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#713 Rage Rucking

Podcast Episodes

The Juicebox Podcast is from the writer of the popular diabetes parenting blog Arden's Day and the award winning parenting memoir, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Dad'. Hosted by Scott Benner, the show features intimate conversations of living and parenting with type I diabetes.

#713 Rage Rucking

Scott Benner

Adam has type 1 diabetes and loves a a good ruck.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon MusicGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio PublicAmazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 713 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode, yeah, today's episode we'll try that again. On today's episode, I'll be speaking with Adam. He is an adult living with type one diabetes, and he likes to carry heavy things on his back. I think that about covers it. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you're an adult living with type one diabetes who is a US resident or the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry. Take the survey help people living with type one diabetes support the podcast, this entire effort to take you fewer than 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes to help podcast that you like people that you have a lot in common with and might find out some stuff for yourself. T one D exchange.org forward slash juicebox

this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn Find out more at G voc glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. today's podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one and their big event is coming up on August 27 in Orlando, Florida. So check it out at touched by type one.org and The podcast is also sponsored today by us med get your diabetes supplies from us med all you have to do to get started is go to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 When you do that, you'll be able to get your free benefits check and get going us med.com forward slash juice box.

Adam 2:21
My name is Adam Rucker, which is just interesting to say out loud to people for the first time when I meet them. But yeah, my name is Adam and I live in Cleveland and I like carrying heavy.

Scott Benner 2:36
So it is not that you went to Rutgers University to get your degree.

Adam 2:40
No. So that's Rutgers that has a T in it. Yes.

Scott Benner 2:43
So this is rucking basically you like to walk places, but carry heavy stuff on your back while you're doing it.

Adam 2:50
That's correct. Yeah. I mean, in the whole evolution of that whole hobby sport pastime, it's the same concept is jogging, or going for a run the differences I think running sucks. So I want to get the same cardio workout without the added oh my god I've got to run because I don't want to run. So rucking it is where you just use strap on some heavy weight on your back and you go for a walk, which is easy to do. And you can do a bunch of friends, which is what I typically do.

Scott Benner 3:18
What is the word like what's the etymology of the word?

Adam 3:23
Also think about military jargon. When they're humping a rock, meaning they're carrying their rock, Scott ammunition, rations, Mr. E's, that kind of stuff. And they've got to go over distance to cover some ground either infiltrate or exfiltrate from a situation. A lot of times you do it on foot. And you know, the Special Forces are known for this type of thing, especially the army Green Berets. Because that's that's how they get there. They got to be as stealthy as possible sometimes. So if you can carry everything on your back, get in, get out. That's what the that is. And you know, a lot of times those guys to get to a place, you've got to go 2030 miles, get there, then go to work, and then get the hell out of there. So that's that's where it comes from is just a military background humping a rock in UK that kind of stuff. rucking or carrying a ruck is what kids carry to school. They're just backpacks. United States we call them backpacks, but over there, they call them rocks, you know, German word, God's rucksack, that kind of thing.

Scott Benner 4:29
I only think of the actor Alan Rock who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when I hear the word.

Adam 4:35
Well, he's also a great rock. I mean, I mean in in if you want to put that in context of rucking, but Ellen rock would do is put it back back on then carry the Jaguar back instead of just running it backwards.

Scott Benner 4:52
Do you think we're now in Rock has sex he calls it?

Adam 4:56
No. Oh, he's definitely rocking for sure. Hey, he

Scott Benner 4:58
thinks he calls it rocking.

Adam 5:00
He probably does. He's probably got a style and everything. And yeah.

Scott Benner 5:05
Terrible pickup line in the bar?

Adam 5:08
Or is it a family reunion? I'm going rucking. It's

Scott Benner 5:10
great. Hi, how are you? Would you like to go rocking? Alright, so you're on the podcast? Because I did I actually asked for people who have like, interesting and odd hobbies at some point.

Adam 5:23
Yeah, oh, yeah, you're looking for type one diabetics that have interesting hobbies. And so I sent you an email. With a picture. I think it was a picture of my back carrying a rock and an added weight of something. And I said, I kind of do this. You're like, let's do it.

Scott Benner 5:39
Cool. Yeah, that counts for sure. I mean, it's so it's just an intense workout that sort of been turned into? I mean, do you do it? I guess my question is, like, Do you have a bunch of friends that you get together with and do it? Or is it if you belong to a group that does it? Do you do it by yourself?

Adam 5:58
Yeah, I mean, all of the above. So I got into it, trying to make like a lifestyle change. I needed to lose some weight. So I decided I was going to try and like I was going to train to do the Murph because I saw John Krasinski post on his Instagram that he did it, I'm like, the dude from the office did that, why can't I do it. And at the time, I was extremely heavy, really overweight. So I'm like, I'm gonna train for that. So I started training that training for that kind of honor a friend of mines brother who'd passed away. So I was gonna do that. And during that time of training for it, I became, I was diagnosed as type one diabetic few years ago. So I'm like, I got to, I can't do the Murph right now, because I was so weak from being sugar, so high, your muscle density goes, and I need to do something. So I'm like, I'm gonna go, I looked up other kinds of crazy stuff. And I saw someone posted, they're doing a wrecking event in Pittsburgh. So I'm like, I'm gonna go do that. It was just the concept was get a rock or a backpack, put weight in it, have the list of things we want you to bring, and we're gonna, you know, walk you through some workouts, which I'm like, Okay, that sounds like fun. And you got to train for that. So I just threw some weight in a backpack, at the time was just like a laptop bag. And I just started walking around the block. And that was just by myself just trying to figure out, I'm going to show up to this event. And I got to kind of be ready for that. So I'm like, I just gotta at least be able to put some miles on with weight on my back, because my legs are weak, my back's weak, my arms are weak. So you started slow, work your way up. And now I'm part of a whole community of people. Like every city kind of has like a wrecking Club, which is kind of fostered by a company called go rock that kind of makes specialized equipment for these types of things, their military style. Events, were either led by someone from the Special Forces, a Special Forces veteran. And they kind of build that bridge from a civilian, who thought, Oh, I wonder what was like to be in the military, but didn't want to actually go to the military, you can kind of get a taste of it. And what it is, is there there are veterans, Special Forces, veterans, kind of giving back some of their knowledge about pushing through, you know, adversity, a lot of times that adversity is going to be just physical limitations, pain, things like that. So you just kind of learn how to push through it. And it kind of grows, you kind of dip your toe in the water, and either you get all the way in, or you get all the way up, and I happen to get all the way in.

Scott Benner 8:33
Gotcha. Hey, so All right, let's go. Let's move like this. Then. How old are you now?

Adam 8:39
I'm 41. All right,

Scott Benner 8:41
you cut out for a second, but 41 is the answer. Right? Yeah. I'm 41. Yes. Diagnosed how long ago?

Adam 8:47
I was 37. And I was diagnosed 2018

Scott Benner 8:53
At that point, are you married? You have children? Are you single?

Adam 8:56
I've gotten married with four kids. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 8:58
She's easy. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. Sounds like you're pretty good at rocking. You don't I mean,

Adam 9:07
just time away from the kids. It's great.

Scott Benner 9:09
So any other autoimmune your life prior to that, or since?

Adam 9:15
I mean, part of that, at the time, vitiligo was not being called an autoimmune disease, but I've had that since I was a small child. Now, it's kind of considered an autoimmune disease with at least they figured out how it causes it more now. So I guess that was my first autoimmune disease, and then type one diabetes, obviously then, since I've developed Hashimotos disease, which really threw a wrench in kind of this whole energy thing. So okay, now I'm still still kind of getting under the umbrella of that right now.

Scott Benner 9:44
We'll get to that. So you're you're at 37 You said you were you consider yourself overweight? Like had you been? Yeah, I

Adam 9:51
was. I was three. I was 300 pounds. Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 9:54
Were you like nine feet? I was big. How tall are you? No, I'm about six foot why? Wow, okay, that's still probably looks significant on you then.

Adam 10:04
Yeah, it was pretty significant. I saw a picture of myself sitting next to my childhood best friend when I sold them a car and I go, man, that's big. So now that's kind of what's, what's that?

Scott Benner 10:16
I'm sorry, you cut out a little bit so confused me. But did you start out as a bigger person? Or did you kind of I was gonna say grow into it, but this, but did it happen?

Adam 10:27
If you looked at pictures of me through high school in my early 20s, I was a skinny tall guy, okay. And then, you know, circumstances happen mental health happens. fell into a depression the year 2012 was a pretty significant bad year for me. So it was like that year kind of started growing and growing and growing. And then fast forward, you know, four or five years later, you will look down go to the doctor for the first time in a few years. So like, yeah, the first number on your way to three. Right? That's you that's wakes you up a little bit. And that's kind of what happened with me as it

Scott Benner 11:01
was happening. Were you aware unaware unable to care? Like what was your mind?

Adam 11:07
I just I just didn't care. I mean, I was just in a severely dark the depression because I had lost a job dealing with fat money was tight. I mean, my wife had you know, we're newlyweds at that point with just one one child and a second one just was brought into the picture. So it was just one of those things where, you know, personal life was in turmoil outside of my marriage then it just was it was a crazy 2012 And then as I started kind of like getting my mojo back, I started a job that was significantly not good for the waistline because you worked in office you ate when you could you ate as much crap as you could because that's the only thing you could find. So it was just a blossoming of of circumstances that put you up there in our was only thing I noticed was I kept having to buy bigger pants, but not a ton bigger like oh, this year I'm gonna be wearing a one size bigger than I was last year. No big deal.

Scott Benner 12:07
Okay. All right. So at some point does does your diabetes come before you're like kind of awakening about your weight? Or does the weight do you start working on your weight before you get diabetes? Adam, you're gone aren't you? Sorry. Are you there? No. Hey, you were gone for a second. Are you back? Can you hear me? He does not hear me. If I hear you now, that's not the song. This is definitely where the ads gonna end up.

G voc hypo pan has no visible needle, and is a premixed auto injector of glucagon for treatment of very low blood sugar. In adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Find out more go to Jeeva glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit Jivaro glucagon.com/risk us med is the place where I think you might want to get your diabetes supplies from us med.com forward slash juicebox call 888-721-1514 Either way you want to do that is a great way to get your free benefits check from us med here's what you're gonna get from us med they are the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. The number one specialty distributor from the pot dash, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide. They're where we got our hands on the pod five from they're also the number one rated distributor index com customer satisfaction surveys. And they've served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996. US med has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. They accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers. US med always provides 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. So if you're looking for a place to get your diabetes supplies, including the libre two and the Dexcom, G six, you're looking for us med 88087211514 or online at us med.com forward slash juicebox.

Okay, what was my question? My question was, did you start thinking about weight loss prior to diabetes or to diabetes happened prior to weight loss thinking?

Adam 14:57
So I started losing weight before Were diabetes, because like I said, I was 300 pounds, high blood pressure, the whole gamut. A lot of things are happening. So I knew I need to lose weight. And my brother, my younger brother also was kind of a bigger person. And he kind of hit a mark where he's like, changing my whole life. And I kind of hit that point as well. It just started, you know, finding ways to work out it was first passively just changing up diet a little bit.

Scott Benner 15:24
Yeah, Adam. Hey, you're from your noisy. Sorry, man. No, don't be sorry. We gotta move your phone somewhere.

Adam 15:33
myself back down in my closet downstairs. My office. I thought it was just a Wi Fi issue. So I went next to my Wi Fi. How's that?

Scott Benner 15:40
I don't know. When you're talking. I'm getting a tapping behind your voice. It's electronic tapping, so I don't know what it is. And if you got probably too close to something.

Adam 15:50
Yeah, probably. How's it now?

Scott Benner 15:58
To wait to get settled. Try it again. How's it now? It's still there. Let me think so many people use their iPhone so successfully for this. Oh, it's not like, intrinsically that as a problem is what I mean. So I don't know. It was a new noise. I didn't hear it before.

Adam 16:26
Oh, sorry, man. I think I just I want them to close to my router. For Wi Fi signal. Just in case that was the issue, but it's all good.

Scott Benner 16:35
Okay, now you are somewhere pretty hollow. This is you're gonna kill me in a second. So

Adam 16:42
audio guy too, so it's gonna drive me nuts too.

Scott Benner 16:44
Did you move into a room where there's no carpeting or something like that?

Adam 16:49
Alright, you go. I just took off my Bluetooth that was echoing in my ears too. Okay, perfect. And turn off my speakerphone.

Scott Benner 16:55
All right, here we go. Let's stand perfectly still Adam and do this podcast. I'm sorry. I know. I interrupted you. You were in the middle of it. That's okay. How you how you started getting on top of? Yeah,

Adam 17:09
I mean, so the whole process of losing weight for me started with just changing up what I was eating, just volume of calories was going down. And I was losing significant amount of weight. I went from 300 pounds to 250. I would say in six months, wow, give or take. Just kind of changing that up. I worked at a job where I was moving around a lot. Like I would go you know, work at a car lot. So I was walking miles a day, just moving cars around things like that. So it was easy, because the physical activity was there. But it's mostly like just passively knowing I needed to eat better. Just pay attention to it.

Scott Benner 17:51
Yeah. Give me Give me an example of a meal before and a meal after.

Adam 17:58
Sure. So a meal before didn't care. I would go to Wendy's. For instance, for lunch at work. I would get a Baconator with a supersize, biggest rather head and a coke. And that was my lunch every day. That's probably a significant amount of days. Yes, not necessarily every day, but more days than not. In and then after it was, you know, I would still go out to eat because it's hard to bring your lunch to work when you're not sure where to eat. But I would physically leave the building for lunch go somewhere, like eat on my own time. And there was a new, like a farmers market down the street that opened up, they had a great salad bar. So I just went over there and ate salads for lunch.

Scott Benner 18:39
And you didn't have any difficulty making the adjustment.

Adam 18:43
No, that's what's really weird for me, is when I decide to do something, I Don't dabble. I just do it. Like, oh, I'm going to do this. This is what I'm doing now. Cool. And it just make it a new habit. You know, they say what 21 days create a new habit. I try and do that like 10.

