#97 Flexibility Centered Approach to Lowering Your A1C with Lissie Poyner of Needles and Spoons

Episode 97 features Lissie Poyner, founder and CEO of Needles and Spoons, a type 1 diabetes coaching company. Lissie is a hardworking personal trainer, health coach and type 1 warrior. Together with her team she take a flexible approach to helping others living with type 1 learn how to manage their blood sugars well without missing out on all of life's little joys! Sounds pretty great, right? Listen in as Lissie gives listeners 5 practical tips to lower your A1C with a flexibility centered approach to diabetes management. Be sure to check out the links below to find Lissie on the web and on social media. Enjoy!

LINKS
Needles and Spoons WEBSITE
Lissie on Instagram @needlesandspoons_
Lissie's T1D Judgement Free Zone Group on Facebook
Learn more about The Spoon Theory

Transcript

Katie: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to episode 97 of the sugar mamas podcast. Today. My guest is Lissy pointer, who is the creator and CEO of needles and spoons. You'll learn all about needles and spoons and the resources they offer to the type one community and just a bit. But until then, Just know that Lissie is a hardworking health coach, personal trainer And type one warrior. Today, we're going to talk all about a flexibility centered approach to lowering your A1C. And she's going to give us five practical tips To live a balanced and healthy life without diabetes calling all the shots. Make sure you check out the links in the show notes So you can take a look at the needles and spoons website. As well as where you can find Lissy on social media. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode and bonus Lissy, we'll be back next week to talk about exercise And how. Those living with type one can exercise and keep blood sugars stable throughout. All right. Enjoy. You're listening to the sugar mamas podcast, a show designed for moms and caregivers of type one diabetics here. You'll find a community of like-minded people who are striving daily to keep their kids safe, happy, and healthy in the ever-changing world of type one. I'm your host and fellow T one D mom, Katie Roseboro. Before we get started. I need you to know that nothing you hear on the sugar mamas podcast should be considered medical advice. Please be safe, be smart, and always consult your physician before making changes to the way you manage type one diabetes. Thanks. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Sugar Mamas Podcast. I have a special guest here with me today. Her name is Lissie Poyner and Lissie. I'm gonna let you introduce yourself and tell listeners your personal and your professional connection to type one.

Lissie: 2:03

Yeah, so thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. My name is Lucy Poyner. I have been a type one diabetic for the past, going on nine years now. So I was diagnosed when I was 19 years old, which I was my freshman year in college, spring semester. Unfortunately it came down with the flu. I think it was like the one year I didn't get my flu shot, so that kind of backfired a little bit. But yeah, I was diagnosed my spring semester and ever since then, just living life with diabetes. I'm now a health coach in personal trainer and I work with other type one diabetics on taking a restriction free approach to diabetes. So there's a long backstory on how that got started. I'm sure that we'll talk about that as well, but, Yeah, it's very crazy to say it's been this long.

Katie: 2:46

I know. What was that like getting diagnosed in college? Did you kind of like stop and take some time off, or did you just keep chugging along and figure it?

Lissie: 2:52

My advisors definitely recommended that I take the semester off and just say, Hey, now's a good time to withdrawal kind of. you know, figure this out. But I was very persevere and didn't wanna do that So, you know, my grades did suffer a little bit, but I do think that it was a good time because I did have a good community with my friends there. So I, I stuck it through

Katie: 3:13

that's good. That's good. I mean, I honestly, I think that's probably best. We uh, when my daughter got diagnosed, we pulled her out of school for the first nine weeks on, well, number one, she got diagnosed the day before school started, and it was also covid year. So we had the option to do that and just do virtual school, but honestly, that was rough. That was really rough to kind of like, stop what you're doing in life and, and just like be focused in on type one for a couple months. I don't, I don't know if it would've gone better if we had done it differently, but anyway, all that to say, it was just, it was rough to kind of put everything on, on pause,

Lissie: 3:44

right. I think it's twofold. I think it's definitely, I think I wish I took some time to grieve and almost figure it out a little bit better. Especially being that, you know, I, I was 19 years old. I had a lot of years behind me where I didn't have anything to live with like this. So it was definitely an adjustment, but at the same time, stopping your life and taking yourself away from your community. I definitely think there's pros and cons to both, for

Katie: 4:07

Yeah. So what, how did you know you had type one? What were your signs and symptoms?

