Diabetics Doing Things Podcast

By Diabetics Doing Things

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per episode

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Diabetics Doing Things Podcast episodes

July 01 Episode 359 - Dexcom CEO on G8, Stolen Sensors, and the Truth from their New Advisory Council
Rob was at ADA 2026 in spirit — armed with press access and a list of
questions unrelated to the usual conference talking points. His first guest
from that coverage is Jake Leach, Dexcom's new CEO, who took over the role
on January 1st after 22 years at the company. This is Jake's first time on
Diabetics Doing Things as CEO. It sounds like two people having a real
conversation about what it means to lead a company that millions of people
with diabetes depend on every single day.
They get into the research that came out of this year's scientific sessions
— specifically, the CONNECT trial, a global randomized controlled study
that examined what happens when people with type 2 diabetes who aren't
using insulin start using the Dexcom G7. The numbers are striking: an
average 1.6% reduction in HbA1C, 5 additional hours per day in range, and
97% sensor utilization over 6 months. That last number might be the most
telling — it answers the question the diabetes world has been asking for
years about whether people without hypoglycemia risk would actually wear a
CGM consistently. Turns out, they will.
Rob also pushes the conversation into territory that most executive
interviews don't touch. When Dexcom products intended for destruction were
stolen and resold to patients, Jake had to go from leading conference
sessions to serving as something closer to a chief detective. His candid
answer about feeling genuinely betrayed — and how the newly launched
Customer Advisory Council became an unexpected asset in getting the word
out — is one of the more honest moments you'll hear from a medical device
CEO. The council itself, publicly announced and facilitated externally to
get truly unfiltered feedback, is something Jake stood up as one of his
first acts as CEO.
They close on the bigger picture: G8 on the horizon (half the size of G7,
with adaptive sensor technology that auto-corrects signal drift), the
Nutrisense acquisition adding nutrition coaching to the platform, and where
Jake sees Dexcom going as it scales toward serving hundreds of millions of
people globally. If you've ever wondered what the person at the top of your
CGM company is actually thinking about, this episode gives you a pretty
clear answer.
Chapters:
00:00 Rob sets up ADA 2026 remote coverage
01:46 Welcoming Dexcom CEO Jake Leach back
02:30 First 90 days: Jake's three CEO priorities
04:39 The Customer Advisory Council goes public
06:47 What the council revealed about communication gaps
08:44 Stolen sensors: Jake's personal reaction
10:39 How the council helped contain the crisis
11:20 CONNECT trial: CGM for non-insulin type 2 users
15:16 97% adherence and five more hours in range daily
16:16 G8 preview: smaller, smarter, adaptive sensing
16:44 Acquiring Nutrisense and redesigning the app experience
19:52 Optimizing beyond insulin: smart bolus and GLP-1s
21:13 Why CGM and GLP-1s are surprisingly powerful together
22:27 Jake's long-term vision for Dexcom's global impact
24:14 Transparency as the foundation of high-performance culture
Resources:
* Dexcom — dexcom.com | Follow Jake and the team for updates on G8,
Stello, and the Customer Advisory Council findings
* CONNECT Trial — The full study results from ADA 2026 Scientific
Sessions.
25 min
June 17 Episode 358 - Travel, Diabetes, and Disrupting What You Think You Know with Dylan Leonard
When mutual friends in the diabetes community kept telling Rob he had a
doppelganger in LA, he figured they were exaggerating. Then he met Dylan
Leonard — creative director, documentary filmmaker, college basketball
player, type one diabetic, philosophy reader, world traveler — and yeah,
the comparisons held up pretty well.
Dylan was diagnosed at 15, having dropped 45 pounds before anyone realized
something was wrong. He went from a hospital bed thinking he'd never eat
sugar again to playing college basketball while managing T1D without a CGM,
without a pump, and without knowing a single other person with diabetes for
his first decade. What carried him through was activity — six hours of
workouts a day during basketball season — and a mindset he's been
intentionally building ever since through reading, travel, and genuinely
hard conversations with himself.
