#1535 Smart Bites Academy

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Real-talk nutrition with Jenny Smith—simple, practical, no-nonsense.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Welcome.

Welcome to my nutrition series with Jenny Smith. Jenny and I are going to in very clear and easy to understand ways walk you from basic through intermediate and into advanced. Nutritional ideas, we're going to tie it all together with type one diabetes, talk about processed foods and how you can share these simple concepts with the people in your life, whether it's your children, other adults or even seniors, besides being the person you've heard on the bold beginnings and Pro Tip series and so much more. Jennifer Smith is a person living with type one diabetes for over 35 years. She actually holds a bachelor's degree in Human Nutrition and biology from the University of Wisconsin. She's a registered and licensed dietitian, a certified diabetes educator. She's a trainer on all kinds of pumps and CGM. She's my friend, and I think you're going to enjoy her thoughts on better eating. My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference, this series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, or you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five. Omnipod five is a tube, free, automated insulin delivery system that's been shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they've switched from daily injections, learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox, of my link, you can get a free starter kit right now. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions could be found at omnipod.com/juicebox today's podcast is sponsored by us med. US med.com/juicebox you can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do, and I'm talking about Dexcom, libre, Omnipod, tandem, and so much more us, med.com/juicebox, or call, 888-721-1514, All right, everybody. I am going to do something with Jenny that I've been threatening to do with Jenny for, feels like five years now, and we finally got time to do it. So we're going to unleash a different part of Jenny's background today. So yay. Give people like a real quick overview of your schooling. Like, you know, got outta high school, what'd you go do? How did your career move along?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:13
Yeah, great. So I went to school one of the few college students who often knows what they're planning to go into, right? That's not surprising, yeah, went in specifically with a path to become a diabetes educator. I knew that was like the end thing, but in order to get there, you have to have a couple of different types of credentials, right? So I was very interested in nutrition, mainly because of type one diagnosis. I had a really great dietitian educator that I worked with when I was diagnosed, but also my mom was like, she cooked. She home cooked all the time. So I grew up with cooking a really great garden in the summertime, and just a lot about food that I really started to love. So I went into college looking for a degree within the nutrition realm. And I did a human biology with an emphasis in human nutrition, came out with a bachelor's degree, and then went on further with a kind of a, it's a, it's like a master's program that you move into in order to become a registered dietitian. It's essentially an internship program to be able to study all the physiology of the body relative to all the nutrients that you're putting into it, and how to navigate health management and all the different types of health problems we can have, and how nutrition works with that. So

Scott Benner 4:41
awesome. And then you go, like, to practice afterwards. Do you start off as, like, a nutritionist? Like, how does like, what's your work life like? Then?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:51
Yeah, so it's a great one too. So all registered dietitians are nutritionists, not all nut. Nutritionists are registered dietitian. Gotcha, not negating nutritionists, you know, but in general, yes, registered dietitians are all nutritionists. We

Scott Benner 5:10
are just laying out your bona fide days. We're not We're not cashless versions than anyone else, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:15
Yeah, I wasn't a diabetes educator yet, so I took a position with a hospital system as a registered dietitian, and in that role, initially, I was a general dietitian, so I saw people on all wards of the hospital, in all states of medical distress, all different types of disorders in all areas of the body, which I think, as I've mentored a number of other people who've gone into the nutrition field prior to their internship or within it, my recommendation is always do something that allows you to use everything that you got from that internship that you can actually begin to explore. Hey, maybe I really wanna work with those who have cancer, or maybe I really want to work with cardiovascular conditions, or, you know what, or pediatrics, whatever it is, but it's a it was a nice way for me to apply everything that I had gotten to know and retain that information. Eventually, I specialized, and I went into cancer, both inpatient cancer, as well as some of the outpatient kind of infusion centers and different outpatient cancer. Obviously, nutrition impacts healing a lot there. I also my favorite as a dietitian in the hospital was not educating people in the hospital, because it's a really, it's a hard environment for education because they're being taken for tests, and there's so many things happening, right? My favorite was actually being an ICU dietitian, really. So I and, yeah, I had ICU and imcu, so an intermediate, and it was great, because I never, I never really had to talk to people. What I had to do is work with the pharmacy side and making sure to check lab values. What were the people in for? What were their conditions that they had come in with, outside of now being on tube feedings, or what we call IV nutrition, and so it was my job to kind of do the calculations. Oh,

Scott Benner 7:13
my God, I just realized. So you did the same thing for their nutrition that you do with people's diabetes. You turn their dials and get their

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:18
settings right. Yes, exactly. Interesting. But there, and there's a lot, I mean, they're very similar, yes, in turning dials in a formula that goes in through a tube, that feeds in through the gut, versus, if their gut can't be used, you have to do IV nutrition, and then the parameters are slightly different as well. What can go through a vein, and, you know, in what way, and the right macronutrients as well as micronutrients for healing. So it was like, I'm an algebra person. I love algebra. I don't really love geometry, but I really liked the figurings that you had to do. So that's kind of how my brain works,

Scott Benner 7:54
right? I mean, also, you have a personal background in eating, Well, honestly, like, the way you were raised, you know, like, so it all kind of melts together. So that's awesome. Then you move into becoming a CDE at that time, right? Diabetes comes with a lot of things to remember, so it's nice when someone takes something off of your plate. US, med has done that for us when it's time for Arden supplies to be refreshed, we get an email rolls up and in your inbox says, Hi, Arden, this is your friendly reorder email from us. Med, you open up the email. It's a big button that says, Click here to reorder, and you're done. Finally, somebody taking away a responsibility instead of adding one us. Med has done that for us. An email arrives, we click on a link, and the next thing you know, your products are at the front door. That simple, us, med.com/juicebox, or call, 888-721-1514, I never have to wonder if Arden has enough supplies. I click on one link, I open up a box, I put the stuff in the drawer, and we're done. Us. Med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and the Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide over 800 private insurers, and all you have to do to get started is call 888-721-1514, or go to my link, usmed.com/juicebox, using that number or my link helps to support the production of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. We talk a lot about ways to lower your A, 1c on this podcast. Did you know that the Omnipod five was shown to lower a 1c that's right. Omnipod five is a tube, free automated insulin delivery system, and it was shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they switched from daily injections. My daughter is about to turn 20. One years old, and she has been wearing an Omnipod every day since she was four. It has been a friend to our family, and I think it could be a friend to yours. If you're ready to try Omnipod five for yourself or your family, use my link now to get started omnipod.com/juicebox get that free. Omnipod five Starter Kit today, Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:28
yes. So within all of the work I did hospital and clinical outpatient stuff along the way, I'm starting to gather my hours, if you will, to be able to apply for and then sit the exam to be what is now a CD CES, but CDE at the time, yes, okay. And eventually, I started working with an RN mentor who was a diabetes educator. She had control of the education program for type two diabetes at the hospital that I was working at, and really got a chance to accrue a lot more hours. And then in my outpatient I had a chance to really start to connect a lot more with type ones who were coming in, not many of them in hospital. Those were it was mostly type two diabetes in hospital. But in our education classes, I got a chance to teach all of the important nutrient pieces, as well as the physical activity parts. And I got a really lovely understanding from the nurse about all of the medications and the monitoring and how they really they all work together. If you understand what you're doing, the biggest piece that I took away from it, what we're working on, I'm super excited about, because it's been like long term. The idea that I got from working with so many people is how many people aren't educated in nutrition, like, it doesn't sound like it should be that difficult, but it's not taught unless you truly choose a path of education beyond high school, for that, most people don't understand what to put in their body and why,

Scott Benner 12:10
right? They're not eating for nutrient value or anything, right? It's all like, I like that, or that tastes good, or this is what we have. And yeah, so I can tell everybody that I think Jenny is just going to be perfect for this, obviously, because growing up, she had parents who helped her eat well, it's important to her. You can hear her when she talks about her diabetes and how she handled food that and how that helps her with her type one, plus she's awesome at type one, then she's got all this background in, you know? Thanks, you know, no, obviously, like, you have all this background coming out of college and your work life. Then you become a CDE now, you have all this knowledge as it applies to people with type one. You have it personally, you have it professionally. And anytime food comes up, you're like a horse. I have to put a bit in their mouth to keep them from running. And Jenny wants to talk about this. And we finally have time to put a series together that'll help everybody understand their nutrition and the decisions that they have in front of them that they can make. And we're going to try to do it in shorter blocks. Like, we don't want to have like, hour long conversations where you're just like, Oh God, I think somebody said micronutrient again. What does that mean? But I want people to be able to hear like little chunks and say, okay, like, maybe there's something actionable in there, something I hadn't thought of before. But for today, like we do in all of our series, we're gonna take your awesome notes and we're gonna put them in order so that we can record in that order. So this will give you guys a feeling of what's coming and in what order it'll be in, so that think of this as, like a little overview for you, and that's it. So Jenny and I are basically going to work now and record while we're doing it. Yay. Yeah. So if we look at are you in the document, I am all right. So if we look at how it sent you now, I believe that the way you sent it to me is at the top, and then the way that it got reorganized is underneath of that, correct, right? So, yes. So if we take what it's calling module one, basic nutrition introduction for all ages, I'm going to bring that to the top, okay, and then I want you to tell me from your initial notes all of what belongs underneath of it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:27
So okay, and the summary of kind of reordering what I had put together is, I think it's really well structured, okay, because from what I can see, the notes that I had sent to you or the document I had sent to you with teaching notes I had used previously. Are it? It pretty much did almost a copy of

Scott Benner 14:52
it. It did change it. It just reordered it. Right? It reordered it and it simplified it. Okay, the first one is going to be. Basic nutrition for all ages. An Introduction. We're going to go micronutrients, macronutrients, basic food groups, simple, healthy eating principles. That's going to be it. So now I'm going to Okay, so if it likes that for you, then we can move that out and then call that the first conversation. Okay, second one is

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:21
Module two is next, right?

Scott Benner 15:23
Intermediate nutrition, eight and up, understanding energy, okay, so it just kept it in.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:28
It looks like it kept essentially the same, again, the same concepts or ideas, okay, in the same order. The idea with Module Two was to expand on the beginning of education, right? The beginning of what makes up food. And this kind of expands on, well, once you know what makes up food, like, how do you balance it, and what does your body do with it, and that kind of thing, right?

Scott Benner 15:54
So then, what do you think, while I'm moving up module three, what do you find that people are most like, not shocked, I guess, but like, when they walk away and they think, wow, I learned something here today. Like, what is the thing that they hear that they just didn't know before? When you talk to people about about how they eat, Oh, what have you seen over the years that you're just like, wow, I can't believe, I can't believe nobody knew that. But okay, good.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:19
I think that what I found in talking to people who don't have diabetes in general, right? Because majority of what I do is diabetes and just talking to nor not normal. But you know what I meant, like people without diabetes, right? I'd actually like being not normal because I have diabetes, I'm special. So anyway, I'm astounded consistently at conversations that I have with people. At some point we get to food and talking about it, especially being a parent of kids, you know, you end up talking with other parents and about how much your kids eat, and like what they eat, and where people go to eat, and where they buy their food, and, you know, whatever. And I'm always astounded, especially by what I expect should be easy to understand information, what makes up food, what food groups are comprised of, which macronutrients and why are they important, and things that I consider really baseline, like the basics of understanding, right? I find that really, really smart people just don't know. They just don't know these concepts. And, you know, my kids get, they just get what I know to give them, right? And then I look at other kiddos again, not diabetes specific. I think people with diabetes do have, at some point, a little bit better understanding.

Scott Benner 17:47
They see the cause and effect of food correct exactly, and

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:51
so they reach further to learn more about why right, and then they can make sense of that. People without any tools like continuous glucose monitors don't really know why their kid that they, you know, they ate like, six apples, why they're like, bouncing off the rails and then two hours later complaining that they're hungry again, right? Well, I fed them only apples. Well, sure, but you know what I mean. So it's like this misunderstanding of making balance, and why you need to make the balance. And it's just not, it's just not out in the general public. So

Scott Benner 18:27
like in the apples example, it's sort of like fruit good. I don't know why this went wrong, right, right? Exactly. Yeah. I know Apples are good because fruit right? Yeah, right. Or, you know, the box says it's part of a balanced breakfast, that kind of thing. I don't understand why these golden grams are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. Or

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:45
a graded one too, which, for years, you know, we've now had things about this is a low cholesterol or a no cholesterol food? Well, your foods that didn't come from an animal are not going to have cholesterol in them, yes. So putting no cholesterol on the package is, it's not a lie, but it's kind

Scott Benner 19:04
of a trick, right, right? It's like, it's like, feeding you paper and going, Hey, there's no cholesterol on this. Right? Awesome. Thanks. Great. I can eat more of it. I've said a million times to you. My favorite one is that the and now I'm gonna get in trouble with people over my accent, but the water ice place around here, they have a giant sign on the front that says fat free. And I'm just like, well, it's fat free now, but after you ingest all the sugar, your body's gonna go I wonder what we should do with this show. Let's store it as fat Exactly. Yeah, that's marketing. There's no lie. There's no fat in that. Water ice, no,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:35
right? Yeah, there's no fat at all. And actually, what you just said, sort of just in conversation is where I hope that this nutrition kind of educational piece expands into the understanding of sure it says no fat. It could never have fat in it, but eventually getting to the physiology in the body. Which is down the list, and understanding that we might think we're putting in something that shouldn't be harmful, but in a way it is also it ends up being, well, what does your body do with it? Yeah, right. Listen,

Scott Benner 20:14
we're not going to be preachy in this at all. I'm especially not going to be you have a leg to stand on if you wanted to be preachy, but at the same time, like, this is just stuff we should know. We should know this stuff, and it's worth two hours of your time spread out over two months in a podcast to understand it. You know what I mean? Like, it just, it really is so module four here, processed foods and their impact on health, I think this is the first time that it's kind of repackaged things for you a little bit here, nutrition deficiency, weight gain, blood sugar and insulin resistance, increased inflammation, heart health, gut health, mental health, risk of chronic disease, addiction, like eating habits. So what part of your if you scroll down there, like, what part of your notes, do I put up with that? So, just so people know, I took Jenny's notes. And I mean, I don't think this should come into any like great surprise people are listening. I fed it to a pretty advanced AI, and I said, Look, we don't want to change anything about these notes, but we want to order them in a way that allows for, you know, a process of learning slowly, so that you know you're not overwhelmed at the beginning, and that what you heard before builds on or what you hear now is building on what you heard before. So it's kind of, we're just putting it in order right now. So now. So my goal,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:23
too within it, specifically for your podcast, which is primarily those who have diabetes, right, is to understand that the baseline of this knowledge goes further in managing a chronic condition like diabetes. That in this module four actually truly does start to delve into with diabetes. Could there be nutrient deficiency? Could we have issues with weight gain or obesity, or dysregulation of how your body uses insulin or insulin resistance? Right? So understanding the basics can help you understand, well, goodness, if I'm not putting in the right stuff in the right amount, the way my body needs it, gosh, diabetes, with high blood sugars already creates inflammation in the body, what else am I not doing very well that's actually just pouring more, you know, fuel on to that fire, Right? So you're

Scott Benner 22:21
already a person with an autoimmune issue, so correct? Let's not help, right? Yeah, if we can. So tell me of your notes that are under this what should I be abutting to module four? Like? Did it just take all of your numbered things here, one to nine, and just package them in module four, right? It

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:41
looks like that's what it did, and I think in a really good way, because then it's all one specific area of looking at, yeah, I mean, we're talking about module forward. It's processed foods and their impact on health, but processed foods, again, we'll talk about it, but they can impact all of these different areas. And then when we bring diabetes into the picture, these are areas that are already being impacted based on our glucose management. And we want to do the best that we can almost get

Scott Benner 23:14
a double hit on some of these things. Yeah. And by the way, just to call this Jenny's notes, is it's reductive. This is an exhaustive and really well thought out document here. So if I take out the nutrition deficiency the numbering all the way down, that's already in what we have here in module four, so I can just remove that. We don't need to duplicate it. And then I'm going to go down and grab five and bring five up. You guys are done. You're gonna you're gonna listen to this and know what you're talking about, which I think will be whether a person listens to this and says, I'm gonna make changes in my life or not. I think at least just knowing is incredibly valuable. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you decide to do something with it, like, right on. But even if you don't, I at least like you putting something in your mouth, and it not being a surprise. You know, when whatever happens happens or doesn't happen. You know, the

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:08
other hope that I have from this too is so often we are really just trying to navigate diabetes within the realm of being, as I said the word before, like normal, like someone without diabetes, right? And with that, food is a huge hitter. And so so often people just say, Well, why can't I just eat it like anybody else eats it? Why can't, you know, why can't I? Why shouldn't I be able to give my child everything that everybody else is having at the birthday party or this type of treat at the business, you know, convention or whatever it is. And my hope is that with loaded with more information, you can make healthier decisions to say, okay, like I haven't done this in two months. Great. Eat. We're going to eat the chocolate cake and the ice cream, or we're going to go out and have, you know, the Mexican part, Mexican food party with you know what I mean, but rice,

Scott Benner 25:09
Jenny, I hear what you're saying,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:13
but at least you have the idea of, despite everybody else doing this who doesn't have diabetes, that doesn't mean that everybody else is doing it the right way?

Scott Benner 25:21
Yeah, it's something hasn't been taken from you as much as it's been shown to you. Correct. It's unpleasant to have a light shine on it. You know? It's funny. You just said, like, Mexican food. And I was like, oh, a tortilla with rice. And you know what flood into my head after that, the countless people from that cultural background who come on this podcast and are, like, my dad is so sick and it's and when I ask what it is, they just say it's cultural, like, Do you know what I mean, like, and I understand the idea of, like, you were raised, and this was around all the time, and it's comforting. But, like, listen to a second generation person with diabetes talk about their father, and now the father has type two. Swear to god, I've had this conversation. A half a dozen times. The father's type two, their type one. They're, of course, forced to pay closer, quicker attention because of, you know, the immediacy of type one diabetes. Whereas type two can kind of allow you to drift a little bit. They're looking up. They can't get through their parents. They pull their mom aside, Mom, you can't cook like this for Dad, like, blah, blah, blah, they can't stop themselves. And now this person still has that, like, oh, it's been stolen from me feeling, but they have enough context to all of a sudden not care. And I think this could be context for people, right? If you've been diagnosed with type one diabetes and there's a food you just can't figure out how to manage, and it's gone out of your life. Now you can miss it, and I wouldn't begrudge you that, of course, but there's got to be another aspect of your mind that says, like, I do miss that, but this is better for me. Like, yeah, like, I'm going to live better, be healthier. And I think your conversation is going to explain to them the little ways where they'll How do I want to say this? I think of like, if you're eating not optimally, and you move slowly towards eating more optimally, it's sort of like taking a vitamin that's actually going to help you. Like, let's say you have really low vitamin D, and you're going to take vitamins, and eventually your vitamin D is going to come up, and it's going to help you. The truth is, is today, while your vitamin D is low, there are things going wrong inside of you, and you don't feel well, but you don't know it anymore, because you're accustomed to it. And you're slowly going to build up the vitamin D in your system, and then one day, those things are kind of going to dissipate, but because of how our brains work, you're not going to know it went away, correct, right? So you're going to feel better, but it's your new reality, and everything's your constant, consistent now reality, and when you change it slowly, you know, let's say it takes, I'm making up a number, but let's say it takes two months for your vitamin D to come up. You're in a better position every day taking that vitamin D. You don't know it, it's a little better, a little better, a little better. And then you get up to that vitamin D level that you're supposed to be at, things are better. But oddly enough, and I know this sucks, you don't feel any better than you did 60 days ago when you started. But you are, but you are, yes, yeah. And I think that's what's going to happen here for people, is that you're going to it sucks, because you can't just sit down one day and be like, All right, fine, I'll have broccoli, and then everything's

Speaker 1 28:19
and magically, the next day you're exactly how you thought you should be. Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:23
and I'll tell you, like, I know this sounds probably would sound counterintuitive to some people, but because of the fact that I've now been using this GLP medicine for two years, like, I finally had something managing for me in a way that allowed the time that needed to pass to pass right like, so I now know the value of the patience that it takes to get to it. And before, to me, patience was like, Hey, I dieted for 10 days, and I'm not better. So you know what I mean? You give up a little bit.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:54
That's a great point, too. Because I think if you understand all the concepts I hope that we'll discuss, you won't choose a particular and I hate the word diet, you will choose a fueling plan that really does optimize your overall health, as well as hopefully shed some light on your blood sugar management and your medication amounts and uses and your strategies that we've talked about many times in the pro tips episodes, right? It'll shed a little bit of light to be able to say, oh, I can make the connection. Now I see how these things definitely, you know, work together. And

Scott Benner 29:34
I think you're gonna see the value of having an indulgence, and it actually just being an indulgence, the way I imagine, what am I watching on TV right now? I'm watching 1923 right now. So the way I imagine, like, if a person in 1923 like, oh, a sweet treat. You know what I mean? Like, like, it was like, like, it was like, wow, this is awesome. Like, I don't I never get this. Like, we have these three times a year, right? We've somehow turned ours. It's so much about access. Right? Not that I'm unhappy that people have access to food, but I'm saying that 100 years ago, to have a piece of cake would have been a thing that happened, like, once, you know, or maybe seasonally, or something like that, or pie with a fruit in it would have been like a thing you did periodically. And now we have, we have the ability to, like, eat a bag of something and then just magically make another bag of it come back again? Right, right. Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:22
That reminds me of, like, every year growing up, my dad's my grandpa, my dad's dad, he for his birthday, always requested my mom make a cake for him, and my mom was phenomenal at making homemade cakes, and his cake of choice was a German chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting, and in the middle she made this, like, date and becan filling that went on the top of the cake. Yeah, that reminded me of it only because that was, like, that was an indulgence. It was exciting to go to grandpa's birthday party because, again, we didn't, we didn't typically get that kind of like we had homemade food, but we didn't have homemade treats. Even before I was diagnosed with diabetes, it wasn't something regular. My

Scott Benner 31:09
grandmother, once a summer, would drive back to where she was from and get a shoe fly pie, which I think was just molasses in a shell. I'm not exactly sugar, yeah? But then she'd bring it back, and it was like, it was like Christmas, and then she had a slice of it, and then maybe had another piece of it two days later, and then it was gone. And then next summer, she drove off and got it again. I'm just saying that, like at this point now, everybody with a car is five minutes away from from food, from $20 worth of like, calories that are meaningless to your body, that taste awesome. And, you know, it's funny, you you mentioned the birthday because Arden just made, she made a treat to bring to my mother in laws for her birthday. And it was like a strawberry shortcake, but it wasn't. It was just strawberries in a bowl. It was this cream that she whipped up and, like, kind of a thick tart, almost. And you kind of just put them together. They weren't judged up with anything that wasn't just the, like, it was a very basic to make it with, yeah, like, and so the cream doesn't taste like whipped cream. Like, ready whip it taste, you know, it's just kind of light fluffiness. And the strawberries were just strawberries. They didn't, they didn't have, like, a handful of sugar thrown over to tear up on it. And it was really good. But as I ate it and looked around the table, people put in their mouth and they're waiting for that, like, the hit, yeah, the hit from the sugar, and it's not there. And at first everybody was sort of like, is this good? I don't think this is good, but what I was watching, I was like, Oh, this is just what strawberries taste like. You're waiting for the strawberry filling from a pop tart to hit your tongue, like that's not going to happen now, right, right. Anyway, let's get back to what we're doing. I'm so sorry. So that's No, that's a good little aside. Yeah, so module four here we love. We brought module five up key areas to address in nutrition education for type one. So this combines blood glucose management, basics, carbohydrate counting, understanding the role of fats and proteins, meal planning, frequency, perfect module six. Good kind

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:12
of might just be an overview where I brought in the idea of this ahead of time nutrition information. I wanted to tie specifically into how this could be beneficial in terms of your type one management. Yeah, so this is probably more of a an overview. I expect we've talked a lot about this in a lot of the episodes that we've done, but we want

Scott Benner 33:32
to keep it together in the series for sure. Yeah, no, it'll be great. Plus the first three will build and allow the fourth one to really make sense for people or the fourth and fifth one. So module six teaching approaches for different age groups. So this is where you'll talk about, like, more specifically, teens, adults, seniors, how to think about things. Oh, there's, there's a ton here. And I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:53
think in this the different age groups was also meant to be helpful for those who really are caregivers to understand how to be able to teach your children and your teens and maybe young adults and whatever a little bit more and or for the adult kind of population to understand I don't understand this as well. What should I delve into? What should I be able to focus on what are some practical tips that I can apply, because I'm my own navigator, right?

