You've got weeds in your diabetes garden and it's killing you. And your doctor or your endo are the ones who planted those weeds. Let's talk about it. Keep going and keep up the fight. Now, if we haven't met, my name is Matt Vandevecht. I live with type 1 diabetes, and these strategies that are being taught in our medical system are the reason that type 1 diabetics or even diabetes in general is not being solved. It's being muted. We're being set off to the side. We're being told that this is as good as it gets. Now, the reason that we're seeing this happen is that the medical system was created to solve the templated problems of survival. People need to keep us alive so they can keep making money off of us. We keep buying insulin and supplies, right? And there are good doctors out there who genuinely want to help, but unfortunately, the system was set up to be built on things like rules, restrictions, and routines as the strategy to fix what they believe was the problem. But the reality is that the problem itself is a much deeper root issue. And I didn't realize this until recently when I ran into my own issue with weeds in my garden. Now, we got grass put in recently to fix the dead grass that was from last year because every summer it gets so dang hot. And we live in San Diego, it's not supposed to get this hot. But the reality is that grass to a certain degree is not meant to be in hot climates like this. And so when we have the grass that's dying, what's interesting is that it either gets bare or it turns brown, right? But over time, other plants that are more native to the area, we call them weeds, take over. Now, I've noticed that there are some plants that we have that are taking over. Again, we call them weeds that are nice ground cover. Some of them are more clover-based. And from a far away enough perspective, it looks like grass. So from my neighbor's perspective, they think we have a healthy lawn and it just looks good. But the reality is that my lawn is a third dead, and there's ground cover that's green. It's not grass, but it's green. And so it looks good enough. And this is exactly what we see in the medical system. These rules, routines, and restrictions taught as strategies, like, oh, just change your diet to low carb, be careful with exercise, don't be spontaneous, don't go crazy with insulin on board or travel too far. And follow these rules and you'll look good enough, which is true. It is a good place to be at if your only goal is to survive this thing. But if your goal is to thrive with type 1 diabetes, you have to be willing to go a little bit deeper. Now, this is where the analogy hit home for me because I'm looking at our grass and realizing that we've got this band-aid fix of ground cover, right? So the clovers are coming in, and even though the grass is dying, and it's dying more each day because we're in the middle of a heat wave right now where it's like 95 to 100 all the time. At night it was like 80 something. Like, what is going on? But because of that, the grass is actively dying. Ground cover is actively taking over, and these weeds are filling in the gaps. So it looks good on the surface, but it's also getting worse as time goes on. And if I don't change something now, that's going to be nothing but ground cover. I won't have grass left. And at that point, it will be too late. See, with type 1 diabetes, when we depend on restriction and rules and routines, the more we depend on it, the less likely we are to branch out and expose ourselves to the difficulties of having more flexibility with foods or enjoying more activities or being spontaneous. See, in order to fix my problem with the grass, I am going to have to rip out the weeds, which will expose the challenges underneath the dead grass and in some cases, bare dirt because there's nothing left. But by exposing the dirt, I can then lay seeds to then grow new grass. But for a short period of time, it's going to look ugly. I'm going to expose the ugliness of the dead grass. But in doing so, I give myself the possibility of having a full lawn once again. So within type 1 diabetes, we have to look at this as a trade-off initially, where if I want to have a very full life with controlled blood sugars, I have to be willing to expose the hard parts by challenging myself with new variables to gather new data to make implementation and to thrive. As an example, for those who are low carb, and I'm not shaming low carb as a whole, I'm shaming low carb as a restrictive strategy. If you want to eat carbs, but you're not, that's an issue. We need to face that. All right. You don't have to eat low carb. But as somebody who is low carb and they've been told to do that by their medical team, right? Oh, it's just easier you have to do that because diabetes is if you're stuck there, but you wish you could have pasta. So you go have pasta once and then you have a high blood sugar and you go, yep, nope, that's not for me. I'm gonna go back to the weeds, ground cover, the band-aid fix. If you refuse to expose the challenges, to expose yourself to new things, you will never master it. If I don't pull those weeds and put new grass seed in, I will never have grass there again. Grass doesn't just magically find its way through when there's weeds. The weeds have to be removed so the seeds can get the water and the sunlight they need to then come up to the surface and replenish. Right. So if I'm scared to have carbs, if I never have pasta, well, guess what? I'm never gonna know how to have pasta because I won't have made the mistakes to learn the lessons in order to make changes to have pasta smoothly. By exposing myself to challenging situations, like we'll just keep using pasta, right? I see, wow, it went high. What can I do about that? Can I increase my pre-bolus timing? Can I increase the amount of insulin I'm taking? Maybe my insulin to carb ratio is completely off. Maybe I'm insulin resistant because I'm depending too heavily on fat to fill my calories. Maybe I'm insulin resistant in general because I'm not active enough because my doctor told me that workouts aren't safe. Maybe it's something else that we're not even uncovering yet, but that's the whole point. So you have to be willing to uncover the ugly to get to the root cause, no pun intended, so that you can grow and thrive. Does it make sense? So for me, I'm looking out at our lawn and I had to make the difficult decision to start pulling the weeds that looked like grass. And it does not look pretty right now. Right. But you get new seed, you get the right environment with water, sunshine, fertilizer, right? And that enables the grass to grow so that in a couple of months, I'm gonna have a gorgeous lawn and it's gonna