Scott Benner 19:00
So is it fair to say that prior to all this when you started when you hit your your dark spot that you almost were like diving into eating poorly, even though you probably weren't thinking about it that way. So you were kind of all in on that as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You don't like when it's Wednesday and then grab a salad. go for a jog on Thursday. It's like, one or the other?

Adam 19:24
For sure. Yeah. And that's definitely the

Scott Benner 19:26
case. I that makes sense. So So you knock off 50 pounds pretty quickly. But yeah, stunning. Does your wife mentioned it? Either way, well, well,

Adam 19:39
she got she would get really angry because my wife at this point, has given birth to kids. And the kids were not kind on her body. So she's been trying to in weight. You know, she developed a thyroid condition after the first one. So she had been trying to lose weight. She's having some difficulty and she sees me just Like, no problem, I decided to do it today. And no worries. You know, I just started doing it. And that probably frustrated her a little bit. Because she said that out loud.

Scott Benner 20:11
What thyroid condition did she get after the birth?

Adam 20:15
She got a hypo, hypo thyroid. Yeah. So she's having, you know, Synthroid and all that stuff. And, you know, and that plays with whole other issues, you know, iodine imbalances and vitamin stuff. And she's, she was just trying to at that time trying to get a grip on that. Yeah, she was having some difficulty. She seems to be eating out a bit now. But still having trouble with the whole weight loss thing. And that kind of goes along with it, too. You know?

Scott Benner 20:41
No, I hear that. Okay. So you're things are going your way. You're losing weight. You have a couple of kids. You got to pull it out of your darkness. And then Yep, diabetes.

Adam 20:53
Yeah, well, I hit gone in because I started seeing an endocrinologist for low testosterone. That was what my PCP identified as something that was a problem. Okay. So I started seeing an endocrinologist. As I started losing weight. I told her, Hey, this is my plan. So we can kind of do some tests, she wanted to figure out, why did I have such low testosterone? Besides the weight? You know, is there a physical problem? As CAT scans, MRIs, the whole nine yards at the brain? And she's like, well, let's, let's get together in February. And this is February of 2018. Sure, let's get together just for a checkup. And we'll kind of take a look at everything and see how it's going. And so, you know, six months goes by from that last appointment with her to my following appointment. And during that time, I started developing an insatiable thirst, like I was drinking a lot of water. But now I'm drinking 10x that amount, right? I was maybe drinking two or three bottles of water at work, because we give out bottles to our customers to drinking like 10 a day, like just a lot. And my PCP changed my blood pressure meds to include hydrochloric thiazides and he goes, this is gonna make your pee a little bit more like, Okay, well, I started taking it, I started paying more, and then it got more, and they got more. Let's start getting dehydrated, and then start waking up in the middle of night, having to pee so bad, but not being able to walk because your legs are so dehydrated. So I'm crawling to the bathroom. And this went on for months before I went and saw the endo again, to follow up on my a testosterone stuff. And she's like, we're gonna start testosterone because you're really low. She goes, there's anything else going on? I said, Yeah. I think my blood pressure meds are a little out of whack because they lost 70 pounds now. And she's like, Yeah, you've lost a considerable amount of weight. Good job. And, you know, I said, Yeah, but this is kind of happening to me. Now. She goes, Oh, tell me more. And I just started telling her how often I was getting up to pee how much water was drinking? And she's like, there's something going on. We don't know what. But there's something going on. Yeah. So she goes, I'm gonna order all this bloodwork. Go get it done. Well, the following week, I had my annual with my PCP with also at bloodwork so I decided I'm gonna let it wait a couple of weeks and then go do it all at once. So yeah, and when did blood work? They did like 1213 vials because they had all my annual stuff then a full panel for her. And then the next day, my my turret starts going off about all the blood tests I'm like completely failing from you know blood glucose a onesies to everything's just blown out of whack and, you know, they know calls you and says, you have an appointment today at one o'clock I go, No, my PCP appointments at seven tonight. She goes, Oh, this is the endocrinology office. You have an appoint with us today at one o'clock. Yeah. I just can't leave work. She goes, Well, your where your employer not let you go can working with Carly's ship, I get to work. They go. Do we need to call you an ambulance? They go. Oh, it's serious.

Scott Benner 23:56
I mean, an ambulance will get me out of here. Yes.

Adam 23:59
So I mean, I just went to my boss and said, Hey, I got I got these blood tests. They gotta go. I don't know what any of this means. But I'll be back. I think later. He's like, whatever. Yeah, so he went, they said she'd only go well, you're definitely diabetic. So they do the whole here's how to take your blood sugar, here's insulin. Here's a you know a ticket to go down to the bloodwork to see what type of you are because we don't know. You know, so that's when they figured out Oh, you're a type one. That was the next day. So

Scott Benner 24:28
question that might seem weird after all that but did you end up getting the testosterone replacement ever?

Adam 24:34
No. So once I got my E onesies in check in, got my blood control blood sugar and control everything even though everything my thyroid levels evened out. My testosterone evened out my lipids evened out like everything was fine once they figured that out. It was weird. Yeah, how long

Scott Benner 24:52
after the diagnosis did you get Hashimotos

Adam 24:56
so that was this past winter, like March of 2020 is when I went in for my annual they go, what's going on? She goes, you're kind of gaining weight pretty quick again. What do you is there anything going on like? Well, I work in health care in the middle of a pandemic, where I sell the number one treatment for COVID. So I'm a little stressed out. It's a little depressing working with old people who are literally passing away. So I'm like, I'm probably in a little bit of a depression. So that always makes you know, me gain weight. She goes, Yeah, but you know, that's not going to count for all of it. So let's, let's take a look. And I gave her some other symptoms, you know, just lethargy in general. So she looked it up, and my antibodies were through the roof. And she's like, You clearly have Hashimotos This is No, no ifs, ands or buts about it. So I have a Synthroid.

Scott Benner 25:47
Yeah. Okay, back in the first time, when you hit a kind of dark place. Can you look back before that and see any Hashimotos type symptoms back then?

Adam 25:58
Yeah, I mean, probably, probably a little bit. If I go back and look at my blood tests, my, my thyroid levels are always on the higher side of normal in general. I mean, for hypothyroid disease runs in my family, generations, you know, for as long as they could just like, my grandmother had it. My mom's got it, I've got it. And then my dad's side, probably the same. I don't know much about my dad's family medical history. But I'm sure we've got one or two people that had that same issue there, too.

Scott Benner 26:30
Yeah. Cuz it really made me wonder, as you started kind of building the story, if the first time this happened to you wasn't maybe a thyroid issue as well. And then perhaps it quieted down a little bit for a while. Yeah. Which I know, it's not a super technical term. But you know, I always wonder when you see people have wild swings in their, I don't know, just, you know, their personalities, energy weight, stuff like that. If if it isn't an imbalance, maybe an internal imbalance, and not just, you know, because we tend to think of it as like, I don't know how we think of it, you know, you see somebody who just starts acting differently, like he's having a bad day or a bad month, or something's going on. Right. But you know, there are delicate balances inside of your body. And when they move around, stuff goes wrong.

Adam 27:21
Yeah. I mean, in a lot of the times, like, I've always found my health issues in times of personal prices, right? Because the symptoms that I'm matching for physical symptoms, like lethargy, that kind of thing was always masked by, oh, I'm also in a really dark place otherwise, so is this depression? Or is this a physical problem? And having grown up with a with a mom and healthcare, you only went to the doctors if you're a die, right? You know, you, you got a bone sticking, like, I got hit in the head with a baseball bat crack my head wide open. And the neighbors called the ambulance. My mom's like, why would you call the ambulance just drive them to the hospital? But they didn't, she wasn't there. But you know, and then we wait, you know, that kind of thing. So it's, it's all of these things, your symptoms can be masked by external factors. Yeah. So a lot of times this could have gone unchecked for a lot longer. Had I not been in a bad mental place, I probably would have picked up on these a little fast, right.

Scott Benner 28:18
And stressful moments can also throw things into motion. You know, for sure. I think, actually, motors is a good example of that. Yeah. And so it's type one, to be perfectly honest. You know, you get into a bad you get into a bad spot and you start taxing your body. stress and stress and, and things that are on the verge of just holding together sometimes just kind of can't anymore.

Adam 28:44
Oh, for sure. I there's definitely some truth to that right definitely has to be some truth to that.

Scott Benner 28:49
So how did you find how to how did you find having diabetes had him was it? I asked that question, like you bought a new sofa? And I was like, how did you find it?

Adam 29:03
Yeah, well, I mean, it threw me through the gamut. Because now I'm like, What is this mean? I've had a good close friend of ours has been type one diabetic for a long time. So I've been exposed to it. I was there during a pretty horrific hypo that he was having where we had to call an ambulance. So I've seen the dark sides, and I've seen the good sides, right? My cousin's been living with it since he was two months old. So I've seen I've been exposed to it, but I've never paid much attention to it a few years ago. Someone that grew up with my mom, her son passed away from type one diabetes. So it was a big, like, I get it, I'm exposed. I see. It's out there. Now it affects me. So now I'm like hyper focused on okay. What do I do? So, I took it upon myself to start learning about what it is before I went to my diabetes education. I was given some pretty conservative treatment plans to start because As I lived my whole life without it, so they didn't want to throw me in deep. So I would get so overwhelmed. So they kind of eased me into this is Lantis This is how it works. This is human log, this is how it works. If your sugars here give you this and they kind of walk you through that first meeting. So I decided to look up. Okay, what does this mean? And I gamified everything, like, Okay, I'm gonna get my blood sugar's down, this is gonna be the thing. And I just focused on it. It gave me something to focus on. They gave me a little bit more of a better purpose. Because when you're reading about the side effects of having type one diabetes, neuropathy, that kind of thing scares the crap out of you. It really does. And I didn't want anything, just those things to happen. I've got friends with neuropathy, don't want to deal with it. Don't want to have it. So yeah, I just want to dive into it and learn as much as I could.

Scott Benner 30:52
Okay. Just a real quick question, cousin on whose side your mom's your dad's.

Adam 30:58
Mom's. Okay.

Scott Benner 31:01
So that cousin had type one for quite some time.

Adam 31:04
And you're almost dead. He was born and then all of a sudden, he was in hospital with in diabetic coma. Like it was a pretty big serious thing. So he was a baby when he was diagnosed. Gotcha. Okay, so yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 31:19
How did you start off with technology? Did you mean four years ago? Did you have a CGM pretty quickly a pump? How did you do it?

Adam 31:26
So my insurance was kind of a pain in the butt. When it came to that I had a one touch write off of the doctor's office and some quick pens. Within six months of me pricking my finger. I'm like, I need to get a Dexcom. But my first agency back after being you know, diagnosed diabetic was like 6.1. And for whatever threshold my insurance needed to get me one, I was below that. So my doctor was instrumental of doing all the, the appeals to get it all approved. And within within eight to 10 months, I was on CGM. Okay, which was awesome. And I denied the pump for at that point, because, for me, my problem with weight was, I was eating a lot. If I made it easier to eat, I would eat whatever I want. And I would get bigger yet. And that was my fear.

Scott Benner 32:20
So you thought Excel had a pump? You'd be like, Oh, snacking, it'll be easier. And that'll be good for me. Yeah.

Adam 32:26
Well, I knew that would be easier because I've got friends on pumps. I'd listen to the podcast at this point. Yeah. And life gets easier with a pump. I'm like, I need to make it still a little difficult for myself. And it was a wrecking event that changed my whole opinion on that. But that's another, we'll get to that,

Scott Benner 32:43
I'm sure. Yeah, we're definitely gonna get that. I just want to ask one follow up question around that. So do you consider a side of diabetes? Like, I don't know how to talk about stuff like this, but like, true, do you have an eating disorder?

Adam 32:57
I mean, maybe I'm going through, I'm talking with a nutritionist now about some of my things with food. And I grew up I grew up in a time in the 80s, where my mom had probably did, probably either anorexia or bulimia or both, whatever. And I've watched her deal with these yo yo diets. And I'm like, I'm not gonna deal with that. That is. So there's probably a little bit of that going on some body dysmorphia things because even when I lost I lost 100 pounds at this point, from just starting to lose weight to I'm a type one diabetic. I've lost 100 pounds. And I'm like, I still feel like I'm 300 pounds. You still feel big? So there's probably a little bit of that going on? For sure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 33:42
Cuz six feet, 200 pounds. I mean, if it's on your right, this, I mean, you're a bigger person at that point. But it's not big in a crazy way.

Adam 33:50
No, not. Not at all. And now, the whole the whole option now from back then it was losing weight. So it looked better, right? If I looked better, I think I'd feel better. And now it's more or less. I don't care what it looked like, I just want to be really strong. Like I want to be really strong.

Scott Benner 34:05
Gotcha. All right. So I'm trying to imagine the first time you rock anything. So how much weight do you start with?

Adam 34:17
So I say it's easy to start with any weight was start with five pounds if you need to. I started with 20 Okay, because all the sites that I was going to about this kind of stuff was training plans or start with 20 It's pretty easy. You can handle 20 pounds on your back with no problem. And then I weighed my daughter's book bag. And it was like 25 I'm like, yeah, no problem. 20 is good.

Scott Benner 34:39
Your bag for school was 25 pounds. Yeah, with all

Adam 34:43
the books she had to carry home for studying and that kind of stuff. So I just threw some bricks in a bag and put it on my back and started walking

Scott Benner 34:51
some bricks in a bag you put on your back and went for a walk. How far do you walk?

Adam 34:56
First time three miles

Scott Benner 34:59
any Time considerations, you just tried to do the distance,

Adam 35:02
just doing the distance, like, I had a route. And I turned when I went on my house, I turned right. And I had a big square in the neighborhood. And so I just come back the square and, you know, at one point, the distance home in the distance out, you know, to and from is the same. So I just go to a point turn around, come back. Wilson,

Scott Benner 35:21
how long do you think it takes you to feel stronger? After you start doing it?

Adam 35:26
You feel stronger immediately, not because you're probably growing muscle that fast is because wow, I thought that would be really hard. And I kind of did that no problem. So then you start playing challenges. I wonder if I can do it faster. I wonder if I can do it heavier. And you kind of like push yourself and play that game in your head over and over. And significant muscles not going to be built overnight. But you feel after the first week if you make a plan of it. You feel stronger by the end of the week? It's great.

