment.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
You can choose to.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Wear it on your arm or your abdomen, which is
so great to give those sites a break, and all
dex commcgms have the share and follow feature even when
connected to an insulin pump, so family and friends can
see your glucose levels and get alerts, giving that extra
bit of support when needed. Head to Dexcom dot com
to request a free dexcomone one plus sample. Always read
(17:02):
the user manual for important product aspects and limitations. Talk
to your doctor for diabetes management terms and conditions, and
terms of use. Number three when it comes to things
that have helped me improve my time in range, is
trying not to overcorrect hypos. I was doing this for
a long time, and again I did not realize I
(17:22):
was doing it. I didn't realize that I am actually
pretty insulin resistant and I don't need that much sugar
to bring my blood sugars back into range. In general,
obviously it depends how much incident I've got on board
and whether I'm in the middle of exercise and things
like that. But it's again something I've had to just
(17:42):
work with my body to figure out, and for the
most part, I actually don't need much. But it's so
hard not to overcorrect a hypo, especially when you wake
up those horrible ones in the middle of the night
where your body has had to work so hard to
wake you up, all the alarms have been going off
and you're already pretty hypo dark. You're really discombobulated, disoriented, disorientated,
(18:05):
and you're sweating and shaking. This is my personal experience. Again,
but if you know, you know, I think the recommended
dose for a hypo is fifteen grams of carbohydrate fust
texting carb hydrate, and like none of that was a
thing when I was a kid, like these grams, these amounts.
So yeah, that was something that actually I didn't figure
(18:26):
out until I got CGM data because I could see
the spikes so dramatically going up and pinging up out
of range to the other side and going hyper post hypo.
So maybe this isn't something that everyone struggles with, but
it's something I have had to learn having lived with
type one diabetes in a different era, shall we say.
Another thing I've had to learn around correcting hypos is
(18:49):
trusting that that sugar that I have ingested is going
to kick in, it is going to work, and that
I just have to give it a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And again, that is so hard.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
When I'm sweating and shaking and I just don't want
to feel in that horrible high post state anymore, and
just sitting in it for a minute and waiting to
see the arrow turn on the CDM graph and then
I know I can kind of breathe and relax and
know that the glucose level is on the art, but
that is tricky. That is something I really do have
(19:20):
to consciously practice, which isn't easy when your brain doesn't
have enough oxygen because you are hypo.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So yeah, if that's you as well, I'm with you.
And if this.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
All sounds like a lot, I would say that, you know,
it's just until I've kind of gathered over the years,
fod dextro tablets is going to be too much glucose,
So next time I've tried just three and then gauge
it based on the situation, how low I am, how
much incidin I've got on board, And I'm just kind
of layering this information every time as I go, and
a lot of it it's just become quite intuitive. But
(19:52):
it's certainly something I have to be very conscious of
because hypos are so discombobulating. Everything can get thrown off
in terms of how I treat them and the patients
I have for them. Again, if you want to avoid
the long route into gathering that information, absolutely speak to
your healthcare team, your diabetes team, and they will probably
be able to give you some very very helpful tips
(20:14):
in terms of correcting hypos. So number four on the
list of things that have helped me personally improve my
time and range is avoiding eating super close to bed.
Now caveat definitely don't do this all the time. I
loves me a good meal, I loves me a restaurant meal,
and I love me a little snack pre bed snack
(20:35):
as well, So it's definitely not something that always happens.
But in general, on a day to day basis, when
there is no special occasion, I will try and eat
at least two to three hours before bed, and I
will try and make that meal unless, as I said,
it's a special occasion one that isn't super super high
(20:55):
carbohydrate and fat combined. And the reason for that is,
as I understand it, fat delays the release of the
glucose in that meal, so I can be very prone
to a delayed spike in my glucose level. And if
I've eaten very close to bed, that spike, that release
of glucose, once the food has been a bit more digested,
(21:18):
will be into the night when I'm fast asleep, and
that can set me on a course for very annoying
out of range overnight blood glucose levels, which I try
and avoid as much as possible because we are asleep
one third of our day, one third of our lives,
and with the help of hybrid closed loop now it's
actually viable for me to stay in range overnight, which
(21:41):
makes us a huge percentage of my time in range.
