Your Best T1D Year

Neil Greathouse

Managing Type 1 Diabetes doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

Each 5-minute episode of Your Best T1D Year is packed with practical strategies, mindset shifts, and a little humor to help you feel more in control and less frustrated by diabetes.

Hosted by Neil Greathouse, this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday podcast delivers quick, relatable episodes that make learning about T1D effortless - so you can build small wins that lead to big changes.

📅 New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

🎧 Subscribe now and start making diabetes management feel easier - one small habit at a time.

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S1 · E266
Yesterday · 5 min
Bring Somebody With You
The habits that survive have one thing in common, and it isn't discipline: somebody else knows about them. Neil's after-dinner walk survives because it belongs to three of them: Neil, his wife Gina, and Cora the 5.9-pound Morkie who sets the pace. Skipping it doesn't feel like skipping exercise. It feels like standing up his wife. With one week left in the challenge, this episode is about future-proofing your walk by recruiting one person into it: someone in your house, a weekly walk-and-talk phone call with a friend, or the 2,000 people already walking at roughly the same hour every evening. And for the parents: when your kids see the family walk happen every night, you're not exercising. You're installing a default they'll carry for decades. In this episode: Why another human beats motivation for keeping habits alive Three ways to recruit a walking partner, including the no-pants phone call option The family walk as the longest game in diabetes parenting Making the anchor habit survive winter by making it not just yours Your challenge: recruit ONE person into ONE movement habit. Ask them tonight. Worst case they say no and you walk anyway. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E265
Wednesday · 6 min
Beat Yesterday's You
Measurement day, and the idea underneath it might be the most important sentence of the whole challenge: the average response was never the problem, the spread around it is. The newest wave of 2026 research in Diabetologia and Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics is mostly about variability, how differently the same walk lands in different bodies. Which means the most important dataset in the world for your diabetes has a sample size of one: you. Then the assignment: pull your week-one baseline, take the after picture, and grade it with Neil's rubric instead of your inner gym teacher's. Steps up by any amount is a win. Longest sit down might be the bigger win. Flat totals with better spread still wins. And if life wrecked your September? You're still here in week seven. That counts. In this episode: Why exercise variability is the new frontier of T1D research The sample-size-of-one idea that justifies the whole beat-yesterday approach The four-outcome grading rubric that turns every honest result into information How to take your after picture in five minutes tonight Your challenge: take the after picture, grade it with the rubric, and send it in for the finale wall. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E264
Monday · 7 min
The Community Check-In
No studies today. Week seven is the community check-in, and Neil reads real stories from the challenge: the 61-year-old doing sit-to-stands during Wheel of Fortune whose post-supper numbers are the best they've been in years, the night-shift nurse walking a 2am hospital parking garage with a fellow T1D she met through the show, the football fan logging 11,000 living-room steps during a loss, and the honest one, the listener who missed two weeks, almost quit, and came back. Miss, shrug, resume. Then the ask: the before-and-after wall goes up at the finale, and it's built from your numbers. Week-one you versus now-you. Steps, longest sit, or just a sentence about what changed. In this episode: Real community wins, from dramatic improvements to tiny-but-mighty ones Why the desk worker who went 3,100 to 5,200 steps beats any fitness influencer story The honest struggle story, and why it matters more than the highlight reel How to get on the finale wall this week Your challenge: keep the anchor habits running, and send your before-and-after to the newsletter or to Neil on Instagram at thebetes. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E263
October 16 · 5 min
Move for Your Head, Not Just Your Numbers