Scott Benner 35:54
Well, I mean, I guess really, you know, modern society, you've described a number of your jobs, they weren't physically demanding jobs. And you got to think, you know, a number of years ago, most of our jobs were more physically demanding. So you're really just, yeah, you're creating, you're creating that in your leisure time, basically, because your work time is easier.

Adam 36:17
Yeah. And you could do with the kids, you want to walk instead of riding your bike to the park, let's walk. And so they'll walk or ride or scooter and I'm going to put on a rock and I'm going to walk behind them. And the job is try and keep up. Because a you're gonna get a cardio workout. And two, you know, that's just gonna push you along. They're gonna be you're spending time with your kids. What's better than that? Well,

Scott Benner 36:40
there's a couple. There's a lot

Adam 36:41
of things better than that. But better. Different. Yeah, I mean, but think about it. Like, when you're when I was working the jobs, I was working a lot, a lot, a lot of hours. And so this gave me time to spend time work out, do all those things I made time for but also involve them as well. So I think modeling good behavior to them, is just important as disciplining them for doing something bad.

Scott Benner 37:04
Did the strength sort of created self body wide? Or was it more like core and back and legs? Yeah, it

Adam 37:13
was, I started noticing significant changes just my legs, because the first time I felt like like my twig like my knees, were gonna snap. Because you're like, Well, you put a lot of weight you're not used to it. So you feel it in your knees first. And that first thing it does is build some strength because you're not running, you're just walking a natural gait. But because it's heavier, you know, you're working those those muscles first. And then your core starts tightening up because you to hold that up. You've kind of kind of lean into it. So you're tightening your core, and you're walking through it. So that becomes better because my core is stronger. My background is I've had for years, I've kind of disappeared. Yeah, because my core is a lot stronger.

Scott Benner 37:51
That makes sense. How long it takes you up the weight?

Adam 37:55
Well, I stuck around 20 pounds for a good bit, probably six months. And then I did my first rocky event. Right? It was it was 20 pounds minimum. And then three liters of water is hot on top of that. So even right there, you're looking at 30 pounds ish. Okay, so that was six months into it. And now, you know, when I feel like I've kind of like, done my 3k route or 5k route in a beat my time over and over again, is I know, it's time to add more weight to kind of push through that.

Scott Benner 38:30
I say, you drink a lot of that water on the walk.

Adam 38:33
Oh, yeah. Yeah. More than most.

Scott Benner 38:38
Because you just like to stay hydrated or

Adam 38:40
you like to stay hydrated. You know, Dexcom works better when you're hydrated. But also, when I get like dry mouth, it reminds me of when I was uncontrolled diabetic. And that, that, that dryness in the back of your mouth. That was like a trigger for me. Like, I can't ever let that happen again, because it's so bad. Because if I'm that dehydrated, it means you know, my legs are gonna hurt and all this stuff. So I like to stay really hydrated that way. That

Scott Benner 39:08
makes sense. I I don't eat at the restaurant that I ate out right before my appendix burst. And the two things had nothing to do with each other. So, right? Don't want that. Right. I don't even want the feeling anymore. Right? Hey. Okay, so how do you manage your insulin for all this walking?

Adam 39:26
So I was just a Lantus human log MDI kid cuz I didn't when I first started to have zero visibility or my blood sugar's, so my first event, I did it as a fingerprick MDI situation, but it wasn't a big, taxing event. It was something called a light event. It was six hours long. You go you cover two or three miles. So if it's six hours long, and I'm covering two or three miles, I know I'm not going to have this long distance my blood sugar is going to drop thing, because I'm not walking long or hard enough right now sure there'll be a little bit more working out than I normally do. But I wasn't too worried about it. And then I started, get up in the ante and just some of the events space. And I realized that MDI and pricking my finger in a 12 hour event is just impractical. It's just not practical to do that. You need to have a bit more technology. And that's when I'm like, Okay, I need to get a CGM. So it's just I get visibility over that.

Scott Benner 40:26
I gotta ask you a 12 hour event. What do you what do you walk into Minnesota? What are you doing?

Adam 40:33
So they have this company go rock has three levels way of more than three. But the three basic core events that they offer, are a go rock, heavy LIGO rock tough in the go rock light, and the biggest duration is activity. And time. So a light is going to be your entry level, type event, six hours long ish, sometimes four, sometimes six, distance between two to five miles. Lighter weight, it's like if someone is just trying to get into it, they don't want to scare you away. And then once you get into it, and you get the bug, you go, I want to do more. So now you do a tough event, which is the same thing as the light, except it's a little heavier, it's a bit longer in their standards a little tighter. So you know, hey, you have so long as an entire team, because the people you show up to these events with you create one team. And that's kind of a team building exercise. So you've got to move all this stuff, whether it's sandbags, random, you find along the way, like a tree trunk, you got to get from point A to point B in a certain time. By the way, you're not looking at a watch. So hurry it up. So you kind of do that kind of stuff. And it's a fun, it's a lot of fun to do that because you're working with people switching weight back and forth. And that's just fun to do. So that's a 12 hour. And then the heavy is just that. It's just longer and heavier. Which is a 24 hour Rockfest Gee, it's awful.

Scott Benner 42:01
Do you eat during it?

Adam 42:04
Well, as a diabetic, because you tell him you're diabetic, you are smart, they don't take your food away from you. Because food is now a lifesaver to you. Everybody else that has functioning pancreas is Yeah, they'll they'll limit your food, you take what you're going to eat with you. So in in some events, they take your food away and tell you when you can eat. But usually, between waypoints you get from point A to point B, you'll have a chance to stop, reset yourself, eat something if you need it, and then keep going. But it's all endurance. It's all about endurance.

Scott Benner 42:35
It costs money to be involved. Yeah, yeah, these events

Adam 42:39
aren't cheap. They can be pretty expensive. But the reward is worth in my opinion, the worth the cost.

Scott Benner 42:47
Yeah. Well, I mean, you're making paying somebody to carry sand for no real reason. I get what it's about, but it's just it's a funny idea.

Adam 42:57
Yeah, it's a it's a really, really funny idea. And I don't really care about carrying the weight. I mean, that's that that's the suck fest part of it. But it's between those movements, where you get to talk to the guy running it, who like one of my favorite cadre, his name's Kadri I adore. And he was in Delta Force during the Battle of Mogadishu. And listening him tell that story, or tell you what it was like, is just worth all the pain you go through seeking to hear that story in a way where now he put you through a movement that they had to do, and you kind of understand it better. That's what it's about.

Scott Benner 43:33
Do you prep it all for these things? I mean, do you cut your basil back? How far before you get to v have to eat certain things prior to it? Do you not eat certain things prior to it?

Adam 43:43
Yeah, well, I didn't find your podcast until after I was medically dropped from a 24 hour event because of low blood sugar. And at that point, I didn't cut Basal because I didn't know what that was. Like, I didn't know that concept. I was just told I gotta get myself this. So it didn't have CGM when I started it. So it was a that, that failure. In that 24 hour event, I was nine hours into the event. And that was dropped because my blood sugar was low enough where I was completely coherent. But my blood sugar wouldn't read on the one touch at all. So one of the guys in the stack with us was an ER doc in I'm sitting there tears running down my face because I trained, you know, six months to a year to be there. And I'm nine hours in it and I was gonna do what the heavy tough light I was going to do the heavy followed by the tough followed by the light on a row. That's what I was training for. And, you know, nine hours into the first event I'm getting dropped because they can't i can't manage my blood sugar. And at this point, I've had three lows already. So like yeah, you're out man.

Scott Benner 44:48
It's just gonna keep happening. So the rocking events are the reason you found the podcast.

Adam 44:53
Yeah, yeah, I need to find a better way to. I was looking for information, better ways to manage because what I was doing was ain't working for what I wanted to do right at all. So I needed to find different ways to do it. So I just looked up, I had commutes to work that were about 20 minutes. So I love podcasts. So I just started looking for type one podcasts. In years, it was like the first one that pop up. I'm like, okay, and then it just start listening. And then when you would reference an older episode about something, that go back and listen to the older episode, it all came down to you get a CGM, and ultimately get a pump. Because that's how you do it. That's what I did.

Scott Benner 45:32
Do you find that in the end? It's timing and amount.

Adam 45:37
Oh, 100%. Yeah, timing amount and, and also confidence that you know what you're doing, right? A lot of a lot of it is just lack of confidence, knowing is it going to work through that way? Is it not going to work the right way? You know, and that fear of insulin is a real thing, right? Of course, especially when you're working out?

Scott Benner 45:53
No, of course, and the chasing becomes, you don't, you don't realize you're chasing it first. And then you don't realize how far you've run away from the path. And you can't find your way back anymore. You know, you just write days and days of you like stopping lows and then eating and making it high again, and then you know, crash. Yeah, you're just like I don't understand like, because you can't i It's such an overused idea. But you can't see the forest for the trees at some point. You just

Adam 46:20
know you can't You don't you don't know how bad the fight is until you're not in it anymore. And you can you look back and like kind of the debrief what you did well, and what you did.

Scott Benner 46:28
Yeah. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Arden's bothering me. That's all good. I just had to text her and let her know what I was doing. Where are you? Is code for I'm hungry. You should come make me lunch. And

Adam 46:43
that's exactly what my kids do, except they come downstairs with a bag of bread and go make me a sandwich.

Scott Benner 46:48
We say at least they have an idea art. And it's like, I don't know what I want, but I'm hungry. And they're listing all the things you have in the house. And she goes, there's nothing here. Like, well, there must be, you know, it cost me $300 I don't see how there can't be anything here. Right. I want to go get a cheeseburger. Okay. Well, sounds great. But if I made you a cheeseburger, nah, not the same. Okay, I just You just eat kale.

Adam 47:16
No, yeah, it really cheeseburgers are my thing. I love them.

Scott Benner 47:20
I gotta be honest with the eating is a problem. In our, in our lifestyle, it really is a problem because you feel like you have two options, make a good meal, and lose a bunch of time that you think that you can't get back, or grab something quick so that you can do the things you're trying to do. And when you're a working age person. Like one of the most exciting things I think about being retired one day is going to be that I can make myself a meal without feeling badly about it. Exactly. Hi, mom.

Adam 47:52
My wife can tell when she gets home from work. Because, you know, during the pandemic, we started working from home. And she still had to go to the office. So I was watching you know, trying to do my job, make sure the kids are fed. And she could tell how stressful of a day it was by what I mean. She was stressful day, huh? He up

Scott Benner 48:11
really is enjoy this fried egg children

Adam 48:15
tend to be because me like my therapy or my focus. And meditation is just making a really robust meal. The me some floss of putting everything together kids and like my meditation. So if it's an extravagant meal, I probably had a stressful day. Because when she gets home, the meal looks great. The house is in complete disarray, because I haven't paid zero attention to the children. And a lot of times, if I'm having fun with the kids, she'll get home. He goes, What's for dinner? I'm like, I don't know. Didn't think about it. I'm having fun.

Scott Benner 48:46
I'm not upset right now. So I'm trying to enjoy my life. Right? It's it's a struggle man. Like, I mean, it's not a real struggle, like, you know, like you said, like storming a beach with a backpack on or something like that. But for sure, it really is. It's a difficult thing to balance. And you can see how people even get into those like, well, we'll grab something like we'll grab takeout and then the next thing you know you love but it's three months later, you're like I don't even know that the last time we've cooked something was

Adam 49:14
Yeah, quickly. I think everyone goes through those like stretches. You're like, Oh crap. It's usually when you go how can we don't have as big of a savings account as we did like a month and a half ago. Then you go back go?

Scott Benner 49:24
r&b. So that's why, you know, that's, that's no kidding, either, because that was one of the COVID locked down things that I noticed. I was like, why do we have more money than we usually do? Yeah. And then we thought, oh, yeah, we're not going out to buy food anywhere. Like we're just cooking every meal here.

Adam 49:40
Yeah, you know, yeah, we stopped eating out. It stopped paying for daycare. For us. That was huge. That was like a 900 RP raise per month for us. Like, that's awesome.

Scott Benner 49:49
Yeah. She teaches kids how to take care of themselves. However.

Adam 49:54
My oldest is 20. She's off in college doing her thing. Then I got 12 year old, a six year old Almost seven, and then a five year old,

Scott Benner 50:02
and a six and fives and all that they're, they're probably illegal to leave them by themselves.

Adam 50:07
But you should check all that. So I have a 12 year old and like, Hey, I'm going out, make sure no one dies. And that usually what it is

Scott Benner 50:13
check your local laws about how to leave them in their house by yourself. Right? It's interesting, we're gonna test those limits. It's very cultural to like, like place the place when you talk to people about it. There, there are parts of the country where people are much more like, Oh, they're old enough. And like, I don't know if nine is old enough, like, you know, they're fine. Okay, yeah. So, usually I

Adam 50:37
think my benchmarks personally are, can they wipe their own butt? And can they make themselves some toast? If you can do those two things and not burn the place down? I think they're cool.

Scott Benner 50:45
I don't know. I want my kids to be able to defend the homestead. That's all under man. Okay, I want somebody to fight back

Adam 50:52
a little. I mean, my dog will probably welcome them in and show him where all the good. So

Scott Benner 50:56
I'm afraid of that. So I'm afraid to just take whatever you want. It's fine. We didn't pay for it.

Adam 51:01
And yeah, well, that's the pandemic of like, we stopped cleaning the house as often as we work because we're in it all the time. So it gets pretty messy pretty quick. And I looked at my wife, I'm like, I think we should leave it like this. Because if someone breaks in they're like, oh, so whatever you got here. We'll go go to the next one. Does nothing

Scott Benner 51:15
worth taking? I cleaned COVID It was the the extra time is what it was for me.