Scott Benner 34:26
So then here's the summary for everybody. It's going to be a six part series, basic nutrition in module one, intermediate nutrition, two, advanced nutrition three, processed foods and their impact on health will be four key areas to address in nutritional education will be five with, like, a bunch of like, like, Jenny just said overview for diabetes stuff. And then module six will be teaching approaches for different age groups. So this is going to be like, once you understand what being said, like, how do I broach this to, you know, to other people in my life, depending on their on. Their age group, and there'll be conversation in between. Like, I'm sure you guys, Jenny has a lot of, like, just a lot of opinions about this stuff, and they're nice and solid opinions. So we want to really, like, just let her run. And you said that very nicely. No, you do. You're very you're how some people eat makes Jenny upset. So we'll, we'll let her, let her really just run with it. I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:22
think actually more than it's not really how people eat. I think it's the misinformation, the lack of information and what's available to eat, that makes it really hard for people to choose well, more of the time. I think that is, it's a huge piece. As I said the word food before, and then I was like, you were saying, like, five minutes from here I could go and get something. And I said, yeah, there's food all available, but it's we defined food a while ago. And I said, food is not equal to food. Food has its own definition of quality, which, again, I we're going to expand on. And then there's stuff that contains calories. Yeah, we really shouldn't think of as nourishing our body, right?

Scott Benner 36:03
Yeah, sometimes it's fun to eat, or you're just accustomed to it, or it's, you know, I mean, I think some people, I mean, listen, I'm not preachy about anything. You know, generally speaking, I don't, but we're using food and I'm making quotes as drugs. Honestly, 100% Yeah, these are extensions of alcohol, weed, coke, whatever it is you're doing at home. Some people are doing a bump during the day and some people are eating a ho, ho. So I don't think it's much different, to be perfectly

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:32
honest. No. And the pre I mean, the the nature of the companies that make what we all call food randomly across the board is it's a combination of specific, different nutrients that make it taste the way that your taste buds are. Say, Go back for that. You can't just have one bite, right? You have to have more, and you have to have more, and then you're addicted to it in in a way, right? So I'm

Scott Benner 36:56
going to share something personal.

Unknown Speaker 36:58
Oh, geez, your middle name?

Scott Benner 37:01
Oh, you saw that online again. You people gotta shut up. I'm not telling you my middle name. I said. Every once in a while a post comes up and like, what's Scott small? I'm like, I'm like, if one of you guesses it, I am not telling you if you're right or not. So the last Easter that my mom was alive, the company that made the jelly beans that she loved had some sort of a problem, and they weren't available. Oh, and I don't know why. This is very sad. She just wanted, just born jelly beans, not the spicy ones, the regular ones. I've never heard of that brand. They're so good, and they weren't available, like they just weren't my brothers looked where they lived. I was looking everywhere. We were going to ship them to her. We couldn't, like, we just couldn't find them anywhere. I contacted the company, like, just to see if they had stock of it. Like, nothing, right? Oh, so the other day, she's, she's gone now, and I'm in the grocery store the other day, and there is this, like, I don't even know how to describe, like a giant basket. It's got to be four feet square and four feet tall, and it has five pound bags of them. And I stopped, and I thought I was like, Mother, you know, like, I was just like, I was like, come on, and did you buy a bag? I bought a five pound bag of jelly beans. But I'm on a GLP medication. I don't get any of the woo out of them anymore. Like, right?

Unknown Speaker 38:28
Jelly Bean, from memory, you don't

Scott Benner 38:30
understand, if you're not using a GLP, you don't get it like, like, all that, like, judge you get from food. I don't feel that anymore. I can't even taste the sugary, as sugary as sugary as it is, I know that's maybe hard to, like, understand, right? The other day, I said to somebody, I was like, We got to throw these goddamn jelly beans away, because I'm walking past them, and I feel like I'm five, and then I feel bad that my mom didn't get them, and I take, like, a half of a handful of jelly beans, yeah? And I don't like and listen, I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm lucky. I'm on a GOP. I haven't gained any weight, yeah? But there's gotta be two pounds of jelly beans going at this point. You know what I mean? And I don't enjoy it. It doesn't bring anything to me. I'm not getting the zip out of it. It's purely psychological. It's memory, yeah, and it's making me happy when I'm eating them, because I remember the flavor and it being around my house and etc. But it's such a, just such a lesson, honestly, yeah, you know. And there's nothing valuable about them, as far as like me eating them like it's not doing anything for me. You know what? I mean,

Speaker 1 39:39
you can't even fix a low blood sugar with them for a real cause. It's not like I'm not

Scott Benner 39:43
It's not like I'm even saving my life. And by the way, Arden doesn't like jelly beans, so I am going to end up pushing them into the trash, but it's going to be heartbreaking to throw them away. I should not have bought them. And ironically enough, now that I have the GLP medication, I just don't buy stuff like that anymore. Like I was grocery shopping the other day. I don't know how many of you trick yourself into going out the food aisle to the register so you can just grab something on the way and go, Oh, I can't believe I'm in this aisle, Swedish Fish. I definitely used to do that, like I'd finish my shopping and then I would pick the candy aisle to walk out of and grab something for my car. So I reflexively did it yesterday, and not for, like, to buy something. I just, that's how I think that's just now, how I exit the grocery store, and I'm walking down, I'm looking it up at all these things that I bought in the past. And I was really stunned by the fact that, like, I don't want any of this. Yeah, I couldn't be bothered with this at all. And I'm hoping that, like, I mean, listen, if it takes a GLP to get you there, whatever. But like, I'm hoping that for some of you, if you can just kind of follow along with what we're doing here, maybe your body will just lose the flavor for it at some point. For some of it, at least really make a big difference for you, I think. I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:53
mean, and what you're really also getting in and is that that mental piece of it we've been kind of coaxed into either remembering something that was really, really good, and we associate a really good memory with it, and so we keep it in our life, despite knowing that it's really not providing anything similar to the loveliness of when we had it, that making the Memory right? Yeah. I mean, there are things from childhood, definitely that I my grandparents, my mom's parents always kept a dish. It was a beautiful, like, greenish color dish that had a lid on it, and it was their candy dish. And my grandpa always had, do you know the the anise candies, yeah, like liquor, like licorice flavor. They were hard candies, and they came in like a reddish kind of wrapper, and then he had butterscotch buttons. Those were his favorites, and they were always in that dish. And I still, I see them at the grocery store. I have no desire for them anymore, but it still brings that memory back. But I don't buy them just to have them in the house, because grandpa had them right kind of that association that you you can have memories about food and retain the great thing about them without actually continuing to put something in that doesn't really work for your body. I

Scott Benner 42:18
just think I was angry like that. There were now five pound bags available, and there were so many of them there. Like, I just stood there, and I was like, this couldn't happen before my mom died. Like, I just wanted 10, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And then that was the other thing too. Like, I was just like, Oh, I just like, if I would have taken a couple and walked away, I would have been like, that's awesome. But like, anyway, also five pound bags. Why are they making five pound bags of jelly beans? Well, you know? Well, I guess I do know. Like, I guess that's what this is, you know? Yeah, I will say too that I have also seen people who grew up poor, who are not poor anymore, buy food, almost like a power move, like, I can afford this. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, and so they grab a bunch of stuff they don't even want, because it's almost like, it almost feels like, wow, I won. I could buy three of these if I wanted to. You know, like, I think there's a lot of different psychological reasons, but let's understand the, let's understand the nutrient part of it first, and then you guys can go talk to a therapist about the rest of it. Awesome. Okay, all right, hold on one second.

You this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five. Omnipod five is a tube free, automated insulin delivery system that's been shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they've switched from daily injections. Learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox of my link, you can get a free starter kit right now. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox the conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us, med, us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, okay, well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review. Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram. Tiktok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please. Do you not know about the private group. You have to join the private group. As of this recording, it has 51,000 members in it. They're active, talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. If this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like. Hear more. Download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all. Look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold beginnings, the diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you wrong wayrecording.com you got a podcast? You want somebody to edit it? You want rob you?

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#1534 Modern Fairytale

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back friends to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Elle 0:15
I'm Elle or Alicia for my long name, and I'm a diabetic. It's actually spelled phonetically. But you'd be surprised the amount of people that get it wrong.

Scott Benner 0:27
If this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the twist AI D system, powered by tidepool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i, s, t.com/juicebox. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us Med, us, med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med,

Elle 2:15
I'm Elle, or Alicia for my long name, and I'm a diabetic. Alicia,

Scott Benner 2:20
I was so excited when I saw your name this morning pop up in front of me because I pronounced it correctly in my head. Oh, I love that. For you, I was super excited.

Elle 2:29
It's actually spelled phonetically, but you'd be surprised the amount of people that get it wrong.

Scott Benner 2:35
I believe. Do you want me to call you? El though, whichever. Okay, so not first. Okay. Also, listen, my brain's obviously not right, because every morning I wake up to someone's name in front of me, and the first thing I have to do is type it somewhere else. So I look at it, and then I transfer my eyes six inches to the left and go to type it, and can't spell it. I don't retain what the name is. I just I look at it, and then I go, Okay, I'm gonna type it now. And then it's gone, and then I have to look back again. And for some reason I looked at yours today, and I was like, Alicia, huh? And then I was like, I think I said that correctly. You did.

Elle 3:11
I'll give you that you said it correctly. Thank you. And then

Scott Benner 3:14
when I went over to type it, I could type it. Whoa. So I saw anyway, here come the emails. Scott, you have ADHD, it's fine anyway. Tell me a little bit about yourself. How old are you now?

Elle 3:26
So I'm 24 I have a very ordinary life, other than obviously the insulin. I live at home with my partner and my four year old. Yeah, I'm quite a boring person. I'll be really honest with you, there's not a lot to me. I'm very one dimensional. I work. I'm a mum. Obviously, the reason I'm here is because of my diabetes.

Scott Benner 3:46
Yeah, I take this as a challenge, because I don't believe that you're a boring person. We're going to find out more. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Elle 3:53
As I was 15 when I was diagnosed. Originally, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, so yeah, it's like, it's crazy story, even just my diagnosis, my dad was a type one diabetic. Is all of his adult life, and because of that, he had this irrational, way, kind of rational, in hindsight, fear that one of his children would get diabetes, so he'd regularly finger prick us. And, you know, probably once a month my whole childhood. And one time he did my finger, and it came back at like 11, which, for all you Americans out there, that's like 200 so just on that cut off immediately took me to the GP, and after a barrage of tests and an oral glucose tolerance, and they said, Yeah, we think you've got, like, the very beginnings of type one diabetes. So they popped me on insulin. And fast forward a couple of years after being on a pump and all of that good stuff, I just kept hypering Like my sugars just couldn't come up one day, and ended up weaning off of insulin, and I was insulin free for about. Year after that,

Scott Benner 5:01
wow. Hey, I know you were just like 15, right when that happened, yeah, but do you think your dad was relieved because he caught it, or do you think he was like, decimated because it happened? No,

Elle 5:15
I think in his head he all. He just really had this feeling that one of his children would get diabetes. So his dad was also diabetic. So it really like runs quite heavily within his family. A couple of his siblings are diabetic. For him, it was just a no brainer that at least one of his children would get it. So I think it was more of a gotcha kind of moment for him, like he's caught it and he'd done something brilliant,

Scott Benner 5:41
yeah, got out ahead, didn't he didn't want you to say, How many siblings do you have? So

Elle 5:46
I've got two full siblings. And my dad had an older sibling. Well, he had an older child, who's my older half sibling.

Scott Benner 5:53
Okay, so there's he has four children in total. Yeah, he's got

Elle 5:57
four children, but I'm the only diabetic, so I must have got the good genes from him. Does

Scott Benner 6:03
your mother have any autoimmune stuff? She

Elle 6:07
does. She's got a condition that's very similar to lupus. No kidding, what's it called? It's called relapsing polychondritis. It's lupus, lesser known cousin. Wow.

Scott Benner 6:19
Congratulations on saying something on the podcast no one's ever said before. Oh, look at me. Tell your mom, thank you relapsing. What

Elle 6:27
relapsing? Polychondritis. It's basically, it's a mixture between lupus and arthritis, and in it, all of your cartilage gets attacked by your body, so all the cartilage in your ears, in your nose, in your heart, all in your veins, any passage in your body is slowly attacked and destroyed. Geez. In

Scott Benner 6:47
a world where you could be hot and rich, what a mixture to get, you know what I mean? Like,

Elle 6:54
yeah, very much.

Scott Benner 6:57
Hey, how would you like a little lupus mixed with a little bit of arthritis. Awesome. Two best things in the world. It's going to be great. Can I be tall and handsome instead? Is that possible? What's the impact on your mom?

Elle 7:11
Yeah, she handles it incredibly well. I think for her, she'd had health problems for years and years, but because she was looking after my dad. It wasn't until he passed away five and a bit years ago that she then had that sort of chance, like get in touch with her own health and start seeking out a diagnosis and talking to people. So now that she's got that she's obviously on medication, she is back at work. You know, she's just, she's just at a much better place. Medication

Scott Benner 7:39
helps her. Is it an

Elle 7:41
injectable? So she's on steroids every day, and she, I don't know if she still gets it, but she used to get these infusions done at the hospital, and I know that they were really, really good for her, because they helped with, like, keeping her bones, like, intact or something.

Scott Benner 7:55
Geez. How about your siblings? Any other issues there with them.

Elle 8:01
Sure, they're very, very healthy. My little brother's got his own problems. He's got autism, so he lives in supported accommodation. But health wise, they are both bright as rain, thankfully. How old was your father when he passed? He was 50. He was about to be 51 Oh, my God. Was it sudden? I'm sort of but not really. It was a weird mix. So because of his diabetes, he ended up getting kidney failure when he was in his 30s, but he wasn't diagnosed until he went to stage four kidney failure. So he went on dialysis, and he ended up getting a kidney transplant when I was 14 or 15, but then what people don't tell you about kidney transplants is the medication that you're put on is very, very harsh, and I don't want to put anyone off of it, because they're absolutely amazing things that save people's lives. But my dad got a rare complication where all of the immunosuppressants and everything he was on caused him to get cancer, or, well, become more susceptible to cancer. So then he got cancer, and he didn't go very well with that. And because of you, he was also an alcoholic, which didn't help anything. He got liver failure, and he got something called corsicoffs, which is an alcohol related dementia, and all of those things sort of came together and created this perfect storm where he ended up in hospital in DKA with liver failure. His kidneys had gone, and there was nothing they could do. I'm sorry. That's terrible. That was awful.

Scott Benner 9:39
Yeah, the other people in his family line with type one. Do they have similar like poor outcomes, or is it different for them?

Elle 9:46
No, no. My granddad, Bunny. He lived until he was 9697 he was very, very old when he passed away, and he'd had type one since World War Two. So they're all doing pretty good for themselves.

Scott Benner 9:59
Hey, wait, his name is bunny. Yes, that's like his like, that's his name, name, or it's what you called him. No,

Elle 10:07
no, his real name was something weird, like Edgeworth. Edgeworth, yeah, but he had a lot of kids, so people called him bunny.

Scott Benner 10:15
Oh, I got you. I see it now. Did he have all those kids with the same lady?

Elle 10:20
Oh, he had eight with my nanny, and then he had an unknown number with one of her friends.

Scott Benner 10:29
Did they call your nanny tired uterus and him bunny? Or what did they? Did they have a name for her? She was just nanny. Yeah. Do you remember nine minutes ago when you said you had a boring life?

Elle 10:40
I have a very boring yet slightly interesting life. You

Scott Benner 10:45
just said my granddad, Bunny, who lived to be 96 with type one diabetes since World War Two, had eight children with my nanny and a bunch of children with her friends. My Dad, hold on. Your mom has the thing I've never heard of before. Your father died of three different things that were trying to kill him all at the same time and everyone in your family has type one diabetes? Well, not everywhere. Well, I mean, a lot of them,

Elle 11:07
yeah, very prevalent in my family. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 11:11
I'm saying you're not boring. You had to remember when you came on, you're on a type one diabetes podcast. This isn't a podcast about going clubbing. Yeah? On that podcast, you suck. Also tell people where you're from, because it sounds like maybe Nebraska or no.

Elle 11:29
So I'm from a little place in England called Northampton. Share for those who don't know England, it is just north of London.

Scott Benner 11:38
Very nice that your accents. Lovely. You making my day. Thank you. Absolutely I want to dig a little more in, though. So you said in your intake that you want to talk about your dad, so, like, this is good, right? You're okay with all this? Yeah? No, I'm absolutely fine with it. Okay? I actually said that so that the people listening would realize that this is what you wanted to talk about. And then I wasn't just digging through your father's death, like, just heartlessly. You understand what

Elle 11:59
I'm saying. Oh, you know, because you just love digging through people's trauma Exactly. It's

Scott Benner 12:03
my favorite thing to do, actually, on the list of other things I have to do today, this would be probably going to be the best thing I have to do today. So I see a lot of paperwork in front of me, and I think it's tax time, and a lot's going on here. So yeah, it's horrible. Nevertheless, if your grandfather, your father's father, had such an amazing outcome. Did his style of management not transfer to your dad? Like, how do you think it went wrong for your father? And do you think you're going to pick up a different style, or do you are you worried you'll follow in your father's footsteps? Contour next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour next gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top. You can click right on blood glucose monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters, click on any of the meters. I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels. And of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips. As if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon, oh, receive a free contour, next gen blood glucose meter. Do tell contour, next.com/juicebox head over there now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use the brand new twist. Insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case, that one got you twist.com/juicebox that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design, twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've bolused. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is coming very soon, so if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Elle 14:49
So I think so looking at my granddad bunny, because he was diagnosed in the 40s, and things were very, very different back then. So from what he said, they didn't even know that. Carbs affected your blood sugar, or at least, he didn't know if the wider community knew. Maybe you know, they didn't test blood sugar. They did insulin almost at random. There was no sort of titrating your doses or anything. Not saying it was luck, but I think for bunny, a lot of it was pure luck. He thought that he had an allergy to a lot of food, so he avoided them, and those foods were very high carb foods, so I think that helped a lot in keeping his blood sugar under control. And then when he had my dad, because he managed things in such a haphazard, Lucky kind of way, there was no good management for him to pick up on, if that makes sense, it does. Yeah, from my dad's point of view, Bunny just lived his life and, you know, diabetes was never a problem, and he somehow, you know, came out with no complications. Like, hey, the biggest complication Bunny got was his eyes were a bit messed up. That's to be expected when you're that old. Anyway, I thought

Scott Benner 16:01
you were gonna say a sperm work too well, but, I mean, it

Elle 16:05
did, which is quite rare in diabetes, yeah. So I think with my dad, he didn't have, like, a good role model to follow, and I think he just didn't want to accept it, you know, he was like, 20 or early 20s, when it first became a problem for him, you know, and at that age, especially as a young man like you, don't want someone telling you what to do, do you this is the last thing you want to suddenly be told that you're diabetic and you've got to test your blood sugar. And I don't know if carb counting was a thing when my dad was diagnosed, but let's say it was. Yeah, that's a lot to take on at that age, and he just decided not to take it on, basically.

Scott Benner 16:45
So when you're diagnosed, does he have a message for you around diabetes? No,

Elle 16:50
no. He was very laid back about it. Probably too laid back. He

Scott Benner 16:55
didn't know enough to impress upon you. Hey, my stuff's not going well, but here's what I've done wrong. He's like, I did what my dad did. It's not working out the same way. And then do you think he felt like it was luck of the draw? Yeah,

Elle 17:08
I think very much so. And I think there was so. For example, when I was diagnosed, my dad was still on mixed insulin, which is a very old fashioned type. He'd never moved to carb counting or anything nine

Scott Benner 17:20
years ago. Yeah, wow. Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Go

Elle 17:24
ahead. No, he just refused. He'd never change. You know, the idea to him of car counting was so alien. So when I was diagnosed, and I was obviously put on a basal Bolus, like the rest of the modern world, you know, to him, that was brand new. That was nothing like he'd ever known before, yeah, and he didn't really take much interest in it, you know, I tried to encourage him several times to ask them about going on to it, you know, but it didn't match with his lifestyle.

