Diabetics Doing Yoga

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: Welcome to the Diabetics Doing Things podcast, where we explore the amazing stories of type 1 diabetics around the world. I'm your host, Rob Howe, Diabetics Doing Things founder and 11-year type 1 diabetic. This episode is brought to you in part by Sarah Wyatt, who became our first official sponsor last week. Thanks, Sarah. On this week's episode, we're joined by Rachel Zinman from Mullumbimby, Australia, as we talk about latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, or LADA, the impact of stress on blood sugar levels, and how yoga has helped Rachel maintain balance in her life. All right, we are live with Diabetics Doing Things. This will be episode four, and we've got a very special guest today, Rachel Zinman from all the way from Australia. So welcome to the show, Rachel.

[00:00:49] Rachel Zinman: Hi, welcome. Hi, nice to meet you.

[00:00:52] Rob Howe: Yeah, it's great to have you on the show. You're actually one of the first people that I don't know personally already to come onto the show. And so you found me through Instagram, I think, and we were able to make the connection. I'm really excited about today's interview.

[00:01:10] Rachel Zinman: Yeah, me too.

[00:01:12] Rob Howe: Let's just talk a little bit about your background. But before we do that, you have a very special kind of case of diabetes of type 1. Do you want to tell us a little bit about kind of your type 1 situation?

[00:01:24] Rachel Zinman: Yeah. So I'm a LADA diabetic, which means it's a latent autoimmune disease in adults. And I was actually diagnosed at the age of 42. And at first people were really – I mean, I don't know how much information was available then in 2008 about LADA. I had never heard of an adult getting diabetes. And so I actually thought I had type 2. And that was almost like a year where I was sort of, I guess, in a way misdiagnosed. And then eventually, they did a GAD antibody test, and they found out that I had, you know, I was producing the antibodies, and they were attacking my beta cells. At that point, the doctor just used the word autoimmune disease. He never said type 1. So that was a big issue for me for the next six years because I never realized it was type 1 until a year ago.

[00:02:27] Rob Howe: And so you went that whole time treating it as if it were just another autoimmune disease or type 2?

[00:02:32] Rachel Zinman: yep I diet exercise um lifestyle changes and um you know my levels were pretty steady uh really up until um 2014 so that whole time it was really just kind of you know my my a1cs were pretty good so we kept thinking okay you know we've got a handle on it we've got a handle on it And the endocrinologist kept saying to me, well, as long as you've got a handle on it, we won't start insulin. We won't do anything. And so I didn't even bother to look into type 1. I didn't know anything about it. I just was assuming, oh, I've got a handle on it. It's all okay.

[00:03:21] Rob Howe: Wow. And was there any sort of moment that said, hey, I need to go get this checked out. Something's not right?

[00:03:29] Rachel Zinman: Yep. Well, basically what started happening was I couldn't control the levels anymore because I was really into checking my blood sugar. I was really diligent and actually vigilant with that. So I would check my sugars every three or four hours, and it just started climbing and climbing and climbing. And I was overseas, and I was traveling, and I was working, and I couldn't get those fasting levels down. And they started going up to like 16, 17, 18. And it was like that for three months. And I was thinking now, you know, I felt a bit like I was banging my head against the wall. And I kept exercising and I kept sort of eating less and less. And I was just trying everything. And then finally my hands started buzzing and my feet started buzzing, which was a sign something really wasn't right. So I went to a neurologist. And he said, so, you know, what's going on with your blood sugar levels? And I said, oh, well, you know, they're pretty high, but I think it could be B12 deficiency. Like I was just in such denial.

[00:04:33] Rob Howe: Right.

[00:04:34] Rachel Zinman: And he was like, I think you better go and have your A1C tested again. And then it was 10.7. And at that point, the endocrinologist said to me, oh, well, this means you're actually diabetic now. You're not pre-diabetic. And I said, what? And he said, well, we can't really put you on metformin. We can't do this. We can't do this. We're just going to put you straight on insulin. And I was like, what? But at the same time, I was really relieved because I was like, oh. And that's when he said to me, oh, you're a type 1 diabetic. That's kind of how it unfolded. And then he kind of later said, look, well, I've been saying it to you all along. And I said, yeah, but you just said it was an autoimmune disease. You never said type 1.