Six weeks of below-the-neck science, and now the part a CGM can't graph. Type 1 diabetes carries a mental load the pamphlets undersell: four hundred decisions a day, alarms, math, the low that hijacks an afternoon. The research on movement and mood is deep and consistent: regular light movement measurably helps with stress, anxiety, and low mood. Not a replacement for real mental health care, and Neil says so clearly, but a free, immediate daily pressure valve. And for us specifically, the evening walk offers something rarer: the only fifteen minutes of the day when the relationship with your body isn't a negotiation through sticky notes on a CGM. No alarms. Same team. Some days, that's the whole point. In this episode: What the research says about movement, stress, and mood The walk as a pattern interrupt for shame spirals and doomscrolls Diabetes distress, burnout, and why the head is part of the A1C When movement helps your mental load, and when it's time for more support Your challenge: take one walk purely for your head this week. Don't even check the CGM after. Just notice how you re-enter the house. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E270
October 15 · 31 min
Why You Go Low When You Exercise With Type 1 (Part 2) // Ginger Vieira, Diabetes Nerd
The conversation with Ginger Vieira and Tara Mayo was going so well we didn't stop. This is the next half hour, and it might be the most practical thing we've ever put on this show. No games this time, no Fastest Five, no Confession Booth. If you want those, go back to the October 12th episode. It starts with a study that stopped Neil cold. In 2008, researchers at the Université de Montréal asked 100 adults with type 1 what keeps them from exercising. Number one answer: fear of going low. Only 52 of them understood how their insulin actually works over time, and the people with the most fear had the hardest time with their numbers. Ginger explains why the fear and that knowledge gap are connected, Tara talks to every parent, partner, and friend about keeping their fear from becoming somebody else's reason to stay on the couch, and Ginger walks through exactly what she checks before she moves. In this episode: Ginger's self-talk for the moment you're standing at the door, scared Tara on why the fear sometimes belongs to the person who loves you, and what to do with it Why going low on almost every workout usually points to too much insulin, not too much exercise How starting to move every day can change your insulin needs quickly, and why that's a conversation to have with your care team sooner rather than at your next appointment Activity mode on a pump: why setting it 30 to 60 minutes ahead matters The fourth predictor of exercise lows Ginger added to Neil's checklist: time of day What to write down, and how many workouts it takes to see a pattern Why Ginger carries dextrose and only dextrose The Ironman story that shows how strange the body gets under extreme stress One first step this week if you've been scared to move for years This Week's Challenge: Take one 15-minute walk about five hours after breakfast, when you've got the least insulin on board, with fast-acting glucose in your pocket. Watch your line during and after, and write it down. If you drop, that's information, not failure. Take it to your care team and ask whether your settings fit the more active you. Missed Part 1? Go back to the October 12th episode for the myths, the Arnold voice, the Confession Booth, and Neil's Fastest Five. Connect with Ginger and Tara: Diabetes Nerd: https://diabetesnerd.com Diabetes Nerd Network: https://diabetesnerdnetwork.com Diabetes Nerd Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/diabetes-nerd/id1807755678 Ginger on Instagram: https://instagram.com/gingervieira.t1d Diabetes Nerd on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@diabetesnerd Tara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taramayo/ Their new book, Every Day with Diabetes: https://a.co/d/0a6NQuXJ Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E262
October 14 · 6 min
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 for a behavior to feel automatic, with a huge normal range, and, the finding worth tattooing somewhere: missing a single day made no meaningful difference to habit formation. None. The skill isn't never-missing. It's the boring restart. Miss, shrug, resume. In this episode: The 66-day truth about how long habits actually take The data on missed days: one skip changes nothing Why the streak mindset backfires, especially with a chronic condition The restart as a practiced skill, not a character test Your challenge: practice the restart. If you miss a day this week, your only job is to be back at the very next opportunity and notice that nothing was lost. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E261
October 12 · 1 hr 7 min