So if I'm just on a Monday to Friday routine basis,
I will try and eat buy around seven seven thirty pm,
so I know that I've got time to see how
my glucose levels go after eating that meal before I
(22:01):
want to go to sleep. And again in the spirit
of you don't know what you don't know, those high
fat carbon meals used to catch me out quite often
as a kid. We would always have a roast dinner
on a Sunday, classic British household, and quite frequently I
would drop into hypo after that dinner and then spike
in the night once the kind of meal had been digested.
(22:22):
Because of the high fat content of the meal and
the high carb content of the meal, I think it
was one of the biggest meals.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
We would eat in the week.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, I would wake up with a high glucose level
the next day. Similarly, when I was running around London
Town as I was for many years before I got
a CGM. I would, for example, go for pizza for dinner,
which was great, but I would go to sleep in range,
do a cursory fingerprick before bed, and I would wake up,
you know, with a blood glucose level of seventeen eighteen
(22:51):
the next morning. So now, if I was in that scenario,
I would do a split dose and have part of
my insulin with the meal and part of the insulin
two hours or so later. And if I'm awake, if
I don't eat too close to bed, I can kind
of oversee and manage that depending on how it's going
and what my glucose levels are doing, I can manage
(23:11):
the admin of that a lot better than if I
needed to go to sleep. But again that's something to
discuss with your care team. And I love this one
a lot more than just having time and range, because
if I get a good night's sleep with no alarms
and I am in range, it just sets me up
so much better for the next day in terms of
(23:33):
how I feel and also in terms of my blood
sugar stability. I think it's such a cruel irony that
we need extra sleep and extra arrest because our body
goes through so much every day as people with chronic illnesses,
but our sleep is so compromised because of that chronic illness.
So yeah, just trying to get myself in range overnight
(23:53):
as much as possible is really really something that I've
noticed has an absolutely massive improvement on my quality of life,
which really has come into its own since I started
on a hybrid closed loop insulin pump, because the insulin
pump is making those adjustments overnight to help keep me
in range. The last thing that I have experienced that
(24:14):
has increased my time in range is a pretty personal
one to me. I don't think everyone's gonna like it,
but thankfully, I'm just speaking from my lived experience and
this is what works for me, and that has been
to reduce the parameter of my.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
High glucose alert.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So I brought it down so that the high glucose
alert on my CGM goes off at a lower number,
and that, for me, is information. So receiving that alert
does not stress me out. But that's also to do
with the way, well it does stress me out sometimes
I should correct myself there, because nobody loves to receive
(24:50):
a high glucose alert, I kind of I roll the
phone and I'm like, Okay, here we go again. But
it doesn't stress me out in the sense that I
view it as information. And it's also the way I've
got my CGM set up, so mine is on vibrate
and it vibrates to my watch first, and from there
I can dismiss it, so that I actually never hear
(25:13):
an alarm unless I'm asleep and I haven't dismissed that
first vibration on my watch. So sometimes a lot of
the time I won't take any action because I know
I need to let that spike ride out of its
own accord. But what I feel it gives me is
a heads up so that if I do need to
take action, I can do so while my blood sugar
is in the nine to ten millimles per liter range,
(25:35):
as opposed to getting that alarm when I'm twelve thirteen
knowing it's going to.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Climb even more.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
It sort of gives me a heads up maybe to
keep a bit more of an eye on it over
the next half an hour an hour. Again, I find
that helpful. I think it's super, super helpful that I've
been able to customize the way I get that alert
and get that information. If the alarms were just getting
louder and louder and repeating, then you know, maybe that
is something I wouldn't have adjusted quite so tightly. It
(26:04):
also depends on what I've got coming up over the
next few hours. If I get that high glucose alert
after lunch, it's usually not surprising. That's generally what happens.
It doesn't mean it's going to keep climbing, although sometimes
it does, which is why I like to have that information.
But if I know I've got an afternoon of work
ahead and then I'm going to the gym, I'm probably
not going to take action on that alarm. I'm just
(26:25):
gonna let it ride out. When I first got my CDM,
and I would ever see an arrow going up, the
inclination was to take action and take a correction dose,
and I learnt pretty quickly that that isn't always necessary
for me. But again, that comes with trying to understand
as best as possible how my body reacts and responds
to these different types of foods at different times of day.
(26:48):
None of this is easy, and I certainly don't have
it all figured out, but I think you know, for
me trying to adapt these little tweaks as much as possible,
and it doesn't always happen. And apply this information that
I've gathered over the years, it has more or less
made a positive impact on my health and my condition
(27:11):
and my relationship with my condition as well. So again
it all just comes back to this is what works
for me, and this is what I've figured out, you know.