[00:05:19] Rob Howe: Yeah, you kind of have to be more specific with some of that stuff, right?

[00:05:23] Rachel Zinman: Yeah, yeah. so anyway he's a nice guy I tried not to sort of get too heavy about it with him and I just kind of moved on and then you know then I started insulin and actually at the same point that I started insulin I started thinking you know like well I don't know anything about type 1 I better find out about it and that's when I found the diabetes online community that's when I started like really understanding the nature of what was going on for me and I also joined a support group um which was a LADA support group which is LADA people like me which is a huge number of people it's actually out of the 400 million people that have diabetes um you know 10 have type 1 and 5 are adult onset and every time you say to someone oh well you know i was diagnosed with type 1 at 42 they say oh isn't that really rare and i think well god if it's 5

[00:06:17] Rob Howe: percent it's not that rare right yeah so it does happen right and I think like um when I was diagnosed in 2005 um you know type 1 diabetes had been known really up until right about that point as juvenile diabetes and that was sort of the layman's term and so I got diagnosed at 16 so I wasn't really a juvenile um and but I wasn't quite an adult either so it kind of made sense And they had said, yeah, people get diagnosed in their 30s and 40s with type 1, and often it's misdiagnosed, and there's not a whole lot of information out there. So it's really cool that you were able to plug into an online community. What's the community's name for the online community for LADA Diabetics?

[00:07:02] Rachel Zinman: Well, it's actually just on Facebook, and it's just called LADA Support Group. And it's mainly Americans, but there are quite a few Australians as well. so yeah it's just like one of those you know private groups that you can join and I just googled the word LADA on Facebook and that's how I found them. Very cool. Yeah it was cool. So

[00:07:30] Rob Howe: let's back up a little bit like tell us a little bit about yourself where you're from and then we'll kind of dive in because I'm really curious about your diagnosis you know we on our podcast So far, we have a lot of people sharing their diagnosis stories. So I'm really interested to see what that was like. But yeah, go ahead and tell us about yourself and a little bit about you.

[00:07:52] Rachel Zinman: Okay, so, well, I'm 49 and I'm a yoga teacher and I've been doing yoga since I was 17. I started yoga in high school and then I got really into it in my early 20s and ended up teaching, traveling internationally, teaching teachers, and basically living the lifestyle of a yogi from a very young age and way before yoga was popular. So I was doing yoga in the days where we were wearing leotards and tights and studying with Indian people. So it was sort of a new thing when I started, but I was just completely into it. And I just, my whole life has really just been yoga. And I ended up, I'm actually American, but I was born in Holland. And I grew up in Rochester, New York. And then I moved to Australia when I was 18. So I basically got into yoga in Australia. And then I ended up going back to New York in my 30s and meeting a teacher in New York named Alan Finger and getting really into the sort of deeper aspects of yoga, the philosophy, the meditation, the breathing. And that's how I ended up teaching teachers. And then I came back to Australia sort of after four years in New York and set up my own programs here. So I've just basically been doing that forever. And now I live in a place called Mullumbimby in Australia, which is one of the biggest little towns in Australia, but it's also extremely alternative. It's a tourist destination. It's artists and yogis and creative people, and there's festivals here, and it's like very international, even though it's very, very small, and it's surrounded by rainforest and gorgeous beaches, and it's just an incredible place to live, and alternative lifestyle and healing is very, very important here. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.

[00:10:00] Rob Howe: So let's talk a little bit about the importance of yoga. I have one of my really good friends has a yoga practice in L.A., and she does yoga travel retreats and leads those as well. And she recently was sick, but she was able to catch. She fell off in her body because she's so plugged into her body on a daily basis through her yoga practice, she was able to notice a difference right away. Was that sort of the case for you with diabetes and sort of your LADA onset?

