Your Best T1D Year
Your Best T1D Year is a podcast dedicated to helping people manage Type 1 Diabetes with practical strategies, mindset shifts, and humor. Each episode is about 5 minutes long and airs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Hosted by Neil Greathouse, the show aims to make diabetes management feel easier through small, actionable habits.
Episodes
Consistency, Not Streaks
Neil is a streak guy, which is exactly why he's qualified to tell you streaks are a trap. One missed night, and your brain declares the whole habit dead, files it next to your grieving Duolingo owl, and quits. That's a terrible system, and the research agrees.The most-cited habit study out there (Lally, 2010, European Journal of Social Psychology) found it takes about 66 days on average f
Exercise With Type 1 Diabetes Without the Fear of Lows // Ginger Vieira + Tara Mayo (Diabetes Nerd)
Who's scared to exercise with type 1? If your hand went up, this one's for you. Ginger Vieira set more than a dozen powerlifting records with type 1 diabetes, wrote the book Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes, and hosts the Diabetes Nerd podcast. She was one of the very first guests on this show, and she came back anyway. This time she brought her business partner, Tara Mayo, a personal traine
The Weather Turned
Nobody decides to stop moving in October. You skip one drizzly Tuesday, then the time change hits, then it's dark at 5:30, and you look up in January at half your summer step count, shocked, like this hasn't happened every year since the Clinton administration. This episode is about beating the fall slump by making one decision now, while there's still daylight.Pick your indoor plan befor
No Walk Required
The best news in the whole research pile, for everyone whose body has notes: you don't have to walk. At all. A 2016 Diabetes Care study by Paddy Dempsey found that breaking up sitting with simple resistance moves, calf raises, half squats, sit-to-stands right beside a desk, lowered post-meal glucose and insulin about as well as walking did.The magic was never the walking. It's muscle cont
The Desk Job Playbook
Eight meetings, one mailbox trip, and a CGM drifting up by 3pm for no food-related reason. Welcome to October, the real-life month of the Keep It Moving challenge, starting with everyone whose job owns their body eight hours a day: office workers, teachers, truckers, nurses charting after a shift.The principle: don't ADD movement to your day, HIDE it inside your day. Five plays, easiest f
When You're Already High
A scene from Neil's actual life: an airport layover, a stubborn high from hours of travel sitting, and one man doing laps past the same Cinnabon so many times the employees start whispering. This episode covers movement as a tool when your blood sugar is already high: what it can do, what it can't, and the one rule that never bends.Gentle walking helps the correction you already took work
Walking With Insulin Still Working
The fear episode, faced head-on. The couch was never the real reason people with type 1 diabetes move less. The real reason is the low. So this is the safety net, built from the top shelf: the international consensus statement on exercise and T1D in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, and a 2026 analysis of 8,171 real-world activity sessions from the Type 1 Diabetes Exercise Initiative
Muscle Is Medicine // Strength Training with Type 1 Diabetes (Alex St. John, MSc)
Alex St. John is six foot five, about 295 pounds, and three years into serious lifting when type 1 diabetes showed up mid-semester of his kinesiology degree, at a blood sugar of 504. His response was never "should I stop?" It was "how do I keep lifting?" Twelve years later he's a T1D exercise researcher in one of the top labs on the planet for this stuff, and he spends this hour translati
"Snack" Before You Eat
The graduate seminar of movement snacks, with the loudest safety caveat of the month. A 2014 study in Diabetologia coined the term exercise snacks: short, brisk bursts of movement a few minutes BEFORE each meal. Compared to a standard 30-minute workout, the little pre-meal bursts lowered average post-meal glucose by about 12 percent. You're preheating the oven before the food arrives.But
The After-Dinner Ten
Meet Neil's walking partner: Cora, a 5.9-pound senior Morkie whose hips don't lie and whose top speed is best described as eventually. Every evening, Neil, his wife Gina, and Cora take the after-dinner walk, and that slow, unimpressive, dog-paced walk is the single most valuable thing he does for his blood sugar most days.The numbers back it up: a 2022 review in Sports Medicine found even
