Latest / The Healthy Diabetic / #139: Living Confidently with Diabetes

Transcript

#139: Living Confidently with Diabetes · The Healthy Diabetic

• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Confidence is something that I believe that we all have a difficult time with sometimes When things aren't going the way we want or expect things to go, whether that's in our life or whether that's with diabetes.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Welcome back.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: This is episode number 139 of the Healthy Diabetic Podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, coach Ken Kines.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: If you're new to the show, i welcome you.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: If you are not new to the show and you've been here before listening, welcome back, as always.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Before we get started, please remember that nothing that you hear on this podcast should be considered medical advice or otherwise.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Please always consult your medical team before making any changes to diabetes management.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Just a couple housekeeping items before we jump in and get started.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: If you haven't had a chance to, please make sure that you go on to whatever platform that you're listening to this episode on and subscribe.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Subscribe one and two.
• 1:20
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• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I know an Apple podcast.
• 1:25
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• 1:26
  Speaker 1: It really helps to show guys you subscribe and leave five star reviews.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you for all of you who have been able to do that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: If you haven't, please do so Also.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I empower you to think of one person living with diabetes, or maybe it's someone in the diabetes community, a caregiver, someone that you believe can get a lot of value out of these conversations Today's conversation, previous conversations and I encourage you to share the show with them.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: On another note, if you kind of feel stuck or you feel like you need some guidance in navigating diabetes and this crazy world that we live in, you have a couple different options.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: The first is you can continue to listen to this podcast every single week, and I also encourage you to go listen to other diabetic podcasts, because there's a lot of really good podcasts out there that are talking about really cool things and really cool topics.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So be curious and keep trying to understand and figure out what works for you.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: The second thing that you can do is you can sign up for my brand new newsletter.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: The link to the newsletter and sign up for the newsletter is in the show notes, and the newsletter will be released every other week the day that the podcast comes out.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So every other week you'll get an email in your inbox that's going to have just a bunch of different type of diabetes tips, tricks, my thoughts, programs that I'm running, different things that are going to bring even more value to your week, your day, your month, your life.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So make sure that you are subscribing to that email list.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And the third thing that you can do is check out my new 10 week coaching program, more Than A1C.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It's an on-compassing program that's going to help you build the life that you want with diabetes by empowering you to focus on specific areas that you're really strong in and identifying the areas that we need to improve upon.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: It's been an absolute pleasure taking people through this program.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: If you're interested, please check the link out More Than A1C in the show notes.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Set up a discovery call and we can talk about what your strengths are, what you need to improve upon and build a real, unique management style for you.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, without further ado, let's get to today's topic.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, today I wanted to just take a moment and talk about confidence living with diabetes.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I had a really good conversation with my colleague and friend Type 1 Diabetic coach, matt Bannerveck from FTF Warrior on Tuesday.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: If you haven't had a chance to listen to our conversation, it was through IG Live.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: That video is up on IG and I bring that up because we talked about this very topic.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Confidence is something that I believe that we all have a difficult time with sometimes, especially when things aren't going the way we want or expect things to go, whether that's in our life or whether that's with diabetes.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to bring this up today.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: How do we exude confidence to the world?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: How do we exude confidence to ourselves?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: When you look in the mirror, can you say to yourself, like man, you're a damn good diabetic.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: You're a damn good diabetic.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: You do the right things, you have a good A1C compared to what you define as a good A1C, not what society or other people define as a good A1C, or not even what your doctor defines as a good A1C What you define as a good A1C.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's another important piece to bring up, because a lot of us get stuck on a specific A1C number and that defines our entire management style.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: That defines our entire confidence levels with living with diabetes.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: The very first thing we're going to talk about when we go into how we exude confidence, how we gain confidence, is that piece.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: How do we stop feeling stuck?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: If you have a problem, like me, of retaining things that you listen to or read, i want you to either grab your phone and write these questions.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I'm about to ask you down, or grab a piece of paper and a pen and write these questions down.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: If you're driving in your car, just listen and you can write them down later.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: The first thing that we have to do is ask ourselves specific questions.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: We ask ourselves these specific questions that are going to give us some insight on why we feel stuck.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: There's so many other questions that you can ask yourself, but here are some basic ones that I want you to ask yourself.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: The first one is is it because I don't trust myself?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I think trust is a huge thing in our society that we don't necessarily understand or can define in a really really deep way.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Trust Do you trust yourself with diabetes?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: If you're first diagnosed?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you probably don't, and I don't expect you to, because you're still learning, you're still crafting your management style.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The second question I want you to ask yourself is do you feel like there are too many variables?