[00:10:39] Rachel Zinman: Well, I guess we sort of need to go into my diagnosis story at this point because that's kind of how it all happened. So basically when I was in New York, and I was there in 2000, So I was there during 9-11. And I was actually in the situation when the planes hit the trade towers. I was in a yoga studio and I was teaching. And I had to sort of go and get my son who was uptown at his school. And I had to walk through the streets. And when I was going back with my son to go home, I had to walk into all the debris, You know, all the ash and stuff was coming up the streets and it was really unhealthy. And then we were living right across from the trade towers and from the collapse. We were in Brooklyn. And I'm pretty sure that that's the moment that my diabetes was triggered because I just, after that, I was in shock. I didn't feel well. And my nervous system really started breaking down. And as my nervous system was, I was just really sensitive to everything. And I was having anxiety and I couldn't sleep and I didn't feel well. I couldn't digest things. I was having all sorts of different kinds of symptoms. And at the time, my yoga teacher sort of said to me, oh, well, you know, it's something to do with spirituality. And I'm kind of making a joke about it now because now I know it was actually the beginning of my pancreas. you know, the beta cells starting to collapse. But at the time, I was convinced I was having a spiritual awakening. So anyway, you know, it sort of took me a bit on an orbit, which wasn't really that useful. Because the sensitivity, I kept sort of saying that the sensitivity had to do with the yoga. And so I just kept doing more yoga, more yoga, more yoga. And I just started of feeling worse and worse and worse um and so then i went back when i i decided i had to leave new york that it was too stressful i was working too hard you know i was teaching something like i don't know 20 classes a week i was teaching teachers i was working through the weekends i would work three weeks straight and i just felt so terrible and i didn't know why and i did have a lot of urination going on like I did have some of the early symptoms right of diabetes where I was you know urinating a lot I was um you know not sleeping so I was like I wasn't really I guess I was tired um I didn't have a lot of thirst I had didn't have a lot of thirst but I definitely had the symptoms of urination and at one point we were in England and I walked into a clinic because I thought maybe I had a bladder infection. And they just said, look, you know, the symptoms sound very much like diabetes. Let's test your blood sugar. And they just did a prick test, like a finger stick test. And it was normal. So there was no cause for concern. I think it was like, I can remember the reading was like 5.8 or something like that. And they took it. And I was having my fasting blood sugar tested regularly when I went to the doctor and it was never unusual. and then when I came back to Australia I was still teaching lots and lots of yoga and I was still having symptoms and eventually I just basically had this one day where I just collapsed I just and I was already like whenever I ate anything sweet I'd start to feel really spaced out and weird and I think I actually had reactive hypoglycemia at that point so I would have these you know incredible sort of lows but I wasn't realizing I was having lows and you know things were sort of going on and then I had this collapse where I just couldn't get out of bed I was just like exhausted and I couldn't move and I felt really really weird and I didn't go to the doctor because I was so into alternative health and I assumed that oh well you know it's just another spiritual thing or this or that. I just kind of like, you know, went to the, um, went to my chiropractor or something and, and he sort of cracked my back and then I was like, okay, well, I feel a bit better now. But anyway, my husband's at the time, he said to me, you know, let's, let's just take you to the doctor and let's just see what he says. So I went to this alternative doctor and um he did the blood tests and my husband also went in for tests and my husband went to the doctor first and got his diagnosis and then i was sort of in my yoga room doing my yoga and my husband comes in and he says um well you know my situation's pretty bad he said but yours is really bad because the doctor had given him the results for my blood tests oh and said you know, Rachel needs to come and make an appointment. Her situation's really serious. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he said, oh, it's something to do with your blood. But he didn't say, my husband didn't say what it was. So of course I'm like totally freaking out. I'm like, what's going on? You know? So I go into the doctor and he sits me down. It was one of the worst moments of my life. And he says, you're diabetic. I looked at your A1C. I don't know what an a1c is it's you know 6.8 you know this is serious and you're gonna have to work out how to cure yourself you're gonna have to figure it all out and he hands me a whole bunch of a bunch of pamphlets on diabetes and just sends me and he says google diabetes and i'm like i'm like sitting in the car driving home like with all these pamphlets in my hands going what the you know excuse me i'm just like oh my god well what a jarring diagnosis right what a horrible It was horrible. And I was going to India in three days to teach a Japanese teacher training with a whole group of Japanese who had never been to India before. And it was the time of the Mumbai attacks. So like I was like getting on a plane in this really scary time and I couldn't cancel the trip. so thank goodness my ex-husband found me we happened to have our son happened to be friends with a boy whose father was an endocrinologist so he hooked us up and so two days later I was sitting in the endocrinologist's office this is you know my current doctor and basically he looked at all the results and he said look you know I can't use the word diabetic here we have to say it's pre-diabetes and that's when the whole thing started where he thought I was type 2 or he wasn't sure and he just said get a glucometer go on your way go to India you'll be fine just you know test your blood sugar watch your diet so that's kind of how we started and we looked at it we looked at it holistically we looked at like my b12 levels and my iron levels and you know my vitamin d and we looked at all the different factors and everything was completely depleted so his whole thing was let's get your you know b12 up let's get your vitamin d up let's get everything up before we make any decisions so that's yeah that's basically how the diagnosis began well wow well how