Lissie: 4:11

Yeah, well, at first, like I said, I had the flu, so I, you know, definitely was leaving a lot of the symptoms to just recovering, like, again, being really thirsty you know, peeing a lot. Yeah, so I was leaving a lot to that. That to the recovery of the flu. And I was getting up in the middle of the night a lot to pee and I was like, this is really weird, but you know, nothing, I'm gonna look too far into it. Wasn't until two things happened. One, I woke up one morning and I had a roommate and we're in these small little dorm rooms at Penn State, like it's not very big, but I looked up and I couldn't really see my roommate. My vision had gotten really, really blurry and that to me was, you know, alarming sign number one and like, this can't be normal. And then number two, I was taking a physics exam and I remember being in the room and like looking at my exam, but I couldn't really. I, I couldn't look at, I couldn't see it really. Like I, I could visually see it, but I wasn't there. And um, I ended up getting a 19% on that exam just cuz I was, I guess my blood sugar was so high. Again, you know, you have all the other things like the cravings and I think it just boiled down to those two scenarios where I eventually called the health services on. Campus and I, I said, I told them my symptoms. It was about 8:00 PM that night and they said, don't even make an appointment. Which I went to a school with 40,000 people that was not normal to hear. They said, come in right away in the morning and you know, don't eat anything. And I was like, okay, so this, this could be serious. And right away they left it to type one diabetes, which I'm very grateful for, cuz I know that's not everybody's case.

Katie: 5:38

Right. A lot of people get misdiagnosed and it just drags on and. Wow. Well, you, as you've already mentioned, you're a personal trainer, you're a health coach, you have your very own business called Needles and Spoons. I know you're very well known in the, at least in the Instagram space where I spend most of my time but tell, tell us about it. Tell us about the creation of your business. Kind of how did you get to that point? Just like the when and the why and the how behind all of that.

Lissie: 6:01

Yeah, I get a lot of weird looks when people hear needles and spoons. But there's a bad story behind that. So about four years after I was diagnosed with Type one diabetes, I graduated college, I got a job about. I live in New Jersey, so I got a job in Florida. So I had moved away and started a new job and a few months into that I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease as well. It was formally colitis. Now I'm, now it's more formally diagnosed Crohn's. And that's where a lot of things started happening in relation to my health. I said, this is not kind of a fluke. There's kind of more things happening. I got very restrictive with, you know, what I ate cuz I was reading a lot of books and. All around just felt like I need to, I really wanna look inwards because a lot of the external wasn't working in the sense of, I felt really restricted. So it was a, it was a big emotional battle along with the physical. So in my searches online, I had come across the, the spoon theory, which if you haven't heard of it, it's a way it's kind of a metaphor or a story of telling somebody explaining to their friend how they use their energy with living with a chronic illness. And I really had never related to anything better. So I started kind of living by that theory of like, you know, using my energy wisely. And that's how needles and spoons came up. Needles for taking care of my Type one diabetes. Spoons for the spoon theory.

Katie: 7:19

can you explain the spoon theory? I feel like I've heard it, but I don't, I don't remember.

Lissie: 7:23

yeah. So I forget the, the original author or the storyteller I forget which, I think she either had lupus or another chronic illness, and her friend was asking, you know, why are you so like, you know, tired all the time, or, or something of that sort. And they were at a restaurant and she took basically all these different spoons off the table. And she laid out 10 spoons and she said, okay, tell me what you do during your day, like from start to finish, what do you do? She's like, well, I, I get up and I get changed. She's like, take away a spoon. That's, that's this a piece of your energy right there that living with a chronic illness, you won't even think, think about without it. She said, why you up and shower? Take away two spoons? So every like, kind of movement in your day, it was using a spoon. And I never could really explain why I felt so maybe physically exhausted or mentally exhausted, and that, to me really explained it so well. So I, I used that to send to my family, my friends, and just said like, Hey, when I'm, when I'm low on spoons, this is what I mean,

Katie: 8:22

My spoon level is low today for sure. Gosh, I feel like I, my spoon level is low a lot of times. especially at night after the kids have gone to bed. I'll have to read, I'll have to read more about that. I like that. I like that. Vi visual with the spoons. All right, so I interrupted you there in the middle of you telling us how needles and spoons came about, so continue on.

