Episode summary
Rachel Zinman has lived with latent autoimmune diabetes (LADA) since her diagnosis in 2008 at age 42. A yoga teacher for over three decades, she runs the blog Yoga for Diabetes and writes for several diabetes publications. She talks about switching to rapid-acting insulin and learning to dose with a half-unit syringe, which helped bring her A1C down from 6.9 to 5.9. She describes going low while teaching a yoga workshop and choosing to tell her students rather than hide it. She explains how daily yoga, a consistent eating schedule, and a 30 to 40 minute daily walk keep her blood sugar steady, and why she disagrees with advice to simply cover carbs with insulin.
Key takeaways
- Rachel switched to a half-unit syringe to precisely dose rapid-acting insulin and says it helped lower her A1C from 6.9 to 5.9.
- She splits her long-acting insulin dose, taking slightly less at night than in the morning, to avoid lows.
- Rachel practices yoga twice a day and walks 30 to 40 minutes daily, which she says keeps her blood sugar stable.
- She disagrees with the advice to cover carbs with insulin and eat whatever you want, and instead eats low-carb whole foods.
- When she went low while teaching a yoga workshop, she told her students honestly rather than pushing through.
Show notes
Name: Rachel Zinman
Hometown: Mulambimby, Australia
Tool: Transformation Through Yoga
Questions this episode answers
What insulin dosing method does Rachel Zinman use to manage her LADA?
Rachel uses a half-unit syringe to precisely dose her rapid-acting insulin, a technique she learned from Hanna Boëthius and Ginger Vieira, which she says helped lower her A1C from 6.9 to 5.9.
How does Rachel Zinman use yoga to manage type 1 diabetes?
She practices yoga twice a day as part of a consistent daily routine, along with a 30 to 40 minute walk, which she says keeps her blood sugar stable and reduces stress.
What does Rachel Zinman think about the advice to just take more insulin and eat whatever you want?
She calls it bad advice, saying diabetes is a carbohydrate intolerance, and that eating low-carb whole foods in moderation keeps her blood sugar more even.
What happened when Rachel Zinman went low while teaching a yoga class?
She was teaching a workshop to 15 visiting yoga teachers when her blood sugar dropped, so she took glucose tabs, told the class she was low, and waited until she recovered before continuing to teach.
Full transcript Searchable, with timestamps
Rob Howe: Hello, welcome back to the Tools of Type 1s podcast. It's week nine, can you believe that? Nine weeks of Tools of Type 1s. Episode 18, Rachel Zinman, who was on episode four of the Diabetics Doing Things podcast way back in 2016. She's been teaching and practicing yoga for 34 years. She's also the first person with LADA, that's latent autoimmune diabetes that I ever met. She is an author. She is a speaker. She travels the world. doing yoga. Her approach is super genuine. I really loved all her thoughtful answers. She's been a great friend, one of the first people I discovered in the online diabetes space, doing athletics, specifically yoga, and really applying her discipline to how to live a successful life with diabetes, practicing yoga. She's born in Holland. She's an American citizen. She lives in Australia. She's an amazing, amazing person, and I'm really looking forward to hearing her thoughts on episode 18 of Tools of Type 1s. That's hashtag tools of type 1s on Instagram. Stay tuned for more episodes. Big news on the Tools of Type 1 podcast. We have a sponsor. You've heard of them before. They've sponsored the podcast in the past, Real Good Foods. Real Good Foods at Real Good Foods on Instagram, realgoodfoods.com. You can actually order Real Good Foods products online and using code ROBHOW, that's me, ROBHOW, R-O-B-H-O-W-E, at checkout. You can save 10% and get free shipping. And I believe the shipping is the biggest piece there because it can be quite costly at times to ship frozen products, but you get free shipping when you use code ROBHOUSE. So don't forget that. One thing that's really important to me are companies like Real Good Foods who are designing products that they don't know necessarily are perfect for people with type 1 diabetes, but then they discover and they get really involved and they kind of dive in with both feet. And Real Good Foods has done that during National Diabetes Awareness Month, they donated a ton of money to Beyond Type 1. They designed products that are great for our lifestyle and also taste great. So pizza is obviously one of many guilty pleasures that I have. But also, I know a lot of people in the Type 1 community have anxiety about eating pizza because it can be really tough. You know, high spikes, you know, the fat and the crust, difficult to count the carbs correctly and for the fat as well. Especially if you're eating it at night, it can be very difficult. so real good foods pizza four grams of carbs per serving that's crazy so i believe in one of their pizzas it's three servings in a single pizza guys that's 12 carbs and you know what counting those carbs injecting for that pizza it's right my levels stay flat and it's it's really cool to just have that sense of well-being and confidence when you're eating a product so highly recommend that you try it. Also very good. When I was on vacation with my girlfriend over Christmas, we ran out of food in our Airbnb. We're like, well, we got to go to the store. We got to get some food. I'm craving pizza. Lucky enough in the frozen food aisle, Kroger, Walmart, your general grocery stores, check online if your local grocery store has them. But we were easily able to find the pizzas that we liked. And they also have these poppers that are made with chicken. They have jalapeno and they have pizza flavor, pepperoni pizza flavor. And they've changed the recipe on those, I pop them in the air fryer. They're delicious. So if you want to try a low carb, low glycemic index, easy to manage with diabetes, delicious food, check out Real Good Foods. They're in your frozen food section in your local store. And if you do try them, let me know. Give me a tag on Instagram. We'll chat about it. Okay, guys. I hope you guys are enjoying