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Again, if you're newly diagnosed, that's okay if this kind of pops up, because I'm sure it has.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I know it has for me multiple times throughout my journey, even when I came out of the three-year denial.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: The next one is are you scared to change your pump settings?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: This is a huge one, because if you're nervous about changing your pump settings and I'm going to go into depth about this specific one here in a second but if you are nervous about changing your pump settings or you don't know that you even have the ability to do that without your doctor's permission or insight or whatever, that is probably the first thing that I would have you kind of look into and dive into.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Do you have an effective strategy to deal with troubled blood sugars Highs, lows do you rage bolus when you're high?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Do you dive for the pantry and the juice boxes and the really good candy when you're low?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: These are two things rage bolusing when we're high to try to bring it back down, and going for anything and everything in the pantry when you're low.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: These are two things that can change your whole entire confidence level with diabetes.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Now that we've asked ourselves these questions and remember there's so many more questions that we could ask ourselves and you can add to this list, but these are the basic questions that I think are very relevant to diabetes and the questions that I ask myself and the questions that I ask the people that I talk to and I work with, because these four questions are going to give me a lot of insight on what could potentially be the issue with my confidence levels with diabetes.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: After we've identified all of this, after we've gone through, identified some trends, some issues that could explain why we don't necessarily have confidence with diabetes.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Now it comes down to one thing.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: One final question that I want you to ask yourself and be honest with this question Do you believe and I preface, but you believe, because this has nothing to do with what I believe, this has nothing to do with your doctor believes.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with what your parents believe or your friends, your spouse doesn't matter.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: This is what you believe.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Do you believe that you have a good, healthy relationship with diabetes?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: If you answered no to a lot of those questions or those questions that we just went over I asked you to think about, then the answer probably is no.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: But again, i'm not going to answer that for you.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: You have to be honest and answer that for yourself.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: If I would have been able to answer these questions for myself and answer this main question of do I feel like I have a healthy relationship with diabetes, if I could have answered this for myself during those three years at the beginning, when I was in denial, when I was depressed, i would have saved myself so much heartache because I would have understood that there was a problem and started to be able to come out of the denial, come out of the depression, start understanding that something needed to change, put myself in a position where I could change, start identifying the things that I needed to change and I needed to learn about.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: If you don't know that there's a problem, you can't change the result that you're getting.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Now, before I go into what I believe the solution is to some of these questions, i think that we have to identify some of these questions.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that you guys heard the questions back to back before I actually started talking about each one, but let's go back and define what I believe these questions really mean, so maybe you have some more clarity when you actually ask yourself these questions.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: The first one is it because you don't trust yourself?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: This one is pretty self explanatory, because if you don't trust yourself with diabetes, you'll know It will filter down to all the other questions.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It might be because you don't trust yourself because of all of the variables.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: You don't trust yourself because you don't have confidence in giving yourself insulin and changing up your ratios and having power over that, you might not trust yourself because you don't have effective strategies for highs and lows and how to prevent the diabetes roller coaster.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So many of us and I've done this so many times I've said to myself, yeah, i trust myself or yeah, i trust that individual, when in reality I'm lying to myself because I'm telling myself a story that I want to hear.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: We all want to hear that we're, we have a good relationship with diabetes.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: We all want to hear that we're really good diabetics that were compliant And I hate using that word, because all non-compliance, all non-compliancy means is that you're, you don't have the correct information in front of you, you don't know how to get it and you're not educated.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: That's all that means.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And if you're first, if you're newly diagnosed, you it's not like that you're non-compliant.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: So don't let anybody ever tell you that you're non-compliant.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Even if you're a type 2 diabetic, you're.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: It's not because you're non-compliant, you're uneducated and you don't have the knowledge needed to craft your own management style.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: So that was trust.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: That's how I define trust.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about variables.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: There's so many variables when it comes to diabetes is ridiculous, and there's like over 40 or something like that, i don't even know.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: There's so many variables.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Let me be the first one to tell you I don't pay attention to every single variable.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I only focus on the variables that affect me.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I only focus on the variables that I have seen trends with over time.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: These trends tell us everything.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And what do I mean by trends?