This episode goes wide. Rob and Dylan dig into Dylan's upcoming documentary
Breaking Limits: Life on the Edge, which follows elite athletes with type
one diabetes across seven different sports — from Olympic competitors to
IndyCar drivers to American Ninja Warriors. Dylan invested his own money
and thousands of hours into this project, not to make a cent, but to hand a
15-year-old sitting in a hospital bed the resource he never had. They also
get into the philosophy of travel as the cheapest education on earth, why
our brains literally haven't caught up to the abundance of modern life, the
difference between manifesting and obsessing, and what a five-hour train
conversation with a Norwegian stranger taught Dylan about human connection.
Oh, and they're making plans to run a hoop session next time Rob's in LA.
Cameras included.
Chapters:
00:00 Rob's T1D doppelganger, meet Dylan
01:49 Dylan introduces himself: creative, hooper, T1D
02:39 Dylan's diagnosis story: 45 lbs lost at 15
04:36 First pickup game post-diagnosis, flying blind
06:26 How activity literally saved his diabetes management
07:28 Life after college ball: blood sugars out of whack
09:12 Morning routine: walk, no phone, delayed caffeine
10:34 Civilized to Death and the myth of progress
14:48 Our brains weren't built for this level of abundance
17:21 Phones, phones everywhere — even for T1D management
19:45 Abundance mindset, FOMO, and the creative career trap
21:01 Why athletes list it: delayed gratification is a superpower
24:20 Self-help books, repetition, and finding what actually works2
7:48 Manifestation is obsession with action behind it
29:15 Compounding growth: who were we six years ago?
33:14 Breaking Limits documentary: T1D athletes across seven sports
38:59 Nine months of travel: Vietnam, Norway, Australia, Mexico
40:00 "The cheapest education on earth is a one-way flight"
44:44 Japan and what loneliness taught him about human connection
Resources:
* Dylan Leonard on Instagram
* Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan — the book Dylan cites on the
myth of perpetual progress and why foraging societies may have been
happier than ours
* The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn —
Dylan's twice-a-year read, ~95 pages, written 100 years ago, still
hitting
* Risley Health / Rising Above T1D — where Dylan has previously
appeared on podcast and debuted early cuts of Breaking Limits (link
to Riseley Health podcast)
47 min
June 10 Episode 357 - Racing at 150 MPH with Type 1 Diabetes: Tyler Cooke's Life in the Fast Lane
Tyler Cook is a professional GT3 racing driver who has competed in some of
the most grueling endurance races on the planet, the 24 Hours of Spa, the
24 Hours of Nürburgring, IMSA, and GT World Challenge Europe. He's also
been living with type 1 diabetes since he was 11 years old. This episode
gets into what it actually looks like to manage blood sugar in a fire suit,
in a 130-degree cockpit, at 150 miles per hour, sometimes at 3 a.m.
Tyler takes us back to his diagnosis in 2006 — an ICU stay, four IVs, and a
very specific grief over the chocolate mousse at Epcot's France
pavilion. From there, he walks us through the journey from go-karts in his
dad's garage to GT3 race cars with 650 horsepower. Along the way, there was
bullying in middle school over his diet, sneaking to the bathroom to give
injections on dates, and a decision somewhere along the line to stop hiding
his diabetes and start owning it.
We get into the technical side, too: how OmniPod changed his race
management strategy, why adrenaline sends his blood sugar climbing instead
of crashing, what a 24-hour-race insulin plan actually looks like, and what
it means to have a Gatorade button wired into your cockpit as an emergency
low-blood-sugar protocol. Tyler also talks about the physical training side
of racing — heart rate zone work, neck day (yes, neck day), and why a GT3
driver can be pressing 1,200 pounds of brake force per pedal.
The episode wraps with something that's been sitting with both Rob and
Tyler: the idea of trusting the process. For Tyler, the lesson comes
through racing — you can't skip steps from spec Miata to GT3. For people
with T1D, it's the same. Wherever you are in your management journey,
that's where you are — and it's going to get better if you just keep going.