Rachel Zinman: Tools of Type 1s. Let's get back to the episode. So my name is Rachel Zinman. I was diagnosed in 2008. I was 42, so I've had type 1 for 10 years, and I'm a yoga teacher. I'm also a published author. I'm a social media strategist, and I just love yoga. I specialize in yoga for diabetes and helping anyone with type 1 diabetes to harness the power of yoga for total transformation and to awaken their true potential. Rob and I met during my crowdfunding campaign for my book on Yoga for Diabetes, and he interviewed me on Diabetics Doing Things. And my blog, yogafordiabetesblog.com, is well known in the T1D community, and I also write for Beyond Type 1, On Track Diabetes, Diabetes Daily, as well as many other diabetes publications.
Rob Howe: What is your tool of type ones? And what's the one thing that a person living with T1D could learn from you or your experience?
Rachel Zinman: So my tool for type 1 is transformation through yoga. Yoga is so much more than just using postures and breath and meditation to reduce stress. the word yoga and oneness are basically inseparable from each other and the word yoga means self so that's not the individual self who you think you are but the intangible ever-present self when you know who you are it means that no matter what's going on as an individual you can actually take it. Yoga expands your view so you can take in the whole picture. And this leads to self-acceptance and total freedom. So in other words, you're living liberated in spite of any condition.
Rob Howe: What is the simplest thing you've done that has helped you with the management of your type 1 diabetes? Where did you learn it or who showed it to you? Okay, so for me, that would absolutely
Rachel Zinman: have to be learning to use a half unit syringe. When I was at my diabetes educator's office, I was really worried about how I would feel, you know, going on rapid acting insulin. I have latent autoimmune diabetes in adults. So I've had this very slow glide into using insulin. And when it was time for rapid acting, I just had so many fears. And she kept saying to me, well, if you put it into a half unit syringe, then at least you can really control it and measure it. So being able to do that or learning how to do that, I actually wasn't, when I was ready to do the half unit syringe, I wasn't in the endocrinologist's office. So I actually had to reach out online. And the first person I reached out to was a woman named Hanna Boëthius from Hanna Diabetes Expert and we did a mini Skype session and she showed me how to dose and use the syringe. And then from there, I also connected with Ginger Vieira and she said, look, you can sometimes even dose to the point where you put hardly any insulin in there. So if you're having something which is basically under eight carbs or something like that, you just put like as if you're hardly putting insulin in the syringe and then you inject for that and it will still help to manage your blood sugar. So I've found that working with that syringe and being able to really fine tune the dose has helped me so much to work with my blood sugar. And I managed from January, which is when I started rapid acting insulin January 2018 to now, which is October, to get my A1C from 6.9 down to 5.9. So I'm really happy with the control that I've managed to get from using that half unit syringe.
Rob Howe: What failures or apparent failures with T1D have made you better at living the rest of your life or made you more well-rounded as a person?
Rachel Zinman: So I don't see anything as a failure, but I do know that living with type 1 has really forced me to be way more healthy than I probably would be. And it's given me the structure and the routine that I've needed. So doing everything at the same time every day can seem really boring. But for me, it actually gives me so much freedom because I know that I'm going to be in control of my health and well-being. So doing my daily yoga practice twice a day, eating at the same times every day, making sure that the meals that I'm having are very similar to each other so I know what the carb counts are. So that takes away the stress for me of having to guess what to dose. just that predictability has given me so much security and confidence in managing my diabetes. And I feel like, you know, when I was in my 20s pre-diagnosis, I just was not as healthy and as moderate and as happy as I am now.
Rob Howe: What unusual or absurd opinion or approach regarding your diabetes do you have?
Rachel Zinman: So for me, it's yoga. Yoga totally gets me through my practice, my mindset. And I'm convinced that if everyone did yoga, their lives with diabetes would be infinitely better. They'd have better blood sugar levels. They'd have improved mood, improved sleep, weight loss. their stress would be reduced. There are just so many benefits to this practice. So I think that, you know, it's a game changer in diabetes management.