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I mean by trends looking at your CGM data, i look.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I mean by looking at trends with your medical team, looking at trends, if you're finger sticking, looking at trends on how you feel, because that's a big one.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: People don't understand or recognize the power of how they actually feel, and not just when you're high or low.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: But how do you actually feel when you have a real good study blood sugar and you're a young athlete and you're on the soccer field?
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: How do you feel in that moment compared to when you are low and compared to when you are high?
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And again, low and high have to be identified by you and no one else, because the doctors are going to say that an 80 is low or a 75 is low or a 70 is low.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you right now I don't feel bad at all at 75.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Not at all, and some people feel bad at 90.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So your lows have to be identified for you.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I don't feel anything when I'm high Not a single thing.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I was diagnosed at 450 and I only had the symptoms of excessive urination and thirst because I was so high.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: My body's trying to get rid of that sugar.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: So it's so important to make sure that you are identifying for yourself.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: And, yes, you can have your, you can have the community's opinion and you can have your medical team's opinion.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you have to define for what that is for yourself.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But don't lie to yourself, because this is the.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: That's the other thing.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Don't lie to yourself.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: If you want a low A1C, like me, i want an A1C that's under six.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: That's my goal Currently.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Right now, my A1C is 6.1.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So I'm doing pretty damn good, but it can be better.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I know there's things in my day that I could do better with.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I know what the trends are saying.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I can.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: On.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Some days when I trend high, it's because I make a bad food decision.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: So I've got that data in front of me.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Now it's up to me to make the decision.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Is that really important to me, and that's all you can do.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You can look at the data and then you can make a choice in a decision, but if you don't have any data, you can't make a choice of decision.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: So back to the variables.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: The variables are infantile, it's crazy.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So you have to make sure that you understand what the variables are from your own perspective of your own daily management.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And if you don't have a daily management style, if you're still trying to craft that, that's okay.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Look at your trends.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Make sure you have data, because then you'll be able to understand.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Do I need to look at 40, some different variables, or do I just need to look at 10, 15, maybe 20 variables That could potentially affect my blood sugar?
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: The variables that show themselves up every single day, those are the only things that matter.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: The other ones that happen once in a blue moon, those don't matter.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: It's important to understand what those are for when they do show up occasionally, but they're not part of your daily management style.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: You just have a strategy and a plan in place to actually deal with them when they show up.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get to this next one, because I think this next one is very important to understand how to define this or understand that we have the power to do this.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So, changing your pump settings and insulin intake What do I mean by this?
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Your pump settings you have the ability to change your pump settings, your basal rates, whatever it is.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: If you don't understand what basal rates when you're first diagnosed and maybe you're first diagnosed I hope if you've been diagnosed for a long time, you understand basal rates.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I really do hope you understand that.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: If you don't, you need to stop this video or this audio recording and go ask your medical team what basal rates are.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Send me an email and I'll have a long conversation with you about basal rates.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Basal rates are basically if you have a setting.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to use pumps as an example because it's a really easy example.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: So when you wear a pump, you have specific basal rate settings.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: How much insulin is being put into your body and as a drip.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: So it's not just like when you take four units, it's putting all four units in you right now.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: This is a drip.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It's a very little amount of insulin that's going in your body that allows your body to, or allows your blood sugars to be stable all the time.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So, as an example, if you didn't eat anything all day long, right, and you had insulin, your basal rates being pumped in throughout the whole day.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Hypothetically, your blood sugar should stay steady.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: It might increase or decrease a little bit by 510, maybe 15 milligrams per deciliter milligrams per deciliter if you're in the United States, and It should keep you steady.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Right, if you have a CGM and you see that steady arrow, that arrow that just goes horizontal, it should keep you there the whole day.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: That's when you know your basal rates are Correct.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And then, on the flip side, obviously you know that your basal rates are not correct If your blood sugar is fluctuating up and down, up and down and up and down, without food and Without putting any extra insulin in for corrections.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So that's basal rates and we have the ability to make changes to these rates.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, and the reason I say that is because why should you have to wait another four months to change your rates?