And I'm aware that the type of life I live
gives me time autonomy. I'm freelance, I manage my own
work hours. I don't have dependence. You know, a lot
of my time is my own things like that that
allow me to invest a bit more time. But on
(27:32):
the flip side of that, I've kind of built my
life that way to enable me to do that. So
it's kind of two sides of the same coin, if
you like. But this is just all to say our
individual circumstances very wildly and what's possible for me may
not be possible for you. You may be doing things
that I'm not doing, And again it's just all us
(27:53):
uniquely trying to find our way with what is a
very complex, very challenging condition. So if no one's told
you to, you are doing a great job. So those
are the things I wanted to get into today. There
are others, but I think particularly when it comes to
something like exercise, you know, whether it's strength training or cardio,
that's actually a whole different episode in itself, so we'll
(28:16):
leave that one today. But these are the things that
I can think of that have made, you know, a
pretty significant impact on increasing my personal time and range.
I've been tracking through on this for twenty nine years now,
so I hope in any way in any world that
they've been in some way useful or helpful or interesting
(28:37):
for you. So if you have enjoyed this episode, I
would love to hear your thoughts. You can catch me
over on Instagram at miss gen Grieves, and I also
have a podcast specific Instagram page which is at Studio
type one on one that's at Studio Type one the
number on one the number.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
But I'll leave all the links in the.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Episode description so you can just give that a little
click and be taken straight to where you need to go.
But I do love to hear from you, so please
do come and say hi. I hope you've enjoyed this,
and I will speak to you very soon. I hope
you enjoyed this episode of Type one on one. Please
remember that nothing you hear on this podcast should be
(29:18):
taken as medical advice. I'm definitely not a healthcare professional.
If you like what you hear, hit subscribe and do
leave a little review on iTunes if.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
You have time.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It really helps to spread the word about type one diabetes,
and thank you so much for listening.
This episode of Type one on one is sponsored by Dexcom.
More on that later. Just to say, as with every
episode of Type one on one, nothing you hear within
this podcast episode is intended to be nor should be
taken as medical advice, and you should absolutely seek the
advice and guidance of a healthcare professional before making any
changes to your diabetes management. If you want to come
(00:21):
and say hi, you can do so at Studio type
one on one on Instagram and I'd love to see
you there. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Type one on one,
a podcast that delves into the obscure, complex and challenging
world of life with type one diabetes. I'm Jen Grieves,
and each week, with the help of some brilliant guests,
(00:44):
I'll be showing that there is no normal when it
comes to handlink this whopper of a chronic condition, because
we're all pretty much figuring out the messiness of day
to day life with diabetes as we go, and most
of all, even though it doesn't always feel like it,
we are absolutely not alone. Hi everyone, and welcome back
to another episode of Type one on one. It's just
(01:06):
me today and if you're new here, I normally have
a lovely guest with me to chat to them about
all things type one. But today I'm going to be
talking about a few key things that have helped me
to personally increase my time and range.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Big topic.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I know this is much more practical than my normal
podcast episodes, but I'll explain the reasons why I feel
like this might be helpful, even if I'm not suggesting
in any way that anyone should do what I do
when it comes to living with type one diabetes. So
I've been living with type one diabetes for nearly thirty years,
(01:45):
which is a very long time, but I went through
about half of that time pretty unawares of what my
type one diabetes needed from me, beyond the basics of
testing my glucose levels through things pricks and taking my
insulin injections, which might sound quite wild in twenty to
(02:06):
twenty five, and beyond when we have cgms and we
have Instagram, and we have this wealth of diabetes information
available to us from all kinds of different sources. But
when I was diagnosed back in nineteen ninety six, that
just wasn't the case. So I went through quite a
substantial significant period of my type one diabetes life with
(02:30):
very much the basics and as I said, being pretty
unawares of what I really needed to do to take
care of my health in a more optimal way and
help my time in range as much as possible. Time
and range is something we all want, right as people
living with type one diabetes. We want to stay in range.