Chapters:
00:00 Climbing out of a race car at 2 a.m.
00:51 Introducing Tyler Cook, GT3 driver with T1D
01:52 Diagnosis at 11: ICU, four IVs, and Epcot chocolate mousse
04:16 Go-karts at three, racing in the family DNA
06:20 Racing pre-CGM: going off vibes and feeling lows
07:29 Bullied for his diet in middle school
09:53 Dating with diabetes and deciding to stop hiding it
12:29 Going public: from fear of losing opportunities to advocacy
13:35 A potential cure and why staying healthy now matters
17:19 What GT3 racing actually is — and why you should go watch it
23:02 The Gatorade button: CGM and cockpit glucose management
24:28 130-degree cockpits, adrenaline spikes, and pre-race hydration
25:39 WHOOP strain scores: practice vs. race stint
28:37 Training for the car: heart rate zones, neck day, 1,200-lb brakes
36:45 What Tyler would tell 11-year-old himself: trust the process
Resources:
* Tyler Cooke Instagram
* Breakthrough T1D
* Conor Daly (T1D IndyCar driver Tyler mentioned)
40 min
June 04 Episode 356 - Six Marathons in Two Years: Steven Cannady on T1D, Race Prep, and Living Big
Steven Cannady was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on December 21, 2004,
during Christmas break, in eighth grade, after eating a family-size box of
Fruit Loops and spending hours on the kitchen floor before his mom got home
from work. Rob was diagnosed one week later on New Year's Day 2005. Neither
of them knew this until they were halfway through this conversation.
Twenty-one years later, they're both living actively with T1D and talking
openly about it, and it shows.
Steven has run six marathons in roughly two years, starting with the New
York City Marathon in 2024 as part of the Beyond Type 1 team. He just
earned a spot on Team Abbott for the Sydney Marathon, a seriously
competitive field. But the race that meant the most wasn't the fastest one
— it was the Raleigh-Durham marathon earlier this year, where he ran slowly
through the streets of the city that raised him, stopped to talk to friends
at mile markers, and decided that running doesn't always have to be about
the clock.
This episode gets into the nuts and bolts of marathon prep with T1D — carb
loading with Maurten, skipping insulin entirely on race day, why Steven
would rather run high than risk going low at mile 20, and how 77%
time-in-range can be genuinely excellent management. He also gets into how
a doctor scared him straight during his second DKA in 11th grade, why he
doesn't drink Diet Coke and won't pretend otherwise, and how a single
conversation shifted how he thinks about living with diabetes versus
managing around it.
Steven is MDI — no pump — and runs with fruit snacks in his pocket. He's
not interested in letting diabetes set the terms of his life. This one's
worth a full listen.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction — who is Steven Cannady?
01:17 Duke fan crashes Carolina basketball camp
02:14 Eighth grade, Christmas break, DKA diagnosis
04:05 First weeks with T1D — family holds him down
05:42 Rob and Steven were diagnosed one week apart
06:35 Going back to school and the Seattle trip prank
08:58 Going public with diabetes — why Steven started sharing
10:45 Six marathons in two years — how it started
11:42 Running as therapy and running through Durham
15:08 Running is more mental than physical
16:56 Race prep breakdown: 3 miles vs. 10 miles vs. marathon
19:12 Carb loading, Maurten, MDI, and skipping insulin on race day
22:32 Diabetes in the background — not the only conversation
24:23 Diet Coke, cookies, and the food police
25:40 Learning to run while high — reframing the numbers
28:59 Duke Camp, honeymoon phase, and bringing diabetes along for the ride
31:33 Wrapping up — Diabetes Legends camps and Team Abbott
Resources:
Steven Cannady Instagram
Maurten Gel Packs
33 min
May 20 Episode 355 - Hydration, Sleep, and a Possible T1D Cure with Neil Greathouse
Rob and Neil have been doing this a long time, long enough to get bored
with the safe version of things. This conversation started as a Friday-at-5
PM debrief between two guys who've spent years making diabetes content, and
it ended up going somewhere worth sharing.
