Do you want to learn everything I know about diabetes, exercise, and nutrition?
The Fit With Diabetes eBook is your chance to get your hands on over 80 pages of knowledge, techniques, and tools to set yourself up for success living with diabetes.
After reading this book you’ll have the knowledge to:
- Set realistic diabetes, health, and fitness goals
- Manage your food and insulin around workouts to limit high and low blood sugar
- Successfully manage your weight with diabetes
- Create healthy meal plans that won’t cause havoc on your blood sugar (or use the meal plan in the book)
- Create an exercise plan that is right for you (examples of beginner and advanced plans in the book)
Is the Fit With Diabetes eBook right for you?
I wrote the Fit With Diabetes eBook to share my knowledge of how to exercise and eat healthily with insulin-dependent diabetes. This is knowledge that I think is essential if you manage your diabetes with insulin – no matter if you use a pump, pen, needle or inhalable insulin.
If you don’t use insulin, parts of this book will not be relevant to you.
Note: The book is based on my popular Fit With Diabetes Challenges and some of the content is freely available on Diabetes Strong. If you don’t want to buy the book, try searching the website for the information you need.
What people are saying about the book
“Fit with Diabetes is a must-read for anyone who works out and uses insulin, especially if you’re looking for a wealth of practical experience and personal insight into how to become as fit and healthy as possible with type 1 diabetes.”
~ Dr. Sheri Colberg (T1D and author of The Diabetic Athlete’s Handbook)”
“This eBook is not only incredibly friendly and easy to read, it’s also loaded with real-world, practical blood sugar management knowledge and guidance for any type of exercise…from Christel who actually has type 1 diabetes!”
~ Ginger Vieira (T1D)
Why I wrote this book
I’m Christel Oerum, I’ve been living with type 1 diabetes since 1997 and am the co-founder of Diabetes Strong. The Fit With Diabetes eBook is based on my experience as a fitness professional living with diabetes as well as all the scientific information I’ve researched.
I wanted to write this book because everybody living with diabetes should have access to the knowledge of how to successfully exercise and eat healthily with diabetes. My motto is “there is nothing you can’t do with diabetes – as long as you have the right tools and knowledge”.
I promise that when you’re done reading this book, you’ll have a good base knowledge of the main themes when it comes to diabetes, exercise and nutrition, and the tools to be successful, not just now, but in the future as well.
I really love your real time, actual heavy breathing, sweating, motivational video workouts~they can be done….this is CNN my 2nd ur for the diabetes challenge…this year has put me a tad behind due to Ménière’s disease setbacks, but having the tools & motivation of this challenge, gives me smthn to strive-look forward to every day…thx for putting the educational/instructional info out there for one & all.****
Simone
I’m 49…I have T2D since 2014 & this is my 2nd year for the challenge…just wanted to hve things spelled correctly…I noticed some of my previous msg was a tad bit confusing…
Simone
You’re good, don’t worry about it
🙂 I’m so glad you appreciate it. Keeping it real
Hello Cristel. I am a 53 year old diabetic (of 43 years) and doing pretty well, all in all. I have generally eaten well throughout my life and have been active. However, in the past five years or so, I have gained about 30 lbs. Prior to this, I had no weight issues whatsoever. I’ve been tested for thyroid issues, and have none. I am now in menopause, and definitely noticed changes during premenopause with my blood sugar control and hormone fluctuations. I feel I am doing better with my control, but the weight isn’t budging. Can your help recommend some tools to assist me with weight management? Would your book address weight loss for older females? I generally do better with lower carb plans (keeping insulin needs down), but feel deprived if I don’t have ANY carbs, so keto isn’t for me. Thank you in advance for any information you can provide. (BTW, I walk about 3 miles a day, do Pilates twice a week and weight train three other days). Thank you!
Hi Leslie – getting older can really be tiresome sometimes 🙁 Since you have been tested for metabolic issues my guess is that it’s your menopause that has lead to the weight gain. It’s annoying I know, and the only real thing to do is reduce your calorie intake and/or increase your activity. I’d highly recommend implementing a combination of cardio and resistance training but the amount will depend on your body. As for the book, it does not address hormonal changes/menopause as such so it might not be the right resource for you. I’ve taken some training on hormonal training and honestly, it’s a little inconclusive so I would suggest you try out different strategies (with a focus on nutrition and exercise) and adjust from there
Hi, my granddaughter, who is 10 recently had been diagnosed with type 1, after months of her parents doing everything correctly , she’s still having to inject large doses of insulin and her glucose levels are very high and low.