[00:18:00] Rob Howe: did the trip go uh to india you obviously had a little bit you're preoccupied a little bit with

[00:18:06] Rachel Zinman: all that information i imagine yeah well what was really interesting was there was an ayurvedic cook at the retreat center where I was going and she we had written beforehand and she had said I'm going to cure her that was her thing I'm going to cure Rachel she hadn't even met me you know so I got there and she just put me on this diet this Ayurvedic diet which at which and I went to see an Ayurvedic doctor straight away when I was in India and the Ayurvedic doctor said to me that the type of diabetes that I had was incurable. So she didn't use the word type 1, but she just said it was incurable. But the thing was that if I ate eight meals a day and I ate these certain foods, I could probably manage it while I was in India. So with the cook's help and with the Ayurvedic doctor's help, I kept my blood sugar levels between four and six. And at that time, I was thinking, oh, you know, between four and six is really bad. You know, like I need to keep it at four you know I didn't really have any idea what I was doing you know and every time I'd have a low or something because I was still having lows then I'd just have a banana shake and uh so that was kind of like the still I could eat things you know what I mean like I could sort of work with it and I mean yeah it just really changed after that I mean it took a while it didn't really take two or three years for me to start to like from when I was diagnosed at the end of 2008 until 2010 I basically ate low carb but like low GI not really low carb and I and I managed it like that so I just changed the type of bread I was eating and I changed you know I added more protein into my diet I was eating chicken and fish I stopped being vegetarian I ate red meat I I just sort of mitigated the whole thing i exercised really regularly i didn't just do yoga i had a walk every day because for me the yoga didn't really reduce my blood sugar and you know that much because i've been doing it for so long so my body's just was so used to it right your body needed a change there yeah yeah so i added an hour walk into my routine every day um as well as other forms of exercise when i felt like you know like i started dancing quite vigorously every morning like for i actually had this really full-on morning where i'd get up i'd do yoga i'd do all these ayurvedic practices like sesame oil myself and then i'd go for a walk and then i'd come back and i'd do a 30-minute dance you know to music like you know really get the thing going and that's kind of like how i kept the levels between six and eight for years by just really focusing so much on what I thought a type 2 needed to you know stay in range well and then you know

[00:21:00] Rob Howe: obviously like you know you have that moment and you know the misdiagnosis and you're sort of doing everything that you know would be in the realm of a type 1 treatment uh just without insulin so um I mean and that was that's a heck of a routine you know there's there's so much you know because you're already obviously doing so much yoga that's a lot of physical strain how long did it

