The Simple Fix for Post-Meal Spikes in Type 1 Diabetes

SHOW NOTES: We’ve spent a week and a half in the problem, the spike, the loop, the fear. Today the sun comes out. Neil turns the corner to the fix, and it’s almost annoyingly simple: your food is fast and your insulin is slow, and when they start at the same time, the food wins the first hour. The fix isn’t more insulin or better carb counting. It’s timing.

You give the insulin a small head start so it’s awake by the time the food arrives. Same dose, same dinner, different clock. That’s the whole name of the challenge, The Head Start. Neil keeps the science for next week and instead leaves you with hope: the early low you’ve been afraid of is a timing-and-preparation problem, and those can be solved.

In this episode:

The one-sentence reason you spike after meals
Why the fix is timing, not more insulin or new gear
What “The Head Start” actually means for your dinner
Why the fear of the early low is a solvable problem

This Week’s Challenge: Notice the GAP. How long between when you dose and your first actual bite at dinner? For a lot of us, it’s zero. Just clock it.

Helpful resources and newsletter

Connect with Neil: TikTok | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Website

Books on Amazon: Type 1 Diabetes – One Day at a Time | Type 1 Diabetes – True Stories

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(252)

When You're Already High

A scene from Neil's actual life: an airport layover, a stubborn high from hours of travel sitting, and one man doing laps past the same Cinnabon so many times the employees start whispering. This epis...

2 Okt 5min

Walking With Insulin Still Working

The fear episode, faced head-on. The couch was never the real reason people with type 1 diabetes move less. The real reason is the low. So this is the safety net, built from the top shelf: the interna...

30 Sep 8min

Muscle Is Medicine // Strength Training with Type 1 Diabetes (Alex St. John, MSc)

Alex St. John is six foot five, about 295 pounds, and three years into serious lifting when type 1 diabetes showed up mid-semester of his kinesiology degree, at a blood sugar of 504. His response was ...

28 Sep 53min

"Snack" Before You Eat

The graduate seminar of movement snacks, with the loudest safety caveat of the month. A 2014 study in Diabetologia coined the term exercise snacks: short, brisk bursts of movement a few minutes BEFORE...

25 Sep 6min

The After-Dinner Ten

Meet Neil's walking partner: Cora, a 5.9-pound senior Morkie whose hips don't lie and whose top speed is best described as eventually. Every evening, Neil, his wife Gina, and Cora take the after-dinne...

23 Sep 5min

You Don't Need The Gym

Somebody sold all of us the same lie: that getting active means a membership, an hour a day, and a personality transplant. This episode formally cancels that belief system with receipts. Look at the e...

21 Sep 5min

The Movement "Snack"

For once, a study on our actual people. Published in 2026 in Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics: adults with type 1 diabetes on insulin pumps sat for six hours straight on one lab day, and on anothe...

18 Sep 5min

Three Short Walks Beat One Long Walk

Stop looking for 45 free minutes. They don't exist, and it turns out they were never the assignment. A 2013 Diabetes Care study by Loretta DiPietro compared one 45-minute walk against three 15-minute ...

16 Sep 5min