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Just because you, your next appointments and with your doctor or your endo or whoever it is, is in four months.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Why should you have to wait four months of constant lows or constant highs because your basal rates are not correct?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: That's, that shouldn't happen.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So you have the power to change that now.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: If you don't have the confidence to do that, that's okay, because the other great thing about working directly with our medical team and having access to our medical team is, through our my charts or whatever you use to communicate with your doctor.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you're with a doctor that's going to get back to you in, you know, 24 to 48 hours, because you can send a message to your doctor and say, hey, i'm seeing these trends on my CGM or I'm seeing these trends as I do finger sticks.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And every day at 3 pm When I go to practice, at 4, 3, 30, i'm going low And I think it's because my basal rates are too high at that time frame at the 2 o'clock the 2, 15, 2, 3, whatever That basal rate is set to and I think that we should decrease it.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: What do you think and How much should I decrease it?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: should I decrease it by point two?
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: should I decrease it by point five?
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and now you can have an actual conversation Instead of waiting another three to four months to get that answer.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: This is the power of communication.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Here's the other really cool thing that you can be doing with your basal rates is you can ask the community Because I guarantee other parents have been in that situation with their children, other athletes have been in that situation Before and how to change their basal rates and you can start understanding, okay.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Well, i just heard from five people that they Decreased their basal rate an hour or half hour, 45 minutes before practice, by point five.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Five people just told me that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna start there, and if you trend a little higher, you know that maybe that wasn't enough, right?
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: so Understanding that we are allowed to change our settings and change our basal rates is very powerful.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Here's the other part of this, because the question is are you scared to change your pump settings or insulin intake?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: So what is insulin intake mean?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: insulin intake means your insulin timing, and I'm gonna start with pre-bolus, because so many people don't do this correctly.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Pre-bolus is the number one thing that is going to save You from going high when you're eating food.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: If you're not pre-bolusing, you need to start pre-bolusing, which means that you need to one understand what the activation of your insulin that you're taking is.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: If it's homologue, novalog, whatever it is.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: When does that insulin start activating and working within your body and start lowering your blood sugar?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Most insulins are between 12 to 15 minutes of us.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: If it is a synthetic insulin, now that we've got this new inhalable insulin a Fresa, i believe that's how you pronounce a Fresa now that we have that and Other insulins like Limjev, they work a little bit faster.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So you have to understand that piece for pre-bolus When is your insulin going to start actually working?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Because that's the start of your pre-bolus, right?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So if it's 12 to 15 minutes, the start of my pre-bolus for something that's, you know, pretty Glycine, pretty high on the glycemic index, a piece of fruit, some potatoes, a Burger, whatever it is, pizza for sure, pizza, right, that's the first step.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to wait 12 to 15 minutes, no matter what, probably, because the other variable to this is what is your blood sugar actually right now, if you have a blood sugar of 200, you're gonna have to do probably have to do a correction with your pre-bolus and If you're doing it the right way I would say it's again my personal opinion You probably need to bring that blood sugar down before you actually start eating, right?
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: So if you're 200 and you need to bring yourself back down, man, that's, that's a.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: That's gonna be a challenge, because one you have to pre-bolus for the food that you're eating, but two, you want to bring that thing down, so you're not trying to overcome a high at the same time try to overcome a spike.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: So these are things that you have to really think about, right, and when we talk about pre-bolus, it's super, super important to make sure that you're doing that.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: That's the first thing on insulin intake and insulin timing.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: So when are you actually taking your insulin?