They talk about the trap of waiting until you've "figured it out" before
helping anyone and why being in the middle of something is actually more
useful than standing on the other side of it. Neil makes the case that
saying "I'm proud of you" to someone still in the fight might be the most
underrated thing a diabetes creator can do. Rob shares what hydration,
sleep consistency, and the Steph Curry shooter's mentality have to do with
managing blood sugars. Both of them are honest about the fact that none of
this is ever really mastered.
There's also a surprisingly vulnerable cure conversation. Neil opens up
about what happened when he recorded a podcast episode with Katie Beth, one
of the 10 participants in the Eladon trial who are now insulin independent
and why it wrecked him in a way he didn't expect. Neither Rob nor Neil is
putting all their chips on a timeline, but something has shifted: for the
first time in 34 years, Neil feels like the house needs to be in order.
They also get into the business side of being a diabetes creator, the AI
spam in the inbox, the economics of running a mission-driven podcast, why
both of them have turned down deals they could have taken, and why the
audience is just too small to make the math work unless you actually care
about the people in it. It's candid, it's funny, and it's the kind of
conversation that only happens when two people have been in the same weird
niche long enough to just say the thing.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: Why this episode exists and who Neil is
02:04 Friday at 5 PM and the Tim Ferriss random episode format
03:42 Why there aren't enough guys doing diabetes content
05:21 The mastery trap: waiting until you've figured it out
07:02 The CDC educator who Good Will Hunting'd Neil on camera
09:24 "I'm proud of you" — the most underrated thing to say
13:50 Hydration, diet soda, and what Rob's mom figured out by 65
19:45 Neil is running the NYC Marathon again (breaking news)
20:13 Sleep consistency vs. sleep duration — the stat that'll surprise you
25:41 James Clear, LeBron, and the cost of keeping options open
28:43 400+ episodes and what consistency actually looks like
33:11 The Eladon trial, Katie Beth, and why Neil finally felt hope
38:20 Steve Jobs, saying no, and the current era of tech
44:36 Glow Glucose Gummies and how Neil thinks about brand deals
49:17 The real economics of running a diabetes-focused business
Resources:
Neil Greathouse Instagram
Your Best T1D Year Website
58 min
May 14 Episode 354 - This Doctor Gets It: Burnout, Bureaucracy, & Better Diabetes Care, Dr. Gregory Dodell
Rob sits down with Dr. Gregory Dodell, an endocrinologist from New York
City and one of the more honest voices in the diabetes space online. What
starts as a conversation about why a doctor would bother making Instagram
videos turns into something a lot more real, a candid look at what actually
happens between patients and their providers, why those relationships
succeed or fall apart, and what it takes to feel like a full person inside
a system that was mostly built around numbers.
Dr. Dodell talks about the thing he keeps learning from patients that
wasn't in any textbook: stress. How it silently drives blood sugars up, how
burnout and over-fixation on every CGM reading can quietly hollow out your
quality of life, and why a slightly elevated number is sometimes worth it
if it means you actually got to live your day.
It's not a permission slip to ignore your management. It's a reminder that
the goal was never the A1C itself. The goal was always life on the other
side of it.
They also dig into the infrastructure problems that make good diabetes care
so hard to deliver, the prior authorization nightmare, the endocrinologist
shortage, and the 20-patient days that leave almost no room to actually sit
with someone.
Dr. Dodell shares, for the first time publicly, that he's moving toward
concierge primary care, not out of ambition, but out of frustration with a
system that makes it structurally almost impossible to do the job he
trained for.
If you've ever left an endo appointment feeling like you only got halfway
through what you needed to say, or worse, left feeling judged, this one's
for you.
Chapters:
00:00 Who is Dr. Gregory Dodell?