Rob Howe: What's your favorite thing? What gets you to smile or laugh almost every time?
Rachel Zinman: Okay, so this one's really easy. My husband, he makes me laugh every single day. That's it.
Rob Howe: In the last five years, what new adjustment to your lifestyle has improved your life with diabetes the most?
Rachel Zinman: So this has really to do with insulin and really learning how to work with my insulin. So I started out with one injection a day with Lantus, and that really wasn't working. I was having the peak and the low, and it was really frustrating, and I never knew exactly how much to dose for. So I ended up splitting the dose, which made a huge difference, and really tweaking it so that the nighttime dose was just a little bit lower than the daytime dose. And then when I started rapid-acting insulin, really tweaking that as well in relationship to the long-acting. It seems as though my body works really well with the rapid acting. I'm on Fiasp. And as I said, with the half unit syringe, I can really dose it to a very small amount. But I found that if I haven't got my basal right, then I'm going to have lows. So it's been a real journey for me to find the right basal dose. And so right now I have four units at night and five units in the morning. And as long as I don't have any inflammation in my body or I'm doing anything excessive or I'm going out of routine, it seems to generally keep me in a very stable range. So my time in range is pretty well between in MMOL between five and seven, which I'm really happy with and has made me feel really good emotionally, like I've got good control. but it's also just given me more energy and just that stability that I've craved. And the other thing that has really helped me and continues to help me is a daily walk. So even though I do the yoga in the morning and I do the yoga in the evening, I also walk 30 to 40 minutes a day every day. And that also keeps my blood sugar in range.
Rob Howe: What challenges related to T1D did you encounter or have to overcome while you were doing your thing?
Rachel Zinman: So the biggest thing for me is being a yoga teacher and miscalculating and going low while I'm teaching. And it's happened a couple of times. And the second time it happened, I was teaching a yoga workshop. and I had 15 teachers who'd come especially from all over the area to study with me. And it was just one of those really difficult moments where we were just about to start and I could see the numbers on my meter were tanking and I didn't know what to do. So I took a couple of glucose tabs and just shared with everyone, got really vulnerable and told them, look, I'm going low. I don't know how quickly I'm going to come up. But while I'm low, I really can't think. and I can't teach. So just talk amongst yourselves. And luckily, my blood sugars came up and, you know, my brain came back online and I could teach. But I think it's something that, you know, as a yoga teacher, you're just expected to live by example. And I felt like the best way that I could live by example was to get vulnerable, get real and share my story.
Rob Howe: What bad advice regarding diabetes do you see or hear that you'd like to address?
Rachel Zinman: Cover your carbs with insulin and eat whatever you want. There's no way that I could do that. I think it's really crappy advice. I think understanding that diabetes is basically carbohydrate intolerance gives you the ability to understand how you can moderate your diet so that you can really avoid all those big highs and those big lows. So as a yoga teacher, obviously I try and eat as healthily as possible. I eat whole foods. I eat lots of low-carb veggies. I don't eat huge amounts of food. And that means that I don't need as much insulin. and it means that I have very few lows and very few highs. And that keeps me on that even keel. It helps my nervous system. It keeps me less stressed. And even though, you know, other people will say to me, oh, why can't you eat that? Or why are you doing that? I thought if you had diabetes, you could just take insulin and everything would be okay. But it's not okay. And there's just so much stress associated with not having that good control. and I really couldn't, you know, as a yoga teacher and someone who's so into that lifestyle, I just couldn't bear it to be on a roller coaster with my blood sugars every day. So when someone tells me just eat that and you'll be fine, just take some insulin, I just roll my eyes and look the other way.
Rob Howe: What priority are you focusing on in your own life currently? This can be diabetes related or not.
Rachel Zinman: I feel a bit like a broken record, but for me it's all about yoga for diabetes and really getting that message out there in whatever way I can. So I just keep thinking of new ways to spread the word and to bring that awareness. And as I'm doing that, I'm just discovering there's so many more people out there who love yoga and who live with diabetes and that there's even yoga teachers out there with diabetes and I'm just thinking of ways that we can collaborate or create community and, you know, create this light network around the world to inspire people when they're diagnosed and after diagnosed to try yoga. And that's my priority in my life.
Rob Howe: Who is someone that you look up to and what have they taught you? How do you apply that to your
Rachel Zinman: life. I look up to my husband, John Weddipol. He is an amazing teacher. He teaches something called self-knowledge, which in Sanskrit is called Atma Vidya, which means knowledge of self. And these teachings are the oldest of humankind, and they come from something called the Upanishads. And they answer the deepest questions like who we are, why are we here? And studying with him has answered all my questions and supported me to live with my condition totally without suffering. He's just helped me so much with my mindset, how I approach my yoga practice, every little detail. He's kind of there just leading by example and it's so inspiring and it changes my life every day.