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: The next thing is do you have to split up insulin and I say this because it really works for me with pizza, because I don't like taking a lot of insulin at one time I, when I'm eating something like pizza that is going to take a lot of insulin to to One, not allow me to spike, but two, if it does spike, bring me back down, right.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: So if I'm eating I'm just going to use it as an example throughout numbers I'm eating a medium pizza.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Hypothetically, most of the time I'm good with 120 to I don't know 140 grams, because we're talking about the actual pizza, the, the breading, and then we're also talking about whatever toppings I have on that and I love to have.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I eat pepperoni pizzas, right?
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: so you got your cheese and you got some protein in there along with the carbs.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: The carbs are going to hit you first, and then the protein, and then the fat Is going to hit you a lot longer later.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So I need to one, have a good pre-bolus, and I'm going to preface this that my pre-bols sometimes changes every single time, right?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: so this is the other thing that you have to understand.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: It's not just a blanketed pre-bols of 15 minutes, which is what a lot of the medical professionals tell us.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: It's not just a 15 minute pre-bols.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It could be different all the time, and it's also different based off of what your blood sugar is currently at this moment.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: So, insulin, splitting up your insulin, right?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: so when I eat pizza, because I'm taking, i need to take so much I'm gonna I take half.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I'll take half of it now With my pre-bolus and I wait an hour just and I look at my CGM trends an Hour.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I wait an hour because I don't want to wait to, because that too I'll really start hitting up the peak of that insulin, and I don't want to wait two hours and take the rest of it.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And now I'm almost probably I'm probably gonna be closer to a Half hour, maybe 45 minutes, maybe even hour away from that, really, that That second half really peaking, right?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: so I'll wait an hour see what's going on and then I'll take the second half And then we preface this.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: That's only if I am not doing a bunch of other things, right?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: if you're a young athlete and you're at a party and You are eating pizza or ice cream or cake Or you're a young young person, it doesn't matter, like if you're doing other things, maybe you just need to take all of it at one time.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: But make sure that whoever either yourself or whoever is in charge of your management is Paying attention to the trends on the CGM.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: If you're not wearing a CGM, you better be testing every 30 to 45 minutes, and Maybe it could be 45 to 60.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: You just have to like play around with that, but that is an important piece to understand and real quick.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: The last thing I want to touch on with these four questions Is this idea of understanding how to eliminate highs and lows and and maybe eliminate is not the right term for that, because you're gonna have highs and lows I think the better term for this is to combat highs and lows.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: What do you do when you are low?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: When do you do when you're high, because we can't get into a space where we're rage-bullying.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Because we're high, we're stacking insulin because we're our sugar levels keep rising and rising, rising, we don't know why.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: We don't want to rage-bullies, because that can, that can a hundred percent lead to Hypoglycemia coming all the way back down and it's just continuing to come back down.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: On the flip side, when we're low, we don't want to just go into what I like to call Low hunger or low craving cravings.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Right, and also Just a breath of this, because I used to do this when I was first diagnosed.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Just because you were low and you need to bring yourself back up doesn't mean that that is a ticket to eat shitty food.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: And I say that because I used to do that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I used to be that diabetic.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I used to go low either either on purpose or on accident and And I was giving myself permission to eat a bunch of candy or be eat a bunch of food that it was not very good for me And it was actually going to create problems later, because at the time I wasn't.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, if I eat this whole Hand full of Skittles and I'm only and I'm low and I'm actually not even really covering for the Skittles.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to combat this low.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be on a roller coaster the whole entire day, right?
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So what I think about with lows is this thought process of plan a and plan b, and if you heard me talk before, you've heard this before.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Plan a is what is the healthiest thing that I can consume For my overall health, because I'm a health coach.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: For my overall health, what is the, what is the best thing that I can consume, that I enjoy, that I like That?