[00:21:24] Rachel Zinman: take you to really kind of adjust to that routine well i mean i think because i just got more and more depleted as i went along you know like that's the thing is i was just like actually draining my reserves and draining my adrenals by keeping all that up and you know i was i was i couldn't put on weight so I was sort of living at this kind of you know weight I wasn't losing weight but I wasn't putting on weight um because I was hardly eating and I was exercising so much and you know in a way people were thought I had an eating disorder they thought I was sick you know like like crazy or you know there was just a lot of I guess judgment around me as well because I was just so determined to try and reverse the situation you know I really thought you know I I can cure myself. I can fix this. Yoga could do it. You know, like I didn't really, I was just, it's so hard to explain, but I think in a way it was just, it was so much denial that, you know, when you said, you know, how long did it take me to get into that routine? I mean, it was just like there was no other choice. I just did it, you know, and I didn't even think about it. And a lot of people say to me, you know, how can you be so disciplined or how could you have, you know, just kept going. And I was just like, well, this is a life or death situation. You know, like I want to live, I want to teach yoga. I want to share, I want to travel. And I don't want to take insulin because that's going to, you know, I had this whole idea about insulin that it was going to like be really difficult to use and that it would really restrict my lifestyle. And it was just, I mean, all those myths have been busted for me. Life is so much better with insulin. But anyway, you know, like at the time, you know, I just was living in this thing like, no, no. And everyone's saying stay off insulin as long as you can. You know, that's all like the myths out there, you know. And so, yeah, the whole thing was like a big, it was like six years of intense exhaustion. Still, because I was teaching, you know, it's weird. I didn't think of myself as a diabetic. so I didn't identify myself with that that word or that name so I'm just teaching and I'm just going through life and just like no one else thinks of me as a diabetic either you know like and and I'm so I'm not admitting to myself how difficult I am what I'm actually I'm not admitting to myself how hard this is you know what I mean like I'm just I'm not sort of I'm just being normal because I've, you know, like I always ate normally and always did everything and I'm, but I was always so disciplined and healthy. And so it was just, yeah, it's just reflecting on it. It's just like, I just wasn't willing to actually take on the role of being diabetic, you know, and all that that entails, which has really changed for me now, um, happily in the role, you know, I guess I could say.

[00:24:29] Rob Howe: Well, and I think you mentioned that determination because people ask, how do you do it? Well, you just know what's important. And for you, for example, it was yoga and being healthy. And I think every diabetic that I've spoken to, I think that's what makes us really unique is that people may not realize on the surface level is that there's a lot going on in terms of determination and just willpower that it's like, well, I really have one choice. Either I do this and I do it well or I'll be unhealthy or die. But I also have a life to live and I have goals and dreams that I don't want to accomplish. I think that was my – when I was diagnosed, I didn't really understand what it meant. And I was very fortunate. My diagnosis was amazing. and I had these amazing doctors at Children's Medical Center of Dallas. But it's one of the top ten hospitals in the world for kids. And I know that there are kids who are throughout the United States and people internationally who don't have that type of experience at the hospital but still have that determination that this isn't going to beat me. This is just what I have to do from here on out. and I think hearing those stories from other diabetics just brings a level of motivation there and I think that there's somebody else out there that knows what you're going through. That's just a comfort level I think for me at least. I was a college and pro basketball player. I had to go sit out of practice sometimes because my blood sugars were too low and I had to have Gatorades all the time and test before games and at halftime and give myself insulin and it was tough. Um, but you know, I think ultimately like the discipline and things, I think I'm better for it. I don't know about you. I mean, uh, now things I'm sure for you have changed a little bit. What, like, uh, what do you think, what would you say are the main differences, um, between your life now, uh, and your life before diabetes?