You Don't Need The Gym
Somebody sold all of us the same lie: that getting active means a membership, an hour a day, and a personality transplant. This episode formally cancels that belief system with receipts. Look at the evidence from three weeks of this challenge: three short walks beat one long one, two minutes of strolling every 20 minutes moved real glucose numbers, three-minute movement snacks worked in a
The Movement "Snack"
For once, a study on our actual people. Published in 2026 in Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics: adults with type 1 diabetes on insulin pumps sat for six hours straight on one lab day, and on another day broke up the same sitting with three minutes of simple resistance moves every 30 minutes. On the movement snack day, their insulin worked measurably better. Nobody touched a pump settin
Three Short Walks Beat One Long Walk
Stop looking for 45 free minutes. They don't exist, and it turns out they were never the assignment. A 2013 Diabetes Care study by Loretta DiPietro compared one 45-minute walk against three 15-minute walks after meals, same total time. The three short walks won on 24-hour blood sugar control, and the after-dinner walk did the most work of all.For everyone with type 1 diabetes who works, p
Exercising with Type 1 Diabetes // 34 Years of T1D and Still Moving (Arnie Bunch, the Blood Sugar Ninja)
Arnie Bunch has been living with type 1 diabetes since 1992, the same year Neil was diagnosed. He's a runner, the creator of the #bloodsugarninja, and the kind of friend who gives you the straight answer about the gear because he's actually worn it at mile 18. Two weeks into the Keep It Moving challenge, the science gets a face.This is the lived-experience episode. Before the researchers
The Bonus That Lasts Two Days
The fact this whole challenge is built on: when you move today, your insulin works better tomorrow. For 24 to 48 hours after movement, the muscles you used stay more sensitive to insulin. One walk buys you a bonus that's still paying out tomorrow night, like a Costco membership for your pancreas.And this year the receipts got enormous. A 2026 study in Diabetologia analyzed 428,058 real ex
Your Muscles Have a Side Door
The coolest piece of machinery you own, and nobody ever handed you the manual. Normally, sugar leaves your blood through a door that only insulin can unlock. That's type 1 diabetes in one sentence. But your muscles have a second door, a side door, and it opens when you move. No insulin required. It's the Home Alone house: the front door is booby-trapped and complicated, and the side door
The 3 Hour Sit
It's Labor Day, college football is back, and Neil just sat through a noon kickoff and surfaced at midnight. Perfect timing to explain what a three-hour sit actually does inside a body with type 1 diabetes: your leg muscles clock out, sugar hangs around in your blood, insulin works alone, and that stubborn afternoon high parks itself on your CGM. You might not have eaten your way into it.
This Number Will Surprise You
How many steps do you actually take on a normal day? Not your best day, a regular Tuesday. Check your phone, and prepare to appeal the ruling. In this episode Neil breaks down the gap between how active we feel and what the step count says, and why being busy and actually moving are two different things for blood sugar.Then two stats that change the whole conversation. Most adults with ty
The Chair is Winning
Welcome to Keep It Moving, the new 8-week challenge for people with type 1 diabetes, and meet the villain: the chair. Nobody decides to sit for half a day. The chair decides for you, quietly, like a Netflix autoplay countdown, and your blood sugar pays the tax. Neil opens with his own confession: eight back-to-back Zoom meetings, a 4am run that turned into a fully sedentary day, and the i
The Head Start Finale + What's Next: The Steps Challenge | Type 1 Diabetes
Eight weeks ago, you were spiking after dinner and blaming yourself for it. This is the finale of The Head Start, and instead of another recap, Neil reads two listener stories that say what these eight weeks were really about, one from a woman who cried at her kitchen sink the first time she saw a flat 140, and one from a 31-year veteran whose time in range jumped from the low 60s to 81%.