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 trainer, yoga teacher, and trail runner who's been estimating Ginger's insulin doses for years... and nailing them. They met 20 years ago in a gym, when Ginger's endocrinologist laughed at her for asking how to manage type 1 during powerlifting training. So they figured it out together. Today they take apart the exercise myths most of us were handed at diagnosis: why a sprint or a heavy lift can send your blood sugar up, why you might not need to eat before every workout, and why a 15-minute walk absolutely counts. Plus the Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, a double Diabetes Confession Booth, and, for the first time ever, Neil in the Fastest Five hot seat. In this episode: How Ginger reads new diabetes research before getting excited about it (and why studies quietly cut the outliers) Myth 1: exercise always brings blood sugar down. Why anaerobic work like sprints, spin, and CrossFit can spike you, and why that means your body is working normally Myth 2: you have to eat before every workout. How to set up a simple fasted experiment, and who fasted workouts are NOT for (teens, pregnancy, anyone starting high) Myth 3: it has to be a real workout to count. Why 10 to 15 minutes still matters Myth 4: exercise is how you pay for food. Moving for your metabolism instead of as punishment The one piece of exercise advice they'd delete forever True or False, a two-person Diabetes Confession Booth, and the Fastest Five Minutes, reverse edition (the official count got lost somewhere around Predator) This Week's Challenge: Run one small experiment. Same workout, same time of day, same lunch beforehand, three times. Write down your number before, during, and after. Ginger says three tries is usually enough to see a pattern. Bring what you find to your care team before you change anything. Part 2 drops this week. Ginger stuck around to go deep on the fear of going low, basal insulin, activity mode, and the very first step if you've been scared to move for years. Connect with Ginger and Tara: Diabetes Nerd: https://diabetesnerd.com Diabetes Nerd Network: https://diabetesnerdnetwork.com Diabetes Nerd Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/diabetes-nerd/id1807755678 Ginger on Instagram: https://instagram.com/gingervieira.t1d Diabetes Nerd on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@diabetesnerd Tara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taramayo/ Their new book, Every Day with Diabetes: https://a.co/d/09GHKnhh Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E260
October 9 · 6 min
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 before you need it. The halftime-and-commercials rule for football season. Marching in place during the Netflix are-you-still-watching screen. Mall laps, grocery laps, stairs, a resistance band on the doorknob. It doesn't matter which one. It matters that it's decided in October, so December-you never has to make a good decision in the dark at 5:45pm. In this episode: How the fall slump actually deletes habits, one cool evening at a time Why the two-day insulin sensitivity bonus makes consistency matter more in winter A menu of indoor movement plans that require zero equipment The commercial-break rule that turns football season into a step source Your challenge: name your indoor plan out loud, then run it once this week as a dress rehearsal, even if the weather's still fine. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E259
October 7 · 5 min
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 contraction, any muscle contraction, opening the side door that pulls glucose out of your blood. Bad knees, chronic pain, wheelchairs, rainy weeks, unwalkable neighborhoods: this challenge was built for your body too. And hear this exactly right: seated and standing moves aren't the modified version. They're THE version. In this episode: The Dempsey study: resistance moves matched walking for post-meal glucose Seated and standing options that open the same metabolic side door Adapting the after-dinner ten and hourly get-up to any body Why every activity challenge accidentally excludes people, and this one doesn't Your challenge: swap one walk for one no-walk session this week and prove to yourself it counts. And send this episode to somebody who needs it. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E258
October 5 · 6 min
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 first: the standing call, the top-of-the-hour get-up (the ADA's every-30-minutes guidance adapted for someone with an actual boss), the far bathroom, the one-glass-at-a-time water trick, and the ten-minute walking lunch. None of it looks like exercise, which is exactly the point. In this episode: Five ways to hide movement inside a workday, ranked by ease Why desk jobs quietly raise insulin needs, and what interrupts it Habit-stacking movement onto calls, water, and lunch you already have What the science says about light movement and afternoon glucose drift Your challenge: pick TWO plays from the playbook and run them every workday this week. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E257
October 2 · 5 min
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 better, because working muscles pull glucose out of the blood without extra insulin. But the rule comes first, every time: if you're high, check for ketones before you move. No ketones, a gentle walk can help. Ketones present, movement is off the table, full stop, that's insulin, fluids, rest, and your care team. Plus the September recap: the side door, the two-day bonus, three walks, movement snacks, and the safety net, all in one month. In this episode: How gentle movement helps a correction dose do its job The one-high-one-ketone rule, the non-negotiable of the whole series The travel-day playbook for stubborn highs Everything September taught, recapped in one breath Your challenge this weekend: keep the anchor walk. And if a ketone-free high shows up, try the gentle-walk assist and watch what your line does. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E256