[00:26:35] Rachel Zinman: Okay. Well, I think I look after myself a lot better. Um, I don't, I don't drive myself so hard. I don't push myself. I say no to things. I'm really a stickler for you know good sleep making sure I go to bed on time making sure I eat at the right times regularly sort of yeah I think the main thing is just the routine because before my diagnosis I really didn't have a routine I just did whatever I felt like doing I ate whatever I felt like eating I went where I felt like going my one thing that I stuck to was my yoga practice but everything else was just like grab a muffin here croissant there you know like whatever and now it's just really like i so enjoy you know having my breakfast at this time having my lunch at that time you know having my dinner at this time doing things in a very regulated way and learning to say no so you know there might be all sorts of opportunities to do this and do that But if it's going to take me out of that routine, I'd prefer not to do it because I know that it's going to really affect my blood sugars. So I find that the routine helps me so much. And that includes the time of day that I do my practice, how often I practice, making sure I get that practice in no matter what. Because I'm using the yoga now in a very different way. I'm not trying to cure myself with yoga. I'm using the yoga to help me with my stress levels and you know the stress associated with high range or low range sugars is really so valid I mean it just you just can't predict from day to day you know you might be doing exactly the same things every day and your sugars are just not doing what you want them to do so you know to go back onto my mat and just do my practice it just calms everything down and just gets me through I guess whatever's going to come up in the day. So I guess that's the one thing. The other thing is just how I relate to others in my life. Like, yeah, I just don't necessarily always go and help everybody just because I can. You know, like I go, okay, is this really, do I really want to be supportive of this situation or is it going to drain me? You know, I just kind of keep coming back to that because I think we just spend so much time feeling like we should do this and do that and be involved with this and be involved with that. But actually, if you don't put yourself first, it's a real issue because with a situation like diabetes, you have to put yourself first all the time. So like, you know, I'd rather make sure that my level is steady before I make any decisions to go here or go there or do this or do that. so that's been a big change for me

[00:29:34] Rob Howe: yeah and I think that's something you don't really think about until you're in it it could be the smallest minutiae of a feeling or I'm the same way sometimes I just need to not go out I just need to relax and rest and just know that I'm treating myself with a little extra kindness just because there's so much stress going on in your body all the time and I think I was having a conversation on the Instagram thread with some other diabetics the other day about stress and they were relating it to people you know they're when they were trying to exercise and that happened to me all the time when I would play basketball because the there was so much riding on every individual game when I was playing at the higher levels and that would spike my blood sugar up into the 300s sometimes with no food, no anything, on an empty stomach, on a fasting blood sugar. It would spike it up and it would stay there for a while. So, you know, they were, you know, I think in their situation, we're putting a lot of stress on making sure that they went to the gym and worked out for the purposes of losing weight. But because they were so amped up and so, you know, holding on so tight to that, they were spiking their blood sugar. So we were talking about meditation practices and relaxing and just focusing. And just kind of easing into those things can really help. And I think that's where yoga is especially helpful for diabetics who are looking for a different type of exercise routine. Because it's not as high intensity. You can ease into it and still get a really amazing workout without having all the stress on top of it.

[00:31:16] Rachel Zinman: Yeah, well, I just want to – it's been really interesting because I've been – So when I finally went on insulin and I started sort of looking into the diabetes community, and I was like, well, I wonder if there's any other yoga teachers out there who are diabetic, because I'm like, am I the only one? I haven't really found anybody else yet who is a lot of diabetic who started yoga when they were 17 and have been doing it their whole lives. but I have found people who were already diabetic maybe you know juvenile onset or Modi or something like that and they've ended up taking up yoga and yoga has really helped them so that's you know kind of the people that I've met so I'm I was like well you know I'd be really interested to work with some diabetics type 1 diabetics and type 2 diabetics and teach them some yoga and see what happens so because it's all very well for me to talk about it inside myself but you know like I said I've been doing it for so long I don't know if how it really affects my condition and you know I always sort of feel like well how come I got diabetes even though you know I've done yoga for so long how could that happen so I started working with some diabetics and it's been really interesting you know I've worked with three so far and one lady definitely her blood sugar comes down with yoga like we we've tested it before we've tested it afterwards we've tested it all sorts of situations and it works you can see it you know and it comes down really significantly over the 40 minutes that we work together with a with a specific routine that I sort of designed for her based on her Ayurvedic constitution so Ayurveda is for people who don't know it's a it's a science like yoga it's a sister science to yoga and it's all about the elements in the body and how the elements combine in the body and if you have a certain amount of air or space or water or earth or fire that's going to really determine how you digest how you express how you how your body works so you can actually look at the type of diabetes that the person has and then look at how that goes through their physical constitution and then create a sequence for them which is going to calm the nervous system or excite the nervous system or do whatever you need to do to help that person to really come into balance so working with her was incredible because it was like oh wow it really works you know it really calms her down and lowers her blood sugar and she feels amazing and she's sleeping now where she wasn't sleeping before and all these things have really helped her. Whereas another person I've been working with, because her sugars are basically higher, she's like me, she's a LADA diabetic, but she's not on insulin yet. When she does the workout, it actually raises her blood sugar. So I've had to create a routine for her, which is less high intensity, more relaxing, so that her blood sugar doesn't change until she gets to the point where she goes on insulin. So, yeah, it's just been fascinating.