Pre-Bolusing at the Kids Table // Raising Kids with Type 1 Diabetes (Raquel Baron, Type One Together)
Raquel Baron was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at five years old and left the hospital late to her own birthday party. Twenty-four years later, she's the founder and CEO of Type One Together, home of the T1D Babysitter List, now over 4,000 sitters nationwide who either live with type 1 or love someone who does. It started as one college student in Austin with 14 names written on a piece
The Pre-Bolus Challenge Recap: All the Science | Type 1 Diabetes
Previously, on The Head Start: a man admitted he's had type 1 for 34 years and still sometimes doses with his mouth full, and an entire audience realized the after-dinner spike was never their fault. This is the greatest-hits recap, and this time it comes with the receipts.Neil runs the whole arc, the fear, the junk drawer of reasons, why food beats insulin to the finish line, and then th
How to Make Pre-Bolusing a Lasting Habit | Type 1 Diabetes
The challenge is almost over, so the real question is what happens next week, when Neil isn't in your ears three times a week. This episode is about making the pre-bolus habit last past the finish line, and it's grounded in habit science.A study by Phillippa Lally found it takes about 66 days on average for a behavior to become automatic, but the range is huge, 18 to 254 days. So if pre-b
What a Flat CGM Line Feels Like After Meals | Time in Range, T1D
Remember day one, when the after-dinner spike was just the rent you paid for eating? Now think about last week, when you pre-bolused, ate, and looked down at a flat, boring, beautiful CGM line. This episode is about that feeling, because that feeling is the whole point.Neil shares what people describe when it clicks, not the number, but "I didn't have to correct," "I wasn't cranky all eve
Is It OK to Dose Insulin After a Meal for Kids? | ISPAD Guidelines, T1D
Here's the permission slip every T1D parent needs: with a young child, dosing during or after the meal is not cheating. It's not failing at pre-bolusing. It is, in plain black and white in the international pediatric diabetes guidelines, an okay thing to do. Parents, exhale.The people who write the rules for kids with type 1, ISPAD, carve out a specific exception for infants and toddlers
Pre-Bolusing for a Picky Toddler with Type 1 Diabetes | Combo Bolus
Your toddler asked for the macaroni, then looked at it like you served packing peanuts and demanded the one other food in the house, and you've got insulin on board for a meal that just got canceled. This episode is for the parents dosing into pure chaos.Neil pulls the playbook straight from the pediatric diabetes guidelines. The split: dose for the part you're sure they'll eat, then give
Pre-Bolusing & Why Your Tech Can't Save You Alone // Natalie, Bellini, DNP
She stopped counting years with type 1 a long time ago. Natalie Bellini counts days... more than 20,000 of them. This week Neil finally gets his dream guest: Natalie Bellini, DNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, CDCES, nurse practitioner, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University, and program director for diabetes technology at University Hospitals in Cleveland. She has lived wit
Pre-Bolusing and Still Spiking? Check Your Carb Count | Type 1 Diabetes
You pre-bolus. You give it the 15 minutes. You watch the arrow. And you're still spiking. Don't throw out the challenge, that spike is a clue. Neil puts on the detective hat, because timing is huge, but it isn't the only dial on the dashboard.If your timing's perfect and you're still climbing, the amount may be the problem, and the most common culprit is the carb count. A study by Brazeau
Fiasp, Lyumjev & Afrezza: Do You Still Need to Pre-Bolus? | T1D
"Neil, I use Fiasp, or Lyumjev, or Afrezza, do I even have to wait?" Great question, and this episode gets genuinely nerdy about the answer. Fiasp and Lyumjev are ultra-rapid analogs, built with ingredients (niacinamide in Fiasp, citrate and treprostinil in Lyumjev) that speed up subcutaneous absorption. Afrezza is inhaled Technosphere insulin with a Tmax around 12 to 15 minutes that deli
Do You Still Pre-Bolus on a Closed-Loop Pump? | Control-IQ, Omnipod 5
If you're on a closed-loop system, Control-IQ, Omnipod 5, or Loop, you've probably wondered whether the algorithm means you're off the hook for pre-bolusing. Neil has to be the one to tell you: you still do it. These systems are an incredible co-pilot, but they're not a self-driving car you can nap in.Here's the reason, with a real number. In Omnipod 5 data, when people skipped the meal b
Missed and Late Insulin Boluses: What to Do | Type 1 Diabetes
Some nights you do everything right and it still goes sideways. The dinner party, the cookout with the moving-target food, the night you're so fried you only remember to bolus while scraping the plate. This is permission day. Missing doesn't mean you failed the challenge, it means you have a life with other humans in it.Neil gives the real-life moves for the messy nights, and grounds them