01:41 Why HCPs Are Becoming Content Creators
04:06 Reaching Patients Beyond the Office
05:16 Preparing for Short, High-Stakes Endo Visits
06:29 Fitting Everyone Into One Box Doesn't Work
07:18 Listening First — How to Read the Room
08:26 The Surprising Role of Stress on Blood Sugar
09:59 Diabetes Distress and Over-Fixation on Numbers
10:35 Quality of Life vs. Perfect Blood Sugar Control
11:37 There's More to Life Than an In-Range Number
13:33 Complications — Compassion Over Judgment
14:59 Stigma, A1Cs, and the Morality Trap
16:03 How Patients Have Been Traumatized by Healthcare
17:37 The Endocrinologist Shortage Crisis
20:04 Prior Authorizations — A System-Wide Failure
24:38 Dream Scenario: What Ideal Diabetes Care Looks Like
26:10 Concierge Medicine and the Future of the Endo Practice (First
Announcement)
28:44 Exciting Research — T-ZELD, GLP-1s, Autoimmune Breakthroughs
32:47 How to Find and Advocate for Yourself with Your Endo
Resources:
* Dr. Gregory Dodell on Instagram (@EverythingEndocrine)
* Central Park Endocrinology
37 min
May 06 Episode 353 - The Hidden Mental Load: A T1D Pshycotherapist on Burnout, Grief, and Letting Go
What happens in the room when a therapist with Type 1 diabetes hears the
same fear over and over, that everyone else has their numbers under
control, and you’re the only one who doesn’t? Rob sits down with Christine
Keown, a registered psychotherapist and T1D since age four, to have the
conversation that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime. Recorded right in the
middle of the Diabetes and Mental Health Conference, this one covers a lot
of ground and goes places most diabetes content never does.
Christine shares what she calls her “meta-analysis” of her clients: the
common threads she sees across every person with diabetes who walks through
her door. The fear of judgment around numbers. A fractured sense of
identity after diagnosis. The compounding spiral of healthcare avoidance.
And high-functioning burnout, the kind that looks completely fine at work
and only shows up at home. Rob opens up, sharing what a recent diabetes
meditation retreat revealed to him about conditional joy, self-compassion,
and why he’s been sitting with the uncomfortable truth that he’s not nearly
as in control as he’d like to be.
One of the standout moments is Christine’s live demonstration of an ACT
(Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) exercise using a literal piece of
paper. The idea: we exhaust ourselves pushing our fears away. What if we
just put them down instead? Rob couldn’t stop laughing, and neither could
we.
This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they’re failing at
diabetes, quietly avoided the endocrinologist, or thought everyone else has
it figured out except them. You’re not alone. Not even a little bit. As
Christine and Rob both land on: we’re all just doing our best, every single
day.
Chapters:
00:00: Rob introduces Christine Keown, registered psychotherapist
01:46: Recording live at the Diabetes and Mental Health Conference
02:26: Why people seek out a therapist who also has diabetes
04:01: Fear of judgment keeps people away from community
05:45: When the endocrinologist becomes the threat
06:44: Diabetes distress and physician-related avoidance
07:58: The compounding loop: wanting care, avoiding it anyway
08:58: The therapist’s privilege: normalizing what everyone feels
10:27: The meta-analysis: what every T1D client shares
11:11: Fear of comparison and the myth of perfect control
12:36: Conditional joy: happiness gated behind blood sugar
13:37: Christine’s pre-podcast low and the reality of T1D
15:13: The messenger matters more than the message
16:23: A joy shared is a joy multiplied
17:42: Identity shifts after a chronic illness diagnosis
18:15: Christine’s story: leg muscles, mountains, and Costco
21:07: Rob on learning to ‘be’ instead of always ‘do’
21:31: Grief, anxiety, and diabetes pulling us from the present
23:51: ACT therapy: the paper exercise for carrying fear
28:03: Naming the fear instead of making it the main character
30:18: Chronic illness and the desperate need for control
31:08: High-functioning burnout: invisible to everyone around you
32:43: Signs at home no one at work will ever see
34:49: Distraction through overwork and the “next thing” trap
35:30: A call to curiosity, self-compassion, and getting help
Resources:
* Christine Keown on Instagram: @your_health_therapist
* Diabetes & Mental Health Conference: Session recordings still
available at dmhconference.com
39 min
April 29 Episode 352 - Health Insurance 101: What Every Diabetic Needs to Know Before Open Enrollment
Health insurance is one of those things that's genuinely important and
genuinely confusing. When you're managing diabetes or any chronic illness,
the stakes are a lot higher than for most people. One wrong plan choice can
mean insulin coverage disappears, specialist visits become out-of-pocket,
or you get hit with a bill you didn't see coming.