[00:34:34] Rob Howe: That's very cool. It's always fun to see when you test and you're really focusing on an entire routine and then you've designed a program specifically for someone to see how it really helps them and actually see those results as they happen.

[00:34:51] Rachel Zinman: Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. It's been very cool.

[00:34:54] Rob Howe: So I always ask this question because every diabetic's got their own little kit. What do you carry with you? What's in your diabetes kit? What's in your daily pack?

[00:35:05] Rachel Zinman: Okay, well, in my daily pack is my glucometer. I used to have two glucometers, but one of them I dropped and it doesn't work anymore. So that's a real bummer. So I've got my glucometer. And then I carry a bag of almonds, an apple, and then I've got these all-natural jelly beans and some glucose tablets. but to be honest you know because I'm and I'm convinced it's because of my yoga practice and the you know the different things that I do I don't really go low that often and when I do go low I'm able to basically bring it up with some almonds and an apple or I also carry a juice in my bag like a juice bag we don't have like a juice boxes here in Australia we have them in bags So I have like an apple juice that sits in there as well. But most of the time things don't get touched. I just carry everything with me. And I'm only on long-acting insulin so far, which is the basal insulin. So I'm not injecting yet for meals. So I don't have to carry the insulin with me either. I just keep that, you know, I just have my shot in the evening. and I just went to the doctor and we were talking about me going on short acting insulin and he was just saying look your levels are still too steady for you to go on short acting you know so he just said you know whatever you're doing just keep it up hey that sounds good to me right yeah the less uh the less hassle the better yeah I mean my bag is pretty heavy I have to say and my friends are always like can't you just leave your bag in the car i'm like no this goes with me everywhere um often i carry an extra box of test strips as well just in case i run out because sometimes you know when i'm having like lower blood sugars i test a lot more often just to see well 15 minutes has it come up 15 minutes has it come up you know sometimes it doesn't come up and i have to eat a bit more and um yeah but so far it's like you know in the i've only been on insulin a year and I've only been on the short acting. And so far it's really brought down my blood sugar level. Um, you know, I was, I had that A1C of 10.7 and my A1C is 6.2 now. Um, and I'm just able to, and I'm convinced it's the yoga, the routine, you know, the simplicity of my life, how I've cut so much extra stress out of my life that those beta cells that I do have that are still going are keeping me, I guess what they call in the honeymoon phase.

[00:37:56] Rob Howe: Right.

[00:37:57] Rachel Zinman: And the idea is to prolong that honeymoon phase for as long as possible. So whatever I can keep doing to do that, I'm just doing my best. But I do know that I hardly produce any insulin. I've had the test and it's right on the edge of finishing. So my plan is just to keep going as is and trust that maybe it will be just like that.

[00:38:22] Rob Howe: Well, hey, from my experience, the best way to stay as sensitive to insulin as possible, which sounds like your body responds to insulin really positively, is just to keep doing all the things you're talking about, just eating a really strict diet and exercise and just commit yourself to that practice. And your body usually rewards you with less big spikes and better response to insulin. So I think you've got a nice system. You're set up for success.