Why Pizza Spikes Your Blood Sugar at Midnight | Fat, Protein & T1D
Some meals spike you and move on. Pizza spikes you, waves goodbye, and comes back four hours later like a horror-movie villain. If you've ever been 110 at bedtime and 260 at midnight, this episode explains the ambush, and it's backed by real research.A 2013 study led by Howard Wolpert in Diabetes Care fed people the same carbs, but one meal was high in fat. The high-fat meal required abou
How to Pre-Bolus at Restaurants and Takeout | Type 1 Diabetes
"It'll be right out" might be the most cursed sentence in all of type 1 diabetes. August is about making your pre-bolus habit survive the real world, and we start with the hardest place to do it: restaurants and delivery, where you don't control the clock. Neil's move is simple, wait for proof of life. Dose when you can actually see the food heading your way, not a second sooner.And here'
Start Pre-Bolusing With Just 5 Minutes | Type 1 Diabetes Habit
You do not have to be a pre-bolus athlete on day one. If "10 to 15 minutes" felt like too much, Neil takes the pressure all the way down: start with five minutes. Even five to seven minutes of head start beats dosing with your first bite, because insulin is a slow sunrise, not a light switch. Then you build, five, then seven, then ten, creeping up to your sweet spot.Neil closes out month
Why Dinner Is the Best Meal to Start Pre-Bolusing | Type 1 Diabetes
If pre-bolusing were a video game, breakfast would be the level everybody rage-quits on. You're rushed, half asleep, and half of us don't even eat it. So we don't start there. We start on the easy level: dinner. Neil makes the case that dinner is the cheat code for learning to pre-bolus.Three reasons: you see it coming (you've had all day to plan), you're usually home and control the cloc
Pre-Bolusing, Fear of Lows, and What Your Endo Really Sees on Your CGM // Dr. Monica Gomberg from Blue Circle Health
We all know we're supposed to pre-bolus. We've known for years. So why do almost none of us actually do it? This week Neil steals an hour with Dr. Monica Gomberg, board certified endocrinologist at Blue Circle Health and, as far as this podcast is concerned, America's Endocrinologist.This is the conversation you wish you could have if your endo appointment lasted longer than 15 minutes. D
You're Closer to Pre-Bolusing Than You Think | Type 1 Diabetes
A short, warm one before the start line. Neil reminds you how far you've already come. Three weeks ago, pre-bolusing was a scary thing you knew you should do and didn't. Now you've named the fear, you understand why the spike happens, you've seen the studies, and you've practiced reaching for the safety net. You've already done the hard parts.Neil is also honest about what starting actual
3 Moves That Make Pre-Bolusing Safe | Avoid Going Low | Type 1 Diabetes
Consider this your permission slip, signed by 34 years of mistakes. If you pre-bolus and the food shows up late and you start to drop, you are allowed to eat a few fast carbs to hold steady and cover them later. That's not failing. That's the move. Neil lays out the three-part safety system that turns pre-bolusing from a leap of faith into a thing you just do.Move one: catch an early drop
Your Fear of Lows Is Costing You Time in Range | Type 1 Diabetes
The fear of going low is real, and Neil would never talk you out of it. But it's also quietly running a tab, and the bill comes due in time in range. A 2024 study found that people with more fear of hypoglycemia dosed their meals later, and those later doses tracked with lower time in range and more time running high.Here's the part that should shrink the fear: in the studies that tested
The Study That Proves Pre-Bolusing Works | 15 Minutes, 50 Points | T1D
Today Neil stops saying "trust me" and starts saying "here's the study." A trial published in Diabetes Care found that dosing rapid insulin 15 minutes before a meal dropped the blood sugar peak to about 167, versus about 221 when dosing at the meal. That's a 50-point lower peak, from timing alone. Same dose, same food.Then the twist that keeps you from getting weird about it: a second stu
Why Food Beats Insulin to the Finish Line | Pre-Bolus Science, T1D
Half the planet is watching the World Cup, so Neil explains the mechanism of the post-meal spike in soccer terms. Your food is the striker, already past the defense. Your insulin is the defender who got subbed in late and is still jogging back. That mismatch is the entire reason you spike.This is the "how it works" episode. Regular rapid-acting insulin takes about 15 minutes to start, pea
Pre-Bolus with @bolusandbiceps | Amanda Mueller