Lissie: 8:39

So about after a year after living in Florida with this job again, I was diagnosed with Crohn's. I was living, you know, I was living a thousand miles away from my family. I was in a pretty emotionally abusive relationship. I was in a career that I did not. Like so all these kind of factors were piling up and I had decided that it was time to move home back closer to my family. And that move was kind of the initial look inwards to how can I kind of use these diagnoses to just get curious about my body and what it needs. So I started looking at things outside of just, you know, what I'm putting into my body and how I'm moving my body. Cause the way that I was doing that before was very restrictive. It was very, you know, eating towards certain diets. I was working out every single day, regardless of how my spoon levels were, and overall, I was adding more stress to my body. So I started looking at, okay, like, how is my environment affecting me? How is my social life affecting me? How is my career affecting me? I got into a new relationship and all these different things. I started looking at. kind of my battery or my health of these different areas of my life. And that's really what the holistic approach is. And a lot of people think the holistic approach is just, you know, drinking your smoothies or herbal things and I take it more as like, let's take a 360 degree look at your life and see how that's impacting you on an internal level. So yeah, once I started looking at those things, I started seeing the improvement in my blood sugars. My A1C went from a 7.1 to a 5.7. That's the lowest that it had ever been at that point. I just refused to think that that was a coincidence. So that's kind of where needles and spoons came about, because I really started to look at, okay, there's definitely more than we're being told that impacts our health and wellness.

Katie: 10:22

So you feel like your stress level, there was a direct correlation between like the level of your stress and your a1c and just your ability to manage your, your numbers.

Lissie: 10:32

I definitely think so, because not only are you having that internal stress, but you know there's that mental stress of all these other places in your life and that affects your decision making with your. Your blood sugars. So I really felt that all these different things were impacting how I was able to show up for myself and how my body responded. So I, I definitely think that there was a correlation there, for sure.

Katie: 10:53

Yeah. Yeah. Well then all those stress hormones too, those don't make things easy to manage too. Cuz it, cuz you even went a little bit, I don't wanna say backwards cuz it, it, you went towards a better approach. Like, it sounds like you kind of stopped pushing yourself to work out every day. If you even, you know, if you, if you're feeling low on energy and you kind of stopped dieting or following certain restrictive diets and you would think people would see like a decline in their health if they did those things, but you saw an improve.

Lissie: 11:17

Yeah. And that's why I think the irony is because we look at health and we think, okay eating clean all the time or exercising every day and even like on a marker of success of being like, oh, okay, I had a a safe career. I was in a, you know, I had a 401k. I had a, I was in a Fortune 500 company. Even those things like you look at. Okay. Diet, exercise, career, those things were all healthy, quote unquote, but in reality for me, they were not. And it was once I took a step back and asked myself, okay, what does my, me as a personal human, what do I need that I actually was able to figure that out and my health responded to it.

Katie: 11:53

I love that. That's great. Good. I hate that it takes most of us so long to figure that out, you know, like well into adulthood. So when did you officially launch Needles and spoons?

Lissie: 12:02

that was in ju June of 2019, so yeah. Yeah. It's been about three and a half years.

Katie: 12:10

Three and a half? Yeah. Okay. Wow. So just tell us a little about, a little bit about it. What, what resources do you guys provide to the type one community?

Lissie: 12:17

Yeah, so we have our main program, which is keep you 100. And a little backstory on that, we do not encourage everybody to have a flat line of a blood sugar of a hundred all the time. That would be pretty. It's hard to do Um, But our approach is that, you know, when you show up and give a hundred percent whatever that looks like that day, if your energy level is at a 40% and you're giving 40%, that's still a hundred percent. So showing up and giving a hundred percent, we keep, we like to keep it real. So like giving a hundred percent Very much giving like the strategy behind things, understanding that things won't be perfect, and going through the troubleshooting process. So we like to say like, we're keeping you 100. It's just a, essentially just a play on words for a hundred, which is the ideal blood sugar, but we're not aiming for that.

Katie: 12:59

right?

Lissie: 13:00

We take a hybrid approach to diabetes care. So we are not just giving the resources, we're not just giving the education. We really work to give support from all angles. So we are giving you the community. So everybody is a part of a, the keep 100 community. You're showing up on community calls, but you're also getting that personalized support because diabetes is not one size fits all. Even though we're kind of. the things that you read and the, the care system very much kind of treats it that way, where we take that personalized approach and above all, we really work to find that balance between, here's the strategy, but here's the implementation for you as a per, as an individual. So that's our main core offer with keep 100, and that's been there since day one. It's like my baby, it's the support that I wish that I had from the very.