Will this booklet help her or is she too young to benefit from this approach.
Very concerned Grandma.
I don’t think this would be the right information for what you’re looking for. Since she has type 1 diabetes she will always have to take insulin and it will take some time to learn. I’d suggest you look into Gary Scheiner’s “Think Like A Pancreas” instead
Hi Christel
I’m in the U.K., and started running last year; would the info in your book be helpful. I’ve had T1D for 25 years 😊
It depends on what specifically you’re looking for. The book is more on general exercise but of course, also addresses BG and cardio. Scroll down and check out the table of content, that should give you a good idea of what’s in the book. If it’s not there, try doing a search for what you’re looking for here on the site. If still no luck, let me know and it might be something we should add to the site
Hi Beth,
My name is Faranak and I have been having type 1 for almost 30 years, since I was 2.5 years old.
Based on my personal experience, I find managing my glucose level still challenging after all these years. Personally, I would focus on getting less lows as they will have instant damages to the brain.
One thing that helped me a lot managing my blood sugar rollercoasters, was to check it for at least 4-5 times a day or get a continuous Blood Sugar Monitor to see the trends.
Since your granddaughter is very young and active and started to get into a new lifestyle and diet, some days she might need more insulin dosage (like today which is Halloween 😉 ) and some days when she is extra active, she needs much less. She won’t know instantly unless if she monitors her blood sugar trends continuously.
Again based on my personal experience, if her health insurance allows, I recommend switching to insulin pump with continuous blood sugar monitor as it’s perfect to have an external system to alert you on highs and lows to make adjustments and it makes you do your carb ratio more precisely.
Hope my personal tips were useful 🙂
I paid for the ebook and did not get the download
Hi Rachel, you should have received an email with a download link. If you didn’t get it, please check your spam folder and then email contact@diabetesstrong.com if you still can’t find it. Then we will email the eBook to you directly.
Hi there,
First of all thanks for the lovely ebook that you have created. I am a 32-YO woman who was diagnosed with type 1 when I was 2.5 YO.
About 6 months ago I switched to pump from traditional pen injection and even tho I started being more active (walk for 1-1.5 hours per day and go to gym twice a week), I have gained 10 lbs give that I don’t see any change in my appetite.
I appreciate if you have some feedback on what I can do to manage this situation as it has been very difficult and frustrating for me.
PS, I take metformin and inject Victoza in addition to my pump injections and have a hypothyroidism.
Thank you, I’m so glad you found it helpful.
The first thing would be to talk to your doctor and see if your hypothyroidism is managed optimally. Next, and you probably read about this in the book, I’d suggest you have a look at your nutrition and see if it needs to be dialed in somewhat.
If it’s indeed fat you’ve gained, probably not all 10 lbs. are muscle, there’s somehow a mismatch in how many calories you take in versus how many you burn
Thank you for your reply.
Yes I keep checking my A1C and my thyroid hormones every 3 months and there is no significant change in my T3, T4 and TSH hormones for the past 3 years.
Regarding my nutrition, I don’t drink any kinds of soda and no caffeinated drinks. I barely eat rice or white breads and generally have rye or whole wheat bread as they seem to not mess with my blood sugar as much. My food generally is consisted of chicken, turkey or fish (not a big fan of red meat), cheese, veggies such as arugula, kale, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, nuts mainly walnuts (not so much and just in the morning with my breakfast mostly), plain or non-fat yoghurt.
I always had/have a hard time with loosing wight because of my diabetes and thyroid issues but ever since I switched to insulin pump, this cycle seems to be inevitable to change and I am very frustrated. So wanted to see if you have heard from other people who have switched to insulin pump or not.
Thanks again for your insights and powerful tips you provide, as a long time type 1 diabetes patient, I find them very helpful 🙂
I’m a type 1 diabetic and I was diagnosed in 2012. I’m struggling and need help with it. At first I was wrongly diagnosed as a type 2. I need better tools in order to do better.
I’m glad to hear that you now have the right diagnosis but continuously frustrated with how many get misdiagnosed. Depending on your needs you can find support online and in-person (try looking up local ADA or JDRF groups if you’re in the US). If you’re looking for support outside your doctor’s office I do offer coaching (details and prices HERE)
I am age 35 diagnose of type 1 diabetes, place on insulin but the insulin is causing edeama for me is there alternative. Am also experiencing distinction in my abdomen and doctor is saying Pancreatitis is there medication for Pancreatitis or advice.
There is no alternative to insulin. What you can talk with your doctor about is trying one of the other brands of insulin. They are all similar but some people don’t react well to one insulin but will do better with others.