Scott Benner 17:51
Does that weigh on you at all, that you had that knowledge and couldn't transfer it to

Elle 17:55
him? I used to, I think I used to hold a lot of anger to him, because I used to think, well, it's not that difficult to manage, you know, and it's not that difficult sort of ask for advice and ask for help if you're struggling with it. But I think the older I get, the more I realized that actually he had a lot of other stuff going on in his life, and the idea of managing blood sugars on top of it was probably just an extra thing that he didn't really need or want to do something

Scott Benner 18:23
that he wasn't brought up with he didn't understand. Yeah, it probably didn't seem necessary, because his dad's, I mean, I think

Elle 18:30
it didn't seem important. He always, as long as I can remember, he had this view that he was dying anyway, so there was, like, no point doing a lot of stuff. Like, there was no point. Oh, sorry. Tell people what it is. Okay, that's just my delivery. I thought you're gonna

Scott Benner 18:46
say parcel again. She said, go get it. I'll be I'll be here when you come back. Don't worry. She said parcel earlier, and I was so excited for her to say it again. Then she said delivery, which is very boring. All right, guys, while she's gone, I'm going to tell you that this chameleon is staring at me. He's just looking and looking. He won't look away. Look away. You're making me uncomfortable. I'm trying to talk to hell about her family. It's not my fault. You didn't want to eat yesterday. I gave this one a perfectly, perfectly good silkworm yesterday, stared at it. Now he's staring at me like, why won't you bring the silkworms?

Elle 19:19
Sorry about that.

Scott Benner 19:22
I was talking to the people. Am I allowed to know what's in the box? Oh

Elle 19:25
no, it's just moving stuff. We're getting ready to move house, so we've been ordering boxes and tape and bubble wrap and giant cling to film and all of that good stuff.

Scott Benner 19:36
Are you moving because you want to move and you're upgrading, or are you being booted out? What's going on? We're buying our first

Elle 19:41
house, so it's really exciting. Congratulations. Yeah, it just feels very nerve wracking because we've given our notice on the place we're in now, because that's rented, but we don't actually have a date

Scott Benner 19:53
to move into our new place. Can I give you some advice from an older person?

Elle 19:57
Oh, go for it. I'd love advice. It'll be. Fine. I'm sure it will keep

Scott Benner 20:02
doing it, keep making the best decisions you can day by day, and everything will work out.

Elle 20:06
Yeah, and then we'll be in our nice house, and we'll all be good. It

Scott Benner 20:10
will it be a cottage in the woods that has moss on the roof, like in all the stories about England?

Elle 20:15
No, do you know what? It's nothing like that. I didn't think it was. It's a new build pre bed detached in a brand new estate.

Scott Benner 20:25
Good for you. Hey. Why are you so successful at a young age? What's going on? I don't know. It just drew me and it's working out. It seems to be everything always works out. That's the funny thing about life. Then why are you worried about the bubble wrap thing I told you, if you see, you know it'll be okay. It'll

Elle 20:43
be okay. But it doesn't mean I can't stress. I'm gonna ask a

Scott Benner 20:47
question. It's my first question where I'm risking upsetting you. Okay, do you make that baby on purpose when you were 20?

Elle 20:53
Well, I got pregnant at 19 during the COVID lockdown, and we were very, very excited to find out that we were pregnant. It was a bit of a surprise, but very exciting surprise. Good.

Scott Benner 21:08
How long did you know that boy before you got locked up with him? Oh, yeah, a

Elle 21:12
good little while. We started going out the November, moved in. In March, when the country went into lockdown, we had no choice, found out we were pregnant July. It's

Scott Benner 21:23
not an uncommon story. I just interviewed somebody last week that said the same thing, yeah,

Elle 21:27
and we're engaged now. Buying a house got a lovely little four year old, good for you. So the lesson is, meet random people off Tinder and invite them to your house and let them move in, because it's all good.

Scott Benner 21:39
If they don't kill you, you'll get married to them exactly

Elle 21:42
5050, chance

Scott Benner 21:44
there. Flip it. That's what you're well, I was gonna say that's what your dad did, but that didn't work out well. So like, let's just, let's keep moving. Okay, so you have type one. Gosh, when you move in with him, No, I don't,

Elle 21:55
actually, I don't have type one. Wait, what I I have type None. What are you talking about,

Scott Benner 22:02
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Elle 23:25
So I don't have any antibodies. No one in my family has ever had a single antibody to diabetes. Yeah, and then I don't have Modi, because they text for that, because my doctor was like, well, obviously, this is a case of Modi. You've got a strong family history. You've got diabetes at an early age. I don't have Modi, but then I don't have type two either.

Scott Benner 23:49
Well, wait a minute, how come no one's ever said this on the podcast either? I

Elle 23:54
don't know. There's loads of people like me walking around England. I

Scott Benner 23:58
like that. You don't think you're spec Why do you not think you're special at all? I

Elle 24:02
don't know. I just, I don't think I am. I think I'm just a very ordinary person. You're just a 24

Scott Benner 24:07
year old person who met a guy on Tinder, fell in love, had a baby, is buying a house, has got a little fairy tale? Yeah? I mean, a lot of people are out there, like, swinging for that fence. They can't find it.

Elle 24:19
I think the key is you just have to be, like, obnoxiously optimistic with life.

Scott Benner 24:25
I agree with that. How did you find this podcast, and are you in my Facebook group?

Elle 24:30
I am in your Facebook group. I'm always asking stupid questions on there. You'll probably see me at some point. You'll probably

Scott Benner 24:36
see me giving a stupid answer. So that'll be perfect. Wait, what did I ask you before that?

Elle 24:41
Oh, so finding the podcast. So after I gave birth to my little one in 2021 my sugar started going up again, because I've been off insulin for a year or so at that point. And then I went on Metformin. I went on, I can never say the name of it, but like glycoside, or however you say it. And. It didn't work, so I ended up back on basal Bolus routines, and I I hated it. You know, I absolutely hated it. I was very, like, upset with my life. I felt like what the doctors wanted me to do was just gonna kill me. That sounds very traumatic. I know. Why? How did that? Why did it feel that way? Do you think I think because of my dad's kidney failure, I've always had this fear that I'm turning into him. It's like this huge fear in like, the back of my mind that I'm turning into him, that my kidneys are going to fail, that I'll be dead by 50, that I'll get a bad back, and I'll become an alcoholic, and just all of these like thoughts. Then when the doctors were saying to me, like, oh, like, don't correct your blood sugar until, like, it gets to, like, 15 and stuff like that, and you should only do four injections a day, I was just getting very, like, frustrated. So I started, like, reading, like, books about diabetes. And so recommended your podcast, and I started listening to it. Like, when I go to work, I just have it on constantly. And I was like, Yes, this is what I need in my life. Like, I don't need to be scared of my diabetes. You know, it's about sort of working with my diabetes as part of me, yeah. So not that I stopped listening to medical advice, not saying that I did that, but I started to think, well, it's not their life. If they're not me, they're not the ones living with it. You and I can make sort of these decisions for myself. If I want to do a correction, I'll do a correction. You know. Who are they to stop me? You know? So I started doing that, and I feel a lot better about my management. Now I don't have so many worries about complications, and I feel like I can actually live my life like it doesn't. It's not sort of this overriding thing, like diabetes is just a small thing now, whereas at the beginning it was like this massive, all consuming thing. I was constantly checking my sugar. I was on finger pricks back then as well. So you can imagine my fingers were fucked and and

Scott Benner 27:03
all this came from just giving yourself more control, or,

Elle 27:07
I think it was a mixture of, like more control and like more understanding. It's very different from what I understand in America, like in the NHS, you know, we don't give our pumps that much. It's starting to change. We've just started to get artificial pancreas is like the closed loop systems for kids and some adults. We get given the bare bones. So it used to be you got given finger pricks, you got given carb counting, and you got given a physical book your carbs and cows, book that had all your carbs and then your calories, and then you're on your way, yeah, and you're on your way. And, you know, some people get more regular appointments, but I get once a year checkups with my consultant. And yeah, he's a lovely guy, but the issue is they don't always move as fast as the time moves. So like with CGM and everything, you can have a lot better time in range. But the NHS doesn't necessarily move with that. They're much more like risk averse and scared of hypos and things. Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:08
it's interesting how long it takes for institutions to come along with ideas. I don't think it's specific to diabetes or specific to a certain country or anything like that, but I was struck yesterday when a major diabetes organization sent out an email celebrating this idea. And I thought I've been saying that for 10 years. They said it as if it was an idea that just happened yesterday, and they can't believe how lucky they are to be coming and telling you about it. They said, after much research, I was like, research. You need a research to tell you this. I figured this out in my living room, like, 15 years ago. I've been saying on the podcast for a decade, and here you are today, the bastion of good information, and you're finally speaking up about it. Like, awesome, you know? Like, yeah, way to let a decade of people down.

Elle 28:58
And it's really sad. And I think, you know, diabetes, especially, like, yes, hypos and things are very, very bad. And, you know, we should all have, like, a healthy fear of going too low. But with technology nowadays, it's, you know, it's a tiny complication compared to what it used to be.

Scott Benner 29:17
Anybody can hear your dad's story and then say, people don't need CGM, and you don't have to worry about time and range, like, That's ridiculous, you know, yeah.

Elle 29:26
And I think if he'd have had access to things like CGM, so if he could, actually, if he was almost forced to confront these numbers and see what was going on, you know, was his outcome have been different. Possibly

Scott Benner 29:39
more information may have changed his his outlook on things, and it might have adjusted how he thought over time, maybe. And he could have done better, you know, yeah,

Elle 29:48
or if he'd had access to something, I know it wasn't a thing when he was first diagnosed, but even towards his later years, if he'd have had access to a pump, you know, so he didn't have to do injections, you know? That. In itself would have made a huge difference, in my opinion, right?

Scott Benner 30:04
This is going to seem like a left turn for a second, but I've been wondering for half an hour now, was your grandfather a handsome

Elle 30:09
man? He was a five foot six Jamaican guy, not the most handsome, but also not very ugly. Okay,

Scott Benner 30:17
this explains your hair, because I know what you look like, and I couldn't figure your hair out. But now I got, yeah, now I have it. Okay, awesome. Well, he got around, for sure. He knew what he was doing. The ladies loved him. Yeah,

Elle 30:30
they did. You know a Jamaican man in England in the 40s and 50s. He

Scott Benner 30:35
was just different, right? And he had, everybody was probably interested.

Elle 30:38
He had a very, very lovely accent as well, yeah, the type of, it's like a really low and slow way of talking, and just very, very nice, very relaxing

Scott Benner 30:49
about that. Well, listen, and you knew him your whole life, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, obviously he was my granddad, no. Well, sometimes people split up and you don't see people and stuff like that, but, man, your grandmother must have been tired. I just

Elle 31:03
tired for a lot of reasons. I think having eight kids in itself is very tired. That's what

Scott Benner 31:07
I was talking about. Like, just like, that's so many kids.

Elle 31:12
I do feel for

Scott Benner 31:14
no kidding. How long did she live? She

Elle 31:16
passed away when I was nine. I think she was 82

Scott Benner 31:21
the only way to live to 8220 years ago, or whatever, and it not seem like a long time, is if your husband lives till 96 and then, yeah, it's really something.

Elle 31:30
And now he just kept on going, though, no one expected it. Like,

Scott Benner 31:34
was he Spry to the end? Like, could he talk get around stuff like that? Yeah,

Elle 31:40
yeah. He was such a great guy. You know, there was something about him. He used a walking stick, but not until, like, the very, very end. You know, he could hold full on conversations with you. He lived alone, just like a perfectly, like, fully functioning, like all of his marbles were intact. He was a bit weird. But what old person

Scott Benner 32:01
isn't it's a bit weird. I'm a bit weird. Yeah, are you planning on having more children?

Elle 32:06
I think we'll just have the one. My little girl was born quite premature, and there was, like, some complications. And, you know, realistically, I don't want to go through that again when I've already got one child. I don't think it's worth that risk. Is she okay? Now she's perfectly healthy. She is so happy, like when she was born, she had a heart defect as a result of her prematurity, so she had something called junctional tachycardia, which is like where your heart beats wrong, and then she had these two little holes in her heart just from being premature. But they've all sorted themselves out now, and like she's doing really well, but I think that trauma for me is her mum is still there. I was

Scott Benner 32:47
gonna say the process of that really impacted

Elle 32:51
you, yeah, and I think it really messed with my head. Do you think that could ever change? No, no. I think we're very stuck on that decision, because we know if we have another one, that they'll also be born very early. And

Scott Benner 33:04
how was your pregnancy with type one? Was it difficult? Were you able to keep your a 1c? Where you wanted? Yeah,

Elle 33:09
so my pregnancy was actually perfect. So when I was pregnant, I was in that weird gap where I was, like, some doctors say it's like an extended honeymoon or whatever, where I wasn't on insulin, and my whole pregnancy, it was brilliant. And then, like, a month or two after I gave birth, my blood sugar started creeping up,

Scott Benner 33:28
okay? And then that's where it kind of all took off, yeah.

Elle 33:32
So then that's when they started me on Metformin, on, like, the glycoside, and eventually went back onto the insulin, which

Scott Benner 33:40
was what, I'm sorry,

Elle 33:42
which was not very fun,

Scott Benner 33:43
because you had newly given birth, and there was a lot else going on.

Elle 33:47
Yeah, I think when you've got a new baby as well, and you find yourself a routine, don't you, when you've got a new baby, and you're sort of in the throes of it, and then all of a sudden, you spend months and months just feeling awful, because the issue is, despite the medications, my blood sugars were just climbing and climbing, you know, like they weren't controlled at all on them, so I wasn't feeling any better, and then I was getting side effects from the drugs that they were giving me. I ended up breaking down to the consultant and to say, I could just can't do this, like I just physically can't do this, you know? And he said, Well, we'll do a C peptide. And she's like, attach your insulin levels and see what's going on. And then they found I've got quite a low C peptide, but it's a bit higher than a type one diabetic

Scott Benner 34:35
low C peptide, but higher. What was it? It's like, 0.4 Okay, How involved is your soon to be husband in your diabetes? Oh, I would say, like a zero. Is that your doing or his? I

Elle 34:49
think it's just how we've both fallen into it. If I have, like, a hypo or something, he knows about it. He follows my Dexcom so he can see all my readings. But it. General, there's not really a reason for him to be more involved. Have

Scott Benner 35:04
you been taking care of it by yourself your entire life? I mean, your father didn't have knowledge about it. Was your mom helpful?

Elle 35:10
No, I don't. My mum wasn't very helpful with I don't think she ever saw a need to

Scott Benner 35:15
be. Did you see a need for her to be?

Elle 35:18
No, because I, I think when you're 15 as well, it's a very awkward age to be diagnosed. You know, I know like looking back at how I was, how I thought I was this really small adult who could do everything. And I think it would have been nice if my parents supported and helped a bit more. But at the same time, I do get it that if your child saying that they like they've got this, and they know what they're doing. You do? You just sort of leave them to it, don't you?

Scott Benner 35:46
Not me. I'm a bit of a hard head. What happens if, 10 years from now, God forbid, I hope this doesn't happen, right? Your daughter gets type one diabetes. Says, Mom, don't worry. I don't need help. I've got this. What do you say?

Elle 35:57
Oh, I don't think she's got it.

Scott Benner 36:01
Did you have it when you were 15? No, I

Elle 36:04
don't think I did. Put it in perspective, one of the first things I did came out of hospital at 15, and I just announced to everyone I was like, but that's it. I'm not eating carbs anymore, and I put myself on a low carb diet. And no one, like battered an eyelid, no one thought to have, like, a conversation with me about it, or, you know, challenge those ideas in my head and I stayed on this low carb diet for three years.

Scott Benner 36:32
Wow. How low? How many carbs a day? Probably

Elle 36:36
not as low as I thought I was eating. Being a teenager,

Scott Benner 36:40
I'm eating a low carb. Give me a biscuit, and we're gonna put that with this little gravy on that. Yeah, but I would say, like,

Elle 36:46
still, probably under 50 carbs per day.

Scott Benner 36:48
Still, I mean, that's, that's, it's not pretty low. You're holding yourself up against people online who are, like, I had four carbs today, but like that, yeah, 50 is a small number. It

Elle 36:58
was nowhere near as much as some people who are really good at it and take it very, very seriously, like, I still eat, like fruits and things like that, but I didn't eat any sort of like bread or pasta or rice, you know, those sort of typical starchy carbs. What

Scott Benner 37:12
happened three years into it? Did you see a piece of bread again? Or what happened?

Elle 37:16
No, no. So three years into it, I just gave up one day. No, as teenagers, do you just sort of wake up one day and you think, what the am I doing?

Scott Benner 37:28
I haven't had a pastry in three years. I haven't had a Starbuck.

Elle 37:32
Like, why am I doing this to myself?

Scott Benner 37:35
And why were you like, once you ate more carbs? Did it change anything? No,

Elle 37:39
not really. I don't think my life, like dramatically, got better or worse. What

Scott Benner 37:44
about your management? Did it get easier or harder? Neither,

Elle 37:47
I don't I think it just changed. Because even when I was doing low carb, I was still doing, like, my Nova rapids for things. Yeah, I was still very, very cautious. I was still having to correct seemingly all of the time. And I can't remember, I might have been on the pump when I stopped low carb

Scott Benner 38:06
already. Oh yeah, we haven't even talked about that. How do you manage today? So

Elle 38:10
today I'm on just a simple NDI so venal injections I take levemir and something called FIAs. Do you guys get FIAs in America?

Scott Benner 38:18
We do. How come you're using lever mirror, though, I would love it. If you're using something more modern for your basal insulin,

Elle 38:24
that's actually that's a personal choice to do. Levemir, why tell me? So I tried procedure in the past, which is like that ultra long act thing, and it works quite well at like, keeping things very steady, but I wasn't a huge fan of it. And then I tried something called sembly, which is the same as Lantus. It's just an off brand version, because the NHS loves its off brand stuff. And I just, I really hated Lantus, like, I absolutely despised it.

Scott Benner 38:53
Levemir, you like, do you split it? Do you shoot it every 12 hours? I do a

Elle 38:58
split dose of levemere. What I love about it is I feel like it just gives me so much more flexibility. I found that a lot of people, they have, like a basal dose, and then they just keep it as that. So every day, they'll take however many units, and they'll do that forever and ever, until they have to change it, whereas I constantly change my 11 minute dose. So if I know the for example, Christmas is my biggest one, I upped it by loads. I'm not recommending that to anyone, but for me, I know that I eat an awful lot over Christmas. You know, I'm constantly snacking. I'm cooking and eating as I cook. So when I up my morning leather Moon, I have that sort of flexibility to be able to do that without worrying so much. And then if I know that I'm going to be doing a lot of exercise, or if I've got things, I'll drop my left mirror. If I've been ill, I can up it, you know. And it just gives me a lot more flexibility, whereas, like tracebo, I couldn't do that at all. That's

Scott Benner 39:56
so thoughtful and and I'm. Really pleased that you shared that and at the same time, what strikes me more probably because you're half my age and you're like, my son's age, I'm like, proud of you. I know that's not my place to be proud of you. But like, you know, being brought up by someone who wasn't paying attention to his diabetes, who was brought up by somebody who wasn't paying attention to his diabetes, that's an incredibly thoughtful way to manage.

Elle 40:21
I think it's because of that, you know, if my dad hadn't died and he hadn't had his issues with his kidneys, you know, I would have fallen into that same trap as him as of it doesn't really matter that much. You think

Scott Benner 40:35
your dad's passing broke the cycle of how your family takes care of type one? Yeah,

Elle 40:40
I think it massively has, you know, I see things very different. I'm not compliant with it. You know, if I notice that my sugars are higher than they should be, or if they're lower than they should be, you know, I'm taking action to correct that. I don't just accept it as well. This is diabetes. What do you expect? You know, I'm not striving for 70% in range. I'm striving for 100% in range in a straight line. You know, that is my goal. And you

Scott Benner 41:07
don't feel burned out or overwhelmed. This seems very natural to you.

Elle 41:11
No, it doesn't. It overwhelm me at all. Where'd

Scott Benner 41:15
you learn to split the lever mirror? So

Elle 41:16
in England, we usually do split. Levemir, good. You know, that's how, like, the sort of standard, but yeah. And then I just sort of work out how much I want to take based on me. Your dosing is up to you with the NHS. Like, you've got nurses and doctors that can support you with it, but once you've learned the basics, you know, it is up to you how you dose and when and how.

Scott Benner 41:38
It's clear to you that you're allowed to adjust doses. Oh,

Elle 41:41
yeah. Like, no one really cares, because here

Scott Benner 41:45
the idea from, from a lot of people, is like, you don't touch it. We'll tell you when to touch it.