We want to feel good, we want to feel like
(02:50):
we're doing the thing and kind of able to go
out there and live and feel good. But I'm sure
you are aware if you are listening or watching this
that time arrange sometimes it's very elusive, it can be
very tricky to get hold of and certainly tricky to
keep hold of. So these are personal, lived experience things
(03:13):
that have helped me over the years to improve my
time in range. But obviously, and this is a big
but this is just my personal experience. I'm absolutely not
a medical professional. This isn't advice, this is an education
or instruction. It's absolutely just kind of how I've come
to be and live with my type one diabetes. And
(03:34):
I think for every person living with type one diabetes,
there is a unique way to live with it. So
just to be clear, you absolutely must speak to a
medical professional before you make any changes to your diabetes
management or healthcare. So way back when, probably about eighteen
years ago now, when I was fingerpricking and doing kind
(03:56):
of the basics, which is what I thought I needed
to do. I was doing what I'd always done, which
had been okay when I was a child and I
was first diagnosed, but certainly did not fit the body
that i'd grown into the lifestyle that i'd developed. You know,
we're talking about being at UNI, coming out of UNI,
trying to figure out who you are and where you're
(04:17):
at in the world, and it just wasn't a great time.
I've talked about that on previous podcast episodes, so I
will try and link some below if I think they
might help fill you in a bit for context. But
as I said, I just didn't know what I didn't know,
and I didn't know I needed to take greater responsibility
for my health. I didn't know there was so much
more that was in my control and actually my responsibility
(04:38):
to do in regards to my health, and that investing
and working with my type one diabetes was actually going
to improve my quality of life rather than take away
and distract me from the life or the type of
life I believed I wanted to live, but actually the
two kind of go hand in hand. But beyond all
of that, what I absolutely didn't know was that I
(05:00):
wasn't the only one feeling like this, and I wasn't
completely alone, and I really did feel that in relation
to my type one diabetes, that it was just me,
and yeah, I just don't want anyone else to feel
like that. So I want to chat through a few
of the things that once I did get to know,
they really did help improve my time and range. And
(05:23):
that is to say that it's all relative. I understand that,
but my glucose levels are infinitely better now on an
ongoing and a day to day basis, and that has
kind of compounded into creating quite a healthy quote unquote healthy.
You know, I still go out and enjoying myself, but
for the most part, quite a balanced and what I
perceived to be helpful lifestyle. When it comes to the
(05:47):
balance of living the life I want to live and
taking care of my health, it definitely takes time and
investment on my part, and that's ongoing. You know, the
work is never done when it comes to Type one diabetes,
but it's definitely got easier and as I've witnessed the
outcomes I've had in my time and range, but also
in other areas of my life, I would definitely say
it's been worth it. I'm also on a hybrid closed
(06:09):
loop insulin pump, which has made a world of difference
when it comes to my time in range, so I
think that's a significant factor. And if someone's on injections
for their own personal reasons or it suits them, I
don't want to undermine that. So I will say that
on an average, it is achievable for me to reach
(06:31):
around eighty percent time in range. Not every week and
not all the time, and I certainly have days that
are way way below that, but I also have days
that are above that. But I'm giving that as a
ballpark figure for where I'm at now. And as I
said back then, I actually had no idea, but I
know I used to run what I would consider to
be out of range because I think there were so
(06:53):
many unknowns going through a day to day. The main
thing I was trying to avoid was hypoglycemia because that
would interrupt my day. So with that, I think there
was a lot of time that I was way way
way above what I would consider to be in my
personal range now. And you know, I would just do
that fingerprick at lunchtime with really no idea of what
that glucose meter was about to say. You just wait
(07:16):
for that five second countdown and hope for the best,
and it could be anything from four to fourteen, you know,
and sometimes way above that. So yeah, that's kind of
the ballpark where I'm at at the moment. So things
that helped me improve my time and range as a
person living with Type one diabetes. So the first thing
is actually a precursor. I'm not counting it because I think,
(07:37):
as I speak to you in twenty twenty five, the
benefits of CGM are so clear, and certainly the availability
in the UK is such that it really is a
no brainer. A continuous glucose monitor as opposed to the
fingerpricks I was on before that I have kind of
referenced here. I would do a handful of finger pricks
(07:57):
a day, some days more than others, and I it
would just be a number like plucked out of nowhere. Essentially,
because as many people know listening to this, a CGM
will tell you where your glucose level is at. But
it also tells you where it's been, where it's heading,
and how fast it's heading there. And I think having
(08:17):
that information has been such a big piece of the
puzzle for me in terms of being able to take
action and make decisions based on that information to hopefully
negate some of those spikes or drops and improve my
time in range. But certainly, if you're in the UK,
you should be entitled to a CGM if you are
living with type one diabetes through the NHS, that is
(08:40):
my understanding. If that's not happening for you, then do
some research, do some digging, speak to other people online,
speak to healthcare professionals and find out what's going on there.