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I know that is going to bring me up fast.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: What is that product or what is that food or what is that Liquid?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and then, on the flip side, it is oh my god, this thing's at 45.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It's at 40.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It's at 50.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I'm having the shakes.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm gonna pass out.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I need to be safe and I'm just gonna eat whatever I can to bring this thing back up and Those situations.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: It's crucial to make sure that we're not overeating, because now we can definitely be on that diabetes roller coaster and I know that that's really hard for a lot of people.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: It's really hard for me sometimes, but it's something that we just have to continue to try to build a strategy and be aware of if, at the end of the day, if you eat too much when you're that low, it's better to be safe than sorry.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Right, it's better to come up to 150, 160, maybe 200, ride the roller coaster for another couple hours And come back down and be okay, then have to pass out, have to go to the ER or whatever it is.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: So those are my two strategies with lows, and This is an important thing for me because if I can answer all these four questions And I know and I trust that all four of these questions I'm doing pretty well at And I've got a good strategy for each of them My whole diabetes management style is taking shape.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I can start really diving into how I'm going to live the life that I want with diabetes.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've talked about, maybe, the reasons why we feel stuck as diabetics And we've talked about some questions that we can ask ourselves to kind of try to identify or get to the root of the problem.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Now, once we've gotten to the root of the problem, once we've identified some things that are holding us back in terms of mental, physical things that we do in our diabetes, how the heck do we build the confidence that we need to live the life that we want to live with diabetes?
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of things that I think about when I think about this concept of confidence, and the first thing is, when I am feeling down, for whatever reason, i always the number one thing I do is I look to our community, because our diabetes community is.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: It's just incredible the responses that I can get on the positive, on the negative, whatever it is.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable the responses that I can get.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I can ask a question and within five, maybe even 10 minutes at the max, and maybe even shorter than five minutes, i'm gonna get a response in Facebook groups that I'm in, on Facebook in general, on Instagram, maybe even on TikTok, whatever platform that you're on outside I haven't tried it actually on LinkedIn, but whatever platform that you're on, if you're kind of feeling down or if you need a confidence booster or if you have a question about diabetes, lean into our community, because we're all here for each other and it is an incredible community.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: That's the first thing, and the more for me, the more I lean into the community, the more I ask questions about of other people, of other coaches, more conversations that I have with people on this podcast, i continue to build the confidence that I am an expert in our field and expert with diabetes, because I figured out what works for me.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And being able to figure out what works for me allows me to have the confidence to continue to come on and talk to you guys every single week, to continue to try to push my message of figuring out what works for you, to continue to push my message of wanting to be here for people that are first diagnosed, because we're so lost and scared and alone.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: That is how I build my confidence.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: The number one thing I always try to do every single day is look to see what you guys are all saying.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Look to see what you guys are all talking about, because it builds my confidence in being able to be in this coaching space.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: So I thank all of you for that.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: The next thing I would say to build confidence with diabetes is build a circle of influence, whatever that is.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And part of your circle of influence because it is for me is the community could be the community, but it needs to go deeper than that And it can't just be parents and family and friends, because they'll always have your back emotionally but they don't know what it feels like, and to go through the grind of diabetes every single day.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: You need your family, your mental or your mental, your medical team and your friends that are close to you in your circle of influence.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: But you also need individuals that live with diabetes or are caregivers of diabetes, right?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: So if you're a parent of a young you know diabetic under 10, under eight, under five, a young diabetic that really isn't in a maturity place to be able to take this management, take their management on 100% on their own, and you're basically the person that's watching them every single day and telling them how much insulin to take and making sure they're doing the right things, but you feel stuck in your struggling.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Reach out to and find some people, some other parents, to be in your circle of influence.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I think the circle of influence is so powerful and it's predominantly probably the first line of defense we use in terms of me being able to grasp and understanding and reach out to someone for emotional support.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: If I have a question about diabetes, i'm 100% going to the diabetes community as a whole because I know I can get an answer right now And I might not get a real quick answer from at least from my circle of influence, because a lot of people in my circle of influence are other professionals, other coaches that have their own lives, have kids, their parents themselves, so they might not be able to get back to me right away, but I know if I have a question I can right now get an answer if I'm going to the community.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So I think this is the next piece that you help build your confidence, because when you talk to someone, especially someone you really respect, it can help you build confidence.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: They can guide you and tell you and talk to you in ways that maybe the community can't, maybe your medical staff can't, maybe your parents can't.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: They can talk to you in a way that other people can't because they live with it every single day.