Elle 41:49
Oh no, you would be dead if you left the NHS there. I mean, I only see someone once a year. Yeah, my doses change way more than yearly. Arden

Scott Benner 41:58
used levemir when she was first diagnosed, we used to split

Elle 42:01
it. I love it. I think it's the best insulin. Wow. That's awesome

Scott Benner 42:05
that you found something that you can use like that takes more effort and some paying attention, but

Elle 42:11
it takes getting used to. But I think when you're on daily injections rather than a pump, it gives you sort of the closest to that flexibility of a pump. Obviously, with a pump, you can adjust your background, you know, freely whenever you need to. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:27
I was thinking earlier, you're acting like your own algorithm with your basal, like, I'm going to eat more this week or today, or I'm going to go running or whatever, like, and you're making adjustments to your basal that

Elle 42:37
way, yeah, and it's one of the reasons I wanted levemir, I think, yeah, I've listened to your podcast so much, and obviously most of what you talk about revolves around insulin pumps. And at first I thought, Oh, well, this is so frustrating, because I don't have a pump and I can't get a pump because we only get pumps in England if your diabetes is like, what they say is like, uncontrolled. So if your HBO and C is quite high, and mine wasn't, and I used to get very frustrated, and then I thought, Well, why am I getting so frustrated? The principles are no different. It doesn't matter if I'm on a pump or if I give myself insulin. You know, the key is making it so I can have that flexibility. All a pump does is give you flexibility. Yes, you can't have it as much when you take injections. You know, I can't do really tiny doses, but I can still do point five unit corrections. Now this is the closest

Scott Benner 43:31
anyone's coming to making me cry so far this week. So thank you, because I've been saying this forever, like, I know that if, if you're listening, and it's like, oh, everybody's talking about pumping. I don't think we are like, I think we're talking about insulin timing. Yeah, yeah. I think we're talking about the amount of insulin you use and when you use it. And I genuinely believe that you can do that with MDI. You just have to be willing to shoot a little more frequently. Exactly,

Elle 44:01
you know, I take probably seven to 10 injections every single day. You know, it is way more than you know, when the NHS says you should do four, if you do four injections, you're not going to have good control. It's impossible. Yeah, we smack. We're humans. I don't know anyone that doesn't smack. For example, if you don't inject for your snacks, you're going to go high. I

Scott Benner 44:24
swear to you, this is the happiest I've been in a while, making the podcast. Bless you. I'm seriously like to hear you say that at your age too, which I know you've been a fully formed adult who knows everything that they need to know since you were 15. You mentioned that earlier, to hear you at 24 from where you came from, from diabetes, to say that I just, I found that very fulfilling, honestly, like, I think I'm gonna have a really great day. So I appreciate it. Thank you. I know it's the end of your day, but it's, it's just the beginning

Elle 44:51
the end. It's only it's coming up to 2pm over

Scott Benner 44:55
here. Oh, is that

Elle 44:56
it? Yeah, I'm on my lunch

Scott Benner 44:57
break. Oh, wait a minute, you're only four. Four hours ahead of me. Why do I not know that? Hmm, all right. Well, now I know I'll try to remember seriously, like, that was awesome. Like, people who listen to the podcast a lot will listen back now and realize I didn't say a word while you were talking about that. Because I was just like, yeah, say it. Say when you started. I was like, oh god, she's gonna say it. And then you said it. I was like, oh my. And then you, as you elaborated on I was like, she really understands this. How long do you think you've really, really deeply understood your diabetes? I'll

Elle 45:27
tell you exactly. When it was. It was August 2022 you know. And I was listening to one of your podcasts, and I was walking around Asda at the time, which is like your wall marked. And I was listening to one of your podcasts, and I was getting frustrated someone was talking about a pump, and then it suddenly clicked in my head, you know, where I thought it doesn't matter that they're talking about a pump, like, that's not the important thing. Like, I can still do Sally. I can still do everything. It doesn't change it. I can't have that level of flexibility, but I can still have flexibility. That's

Scott Benner 46:01
awesome. I'm literally speechless, but I'm only talking because it's a podcast. I'm just I'm so happy. I'm just so happy for you, and that that message got to you is, is just awesome. You know, I spend too much of my life having to answer people who are like, well, I try to listen to your podcast, but it's for people who pump. But I'm like, I think it's for people with diabetes. Like, listen closer, yeah,

Elle 46:24
yeah. And I think that does need to be more representation in the world for people on injection. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:29
of course. But the problem is, is the people like you don't step up very often to be on you know, yeah, even at that, it took us 40 minutes for you to say that you were MDI, right now,

Elle 46:38
yeah. And I guess it's because when you're MDI, it's just it's normal for you, like, it's not a big part of my diabetes management. And I forget that for other people, it can feel very scary. Yeah.

Scott Benner 46:50
Now I imagine you are wearing a CGM, obviously. Which one? So I

Elle 46:54
wear something called the Dexcom one, plus, oh, really, the NHS, the beautiful, lovely thing that keeps me alive, looking for a deal. Are they what's going on? So they look for a deal. And a couple of years ago, the NHS said that all type ones, or people like myself that aren't quite type one, but the closest that we fit in, need to have a CGM on the NHS. And the NHS said all that that's very, very expensive. So they went to Dexcom and they said, Do you mind making us some some cheap CGM? So they came up with the Dexcom one, which was basically the g6 but didn't have some of the special features, like you couldn't share it, you couldn't calibrate it, just a very paired down version. And now we have the one plus, which is the g7 but it's paired down, but we can still share that one. We can calibrate it if we want, but you don't need to, and it looks the same as a g7 you have

Scott Benner 47:51
a Dexcom, but it doesn't have leather seats or interior lighting or anything like that. Yeah,

Elle 47:56
it's just the basic one. And the benefit of it is, you know, it's completely free of charge. To me, I don't pay for my prescriptions. Yeah, all my Dexcom are free. My insulin is free. And you know for that, I will take a budget version. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 48:11
want to be clear, I would too. If somebody would like to offer free ones,

Elle 48:16
I would take a budget version. I do not need the Dexcom g7 and I cannot afford to pay for that privately anyway.

Scott Benner 48:23
Yeah, no, okay. Well, listen, how could you you're 24 and you're buying it. Do you ever step back and say, We're 24 and I'm buying a house? I

Elle 48:30
do. I say it's my partner. Sometimes. I'm like, Oh my God. Like, how did we get to this point? Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:36
is it easier to own a home there than it is here? Like, what is it? I'm not understanding. Why

Elle 48:41
don't I don't know how much houses cost in America, but it is. It's very expensive over here.

Scott Benner 48:47
No, I mean, it's expensive here too. I don't know what the median house cost is here, but like, you have to put 20% of your purchase price down in cash when you buy.

Elle 48:56
Oh, no. See, in England, we only have to put a minimum of 5% that would be easier. So that's probably a big difference there. So we do 5% deposits or 10% deposits as, like the standard, and then you just pay, like, your mortgage and everything. How long does the mortgage go for? So we've got a very long mortgage. We've got a 36 year mortgage.

Scott Benner 49:18
Oh, wow, yeah. Here. 30 is typical? Yeah, I think

Elle 49:22
30 is quite typical over there as well, but we've gone for a longer one just because of

Scott Benner 49:27
finances. How much does your daughter know about your diabetes? Do you know

Elle 49:32
what? She's actually extremely adorable with it. So when she was very little, she used to pretend to give herself injections, but had, like no sort of concept of it. And then she got to a point where she thought that all mummies had diabetes, like when you became a mummy,

Scott Benner 49:47
oh, you got diabetes with the baby,

Elle 49:49
yeah, basically, which I thought was very, very cute, but now that she's just turned four now, so she understands that sometimes mummy's poorly, and that means that mummy needs sugar. Her, and she's very, very good with that. If she notices me lying on the sofa, even if I'm just relaxing, she'll go into our snack cupboard, and she'll appear with like, a cookie or something, and she'll be like, for your diabetes. And I'm like, Oh, I'm not gonna say no.

Scott Benner 50:14
I'm not gonna say no, I am actually not feeling poorly, but will take this cookie. Thank you very much.

Elle 50:19
Yeah. And in the morning, she started a new thing where she asked to see what my sugars are. Oh, really. So, like, she'll wake up and I, obviously, I check my sugars. I do a finger prick every single morning, even with my Dexcom, just to make sure, like, force a habit. And then she started asking. She's like, Oh, money, what's your sugar? She's like, are they white? Are they yellow? Oh yeah. And then I'll show her. And then she's always so, like, proud of me and pleased. She doesn't know what it means, right? Do you guys have glucagon? There we do, but I don't actually have one because, because the NHS doesn't provide them anymore. They used to. So when I was 15, I had one, and I'd have one on me at all times, one at home and, like, one at school or something like, however it was. So then when I went on insulin again, I was like, Oh, can I get a glue gun? And they were like, No, you can't. We don't

Scott Benner 51:12
care anymore. Sorry, yeah, they only

Elle 51:15
give them to children and people that have either, I think, had a really bad hypo, or at risk of a bad hypo, interesting. I don't know why. I don't know if they're expensive or maybe some idiots did something stupid with them. I don't

Scott Benner 51:30
know if it's cost or dummies, but it's one of them. I guarantee it.

Elle 51:33
Yeah, it'll be one of them.

Scott Benner 51:36
So I learned with Google that the average, like the median home price in the US is $420,000 yours is about 290 pounds sterling, which equivalent is about a $376,000 equivalent. So your average price is like $50,000 less than ours. That

Elle 51:56
is crazy. And our houses are built correctly. They're not made out of wood or anything. It's

Scott Benner 52:01
nice that they're cheaper, but they're not, like crazy cheaper. I mean, you're talking about $400,000 50,000 is not really, you know, a ton. I think

Elle 52:10
the thing I also I've never been to America, so I am purely just guessing of television that I've watched. I think American houses are quite a lot bigger as well.

Scott Benner 52:19
How do you measure your house? Uh, square feet? How many? How many is yours? So

Elle 52:23
the one that we're buying is 1100

Scott Benner 52:28
Okay, so that would be around here, sort of like what they call a, um, gosh, I can't think of it. Is it like one simple footprint, one level? No, no.

Elle 52:36
So it's a two story house. It's a, like a three double bedroom, detached house. It's quite a nice house for

Scott Benner 52:43
England. That's awesome for England. No, it sounds lovely we're in at the moment, which

Elle 52:48
is a two bed and like terrace tiles, it's like 600 square feet. It's a big upgrade for you then, yeah, so I think in America, your guys houses are quite a lot bigger. You've got way more space, haven't you? Let

Scott Benner 53:01
me see average home size in us, 2300 square feet is an average home size here. Gosh,

Elle 53:09
so like, double, yeah, that is crazy. That's huge. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:13
Tinder boy, what does he do for a living? Is he out? Is he selling crack? Or how's he making this money? What's he doing? No,

Elle 53:19
no, he can't sell crack. I work in the drug and alcohol service. Don't say that. Wait, what do you do for a living? I support family members who are affected by people living with addiction. Oh,

Scott Benner 53:30
my god, yeah, that definitely wouldn't be a good job for him. Then you imagine the conversations you'd have at dinner be terrible. But

Elle 53:36
yeah, he's an engineer.

Scott Benner 53:38
Oh, smart kid.

Elle 53:39
He's very, very nerdy, socially awkward, that kind of smart. Is that what you liked about him? Yeah, he's such a lovely guy. Because when I met him, he was working as an engineering officer on cruise ships, so it was pretty cool job. And I think that, like, drawed me in, and now he works in like, a food factory, working with, like, dried nuts and dried fruit and stuff. This sounds interesting.

Scott Benner 54:06
Did you go through any boys with different attitudes? Or have you always been attracted to guys like that? I've

Elle 54:12
dated some very interesting people in the past, but he's definitely the nicest. I think that's why I'm stuck with him. I was gonna

Scott Benner 54:21
say that's pretty important. I would tell my daughter the same thing, like, but try look at the person not like what they would look like in your Instagram photo

Elle 54:28
Exactly. And it's about someone as well. That, for example, I had a conversation with Harry the other and it's quite a depressing conversation I had where it suddenly hit me one morning that one day, I'm going to be 80, and I'm going to be living with diabetes, and you know what if I can't manage it? You know what if I go into hospital and you know, for whatever reason, I can't manage my diabetes, and I don't like the way that hospitals manage it. And me and him had this conversation, and he was so like reassuring and so lovely that. Something like that was to ever to happen, you know, he would make sure that people knew my wishes and my views, you know. And it's things like that that I think you know, when you're looking for a partner and when you're with someone like, that's what matters. Like, yes, all the good stuff matters, and all of that's brilliant, but it's someone that I know, and I implicitly trust him that if something was happened to me, you know, he would not only look after me, but he would advocate for me, and like, that's the important thing.

Scott Benner 55:28
That's lovely. But do we not want him to know more about your diabetes so that he can do that better?

Elle 55:33
I think he has an idea of it. He just doesn't get involved.

Scott Benner 55:36
Oh, I see. So you think he understands it, but you guys have a, like, a healthy separation there. He knows

Elle 55:43
what my blood sugar should be. He knows when it's not bad. He has a good understanding of what to do in, like a medical emergency. He knows about ketones and things good, good. That's all we want. Does he know my doses? He wouldn't have a clue, gotcha.

Scott Benner 55:59
And you're not just comfortable with that. You like it this way, yeah, and

Elle 56:03
I think as well, like, sometimes we all have bad days, yeah, we have days where our sugars are way too high and we can't get them down. And, you know, I like the fact that he doesn't always understand that. I like the fact that sometimes, you know, like, let's say we go for a meal, I can eat what I want, and sometimes I won't do insulin, or I'll do it after my meal. And there's no raised eyebrows, there's no judgment, because he doesn't know if I'm meant to do that or not.

Scott Benner 56:30
Tell me more about that. I'm super interested in that. Like you, like that he doesn't know in that situation, because dig into that more.

Elle 56:36
It's hard to put into words to explain it, but like, let's say we go out for a meal, like, to a Chinese buffet. Yeah, it's one of my favorite places. Now that is a diabetics last night, minefield. Yeah, the way I deal with a buffet is chaotic, to say the least. So what I'll do to start off with is I Pre Bolus with just a bunch of incidents, just a random amount. Yeah, there is no like, rhyme or reason to how much I give, you know. And then I just eat whatever I want, and I turn the alarms off of my Dexcom so it won't tell me if I'm going high. And then when I get home afterwards, I'll just correct and I'll correct myself down, you know. And I like that with Harry, because he doesn't, he doesn't know what the numbers mean. He doesn't know he knows when something's high, but he doesn't know if it's like a normal high, like, if that's to be expected with diabetes, if that makes sense. So he doesn't think about it too much, and he doesn't become a conversation like, he'd never pull me up and say, Oh, shouldn't you be doing some more insulin for that cake. Have you done that? Have you checked your levels? Like, are you sure that you're not too high to be eating that? And I like that. I can just go out with him and enjoy a meal when you know there's no comments, and I can just do whatever I want, like, with my control.

Scott Benner 57:55
Has there ever been a time where you wished he would like, Have you ever gotten stuck and wish somebody would push you.

Elle 58:01
No, no, not really. I think it's very much my own responsibility to deal with it. This is really interesting. Yeah. I think if we rely on other people as well, like, we need to have that motivation within ourselves. Like, if we're not motivated, it doesn't matter how much other people push us, we're not going to want to deal with it, yeah. And then that's when you get into that territory of, like, secret eating and things where you're not dosing, or, you know, dosing too much, but not caring, yeah, that's

Scott Benner 58:32
really interesting. I think that's going to help me. Your insight will help me with Arden, I think. And

Elle 58:36
it being a like a teenager and a young adult with diabetes is awful. There is no getting away from it, but you find a way, you know, and there's always a chance to fix it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:51
no. I mean, you have to remain hopeful. That's for sure. You have that, like wake up every day, like renewed right? That? Yeah, yeah, it's a new job. Have you been listening to the small sips series as they come out? No,

Elle 59:03
I haven't. I've been so busy with everything that I've not listened to the couple of months. It's really bad. No,

Scott Benner 59:08
no, no, no, I I just asked, because I took all of the Well, what I did was I went back to the audience, and I went back to the content that I know really helps people, and I asked people for, like, foundational ideas, like, tell me, okay, a thing you heard in the podcast, right? That really, really helps you. I think it's 20 or 21 they're like, little short, like, 10 minute episodes, right? But the last one of the first set was wake up hopeful. Like that was one of the things that people came back and said from the podcast. What I learned was that I need to get up every day and just have a renewed sense of like it's a fresh start. Yeah,

Elle 59:46
and that's the beauty of diabetes. You know, every day is a fresh start. It doesn't matter what was going on yesterday or last week, you can always make changes. And sometimes it is simply, as simple as if your sugar. High you need more insulin?

Scott Benner 1:00:02
Yeah, no. I mean, obviously, like, yeah. I think one of the episodes is called more insulin. It's one of the things that somebody said, you said one time. And I was like, oh, that's brilliant. I'll do that. It's interesting to reach out to a group of people and say, Tell me the sentences, just the simple sentences that you heard that were so valuable for you. And then, you know, have people vote on them, and you collect them up, and it's not just somebody said, Oh, this. It's 100 people said, I heard this, and it was great. You're like, Okay. And then when you collect them and look at them, I look and I just think, oh, it's not, it doesn't feel that special to me, because it doesn't seem any great secret when I look at it. Does that make sense? I think

Elle 1:00:39
the beauty of your podcast is it puts things in such a basic way where it all seems so simple, just like simple things that you come out with, you know, like with the more insulin, is such a simple concept, an idea, that obviously, if your sugar is high, you need to take more insulin. But I think there's such a anxiety when it comes to diabetes and diabetes management, that you don't want to correct too much, you don't want to change your ratios too much, you don't want to over treat a hypo, and you don't want to do this and that and the other that, when someone sits there and really just brings it back to basics and goes well, if your sugar is too high, you Need more insulin. You know, if you're peaking too much after a meal, then take your insulin a bit earlier. You know, just having someone else say that and almost confirm what you think or what your views might have been, it creates, like a light bulb moment where you go, I can, I can just do more. It's not the end of the world if I do more, or if I've already done my correction, and three hours later it's not coming down, I can just take more. There's physically nothing stopping me. And if I hypo, I'll just eat some carbs. Yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 1:01:53
going to go through these with you, because I'm really interested in your opinion. And then I want to ask my last question, which is wrapped around why I'm asking you the first question. So I'm looking at the I brought the list up in front of me. I'm sure there'll be more small sip episodes, because they've they've become very popular, and people like shorter content sometimes. But these are the topics, right? It's diabetes. Is hard. Insulin used now is for later. The difference is your fear you get what you expect. Tug of War. Are you stacking insulin? All carbs aren't created equal timing an amount, using a CGM. Well, stop the arrows, swag, meet the need. Blanket of insulin. More insulin, low before high steal a 1c overnight, that's just diabetes. Avoid hot takes. Trust will happen. Just smile and wave and wake up hopeful. Did I just encapsulate the entire podcast to you? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Isn't that something? Because, yeah, but when I look at the list, it's almost underwhelming to me. But I don't feel that way anymore because of the explanation you just gave me. Oh, in the end, like, I broke it down. I'm like, That's it. Like, that's the genius in the podcast. You know what I mean. But like, I think it's because it's broken down so simply that it seems so simple when it's delivered. This is going to sound crazy, but when I put the list together, I was underwhelmed by it. I was like, Oh, I thought. Like, the cumulative knowledge of the diabetes podcast that everybody finds so helpful would have been more,

Elle 1:03:35
I don't know what groundbreaking and Earth shaft, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:39
Like, it would have felt like, yeah, it would have felt like, Oh my God. Like, I can't believe this is awesome. Like,

Elle 1:03:45
I'm a genius. I need to write a medical research study right now. Lightning

Scott Benner 1:03:49
strike, and God's talking and like, this is what the people found to be. But in the end, like, the reason it doesn't feel that way to me, and the reason it also works is because of what you said a moment ago. And it leads me to my last question for you. And if you have more to say afterwards, that's fine. But my last question for you is, why in the hell are you so like mature?

Elle 1:04:10
I think that's a very complicated question, and there's not a simple answer to that. Yeah, growing up with a dad that he is very ill, makes you grow up early. Yeah. To put it in perspective, I was seven when my dad got kidney failure, yeah. So I, I never really knew him as a well person. He was pretty much bed bound for several years. And, you know, I had to become, I wouldn't say, care at him. I think that takes things too far. But, you know, I took on a lot of responsibilities at a very young age, and I think just having that experience, it makes you grow up in all areas of your life. You know, you grow up with this kind of fragility around you, where you're very aware at how easily life can change, and how important it is to hold on to that optimism. And, you know, to the good things going on around you, yeah. And then I could go on for ages about other random stuff that's happened that makes me very grown up and but I think that's the main thing. I think just growing up in that environment. Give

Scott Benner 1:05:14
me one example of a random thing that happened,

Elle 1:05:17
oh, well, you know, obviously having a child at 19. And well, getting pregnant 19, having her at 20. And, you know, my little girl, she was born very premature, as I mentioned. And the birth and everything was such a shock. I labored for less than an hour. So it's very much like, boom, all of a sudden you have a premature baby. You know that in itself. You know, that makes you grow up. You know, dealing with my dad's death, I I just turned 19 when he passed away. And, yeah, he was out in France at the time because he was on holiday. So with that came a bunch of complicating things.

Scott Benner 1:05:58
He didn't see your daughter ever. No, no,

Elle 1:06:01
no, yeah, you never met Harry either. So my dad passed away in the October. So I turned 19 in the September. Was moving into a my first ever flat, got the keys to that September 30, went to call my dad to tell him. My mum answered the phone to say, well, he's not breathing. I can't wake him up. I've tested his sugars, and they're just saying, H i, what do I do? And I said, call an ambulance, crazy lady. And then he was in a coma for nearly a month. Then the end of October, he he pulled out his breathing tube and died. And then November, I, I got with Harry. Hell,

Scott Benner 1:06:40
you have an insane amount of perspective that a person your age usually doesn't have. That's what this is.

Elle 1:06:46
I think you have to, I think when you've grown up in that environment, you have to have a level of perspective, because otherwise you get very depressed with your life, and that doesn't help anything. So that

Scott Benner 1:06:57
was my question. Like, is this a decision you made, or is it just how you're wired?

Elle 1:07:01
Well, after my dad passed away, I got very depressed for several months. Yo, I really, really struggled. My dad wasn't just my dad. He was my best friend in the entire world. Yeah, we had an extremely close relationship, and I wasn't very close to my mum for various reasons. We have a much better relationship now, but at the time, we weren't very close, and we didn't talk. So it was like I lost not only my dad, but my best friend and, you know, my biggest support and cheerleader in my life. So I got very, very down, and then I found out I was pregnant with my little girl, and I thought, well, this can't be our life. You know, this can't be my life, and this can't be her life, because she doesn't deserve this. And what is the point in spending all of my life just moping around and going to work and laying in bed and crying all the time, it's not going to bring him back, is the truth. Nothing will bring him back, and all I'm doing is wasting my happiness. And it took me a good while because I used to feel very guilty about being happy and enjoying life. I felt like his life had been robbed from him, like he's not got to enjoy that. And how could I be moving on with my life and enjoying things? And it sounds very cliche, because, you know, everyone always says it, but I think I started thinking, Well, you know, he would want me to enjoy my life. He probably wouldn't want me to be sat here moping, you know? And it is cliche, but it's true.

Scott Benner 1:08:36
I don't know to call it cliche. Maybe it is, but you were able to break free of it and follow that like, that's the impressive part, and you weren't always that person. Is that? Right? No,

Elle 1:08:48
no, not at all. Wow. I was a very, I was a very pessimistic person once upon a time, not anymore. No, it's one of those people that walked around with sort of a chip on their shoulders, really.

Scott Benner 1:09:00
Yeah, 100% I know what you look like. You're like an adorable little person. It's hard to think of you that way. Oh, stop it. No, you are. It's hard to think of you that way, like you just you just seem like a pleasant person. It's awesome, but I'm so proud of you and happy for you and thank you. No, no, it's a pleasure to say that to you. I mean, because the alternative would have been terrible, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bluntly, bird would be Yeah, and you just didn't do it. Boy, that's interesting. You didn't go to drugs or alcohol.