Adam 51:22
Yeah. Well, the first six months of COVID My kids were with my in laws they kind of got trapped down there on spring break. My in laws loved it me my work for like, we've never spent this much significant time without kids. This is weird, man. We loved

Scott Benner 51:34
it. My favorite part of it is very, very specific and odd. But that I hated that aren't enough to go to school anymore. But I love not having to get up to take her to school anymore. Oh, gosh. Yeah, like an extra hour of sleep for me. And yeah, I was like, I'm a huge fan. Now. Even today. She's a teacher. She drives now. Like by the time it was all back to school. She'll say stuff like, you guys were sound asleep when I left for school this morning. Like, yeah, it's right. So awesome. Yeah. If you want to sleep at 715, all you have to do is grow up. And that's it. Because I can I start my job pretty easily here. And Kelly's been working at home. So it's, yeah, just kind of get up and take a shower and get going. And

Adam 52:16
yeah, since COVID, no alarms in my house for me. I wake up at seven o'clock every day, no alarm, boom, done thing.

Scott Benner 52:24
There's some things that have been I've learned from it that were good. And there's some things I learned that as soon as it went back the other way. I was like, Oh, wow, we fell right back into this, like trap. It was interesting to see how quickly lessons that I felt were learned or lost. Anyway, quickly. Yeah. So Adam, is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should have that I missed?

Adam 52:49
Well, yeah, I mean, the first event that I did was rocking post, CGM and post pod so that's gonna be September 2020. I was in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And I did my first event with an insulin pump with a CGM went a whole lot smoother. And that's when I learned I need to get to loop because there's another guy named AJ there, who is also type one, but he was wearing a tandem control IQ. So I'm looking at his graph going, yours is a flat line, and you're doing more work than I am. And I'm going up and down quite a bit. Because I'm having, you know, as many carbs as I can between movements to keep the sugar up, I have my Basal cut back to almost nothing. So like, I'm writing a little bit more of a rollercoaster than he was like, I need that. So that's what I've been working on trying to figure out how to get the loop. But I love Omnipod so I'm just waiting for the Omnipod five at this point

Scott Benner 53:49
right now. That's interesting. Oh, also, why do I know? Is that where one of the planes went down on? 911? Yeah, it's like 93 That's why I know that word. Shanksville. Yeah, yes. Had that and I was like, why don't I know that name of that town? Yeah,

Adam 54:04
I mean, go go rock does these events that are kind of honorary in 911 is a big one for them. They have these huge events in New York, big ones in Washington, DC. But everyone tends to forget about Shanksville. So they've been putting these events on in Shanksville in the community there loves it when when these groups show up because it's interesting going through the country walking on a country road, you see a stack of like 25 to 50 people carrying heavy stuff up the hill, to the memorial, right? It's a big deal for their local communities, bringing awareness and it's I swear to God when my grandparents and our parents used to say, Hey, I had to walk uphill both ways. They reference Shanksville because that's Everywhere you go it's uphill there. No matter what. Okay, you go back the same exact way and you're still going up.

Scott Benner 54:54
How are we going back and it still feels like we're

Adam 54:57
right. So but yeah, it was that was Have fun. It's a fun event. It's a real ballbuster of an event. But it's a fun event.

Scott Benner 55:04
No kidding. How long do you think your body will hold up doing this? Like you said, you're 41? Right?

Adam 55:09
Yeah, I mean, last year during the pandemic, I cut back after that event, mainly because, you know, lockdowns got a little bit tighter, here in Cleveland. And I did a lot more just walking around the block, but I didn't have a lot of events on the horizon. Because I wasn't gonna go out in public with a bunch of strangers as easily as I was before. Because I've got little kids because as this kind of like, kids getting younger and younger, I worked in health care. So I see the, the patients that were calling me for oxygen, getting younger and younger. I'm like, I don't want to risk it. So I've kind of backed off a bit. And I'm starting to feel a little bit like my feet. He's to be able to walk 12 miles, my feet would be fine. Now walk three and a half miles and it felt like a walk 12. So I think it's just a matter of repetition, getting the reps back up, we'll probably get there. But it's really low impact as far as joints are concerned, if you build into it. Okay, a lot, a lot, a lot less stressful on your knees than running. Because I imagine running. It's no problem you could do with friends. So you could walk miles and miles with friends and not realize it. So which is what I like to do.

Scott Benner 56:17
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. This the slow build part of it is attractive. Yeah, that idea of not like jumping into something just crazy. And, and maybe hurting yourself because you're, you're not prepared for it. Yeah.

Adam 56:31
And what's crazy about when you're trying to do this stuff, and you're type one diabetic, when I go did my friend Chris into doing this with me the first time his mom called, he goes, Don't kill him, but you're gonna kill yourself. You're diabetic. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm not fragile. I mean, like, let's let me do my thing. You know, and now it's a big thing he and I share together. It's a lot of fun. We plan weekend's around it. It's fun.

Scott Benner 56:55
Did your wife ever get into it?

Adam 56:57
No, I mean, she does walking, but she I tried to get her during the pandemic to put a rocket on and go and she did it. Think her blessing harder for four miles and she got home took it off. She goes, Don't ever make me do that. Stupid, not for

Scott Benner 57:09
me. Well, listen, that for her. I just realized that you flew from Ohio to Pennsylvania to go for a walk. So it was I drove drive. Okay.

Adam 57:18
Yeah. So I drove from Cleveland to Pittsburgh picked up my friend that lives in Pittsburgh, and we drove out. Okay, all right. Yeah. But there are people that fly all over the country for this stuff. And it's crazy.

Scott Benner 57:27
That's it? No, it isn't. It really does sound interesting. And it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, in the end, you know, if you don't want to get into the lifestyle, like you could probably just do this with a weighted vest, right?

Adam 57:41
Yeah, you can do with the investment. CrossFit has kind of done that whole thing with the Murph and the weighted vests in the hero awards that they do. Same concept, you know, even the obstacle course racing circuit is kind of in that same vein. But what I like about rucking is that when you go to some of these events, there's it's literally unknown, you don't know what you're gonna do and for how long? That's cool thing.

Scott Benner 58:03
But if you like it, I think it's good.

Adam 58:07
Yeah, I mean, in that kind of like that functional fitness movement is still a thing like, as a result of rucking, we went to the Kentucky State Fair, we had a mile back to the car. And the kids, the little ones didn't want to walk. No one could carry on for that long. So I picked them both up and carried on the one mile to the car. And they both fell asleep. And it's like, had I not been rocking and doing all this other stuff. I would never have been able to do that. Yeah, it would have been more miserable. So

Scott Benner 58:32
it kind of gives you What's that? I think you would have had to drag him. We would

Adam 58:36
have had to get all my wife's tchotchkes that she picks up from all that free stuff out of the wagon, put them in it.

Scott Benner 58:43
How are we gonna get the business card? So I was thinking you would just strap something to their feet, just pull them through the lawn. But there you go. Maybe

Adam 58:54
it's concrete eventually. Oh, that's never

Scott Benner 58:55
fun. Do you ever think about the kids and diabetes? Yeah, so

Adam 58:59
actually, this just this week, we got a trial net. Like kit for my oldest, not my oldest, my second oldest second daughter oldest at home. And we're going to do see what genetic markers she might have. Anytime they say that their legs hurt, or they're really thirsty, and they're paying a lot. I'm paying closer attention now than I was before. But I'm not letting it rule. I don't see every symptom they have is the must be diabetic. You know. I've just kind of paying closer attention to it though.

Scott Benner 59:29
Is there any chance you got that trauma kit at trial? net.org forward slash juicebox.

Adam 59:34
That's exactly where I got it. Thank you. And when they asked me where I found out about it, I don't click the down arrow in selected Juicebox

Scott Benner 59:40
Podcast. Appreciate that. That's very nice.

Adam 59:46
Actually, I don't know the link. I clicked it was in the show notes. So if you didn't put it in correctly, that's on you.

Scott Benner 59:53
If I didn't put it in correctly, I deserve it. Don't worry. Now they're just an interesting it's an interesting situation there because I'm a big fan of what trauma does. But they're, you know, it doesn't cost anything for you to do trial net. So I think they're funded. I think they're government funded. And they wanted to get the word out more, but like, you know, I don't they don't have a ton of money for advertising. So they tried it with me. And to be honest, by the time somebody hears this, they might not be advertisers anymore. I have no idea. But they did a limited run to see how it would work. And, sure, now we're going to find out, so I appreciate you doing that very much.

Adam 1:00:30
No worries. I mean, anything I can do to kind of bring that awareness up, even for my kids, like, they'll hear my Dexcom go off up, Dad's gonna explode again. You know, that kind of thing. It's kind of a joke around here. About, you know, the stuff going off. And since I took your advice and lowered all my Dexcom alerts, they're hearing it more often. Which they tell you Okay, no, I'm fine. Don't worry about it.

Scott Benner 1:00:52
Yeah. How did that? How does that work out for you? Like, what is your agency now?

Adam 1:00:57
Well, that's a problem. I have gotten my agency in the last six months. Last time I did. It was 5.4. Yeah, five, four.

Scott Benner 1:01:05
Well, what are the apps tell you? The the apps was

Adam 1:01:09
Dexcom? Because the last 90 days have been a struggle for me. Stress at Work, that kind of stuff. My my sugar's were high, but somewhere around six 6.7, I think, okay. So what a lot better than I was when I was first diagnosed. But six, seven is the highest. I've been since since being diagnosed. So I have fell backwards. But going forward, I mean, lowering those Dexcom alerts, I'm not chasing those highs anymore. I'm kind of preventing them with less insulin than it was before. So I mean, my, my carb ratio is one to eight. So if I have a pretty carb heavy meal, that's a lot of insulin pushing, which is weird. So

Scott Benner 1:01:48
no less than Ardens is like one to four and a half. So Oh, geez. Yeah. What's your Basal? Your Basal must be? Two.

Adam 1:01:56
Yeah, yeah, two to two and a half, depending on time of day, I crank it up at night, because I tend to like shoot up at night. So I have it cranked like two and a half when I sleep. When I wake up. It's, you know, to something like that.

Scott Benner 1:02:07
Interesting. Before I let you go tell me something about when life stresses and things become, you know, intensified? How does that impact you? Managing your blood sugar? Like, what? Why did it translate to a higher day? One say? I guess that's my question.

Adam 1:02:25
Well, again, you you stop paying attention to that kind of stuff. You think everything else that's going around you is more important than that at the moment. So in this case, was working at a health care facility, well, not not health care company that sells oxygen during a pandemic, and they're having sales problems in your sales guy, you're like, how long to find a sale and that kind of thing. So you're stressed about that, right? You're not paying attention. Because you're not paying attention. You go upstairs looking for a snack, while you're, you know, doing something just to grab, and you happen to grab something that's probably not the healthiest eat, it's probably pretty sugar heavy. And you Bolus late, that kind of stuff. So now you're chasing. So when I did, when I, beginning in November, you know, a lot of people are getting fired from our company, I happen to be one of them. I just went back to the basics, I stopped looking at the horizon focused on that, and said, This is what I'm gonna make sure I'm paying attention to because obviously, it's gonna go out of whack. And every time you put up a new podcast, you're learning something new from somebody else about their thing, something will stick with you that they said that I'm feeling that too, but they're overcoming it. So I don't feel alone so much. So he just gives you another way to focus on it in just like, that was a girl from Switzerland. She was just saying she stopped weekly checking in with in that kind of was messing her up a bit. And that's probably exactly what's happening with me, because I wasn't checking in with any podcasts. Right? So just kind of paying attention to the Facebook groups and stuff. And that's not everything. You got to have those constant educational reminders over and over again, Laura, that were from Switzerland. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Her accent was awesome. By the way, I went to Switzerland. And I just literally felt like I was sitting in Vermont with another Swiss guy. listening to them talk. It was great.

Scott Benner 1:04:15
Excellent. So okay, sorry, I take your point that there's, there's something about an economy of time, and having to stay focused on the things that are important and it being easy for other life things to pull you away. And then you don't have that time and then that's then we're on that slippery slope of we'll just grab something. And then three months later, we don't know what happened like that.

Adam 1:04:38
Yeah. Again, you need debrief and quarters is what I always do. Look back at all the variables with my my health plan going. I really screwed that up and I own it. And then I'm going to fix it in the cool thing about rucking is it doesn't take much to get that those numbers back down. You know, like, if I do happen to be chasing one day It's easy to throw a rock on and go around the block to help that insulin take off faster before you hit high before you go outside of your 180 range in my wife called it rage, rucking, because, like, I'll eat dinner. I missed the Bolus somehow. So now I'm like shooting up past 200. And I just she sees me just get up, throw some shoes on throw a rock kind of just rage out the door. I come back she goes, how you feeling like, back at 1:50am? Cool.

Scott Benner 1:05:23
Adam, it took you the entire recording, but you did it. Yeah, you named your episode. What is it? I got to be honest with you. 30 seconds ago, I was like, I wonder what I'll call this. And I've been trying to I've been trying to do wordplay in my head, like the whole time you were talking with, you know, replacing the F and the R. And I couldn't find and now all of a sudden you were just like rage rocking. I was like, oh, there we go. There

Adam 1:05:51
it is. You can rage Bolus and then redirect at the same time because that's exactly what I've done. I've done in the past. So

Scott Benner 1:05:58
if somebody was it, you I, on the Facebook page, I kind of had to remind everybody to be like human beings recently, around around arguing about COVID vaccines when I just basically I ended up saying, Look, if you're gonna use the word COVID or COVID vaccine, and it's not to help somebody with their blood sugar, like we're done like I'm not doing anymore. Somebody called my post a rage. Bolus or rage like posters. Probably. So yeah. They just made me think of that just now which I by the way was not enraged. When I wrote it. I was just a lot more direct.

