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.

  1. 3 hr ago

    The Trick Is Movement, the Treat Is Range

    Halloween week, the most complicated holiday on the type 1 diabetes calendar, hosted by a man who hands out candy from a fire pit in his front yard like a benevolent porch goblin. This is the Halloween playbook, movement edition: why fun-size candy is secretly pre-portioned low treatment, why trick-or-treating is the biggest walking night of the year, and why lawn-chair sit-to-stands technically count as resistance training. Everything the challenge taught applies to candy season: the after-dinner walk blunts the spike whether it's dinner or Kit Kats, the movement snack breaks up the couch-and-candy sit, and the ketone rule doesn't take holidays off. Most of all, it's a no-shame week. Eat the candy you want, dose for it, move a little, restart at the next meal. That's not falling off the wagon. That IS the wagon. In this episode: The T1D case for fun-size candy as resource managementHalloween as the year's biggest stealth walking nightPost-meal walking science, applied directly to candy seasonThe no-shame final exam: one imperfect night breaks nothingYour challenge: enjoy Halloween on purpose, with movement hidden inside it. And reply with the best costume you see. 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

  2. 2 days ago

    Why Workouts Spike (or Crash) Your Blood Sugar // Christel Oerum, Diabetes Strong

    Christel Oerum might be the most trusted voice out there on exercise and type 1 diabetes, and she got there the honest way... by getting a lot of it wrong first and telling everybody about it. She's lived with type 1 since 1997, she founded Diabetes Strong, and six years ago she had to define "D-bag" on camera for Neil with a straight face. (It's a diabetes supply bag. She did not keep a straight face.) It's finale week of the Keep It Moving Challenge, and Christel brought receipts. She explains why cardio pulls your blood sugar down while lifting can push it up, why your insulin sensitivity rises in waves for a day or 3 after you work out, and what insulin on board actually means, in plain English, because a lot of care teams never have time to teach it. She also shares the little notebook with a flying pig on the cover where she figured out her own patterns, one variable at a time. In this episode: The day Neil met Christel, and the diabetes slang she had to define on cameraDiagnosed at 19 in Denmark, and the advice from a nurse named Lotte that shaped everything after: "I don't live my life to fit my diabetes. I manage my diabetes so it fits my life."Why she kept type 1 private for about 15 years before going public in 2015The flying pig notebook: repeating the same morning with as few variables as possible until the patterns show upCardio vs. weights, and why one pulls glucose out right now while the other builds "parking lots" for itLift first or cardio first? How she orders her own workouts to keep her line flatWhy lifting can spike you, and why throwing a lot of insulin at it can come back to bite youInsulin on board in plain English, smart pens, and the truth about "stacking"How to run an experiment on yourself without losing your mindTrue or False: the 10-second sprint, CGM lag, building muscle with type 1, and ketones (no, a hard workout won't burn them off... if ketones are there, the workout's cancelled)Whether a Danish is actually called a Danish, and why salty licorice is apparently a national treasureA Diabetes Confession Booth story she says she's never sharedThe Fastest Five Minutes: 27 answers, which beats Neil AND Ginger Vieira (Alex St. John's 35 still stands)What she'd tell anyone who's tried 4 or 5 things this year and feels like they're bad at diabetesThis Week's Challenge: Before your next 3 workouts or walks, check how much insulin you have on board. Your pump or smart pen will show it, or you can do the rough math from your last dose and what time you took it. Write that number down next to what your blood sugar did during and after. Bring what you notice to your care team before you change anything. It's finale week, you guys. If you've moved more these last 8 weeks than you did before, I'm proud of you. Connect with Christel:Diabetes Strong: https://diabetesstrong.com Diabetes Strong on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFitBlog Diabetes Strong on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diabetesstrong_ig Diabetes Strong on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DiabetesStrong Christel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christel-oerum/ 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

  3. 5 days ago

    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 aliveThree ways to recruit a walking partner, including the no-pants phone call optionThe family walk as the longest game in diabetes parentingMaking the anchor habit survive winter by making it not just yoursYour 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

  4. 21 Oct

    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 researchThe sample-size-of-one idea that justifies the whole beat-yesterday approachThe four-outcome grading rubric that turns every honest result into informationHow to take your after picture in five minutes tonightYour 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

  5. 19 Oct

    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 onesWhy the desk worker who went 3,100 to 5,200 steps beats any fitness influencer storyThe honest struggle story, and why it matters more than the highlight reelHow to get on the finale wall this weekYour 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

  6. 16 Oct

    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 moodThe walk as a pattern interrupt for shame spirals and doomscrollsDiabetes distress, burnout, and why the head is part of the A1CWhen movement helps your mental load, and when it's time for more supportYour 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

  7. 15 Oct

    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, scaredTara on why the fear sometimes belongs to the person who loves you, and what to do with itWhy going low on almost every workout usually points to too much insulin, not too much exerciseHow 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 appointmentActivity mode on a pump: why setting it 30 to 60 minutes ahead mattersThe fourth predictor of exercise lows Ginger added to Neil's checklist: time of dayWhat to write down, and how many workouts it takes to see a patternWhy Ginger carries dextrose and only dextroseThe Ironman story that shows how strange the body gets under extreme stressOne first step this week if you've been scared to move for yearsThis 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

  8. 14 Oct

    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 takeThe data on missed days: one skip changes nothingWhy the streak mindset backfires, especially with a chronic conditionThe restart as a practiced skill, not a character testYour 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

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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Neil Greathouse
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    264
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Neil Greathouse
  • Show Website
    Your Best T1D Year

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