Elle 1:09:31
No, no. I'm very, very straight laced, and always have

Scott Benner 1:09:35
been something. And the boy doesn't do any of that stuff now. He's

Elle 1:09:40
never been in Harry is a very straight laced person. He grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he's very prim and proper and

Scott Benner 1:09:48
lovely when he ever acts up. You ever call him Prince Harry to make fun of him? No, he never acts up. So, oh, look at you. He's got this boy. Got this boy walking the right line. This is awesome. Do

Elle 1:09:59
you know. He's, he's an absolute gem of the person. Look at

Scott Benner 1:10:03
that Tinder, huh? Yeah, look at that. Good for you. I know you're just a modern success story, modern fairy tale. Seriously, you want to call your episode that? Because I was going to call it Elle's best friend. But do you want to call it a modern fairy tale that is

Elle 1:10:18
so cute, I love it. Which one modern fairy tale? Okay, that's

Scott Benner 1:10:22
what we're calling this episode. You're done. That's it. I have to tell you something. I hope you feel the same way, or otherwise, it's gonna feel ridiculous. I feel like I could make a podcast with you every day. Ah, that is so sweet. Seriously, this, did you have as good a time as I did?

Elle 1:10:37
Yeah, I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. You thought this was going

Scott Benner 1:10:41
to be scary. You just told that whole story about your boring life, and you thought this was going to be scary.

Elle 1:10:46
Yeah, I thought it'd be very, very scary. And, no, yeah, it wasn't

Scott Benner 1:10:51
you. More than anybody I've spoken to recently. Know how you feel and know what you think in such a comforting and steady way. The truth is, is that, because of your accent and how you speak, if you told me you were 45 I would have believed you. It's not an old soul. You have a thought process that I wish I had

Elle 1:11:13
seriously. I think my work helps with the way. I sort of think, because I'm talking to different people all day, every day, about very complicated situations in their life, you know, I think I have to be very sure of what I'm saying and sort of the message that I'm conveying to people. And because of that, I've changed the way that I sort of think, because otherwise I end up rambling to them, and people don't want that. They don't want to come talk to me to hear my weird rambles.

Scott Benner 1:11:43
Like five minutes into their problem, you start telling them about your

Elle 1:11:48
they're like daydreaming. I'm in another world.

Scott Benner 1:11:51
Awesome. No, I don't want to talk about would be awesome. What helps me? For God's sake, I don't know how to exactly put it, but there have been a handful of people who've come on this podcast over a decade where I thought I wish that person was my child or my friend, or I wish I would open this microphone up every day and be talking to this person. You're one of those people, and we just met an hour and 12 minutes ago. It's really crazy.

Elle 1:12:14
So sweet. And guess what? I actually have an opening for a dad, and

Scott Benner 1:12:20
you have a great sense of humor, because that's very dark. What you just said, Are you not looking for me to pay for stuff, right? Just like,

Elle 1:12:28
Well, I mean, if you have the money to pay, why would I say no? I just thought maybe you'd want advice once in a while, or something like that. Yeah, that would be nice as well. Like, general life advice would be a huge bonus. That my dad wasn't very good at giving life advice anyway, so I'm

Scott Benner 1:12:43
awesome at it, and yet my kids don't care. It doesn't matter. Like, no matter what you are, people want something different. You know that, but

Elle 1:12:50
one day, your children will be very, very grateful for life advice. It'll be the point when they stop needing it, and then they realize how good of advice it was. I

Scott Benner 1:12:58
swear I'm so good at it, they don't even know. They just make fun of me. They made fun of me last night. The boy did at least and my wife, by the way, I was trying, was trying to never mind, I don't want to sound like a I we were talking about, like social things. And I have a perspective on one of these things, because I oversee, I mean, a Facebook group with 60,000 people in it, right? So my life is sort of like a probably not much different than yours. Like you see a lot of people, they come and they tell you about their things, and you get a different perspective on the world, how people think and everything. It's

Elle 1:13:38
really interesting, isn't it? Like the little insights into people's brains and their lives. Yeah, it's like taking

Scott Benner 1:13:44
a Master's class on how people think, but all in one second, like, just watching people respond. Like, there's nothing you could write online that I won't know how, like, how many groups are going to come back and respond, and what they're going to say, what their perspectives are going to be, and how they're going to fight with each other, like, I know instantly from that. So I start to say that, and somebody, like one of the two of them pauses and goes, Oh, where is that? How do you know about that? What's that from that? You know about that from is that from your is that, Oh, you must have a Facebook group. And then, like, and it went like that. And I was like, stop making fun of me. I just have a very specific experience. And then they just made fun of me until we stopped talking

Elle 1:14:22
about it. Oh, that is so funny. Yeah, this is gonna really make you laugh. So obviously my partner knows about Juicebox and like your podcast and your Facebook group and everything, and he refers to it as my diabetes

Scott Benner 1:14:34
cult. Hey, that's fine. I'm good with that.

Elle 1:14:37
Oh, he finds it absolutely hilarious.

Scott Benner 1:14:39
I don't know that it's inaccurate, just so you know,

Elle 1:14:43
no, he reckons it is very, very cult,

Scott Benner 1:14:45
like, how? So what does he say? Well, he

Elle 1:14:48
basically just makes fun of it being a cult. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:14:54
I'll take I just feel like that means a lot of really passionate people, passionate advice. Followers of an idea that's all and all. And what's the idea? Take care of yourself. Like, you know what I mean? Like, don't let somebody else tell you your health is okay where it is, like, check and make sure that's right. First, you know, if somebody says you're a one c7, and a half, that's great. You don't have to do anything else. Maybe you say to yourself, maybe I'll check and make sure that's right. Yeah, maybe

Elle 1:15:18
I'll see if I can improve it. Like with diabetes, there is always room for improvement. I don't know a single person that's insulin dependent who can put their hand on their heart and say there is nothing that I could do better.

Scott Benner 1:15:31
Yeah, exactly. Tell them I take that as a badge of honor. I will.

Elle 1:15:36
I let them know that the cult leader is proud to be a cult leader.

Scott Benner 1:15:42
I Oh, my God. Well, this diabetes thing ever blows up, maybe I'll try starting an actual cult and see if I can

Elle 1:15:47
do that. Oh, you probably don't want to say that. Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:15:51
yeah, it's joke. I was kidding. Are they illegal? They're illegal, right?

Elle 1:15:56
They have to be illegal. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:15:58
don't think I'd be comfortable with a lot of like, the rules of

Elle 1:16:02
you know, you'd set them up, you'd make the rules. I

Scott Benner 1:16:05
know, but don't you think eventually they all just evolve into having 20 wives? Like, isn't that how it eventually and then everyone's dead at the end? Like, isn't that how it eventually

Elle 1:16:14
goes? Is some reason it's very odd they start off so normal, just like a little diabetes podcast.

Scott Benner 1:16:22
Oh, we'll just, we'll plant, we'll plant some vegetables, and we'll live out here in our yurts. And then at the end, everyone's running and screaming and there's 33 wives and the guy's naked in a tree. And never, never ends well, yeah, so that's my goal in life. I'm gonna endeavor not to end up naked in a tree at the end. That's

Elle 1:16:40
a good goal. I like that goal. I think I'm aiming for a little bit higher

Scott Benner 1:16:44
than that. It's simple. Oh, you're really awesome. Hold on one second for me.

US med sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out at us. Med, Comm, slash Juicebox, or by calling 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries, the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have, then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links@juiceboxpodcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors. The episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool if you want, a commercially available insulin pump with twist lube that offers unmatched personalization and precision for peace of mind. You want, twist, twist.com/juicebox, thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card if you or a loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox Podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions, you'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox Podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox Podcast are available in your audio app and at Juicebox podcast.com in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com you.

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#1533 Multiple Wars on Multiple Fronts

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

Die-hard fan Sabrina joins the fight across algorithms, skeptics, and influencers to amplify diabetes truths through the podcast.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Sabrina 0:15
Hi, my name is Sabrina. I am 33 years old, and I have had type one diabetes for 27 years.

Scott Benner 0:23
If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast. Private Facebook group. Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome. Type one type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me if you're impacted by diabetes, and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox Podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook. It's medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox, this episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox

Sabrina 1:31
Hi. My name is Sabrina. I am 33 years old, and I have had type one diabetes for 27

Scott Benner 1:37
years. 27 years, wow, were you like six?

Sabrina 1:40
I was, yeah, good math.

Scott Benner 1:42
Oh, I don't know. It's a seven, three goes to 10, and then you're, it's not that hard. We were doing that the other day in what were you doing? We were playing a game, the hell's, I think it's a board game. Was called worst case scenario, which was fun. Like ever you picked five random cards, you laid them out, they had, like, horrible things, like on them, like swim with sharks to, like, just crazy stuff. And then you had to rate them one through five, and then the other players had to guess how you would rate them. It was fun, and fun, yeah, it's a good time. So you keep score, like, you know, and you know, have a bunch of rounds. So by the time you're done, like, you have a four, you have a three, you have a five, you have a two, like, everything. And we're like, trying to, like, meanwhile, it's like, it's my like, who even cares who won, right? But we're adding up the score. And I was like, Can I have that? Because they were like, writing it out. One person was like, let me get a calculator, like, this kind of thing. And I just took the paper. I am not known as a math wizard in my home. And so, like, I just took the paper, and I was like, four, 610, 313, eight, and I just added the line of numbers up very quickly. And I everyone looked at me like, what's going on? I was like, Oh, this is, like, the one math thing I can do. I was like, I can add a ton of like, random numbers together visually. And they were like, Oh, we didn't think you had any math skills whatsoever.

Sabrina 3:06
Gotta love your family.

Scott Benner 3:08
They were stunned. And like, one of them looked at me, and I was like, Do you feel compelled to check the answer? And my son goes a little. I was like, listen, it's like, the one thing I can do. So he says, I don't understand. Why are you so good at that? And I told him, it's be it's how I used to cover for not understanding multiplication when I was little interesting. Yeah. So I didn't know my times tables. Do they teach you? You're 33 year old.

Sabrina 3:35
I learned my time stables. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:37
yeah. We had this guy. He's probably dead now. His name was sagola. That was his last name, and he was a horrible little man, very mean. And every Friday would give you a simple times table quiz with 100 on. There was 100 questions, and they were rapid fire, and I would get 70 of them. I think I would get the ones and the twos right. I want to be clear, this was like fourth grade. So my point is, I should have been able to do like, three times six, and I was so bad at it. And then what everyone you got wrong, you had to go home over the weekend and write it out 10 times. So I'd get 70 wrong and have to sit down all and write out 700 multiplication problems. Did

Sabrina 4:23
you just do that multiplication 70 times? Yes, thank

Scott Benner 4:27
you. I did. I'm proud

Sabrina 4:29
of you. Scott, no,

Scott Benner 4:30
thank you. But the thing is, Sabrina and to Mr. Segola is ghost, if it can hear this, that did not help me. I taught myself out of necessity to do simple multiplication. This is super embarrassing. Oh God, here we go. I failed Algebra in sixth or seventh grade, and had to go to summer school to make up the credit, which is horrifying. I had to sit down and teach myself the one through 10 times table so I could get through that class. That's when I taught and I taught it to myself in, like, an afternoon. Anyway, his thing didn't work. But now I can randomly, like, look at a string of numbers and be like, seven, four, that's 11, and I don't know, like, it's the one thing I can do. This is not important. This is really just to get you comfortable and relaxed. Because you said you were nervous. How are you doing now? Oh, I'm okay. Good, good, good. Tell people how much you love me. I

Sabrina 5:22
have listened to every single episode of the podcast. I am a mega fan. Oh

Scott Benner 5:27
my gosh, Sabrina, thank you. This is wonderful. When did you begin to listen?

Sabrina 5:31
I listened in 2020, so starting COVID, I got a new job and had a lot of time where I was working, but also wanted some auditory stimulation. Looked out to try to find something that was entertaining and would not just be brain rot, so I looked for a diabetes podcast. Of course, your search engine optimization is great. Thank you. Listen to your podcast. Started at the beginning because I have weird podcast tendencies where I don't like to start in the middle and just kept listening like a crazy person. Do you know,

Scott Benner 6:12
if I thought there was a way to fix it, I would make the first episode, not the first episode. You know

Sabrina 6:18
what? I skipped the first episode. Yeah. So I lied to you. I did not listen to every episode of the podcast. Oh,

Scott Benner 6:23
no. Then it feels like this is over our little conversation. Well, that's really, first of all, I want to say something, because I am definitely going to make T shirts that say, would you say? How'd you say? Not brain rot, like whatever, however you said, That was perfect. I thought that's a t shirt. That's like, the best review I've ever gotten, entertaining. Not brain rot. I was like, good enough, but that's really, it's lovely. I would have no way to expect that. I mean, honestly, I mean, you listen to me better than people who love me. So I don't know how to put this exactly like that seems like a lot to me, and I really appreciate,

Sabrina 6:57
yeah, I'm sorry for embarrassing. No, no, it's

Scott Benner 6:59
not. It's not, it's it's nice. I mean, the podcast really just exists because people stop reading. Really, is it? Like, I swear to you? Like, as I watched blogging disappearing, I had this overwhelming feeling like, Oh, I get like, notes, and this helps people, and now it won't help anybody anymore. And I thought that sucks. And I have this thing I know that, like, people, like, jive with that's it really like. And I was just looking for another way to get it out there. As you know, media was changing so and then COVID. Thank God for COVID. You never would have found me right? I'm just kidding about the fact. I mean, it had,

Sabrina 7:38
it had a lot of negatives and it had a lot of positives. And it's just, it's the way of life. You know, you take the good with the

Scott Benner 7:45
bad. I think another t shirt would be five positive things from COVID, then you get to fill it in with a marker. That'd be a fun t shirt for people. I just thought not going to restaurants anymore was the best part of it, because of how much money I

Sabrina 7:58
saved, yeah, but I started doing takeout, more digital. Yeah, I cooked

Scott Benner 8:03
so much, and now it's that weird time in winter where I've given up on cooking. Does that happen to you? Like, these are times of year where you're just like, I'm probably not gonna cook anything this week.

Sabrina 8:13
No, I try to be disciplined and cook a couple meals a week, at

Scott Benner 8:19
least. Good for you. Now, I looked up the other day and I thought, I'm failing as a husband and a father, because I was just like, there's leftovers there. They're like, what is it? I'm like, it's like, pasta and chicken. Just heat it up. You'll be fine. People look so disappointed. I was like, I already ate mine, so you're screwed. What makes you want to come on the podcast? I

Sabrina 8:39
just like, I said, I'm a mega fan. I've been listening for so long, it just felt like that was the next step in my mega fan journey. I sound like a crazy person. No,

Scott Benner 8:50
sounding crazy. This is good for me. Are you going to stop listening after this? Is like this, no, because I'll hang up right now. Like I don't. I need the I need the downloads. I need. I need the consistency from some of you guys. I'm going to ask you about your diabetes because I feel like people would expect that. I'll just tell you first that. I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining. The hamster wheel you're on when you make something like this is insane. You just can't stop and you have to find a way to be competitive with it, because it is a lot of work. Like the conversation part of it This is simple. Like, I do this every day, honestly, about every day, like I have a conversation with somebody. I love it. I think it's awesome. If I think if nobody was listening, I would do it right. So that part's not It's not tough making enough money to pay an editor. That's tough making enough money to pay for computers. That's tough making enough money that your wife doesn't go let's stop pretending you're a podcaster. That part is just never ending, like I'm gonna finish with you today, and then I've gotta go. There are two companies that want new ads, and they don't send you. Scurry. Trips. They say, look, take what you know about us and our stuff. And here are some talking points that we'd like to be involved in the conver in this, you know, one minute conversation. Now sit down and try to and so I have to sit down and like, I have to make four ads today, is what I'm telling you. It's going to eat up like, three hours of my life. I'm not complaining. It's way better than what I used to do for work. But then I'm going to send them to them, and they're going to listen, and they're going to go, Oh, our lawyer said you can't say the before this word. And I go, Oh, okay. And we didn't really like the way you said this. And I'm like, Oh, you don't like the word. And go, No, you didn't. We don't like your tone, my tone. You're about to hear more tone, and then that'll go back and forth for a couple of weeks. And then one day they'll just be like, okay, they're done. I'm like, Okay, awesome. And then, you know, we'll send them off to rob, and Rob will insert them and and then there's meetings with PR people, which are sometimes feel endless, because they have their goals. And you're like, I am not putting that person on the podcast. Like, I like, it's nice that you think this is a story people care about. I don't think anybody cares about this. Like, so now you're the gatekeeper, and now people are mad at you and, like, and then you get a note from somebody, how come you're not looking more into whatever their pet idea about diabetes is? Like, now it's suddenly my fault that the thing they care about doesn't get amplified more. And I'm like, I'm just doing what I think is interesting anyway. All of that stuff is exhausting. And then that feeling of like you're on a list, you have to stay at the top of that list. If you don't stay at the top of that list, then this happens, and that happens. You got to get more people to follow and listen. And that is endless. And I hate it. I just want to be clear. I just want to be really clear. I hate it this. It was so much more fun. I guess I'm not complaining that it's not as much fun. It was just so much more fun to make the thing, put it out and have people just listen or not listen and kind of not care anyway. I said all that because people like you who listen and actually turn the thing on every day and, like, check it out. It's such a big thing for me. Like, the base of fans that do that is the thing that makes all of this, like, actually work. So anyway, thank you very much, as I think what I was getting at, but I had to complain first, because I think it's in my nature. And, yeah, yeah. Also, it's a podcast. You're six years old. What do you like in first grade when you're diagnosed?

Sabrina 12:20
I was in kindergarten. I missed the last four days of kindergarten. Yeah, the best time they had a party, they had cake. I did not get to partake in that

Scott Benner 12:32
you were in the hospital. I was in the hospital. How did it come on? Do you remember any of it? Or is it stories through your parents? That you

Sabrina 12:39
know, it's stories through my parents. I think my mom caught it really quickly. She said I was, I didn't drink a lot of fluid normally, but I would, you know, throw back a glass of water juice and ask for more. I wasn't wetting the bed normally. And I started to, you know, diabetes, things, yeah. And she took me to the doctor and checked me out of school, and the next thing I remember, I was headed to the hospital.

Scott Benner 13:07
She knew diabetes right away, or she just knew something was wrong.

Sabrina 13:12
I'm not sure she has she has an interesting background. She worked, she had a lot of odd jobs, so she has got a degree in biology, so she has that medical scientific background, so I think she may have just known something was wrong, but she may have known diabetes. Is

Scott Benner 13:32
there any other diabetes in the family? I asked,

Sabrina 13:35
and she said that she had some cousins, but she thought it was on, like, married into the family, but no one that was super closely related.

Scott Benner 13:45
Okay, and how about you? At this point? Do you have anything else going on? I have thyroid issues.

Sabrina 13:50
Of course, we have a lot of thyroid issues in the family. Like all of the women on my mom's side have some sort of sort of thyroid issue. I don't think anyone's tested to see if it's autoimmune or Hashimotos. But feel like, feel like, if everyone has it, maybe there's something going on there. You don't

Scott Benner 14:08
think it's just random that nine of you got, like, a thyroid problem. Probably not random. It's funny. Do you know a lot of the people who have the thyroid issues? Because I'm going to ask, like, a more generalized question, if you do this episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by. Predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juicebox, head over there now.

Sabrina 16:27
So my grandma had it. She has passed. She lived to 100 she she's been gone for a couple years now, so I knew her pretty well. My mom has thyroid issues, and I'm close with my mom, so maybe I can answer your

Scott Benner 16:41
question. Okay, okay, so Mike, I guess my question is, is, does it manifest similarly for everybody, or does everybody else have a different complaint?

Sabrina 16:49
I think it manifests pretty so we all have trouble losing weight. Okay, that's the big one. Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. And and then other issues My sister has, PCOS. I think I might have PCOS as well, but in order to test for that, they'd have to take me off of birth control, which I think is helping with the PCOS. So we're just never going to know. How

Scott Benner 17:14
long have you been on the birth control

Sabrina 17:16
for a while, 10 years I had, we're going to talk about my period wonderful. I had pretty horrific periods as a teenager. I would just get really, really, really sick. I would get like, hot flashes, like not able to exist as a human being. Being on birth control made that a lot easier.

Scott Benner 17:42
Anything else, acne, mood swingy, anything like that. Oh,

Sabrina 17:46
I'm sure I was mood swingy. If you ask my my mom or my sister, I'm sure they would tell you that, and then acne, but I don't know if it was, it wasn't like terrible acne, probably just like regular teenage acne, but it did seem pretty cyclical. Gotcha?

Scott Benner 18:03
Yeah. And so you got on the birth control so early that you probably have it's, it's working for the if you have PCOS, it feels, it feels like it's working for it, yeah. What does your sister do?

Sabrina 18:15
She was on birth control. She also had some difficulty getting pregnant, but she has two beautiful children. She's got my niece and my nephew, nice, but had had trouble getting pregnant because of the PCOS Gotcha.

Scott Benner 18:32
Well, I mean, listen, all this conversation has taught me so far is that thyroid issues let you live till you're 100 so that's what I heard, seriously, right? 100 100 Do other people in your family live? Are long lived? Or was she the one? I

Sabrina 18:47
think so. There's so much space between the generations.

Scott Benner 18:53
It's would you want to live to 100 Sabrina

Sabrina 18:56
depends on the quality of life. She had a pretty good quality of life. She was still getting around and, you know, able to live, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to live to 100 if I was confined to a bed or something like that.

Scott Benner 19:08
Yeah, it all sounds good until you're staring at a wall, I imagine, and then it's

Sabrina 19:14
like you have no idea who you are or who your family is. And, yeah, that that

Scott Benner 19:18
sounds terrible. Yeah. I want the kind of like live to 100 that I imagine from science fiction movies, right, right, where I'm still dashing. And although I didn't shave this morning, and I looked in the mirror and I thought, I think there's more gray in my beard than there was, like six months ago that I found upsetting. Oh, well, whatever. What was I gonna do? Live forever. Apparently, not only billionaires get to pretend they're gonna live forever. Have you seen the creepy guy? Oh god, I'm outing myself now. There was a creepy guy on the Kardashian show recently who thinks he's going to live like longer, and he's doing like, all this stuff. He was so weird. Did you see it? Oh no. First of all, good. I think it's very good. And I want to tell you that I didn't see it, because. I watched the Kardashian show. I saw it because Arden said, Hey, do you want to see something hilarious? And I was like, Sure. And then she I'm gonna find the guy's name. He's like, one of those guys that got, like, super rich. And then he's like, You know what I'll do? I'll try to figure out how to live forever. And so he's like, he looks bizarre. Watch my googling skills. Kardashian show, rich guy

Sabrina 20:29
live forever. Awesome. All

Scott Benner 20:33
right, let's see. Brian Johnson, What a boring name. It's even spelled with a Y, which I think is wrong, billionaire biohacker, Brian Johnson, he looks creepy. Did you find him that fast? I did young people and the Internet, right? Like, I mean, he's an older guy. He's in awesome shape. Like, I'm not gonna say that, but there's something, doesn't it look a little, I don't know. I don't wanna like, he looks weird.