September 30 · 8 min
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. That study found only three things predicted going low: longer activity, a lower starting glucose, and more insulin on board. That's the whole list, and you can check all three before your shoes are on. Neil walks through the four-tool safety net (check your number and arrow, respect insulin timing, carry fast carbs, keep it easy) and shows how it covers all three predictors. The fear feels infinite. The actual risk has a checklist. In this episode: * The 8,171-session study: only three things predict exercise lows in T1D * The four-tool safety net, mapped to the three predictors * Why easy, conversation-pace walking is the shallow end by design * How to have the exercise conversation with your care team Your challenge: walk WITH the net this week. Same after-dinner ten, full pre-flight: number, arrow, fast carbs in pocket. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E255
September 28 · 53 min
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 translating science that usually reads like a tax form. The 48-hour insulin sensitivity bonus is real, and he confirms it. Exercise makes your insulin faster, not stronger (there's a Fast and Furious button involved). Fasted and fed lifting behave differently, and a seesaw explains why. Plus caffeine as low protection, what's in his gym bag, the endo who tried to "fix" his intentional bulk, an official kilt ruling, and a brand new Fastest Five Minutes world record. Follow Alex: https://instagram.com/saintjohnscience Know your type 1 diabetes risk with a painless cheek swab from T1D Scout: https://www.t1dscout.com Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E254
September 25 · 6 min
"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 for type 1 diabetes, intensity plus insulin on board is exactly where lows come from, so this is a talk-to-your-care-team-first tool, not a try-it-tonight-because-a-podcast-said-so tool. Neil also shares a personal sidebar from the 2026 research: fasted morning workouts turned out to be more predictable, not safer, which explains a lot about his 4am runs. In this episode: * Exercise snacks: the pre-meal movement study, explained honestly * About 12 percent lower post-meal glucose from a couple of brisk minutes * The T1D-specific safety caveats, said loudly and repeated * Why the after-dinner ten stays the anchor, and this stays the bonus level Your challenge: keep the after-dinner ten, that's the assignment. The pre-meal snack is optional, gated on your care team, your number, your arrow, and fast carbs within reach. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
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September 23 · 5 min
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 a short easy walk after eating meaningfully blunts the glucose rise, in the range of 15 to 20 points off the peak, and researcher Andrew Reynolds found ten minutes after each meal beat one 30-minute daily walk. This episode gives you the exact protocol: finish dinner, do NOT sit on the couch first (it's a Venus flytrap with throw pillows), shoes, ten easy minutes, wave at your flat line. In this episode: * Why the after-dinner walk is the highest-value ten minutes of your day * The research: 15 to 20 points off the post-meal peak from an easy walk * The couch trap, and the table-shoes-door move that beats it * Conversation pace, dogs welcome, no gear required Your challenge: the after-dinner ten, most nights this week. Compare your two-hour numbers to your week-one before picture. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E252
September 21 · 5 min
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 actual T1D bodies, and the ADA now recommends breaking up sitting every half hour. There is no gym anywhere in that list. The bar was never where the marketing put it. The steps target was inflated by a pedometer slogan, the effort target was inflated by gym culture, and the actual science has been quietly asking for the bare minimum this whole time. Stop trying to become a gym person. Become a slightly-less-still person. In this episode: * Every study in this challenge, stacked: none of them required a gym * How marketing inflated both the step count and the effort bar * The identity shift that actually sticks for people with type 1 diabetes * The complete starter kit: the after-dinner ten plus the hourly get-up Your challenge: run both anchor habits this week. The after-dinner ten most nights, and the hourly get-up during workdays. That's the whole foundation. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E251