Everybody with type 1 diabetes knows they should pre-bolus. Almost nobody actually does it. In this episode, Amanda Mueller (@bolusandbiceps), certified personal trainer and T1D coach, breaks down why insulin timing is not a willpower problem... and how to fix it one meal at a time.Amanda was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 24 after landing in the ICU with DKA and a blood sugar over 1,0
The Simple Fix for Post-Meal Spikes in Type 1 Diabetes
SHOW NOTES: We’ve spent a week and a half in the problem, the spike, the loop, the fear. Today the sun comes out. Neil turns the corner to the fix, and it’s almost annoyingly simple: your food is fast and your insulin is slow, and when they start at the same time, the food wins the first hour. The fix isn’t more insulin or better carb counting. It’s timing.You give the insulin a small hea
Every Reason You Don't Pre-Bolus (and why they're all valid)
SHOW NOTES: Here’s the quiet part said out loud: the reason you don’t pre-bolus is not that you’re lazy or that you don’t care. It’s that it scares you. Neil names the specific fear at the center of the whole challenge, the fear of going low before the food arrives, and tells you the truth, 34 years in, it still scares him too.This is the episode nobody put in the pamphlet. The pamphlet s
Fear of Going Low: The Real Reason You Don't Pre-Bolus
SHOW NOTES: Here’s the quiet part said out loud: the reason you don’t pre-bolus is not that you’re lazy or that you don’t care. It’s that it scares you. Neil names the specific fear at the center of the whole challenge, the fear of going low before the food arrives, and tells you the truth, 34 years in, it still scares him too.This is the episode nobody put in the pamphlet. The pamphlet s
The After-Dinner Blood Sugar Spike, Explained | T1D Pre-Bolus Challenge
SHOW NOTES: You counted the carbs. You took the right dose. Two hours later you’re 240, and you have no idea why. If that number breaks your heart a little, this episode is for you. Neil sits in the problem of the post-meal spike, the one that feels like a personal failing but almost never is.This is the roller coaster every person with type 1 diabetes knows: spike, correct, drift low, sn
Why You Don't Pre-Bolus (you know you should)
SHOW NOTES: You already know you should pre-bolus. Your endocrinologist has told you. Every diabetes educator has told you. And you still dose with your first bite, same as the rest of us. Neil Greathouse, who has lived with type 1 diabetes since 1992, kicks off The Head Start, an eight-week challenge all about pre-bolusing your insulin, by admitting he doesn't do it perfectly either.Here
While You Were Sleeping Challenge Finale
SHOW NOTES:Eight weeks ago, Neil asked you to do one thing: write down how many hours you slept last night. That was the whole challenge. That was where it started. One number. And here we are.This is the finale of the While You Were Sleeping Challenge -- 24 episodes, 8 weeks, and the most thorough look at sleep and type 1 diabetes that Your Best T1D Year has ever done. Neil closes with t
The One Sleep Habit That Improves T1D Time in Range
SHOW NOTES:Eight weeks. Twenty-four episodes. The dawn phenomenon, cortisol, alarm fatigue, sleep stages, Fear of Hypoglycemia, CGM as a proactive tool. If Neil had to give you one thing to keep from all of it -- just one habit -- here it is: go to bed at the same time every night.This is not a joke, and it's not oversimplified. It's the finding from the 2023 T1D sleep study with 76 parti
What "Good Enough" Sleep Actually Looks Like When You Have Type 1 Diabetes
SHOW NOTES:Perfect is not the goal. This episode takes a stand on something that doesn't get said enough in health content of any kind -- and especially not in T1D content.If you've been measuring your sleep quality against general population benchmarks (the 8-hour standard, the 90% sleep efficiency score, the deeply uninterrupted ideal), Neil is here to tell you, with genuine care, that
How to Use Your Overnight CGM Data to Improve Sleep and Blood Sugar
SHOW NOTES:You've been sleeping next to one of the most detailed health monitoring devices that exists. Every single night. For however many years you've had your CGM. It has been logging everything -- every rise, every drop, every 3am event, every overnight pattern. It has been very patient about all of this.Most T1D people use their CGM reactively at night. The alarm fires, you check, y
T1D Sleep Hygiene: The One Pre-Sleep Habit That Actually Makes a Difference
SHOW NOTES:"Sleep hygiene" sounds like you're brushing your sleep's teeth. Nobody has ever said that phrase in a natural conversation. And this episode is not about a 12-step pre-sleep protocol that you'll implement on Monday and abandon by Wednesday when life gets in the way.It's about one thing. Just one. Because T1D brains are very good at building complicated systems -- we've been doi
Late-Night Exercise and Blood Sugar: What Your Evening Workout Does to Your T1D Overnight