Sabrina 21:02
He looks like a data from Star Trek,

Scott Benner 21:06
right? Yeah. And now Kim's gonna try to live forever. And I just want to say I don't wish bill on anybody, but I don't think we need Kim Kardashian forever. I feel like there's other people, yeah, that could hang out longer, but this is just between you and I, nobody else listening? Would God, I, you know how often I forget people are listening while I'm talking. I guess now, like, my brains I go, there's 50 people out there. Is like, he wished Kim Kardashian would die. I'm like, I didn't say that, just that

Sabrina 21:36
she doesn't need to live forever. I don't think, I don't think anyone needs to live forever. Isn't it?

Scott Benner 21:40
Something like, let us talk about that for a second. If you were gonna live forever, you'd have to be frozen in a certain point in time in your existence, right? Like, because I don't need nine year old me living forever, that would be ridiculous, right? You know, I don't wanna get to the point where I'm, like, too old to move live forever. Like, I think there's a version of you that would be healthy enough and know enough that there'd be value in you being around longer. Does that make sense? Yeah, you know I'm saying because, like, you're gonna learn things. Sabrina, Have you learned anything yet? I mean, you're only 33

Sabrina 22:14
I mean, I went to college. There

Scott Benner 22:15
you go. I'm saying, like, the big life things like, you're gonna start putting like, it doesn't actually happen till you're in your mid 40s. I hate to say it, it didn't for me. At least, I just became a person, like, five years ago, is what I'm saying. You start seeing big picture stuff, and then I think those people, like, before they get old and crotchety, but right about the time it all starts to make sense. It'd be cool if a few of those could hang out longer, I think, is what I'm saying. We could randomize it right on, yeah? Like, a, like, a lottery, yeah, I'm not looking to be the guy. You know what? I mean. I'm just saying, like, I think I might be past that point too. By the way,

Sabrina 22:48
would you want to live forever by yourself? Like, wouldn't you want a companion with you? Oh,

Scott Benner 22:54
I'm sorry, in your forever, I can't, like, get another girlfriend if Kelly goes, Oh, got another girl.

Sabrina 22:59
Well, Kelly doesn't listen to this. So, I mean, I guess you can,

Scott Benner 23:03
by the way, the other night, I said something, and I was like, Holy crap. I'm like, you really don't listen to the podcast, do you? She's like, I've heard every episode with Arden. And I'm like, Yeah, three of them. Well, yeah. And I was like, what was the conversation? Oh, you're not the same in real life as you are on the podcast. And I went, Well, yeah, duh. Like, I do know I'm being recorded, like, right? Like, it is a better version of at least a shinier version of me. Like, not, but it's still me. She goes, Yeah, maybe. And I said, What about in this episode, or this one? I realized, like, is actually kind of a sad moment. Sabrina, you don't mind me sharing it with you. I've made a lot of personal growth making this podcast for over a decade. Yeah, I could tell, yeah, right. And I realize my wife's not aware of are you, like, with somebody, or, like, married, or any of that stuff.

Sabrina 23:52
I am. I've been with my partner for 10 years. Oh, that makes me sound. My boyfriend for 10 years.

Scott Benner 23:58
My partner. How do you think it made you sound when you said, partner?

Sabrina 24:01
You know how it made me sound.

Scott Benner 24:04
So are you noticing it yet, like you've changed, but they see you as a person they knew before? Oh,

Sabrina 24:11
that's a great question. No, I feel like, I feel like we've, we've developed together. Like we've, we've both changed. I guess I I see that. I see him sometimes as the way he was, and I have to remind myself that's he's grown and developed and is improving as a person.

Scott Benner 24:31
Yeah, I have said to my wife before, I was like, you are talking to 24 year old me right now. Like, I that is not I don't think about that that way any longer. And she looks at me like you're full but, but now I realize, because she doesn't listen to the podcast anyway. I mean, I would be ridiculous to listen to it. I'd be worried if she listened to it. I have to say, I just think there's downsides to her not hearing some of it,

Sabrina 24:57
like an episode here and there would be nice.

Scott Benner 24:59
I mean. Know, they're not moments where you're like, This guy is really thoughtful. There are, yeah, they're not like, that frequent, but like, but every once in a while you're like, hey, that was a good point. Or, you know what I mean, or like, Okay, what's your favorite part of the podcast? Is it conversation stuff? Is it diabetes? Stuff? You like when I talk to Erica and I try to stretch my understanding of things. Where's your sweet spot?

Sabrina 25:22
Where's my sweet spot? Well, I love Jenny, but I don't know that I love the management stuff the most. Like, it's not brain rot, if I go back to that, I do like the conversations. I don't love every conversation, but I listen to all of them. You've made the point before, like every episode has something that there's

Scott Benner 25:42
something in each one. Uh huh. People are like, well, we're 25 minutes into this one. Is there going to be a point in this one? Soon there will be, don't worry, yeah, I hope so. Yeah, don't worry. I'll get to it. It's just interesting to talk to somebody who's actually heard the whole thing, except for Adam Lasher,

Sabrina 25:57
yeah, needs or you're really putting me out there as the crazy person, I promise I'm not going to be the one that shows up at your house to kill you. Oh, thank

Scott Benner 26:07
you. I appreciate that. I do know if that happened, instead of helping me, I'd hear my son go. Told you, yeah. Oh for sure being I knew this was going to happen. Okay, so you like the conversations. So this is interesting. I have recorded episodes of this podcast that me. For me personally, I'm like, I don't like this. I still get people who like it. So I come to teach myself, like, you know, what I like is not what everybody likes first. I mean, it's not that I didn't know that. But like, when you're doing the podcast, it's hard to, like, wrap your head around like, there's one that sticks in my head. I would not give you any details about it, but we got done, and I thought, let me delete this and pretend something happened. And I lost it. I really just, I hated it. I

Sabrina 26:51
wonder if it's the same episode. I think it is. You've mentioned it a couple times. It was

Scott Benner 26:55
laborious for me to get through. And the person was lovely and thoughtful and, like, everything, but between, like, just her speech pattern, and I don't know, like, how she I just didn't jive with her at all. Like, it just felt like the worst date I'd ever been on in my life. Oh, yikes. I put it out anyway, and I can't tell you how many people wrote about how much they enjoyed it. And that's when I stopped worrying about that stuff. I was like, All right, there's something for everybody so, and there's some people you got to drag it out of a little more. And there's times I'm too chatty. There's times I don't talk enough. Those aren't as frequent. Anyway, it's just, it's, it's something like, I feel like you're like, my biographer. Thank you. Yeah, no, no, why do you why does it feel embarrassing?

Sabrina 27:43
I don't know you are embarrassed, right? Maybe just confused, like, how I'm how I'm your biographer?

Scott Benner 27:52
Well, because you've heard more about you've listened, Yeah,

Sabrina 27:55
cuz you're like, my, my research patient, yeah,

Scott Benner 27:59
more like that, yeah. Like you could write a paper on me.

Sabrina 28:03
I probably could probably be pretty good paper.

Scott Benner 28:06
Do you think you This is interesting? Here's my last question before we find out about your diving Do you think the things that you would say about me would be accurate? Or do you think that it's skewed because you're listening to a podcast, you know

Sabrina 28:21
what? I think it's probably skewed. You said it yourself. You're still you, but you're like a curated version of you. You know, listening to the podcast, you do feel like a real person. I don't feel like you're a super curated version of you, like a Instagram influencer, but you're going to be careful about what you say and how you present yourself, and you're the one presenting yourself so you can say whatever you want. Do

Scott Benner 28:47
you think I'm more or less liberal or conservative than I sound? Oh, wait, stop here. Do I seem liberal or conservative to you?

Sabrina 28:56
You seem pretty in the middle, but maybe a little more liberal. Okay,

Scott Benner 29:01
do you think I'm more or less so than you think I am? Hmm, this is so interesting.

Sabrina 29:09
It is interesting. Maybe more so more

Scott Benner 29:13
liberal than you think,

Sabrina 29:16
than I seem. No, I mean, I think I have you pegged down. I think I know exactly who you are, Scott

Scott Benner 29:22
I am, so go ahead. Who am I then go, go, Sabrina, go looking

Sabrina 29:26
at like, people, like, I don't know you're Who are you

Scott Benner 29:31
interesting, right? Like, I believe myself to be incredibly down the middle. I think you are as well. Yeah, I'm socially liberal,

Sabrina 29:42
yes, I would say that as well, right? I

Scott Benner 29:45
am a little physically conservative. I would probably say that as well. I'm really careful with money and stuff like that, so. But I have a weird line, like, Do you know what I mean? Like, there's the reasons i. Did or didn't vote for somebody, for example, are very basic, like, somebody said something or, you know, and I was like, that's a bridge too far for me. Like, and now I can't do that, sure, and even if some of your ideas, I'm like, Oh, I think that's rock solid. Oh, my God, but that was too far. Yeah. Now what I find interesting about podcasting is because this is a podcast about diabetes, and I have no need to talk about politics on it, and I don't want this to be a political podcast, and I'm not a particularly political person, but once I just said that thing. Now, conservative people think that a liberal candidate said something that was too far for me, and liberal people think a conservative candidate said something

Sabrina 30:41
that was too far from me. Yeah, they project themselves onto you. Yeah, that's the interesting part of all this. That's got to be a weird to live with. It is like

Scott Benner 30:51
you could guess and maybe get me right, because there's not that many versions of you know how your politics go, but I think that most people, if they like me, then they ascribe how they feel to what I'm saying. That is what I think happens. I think that's how actually, podcasts are comforting for people.

Sabrina 31:09
Yeah, that's a great point. I feel like you're pretty live and let live like you don't want to be in other people's business.

Scott Benner 31:16
I really don't think we should be telling people how to do things. I agree, yeah, so I just haven't seen it go well so far, yeah, like, the one time it goes well, I would like somebody to point to it, but for the most part, people are who they are and telling them that they shouldn't be or that they shouldn't think or feel or have a and I think that goes both ways. Like, generally speaking, I don't think there are deplorable people, and I don't think there are super, like, crazy, like, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that about somebody, and I wouldn't see somebody have a thought and think that, and just the same way as, like, I'm not running around yelling, like, I don't know, whatever the opposite version of that is, like, Are you super woke lunatic or something like that? I do think there are edges

Sabrina 31:56
right

Scott Benner 31:58
bell curve, obviously, if you look at, are you in the Facebook group, I am okay. So if you look at how Facebook, the Facebook algorithm, Yaks you up to get you upset, to keep you in the algorithm. Like, the same thing is happening to you with soda commercials, with politics, with everything else. Like, right? Like, they, they, they. That sounds so sounds so ominous. They know most of us are here in the middle, like living in something like my brother said to me the other day. He goes, You know, I wish there'd be a third party that we could vote for that they called common sense. He's like, I think that would be really popular. And and I was like, Yeah, I hear what you're saying, right? So I think that they know we, most of us, live in common sense, and that's why they throw the fringe at us, to piss you off, keep you in the conversation, keep you on the team. Yeah,

Sabrina 32:53
there's also, like tribalism, where you want to belong to a certain team or a certain ideology, and they force you into that box.

Scott Benner 33:03
Yeah, and people want to be on the winning side a lot, so, or whatever they they assume is the winning side. It's why. Like watching people, my beloved Philadelphia Eagles, won the Super Bowl this year. They also lost it two years ago. And I can't tell you that three hours after each of those Super Bowls ended, that I felt any differently? Do

Sabrina 33:26
you know what I mean? Yeah, it was

Scott Benner 33:28
fun, and I had a good time, like watching the season, and at the end, one was disappointing and one wasn't disappointing. But I don't feel like a winner now because of it or like I don't think I accomplished anything. I don't I don't have those feelings, and I don't discount people who who feel that way, but at the same time, like it makes you much more easily manipulated. I guess, because you feel so strongly about something, not a bad thing, it's just somebody else is going to take advantage of it anyway. You don't know me, if you're listening, but you do, like, I'm not being dishonest about anything. That makes sense.

Sabrina 34:07
It does all right, cool. We know this little slice of your life, yeah,

Scott Benner 34:11
no, sure. And if we hung out, there's a complete possibility, Sabrina, if you and I went out to dinner that two hours into it, you'd be like, This is awesome. I love this guy. It's exactly what I thought was happening. And then there's an also a possibility the two hours ended, you'd be like, Oh, Scott said, but it would all depend on what random thing that I believe, that you don't believe, that comes out during our conversation. You know what I mean? At the end of this, the last year of the podcast, we'll stop talking about diabetes, and I'll just talk about what I think about the world. I'll just blow the whole thing up at the end. Oh, geez, horrible people like it used to help people with diabetes, but then he said some very strange things about car imports, and it was weird. Anyway, six years old, you get diagnosed, and you're going. Start living your life, right, like so this a long time ago. Are you just one or two shots a day back then? Yeah,

Sabrina 35:06
I was on the clear and cloudys at NPH and regular, 7030 at some point, which I think is just the mixed version of NPH and regular when Lantus came out, I went on to Lantus. I think that was like 2000 something, and then I got an insulin pump in 2005 I got the Animus, not the Animus ping, because it wasn't out yet, but I did get the Animus ping later. They had a pink pump, so that was pretty cool.

Scott Benner 35:36
Do you have the Cosmo at any point? It didn't,

Sabrina 35:39
no, look at you. I had, I had some friends that had the Cosmo. Though people love that pump. I think that pump had an adaptive correction factor, because when you get higher, you're more insulin resistant. So it would, it would give you more and I really wish that someone would do

Scott Benner 35:56
that again. Uh huh, yeah. You mean, like, Why does my algorithm shut my basal off and keep making the same correction Bolus? It's not moving my blood sugar? Yeah.

Sabrina 36:06
I sit it get to 200 and then just flat line at 200 like, come on,

Scott Benner 36:11
I know. And then the marketing's like, it'll come down eventually, and I'm like, yo Seven hours later,

Sabrina 36:17
yeah. And it'll come tumbling down, and then

Scott Benner 36:20
I'm gonna have to eat a crappy ice cream cone out of my freezer or whatever garbage is laying around to stop the drop. Uh huh. You know, I, I agree, like I, I think if it got more aggressive early on, it would break that high blood sugar sooner, and have, I would imagine less chance of seeing a low later. Have to remind

Sabrina 36:41
myself, we're still in the early stages of these algorithms, and they're just going to get better. But right now, it's a little frustrating. Yeah,

Scott Benner 36:48
no, they have, they have pain points for sure, and all of them have them. It's funny because in marketing, and at this point, I think every pump company advertises on the podcast. So God bless you all, and thank you very much. I think you're doing a great job. But like all of their marketing ignores whatever it is their thing doesn't do, which I understand, but, like my thought always is, why not? As the people making the device, shouldn't you go to the marketing team and say, what is it you hear from people, like, because that's the thing we should, like, turn a screw on. You know what? I mean? Like, like, well, that's the thing we should be working on. Like, so whether you're Omnipod or Medtronic or tandem or here's a little look into what I got going on this week, Sabrina, the twist pump, or anything like that. Like, whether you're any of those pumps, like, once you start hearing back from people like, your thing doesn't do this. Like, I would think that R D would want to know that, because that's the thing you would think they'd be working on. But, I mean, I don't know. I don't run a business. So anyway, and so which pump are using now? Using the T slim control IQ, do you think about getting the Moby ever, or do you like the T slim? It's

Sabrina 37:56
a great question, because it's the same algorithm. It's just a smaller pump. I've been on the T slum for 10 years now, using control IQ, but I'm using it in sleep mode. So instead of, I don't know if you know this, instead of giving the correction boluses, it increases the basal quicker and more aggressively. I think that works a little better for me, because I'm tuned into if I if I'm going high, I can make my own correction. It's, you know, isn't

Scott Benner 38:26
it funny with stuff like that? Because you can get somebody on here and be like, don't just live in sleep mode. That's not okay. And then you get people who are like, No, that's how it works best for me. Like, I in the end, again, like everything else, I just think, if that's what works for you, then awesome, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, and do what you're gonna do when you're growing up. Is there a time in your life that you can pinpoint as easier or harder? Were there, like, seasons of your life that you were like, God, diabetes made this worse or no,

Sabrina 38:54
you know what? No, I was thinking about this lot, a lot going into the podcast, like, what is my diabetes story, and I couldn't really find anything. I was like, Scott's a pro. He'll pull it out of me. But I didn't have a story. Nobody

Scott Benner 39:08
bullied you. You didn't like you, didn't think a guy said no, thank you at some point because of it, like you didn't have any of those moments. How

Sabrina 39:17
many of those moments? You know, I went off to college and forgot to give injections or didn't didn't care about my diabetes. That didn't happen to me. My mom would tell you that I was, you know, 30 years old. As a six year old, I was very mature, mature kid.

Scott Benner 39:35
Do you think that came from the diabetes, or do you think that's who you were? Or did it happen so early? You can't, you can't know,

Sabrina 39:41
yeah, that's a great question. I think it had some sort of impact. I do think I'm probably that is who I am. But when you're given so much responsibility with diabetes as a kid like that, just kind of shapes

Scott Benner 39:56
who you are. Yeah, you didn't burn out ever.

Sabrina 39:59
No. Not in a way where I wasn't taking my insulin or checking my blood sugar. You know, back before Dexcom, you weren't constantly tuned into your blood sugar, so you'd check, you know, four or five times a day, or maybe more, if you're really curious about it, I was always checking and always giving insulin in college, I did have a little bit looser control. But, you know, I never had an eight, a, 1c, I think my highest was 8.5 and that was around the time where I was not checking as frequently, you know, not pre bolusing, maybe not bolusing until, oops, I forgot to Bolus and bolusing way after the meal. Yeah,

Scott Benner 40:43
so there are times when you are less focused on it, but you never gave up on it. Yes, that's the idea. Okay. Did you ever feel like giving up on it? But you didn't. Yes, what do you think stopped you?

Sabrina 40:56
I think it was just like, this is something that you have to do, and that's not something that you can give away.

Scott Benner 41:02
So you stayed what? What would what would Erica say? You stayed present? Is that what you would say, like you say present. And what am I thinking of here that I want to say to you, that I don't want to say I'm helping a person with their finances right now, I am, in fact, the person who people come to in their in my regular life. It's not always pleasant, but sometimes it is right to younger person, it's gotten themselves into some credit card debt, and at one point in the conversation, they said, I said, How did it get to this point? And they said, well, they kept sending me, like, emails that said my credit line had been increased. And I was like, So you kept spending more money? And then there was no answer. And like, I keep trying to figure out, like, I don't think it's ignorance this person's not dumb. Like, I feel like they just willfully ignored the part where that wasn't a good idea. And, like, and now I'm wondering about the diabetes part of it, like, of that idea, like, do you get burned out? It's like, geez, I wish I didn't have to do this, but you're just unwilling to ignore it. Do you know what I mean?

Sabrina 42:11
Yeah, I think that's a pretty accurate description. Like, I wish I didn't have to do this, but I do, so I'm going to trudge forward.

Scott Benner 42:19
It's like, as simple as, like, I'm not willing to kick the can down the road. Is that too old of a saying at this point? Do you have any idea what that means? No, I do. Okay, good, awesome. Because I'm starting to get worried that some of my references just aren't making sense at all anymore. I'm trying to keep up. I saw Mickey 17 this weekend.

Sabrina 42:36
Oh, how is that? Um, good. That's a glowing review there. SCOTT Yeah, it

Scott Benner 42:44
wasn't what I expected it to be, okay, but in some ways it was. It had somewhat of a modern fifth element vibe to it, okay. Ever see fifth element? No?

Sabrina 42:55
Bruce Willis, yeah, I had Mila Jovic,

Scott Benner 42:59
right, yeah, her husband's like, a French auteur or something like that. It had a little bit of that vibe. It danced a line between sci fi and comic book II, and it didn't have as many laughs as I think I thought it was going to I thought it was going to be more like, yeah,

Sabrina 43:17
it does look like it would be a comedy. It's not

Scott Benner 43:21
Oh, although there are a couple of, like, really good laughs in it, but it was one of those things where I laughed out loud in a theater that no one else laughed, oh, except for my daughter, who's like, artists like, Well, I wasn't gonna laugh out loud, but that was funny. But it like, like, made me cackle. And then I realized, like, no one else thought it was that funny. I also laughed at the very first title screen because the production company was called Plan B, and I just laughed immediately. And I was like, there's no one else. No, okay, never mind. I don't know. I might be childish, but, like, honestly, the movie starts, the screen goes black, it gets up, it says Plan B, and I go, look, oh my god. I'm like, nine years old. I'm laughing because of, like, a pill like, this is such a ridiculous thing, which, by the way, is not connected to anything funny at all. So, no, no, it's horrifying, actually, but like, yet it made me laugh out loud. So anyway, I probably laughed like, three times during the film when everybody else was like, Why are you laughing? It had undertones of comedy. Would I watch it again? No, never. But I'm also get, I'm also getting old Sabrina, and then you gotta watch The Goonies. See, you guys gotta stop talking about that, because I, I got a text from somebody the other day, like, randomly that said, have you seen the Goonies yet? I was like, What in the hell is that? But,

Sabrina 44:40
you know, the easy solution to this is just to watch the Goonies.

Scott Benner 44:43
Listen, here's my expectation on the Goonies and anything else around that time. I also have not seen Animal House, by the way. I just want to point that out. I feel like, if I was back then and I saw it, I'd probably be like, this Goonies thing is awesome, but now I think the folklore around it, it's built up too much. It's waste. Stronger than the movie is going to be, right? And now I've got 30 years or more of seeing much, I mean, let's be honest, much more well constructed films, and it's just going to look like somebody's student film from 1975 if I turn it on,

Sabrina 45:15
right? No, I think it holds up. Jesus Christ.