Katie: 13:46

Yeah. So is that like a, a certain number of weeks, like a, like an eight week program or 12 weeks, or is that sort of like a ongoing thing throughout what kind of, whenever they need you type of thing?

Lissie: 13:56

Yeah. So it's a 10 week program and we go by a four phase framework. So we've, we've gone through it through, we've gone through a few. Different like cohorts. We've tried eight weeks, we've tried 12 weeks, and we really found that 10 weeks was that sweet, middle, middle ground where a lot of people had that success. So we go through the four phase framework where one, where you know, we're going through our behavioral based behavioral defaults, so we're really looking at habits and lifestyle and I. I like to emphasize that we're not taking that checklist approach. So you might hear kind of like programs like 75 hard, where it's like, just show up and cross us off your cross off the box. We very much like to support you in creating those blood sugar supporting behaviors that work best for you. So that's in phase one. Phase two, we're going through all of the baselines. So this is where you're nailing down your basal rates, your carb ratios, your correction factors, and really understanding how. Assess those and when it is a baseline issue. So we have a uh, C D C S on our team. Her name is Jessica She is amazing and she really supports all of our clients through that process. And I just think it's really empowering to get to go into your endocrinologist appointment and say like, I have this trend and I know the true. Root cause of it, and this is the support that I need. In phase three, we're going through all the daily variability. So all the things that are like when it's in your routine, kind of how can we approach that? So this is where we're talking about nutrition strategy, exercise strategy, and then on a hormonal level, how does that impact your insulin sensitivity? That was a conversation I never got when I was first diagnosed, and it's changed. The entire way that I look at my, my diabetes management. And then phase four, we're kind of looking at conquering the high variability areas. So, okay, things look great when you're in your routine, but what about when we're traveling, when it's the holiday, like it's a holiday season right now? How do we approach those scenarios so that we can have that balance between the predictability, but also allowing yourself to enjoy the moment and be completely present? So, long answer to your question, 10 weeks, and I've broken up into those four.

Katie: 15:55

Yeah, no, that sounds great. I I love that. I love how you're, you're take, you take a very practical approach and you're kind of like bringing it into each individual person's everyday life and just what they're doing. I like that. That's great. Yeah. You're welcome. Okay, so I got on your website cause I always like to check out my guest website if they have one. It's n ne excuse me. It's needles and spoons.com. Correct.

Lissie: 16:17

Yep.

Katie: 16:18

Yep. Yes. And I noticed the first thing that pops up, it's an adorable picture of you, and then it says helping you create the life you love without T one D calling the shots. So obviously very flexible approach. You've already explained a little bit about that, but I'd love to hear more about just your flexibility centered approach to just helping people, you know, manage diabetes better, lower their a1 cs, and just, you know, without going crazy at the same.

Lissie: 16:42

Yeah, and, and to your point, I think that there is that balance. I've kind of been on both sides of the spectrum where I one restricted everything in my life to fit diabetes because that's why I was told I grew up as a gymnast and to me, like I always, I was used to feeling strong. I was used stew, getting to eat what I wanted. I had 19 years where I didn't really. Lived according to a, a textbook. So I had done the things. I had, you know, done the low carb diets, exercised every day, kind of done just the checklist mentality. And then on the other end, I've also had those times where I'm like, I don't wanna live by that. I diabetes, like diabetes wasn't there for 19 years. I don't wanna think about it. So I'm just gonna live my life based off of how I like to live it. And diabetes will be there either way. Kind of that um, almost too flexible. So what I've found is that there has to be that balance. And at the end of the day, you're the driver of your life. You, you have your own, you're a human. At the end of the day, you have your own preferences. You have your own priorities. You might be a mom, you might be a student. There's so many different. Things that, you know, indicate your life outside of diabetes. So how do we make that, how do we make diabetes fit into your life? So we very much take that role of, okay, on a nutrition level, whether it's a salad on your plate or cupcake on your plate, like you should have the tools and the strategies to be able to conquer either one. And yes, that comes to bolus BSing, but it also comes to like, how are you pairing your food? Is this a, you know, how can we get this to feel good for you and your body? So on all levels, I just think that there are these balances that we don't have to live on either end of the spectrum. It's just how can we make diabetes fit into the life that you are meant to serve? And the rest kind of can fall into place with that healthy balance of strategy, mindset, support, and educat.