So my official number one is carbohydrate counting. It's not sexy,
but actually none of this is sexy. Typewe diaryetes just
is not sexy. It's very boring. But it's something that
(09:01):
I did not do for a very very very long time,
and to this date, I still have not been on
a carb counting course. Twenty nine years into my life
with type one diabetes. I kind of think I've missed
the boat there. But when I realized how key this
was or that it even existed, I went and found
a course online that's run by Bournemouth NHS trust, I believe,
(09:23):
and it was free at the time. I shall dig out.
It's called Bertie. It's an online version of the Daphne.
As far as I'm aware, if I'm saying words to
you that don't make any sense, DAPHNE is Dose Dose
Adjustments for Normal Eating, which is essentially a carb counting course.
And again I do believe that your healthcare professionals may
be able to recommend you. And for me, understanding the
(09:45):
grams of carbohydrates that I'm eating in relation to my
insulin doses alongside the CDM data has been incredibly, incredibly
key for me, and I went for so many years
without knowing about carb counting. It wasn't a thing when
I was diagnosed, and as I said, it just wasn't
introduced at any point down the line. I don't know
what happened, but here we are. Carbo hydrate counting may
(10:07):
sound really obvious to you if you're listening and you've
been diagnosed in recent years, but yeah, I'm putting it
out here because you know, sometimes we're guestimating. Sometimes we're
out and about and we can't.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Weigh our food. But I think the more more.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I've practiced with carbohydrate counting, the easier it has become
to also guestimate. And I've done a lot of traveling,
and a huge part of that traveling was eating out
and eating on the road and eating quickly and adapting
to foods that were available and around me without you know,
weighing scales or being able to measure.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Properly or look at the back of food packets.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
So that's my personal experience, and just in terms of
my practical experience. If I'm at home, I will weigh
out my carb hydrates. If I'm out about I will
work out the carbohydrate serving from the nutrition information on
the back of the packet. And in terms of racking
it all up, I use my fitness power as an
app to calculate my total carbohydrates for that meal or
(11:05):
for that snack or whatever it is, or to find
out the carbohydrate content in the first place. If, for example,
the nutrition information isn't available, I can select something from
my fitness power that might be similar. And as I said,
I've got a pretty good gauge on the size of
things and portion sizes. And I definitely was woefully underrested
(11:29):
in mating my carbohydrates before I came into carbohydrate counting.
Number two in terms of increasing my time and range
was pre bolissing and I am pretty on it when
it comes to pre bolissing now, but again something I
didn't know about for many, many years. In fact, it
was another member of the diabetes online community that mentioned
(11:52):
it as the single biggest thing their consultant had told
them that had helped them. And when I heard pre
bowlus that were for the first time, I had no
idea what it meant. I knew what a bowlus meant
by that point in terms of taking an insulin dose,
taking an insulin injection alongside the food I was eating,
but I had no idea what pre bolus meant. So
(12:13):
I do remember going away and googling it. So I
think I was about twenty four when I first heard
this word, and I was diagnosed with techno diabetes at
the age of eight. So if you think you don't
know anything or you're behind, like please let me reassure
you that you know there is a lot to learn
and it takes time and I still don't know everything.
(12:35):
Pre bolus was one of those that just got mentioned
in passing that my goodness, it changed the game.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So a pre.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
BOWLUS, as I understand it, is taking your insulin dose
a little ahead of when you are going to eat
your food. That you are taking that insulin dose four.
And what's happening there is that you take the insulin,
it's in your system and it has a bit of
a chance to start working so that by the time
you take your food in, your blood sugar doesn't spike,
(13:04):
or my blood sugar doesn't spike quite as steeply or dramatically,
and then I'm chasing that postmeal glucose spike less and less.