Adam 1:06:32
Yeah, unless I mean, right. And sometimes you need directness to snap people out of it, you know. And it's, I happen to find those COVID posts are kind of comical in the comments. So I love it like, like anyone have a fact I'm like, I'm going to get it now. I have not grown a tail, so I feel good about it. Or I'm kind of mad. I don't have a tail. It just depends on how I feel that

Scott Benner 1:06:53
day was in jest from the perspective of someone running a Facebook group. There's 18,000 people in there. And I'm not going to allow the good work that the Facebook page does to be waylaid by 35 people who have a strong opinion about something like I'm glad you have a strong kotel someone else who cares. That's not what we're talking about here. You know,

Adam 1:07:12
for sure, yeah, it's the same. There's other Facebook groups and part of you in the rocking community. If you're a new guy and ask a question, I feel sorry for them because their posts are gonna get hijacked, and they're gonna get made fun. It's just I stay away from a lot of these Facebook groups anymore, because it's just like really guys,

Scott Benner 1:07:28
I realized my group runs incredibly smoothly. It's this one does the one thing that it just I'm like, Look guys, like, that's not what this space is for. Like, I I'm excited for you that you have some very hard, like, held theories about things and you want to share them, share them somewhere where someone's asking about it, like this is not I think sometimes people don't understand the power of their social media. And right and that they want to I mean, listen, Adam i i have a fairly large following of people, you know, whether it's social media or this podcast, and I don't have the amount of power to move people in a direction that you might imagine so you know, you and your 400 Twitter followers are probably not the power block that you imagine you are yeah like it's just It doesn't work that way but

Adam 1:08:19
yeah, people are drawn to that negativity sometimes to when they post something negative about something people are drawn to it and I hear it's it's just fire anyway just blows up.

Scott Benner 1:08:28
Apparently my rage post took care of it. Alright, man, I gotta jump but I appreciate you doing this very much.

Adam 1:08:35
Oh, no worries, man. Thank you so much.

Scott Benner 1:08:37
Yeah, have a great day.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox you spell that GVOKEGL You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'd also like to thank us, Matt and remind you to go to us med.com forward slash juicebox or call 888-721-1514 To get your free benefits check. And if you're in the Orlando area, and you'd like to hear me speak at an upcoming event, you should check out touched by type one.org.

I hope you enjoy this episode of The Juicebox Podcast don't forget to check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. And of course if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at episode 210 In your podcast player, or are available at juicebox podcast.com and diabetes pro tip.com. If you've already heard the Pro Tip series and are looking for more management content, well guess what we have for you There are currently 26 episodes in the after dark series everything from an interview with a sex worker with type one to someone with bipolar, and everything in between. After Dark Knight your speed, how about an entire grouping of episodes all about algorithm pumping 14 episodes about looping on the pod five control IQ and the mini med Medtronic 670 G. There are also a ton of episodes where Jenny Smith and I have answered questions asked by listeners those episodes are called ask Scott and Jenny. And there are 18 of them at this point. There are lists available at Facebook, right you know, the Facebook machine Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, it's a private group at the top of the page, you click on Featured and in there all of these lists, like the after dark and the Ascot and Jenny stuff. In that same place, you'll find lists of the new and growing bold beginning series. This series is where Jenny and I take feedback from the listeners we asked them, What do you wish you knew at diagnosis, and channeling I have broken up into a series and it's going along very well. I think we're five or six episodes into it. Go find the bolt beginning series list in the Facebook group. Under the featured tab. That's the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. Are you interested in celiac There are nine episodes just about celiac. Again, head over to Facebook, look in that featured tab. When you get there you'll also find 19 episodes grouped together called Talking with children. These are interviews that I've done with kids as you can tell by the title talking with children. The defining diabetes series is 44 episodes long. This is a really great breakdown where Jenny Smith and I go through all of the terms that you use with diabetes and really explain them to you in an easy to understand digestible way. In short episodes, the finding diabetes 44 episodes long please listen. Everything from Bolus feet on the floor rage Bolus bumping nudge hydration pump brake antibodies, things you need to understand if you're using insulin. There's a series all about thyroid defining thyroid series again, Jenny Smith and I define the things you need to understand for living with thyroid disease. And there's a bonus episode with that with Dr. Addy Benito where she thoroughly explains thyroid disease in Episode 413. We also have 10 episodes grouped together about this ordered eating. And there is a ton of information about how to Bolus for fat and protein. And if that doesn't make sense to you go find that list. bolusing for fat and protein seven episodes that will change the way you think about using your insulin. And if you're looking for mental wellness episodes. Currently there are 13 on the list many with Erica Forsythe. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist who also has had type one diabetes for three decades. Eric and I frequently talk about things that fit right into her professional profile. Two great grouping of episodes. So there's something for everybody. They're all right there in your podcast player. But if you can't find them, you go to into Juicebox Podcast, type on diabetes on Facebook, go up to the feature tab. And that's where all those lists exist. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 713 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode, yeah, today's episode we'll try that again. On today's episode, I'll be speaking with Adam. He is an adult living with type one diabetes, and he likes to carry heavy things on his back. I think that about covers it. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you're an adult living with type one diabetes who is a US resident or the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry. Take the survey help people living with type one diabetes support the podcast, this entire effort to take you fewer than 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes to help podcast that you like people that you have a lot in common with and might find out some stuff for yourself. T one D exchange.org forward slash juicebox

this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn Find out more at G voc glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. today's podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one and their big event is coming up on August 27 in Orlando, Florida. So check it out at touched by type one.org and The podcast is also sponsored today by us med get your diabetes supplies from us med all you have to do to get started is go to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 When you do that, you'll be able to get your free benefits check and get going us med.com forward slash juice box.

Adam 2:21
My name is Adam Rucker, which is just interesting to say out loud to people for the first time when I meet them. But yeah, my name is Adam and I live in Cleveland and I like carrying heavy.

Scott Benner 2:36
So it is not that you went to Rutgers University to get your degree.

Adam 2:40
No. So that's Rutgers that has a T in it. Yes.

Scott Benner 2:43
So this is rucking basically you like to walk places, but carry heavy stuff on your back while you're doing it.

Adam 2:50
That's correct. Yeah. I mean, in the whole evolution of that whole hobby sport pastime, it's the same concept is jogging, or going for a run the differences I think running sucks. So I want to get the same cardio workout without the added oh my god I've got to run because I don't want to run. So rucking it is where you just use strap on some heavy weight on your back and you go for a walk, which is easy to do. And you can do a bunch of friends, which is what I typically do.

Scott Benner 3:18
What is the word like what's the etymology of the word?

Adam 3:23
Also think about military jargon. When they're humping a rock, meaning they're carrying their rock, Scott ammunition, rations, Mr. E's, that kind of stuff. And they've got to go over distance to cover some ground either infiltrate or exfiltrate from a situation. A lot of times you do it on foot. And you know, the Special Forces are known for this type of thing, especially the army Green Berets. Because that's that's how they get there. They got to be as stealthy as possible sometimes. So if you can carry everything on your back, get in, get out. That's what the that is. And you know, a lot of times those guys to get to a place, you've got to go 2030 miles, get there, then go to work, and then get the hell out of there. So that's that's where it comes from is just a military background humping a rock in UK that kind of stuff. rucking or carrying a ruck is what kids carry to school. They're just backpacks. United States we call them backpacks, but over there, they call them rocks, you know, German word, God's rucksack, that kind of thing.

Scott Benner 4:29
I only think of the actor Alan Rock who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when I hear the word.

Adam 4:35
Well, he's also a great rock. I mean, I mean in in if you want to put that in context of rucking, but Ellen rock would do is put it back back on then carry the Jaguar back instead of just running it backwards.

Scott Benner 4:52
Do you think we're now in Rock has sex he calls it?

Adam 4:56
No. Oh, he's definitely rocking for sure. Hey, he

Scott Benner 4:58
thinks he calls it rocking.

Adam 5:00
He probably does. He's probably got a style and everything. And yeah.

Scott Benner 5:05
Terrible pickup line in the bar?

Adam 5:08
Or is it a family reunion? I'm going rucking. It's

Scott Benner 5:10
great. Hi, how are you? Would you like to go rocking? Alright, so you're on the podcast? Because I did I actually asked for people who have like, interesting and odd hobbies at some point.

Adam 5:23
Yeah, oh, yeah, you're looking for type one diabetics that have interesting hobbies. And so I sent you an email. With a picture. I think it was a picture of my back carrying a rock and an added weight of something. And I said, I kind of do this. You're like, let's do it.

Scott Benner 5:39
Cool. Yeah, that counts for sure. I mean, it's so it's just an intense workout that sort of been turned into? I mean, do you do it? I guess my question is, like, Do you have a bunch of friends that you get together with and do it? Or is it if you belong to a group that does it? Do you do it by yourself?

Adam 5:58
Yeah, I mean, all of the above. So I got into it, trying to make like a lifestyle change. I needed to lose some weight. So I decided I was going to try and like I was going to train to do the Murph because I saw John Krasinski post on his Instagram that he did it, I'm like, the dude from the office did that, why can't I do it. And at the time, I was extremely heavy, really overweight. So I'm like, I'm gonna train for that. So I started training that training for that kind of honor a friend of mines brother who'd passed away. So I was gonna do that. And during that time of training for it, I became, I was diagnosed as type one diabetic few years ago. So I'm like, I got to, I can't do the Murph right now, because I was so weak from being sugar, so high, your muscle density goes, and I need to do something. So I'm like, I'm gonna go, I looked up other kinds of crazy stuff. And I saw someone posted, they're doing a wrecking event in Pittsburgh. So I'm like, I'm gonna go do that. It was just the concept was get a rock or a backpack, put weight in it, have the list of things we want you to bring, and we're gonna, you know, walk you through some workouts, which I'm like, Okay, that sounds like fun. And you got to train for that. So I just threw some weight in a backpack, at the time was just like a laptop bag. And I just started walking around the block. And that was just by myself just trying to figure out, I'm going to show up to this event. And I got to kind of be ready for that. So I'm like, I just gotta at least be able to put some miles on with weight on my back, because my legs are weak, my back's weak, my arms are weak. So you started slow, work your way up. And now I'm part of a whole community of people. Like every city kind of has like a wrecking Club, which is kind of fostered by a company called go rock that kind of makes specialized equipment for these types of things, their military style. Events, were either led by someone from the Special Forces, a Special Forces veteran. And they kind of build that bridge from a civilian, who thought, Oh, I wonder what was like to be in the military, but didn't want to actually go to the military, you can kind of get a taste of it. And what it is, is there there are veterans, Special Forces, veterans, kind of giving back some of their knowledge about pushing through, you know, adversity, a lot of times that adversity is going to be just physical limitations, pain, things like that. So you just kind of learn how to push through it. And it kind of grows, you kind of dip your toe in the water, and either you get all the way in, or you get all the way up, and I happen to get all the way in.

Scott Benner 8:33
Gotcha. Hey, so All right, let's go. Let's move like this. Then. How old are you now?

Adam 8:39
I'm 41. All right,

Scott Benner 8:41
you cut out for a second, but 41 is the answer. Right? Yeah. I'm 41. Yes. Diagnosed how long ago?

Adam 8:47
I was 37. And I was diagnosed 2018

Scott Benner 8:53
At that point, are you married? You have children? Are you single?

Adam 8:56
I've gotten married with four kids. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 8:58
She's easy. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. Sounds like you're pretty good at rocking. You don't I mean,

Adam 9:07
just time away from the kids. It's great.

Scott Benner 9:09
So any other autoimmune your life prior to that, or since?

Adam 9:15
I mean, part of that, at the time, vitiligo was not being called an autoimmune disease, but I've had that since I was a small child. Now, it's kind of considered an autoimmune disease with at least they figured out how it causes it more now. So I guess that was my first autoimmune disease, and then type one diabetes, obviously then, since I've developed Hashimotos disease, which really threw a wrench in kind of this whole energy thing. So okay, now I'm still still kind of getting under the umbrella of that right now.

Scott Benner 9:44
We'll get to that. So you're you're at 37 You said you were you consider yourself overweight? Like had you been? Yeah, I

Adam 9:51
was. I was three. I was 300 pounds. Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 9:54
Were you like nine feet? I was big. How tall are you? No, I'm about six foot why? Wow, okay, that's still probably looks significant on you then.

Adam 10:04
Yeah, it was pretty significant. I saw a picture of myself sitting next to my childhood best friend when I sold them a car and I go, man, that's big. So now that's kind of what's, what's that?

Scott Benner 10:16
I'm sorry, you cut out a little bit so confused me. But did you start out as a bigger person? Or did you kind of I was gonna say grow into it, but this, but did it happen?

Adam 10:27
If you looked at pictures of me through high school in my early 20s, I was a skinny tall guy, okay. And then, you know, circumstances happen mental health happens. fell into a depression the year 2012 was a pretty significant bad year for me. So it was like that year kind of started growing and growing and growing. And then fast forward, you know, four or five years later, you will look down go to the doctor for the first time in a few years. So like, yeah, the first number on your way to three. Right? That's you that's wakes you up a little bit. And that's kind of what happened with me as it

Scott Benner 11:01
was happening. Were you aware unaware unable to care? Like what was your mind?

Adam 11:07
I just I just didn't care. I mean, I was just in a severely dark the depression because I had lost a job dealing with fat money was tight. I mean, my wife had you know, we're newlyweds at that point with just one one child and a second one just was brought into the picture. So it was just one of those things where, you know, personal life was in turmoil outside of my marriage then it just was it was a crazy 2012 And then as I started kind of like getting my mojo back, I started a job that was significantly not good for the waistline because you worked in office you ate when you could you ate as much crap as you could because that's the only thing you could find. So it was just a blossoming of of circumstances that put you up there in our was only thing I noticed was I kept having to buy bigger pants, but not a ton bigger like oh, this year I'm gonna be wearing a one size bigger than I was last year. No big deal.

Scott Benner 12:07
Okay. All right. So at some point does does your diabetes come before you're like kind of awakening about your weight? Or does the weight do you start working on your weight before you get diabetes? Adam, you're gone aren't you? Sorry. Are you there? No. Hey, you were gone for a second. Are you back? Can you hear me? He does not hear me. If I hear you now, that's not the song. This is definitely where the ads gonna end up.

G voc hypo pan has no visible needle, and is a premixed auto injector of glucagon for treatment of very low blood sugar. In adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Find out more go to Jeeva glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit Jivaro glucagon.com/risk us med is the place where I think you might want to get your diabetes supplies from us med.com forward slash juicebox call 888-721-1514 Either way you want to do that is a great way to get your free benefits check from us med here's what you're gonna get from us med they are the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. The number one specialty distributor from the pot dash, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide. They're where we got our hands on the pod five from they're also the number one rated distributor index com customer satisfaction surveys. And they've served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996. US med has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. They accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers. US med always provides 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. So if you're looking for a place to get your diabetes supplies, including the libre two and the Dexcom, G six, you're looking for us med 88087211514 or online at us med.com forward slash juicebox.