Katie: 18:32

that's good. I like what you said about, or like the example you gave in your own life, how you've kind of lived both ends of the spectrum. Like this really restricted life and this kind of free for all, where you throw your hands up and you're like, whatever, I'm gonna do what I want. You know, and I think. I think that's really how life should be. I mean, you know, even if you take diabetes out of the picture, you know, nobody should be living this super restrictive life. Nor this life where you're just throwing all caution in the wind and eating whatever you want and doing whatever you want all the time. Like, I mean, even in a life without diabetes, there needs to be, there needs to be balance. And it's interesting how when people all of a sudden get diagnosed with a chronic illness, they feel like they have to. Usually I feel like the swing is in the more restricted direction first, right? And then people easily, quickly get tired of that because that's hard and boring. And so they swing in the opposite direction and then they kind of come, come back somewhere in the middle. So it's, it's great that you, you know, and I'm sure people get stuck, which is why they seek, seek you out, right? They're, they're stuck in one place and they're just not enjoying life. it's nice to know there's people like you to kind of guide them through that. So what would you say, just speaking from your own experience and then your experience, you know, running your business, what are the top five most practical tips you can offer someone living with type one to accomplish this, to have a more flexible life and just have that balance that you mentioned.

Lissie: 19:46

Yeah, I love this question. I have literally my sticky note right here with with everything written down cuz I'm like, I wanna make sure to, you know, give these practical tips. And I think it comes down to, okay, one, acknowledging the fact that there's never gonna be a formula for, I know that there's a lot of information online and it can be. Overwhelming because you're not sure how to take those pieces and apply it to your own life. So all of my advice would be very much. let's gear this towards you. So number one, you don't have to be an endocrinologist to actually understand your blood sugars for so long, I was kind of, I would show up to my endo every 90 days. They would go through my reports, meet some changes in my basal rates through my carb ratios, and. I didn't feel like I was a part of the process and I felt like that was just my doctor's job. And yes, they're very supportive with changing the pump settings. You know, everybody has a different perspective on that and different relationship with their endo, but I think it's really important to get comfortable looking at the numbers. I view it as almost like. If you went 90 days without looking at your bank statement, you might not have a healthy cash flow or healthy relationship with your money even. But I found that like the more that I look at the reports, maybe not excessively, not every single day, but having that healthy balance, I can feel really empowered. Walking into my endocrinologist's office, I feel really empowered looking at them and being able to break them down and. okay. This is a pattern that I can self-identify and I can take action on because maybe it comes down to my behaviors and I can walk into my Endo's office and saying, Hey, this is the trend that I found and this is how I need your support. So I think I'm really comfortable with those reports and just building that relationship. It's like. Having a date night with your your blood sugars once a week or once every other week, whatever it is, and just sitting down and saying like, let me confront this for a minute and, and get curious about maybe why it might be triggering, triggering, or just how I can approach them moving forward. So I would definitely be number one.

Katie: 21:36

Okay. Yeah, I'd like that. A regular check-in with your data.

Lissie: 21:39

Mm-hmm..Yep.

Katie: 21:41

All right.

Lissie: 21:41

Number two, so this is kind of a saying that we have inside of our program, but you can't know how to bowls for the cupcake if you don't eat the cupcake. And cupcake is just a metaphor. It can be anything, but I am very much somebody who I would rather eat a food 20 times and figure out how to bowls for it than avoid it completely. And I just think that more knowledge is power, especially in relation to your own body, like getting curious about how does this impact my digestion? How does my insulin timing affect the outcome of this? What happens when I do X, Y, and Z? Just getting really curious about how you can make it work for you is all around healthier. I think, again, just my perspective, healthier than taking it off the table completely and never having it again.

Katie: 22:23

Well, and I feel like, especially if you've already lived a really full life without diabetes and you, you know, you know all the wonderful foods that are out there, like as soon as you take something off the table completely, that just makes you want the thing even more.

Lissie: 22:35

Right, exactly. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Katie: 22:37

All right. I love that. Okay, number three.