When I was on injections and I realized how much
pre bowlising was improving my post meal glucose spikes, I
would inject in the queue of the sandwich shop to
(13:25):
just give that novo rapid time to start working before
I would then sit down and eat the sandwich. I
just found little ways where I was taking my pre
BOWLUS even if I wasn't in the ideal scenario. But
again that's all personal preference. I think the recommended standard
pre bowlust time is around fifteen minutes, but caveat caveat
(13:47):
caveat the timing of a pre bowlus is for you
to speak to your care team about and get medical
advice on. But for me, pre bowls timings have been
different with different insulins that I used, so I needed
a lot longer to pre bowlus for the insulin to
kick in and start working on nova rapid than I
do now on FISP, which is why I actually switch
(14:09):
to FIAS because it gets to work a lot faster,
which suits my lifestyle better. But again, in the spirit
of sharing information, I didn't even know that there were
different types of insulin that could work at different speeds
and that there might be one more suitable to my
lifestyle than the one I was on. So yeah, that
has also changed. With my insulin pump and the different
(14:30):
type of insulin pump i'm on the pre bowlist, timing
has also changed there, so again that's something for you
to go and speak to your.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Care team about.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
But for me, pre bowlus has been a really significant
piece of avoiding those postmeal spikes as much as possible.
Certainly I don't necessarily stay in range, but when I prebolus,
I absolutely have a better chance of not spiking so
high after the meal and not having that afternoon, like
chasing the highs, trying to get that high glucost level down,
(14:58):
and you know what, that rollercoaster like, it just doesn't
feel great. So I'm trying to avoid that essentially as
much as possible, and prebollus is a big part of
what helps. Prebollusing can be tricky for me when I'm
out and about or if I'm at someone's house and
I don't know when the food is quite going to
be ready, and I don't want to ask because I
think it seems rude to be like, when's.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
The food coming?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So that's something I sometimes have to work around. And
I'm quite like aware in restaurants, like I'll look around
the other tables and see how fast the food might
be coming out, which does take me out of the
present moment and can be annoying, but I think, to me, again,
it's just something I've got used to being aware of.
And sometimes I will have a little bowlus like a
(15:42):
if I don't know how big the meal's going to be,
or I don't know what the carbohydrate content is, or
I don't know how big the portion is, I will
have a baseline minimum dose for around say fifteen or
twenty grams of carbohydrates and get that into my system
so that something is working away, and then when the
meal comes, I will try and calculate the dose that
I need to take the remaining dose on top of
(16:04):
what I've already taken. And for me, that has generally
worked quite well. But I think for a lot of
people they might be understandably concerned about taking insulin and
then crashing into a hypo. So again it's for everyone
to figure out their own unique way of handling this.
But on the whole, certainly, if I'm at home and
I'm cooking my own food, preballus is something I don't skip.
(16:29):
This episode of Type one on one is sponsored by Dexcom.
Using DEXCOMCGM has given me so much confidence to make
informed diabetes treatment decisions in the moment.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
You can choose to.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Wear it on your arm or your abdomen, which is
so great to give those sites a break, and all
dex commcgms have the share and follow feature even when
connected to an insulin pump, so family and friends can
see your glucose levels and get alerts, giving that extra
bit of support when needed. Head to Dexcom dot com
to request a free dexcomone one plus sample. Always read
(17:02):
the user manual for important product aspects and limitations. Talk
to your doctor for diabetes management terms and conditions, and
terms of use. Number three when it comes to things
that have helped me improve my time in range, is
trying not to overcorrect hypos. I was doing this for
a long time, and again I did not realize I
(17:22):
was doing it. I didn't realize that I am actually
pretty insulin resistant and I don't need that much sugar
to bring my blood sugars back into range. In general,
obviously it depends how much incident I've got on board
and whether I'm in the middle of exercise and things
like that. But it's again something I've had to just
(17:42):
work with my body to figure out, and for the
most part, I actually don't need much. But it's so
hard not to overcorrect a hypo, especially when you wake
up those horrible ones in the middle of the night
where your body has had to work so hard to
wake you up, all the alarms have been going off
and you're already pretty hypo dark. You're really discombobulated, disoriented, disorientated,
(18:05):
and you're sweating and shaking. This is my personal experience. Again,
but if you know, you know, I think the recommended
dose for a hypo is fifteen grams of carbohydrate fust
texting carb hydrate, and like none of that was a
thing when I was a kid, like these grams, these amounts.
So yeah, that was something that actually I didn't figure
(18:26):
out until I got CGM data because I could see
the spikes so dramatically going up and pinging up out
of range to the other side and going hyper post hypo.
So maybe this isn't something that everyone struggles with, but
it's something I have had to learn having lived with
type one diabetes in a different era, shall we say.