[00:38:56] Rachel Zinman: Yeah. I mean, I also got into the whole low-carb thing. I mean, I read Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution book from cover to cover and really looked at that. And it just made a lot of sense to me. And I have found that restricting my carb intake has really helped. and I don't feel depleted like I did before when I was eating more carbs. So I find that interesting. I have more energy and, you know, I eat smaller meals. I haven't lost weight. I've actually put on weight. I'm a healthy weight now. And, you know, I feel really good. So people sort of freak out and say, well, are you getting enough calories? Are you getting this? Are you getting enough that? And I think, well, I'm able to walk an hour a day. I can do my yoga twice a day. I'm a good weight. I'm able to function and do my job well. And I keep my blood sugar in that good range. So it's okay.

[00:39:57] Rob Howe: Yeah, so what else do you need, I think, at that point, right?

[00:40:01] Rachel Zinman: Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:03] Rob Howe: So just kind of wrapping up here, what would you say to anybody who's starting out on their journey with LADA or just type 1 diabetes in general, just like some words of encouragement that you would have or from your experience?

[00:40:20] Rachel Zinman: Okay, well, I think, you know, the big thing is community and support. And I would have to say that that's really made a huge difference for me is finding support groups on Facebook, connecting with other people, reading as many things as you can about your condition. There's some great books out there. There's authors like Ginger Vieira, who's written something called Diabetes Burnout. There's a woman called Danielle Hargenrader, who's written a new book called Unleash Your Inner Diabetes Dominator, which is all about how to really get on top of the diabetes. there's this wonderful place called beyond type 1 which is um a new organization which has set up a whole kind of uh facebook wall sorry instagram wall of people who live beyond type 1 and it's just so encouraging people of all ages plus they have articles and they have like even have a great little movie out about people on the first day of diagnosis and how it was for them so the big thing I think is community and that's what I didn't do in the beginning I didn't create a community about around myself I didn't want to be any different I didn't want to identify identify myself as a diabetic but actually I've found that actually doing that has helped me enormously because I don't feel alone and I feel like I can cope better and I feel like if I have something going on like I inject and there's you know there's a bit of blood or I some of it spurts out I can just get online and say hey this just happened to me what do I do and someone will say you do this or you do that there's another great organization called TuDiabetes, which I think is fantastic and that's a like a live online chat that goes on 24 hours a day um you know you can really get support there as well so that's my big thing is get support get help and then obviously the other thing is get some sort of routine under your belt that's really going to help you in terms of to manage the stress because there's there's like this huge phase that you'll go through like which I went through which was like denial and then grief and then anger and then finally acceptance which is where I am now and going through those stages I really needed support and I you know I needed a team around me that could sort of help me to come to terms with the diagnosis because I think that's the hardest thing. No matter what age you are, it's just such a shock to leave behind your normal life. And it's shocking for your family. My family hasn't really quite understood yet themselves what's involved. It's shocking for your friends. Everything changes. And so you want to really have that support. So community support and then some sort of tools that you can take on yourself and I highly recommend breathing practices yoga practices meditation practices to help you to come to terms with the diagnosis that's awesome awesome information

[00:43:30] Rob Howe: um and how can uh speaking of community uh if our listeners want to get in touch with you online how

[00:43:36] Rachel Zinman: do they how do they find you well I have a blog and it's called um yoga for diabetes blog so www.yogafordiabetesblog.com and that's kind of the hub of of where I am um I'm trying to up that update that weekly with yoga practices and my own personal experiences of things that I'm going through um and also I'm on Instagram as Rachel as yoga for diabetes blog and um I'm on Facebook as yoga for diabetes blog or you can look me look me up as um yoga for diabetes so that's kind of where people can find me um and i'm in the process of setting up a website i'm writing a book about yoga and diabetes and and to help people through the lens of um yeah like what's your personal constitution what type of diabetes you have and how to really use the yoga to support you and help you through diagnosis and beyond. So that's kind of where you can find me.

[00:44:44] Rob Howe: Thanks for listening to Diabetics Doing Things. Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly emails and behind-the-scenes content. And if you or someone you know has an amazing story to share, send an email to rob at diabeticsdoingthings.com. Diabetics Doing Things is also available on iTunes. Subscribe to us in the podcast app to have weekly episodes automatically downloaded to your phone.