Lissie: 22:39

All right, number three. So again, I'm not a checklist person. I don't love that mentality. So my third piece of advice would be don't focus on the daily checklist of diabetes, cuz I know that there can be more, or, or sorry, that can be really prevalent and kind of what we're told from day one of counter carbs. Take your insulin. But I focus more on creating systems that work for my blood. I'm a Virgo. I love things like systems. So this is how my brain kind of thinks some things. But, so for example, inside of keep 100, we talk a lot about habit anchoring, or we call it bolus anchoring. So this is really a way to like attach those bolus decisions or that pause when looking at your food to just your everyday behavior. So it doesn't really feel like anything extra that you have to do, it feels like it's built into your life. So I'll play the example of. You know, when I, every morning when I wake up to, you know, start my day, I go to the bathroom, I brush my teeth as I'm brushing my teeth, I will bo pre boose for my breakfast and it no longer feels like this added thing that I have to do. Like I have to count my carbs and take my insulin. It's just, this is just a natural part of my day. And I think that the more we can create these systems, the less mental energy goes into our diabetes management and we can put that energy else.

Katie: 23:52

Okay. So would you, would you say that's kind of similar to like just tying it to the routines you already have in place in your daily life?

Lissie: 23:59

Yeah. So when it comes to anchoring, it's just tying a new habit onto a preexisting behavior. So anything that you're already doing subconsciously in your day, whether it's, yeah, brushing your teeth, brewing your pot of coffee, maybe it's just taking your food out of the oven, whatever it is, like you can attach a new habit onto that and it can just become a new part of your.

Katie: 24:18

Okay. I like that. Okay. Good. All right. Number four.

Lissie: 24:21

Okay, number four the power of the 1% will get you further in the long run. So I struggled a lot and a lot of my clients have as well with that kind of all or nothing mentality, just kinda like we were talking about earlier. And instead, my new focus is how can I improve my blood sugar is 1% or how can I just show up, you know, how can I commit to one thing that will allow me to. Either improve 1% or you know, feel 1% better than yesterday, and sometimes it looks like going and doing a working workout. Sometimes it's just pre bulling for 10 minutes, and that can look different from day to day. But I definitely think it will get you further in the long run than just going from zero to a hundred and kind of going through that burnout period.

Katie: 25:03

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Setting small. I'm a physical therapist and I, that sounds like goal setting to me. You know, and you never wanna overwhelm people with these giant goals. You wanna start small, small, attainable goals, All right. Let's talk about number five.

Lissie: 25:13

Number five. So again, kind of like I was saying, kind of similar to that all or nothing approach, but I focus on adding in to increase predictability for my blood sugars. So for so long I was taught or told or had that belief that I had to take away from my blood sugars. I had to take away certain foods, I had to take away certain activities or x, y, and. And instead now I've changed my mindset or my thought process to what can I add in to support my blood sugars? So again, sometimes it's adding in different foods, it's adding in fiber to my meal to slow things down. Sometimes it's adding in a walk. Sometimes it's adding in a five minute pre bowl or glass of water. It can always look different, but I definitely take more of that approach of how can I add in to feel better rather than take away and feel more mentally re restricted.

Katie: 26:01

Yeah, that's, that's great. That's great. And there's such a mental shift there, right? Like, cuz as soon as you take something away from somebody, like we just were talking about, like they just wanted all the more, so adding things in sounds, sounds way better. Way gentler.

Lissie: 26:13

yeah,

Katie: 26:13

Well, thank you. I know I asked you for five, and I don't know if you have more than five, but

Lissie: 26:18

I could go on and

Katie: 26:19

uh, yeah.

Lissie: 26:20

think

Katie: 26:21

Yeah. That's a great place to start.

Lissie: 26:22

Yeah. We have our podcast, our blog, our Instagram. There's so much on there. So if you, I think if anybody listening takes the add in approach or wants to have more, a restriction free mindset, that's the place to look.

Katie: 26:34

Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah, and I will link to all of that in the show notes. I'll link to your website and I mean, really you can find, you can find all the links to everything right from there, you know, links to social media and links to your podcast. And what's, what's the name of your podcast?

Lissie: 26:47

Keep you hundred radio.