Scott Benner 45:18
Am I going to have to watch the Goonies. It's a bunch of kids that go underground, and there's an ogre. That's what I know is that about, right? It's like a treasure hunt. Okay, all right, fine. I mean, you know, I

Sabrina 45:31
don't believe this conversation is going to make you watch The Goonies. No,

Scott Benner 45:34
I don't think you're going to see Mickey 17 anytime soon, either. I mean, listen, I've never seen the godfather. I haven't either. Yeah, like, there's movies that people are like, Oh, my God, this. Like, I haven't seen that one time I looked at it's over three hours long. Like I'm an adult. Can't give three hours away. You know what I mean? I don't know. You think you might have kids ever or no, it seems like you're not going to. Oh, why would you say that? I know your vibe Interesting. Yeah, your vibe is like, you have a fun, quiet vibe, like me, yeah? Like, it's nice, but like it doesn't feel like you're like, oh, you know what? I want to get off this train and make a baby.

Sabrina 46:14
Yeah, I'm not interested in having kids. I know it.

Scott Benner 46:17
Yeah? Podcasters, they know things, weird things, and it's not really very important, and the world really could go on without this conversation, but like, I do have some skills. Have you always felt that way? No, and

Sabrina 46:31
I don't know what changed and why. I no longer want to have kids, but I just not interested. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:39
no kidding. It's funny when I said it, and your response was, why do you think that I first thought, Oh, I missed the mark, and she's mad at me.

Sabrina 46:46
No, I just wanted to get your opinion before I did you and that you were right.

Scott Benner 46:51
Yeah. No, no, now I realize you're like, God damn, this is upsetting. How does he know that? No, it's

Sabrina 46:55
amazing. You're You're very good at at getting people.

Scott Benner 47:00
I think that we make a mistake by not generalizing more. Oh, I just, Oh, my God, oh, hold on a second. I'm gonna talk about generalizing. I'm gonna tell you about something else. The thing that, like for 20 years, society has been telling me, Don't generalize. And I'm like, I'm not generalizing. But there are a lot of through lines like, I think it would be weird to ignore them. You just seem like you're happy with who you are. And then I coupled that with your age and the fact that you don't seem pressured to marry the boy, and I just thought, I think she's just living a life over there, like, that's how it felt to me. Yeah,

Sabrina 47:34
and my concern is getting older and not having someone to take care of me, but I'm just trying to get real in real good graces with my niece and nephew, and hope that they want to make sure I'm not in a home being abused. Listen,

Scott Benner 47:49
if you believe any number of tech billionaires, you just need to save up about $15,000 and you can get a robot so you're gonna be fine. We trust the robots. No, it's gonna definitely. Here's an example of something that I'm not actually going to tell you. But the thing, the dumbest thing that popped into my head to say, I would not say out loud right now. So there is a version of me you don't know, because I was like, No, that robot's just gonna and then I thought, don't say that. I like, whatever it is that came from the same circuit that made me laugh when the production company was called Plan B, I was just like, That's so dumb. So apparently I cover my mouth when I laugh while I'm recording. You don't know it, but, like, I got a text yesterday from Rob, from the guy that edits the podcast. He was like, Hey, man, sometimes when you like, burst out laughing, do you cover your mouth? And I had like that, like, Are there cameras in here feeling, you know what I mean? I was like, Yo, man, what do you know about me? And I said, No, I do sometimes. And he goes, Okay, I can hear it. And I was like, is it messing up the audio? I can stop. But he goes, No, no. He's like, I he's like, I run a chain of filters on you. It fixes it. I was like, Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. He's really worth the money. Actually, he's really good. I get demure, even though no one's looking at me. Yeah.

Sabrina 49:12
Are you insecure about your smile? Oh, for sure. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

Scott Benner 49:18
I have canines. Gotcha. Yeah. You remember, before we started recording, we talked about True Blood. Yeah, I would not need makeup to be on that show. I don't think I really like pronounced canine teeth. I don't

Sabrina 49:33
know that's kind of cool. My boyfriend has has pronounced canine teeth too well.

Scott Benner 49:37
If I had a magic wand Sabrina, they wouldn't be here anymore, just so, you know, I make them square, like the rest are, I guess teeth aren't square. But you know what? I mean, can you imagine if I made them square? People, like, he's got, like, a lot of rectangles in his mouth, and two squares is very strange.

Sabrina 49:50
I don't think you would, uh, you'd like that. You'd be like a horse, actually,

Scott Benner 49:55
if I had a I mean, what would you do with a magic wand? Would you get rid of your. Diabetes?

Sabrina 50:01
Think so? Yeah. I mean, why not? Like, wouldn't that make my life easier? Moving forward, a handful

Scott Benner 50:09
of years ago, I asked this question out loud online, and I was surprised by the response of people who said that they wouldn't know who they were without diabetes.

Sabrina 50:18
I mean, diabetes is a part of me, but it's not who I am. I

Scott Benner 50:22
mean, I would get rid of it immediately. Yeah, I wouldn't even let me just go on a limb and all you young kids will. I wouldn't even ask garden. I'd be like, Hey, I don't know if you noticed your diabetes went away five minutes ago. I found a magic wand, you know, but I could always put it back if she was upset, I guess, yeah, I mean, that it seems obvious to me, but I don't live with it personally. So I've had a lot of people say that I didn't understand their perspective, if I'm being honest, but it was very consistent through a portion of people. I mean, I

Sabrina 50:56
guess it is like a large part of my life, and has shaped my personality and developed who I am as a person, but changing it moving forward isn't going to change who I am. Yeah, it might change who I will be, but who says that's not for the best?

Scott Benner 51:16
You're walking down the beach, you find genie's lamp. You rub the lamp, the genie comes out and says, you have three wishes. Do you know what you're going to wish for? No, really, I think that's a mistake. Sabrina,

Sabrina 51:26
yeah, I know, you know. I just, I

Scott Benner 51:29
really think you should put some fun.

Sabrina 51:32
What is the likelihood of that happening? Well,

Scott Benner 51:34
it's very low, but I guarantee you, when it happens and you end up, I always think of it for myself, like I thought I need to be ahead of this, because there's no way it's going to happen, but I know if it happens, and I don't think of it, I'm going to be really tall, handsome and have a huge and I think I don't want to go that route with my only three wishes. Anyway. Feel the same way about the magic wand, like if I had a magic wand and it was like super magic, and it actually worked, I would first protect all of my living relatives, and then I would start making decisions. And I have to tell you, I think one of the things I would do first is get this little bit of flower pot mold out of my my chameleons cage. It's a tiny little bit in the corner, and I can't make it go away. And I really think that it's, it's really bothering me, if I'm being honest, and I think I would, I would handle that first, then probably go out in the world Fix the big things. What are the big things in diabetes? Like, what if you could just adjust it a little bit? Like, what's one thing that just if that one aspect of it went away, the whole thing would get better? It's

Sabrina 52:35
hard dealing with the variables, how you can do the same thing, the same way, but because the variables are different, you have a different outcome.

Scott Benner 52:47
The insecurity stuff, if it was just more knowable, yeah, okay, it's not the device changes,

Sabrina 52:54
no, because I think the device, if things were more knowable, you'd be able to use the device more effectively.

Scott Benner 53:01
You don't mind being poked. No, okay, no one's ever bullied. You? Did you have a really good self like, is your self esteem always been good? I don't know about that. Did you work on it? Yeah, okay, because it's good now, right? And it comes and goes, Really, yeah, what can make it? Wayne, I don't know.

Sabrina 53:22
Just some days I don't feel well, we're going down therapy road here.

Scott Benner 53:27
Scott, you bought a headset for this. We're not stopping in an

Sabrina 53:30
hour. Am I delightful? Listen, I saw your

Scott Benner 53:35
note. You hold on. I'll make a decision at the end. Okay?

Sabrina 53:40
Self esteem I don't know. I try to self esteem comes from within. It's hard to shut out other people's opinions, but I try to do it interesting

Scott Benner 53:51
that like people you know,

Sabrina 53:55
like boy, people I know, people I don't know. Really, I don't give a about people I don't know. Yeah, I'm not there yet. Yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 54:02
having such a personal journey with this right now, and I'm really coming out on top and very proud of myself. But other little stuff, like, I can get crushed by, like, I have a text here with Isabelle. Can I share this? I can probably share this. She's listening right now and going it depends on which text. Let me, let me take a look here last night. This is very boring, so 10 seconds, Apple changed their algorithm for podcasts again. No, you know, because you listen and it's taken away some of the fun that I have making the podcast right, like the competitive part of me, and it doesn't change anything about you guys, or what you hear, or you know what I'm producing, or how valuable it is for anybody, like it's background stuff, and it's taken away a thing that I love about making the podcast. So I was talking about that out loud, and. Isabelle was like, you know, you really do need that to be replaced. And like, she was like, I can't believe how much you seem to miss, like, the competitive part of it. She's like, we need something that, like, fills that for you. Anyway we're going along. And this conversation is going back and forth, and she mentions that she really liked the episode that came out yesterday. And I said, see that even make here, I'm gonna read it. I said, See even this is making me sad. It really was a good episode. I wish more people heard it. Is that ego death? Yeah. Okay, yeah. So like she's giving me a compliment about the episode, and all I hear is I didn't do a good enough job of reaching people, but when the algorithm was different, I knew I was doing a good job and I could build on what I did the day before. And I had a feeling that I was progressing. I had a feeling that I was winning. I had a feeling that what I was doing was valuable, and so that even when things on bad days or whatever, it didn't matter because I knew I was reaching more people, more people were being entertained or helped or whatever. And like it felt it all felt valuable. And now that doesn't work exactly the same way anymore. And it's like, anyway, the point of telling you all that is that I was okay while we were texting, and then all the sudden I wasn't and like and like, I feel like that's what you're saying with like, you know, like, I because you seem like a confident person to me. Thank you. Yeah, no, you seem very like, sure of yourself and and comfortable with who you are and all that stuff, which is awesome, but like to hear a person who sounds like you say, I don't know. Sometimes my self confidence just wanes, and I don't know why I had that same feeling during that text. I was like, I know I'm doing a good job. I know what this thing is. And then all of a sudden, something was said to me, and I was like, oh, except I'm a loser, and I'm not doing a very good job at all.

Sabrina 56:56
Yeah, it's wild too, because it was not negative feedback. She said, You were doing a great job, and the episode was really good, and then you just take it and flip it,

Scott Benner 57:06
yeah. And I told her that because we're friends, and she said, I actually almost didn't say that to you, because I knew how it would make you feel. We really do know each other well, so she knows you well, yeah. And I don't want her not to say that, like, if that's any and I and I do need to hear it, because the truth is, is that I make enough of these that, like, you know, I don't always know what they are, and that's such an odd thing, like, probably for people to hear. But like, I am, I said this a million times. I am the last person to ask about the podcast. Like, this is just how it comes out of me. I don't know what it is, if that makes sense, it does. It could be one thing for you and something for somebody else listening. I could have said something earlier that made someone laugh and made somebody else disgusted with me. Like, I guarantee that every episode ends with someone going, I'm not listening to this anymore. Every episode ends with people going, oh my god, I love this. I'm gonna subscribe so I don't like how am I supposed to know what the hell it is, you know? So anyway, all right, diabetes and get the pumps. All right. In college, you were on a pump. I was and you took a full course load. I unfairly know that you were involved in an extracurricular activity, right? Didn't you blow into something?

Sabrina 58:19
Yeah, I played trombone in the marching band.

Scott Benner 58:21
Can you still trombone? Is that? What? How you what? How do you say? Do you say? Play trombone. Yeah, play trombone. Okay. Is that a thing you can do, like, recreationally, without the rest of the band. You can

Sabrina 58:32
it's a little weird to play on your own. I haven't picked up my horn in a while. You have

Scott Benner 58:39
not picked up your horn in a while. I have not. How long has it been since you've been since you've been out of college? 10 years, 11 years, this boy that you're allowing to clean the carpets and empty the dishwasher sometimes, has he ever seen you play the trombone? That's

Sabrina 58:52
a great question. So we went to the same high school and I played trombone in high school. So yes, he's probably seen me play trombone, but we weren't really friends in high school. Okay,

Scott Benner 59:06
so if you, for example, on weekends or evenings or sometime when he was out of the house and you weren't there, practiced up a little bit, got tight again, oiled that thing up, and then one day, just came out of the bedroom playing the trombone, it would freak him out.

Sabrina 59:21
I think he would be very excited about it. He knows I've played trombone. He's a musician. Yeah. He's, like, you could be at a ska band. Like, I don't know

Scott Benner 59:33
about that. Well, that seems like a lot, but I just,

Sabrina 59:39
I think if anyone just walked out of the bedroom playing a trombone, that would freak anyone out. That's

Scott Benner 59:44
what I'm saying. Like out of nowhere, like, imagine he's five episodes into season three of white lotus, and thinking to himself, this feels like it's not going anywhere. Okay? I don't mean to say that. That's where I was last night at about 10pm and then you just come crashing around the corner. Where, like, I think it would, like, it might scare the living hell out of him.

Sabrina 1:00:03
I mean, yeah, it's a loud instrument. I'm

Scott Benner 1:00:06
down. If you do that, would you write? It just feels like a tick tock video. To me, I feel like you're about to be very popular online, is all I'm saying. Oh, geez. Would you even want that you're in your 30s? What? How does that seem to you like when people are putting so much effort into being like a thing in an app?

Sabrina 1:00:26
Yeah, I don't think I'd want that. I like my privacy. I'd like the resources that come with fame, like the money and being able to afford a house, the attention I don't I don't think I

Scott Benner 1:00:38
want that. Wouldn't want the attention. I have to tell you that there are some people obviously making, like, piles of money, doing stuff like that, right? But I don't think it's long lived. I think you're probably right. And I keep saying to my like, you know, as my kids have been growing up, and they'd be like, Look at this guy. He's like, like, my son's like, there's this guy that gambles on Twitch. And I'm like, what he goes he used to be like, I guess he maybe still is. Like, he's he plays Call of Duty like, this is a grown man who plays Call of Duty eight hours a day and makes a lot of money, right? And then at some point, like these offshore casinos realized that, like, he's got a big following, so they bring him to the casino, and he streams from the casino while he's playing, like, you know, some digital jackpot games or something like that, and they seed him with money, and then he's making these outlandish bets. And because he's got so much monies, when he's starting, he can't lose, really, like he can lose, but like, he's gonna hit big once in a while, you know what I mean. And it keeps people in there, and it's incredibly popular. And I think, like, how long can that go for now? For him, it's been going for a while. So maybe there's an argument that whether this is right or wrong, like, he's got a business plan here, and it's working for some kid who just catches a trend, like, right like, what's the like, the doji trends right now. Do you know any of these, like, from the doji songs? No, I'm old. Yeah, well, I'm old too. But, yeah, we have kids. I'm trapped in this because I have children and because I have to be online. But like, there's, like, different dance trends and stuff like that. And they come and go, and some people get oddly popular, but a million views on tick tocks, not as much money as you think it is. And so if you get a little popular doing that, and make, I don't know, 50 grand this year making tick tocks, and think like, wow, that's a lot more money than I would make at my other job. You know, then it's not going to go forever. And I always, I always tell people like, go back six months or a year and find the most popular person in your feed and go see where they are now. Like, because it's over already, because the algorithm just churns them up and spits them out and wants to give you new stuff all the time. But I think people see it as a business plan, and that's frightening to me a little bit. It's so weird

Sabrina 1:02:57
hearing asking kids what they want to do to when they grow up and they're like, I want to be an influencer, like, that feels icky to me.

Scott Benner 1:03:04
I hate that word, and I'm going to tell you that you can make a full argument that I am an influencer, but, like, I would never call myself that, and I don't think of it that way.

Sabrina 1:03:13
Yeah, and my biography of you, I wouldn't paint you in that picture. Thank you. And

Scott Benner 1:03:17
at the same time, like, I think one of my greatest accomplishments, beyond helping people with diabetes, is continuing to do it like, in this ecosystem, it is built to kill you. I am not letting it kill me, like, existentially. I mean, like, I mean literally. Like, it wants you to go away so someone else can fill your void, right? It's trying to get rid of you. And I just like, I don't know, like, I just won't let that happen. So that is, that is probably my fight, which is so ridiculous, because the day this ends, I'm gonna look back and think how much of my effort did I spend stopping the algorithm from making me

Sabrina 1:03:55
meaningless? There's a, there's, I think

Scott Benner 1:03:58
there's a movie in there that would be better than Mickey 17.

Sabrina 1:04:01
I want to be honest.

Scott Benner 1:04:05
You mean like there's this unforeseen force that is trying to stop me from helping people and making a living. It like every day it's trying to stop me. And I don't mean like I'm not being like bombastic, like I'm fighting multiple wars on multiple fronts of this unseen thing that is trying to make the Juicebox Podcast not exist anymore. And

Sabrina 1:04:29
that's sad, because it's not a regular podcast that's just for entertainment. It is helping people. I've

Scott Benner 1:04:35
had this thought, like, where I was, like, if not a magic wand thought, because obviously I'd, you know, just be very tall when it was over. I've wanted to go like, find Mark Zuckerberg and just go like, hey, my group is helping people. Would it be okay if they just saw my posts? Would that be all right if, when I posted, hey, there's an episode out today that I think you might be interested in that it was served to more than 1500 of the 60,000 active members in the group. I. Could I just get that please? Like, I don't want to be huge. Like, I don't even know the I could be huge. There's only, there's not even that many people that have type one diabetes in the world. Do you know what I mean? Like, right, right? I would like it if people knew it existed, and then they could decide if they cared about it or not. Like, but the fight to get it to them is insane. Actually, I have a meeting on Thursday, luckily, with a very kind person who does that stuff for a living, who happens to have diabetes and listen to the podcast, because I think they saw me online say, like, I feel like I can't, I can't fight this anymore. Like I'm willing to pick up a gun I don't know which way to shoot. Do you know what I mean? And and so I think she knows which way to shoot, and she's nice enough to give me some of her time to try to help me with it. But, like, It just shouldn't be this hard. Anyway. I didn't mean to complain. Do I, from your perspective, does the podcast seem like any of that, or is that a thing that you don't realize? Seem like, what? Sorry that it's difficult to, like, get it to you. I'm

Sabrina 1:06:03
a mega fan, so you're listening. Yeah, I'll seek it out. No matter what, you'll go find it. Yeah, yeah. I do see the post on Facebook of the new episodes that came out so, but I'm one of the 1500 people it gets to, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:18
it's really interesting. It's like, anyway, again, I don't think every I don't think that my words are deserving of being like, you know what I mean, like, I don't have any like, weird feelings like that. I'm just like, when you make a thing, did it like, well, let me ask you, did it help you at all with your health, or was your health Okay? And you found it for different

Sabrina 1:06:36
reasons? It did help me. You know, my a 1c, been in the five. I think my last one was 6.2 but that was right after Christmas. It was good. It wasn't quite that good before the podcast.

Scott Benner 1:06:51
So are you one of those people who's having that, like connected Halo from it, like you're staying connected to diabetes somehow, so you're paying more attention to

Sabrina 1:06:58
it? I think, I think that's what it's doing for me. Okay, yeah, I had somebody explain

Scott Benner 1:07:03
that to me more recently, and it wasn't an idea that I was able to wrap my head around exactly because, again, I don't have type one. But I think she told me I already knew what to do. Because I was like, You know what I mean? Like, I think she said something. I was like, Oh, the pro tips helped you. And she's like, No, I knew how to do all that already. And I was like, Oh, okay. There was a moment where I was like, Don't be crestfall and keep talking. And I was like, Okay. And then she started to explain that to me. She's like, I just think it keeps me connected to it enough that it's not omni present in my mind, but it's enough in the front of my mind that I take good care of it. And then I was like, okay, that's awesome. Does that make it more or less in your consciousness. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Sabrina 1:07:45
it's so it's like, under the surface, but I'm not constantly thinking about diabetes, right? So if that is what you're getting at, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:53
yeah. So it's more like music at the dentist office, good music at the dentist office, but, but like, it's there, but you're not focused on it, but it is doing something for you. Yeah, that's a good, good way to put it. Okay, I was not

Sabrina 1:08:04
really thinking about it, but it is always in the back of your mind, but not in the way that you're like, Ah, it's not like

Scott Benner 1:08:11
someone's screaming at you, Sabrina, you didn't Bolus. You're not doing a good job. Like you, like you know you have to try harder. It's just more like enough to it's like breathing maybe,

Sabrina 1:08:21
yeah, well, like you don't have to think about brushing your teeth. Like, yeah, it's getting to the point where you don't have to think about pre bolusing. It just is a thing that you do

Scott Benner 1:08:31
sort of happens. That's awesome. That is my goal, by the way. I said, this is somebody the other day. I was explaining something. I told you I was helping somebody with money, right? And I was explaining my ideas about how to, like, you know, get ahead, stay ahead. Why it's important, like, all this stuff. And as I was talking, I thought if anyone in this room listened to my podcast, they'd realize that this is how I talk about diabetes, too. And then I was like, Oh God, I talk about everything like this. I wonder if that comes through in the podcast that, like, my life ideas are just, I've just applied my life ideas to diabetes. Yeah, it totally does. Does it okay?

Sabrina 1:09:08
Or at least my biographer perspective of you, it's

Scott Benner 1:09:12
all just seems like life seems pretty simple to me, like, beyond the things you can't control, like, You mean, like if your leg fell off or get hit by a car or something like that, or what happened to Arden yesterday? There's no way she would want me to say this, but, but she fell off a chair. She fell off a chair. Oh, she wasn't funny. I just want to say I had to run, all right, listen, we had a doorknob break. I had to run out and get a doorknob. I come back, you know, with a doorknob in my hand, you know, the middle of the day, because, like, we literally couldn't get out of the house. So I'm like, Okay, I come back. She's sitting at the table. We have kind of, like a kitchen table that's a little higher, so you almost, you're up on like, bench chairs or a little higher, right? She's got her head down. And I'm like. Did this kid fall asleep on the table like that doesn't happen anymore. I was like, what's going on? So I'm like, bringing in the doorknob, and I'm opening it up and everything. And I'm like, John, now I'm trying to be quiet because I'm like, apparently somebody's napping on the kitchen table. And then she suddenly picks her head up and she's crying. And I go, I come over to my garden, what's wrong? And she goes, I fell off the chair. And I was like, and I'm like, I don't understand. And she goes, I don't either. And I'm like, wait, wait. I'm like, were you like, back on two legs? Forward on two No. I'm like, she goes, the puppy came over and jumped on the chair. I'm like, he's not big enough to knock the chair over. She goes, I know, I don't know what happened. She's like, but I came crashing down on my tailbone, and my hand hit the floor, and she's like, in pain, like, you know, and I was like, oh god, that's so horrible. I don't know why I told you that. Oh, my God. Why did I tell you that?