be right back to the way it should be, where my daughters and I can play on the grass and enjoy our time, right? But if I don't do that, if I continue living in restriction rules, routines in the good enough zone that so many doctors tell us to live in, I'm gonna get to a place where that grass is not gonna be healthy and it's gonna hurt our feet to play on because it's gonna be filled with weeds and sticks and dead grass beneath it, right? So the longer you go without exposing the problem, the harder the problem gets. Said differently, if we're especially if you're operating out of fear, if you're scared of doing something, so you don't do it, the longer you don't do it, the stronger that barrier gets because you've you've fed the fear, right? As an example, I used to be terrified of lows, absolutely terrified. I had a near-death experience in a foreign country and it it absolutely shook my confidence in my diabetes management. I had an urgent low blood sugar, it was super bad, and I didn't know if I was gonna make it out. For years, I was terrified of low blood sugars. As a result, I pushed my blood sugars up higher. And what ended up happening is that I used to be comfortable in the 80s and 90s, and then I got to a point because I kept my blood sugars higher. I was used to seeing numbers above 150. So anytime I got below 150, I got nervous, I got anxious. I need some exposure therapy. All right, which is true. It's it actually did work for me uh for a number of different reasons. But the reality is that we have to expose the problem, get familiar with it, and be willing to sit with that to face the challenges head on if we want to grow. Now, I'm not telling you that you have to expose yourself, you have to grow, you don't have to do anything. But if your goal is happy and healthy to get to a place where you can have blood sugars controlled and have flexibility and freedom, you have to be willing to expose yourself, expose the weakness, expose the things that make it feel safe but fragile. Because if your blood sugars are stable but they're dependent on a routine, a restrictive strategy, or rules, you don't have control. Right? You've got control that's very fragile, and the moment life changes on you, it breaks. It's no more, right? The moment plans change. Yeah, you dose for lunch, big bolus of insulin, you know how to handle it. But hey, phone call. You guys want to go out for a bike ride? Uh no, no, I don't, because I don't know how to handle that because I've never exposed myself to the challenges before. I need this routine, this restriction, and these rules of my day in order to maintain control. And now, why can I speak to that so strongly? It's because that was me. For years I depended on the three Rs, the restriction, the rules, and the routines. And I can tell you that it works on the surface, but it will destroy you over time as it did me. See, I had I would say 98 to 100% time and range most days. Blood sugars were so predictable, it got boring. But I couldn't have fun, I couldn't say yes to spontaneity, I couldn't enjoy the foods that I actually wanted to. I felt like every time I went out to eat, it was a preset menu of what's the easiest, lowest carb thing that I can handle. But I didn't have agency, I didn't feel like I could make decisions for me. And it was rooted in restriction rules and routines. I feel like if I could do the same thing every single day, everything was repeatable and consistent. And it's true. Diabetes loves consistency, it absolutely does. But I feel like the longer you push off the exposure, the harder it gets, and the more damage is done. So my challenge to you today, as I had to do with my own diabetes, but also with our front yard lawn, is pull the weeds, expose the ugly, do the hard work. Because on the other side of that, a luscious green grass. Now, of course, I'm putting trust in my lawn to actually follow through with this. I don't have the luscious green grass yet, but I do have the diabetes control. And I can tell you that as somebody who's now spent over seven consecutive years above 90% time and range, an A1C at 5.7. And I've only had, I think, two or three lows in the last eight months while living life, while having hundreds of carbs, which you don't have to do, but I just really like food. While raising a family, running a business, becoming a globally ranked Iron Man athlete, it's possible. And I can promise you it starts with doing the hard work, exposing the fragile system that you've built it on so that you can build an infrastructure that is impenetrable. Build strategies that allow you to have actual flexibility and say, you know what, I actually want this for lunch and know that it's gonna work. You know what? I will go on that spontaneous bike ride and know how to pivot with your blood sugars, to know how to manipulate blood sugars, essentially how to expose the ugly, and add fertilizer and grow. Now, if this sounds interesting to you, if you want help, we have the fertilizer, the sunshine, the water to add to your diabetes to help you grow, but you have to be the first one to pull the weeds. We can't pull those for you because it is your decision to get uncomfortable. But understand this that growth thrives in discomfort. Stagnation thrives in comfort. What that means is if you want to experience something new, if you want to take yourself or your blood sugars or your career, whatever it is, to the next level, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable. Growth isn't comfy, it's hard, it's challenging, it's awkward, right? But that's also kind of what makes it fun because it's new. So we got some links in the description for you that I believe are the best links we have for you. Different resources, some physical resources, some digital resources, and a new one for an in-person resource where we are not just sprinkling on fertilizer, but helping you grow through these stages at an in-person event in San Diego, California, when it's not so hot. It's a couple of months away. If that sounds interesting, highly recommend you get in that room because that's where we're all going to be discussing strategies, going into your personal blood sugars and fixing these weeds once and for all. Getting to the root cause there. That time it was upon intended. And actually fixing this stuff. But at the very least, your first step is to start pulling weeds. Go into your diabetes garden, look for what doesn't belong, what doesn't serve you, and what you don't want the outcomes to look like five years, ten years down the road, and start doing some gardening. And if we can help you, happy to help. Check the links in the description. I'll see you in the next episode. And keep up the fight.