Okay, what was my question? My question was, did you start thinking about weight loss prior to diabetes or to diabetes happened prior to weight loss thinking?

Adam 14:57
So I started losing weight before Were diabetes, because like I said, I was 300 pounds, high blood pressure, the whole gamut. A lot of things are happening. So I knew I need to lose weight. And my brother, my younger brother also was kind of a bigger person. And he kind of hit a mark where he's like, changing my whole life. And I kind of hit that point as well. It just started, you know, finding ways to work out it was first passively just changing up diet a little bit.

Scott Benner 15:24
Yeah, Adam. Hey, you're from your noisy. Sorry, man. No, don't be sorry. We gotta move your phone somewhere.

Adam 15:33
myself back down in my closet downstairs. My office. I thought it was just a Wi Fi issue. So I went next to my Wi Fi. How's that?

Scott Benner 15:40
I don't know. When you're talking. I'm getting a tapping behind your voice. It's electronic tapping, so I don't know what it is. And if you got probably too close to something.

Adam 15:50
Yeah, probably. How's it now?

Scott Benner 15:58
To wait to get settled. Try it again. How's it now? It's still there. Let me think so many people use their iPhone so successfully for this. Oh, it's not like, intrinsically that as a problem is what I mean. So I don't know. It was a new noise. I didn't hear it before.

Adam 16:26
Oh, sorry, man. I think I just I want them to close to my router. For Wi Fi signal. Just in case that was the issue, but it's all good.

Scott Benner 16:35
Okay, now you are somewhere pretty hollow. This is you're gonna kill me in a second. So

Adam 16:42
audio guy too, so it's gonna drive me nuts too.

Scott Benner 16:44
Did you move into a room where there's no carpeting or something like that?

Adam 16:49
Alright, you go. I just took off my Bluetooth that was echoing in my ears too. Okay, perfect. And turn off my speakerphone.

Scott Benner 16:55
All right, here we go. Let's stand perfectly still Adam and do this podcast. I'm sorry. I know. I interrupted you. You were in the middle of it. That's okay. How you how you started getting on top of? Yeah,

Adam 17:09
I mean, so the whole process of losing weight for me started with just changing up what I was eating, just volume of calories was going down. And I was losing significant amount of weight. I went from 300 pounds to 250. I would say in six months, wow, give or take. Just kind of changing that up. I worked at a job where I was moving around a lot. Like I would go you know, work at a car lot. So I was walking miles a day, just moving cars around things like that. So it was easy, because the physical activity was there. But it's mostly like just passively knowing I needed to eat better. Just pay attention to it.

Scott Benner 17:51
Yeah. Give me Give me an example of a meal before and a meal after.

Adam 17:58
Sure. So a meal before didn't care. I would go to Wendy's. For instance, for lunch at work. I would get a Baconator with a supersize, biggest rather head and a coke. And that was my lunch every day. That's probably a significant amount of days. Yes, not necessarily every day, but more days than not. In and then after it was, you know, I would still go out to eat because it's hard to bring your lunch to work when you're not sure where to eat. But I would physically leave the building for lunch go somewhere, like eat on my own time. And there was a new, like a farmers market down the street that opened up, they had a great salad bar. So I just went over there and ate salads for lunch.

Scott Benner 18:39
And you didn't have any difficulty making the adjustment.

Adam 18:43
No, that's what's really weird for me, is when I decide to do something, I Don't dabble. I just do it. Like, oh, I'm going to do this. This is what I'm doing now. Cool. And it just make it a new habit. You know, they say what 21 days create a new habit. I try and do that like 10.

Scott Benner 19:00
So is it fair to say that prior to all this when you started when you hit your your dark spot that you almost were like diving into eating poorly, even though you probably weren't thinking about it that way. So you were kind of all in on that as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You don't like when it's Wednesday and then grab a salad. go for a jog on Thursday. It's like, one or the other?

Adam 19:24
For sure. Yeah. And that's definitely the

Scott Benner 19:26
case. I that makes sense. So So you knock off 50 pounds pretty quickly. But yeah, stunning. Does your wife mentioned it? Either way, well, well,

Adam 19:39
she got she would get really angry because my wife at this point, has given birth to kids. And the kids were not kind on her body. So she's been trying to in weight. You know, she developed a thyroid condition after the first one. So she had been trying to lose weight. She's having some difficulty and she sees me just Like, no problem, I decided to do it today. And no worries. You know, I just started doing it. And that probably frustrated her a little bit. Because she said that out loud.

Scott Benner 20:11
What thyroid condition did she get after the birth?

Adam 20:15
She got a hypo, hypo thyroid. Yeah. So she's having, you know, Synthroid and all that stuff. And, you know, and that plays with whole other issues, you know, iodine imbalances and vitamin stuff. And she's, she was just trying to at that time trying to get a grip on that. Yeah, she was having some difficulty. She seems to be eating out a bit now. But still having trouble with the whole weight loss thing. And that kind of goes along with it, too. You know?

Scott Benner 20:41
No, I hear that. Okay. So you're things are going your way. You're losing weight. You have a couple of kids. You got to pull it out of your darkness. And then Yep, diabetes.

Adam 20:53
Yeah, well, I hit gone in because I started seeing an endocrinologist for low testosterone. That was what my PCP identified as something that was a problem. Okay. So I started seeing an endocrinologist. As I started losing weight. I told her, Hey, this is my plan. So we can kind of do some tests, she wanted to figure out, why did I have such low testosterone? Besides the weight? You know, is there a physical problem? As CAT scans, MRIs, the whole nine yards at the brain? And she's like, well, let's, let's get together in February. And this is February of 2018. Sure, let's get together just for a checkup. And we'll kind of take a look at everything and see how it's going. And so, you know, six months goes by from that last appointment with her to my following appointment. And during that time, I started developing an insatiable thirst, like I was drinking a lot of water. But now I'm drinking 10x that amount, right? I was maybe drinking two or three bottles of water at work, because we give out bottles to our customers to drinking like 10 a day, like just a lot. And my PCP changed my blood pressure meds to include hydrochloric thiazides and he goes, this is gonna make your pee a little bit more like, Okay, well, I started taking it, I started paying more, and then it got more, and they got more. Let's start getting dehydrated, and then start waking up in the middle of night, having to pee so bad, but not being able to walk because your legs are so dehydrated. So I'm crawling to the bathroom. And this went on for months before I went and saw the endo again, to follow up on my a testosterone stuff. And she's like, we're gonna start testosterone because you're really low. She goes, there's anything else going on? I said, Yeah. I think my blood pressure meds are a little out of whack because they lost 70 pounds now. And she's like, Yeah, you've lost a considerable amount of weight. Good job. And, you know, I said, Yeah, but this is kind of happening to me. Now. She goes, Oh, tell me more. And I just started telling her how often I was getting up to pee how much water was drinking? And she's like, there's something going on. We don't know what. But there's something going on. Yeah. So she goes, I'm gonna order all this bloodwork. Go get it done. Well, the following week, I had my annual with my PCP with also at bloodwork so I decided I'm gonna let it wait a couple of weeks and then go do it all at once. So yeah, and when did blood work? They did like 1213 vials because they had all my annual stuff then a full panel for her. And then the next day, my my turret starts going off about all the blood tests I'm like completely failing from you know blood glucose a onesies to everything's just blown out of whack and, you know, they know calls you and says, you have an appointment today at one o'clock I go, No, my PCP appointments at seven tonight. She goes, Oh, this is the endocrinology office. You have an appoint with us today at one o'clock. Yeah. I just can't leave work. She goes, Well, your where your employer not let you go can working with Carly's ship, I get to work. They go. Do we need to call you an ambulance? They go. Oh, it's serious.

Scott Benner 23:56
I mean, an ambulance will get me out of here. Yes.

Adam 23:59
So I mean, I just went to my boss and said, Hey, I got I got these blood tests. They gotta go. I don't know what any of this means. But I'll be back. I think later. He's like, whatever. Yeah, so he went, they said she'd only go well, you're definitely diabetic. So they do the whole here's how to take your blood sugar, here's insulin. Here's a you know a ticket to go down to the bloodwork to see what type of you are because we don't know. You know, so that's when they figured out Oh, you're a type one. That was the next day. So

Scott Benner 24:28
question that might seem weird after all that but did you end up getting the testosterone replacement ever?

Adam 24:34
No. So once I got my E onesies in check in, got my blood control blood sugar and control everything even though everything my thyroid levels evened out. My testosterone evened out my lipids evened out like everything was fine once they figured that out. It was weird. Yeah, how long

Scott Benner 24:52
after the diagnosis did you get Hashimotos

Adam 24:56
so that was this past winter, like March of 2020 is when I went in for my annual they go, what's going on? She goes, you're kind of gaining weight pretty quick again. What do you is there anything going on like? Well, I work in health care in the middle of a pandemic, where I sell the number one treatment for COVID. So I'm a little stressed out. It's a little depressing working with old people who are literally passing away. So I'm like, I'm probably in a little bit of a depression. So that always makes you know, me gain weight. She goes, Yeah, but you know, that's not going to count for all of it. So let's, let's take a look. And I gave her some other symptoms, you know, just lethargy in general. So she looked it up, and my antibodies were through the roof. And she's like, You clearly have Hashimotos This is No, no ifs, ands or buts about it. So I have a Synthroid.

Scott Benner 25:47
Yeah. Okay, back in the first time, when you hit a kind of dark place. Can you look back before that and see any Hashimotos type symptoms back then?

Adam 25:58
Yeah, I mean, probably, probably a little bit. If I go back and look at my blood tests, my, my thyroid levels are always on the higher side of normal in general. I mean, for hypothyroid disease runs in my family, generations, you know, for as long as they could just like, my grandmother had it. My mom's got it, I've got it. And then my dad's side, probably the same. I don't know much about my dad's family medical history. But I'm sure we've got one or two people that had that same issue there, too.

Scott Benner 26:30
Yeah. Cuz it really made me wonder, as you started kind of building the story, if the first time this happened to you wasn't maybe a thyroid issue as well. And then perhaps it quieted down a little bit for a while. Yeah. Which I know, it's not a super technical term. But you know, I always wonder when you see people have wild swings in their, I don't know, just, you know, their personalities, energy weight, stuff like that. If if it isn't an imbalance, maybe an internal imbalance, and not just, you know, because we tend to think of it as like, I don't know how we think of it, you know, you see somebody who just starts acting differently, like he's having a bad day or a bad month, or something's going on. Right. But you know, there are delicate balances inside of your body. And when they move around, stuff goes wrong.

Adam 27:21
Yeah. I mean, in a lot of the times, like, I've always found my health issues in times of personal prices, right? Because the symptoms that I'm matching for physical symptoms, like lethargy, that kind of thing was always masked by, oh, I'm also in a really dark place otherwise, so is this depression? Or is this a physical problem? And having grown up with a with a mom and healthcare, you only went to the doctors if you're a die, right? You know, you, you got a bone sticking, like, I got hit in the head with a baseball bat crack my head wide open. And the neighbors called the ambulance. My mom's like, why would you call the ambulance just drive them to the hospital? But they didn't, she wasn't there. But you know, and then we wait, you know, that kind of thing. So it's, it's all of these things, your symptoms can be masked by external factors. Yeah. So a lot of times this could have gone unchecked for a lot longer. Had I not been in a bad mental place, I probably would have picked up on these a little fast, right.

Scott Benner 28:18
And stressful moments can also throw things into motion. You know, for sure. I think, actually, motors is a good example of that. Yeah. And so it's type one, to be perfectly honest. You know, you get into a bad you get into a bad spot and you start taxing your body. stress and stress and, and things that are on the verge of just holding together sometimes just kind of can't anymore.

Adam 28:44
Oh, for sure. I there's definitely some truth to that right definitely has to be some truth to that.

Scott Benner 28:49
So how did you find how to how did you find having diabetes had him was it? I asked that question, like you bought a new sofa? And I was like, how did you find it?

Adam 29:03
Yeah, well, I mean, it threw me through the gamut. Because now I'm like, What is this mean? I've had a good close friend of ours has been type one diabetic for a long time. So I've been exposed to it. I was there during a pretty horrific hypo that he was having where we had to call an ambulance. So I've seen the dark sides, and I've seen the good sides, right? My cousin's been living with it since he was two months old. So I've seen I've been exposed to it, but I've never paid much attention to it a few years ago. Someone that grew up with my mom, her son passed away from type one diabetes. So it was a big, like, I get it, I'm exposed. I see. It's out there. Now it affects me. So now I'm like hyper focused on okay. What do I do? So, I took it upon myself to start learning about what it is before I went to my diabetes education. I was given some pretty conservative treatment plans to start because As I lived my whole life without it, so they didn't want to throw me in deep. So I would get so overwhelmed. So they kind of eased me into this is Lantis This is how it works. This is human log, this is how it works. If your sugars here give you this and they kind of walk you through that first meeting. So I decided to look up. Okay, what does this mean? And I gamified everything, like, Okay, I'm gonna get my blood sugar's down, this is gonna be the thing. And I just focused on it. It gave me something to focus on. They gave me a little bit more of a better purpose. Because when you're reading about the side effects of having type one diabetes, neuropathy, that kind of thing scares the crap out of you. It really does. And I didn't want anything, just those things to happen. I've got friends with neuropathy, don't want to deal with it. Don't want to have it. So yeah, I just want to dive into it and learn as much as I could.

Scott Benner 30:52
Okay. Just a real quick question, cousin on whose side your mom's your dad's.

Adam 30:58
Mom's. Okay.

Scott Benner 31:01
So that cousin had type one for quite some time.

Adam 31:04
And you're almost dead. He was born and then all of a sudden, he was in hospital with in diabetic coma. Like it was a pretty big serious thing. So he was a baby when he was diagnosed. Gotcha. Okay, so yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 31:19
How did you start off with technology? Did you mean four years ago? Did you have a CGM pretty quickly a pump? How did you do it?