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And the third thing that I think that helps build confidence is by celebrating small wins.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: We spend so much time I know I do this all the time.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I do this all the time I celebrate the big things.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I celebrate my hard work for 90 days when my A1C goes from 6.7 to 6.1.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I look at the data and I celebrate the large wins.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I don't celebrate the small wins.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Just the other day I looked at my CGM data and on my Clarity app it told me that I was 84% in range for the last 48 hours And I would just do my thing for 48 hours.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I just would do my thing, wasn't even really paying attention, and I found myself not celebrating that win.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: That's a big win 84% in range When my range is 80 to 150, that's a big win And I should have celebrated it more than I did.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I celebrated it for a second and then I moved on.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's all it takes for you And maybe that's all it really takes for me.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: But celebrating small wins is an important piece that can help build your confidence, because the more you bring attention to these small wins that you have, the more confidence that you will get with what you are actually doing in your management style and how it's evolving and growing.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: And then the next one is all about the words and the stories that you tell yourself.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: If you've been listening to this show for a long time, i'm a big component of this, because I did not do this for a long, long time.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Throughout my entire life, i always told myself negative stories and then grasped and hung on to those stories for dear life, when other people were telling me that that wasn't rooted in reality, that the negative stories that I was telling myself and grasping to wasn't reality And they had specific evidence, specific things that I did that you know denied that reality that I was telling myself.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: So I think the words that you tell yourself with diabetes can carry a lot of weight on lowering your confidence of living with diabetes.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Right, if you have two good days and three bad days, if you're telling yourself that you're a bad diabetic, you're going to feel and act like a bad diabetic.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: And just to preface this, there are no bad diabetics.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Again, it's because of a lack of knowledge and a lack of education, And I'm hoping that this is what this podcast is helping you with.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: But this is a really important piece for me because I have seen it work time and time again with clients that I've worked with not just diabetic clients but also personal training and athletes that I've worked with that don't have diabetes.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I've seen it work in myself And I've seen it work with people with diabetes that I've worked with that continuing to be aware of the words that you are saying to yourself can carry so much negative weight or so much positive weight on your confidence levels.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: The next thing I want to leave you with is going back to this, highs and lows, because I think this is important When I asked you the question earlier do you have an effective strategy to deal, combat highs or lows?
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and if you do not, we need to focus on building that strategy because that can provide a lot of confidence.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: When I think about diabetes and I think about my own management style, or even if I think about my management style when I was in denial, depressed and didn't have a management style, i was.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't know how to deal with a high and low.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: So in those instances like I'm riding the roller coaster all the time, all the time because I don't have an effective way or thought process to combat those situations, and it's not going to be the same every time and I know you've heard me talk about that it's not going to be the same every single time.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: So it's important to have a plan A, plan B, say, plan C, plan D, heck, every single letter of the alphabetic maybe, like if you're, if you're a really diligent person like that me, i have done really well off of plan A, plan B.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: So if you don't have an effective strategy for dealing with highs and lows right now.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I implore you to start thinking about how you would want to deal with highs and lows, because this can provide you so much confidence.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: By understanding how to deal with highs and lows can provide you so much confidence, so you're not riding the roller coaster for so long, and it will also give you tons of confidence because you will dramatically reduce the times that you even get on the roller coaster.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: So please make sure that you are understanding that and that you start crafting or drafting out and if in these scenarios from your data like hey, i'm an athlete and every time I go to practice at three o'clock I go low, well that's a strategy that we have or that's a.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: That's a data point that we have to figure out because we don't want to keep going low.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: So understanding the data points from your CGM, understanding the data points of your life, is very, very important.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: And the last one that I'm going to leave you with, the last example of how to build confidence with diabetes, is to be aware of your body signals.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Listen to your body.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: If you're a young athlete and you are you know we're going in the summer and you've just come out of practice and you're getting ready to go to another activity, or you're getting ready to go and lift.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe go do strength training.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: My swimmers do that a lot.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: They'll go to practice in the morning, then they'll come to me and then maybe they might have a second practice in the evening which is crazy thought or some of my, some of my high school kids, they'll have practice in the morning, they'll come lift with me and then they have to go to work.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I mean three crazy, taxing things.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, kids don't sleep at night, so that adds a whole, another component to to the equation.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: So make sure that we're understanding and listening to our body.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Are we hungry?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: are we thirsty?