Rob sits down with Dakota Myers, known online as The Benefits Boss, for a
no-nonsense breakdown of health insurance fundamentals through the lens of
chronic illness. Dakota walks through the terminology that trips most
people up (premiums, deductibles, co-insurance, out-of-pocket maximums),
explains the real difference between PPO, HMO, and HSA plans, and makes a
compelling case for why working with a broker costs you nothing and can
save you thousands.
The conversation covers some genuinely useful stuff that most people don't
know, like the Medicaid Decline Hack for getting back onto the marketplace
outside of open enrollment, the COBRA backdating loophole for gap coverage,
and how income and health status together should drive your marketplace vs.
private plan decision. If you've ever stared at an open enrollment portal
feeling completely overwhelmed, this one is for you.
Dakota and his team at The Benefits Boss shop every plan in all 50 states,
and as he puts it, the goal is always to build the best package for each
individual situation, not to sell a product. By the end of this episode,
you'll have a much cleaner framework for evaluating your options and asking
the right questions.
Chapters:
00:00 Rob's intro: why this episode exists
02:43 Introducing Dakota Myers, The Benefits Boss
04:33 Starting with the basics: premiums defined
04:51 The three-step cost breakdown explained
06:25 Short-term and long-term disability coverage
07:07 High premium vs. high deductible: how to choose
09:30 What employers actually pay — a business owner's view
10:54 PPO, HMO, and network basics demystified
13:56 The doctor network hack: verify your coverage
14:44 What a good broker actually does for you
17:07 Should you use a broker? Here's the case for yes
17:40 HSAs: who they're actually useful for
19:10 Evaluating employer plans: three things that matter
22:26 Navigating the ACA marketplace and open enrollment
22:57 The Medicaid Decline Hack for qualifying events
27:02 COBRA explained — and the backdating loophole
Resources:
The Benefits Boss
IRS HSA Contribution Limits & Eligibility
Healthcare.gov
32 min
April 23 Episode 351 - What Your Doctor Was Never Taught About Diabetes with Dr. Hannah Parr, D.O.
Ten years ago, Hannah Hamlin came on the pod (Episode 8!) as a medical
school student with type 1 diabetes trying to figure out how to manage
blood sugar while surviving boards. She's back now as Dr. Hannah Parr,
D.O., a physician with additional training in integrative medicine and
diabetes education, and the conversation is a completely different one.
This episode is about what happens after you get the diagnosis under
control, the emotional, philosophical, and practical work of actually
living well with a chronic illness. Hannah walks through why she felt angry
at her doctors in her early 20s (and why that anger wasn't entirely fair),
what medical school actually teaches versus what it leaves out, and how she
eventually built education specifically designed to fill the gap between a
15-minute endocrinology appointment and real, whole-person health.
One of the most honest moments in the episode comes when Hannah describes a
phase of her life where she had nearly perfect blood sugars on a low-carb
diet and her cholesterol was climbing, her hormones were off, and she was
gaining weight. Her A1C looked great. The rest of her health didn't. It's a
good reminder that optimizing one number in isolation isn't the same as
taking care of yourself. What she landed on instead is something much
simpler: treat yourself like a human first. The diabetes management
follows.
Dr. Parr also shares details about her free monthly support group for
people living with diabetes and her six-week Living Well with Diabetes
course built for the emotional and psychological side of chronic illness
that most diabetes education never touches.