Adam 31:26
So my insurance was kind of a pain in the butt. When it came to that I had a one touch write off of the doctor's office and some quick pens. Within six months of me pricking my finger. I'm like, I need to get a Dexcom. But my first agency back after being you know, diagnosed diabetic was like 6.1. And for whatever threshold my insurance needed to get me one, I was below that. So my doctor was instrumental of doing all the, the appeals to get it all approved. And within within eight to 10 months, I was on CGM. Okay, which was awesome. And I denied the pump for at that point, because, for me, my problem with weight was, I was eating a lot. If I made it easier to eat, I would eat whatever I want. And I would get bigger yet. And that was my fear.

Scott Benner 32:20
So you thought Excel had a pump? You'd be like, Oh, snacking, it'll be easier. And that'll be good for me. Yeah.

Adam 32:26
Well, I knew that would be easier because I've got friends on pumps. I'd listen to the podcast at this point. Yeah. And life gets easier with a pump. I'm like, I need to make it still a little difficult for myself. And it was a wrecking event that changed my whole opinion on that. But that's another, we'll get to that,

Scott Benner 32:43
I'm sure. Yeah, we're definitely gonna get that. I just want to ask one follow up question around that. So do you consider a side of diabetes? Like, I don't know how to talk about stuff like this, but like, true, do you have an eating disorder?

Adam 32:57
I mean, maybe I'm going through, I'm talking with a nutritionist now about some of my things with food. And I grew up I grew up in a time in the 80s, where my mom had probably did, probably either anorexia or bulimia or both, whatever. And I've watched her deal with these yo yo diets. And I'm like, I'm not gonna deal with that. That is. So there's probably a little bit of that going on some body dysmorphia things because even when I lost I lost 100 pounds at this point, from just starting to lose weight to I'm a type one diabetic. I've lost 100 pounds. And I'm like, I still feel like I'm 300 pounds. You still feel big? So there's probably a little bit of that going on? For sure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 33:42
Cuz six feet, 200 pounds. I mean, if it's on your right, this, I mean, you're a bigger person at that point. But it's not big in a crazy way.

Adam 33:50
No, not. Not at all. And now, the whole the whole option now from back then it was losing weight. So it looked better, right? If I looked better, I think I'd feel better. And now it's more or less. I don't care what it looked like, I just want to be really strong. Like I want to be really strong.

Scott Benner 34:05
Gotcha. All right. So I'm trying to imagine the first time you rock anything. So how much weight do you start with?

Adam 34:17
So I say it's easy to start with any weight was start with five pounds if you need to. I started with 20 Okay, because all the sites that I was going to about this kind of stuff was training plans or start with 20 It's pretty easy. You can handle 20 pounds on your back with no problem. And then I weighed my daughter's book bag. And it was like 25 I'm like, yeah, no problem. 20 is good.

Scott Benner 34:39
Your bag for school was 25 pounds. Yeah, with all

Adam 34:43
the books she had to carry home for studying and that kind of stuff. So I just threw some bricks in a bag and put it on my back and started walking

Scott Benner 34:51
some bricks in a bag you put on your back and went for a walk. How far do you walk?

Adam 34:56
First time three miles

Scott Benner 34:59
any Time considerations, you just tried to do the distance,

Adam 35:02
just doing the distance, like, I had a route. And I turned when I went on my house, I turned right. And I had a big square in the neighborhood. And so I just come back the square and, you know, at one point, the distance home in the distance out, you know, to and from is the same. So I just go to a point turn around, come back. Wilson,

Scott Benner 35:21
how long do you think it takes you to feel stronger? After you start doing it?

Adam 35:26
You feel stronger immediately, not because you're probably growing muscle that fast is because wow, I thought that would be really hard. And I kind of did that no problem. So then you start playing challenges. I wonder if I can do it faster. I wonder if I can do it heavier. And you kind of like push yourself and play that game in your head over and over. And significant muscles not going to be built overnight. But you feel after the first week if you make a plan of it. You feel stronger by the end of the week? It's great.

Scott Benner 35:54
Well, I mean, I guess really, you know, modern society, you've described a number of your jobs, they weren't physically demanding jobs. And you got to think, you know, a number of years ago, most of our jobs were more physically demanding. So you're really just, yeah, you're creating, you're creating that in your leisure time, basically, because your work time is easier.

Adam 36:17
Yeah. And you could do with the kids, you want to walk instead of riding your bike to the park, let's walk. And so they'll walk or ride or scooter and I'm going to put on a rock and I'm going to walk behind them. And the job is try and keep up. Because a you're gonna get a cardio workout. And two, you know, that's just gonna push you along. They're gonna be you're spending time with your kids. What's better than that? Well,

Scott Benner 36:40
there's a couple. There's a lot

Adam 36:41
of things better than that. But better. Different. Yeah, I mean, but think about it. Like, when you're when I was working the jobs, I was working a lot, a lot, a lot of hours. And so this gave me time to spend time work out, do all those things I made time for but also involve them as well. So I think modeling good behavior to them, is just important as disciplining them for doing something bad.

Scott Benner 37:04
Did the strength sort of created self body wide? Or was it more like core and back and legs? Yeah, it

Adam 37:13
was, I started noticing significant changes just my legs, because the first time I felt like like my twig like my knees, were gonna snap. Because you're like, Well, you put a lot of weight you're not used to it. So you feel it in your knees first. And that first thing it does is build some strength because you're not running, you're just walking a natural gait. But because it's heavier, you know, you're working those those muscles first. And then your core starts tightening up because you to hold that up. You've kind of kind of lean into it. So you're tightening your core, and you're walking through it. So that becomes better because my core is stronger. My background is I've had for years, I've kind of disappeared. Yeah, because my core is a lot stronger.

Scott Benner 37:51
That makes sense. How long it takes you up the weight?

Adam 37:55
Well, I stuck around 20 pounds for a good bit, probably six months. And then I did my first rocky event. Right? It was it was 20 pounds minimum. And then three liters of water is hot on top of that. So even right there, you're looking at 30 pounds ish. Okay, so that was six months into it. And now, you know, when I feel like I've kind of like, done my 3k route or 5k route in a beat my time over and over again, is I know, it's time to add more weight to kind of push through that.

Scott Benner 38:30
I say, you drink a lot of that water on the walk.

Adam 38:33
Oh, yeah. Yeah. More than most.

Scott Benner 38:38
Because you just like to stay hydrated or

Adam 38:40
you like to stay hydrated. You know, Dexcom works better when you're hydrated. But also, when I get like dry mouth, it reminds me of when I was uncontrolled diabetic. And that, that, that dryness in the back of your mouth. That was like a trigger for me. Like, I can't ever let that happen again, because it's so bad. Because if I'm that dehydrated, it means you know, my legs are gonna hurt and all this stuff. So I like to stay really hydrated that way. That

Scott Benner 39:08
makes sense. I I don't eat at the restaurant that I ate out right before my appendix burst. And the two things had nothing to do with each other. So, right? Don't want that. Right. I don't even want the feeling anymore. Right? Hey. Okay, so how do you manage your insulin for all this walking?

Adam 39:26
So I was just a Lantus human log MDI kid cuz I didn't when I first started to have zero visibility or my blood sugar's, so my first event, I did it as a fingerprick MDI situation, but it wasn't a big, taxing event. It was something called a light event. It was six hours long. You go you cover two or three miles. So if it's six hours long, and I'm covering two or three miles, I know I'm not going to have this long distance my blood sugar is going to drop thing, because I'm not walking long or hard enough right now sure there'll be a little bit more working out than I normally do. But I wasn't too worried about it. And then I started, get up in the ante and just some of the events space. And I realized that MDI and pricking my finger in a 12 hour event is just impractical. It's just not practical to do that. You need to have a bit more technology. And that's when I'm like, Okay, I need to get a CGM. So it's just I get visibility over that.

Scott Benner 40:26
I gotta ask you a 12 hour event. What do you what do you walk into Minnesota? What are you doing?

Adam 40:33
So they have this company go rock has three levels way of more than three. But the three basic core events that they offer, are a go rock, heavy LIGO rock tough in the go rock light, and the biggest duration is activity. And time. So a light is going to be your entry level, type event, six hours long ish, sometimes four, sometimes six, distance between two to five miles. Lighter weight, it's like if someone is just trying to get into it, they don't want to scare you away. And then once you get into it, and you get the bug, you go, I want to do more. So now you do a tough event, which is the same thing as the light, except it's a little heavier, it's a bit longer in their standards a little tighter. So you know, hey, you have so long as an entire team, because the people you show up to these events with you create one team. And that's kind of a team building exercise. So you've got to move all this stuff, whether it's sandbags, random, you find along the way, like a tree trunk, you got to get from point A to point B in a certain time. By the way, you're not looking at a watch. So hurry it up. So you kind of do that kind of stuff. And it's a fun, it's a lot of fun to do that because you're working with people switching weight back and forth. And that's just fun to do. So that's a 12 hour. And then the heavy is just that. It's just longer and heavier. Which is a 24 hour Rockfest Gee, it's awful.

Scott Benner 42:01
Do you eat during it?

Adam 42:04
Well, as a diabetic, because you tell him you're diabetic, you are smart, they don't take your food away from you. Because food is now a lifesaver to you. Everybody else that has functioning pancreas is Yeah, they'll they'll limit your food, you take what you're going to eat with you. So in in some events, they take your food away and tell you when you can eat. But usually, between waypoints you get from point A to point B, you'll have a chance to stop, reset yourself, eat something if you need it, and then keep going. But it's all endurance. It's all about endurance.

Scott Benner 42:35
It costs money to be involved. Yeah, yeah, these events

Adam 42:39
aren't cheap. They can be pretty expensive. But the reward is worth in my opinion, the worth the cost.

Scott Benner 42:47
Yeah. Well, I mean, you're making paying somebody to carry sand for no real reason. I get what it's about, but it's just it's a funny idea.

Adam 42:57
Yeah, it's a it's a really, really funny idea. And I don't really care about carrying the weight. I mean, that's that that's the suck fest part of it. But it's between those movements, where you get to talk to the guy running it, who like one of my favorite cadre, his name's Kadri I adore. And he was in Delta Force during the Battle of Mogadishu. And listening him tell that story, or tell you what it was like, is just worth all the pain you go through seeking to hear that story in a way where now he put you through a movement that they had to do, and you kind of understand it better. That's what it's about.

Scott Benner 43:33
Do you prep it all for these things? I mean, do you cut your basil back? How far before you get to v have to eat certain things prior to it? Do you not eat certain things prior to it?

Adam 43:43
Yeah, well, I didn't find your podcast until after I was medically dropped from a 24 hour event because of low blood sugar. And at that point, I didn't cut Basal because I didn't know what that was. Like, I didn't know that concept. I was just told I gotta get myself this. So it didn't have CGM when I started it. So it was a that, that failure. In that 24 hour event, I was nine hours into the event. And that was dropped because my blood sugar was low enough where I was completely coherent. But my blood sugar wouldn't read on the one touch at all. So one of the guys in the stack with us was an ER doc in I'm sitting there tears running down my face because I trained, you know, six months to a year to be there. And I'm nine hours in it and I was gonna do what the heavy tough light I was going to do the heavy followed by the tough followed by the light on a row. That's what I was training for. And, you know, nine hours into the first event I'm getting dropped because they can't i can't manage my blood sugar. And at this point, I've had three lows already. So like yeah, you're out man.

Scott Benner 44:48
It's just gonna keep happening. So the rocking events are the reason you found the podcast.

Adam 44:53
Yeah, yeah, I need to find a better way to. I was looking for information, better ways to manage because what I was doing was ain't working for what I wanted to do right at all. So I needed to find different ways to do it. So I just looked up, I had commutes to work that were about 20 minutes. So I love podcasts. So I just started looking for type one podcasts. In years, it was like the first one that pop up. I'm like, okay, and then it just start listening. And then when you would reference an older episode about something, that go back and listen to the older episode, it all came down to you get a CGM, and ultimately get a pump. Because that's how you do it. That's what I did.

Scott Benner 45:32
Do you find that in the end? It's timing and amount.

Adam 45:37
Oh, 100%. Yeah, timing amount and, and also confidence that you know what you're doing, right? A lot of a lot of it is just lack of confidence, knowing is it going to work through that way? Is it not going to work the right way? You know, and that fear of insulin is a real thing, right? Of course, especially when you're working out?

Scott Benner 45:53
No, of course, and the chasing becomes, you don't, you don't realize you're chasing it first. And then you don't realize how far you've run away from the path. And you can't find your way back anymore. You know, you just write days and days of you like stopping lows and then eating and making it high again, and then you know, crash. Yeah, you're just like I don't understand like, because you can't i It's such an overused idea. But you can't see the forest for the trees at some point. You just

Adam 46:20
know you can't You don't you don't know how bad the fight is until you're not in it anymore. And you can you look back and like kind of the debrief what you did well, and what you did.

Scott Benner 46:28
Yeah. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Arden's bothering me. That's all good. I just had to text her and let her know what I was doing. Where are you? Is code for I'm hungry. You should come make me lunch. And

Adam 46:43
that's exactly what my kids do, except they come downstairs with a bag of bread and go make me a sandwich.

Scott Benner 46:48
We say at least they have an idea art. And it's like, I don't know what I want, but I'm hungry. And they're listing all the things you have in the house. And she goes, there's nothing here. Like, well, there must be, you know, it cost me $300 I don't see how there can't be anything here. Right. I want to go get a cheeseburger. Okay. Well, sounds great. But if I made you a cheeseburger, nah, not the same. Okay, I just You just eat kale.

Adam 47:16
No, yeah, it really cheeseburgers are my thing. I love them.

Scott Benner 47:20
I gotta be honest with the eating is a problem. In our, in our lifestyle, it really is a problem because you feel like you have two options, make a good meal, and lose a bunch of time that you think that you can't get back, or grab something quick so that you can do the things you're trying to do. And when you're a working age person. Like one of the most exciting things I think about being retired one day is going to be that I can make myself a meal without feeling badly about it. Exactly. Hi, mom.