September 18 · 5 min
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 setting. That's the movement snack: tiny bites of movement instead of one big meal of exercise you keep rescheduling. Calf raises while coffee brews. Squats between Zoom calls with the camera off. And the ADA's 2025 Standards of Care now officially recommend interrupting sitting every 30 minutes, which means your desk squats are evidence-based medicine now. This isn't 75 Hard. This is 8 Easy. In this episode: * The first sitting-break study done specifically in people with T1D on pumps * What a movement snack is, and why two minutes counts * The ADA's every-30-minutes recommendation, now official * How to hide movement inside a workday without anyone noticing Your challenge: pick a trigger and run one movement snack an hour for one workday. Two or three minutes, up and moving, back down. See what your afternoon line does. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E250
September 16 · 5 min
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, parents, commutes, or lives an actual life, this reorganizes everything. You don't need a block of time. You need three ten-minute cracks, and one of them, right after dinner, you already own if you did the pre-bolus challenge this summer. Same minutes, better numbers, and the only thing that changed was when. In this episode: * The DiPietro study: same walking time, dramatically better placement * Why post-meal walks beat any other timing for blood sugar * The after-dinner walk as MVP, and why it stacks on your pre-bolus habit * Finding the three cracks hiding in your normal day Your challenge: add one after-dinner walk. Ten minutes, easy pace. Check your line at the two-hour mark and compare it to a normal night. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E249
September 14 · 1 hr 4 min
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 and the study data, Neil wanted you to hear a regular guy with a regular life talk about what moving, and not moving, actually does to this disease over decades. Arnie gets honest about the chair tax on desk days, the fear of lows that keeps so many of us parked, the habit that finally stuck after the ones that didn't, and a movement-plus-blood-sugar mistake he owns out loud. That's the evidence that doesn't fit in a journal. In this episode: Thirty-four years of type 1 in the short version: diagnosis, the grind nobody claps for, and where the relationship stands now Where movement actually fits in real T1D management... walker, runner, pacer-during-football-games, all of it counts The chair tax: what desk days versus moving days do to insulin sensitivity, felt in a real body, not a lab Fear of going low with insulin on board... the number one reason people with T1D move less, and what Arnie would tell his younger, scared self The habit that finally stuck (after failing five times), and what was different that time Movement on chaotic days: not the ideal schedule, the real one True or False, the Diabetes Confession Booth, and the Fastest Five Minutes... friend edition This Week's Challenge: One ten-minute walk after one meal. That's it. Your muscles have a side door that pulls sugar out of your blood with zero insulin, and the payout lasts up to two days. Take the deal. Know your type 1 diabetes risk with a painless cheek swab from T1D Scout: https://www.t1dscout.com Follow Arnie: Instagram: https://instagram.com/type_run_diabetic Everything else: https://linktr.ee/awbunch3 Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1
S1 · E248
September 11 · 6 min
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 exercise sessions from 3,248 people with type 1 diabetes wearing CGMs. Every type of movement improved time in range over the next 24 hours: walking about 2 points, strength work almost 4. Neil also gives you the honest cost from the same study (time below range rose slightly on active days) and why that's exactly what the upcoming safety-net episode is for. In this episode: * The 24-to-48-hour insulin sensitivity window, explained simply * 428,058 real T1D workouts: the biggest exercise dataset our community has ever had * Walking vs cardio vs strength for next-day time in range * The honest tradeoff nobody selling fitness plans will tell you Your challenge: move ten easy minutes today, then pay attention tomorrow. A lot of people can feel the day-after difference once they know to look. Helpful resources and newsletter: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Connect with Neil: TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@the.betes Instagram: https://instagram.com/thebetes Facebook: https://facebook.com/neilgreathouse LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/neil-greathouse-a607b912 Website: https://yourbestt1dyear.com Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time: https://a.co/d/6UHooWJ Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories: https://a.co/d/dfIlyI1

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