Another thing I've had to learn around correcting hypos is
(18:49):
trusting that that sugar that I have ingested is going
to kick in, it is going to work, and that
I just have to give it a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And again, that is so hard.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
When I'm sweating and shaking and I just don't want
to feel in that horrible high post state anymore, and
just sitting in it for a minute and waiting to
see the arrow turn on the CDM graph and then
I know I can kind of breathe and relax and
know that the glucose level is on the art, but
that is tricky. That is something I really do have
(19:20):
to consciously practice, which isn't easy when your brain doesn't
have enough oxygen because you are hypo.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So yeah, if that's you as well, I'm with you.
And if this.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
All sounds like a lot, I would say that, you know,
it's just until I've kind of gathered over the years,
fod dextro tablets is going to be too much glucose,
So next time I've tried just three and then gauge
it based on the situation, how low I am, how
much incidin I've got on board, And I'm just kind
of layering this information every time as I go, and
a lot of it it's just become quite intuitive. But
(19:52):
it's certainly something I have to be very conscious of
because hypos are so discombobulating. Everything can get thrown off
in terms of how I treat them and the patients
I have for them. Again, if you want to avoid
the long route into gathering that information, absolutely speak to
your healthcare team, your diabetes team, and they will probably
be able to give you some very very helpful tips
(20:14):
in terms of correcting hypos. So number four on the
list of things that have helped me personally improve my
time and range is avoiding eating super close to bed.
Now caveat definitely don't do this all the time. I
loves me a good meal, I loves me a restaurant meal,
and I love me a little snack pre bed snack
(20:35):
as well, So it's definitely not something that always happens.
But in general, on a day to day basis, when
there is no special occasion, I will try and eat
at least two to three hours before bed, and I
will try and make that meal unless, as I said,
it's a special occasion one that isn't super super high
(20:55):
carbohydrate and fat combined. And the reason for that is,
as I understand it, fat delays the release of the
glucose in that meal, so I can be very prone
to a delayed spike in my glucose level. And if
I've eaten very close to bed, that spike, that release
of glucose, once the food has been a bit more digested,
(21:18):
will be into the night when I'm fast asleep, and
that can set me on a course for very annoying
out of range overnight blood glucose levels, which I try
and avoid as much as possible because we are asleep
one third of our day, one third of our lives,
and with the help of hybrid closed loop now it's
actually viable for me to stay in range overnight, which
(21:41):
makes us a huge percentage of my time in range.
So if I'm just on a Monday to Friday routine basis,
I will try and eat buy around seven seven thirty pm,
so I know that I've got time to see how
my glucose levels go after eating that meal before I
(22:01):
want to go to sleep. And again in the spirit
of you don't know what you don't know, those high
fat carbon meals used to catch me out quite often
as a kid. We would always have a roast dinner
on a Sunday, classic British household, and quite frequently I
would drop into hypo after that dinner and then spike
in the night once the kind of meal had been digested.
(22:22):
Because of the high fat content of the meal and
the high carb content of the meal, I think it
was one of the biggest meals.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
We would eat in the week.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, I would wake up with a high glucose level
the next day. Similarly, when I was running around London
Town as I was for many years before I got
a CGM. I would, for example, go for pizza for dinner,
which was great, but I would go to sleep in range,
do a cursory fingerprick before bed, and I would wake up,
you know, with a blood glucose level of seventeen eighteen
(22:51):
the next morning. So now, if I was in that scenario,
I would do a split dose and have part of
my insulin with the meal and part of the insulin
two hours or so later. And if I'm awake, if
I don't eat too close to bed, I can kind
of oversee and manage that depending on how it's going
and what my glucose levels are doing, I can manage
(23:11):
the admin of that a lot better than if I
needed to go to sleep. But again that's something to
discuss with your care team. And I love this one
a lot more than just having time and range, because
if I get a good night's sleep with no alarms
and I am in range, it just sets me up
so much better for the next day in terms of
(23:33):
how I feel and also in terms of my blood
sugar stability. I think it's such a cruel irony that
we need extra sleep and extra arrest because our body
goes through so much every day as people with chronic illnesses,
but our sleep is so compromised because of that chronic illness.