SHOW NOTES:Your Tuesday 8pm HIIT class has opinions about your 3am blood sugar. The data is pretty clear on this. Neil is giving you fair warning before the episode starts.This episode covers the timing of exercise and its downstream effects on both sleep quality and overnight glucose in type 1 diabetes. Afternoon and evening exercise produce very different results -- not because exercise
T1D Sleep Stages Explained: Why You're Exhausted After 7 Hours of Sleep
SHOW NOTES:You slept seven hours. By any reasonable measure, that should be enough. You woke up feeling like you slept four. You weren't imagining it.This episode breaks down sleep stages -- light sleep, deep sleep, REM -- and explains exactly where type 1 diabetes disrupts the sequence. The most important stage, slow-wave sleep (NREM Stage 3), is where your body does its deepest repair w
Fear of Hypoglycemia: The T1D Sleep Problem That Doesn't Show Up in Your CGM Data
SHOW NOTES:Your CGM says 115. Flat arrow. No active insulin. You've checked it twice. The number is completely fine. And you're still awake at 2:48am.This is not you being dramatic. This has a name: Fear of Hypoglycemia (FOH). It's a documented, peer-reviewed phenomenon in T1D populations -- a specific pattern of nighttime hypervigilance that persists even when blood sugar is stable. The
Cortisol and Blood Sugar: The T1D Overnight Connection You're Probably Missing
SHOW NOTES:Cortisol isn't trying to ruin your blood sugar. It's trying to help. It has never once, in your entire life, acted with malice. It is a useful, important hormone that is -- in the modern world -- very confused about what an actual emergency looks like.This episode is about cortisol: what it's designed to do, what it's actually responding to in modern life ("quick question" emai
How Bedroom Temperature and Blue Light Affect Blood Sugar in Type 1 Diabetes
SHOW NOTES:Neil wants to be upfront: this episode is going to sound like wellness content delivered by someone standing in a field in linen pants. He knows. He can't control how it sounds. What he can tell you is that there's actual research behind all of it, it specifically applies to T1D glucose management, and he read most of it at midnight on his phone in bed with the screen at full b
Your Pre-Sleep Blood Sugar Check Is a Sleep Decision, Not Just a Safety Check
SHOW NOTES:You already do this. You check your blood sugar before bed, glance at your CGM, maybe set a temp basal. You've been doing it for as long as you've had T1D. Here's the reframe: you've been doing it as a safety check. "Am I okay to go to sleep?" This episode argues it's also a sleep decision -- and that shift changes what you're actually optimizing for.Active insulin at midnight
T1D Sleep Challenge: Four Weeks In, What We've Learned
SHOW NOTES:Four weeks ago, Neil asked you to do one thing: write down how many hours you slept. That was it. Just a number. And now here we are.This is the halftime checkpoint of the While You Were Sleeping Challenge. Neil does what any good coach does at halftime -- pulls everyone in, takes a breath, and goes over what we actually know. Because the first four weeks covered a lot: recogni
How to Adjust CGM Alarm Thresholds for Better Sleep with Type 1 Diabetes
SHOW NOTES:When did you last actually look at your CGM alarm threshold settings? Not to silence an alarm. Not to check a number. To actually look at the thresholds -- the settings, the specific values, when they were last changed.If your answer is "when I first set up the device," this episode is for you.Neil walks through what CGM alarm thresholds are, why they're not permanent features
CGM Alarm Fatigue in Type 1 Diabetes: How Your Alerts Are Wrecking Your Sleep
SHOW NOTES:How many times did your CGM alarm last night? If you have to guess -- or if you're honestly not sure because your arm is doing the silence-and-go-back-to-sleep thing on autopilot -- that's alarm fatigue. And it's a documented, peer-reviewed phenomenon that's costing you sleep in ways that quietly compound every single night.This episode is about the complicated relationship T1D
What Type 1 Diabetes Actually Does to Your Sleep Architecture | Episode 200
SHOW NOTES:200 episodes. Neil didn't plan on this. He definitely didn't plan on spending episode 200 explaining what your liver does at 3am without your permission. And yet here we are.This is the episode that contains the most important thing Neil has said in this entire challenge. Most T1D content talks about sleep in two ways: the safety angle (set your alarms right) or the wellness an
Bedtime Consistency and T1D: Why Timing Beats Total Hours for Blood Sugar Control
SHOW NOTES:You've been told to get eight hours. Here's what the research actually found.A 2023 study of 76 adults with type 1 diabetes tracked both CGM and sleep data for one week. The finding: sleep duration alone was not independently associated with time in range. What was? Bedtime consistency. Every extra hour of variability in bedtime was associated with roughly 10% less time in rang
The T1D Sleep-Blood Sugar Feedback Loop