Rob Howe: What are you most hopeful for? This can be diabetes related or not.
Rachel Zinman: Well, besides a beautiful cure for type 1 diabetes, I would really love it if the human race would come to know who they are, know themselves as peace, love, joy, contentment. You know, if we all knew ourselves, if we knew why we were here, there's no way that we would behave the way that we do. And we would live very differently on this planet. And I feel like it would just be the biggest blessing if that could happen.
Rob Howe: What advice would you give someone who has T1D and is trying to pursue a career in your line of work?
Rachel Zinman: Well, that's really easy. I just say go for it. Helping other people is amazing. Helping people with type 1 diabetes is incredibly amazing. You just feel the joy, the reward. You can relate to people who are going through the same thing as you, but you can give them actual tools which will help them with their management, which will transform their lives and lead them to pure awakening. So I think anyone who wants to study to be a yoga teacher who lives with diabetes, you will find there's nothing but support for you to do that out there in the world.
Rob Howe: What's the one facet or trait that you think makes you uniquely you? Explain why.
Rachel Zinman: This was a really hard question to answer because I don't really see myself like that. as, you know, I know I'm uniquely me, but I never really think about those things. So I asked my husband, I said, you know, what makes me uniquely you? What makes me uniquely me? And he said, it's my ability to stick things through no matter how tough things get. So, you know, when I'm dealing with all sorts of different hardships, I don't get down. I don't get depressed. I just come up with a plan. And I think, how can I make this day better? How can I get this thing done? How can I put one foot in front of the other? And I think this really comes from my dad. My dad is just incredibly strong and he never gives up. And no matter what challenges he's faced with, he just meets them head on with practicality and I guess with faith that he can get through it. So I really learned that from him. And that's what keeps me going.
Rob Howe: Plug yourself. Tell us where we can find you in the diabetes online community.
Rachel Zinman: Right now, I have a blog, www.yogafordiabetesblog.com. And that's really the best place to find me and find what I'm up to because I'm always posting new things on the blog. Right now, I've just finished a summit, Daya Yogi Dialogues, 11 Conversations with Yoga Teachers Who Live with Diabetes. And from there, I'm heading into a Pose a Day Challenge in my Facebook group, which is Better Diabetes Management in Seven Steps with Yoga. You can find me on Instagram. I often post stories with my yoga practice in there and other things that I'm up to. I'm Yoga for Diabetes blog on Instagram. And I'm also on Facebook as Yoga for Diabetes blog. And I'm also uploading constantly onto YouTube. And my YouTube channel is Yoga for Diabetes.
Rob Howe: Where do you get plugged into the T1D community the most?
Rachel Zinman: So this is the bonus question. Where do I get plugged into the T1D community the most? and I would have to say for me it's started with a google search and then I connected with facebook and I found some groups on facebook specific to my style you know my style of diabetes which is latent autoimmune diabetes in adults called LADA or type 1.5 and so I found a support group there and started connecting with people in there I also have you know connections with the T1D athletes group on Facebook, Diabetes Strong on Facebook. There's another group called I Thrive. There's just so many different groups on Facebook and you can put in there what you're passionate about in terms of your relationship to your type 1 diabetes and guaranteed you'll find a Facebook group for that. And also the Beyond Type 1 community is really big for me. I write for them. I hang with them. I love the app. They are just awesome and I think they really work hard to create community. And I also hang quite a bit around Diabetes Daily. They've got communities there as well, which are great if you have questions or you want to find out about more stuff. And Instagram. I love watching the stories on Instagram and connecting with T1Ds on Instagram and just seeing how they're managing their blood sugars from day to day, what they're eating, how they're feeling. So Instagram, Facebook, Diabetes Daily, and Beyond Type 1.
Rob Howe: Thank you for listening to the Tools of Type 1's podcast on diabetics doing things. I'm Rob Howe, and every Tuesday and Thursday in 2019, we are posting the next Tools of Type 1 episode. So follow us on Instagram, hashtag tools of type 1s, or just on diabetics doing things. We will post these regularly every Tuesday, every Thursday. My favorite type ones are answering the questions I want to know the answers to. And hopefully you'll learn a few things as well. If you like this episode, be sure to review us on iTunes. And if you didn't like it, go ahead and let me know that too. I want to know. All the feedback is good to me. Thanks again for your time. I value that more than anything you could possibly give me. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.
About Rachel
Rachel Zinman is a yoga teacher and published author who has lived with latent autoimmune diabetes (LADA) since being diagnosed in 2008 at age 42. She writes the blog Yoga for Diabetes and contributes to Beyond Type 1, On Track Diabetes, and Diabetes Daily.