Sabrina 1:10:51
Yeah, I don't know. I

Scott Benner 1:10:53
had a thought I was getting to and now I don't know how, why I was trying to get to it. I think I started feeling bad in the middle for telling you the story where she fell out of the chair. Anyway, she fell off a chair. And I'll get back to the rest of it somehow. Oh, I know how I said, I think life is generally easy, except for the stuff you don't expect, like falling off of a chair, like, when, like, you know, and it's funny, because as I looked at her, I thought when I left here 25 minutes ago, she was fine, and I came back and she's hurt and crying, and I and I actually, it actually made me think, like, how lucky you are not to have a car accident when you go outside, or have, like, one of those things that, like, one second it's not there, and then the next second, everything about everything changes. Does that make sense? Yeah, we're not promised tomorrow. Arden falling off the chair made me think about that for 20 minutes while he was replacing a doorknob. Replacing a doorknob, like and how like something so simple could just my big worry is that I'll get 10 seconds to think about it before it happens to me, and that I'll regret that it's happening. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah, if I get taken out, I do not want to see it coming. Is what I is what I've decided, because I know that I'll just be so angry at myself in the 10 seconds before the tree falls on me for being there in that

Sabrina 1:12:06
moment. Yeah, thinking about what you should have done differently. Yeah, seriously. Like, I

Scott Benner 1:12:11
know that. I know that'll happen to me if that happens anyway, besides the variables that you can't control, like, there are some pretty common sense decisions you can make day to day, and you don't even have to make them constantly. You can slip up and be human and everything. But there's some pretty like, basic consistencies that, if you set them up, life goes pretty well, like, you know. And I think, I just think diabetes is the same. I agree. Yeah, that's all. You have a pretty uneventful life with it, huh? Yeah, that's maybe, like, the nicest thing you could say to somebody.

Sabrina 1:12:45
Yeah, it continues that way. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:12:49
I hope that for you as well. Did you have like, being diagnosed so long ago? Was it like common for you to have like, nine a one season everybody told you were doing great, or was that not your thing, even back then,

Sabrina 1:13:04
no, like I said, my highest a, 1c I went through all of my records was eight and a half, and that was in college. I did have some like seven A, one CS where they said I was doing a great job, which, I mean, I was, but I feel like I could have been given better direction to do better.

Scott Benner 1:13:22
Do you think they thought that? Or do you think, like, do you think that was the marching orders of the time, and they thought, No, you're doing great. It's a seven. ADA says seven, it's a seven, it's all good. Or do you think they knew it wasn't good and they were just being rah rah with you?

Sabrina 1:13:34
I think it was the marching orders at the time. I think that was probably the best day one see, they saw

Scott Benner 1:13:39
in a week. Yeah? Like, yeah, you were probably exciting to them.

Sabrina 1:13:43
Yeah? Like, oh, this is easy. She's doing a good job. Relatively speaking,

Scott Benner 1:13:47
we don't have big expectations for you to have any complications. It sounds like you've been doing well the whole time,

Sabrina 1:13:54
yeah, but you never know, but falling off a cheer moment could happen.

Scott Benner 1:13:57
So does that have, do you have those thoughts? Like, do you ever think, like, you know, do you foreshadow like that? Like, God, I'm gonna, am I gonna wake up one day and like, you know, have something ridiculous wrong with me all of a sudden?

Sabrina 1:14:07
No, Scott, worry is a waste of imagination. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:14:11
gosh, are you just parroting me? Or do you actually believe that?

Sabrina 1:14:15
No, it's a great, a great concept, but I am parroting you.

Scott Benner 1:14:18
Okay, you know, when I say that in my own home, I get mocked. I just want to say,

Sabrina 1:14:23
I'm sorry. It's such a great concept, because I do have those moments where I start worrying, and instead of going down that path, I go, No, worry is a waste of imagination. Why worry about this and build this up in my head now, when it might not even happen, yeah, or, or go through it twice. Like, what's the fun in

Scott Benner 1:14:44
that? Right, right. Let's say it is gonna happen now. I'm gonna do it now when it's not happening, and then do it later when it is happening. Awesome. There's such a difference between being prepared and worrying. Like, you can't, you can't prepare for things you don't know are gonna come. People will be willing to sit around and, like, wring their hands and go, I know 10 years from now I'm gonna have neuropathy, or, like, something's gonna happen. And like button, they're worried, worried, and they put all that effort into that. But if you said to them, like, Hey, I think if you just listen to these 10 episodes of the podcast, it might help you do better, they go, I don't have time for that, and say, like, hey, you know, listen, I know it's hard, but if you Pre Bolus your big you know, your meals, like you're gonna much better. I don't have time for that. And I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry. Like, I don't know where to go from there. When that happens, you know what I mean? Do you see it online? It's not overwhelming. Like, there are times where people are like, you know, I'm like, you know, I'll say, look, I think this episode would help you with that, I don't listen to podcasts like

Sabrina 1:15:43
it's wild to me, but people in the Facebook group don't listen to the podcast

Scott Benner 1:15:47
wild. I mean, I hear you see, it's Wilder to me that somebody would say, hey, the answer to your question is in this 60 minute recording. And they'll say, I don't listen to podcasts. I don't understand what you're saying. Like,

Sabrina 1:16:02
you don't have to listen to the whole thing just the one episode. Also, how about

Scott Benner 1:16:06
you don't get to choose how the answer to your question exists in the world. Like, you know, you mean, like, it would be like if I was falling, and you were falling next to me, and we were falling from like, 70,000 feet, and you came up to me and said, hey, here I have a parachute. Put this on, pull the cord, and you will float to the ground. And I said to you, I don't parachute. You got a jet pack over there? I'm more of a jet pack. Girl. You're here asking people, what's your best advice? And someone says, my best advice is the exact answer to the exact thing you're saying is in this 60 minute recording that someone is offering to you for free, and you say, I don't listen to podcasts. Awesome. I don't know how to help that person. I'm like And now I hear people who tell me, I don't learn well through audio to them. I think I've so here's one, here's one of these situations where somebody's gonna think I'm a dick when this is over. That's fine, okay? Like I get that some people's brains aren't wired that way, like I do, because there's things I can't learn in other ways. But I also think their expectations are a little skewed. I think they think they're supposed to listen to the audio and then understand everything about it when it's over. But that's not how it works, not at all. Right? I think they're like, zero sum thinkers, like, I'm gonna do this, then this is gonna happen. And I think they think, well, I listened to one and I didn't understand how to, like, Bolus for fat and protein at the end of it. So I don't do well listening. You have to listen to all 1500 it's a vibe, right? But, yeah, no, but Sabrina, like you laughed because, I mean, honestly, like you seem like a reasonable person who's listened to 1500 hours of a podcast, which makes you seem less reasonable. But you're, you're not kidding, though, right?

Sabrina 1:17:53
You don't pick up everything from one episode. It's, it builds on itself. Yeah? You pick up little crumbs from each one. Sometimes that same crumb is in four different episodes, and it doesn't click the first one or the second one, it clicks after the fourth one

Scott Benner 1:18:08
again, like everything else. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if that's how it worked, then on the first day of school, we could just have somebody sit down in front of you and tell you all the things you need to know, and then you could leave, and it would be over, because you'd know them all, but that's just you'd know your multiplication tables. Well, you'd think that guy, What a prick. I can picture him in my head, by the way, other people love them, which really upset me. Don't worry, my fifth grade teacher was much nicer. I got a nice repeat reprieve here, there. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I started thinking about, like my last day of second grade because my teacher hated me second grade. Try to imagine that she hated me so much that I was brought we all came into the room, we did attendance, we did the Pledge of Allegiance, and on the last day of school, she put me in the hall and left me there for eight hours. Whoa, like two o'clock in the afternoon she came out and she just goes, MR. Benner, you and I didn't get along. And I was like seven or eight, I went, No, we didn't. And she let me lean there for two more hours, then I went home. Is that abuse? Maybe nowadays it is for sure, yeah, I could have sued somebody in 2026 the 70s, the 70s, she was just like, Hmm, let me just remind you, you might have fought, but I won. And I was like, huh, fair enough. So she leaned my ass in that hall from 735 in the morning until the end of the day. Oh, my God, I'll never forget that lovely woman. I really liked her. We just didn't get along. Mrs. Nelson. She's got to be dead,

Sabrina 1:19:48
crazy second grade teacher was Mrs. Nelson. Stop it, no, really, probably not the same woman. I'm

Scott Benner 1:19:56
gonna guess no, because I'm 20 years older than you, but she was also. She was older? Yeah, my lady was, she was in her late Well, you know what? It's funny. I don't know. I saw a picture of my father in law the other day. He was younger than I am now in the photo, and he looks 20 years older than me. Yeah, isn't that wild? It really is. So I don't know how old she was. I'm here thinking she was 70. She was probably like 56 I really did like her, like we got along right until we were in that, like, you're in control, like, that part of our relationship, we did not do well. She did not like me. Sorry, there's people listening right now. Or like, I don't like you either. You're still listening. But my a one thing is rock solid, so I guess keep going jackass. But you know, back to that idea of, like, I mean, what's another way to put it? Like, it's people going, you're making it about yourself, but I don't know it's a podcast, like, I'm better at making the podcast today than I was five years ago. It's not because I read a book about making podcasts, right? Like, I'm better at everything that I spend a lot of time involved in, and I think the diabetes is the same, and it's a humble opinion, but I humbly like present to you that I think the podcast is maybe the least objectionable way to stay involved in something you really don't want to be talking about that ends up giving you a really great benefit on the back end,

Sabrina 1:21:18
are you preaching to The choir? Scott, all right, it's a really passive experience, like I listen while I'm cooking dinner. So it's not like I'm sitting down and studying the podcast, like I'm right and like I said before, it's enjoyable. Maybe no one else likes your sense of humor, but

Scott Benner 1:21:35
I'm delightful, as far as I can tell. I agree. Did you see how I teach you there? Yeah, you did. Yeah. Okay. Sabrina's incoming message to me is, I said, What do you hope to talk about on the podcast? I really am just hoping to be delightful. I told you I didn't have a plan coming in. I don't have a particular theme in mind. I'm open to talking about most things. What's something you're not open to talking

Sabrina 1:21:57
about? I don't know. Oh, really, there's not a thing that pops

Scott Benner 1:22:01
into your mind. You don't have to tell me what it is, but is there a thing that pops into your mind? I wouldn't talk about this, probably, but you don't know what it is. No, I don't

Sabrina 1:22:10
have anything specific interesting.

Scott Benner 1:22:12
Nothing popped into your head. So you're not really embarrassed about anything in your life too big.

Sabrina 1:22:18
I feel like I lived a pretty good life, and I'm pretty open and honest,

Scott Benner 1:22:21
that was like, maybe the best answer anybody's ever given. You know what I mean? Like, because that's a simple question. Because I go, what don't you want to talk about? And then I prompt you to think of the thing that you're scared of or embarrassed by, and nothing popped into your head. Yeah,

Sabrina 1:22:36
I think I wouldn't know it until we walked face first into it, and be like, ooh, Scott, let's not talk about

Scott Benner 1:22:41
that. Oh, so there is a thing you just it just doesn't come to

Sabrina 1:22:44
you. I don't know. Why are you so even I don't know,

Scott Benner 1:22:50
since you were a little kid, like, you had like a vibe of, like, what did your mom say? Like you were 30 when you were five, or something like that. Like, yep, is she like that? Or your dad?

Sabrina 1:22:59
I think so I don't know. My dad is an engineer, and my mom, like I said, she had she's more artistic. She has a lot of crazy backgrounds. She drove an ambulance for a while, she worked in a dentist office. She's done anything and everything. It's funny because I find myself translating between the two of them, because engineers speak in their own particular language. So I feel like I've kind of taken a little bit from each of

Scott Benner 1:23:25
them. Do you ever have to explain them to each other? Yes, all the time. Yeah, my kids are like, You guys do not know. He's like, You don't know how to like, like, my wife and I are so different, huh? Like I'm talking and I'm I, I'm sometimes looking at her and thinking, she does not know what I'm saying. Yeah?

Sabrina 1:23:42
Like, my dad will say something, and my mom will get confused and agitated. And I'm like, That is not what He means to say. What he means to say is this, and my dad's like, yes, so

Scott Benner 1:23:52
your dad's a little more engineering, and your mom's a little more hippie. I wouldn't say hippie, but, yeah, adventurous, artistic, creative, artistic, creative, and you're a blend of them, or you're more her, I'm a blend of them, interesting, and you and so you talk mom and you, you speak dad, yes, but they don't speak it to each other. And it

Sabrina 1:24:12
works well for me, because I can translate at work like the technical side to the non technical people.

Scott Benner 1:24:18
Oh, okay, yeah, that is a good, that's a great skill to have. It is, yeah, you must have liked when Sam came on, the general manager of the Phillies, and even unfold, yeah, yeah, he's got that. Like, he played baseball for a decade, but he went to, you know, he's, he's got a, like, an econ degree, like, so it was his job to, like, explain the those metrics for the baseball players, like, about, like, Moneyball, yeah, Moneyball stuff. And then he goes back and he talks to them about it. But in baseball talk,

Sabrina 1:24:50
yeah, yeah, that's exactly how I feel at work. It's

Scott Benner 1:24:55
a cool job. Actually, the Phillies should be lauded. This is not to go down a side road, but you. They wanted Sam, apparently, wanted Sam to do something else. They sent him back to school. So he's off, like literally learning something else, to come back to the team and help. I wish I could get him back on he's, I think he's a little too he's a little too successful now to get on a podcast, maybe, but that would be interesting to hear about what they're doing with him. Okay, so do your parents ever help with the diabetes as you're growing up, or is it just you

Sabrina 1:25:26
as I'm growing up? Definitely now, not so much. My mom would pack my lunch for me growing up, and she would write down the carb counts of everything, kind of like you did with Arden. But before texting was a thing. Yeah. So if I didn't want to eat my sandwich. I knew I could take out those 30 carbs.

Scott Benner 1:25:44
Does she know anything about it? Modern day or not? Really, a great question.

Sabrina 1:25:48
I sometimes I try to talk to them about diabetes things, and I can just see that it, it doesn't relate to them anymore, that they do try to keep abreast of things. You

Scott Benner 1:25:58
think it makes them sad to think of you as having diabetes. Never really thought about that. Like, is it hard to talk about? Because it reminds like, because, I mean, listen, you're very even keeled, like you seem like you're living a great life. Your a 1c is nice and low. You're not struggling with your diabetes that anybody can see. I'm sure you have struggles. So, like, maybe when it comes up, I wonder if they just I wonder if it makes them sad.

Sabrina 1:26:19
I think they do a good job of not letting that show if that's how they feel, but I could imagine that there's some sadness there. I

Scott Benner 1:26:28
let myself down as a parent. The other night, Arden was sharing something that's difficult for her, and it made me cry, and I cried in front of her, and I felt bad for crying in front of her, because I don't want her to think that her life makes me sad, yeah,

Sabrina 1:26:42
but I think it's good to show some emotion and have that connection, yeah. It's

Scott Benner 1:26:47
just, I felt like, you know, that thing everybody feels who's listening, but I was just like, in the moment, I was just so sad that she had, you know, that she has autoimmune issues. Honestly, that's really what it was about.

Sabrina 1:27:02
But it's that falling off a cheer thing, just something that happens that you gotta get back up and keep going, Yeah, and

Scott Benner 1:27:11
she does. She does a good job of it. Like, you know, just like you like, talking about, like, I don't know, like, it was there, but I did it, you know. Like, I think she's got that vibe, for sure. I

Sabrina 1:27:21
think she's got it even more than I do. I don't think she thinks about diabetes almost at all. It's

Scott Benner 1:27:26
tough because, like, when, when I try to explain something to her, she's like, Yeah, and I'm like, You really need to know this. I'm like, Do you know why you're taking that tablet right now? She's like, Ah. I'm like, I could I just explain it to you? Like, I think it's really important. It is interesting, because I think the vibes important, and I think that her general understanding grows as time goes forward. She's not lost, she doesn't not understand her diabetes. But like, there's things about like, she just some stuff. She just doesn't want to hear about some stuff. She's like, Look, I know I'm supposed to take this pill every day. Like, I take it, like, leave me alone. And then like, you know, if you know, I don't know, I look over and I'm like, Hey, you're all right. Like, you look tired. I have been tired for a couple days. And I'll say, like, you know, Are you, are you taking your thyroid meds every day, dad? And I'm like, I mean, just say no. If, like, instead of dad, like, you know, maybe like, I'm like, and then I'll say, like, look, it's just really important, because that pill might be the reason why you're not feeling well today, you know, or like, you know, you said your stomach hurt. You're tired. Your stomach hurt. You haven't taken your thyroid meds for a day or two. Like that could, like, be one of the reasons, you know, it's almost like a bridge too far for her. Sometimes she's just like, I know, but I don't want to know if that makes

Sabrina 1:28:38
sense. It It does, and it's, it's nice to have that every once in a while, when you have someone in the background that can take care of, you get get a little break.

Scott Benner 1:28:47
It's funny, because that's what I think, too. But it's not how it comes off sometimes, like, sometimes it comes off like, leave me alone. But I think what it means is, Thank God you're paying attention this, because I'm not right now, and I'm almost embarrassed that I'm not, you know, I think I don't know that's a lot of supposition on my part, but nevertheless, okay, Sabrina, is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have?

Sabrina 1:29:09
I don't think so. Like I said, I didn't have much of a plan coming in, and just figured we'd see how things go.

Scott Benner 1:29:16
And did I let you down? Because it's possible that I did. No, not at all. Oh, awesome. Thank you. I felt myself being chattier today, but this is probably not something everybody listening cares about. But like, I don't get to talk to a lot of people who have literally listened to the entire podcast.

Sabrina 1:29:32
That's wild to me too. How are these people coming on the podcast that happened that aren't listeners? There are

Scott Benner 1:29:38
sometimes people come on. They're like, I don't know who you are,

Sabrina 1:29:40
yeah, that's wild. How did you get here? How does anybody get here? That's a good question.

Scott Benner 1:29:47
So you're constantly wondering, Hmm, how much of this can I say? I was in a meeting the other day with an advertiser, and I usually just talk to this person, but they brought more of like, a marketing like, numbers person on, yeah. And they started talking about, like, you know, when you bring in a new listener, and like, do you have metrics on how long they stick, or how long they stay, and if you lose them, how to get them back? And she started going into all this stuff that. I was like, she learned this in college. And I was like, No, I don't do any of that. I said, first of all, I don't think of the people that way. And she goes, well, she's like, how are you maintaining this popularity? And I was like, I just get up every day and I think, like, what do these people need? And then I just try to give it to them. And I was like, and I think that works. And then they tell other, each other about the podcast, and then it grows. And she looked back at me, like, I can't count that or write it on a spreadsheet. Like, like, that was the vibe I got back from her, like, it's cool that it's working, but how do I write it down? And I was like, I don't think it's important to write down. You know what? I mean? Like, it works, like, but just let it work. And they're not listeners. If they start listening and they don't like it, I'm not going to chase them down. Like, through, is that what you want? Like, you want me to get, like, an email list and ping them and like, I'm like, I'm not doing all that. Like I'm like, they'll find it. So I told her, I was like, I've had people tell me I started listening. I didn't have time for it. I hated you, whatever. I came back six months later, and now I love it. I'm like, just like, it needs to be all on its own time, you know. But she wanted it to be quantifiable. It's really interesting. Yeah,

Sabrina 1:31:24
I don't think you're you are quantifiable. Yeah, I just and you are the podcast. Thank

Scott Benner 1:31:30
you. And at the same time, I was like, I don't understand when people see something working, and then they go, You know what this needs? It needs. How I think about it? Yeah. I'm like, there's a lot of podcasts out there that have people like you behind them, and they don't do well, there's a reason for that, you know, like I had more recently, I had an advertiser come to me recently and say, We want to change the ads to say more like this. And I said in a meeting, because I'm a brave person, I don't know why you would do that. The ads work fine. They get clicks that you want. Why would we change them? And I realized during the course of the call is that they brought a new person in, and that person was trying to put their stamp on things. Okay, so I do exactly what they asked me to do, and I changed their ads. And two months later, I get an email from that person, and she goes, Hey, the ads are not performing as well as they used to. And I thought I actually, while I was reading the email, I thought, Oh, good. She's going to tell me to put back the old ads. We're

Sabrina 1:32:32
going to buy less ads now.

Scott Benner 1:32:35
And I went, what she goes, I think we're overwhelming people with the message. And I just took a deep breath, and I was like, What do I do here? Like, do I say the truth and, like, ruin this relationship, right? Or do? And I just responded back, and I was like, Listen, you asked me to change the ads. I changed the ads. Now the ads aren't working as well anymore, because I was being honest in the ads before, and now you have me saying marketing speak stuff, and I was like, and people are not relating to it anymore, and for that reason, you're not selling as money. I'm not gonna say what it is right now. Why don't we just go back to the way it was, where I honestly spoke about the thing and gave my actual opinion of it. And she goes, No, I think we should just get fewer. And I was like, Okay, what? Okay? Like, but that, to me, was like, the other thing, like, tell me what it is like so that I can make it make sense to me. I'm like, you don't need it to make sense to you. It just works. Like, let it work. And if

Sabrina 1:33:41
it ain't broke, don't fix it. I mean, right,

Scott Benner 1:33:43
what do we call in your episode? This is tough.

Sabrina 1:33:46
We call it Scott's biographer. We call it brain rot. Oh, don't call it brain. Wow,

Scott Benner 1:33:53
that would be bad. Because also no apostrophes. There's the thing you don't know, like, I don't put apostrophes in the titles of the show. Okay, we'll figure it out later. I don't know this is gonna be one of these where, like, I'll get notes back from Robin, who'll be, like, I would call it this, this, or this. You said this, you said this, you said this. That's it. Otherwise, I don't know what to call this one, which is usually good, just means it was a nice, like, lingering conversation, which is, by the way, if for everyone listening, you may or may not agree, this is how I think of a podcast, like the conversation I had with you, Sabrina, I this is how every one of them would go if I if I had my way, they'd be longer and kind of meandering and follow thoughts and stuff like that. This is how I think of a podcast, when I think of it and, God bless. Kevin Smith, who made a fantastic podcast for years and taught me how to podcast so Sabrina, you were delightful today. Thank you so much. Well. Thank you, Scott. Hold

Sabrina 1:34:51
on one second for me, sure you.

Scott Benner 1:35:00
Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem Moby, with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference, this series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, where you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com, by going up into the menu, Hey, what's up? Everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you wrong way recording.com. You got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

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