So yeah, just trying to get myself in range overnight
(23:53):
as much as possible is really really something that I've
noticed has an absolutely massive improvement on my quality of life,
which really has come into its own since I started
on a hybrid closed loop insulin pump, because the insulin
pump is making those adjustments overnight to help keep me
in range. The last thing that I have experienced that
(24:14):
has increased my time in range is a pretty personal
one to me. I don't think everyone's gonna like it,
but thankfully, I'm just speaking from my lived experience and
this is what works for me, and that has been
to reduce the parameter of my.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
High glucose alert.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
So I brought it down so that the high glucose
alert on my CGM goes off at a lower number,
and that, for me, is information. So receiving that alert
does not stress me out. But that's also to do
with the way, well it does stress me out sometimes
I should correct myself there, because nobody loves to receive
(24:50):
a high glucose alert, I kind of I roll the
phone and I'm like, Okay, here we go again. But
it doesn't stress me out in the sense that I
view it as information. And it's also the way I've
got my CGM set up, so mine is on vibrate
and it vibrates to my watch first, and from there
I can dismiss it, so that I actually never hear
(25:13):
an alarm unless I'm asleep and I haven't dismissed that
first vibration on my watch. So sometimes a lot of
the time I won't take any action because I know
I need to let that spike ride out of its
own accord. But what I feel it gives me is
a heads up so that if I do need to
take action, I can do so while my blood sugar
is in the nine to ten millimles per liter range,
(25:35):
as opposed to getting that alarm when I'm twelve thirteen
knowing it's going to.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Climb even more.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
It sort of gives me a heads up maybe to
keep a bit more of an eye on it over
the next half an hour an hour. Again, I find
that helpful. I think it's super, super helpful that I've
been able to customize the way I get that alert
and get that information. If the alarms were just getting
louder and louder and repeating, then you know, maybe that
is something I wouldn't have adjusted quite so tightly. It
(26:04):
also depends on what I've got coming up over the
next few hours. If I get that high glucose alert
after lunch, it's usually not surprising. That's generally what happens.
It doesn't mean it's going to keep climbing, although sometimes
it does, which is why I like to have that information.
But if I know I've got an afternoon of work
ahead and then I'm going to the gym, I'm probably
not going to take action on that alarm. I'm just
(26:25):
gonna let it ride out. When I first got my CDM,
and I would ever see an arrow going up, the
inclination was to take action and take a correction dose,
and I learnt pretty quickly that that isn't always necessary
for me. But again, that comes with trying to understand
as best as possible how my body reacts and responds
to these different types of foods at different times of day.
(26:48):
None of this is easy, and I certainly don't have
it all figured out, but I think you know, for
me trying to adapt these little tweaks as much as possible,
and it doesn't always happen. And apply this information that
I've gathered over the years, it has more or less
made a positive impact on my health and my condition
(27:11):
and my relationship with my condition as well. So again
it all just comes back to this is what works
for me, and this is what I've figured out, you know.
And I'm aware that the type of life I live
gives me time autonomy. I'm freelance, I manage my own
work hours. I don't have dependence. You know, a lot
of my time is my own things like that that
allow me to invest a bit more time. But on
(27:32):
the flip side of that, I've kind of built my
life that way to enable me to do that. So
it's kind of two sides of the same coin, if
you like. But this is just all to say our
individual circumstances very wildly and what's possible for me may
not be possible for you. You may be doing things
that I'm not doing, And again it's just all us
(27:53):
uniquely trying to find our way with what is a
very complex, very challenging condition. So if no one's told
you to, you are doing a great job. So those
are the things I wanted to get into today. There
are others, but I think particularly when it comes to
something like exercise, you know, whether it's strength training or cardio,
that's actually a whole different episode in itself, so we'll
(28:16):
leave that one today. But these are the things that
I can think of that have made, you know, a
pretty significant impact on increasing my personal time and range.
I've been tracking through on this for twenty nine years now,
so I hope in any way in any world that
they've been in some way useful or helpful or interesting
(28:37):
for you. So if you have enjoyed this episode, I
would love to hear your thoughts. You can catch me
over on Instagram at miss gen Grieves, and I also
have a podcast specific Instagram page which is at Studio
type one on one that's at Studio Type one the
number on one the number.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
But I'll leave all the links in the.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Episode description so you can just give that a little
click and be taken straight to where you need to go.
But I do love to hear from you, so please
do come and say hi. I hope you've enjoyed this,
and I will speak to you very soon. I hope
you enjoyed this episode of Type one on one. Please
remember that nothing you hear on this podcast should be
(29:18):
taken as medical advice. I'm definitely not a healthcare professional.
If you like what you hear, hit subscribe and do
leave a little review on iTunes if.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
You have time.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It really helps to spread the word about type one diabetes,
and thank you so much for listening.
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