How to Embrace Your Favorite Self with T1D: Lasting Change Takes Time & Consistency
- Julia Flaherty
- Dec 1, 2025
- 5 min read
If there’s one thing I’ve learned after more than two decades with type 1 diabetes (T1D), it’s this: the version of yourself you’re chasing doesn’t need to be perfect. They need to be someone you can live with.
Someone you feel safe with.
Someone who doesn’t burn you out.
Someone who understands that life with a chronic illness doesn’t run on clean lines or neat percentages.
Your “favorite” self—the one you actually enjoy being around—isn’t the one who nails every bolus or wakes up in range five days in a row. Your favorite self is the one who can handle the noise of diabetes without turning against themselves every time something goes sideways.
The version of you that leans into your disease instead of resisting it.
The one who works with diabetes, not against it.
That’s the work.
And most of the time, it’s quiet work.
Life doesn’t pause for diabetes, and diabetes doesn’t pause for life
There’s this old narrative many of us grew up with: that managing diabetes meant wrestling it into order, making it behave, forcing it into a shape that fits the rest of your plans.
But that approach only lasts so long before your body pushes back.
The truth is: you can’t strong-arm your way into stable blood sugars.
You can’t punish yourself into routines that don’t fit your bandwidth.
You can’t shame yourself into change.
Working against your body only makes the hard days harder.
Working with it—that’s where things shift.
And “working with it” doesn’t mean surrender.
It means honesty:
Noticing the patterns you pretend aren’t there.
Acknowledging the burnout instead of waiting for it to pass on its own.
Giving your body some grace when hormones, stress, weather, exercise, or absolutely nothing explain what’s happening.
Being willing to start small instead of swinging for a life overhaul you can’t maintain.
Your favorite self is built from that kind of honesty.
Stop trying to outrun the highs & lows
One of the biggest lies we’re sold is that the “ideal person with diabetes” barely has fluctuations. That if you try hard enough, you’ll stay in range most of the time, and life will feel smooth.
I don’t know a single person with T1D who lives that way—not sustainably.
The highs & lows don’t make you a “bad diabetic.”
They make you a human being managing a condition that literally changes by the hour.
Living with diabetes isn't normal. It's crazy we're out here doing this!
When you lean into your favorite self, you stop viewing every fluctuation as a personal failure.
A high is information.
A low is information.
A stubborn pattern is information.
Your favorite self knows how to respond without spiraling.
Not perfectly. Not calmly every time.
But consistently enough that you don’t lose trust in yourself.
That trust is the part most people skip over.
It’s also the part that keeps everything together.
Change takes time—and if it doesn’t, it probably won’t last
There’s a lot of pressure to change everything at once. Especially around a new year, a birthday, a setback, or one of those weeks where everything feels out of control.
But real change isn’t fast.
Fast change rarely sticks.
The things that actually improve life with diabetes—better routines, steadier habits, clearer boundaries, and healthier coping strategies—grow slowly. Almost uncomfortably slowly.
Sometimes the most minor shift makes the most significant difference:
Drinking water before you start your day.
Checking your blood sugar before you feel forced to.
Adding ten minutes of movement without trying to turn it into a 60-minute workout.
Eating earlier so you aren’t battling your blood sugar at midnight.
Giving yourself space to be frustrated instead of pretending you’re fine.
None of this is glamorous.
But this is the work that holds.
Let your body teach you instead of fighting it every step of the way
For years, I tried to outsmart my body.
Out-plan it.
Out-discipline it.
Out-loud it.
That only made the lows feel scarier, and the highs feel more personal.
The turning point came when I started paying attention to what my body was actually asking for, rather than forcing it into routines that looked good on paper but didn’t align with my reality.
Working with your body looks like:
Adjusting your expectations instead of ignoring the obvious.
Letting yourself rest without calling it “being lazy.”
Recognizing that resentment is a sign you’re pushing too hard.
Being curious about your patterns rather than judgmental.
Your body isn’t the enemy.
It’s the narrator of your day.
And it’s constantly giving you information that can make life easier if you’re willing to listen.
Your favorite self is built from repetition, not reinvention
There’s this idea that transformation requires a dramatic moment — a reset, a revelation, a rock bottom, a big decision.
But most of the time, it’s much simpler than that.
Change comes from doing the same small thing again and again until it stops feeling like effort and starts feeling like you.
Checking your CGM before a meeting.
Packing snacks even when you think you won’t need them.
Logging your workouts so you start seeing patterns you missed before.
Eating meals that don’t send you into chaos.
Saying “no” to things that drain you.
These small choices don’t create a perfect version of you.
But they help build a reliable one.
A version of you that doesn’t feel like they’re constantly putting out fires.
A version of you that knows how to recover from the challenging moments without losing their footing. A version of you that doesn’t collapse every time life gets loud.
That’s your favorite self.
The one who knows how to live with diabetes, not around it or against it.
The one who holds you up confidently and embraces you like a warm hug.
The goal isn’t to become someone new — it’s to grow into someone steady
You don’t need to become a different person to take better care of yourself.
You don’t need to reinvent your life to feel grounded again.
You don’t need a milestone to start over.
Most of what you need, you already have:
Your lived experience
Your awareness
Your instincts
Your resilience
Your ability to try again, even when you don’t want to
Your favorite self is already in the room with you.
You need to practice choosing them.
Not once.
Not perfectly.
But consistently enough that life starts to feel a little more spacious.
A little less frantic.
A little more supportive.
And if you happen to want someone walking alongside you while you figure that out — that’s where coaching becomes powerful. Not because it fixes you, but because it helps you stay accountable to the version of yourself you actually like.
Someone who can hold the rope with you while you learn how to live with the highs, the lows, and everything in between.