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the great thing about thirst, the great signal about thirst, is if you are hydrated, you're going to know, because you probably are peeing every 45 to 60 minutes, maybe even sooner than that.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: That's one of the downfalls of being really, really hydrated.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: And if you were again, if you're an athlete and going back to competition, you need to be hydrated, especially as a diabetic going into competition, it, i'm telling you, you will feel a thousand times better than if you are not hydrated, regardless, if you cramp up during competition, you will feel a thousand times better.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: So, hydration is important, hunger is important, sleep is important, your mental fortitude is important.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: All these components are important when you are listening to your body's signals.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: All right, so we talked about a lot of things in this episode.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: We talked a lot about, maybe, the why or the reason behind you not feeling confident with diabetes.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I gave you a bunch of examples of ways that you can build your confidence with diabetes by building strategies, continue to answering, answering different questions, celebrating different things like wins, small wins.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Now, the last piece to this is to put all this together, right, because it's not.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's enough to ask myself all these questions, to come up and say, okay, well, in this situation, now I'm gonna lean on the community, where I'm gonna lean on my circle of influence, and then I'm gonna celebrate small wins and I'm just like, randomly using these examples.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I have to build some type of strategy that's going to help me with all of these examples, right, and that is building a management style.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: When you're able to build your own management style, everything can change.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And as you build that management style because you can't just, you're not just gonna snap your fingers and it's built.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: It's gonna take some trial and error and when you are able to build it, everything will change.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Your whole perspective on diabetes will change.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: And guess what?
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: if you go into the show notes, there's this link that's called the free five pillars of diabetes success giveaway.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: It is a PDF of my five pillars the five pillars that I coach people on, the five pillars that I use myself to craft a management style.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: My apologies if that seems salesy, but it's a free link and it's gonna start.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: It'll give you some examples of my management style.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Give you examples of how I coach people and help you start creating your own management style.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I hope all of this has been enlightening.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I hope that you've made it through the whole entire episode.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: It's we're going on almost 40 some minutes.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I don't typically talk this long when I'm by myself, but this stuff's important to me because I struggled with all of this stuff when I first diagnosed and it's taken me a long time to get to this point, mentally and physically, where I'm on top of it.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I'm on top of diabetes.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I can.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I can deal with diabetes.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I can live with diabetes my eyes closed.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: So as we close, i just want to leave you with that and say one more thing figure out what works for you.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: That is your only job, our only job with, as diabetics, the thing that is going to make us or break us is if we figure out what can work for us.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And again, it's always going to change depending on if you are eight years old, 12 years old, 20 years old, 30 years old or 60 years old.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: These men, this management style, what goes into your five pillars?
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: well, well, excuse me, we'll always change, but it's up to us to continue to evolve and build upon our five pillars and build upon, build upon this idea of figuring out what works for us.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Because once you do that, oh my gosh, everybody, and if you've been, if you there, if you know what works for you, it is, it's incredible.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: It's incredible because diabetes doesn't feel challenging anymore, it doesn't feel like a chore.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I don't feel alone.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I don't feel scared of the future.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I don't scare.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not scared of anything, except for maybe, my kids being diabetic, but that's a whole nother issue.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Everything changes when you build a strategy.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I hope all of this has been helpful.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I'll see everyone next time.