SHOW NOTES:Bad sleep makes your blood sugar harder to manage. Worse blood sugar disrupts your sleep. Worse sleep makes your blood sugar worse. You've been running a feedback loop -- without knowing it.This is the episode where things click. Neil connects all the pieces from Weeks 1 and 2 into the full picture: the bidirectional relationship between sleep and glucose management in type 1 d
The Dawn Phenomenon in Type 1 Diabetes: Why Your Blood Sugar Rises While You Sleep
SHOW NOTES:You went to bed at a perfect 110. No active insulin. Flat arrow. You did everything right. You wake up at 182. Nothing happened -- no low, no alarm. You just slept. Except something did happen. You just weren't awake for it.This episode introduces the dawn phenomenon: the pre-dawn hormonal surge (cortisol, growth hormone, glucagon, epinephrine) that causes your liver to manufac
Why Sleep Deprivation Hits Harder When You Have T1D
SHOW NOTES:Sleep deprivation reduces insulin sensitivity in everyone. That's not a T1D-specific finding. Here's what is.In people without diabetes, the system has a feedback loop. Insulin sensitivity drops, blood sugar ticks up slightly, the pancreas compensates automatically, and the whole thing resolves before they're even awake. They make coffee, go about their day, and have no idea an
One Night of Poor Sleep Reduces Insulin Sensitivity
SHOW NOTES:Here's the number: 21%.One study. People with type 1 diabetes. Sleep-deprived condition (4 hours) versus adequate sleep (8.5 hours). Same food, same insulin, same activities. The sleep-deprived group showed a 21% reduction in insulin sensitivity the next day. Every single participant.This is the episode Neil has been building toward. If you've ever had a day where your insulin
What's Really Causing Your Unexplained Blood Sugars
SHOW NOTES:The pump site. The insulin. The food from six hours ago. The stress. The general vibe. Neil has blamed every single one of these for blood sugars that made no sense -- and for 34 years, he kept leaving one variable off the list entirely.This episode is about blood sugar archaeology: the 7am investigation T1D people run every morning. Holding the insulin vial up to the light. Go
Sleep and Blood Sugar in Type 1 Diabetes
SHOW NOTES:You went to bed at 112. Flat arrow. No active insulin. Textbook. You should be proud. You wake up at 218. So you run the checklist -- check the site, question the insulin, replay every meal from the day before. And you come up empty.Here's what this episode proposes: you were solving the right puzzle with the wrong set of clues.Neil connects sleep directly to blood sugar manage
Why People with T1D Can't Sleep Through the Night
SHOW NOTES:When's the last time you actually slept through the night? No CGM alarms. No blood sugar math at 3am. No lying awake wondering if your number was stable. If you can't remember, that's exactly the point.In this episode, Neil digs into something that doesn't get said often enough: type 1 diabetes makes sleeping harder in specific, documented ways. Not in a general "I have a lot o
Why Your Mystery Blood Sugars Might Be a Sleep Problem
SHOW NOTES:If you've ever woken up to a blood sugar that makes no sense -- went to bed at a perfect number, did everything right, and still saw a confusing morning high -- this episode is for you.Neil Greathouse, who has lived with type 1 diabetes since February 14, 1992, kicks off the 8-week While You Were Sleeping Challenge by asking one question: what was happening the night before you
So Many Of Your Community Wins // Part 2
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
So Many Of Your Wins // Part 1
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
The Mental Side of T1D that Nobody's Treating // Allison Nimlos, The Diabetic Therapist
79% of people with T1D experience shame related to their diabetes. Not occasionally. As part of their daily lived experience.Today's guest built an entire conference around that statistic. Allison Nimlos is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES), and has been living with Type 1 Diabetes for 32 years. She knows this disea
Banting Would Want You To Drink More Water
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
Your New Baseline For Water
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
What Are We Learning About Refilling?
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
The Vicious Cycle of Low Potassium
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
Why Your 180 Looks Like a 220
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
Before Insulin, Dehydration Was a Death Sentence
Helpful resources and newsletter:https://yourbestt1dyear.comSponsor ConnectBlue Circle Health offers free coaching and care that fits real life for adults with type 1 diabetes. They help with insulin adjustments, CGMs, burnout, and the mental load of diabetes, without fighting the healthcare system alone.Sign up free at:https://bluecirclehealth.orgConnectTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.be
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