Katie: 26:49

That's right. Keeping it 100 radio. Okay. Very good. Yes, definitely go check it out. so we talked about, you know, just day to day top five tips, kind of managing blood sugars. What about keeping our sanity and, and they're probably very closely related, but do you have any good tips and tricks for caregivers out there or people living with type one just to maintain your sanity as you manage this disease? You know, every day.

Lissie: 27:13

Yeah, and I can't speak from the perspective of a caregiver, and I give, I give you guys so much credit because I know, I mean, the best, I was diagnosed when I was 19, like I had mentioned, and I think the biggest part of the blessing of that was that my parents could support me, but they didn't have to be as hands-on. And maybe that's just my personal perspective of, you know, Being grateful for that part of it. But I've worked with a lot of parents and people that live with diabetes for 20 plus years, that they always had their parents a part of the process. And I think when it comes down to it, like one, I think. just for the, the, your, your child, and as they grow up with diabetes, I think including them in the process of that decision making and handing them down that skillset, I think is one the most important thing. But I think also to your point of keeping your sanity, giving yourself the biggest credit because you are taking on the role of somebody else's pancreas. And that's a hard task to do. And at the end of the day, like you are putting in the work, and I just want, I don't want anybody. dismissed how much that means because I know, again, all the support that I've had on an external level, nothing, nothing compares to that, and I just know how much of that takes up your mental space and your like your day and maybe. Your CH child can't acknowledge that right now. They don't understand it right now, but I know that in 10, 15 years they absolutely will. So give yourself that grace and, you know, share the sh I always say like delegate the workload a little bit. It is almost like a job. So even if it's delegating, like to me, my mom, she always she always carries around an extra juice spots in her purse, even if we live an hour away now. But she'll always carry that juice spots in her purse. And to me, That's really alleviating a lot of that mental load of the, the what if, like, do I have to carry this? And same thing for the caregivers. You know, feel free to pass on some of that, that workload because you're carrying so much on behalf of your child. And that's, that's a big, that's a big load to carry. So yeah, feel free to, I just feel like treat it like a job, delegate it out where you can and allow other people to be part of the process.

Katie: 29:18

Yeah, that's great advice. I know I've recently started teaching Sarah and I, I do most of it still, but like for, we've just started with one snack a day. She measures everything out herself like, you know, weighs it on our, on our scale, which. we don't weigh everything. Obviously some things have nutrition labels with, with card counts and stuff, but you know, things like fruit or if it needs to be weighed, if there's not a a label. So she's taken on more of that, which is, it's funny, I mean it's literally the snack that she eats when she gets home from school. But it is funny how much of a break that provides me, like a little mental break like that. She's just taking over this one, one snack. It's really nice. And she's learning to, you know, she's figuring it out on her own, like how to switch the scale to grams or ounces or whatever it is. So teaching her little life lessons along the way.

Lissie: 30:04

Oh,

Katie: 30:04

thank you. thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for, Just sharing, you know, your approach with the listeners and you're gonna be back next week. We're gonna talk about exercise and just how to keep things set, hopefully steady and stable while we, while we exercise and get some movement. So I'm looking forward to that. But before we go I already kind of mentioned where people can find you, but if there's another link that you wanna share, by all means or is there anything else you wanna share with listeners in.

Lissie: 30:32

No, I think we covered a lot and I'm, I'm really excited. Thank you again for having me. Anything, if you search just needles and spoons, uh.com or on Instagram, needles and spoons, underscore, you can find me there and we have all of our links there. But I really appreciate you having me on. This is really fun.

Katie: 30:46

Yeah, I enjoyed it too. I really love chatting with you. Thank you so much.

Lissie: 30:50

Of course. Thank you.

Katie: 30:55

That's it for our show today. Again, Lissie, thank you so very much for coming on. I loved our chat. I can't wait to have you back next week. Again, check out the links in the show notes, there you will find the needles and spoons website. Where you can access all the resources that Lizzie and her team have to offer. And of course, you'll be able to find where you can follow Lissy on social media. I'm also going to leave a link to a suite blog post that goes over the spoon theory. I really liked that visual or that metaphor or whatever you want to call it. And if you want to read a little bit more about it and where it came from. Check out the links in the show notes. All right. You guys have a fabulous week. Like I said, Lissy, we'll be back next week to talk about exercise and how we can keep blood sugar stable while we get our bodies moving. But until then stay calm and bolus on bye.