Chapters:
00:00 Rob introduces Dr. Hannah Parr, 10 years later
01:04 Reconnecting after a decade on the podcast
02:23 The diagnosis story: DVD in Spanish, sent home
03:53 Going from frustrated patient to med school
06:41 What medical training actually covers (and skips)
09:56 Why endocrinologists aren't failing you
12:50 How to prepare for your next diabetes appointment
17:36 Taking ownership when the system can't do it for you
20:30 Why A1C alone doesn't equal quality of life
24:42 The balance between control and actually living your life
28:27 Resilience, heart health, and the unexpected gifts of T1D
30:42 How Hannah found her way through six months of illness
36:28 Letting go of limiting beliefs about what's possible
38:49 The Living Well with Diabetes course and free support group
41:00 What Hannah has changed her mind about in 10 years
Resources:
Dr. Hannah Parr's website
Dr. Hannah Parr on YouTube
Dr. Hannah Parr Instagram
Free Support Group Sign Up
45 min
April 15 Episode 350 - Why You Hold Your Breath Every Time You Check Your Blood Sugar with Sam Tullman
Most of us know diabetes affects the body. Fewer of us talk honestly about
what it does to the mind and what the mind does right back. In this
episode, Rob sits down with Sam Tullman, co-founder and facilitator of
Diabetes Sangha and a dedicated student of Rinzai Zen, for a wide-ranging
conversation on mental health, mindfulness, and what it actually means to
live well with diabetes. Not managing it perfectly. Live well with it.
They get into the neuroscience of why checking your CGM makes you hold your
breath, why rage bolusing is as much an emotional event as it is a physical
one, and how the concept of interoception, your brain's ability to read
signals from inside your body, turns out to be both a burden and a hidden
advantage of life with type 1. Sam introduces a question that quietly
reframes everything: what is your actual goal in living with diabetes? His
answer might surprise you.
The conversation winds through predictive processing theory, Zen master
stories dating back to 17th-century Japan, the research behind
mindfulness-based stress reduction, and Rob's own discovery of what he
calls "rage gratitude", a practice that started with 35 lines scribbled on
a page and changed how he moves through his days. If you've ever wondered
whether mindfulness is actually practical for someone who's already
managing a chronic illness on top of everything else, this episode makes
the case.
Sam is also a fellow podcaster and one of the most thoughtful voices in the
T1D mental health space. By the time this episode is published, Rob will be
sitting with Sam and the rest of Diabetes Sangha at their spring retreat.
Which, honestly, feels like the right note to publish on.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction: Sam Tullman and Diabetes Sangha
01:14 Welcome back: catching up since last time
02:03 Mental health as part of the whole body
03:29 How the mind directly impacts blood sugar
04:42 Rage bolusing: a behavioral health problem
07:16 Rob's real-time low and what he noticed
08:58 Predictive processing theory and Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett
10:12 How the brain makes its best guess
13:03 Interoception: the hidden strength of living with T1D
15:02 Awareness as both burden and advantage
18:33 Holding it in both hands: grief and gratitude together
24:09 Mindfulness as a muscle: how to start building it
25:22 The question that reframes everything: what is your goal?
29:00 Two kinds of meditation practice: relief and long-term growth
31:51 Growth is uncomfortable — and that's okay
36:18 The Zen master Hakuin story
40:34 After ecstasy, the laundry — and changing your CGM
44:44 Rage gratitude: Rob's discovery of a simple practice
47:17 Many paths to the same place: finding what works for you
48:13 Diabetes Sangha: community, retreats, and resources
Resources:
Diabetes Sangha — weekly meditations, newsletters, events, and retreats for
people living with diabetes
How Emotions Are Made by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett — referenced by Sam on
predictive processing theory and interoception
Dr. Brad Liechtenstein — retreat facilitator and breath expert mentioned by
Sam, works with people with chronic conditions: search "Dr. Brad
Liechtenstein" or find him through naturopathic health directories
50 min

About Diabetics Doing Things Podcast

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Hosted by T1D Rob Howe, Diabetics Doing Things tells amazing stories of people with diabetes from across the globe, digging deep into everything it takes to Live Well with Diabetes and sharing…