Adam 47:52
My wife can tell when she gets home from work. Because, you know, during the pandemic, we started working from home. And she still had to go to the office. So I was watching you know, trying to do my job, make sure the kids are fed. And she could tell how stressful of a day it was by what I mean. She was stressful day, huh? He up

Scott Benner 48:11
really is enjoy this fried egg children

Adam 48:15
tend to be because me like my therapy or my focus. And meditation is just making a really robust meal. The me some floss of putting everything together kids and like my meditation. So if it's an extravagant meal, I probably had a stressful day. Because when she gets home, the meal looks great. The house is in complete disarray, because I haven't paid zero attention to the children. And a lot of times, if I'm having fun with the kids, she'll get home. He goes, What's for dinner? I'm like, I don't know. Didn't think about it. I'm having fun.

Scott Benner 48:46
I'm not upset right now. So I'm trying to enjoy my life. Right? It's it's a struggle man. Like, I mean, it's not a real struggle, like, you know, like you said, like storming a beach with a backpack on or something like that. But for sure, it really is. It's a difficult thing to balance. And you can see how people even get into those like, well, we'll grab something like we'll grab takeout and then the next thing you know you love but it's three months later, you're like I don't even know that the last time we've cooked something was

Adam 49:14
Yeah, quickly. I think everyone goes through those like stretches. You're like, Oh crap. It's usually when you go how can we don't have as big of a savings account as we did like a month and a half ago. Then you go back go?

Scott Benner 49:24
r&b. So that's why, you know, that's, that's no kidding, either, because that was one of the COVID locked down things that I noticed. I was like, why do we have more money than we usually do? Yeah. And then we thought, oh, yeah, we're not going out to buy food anywhere. Like we're just cooking every meal here.

Adam 49:40
Yeah, you know, yeah, we stopped eating out. It stopped paying for daycare. For us. That was huge. That was like a 900 RP raise per month for us. Like, that's awesome.

Scott Benner 49:49
Yeah. She teaches kids how to take care of themselves. However.

Adam 49:54
My oldest is 20. She's off in college doing her thing. Then I got 12 year old, a six year old Almost seven, and then a five year old,

Scott Benner 50:02
and a six and fives and all that they're, they're probably illegal to leave them by themselves.

Adam 50:07
But you should check all that. So I have a 12 year old and like, Hey, I'm going out, make sure no one dies. And that usually what it is

Scott Benner 50:13
check your local laws about how to leave them in their house by yourself. Right? It's interesting, we're gonna test those limits. It's very cultural to like, like place the place when you talk to people about it. There, there are parts of the country where people are much more like, Oh, they're old enough. And like, I don't know if nine is old enough, like, you know, they're fine. Okay, yeah. So, usually I

Adam 50:37
think my benchmarks personally are, can they wipe their own butt? And can they make themselves some toast? If you can do those two things and not burn the place down? I think they're cool.

Scott Benner 50:45
I don't know. I want my kids to be able to defend the homestead. That's all under man. Okay, I want somebody to fight back

Adam 50:52
a little. I mean, my dog will probably welcome them in and show him where all the good. So

Scott Benner 50:56
I'm afraid of that. So I'm afraid to just take whatever you want. It's fine. We didn't pay for it.

Adam 51:01
And yeah, well, that's the pandemic of like, we stopped cleaning the house as often as we work because we're in it all the time. So it gets pretty messy pretty quick. And I looked at my wife, I'm like, I think we should leave it like this. Because if someone breaks in they're like, oh, so whatever you got here. We'll go go to the next one. Does nothing

Scott Benner 51:15
worth taking? I cleaned COVID It was the the extra time is what it was for me.

Adam 51:22
Yeah. Well, the first six months of COVID My kids were with my in laws they kind of got trapped down there on spring break. My in laws loved it me my work for like, we've never spent this much significant time without kids. This is weird, man. We loved

Scott Benner 51:34
it. My favorite part of it is very, very specific and odd. But that I hated that aren't enough to go to school anymore. But I love not having to get up to take her to school anymore. Oh, gosh. Yeah, like an extra hour of sleep for me. And yeah, I was like, I'm a huge fan. Now. Even today. She's a teacher. She drives now. Like by the time it was all back to school. She'll say stuff like, you guys were sound asleep when I left for school this morning. Like, yeah, it's right. So awesome. Yeah. If you want to sleep at 715, all you have to do is grow up. And that's it. Because I can I start my job pretty easily here. And Kelly's been working at home. So it's, yeah, just kind of get up and take a shower and get going. And

Adam 52:16
yeah, since COVID, no alarms in my house for me. I wake up at seven o'clock every day, no alarm, boom, done thing.

Scott Benner 52:24
There's some things that have been I've learned from it that were good. And there's some things I learned that as soon as it went back the other way. I was like, Oh, wow, we fell right back into this, like trap. It was interesting to see how quickly lessons that I felt were learned or lost. Anyway, quickly. Yeah. So Adam, is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should have that I missed?

Adam 52:49
Well, yeah, I mean, the first event that I did was rocking post, CGM and post pod so that's gonna be September 2020. I was in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And I did my first event with an insulin pump with a CGM went a whole lot smoother. And that's when I learned I need to get to loop because there's another guy named AJ there, who is also type one, but he was wearing a tandem control IQ. So I'm looking at his graph going, yours is a flat line, and you're doing more work than I am. And I'm going up and down quite a bit. Because I'm having, you know, as many carbs as I can between movements to keep the sugar up, I have my Basal cut back to almost nothing. So like, I'm writing a little bit more of a rollercoaster than he was like, I need that. So that's what I've been working on trying to figure out how to get the loop. But I love Omnipod so I'm just waiting for the Omnipod five at this point

Scott Benner 53:49
right now. That's interesting. Oh, also, why do I know? Is that where one of the planes went down on? 911? Yeah, it's like 93 That's why I know that word. Shanksville. Yeah, yes. Had that and I was like, why don't I know that name of that town? Yeah,

Adam 54:04
I mean, go go rock does these events that are kind of honorary in 911 is a big one for them. They have these huge events in New York, big ones in Washington, DC. But everyone tends to forget about Shanksville. So they've been putting these events on in Shanksville in the community there loves it when when these groups show up because it's interesting going through the country walking on a country road, you see a stack of like 25 to 50 people carrying heavy stuff up the hill, to the memorial, right? It's a big deal for their local communities, bringing awareness and it's I swear to God when my grandparents and our parents used to say, Hey, I had to walk uphill both ways. They reference Shanksville because that's Everywhere you go it's uphill there. No matter what. Okay, you go back the same exact way and you're still going up.

Scott Benner 54:54
How are we going back and it still feels like we're

Adam 54:57
right. So but yeah, it was that was Have fun. It's a fun event. It's a real ballbuster of an event. But it's a fun event.

Scott Benner 55:04
No kidding. How long do you think your body will hold up doing this? Like you said, you're 41? Right?

Adam 55:09
Yeah, I mean, last year during the pandemic, I cut back after that event, mainly because, you know, lockdowns got a little bit tighter, here in Cleveland. And I did a lot more just walking around the block, but I didn't have a lot of events on the horizon. Because I wasn't gonna go out in public with a bunch of strangers as easily as I was before. Because I've got little kids because as this kind of like, kids getting younger and younger, I worked in health care. So I see the, the patients that were calling me for oxygen, getting younger and younger. I'm like, I don't want to risk it. So I've kind of backed off a bit. And I'm starting to feel a little bit like my feet. He's to be able to walk 12 miles, my feet would be fine. Now walk three and a half miles and it felt like a walk 12. So I think it's just a matter of repetition, getting the reps back up, we'll probably get there. But it's really low impact as far as joints are concerned, if you build into it. Okay, a lot, a lot, a lot less stressful on your knees than running. Because I imagine running. It's no problem you could do with friends. So you could walk miles and miles with friends and not realize it. So which is what I like to do.

Scott Benner 56:17
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. This the slow build part of it is attractive. Yeah, that idea of not like jumping into something just crazy. And, and maybe hurting yourself because you're, you're not prepared for it. Yeah.

Adam 56:31
And what's crazy about when you're trying to do this stuff, and you're type one diabetic, when I go did my friend Chris into doing this with me the first time his mom called, he goes, Don't kill him, but you're gonna kill yourself. You're diabetic. And I'm like, Yeah, but I'm not fragile. I mean, like, let's let me do my thing. You know, and now it's a big thing he and I share together. It's a lot of fun. We plan weekend's around it. It's fun.

Scott Benner 56:55
Did your wife ever get into it?

Adam 56:57
No, I mean, she does walking, but she I tried to get her during the pandemic to put a rocket on and go and she did it. Think her blessing harder for four miles and she got home took it off. She goes, Don't ever make me do that. Stupid, not for

Scott Benner 57:09
me. Well, listen, that for her. I just realized that you flew from Ohio to Pennsylvania to go for a walk. So it was I drove drive. Okay.

Adam 57:18
Yeah. So I drove from Cleveland to Pittsburgh picked up my friend that lives in Pittsburgh, and we drove out. Okay, all right. Yeah. But there are people that fly all over the country for this stuff. And it's crazy.

Scott Benner 57:27
That's it? No, it isn't. It really does sound interesting. And it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, in the end, you know, if you don't want to get into the lifestyle, like you could probably just do this with a weighted vest, right?

Adam 57:41
Yeah, you can do with the investment. CrossFit has kind of done that whole thing with the Murph and the weighted vests in the hero awards that they do. Same concept, you know, even the obstacle course racing circuit is kind of in that same vein. But what I like about rucking is that when you go to some of these events, there's it's literally unknown, you don't know what you're gonna do and for how long? That's cool thing.

Scott Benner 58:03
But if you like it, I think it's good.

Adam 58:07
Yeah, I mean, in that kind of like that functional fitness movement is still a thing like, as a result of rucking, we went to the Kentucky State Fair, we had a mile back to the car. And the kids, the little ones didn't want to walk. No one could carry on for that long. So I picked them both up and carried on the one mile to the car. And they both fell asleep. And it's like, had I not been rocking and doing all this other stuff. I would never have been able to do that. Yeah, it would have been more miserable. So

Scott Benner 58:32
it kind of gives you What's that? I think you would have had to drag him. We would

Adam 58:36
have had to get all my wife's tchotchkes that she picks up from all that free stuff out of the wagon, put them in it.

Scott Benner 58:43
How are we gonna get the business card? So I was thinking you would just strap something to their feet, just pull them through the lawn. But there you go. Maybe

Adam 58:54
it's concrete eventually. Oh, that's never

Scott Benner 58:55
fun. Do you ever think about the kids and diabetes? Yeah, so

Adam 58:59
actually, this just this week, we got a trial net. Like kit for my oldest, not my oldest, my second oldest second daughter oldest at home. And we're going to do see what genetic markers she might have. Anytime they say that their legs hurt, or they're really thirsty, and they're paying a lot. I'm paying closer attention now than I was before. But I'm not letting it rule. I don't see every symptom they have is the must be diabetic. You know. I've just kind of paying closer attention to it though.

Scott Benner 59:29
Is there any chance you got that trauma kit at trial? net.org forward slash juicebox.

Adam 59:34
That's exactly where I got it. Thank you. And when they asked me where I found out about it, I don't click the down arrow in selected Juicebox

Scott Benner 59:40
Podcast. Appreciate that. That's very nice.

Adam 59:46
Actually, I don't know the link. I clicked it was in the show notes. So if you didn't put it in correctly, that's on you.

Scott Benner 59:53
If I didn't put it in correctly, I deserve it. Don't worry. Now they're just an interesting it's an interesting situation there because I'm a big fan of what trauma does. But they're, you know, it doesn't cost anything for you to do trial net. So I think they're funded. I think they're government funded. And they wanted to get the word out more, but like, you know, I don't they don't have a ton of money for advertising. So they tried it with me. And to be honest, by the time somebody hears this, they might not be advertisers anymore. I have no idea. But they did a limited run to see how it would work. And, sure, now we're going to find out, so I appreciate you doing that very much.

Adam 1:00:30
No worries. I mean, anything I can do to kind of bring that awareness up, even for my kids, like, they'll hear my Dexcom go off up, Dad's gonna explode again. You know, that kind of thing. It's kind of a joke around here. About, you know, the stuff going off. And since I took your advice and lowered all my Dexcom alerts, they're hearing it more often. Which they tell you Okay, no, I'm fine. Don't worry about it.

Scott Benner 1:00:52
Yeah. How did that? How does that work out for you? Like, what is your agency now?

Adam 1:00:57
Well, that's a problem. I have gotten my agency in the last six months. Last time I did. It was 5.4. Yeah, five, four.

Scott Benner 1:01:05
Well, what are the apps tell you? The the apps was

Adam 1:01:09
Dexcom? Because the last 90 days have been a struggle for me. Stress at Work, that kind of stuff. My my sugar's were high, but somewhere around six 6.7, I think, okay. So what a lot better than I was when I was first diagnosed. But six, seven is the highest. I've been since since being diagnosed. So I have fell backwards. But going forward, I mean, lowering those Dexcom alerts, I'm not chasing those highs anymore. I'm kind of preventing them with less insulin than it was before. So I mean, my, my carb ratio is one to eight. So if I have a pretty carb heavy meal, that's a lot of insulin pushing, which is weird. So

Scott Benner 1:01:48
no less than Ardens is like one to four and a half. So Oh, geez. Yeah. What's your Basal? Your Basal must be? Two.

Adam 1:01:56
Yeah, yeah, two to two and a half, depending on time of day, I crank it up at night, because I tend to like shoot up at night. So I have it cranked like two and a half when I sleep. When I wake up. It's, you know, to something like that.

Scott Benner 1:02:07
Interesting. Before I let you go tell me something about when life stresses and things become, you know, intensified? How does that impact you? Managing your blood sugar? Like, what? Why did it translate to a higher day? One say? I guess that's my question.

Adam 1:02:25
Well, again, you you stop paying attention to that kind of stuff. You think everything else that's going around you is more important than that at the moment. So in this case, was working at a health care facility, well, not not health care company that sells oxygen during a pandemic, and they're having sales problems in your sales guy, you're like, how long to find a sale and that kind of thing. So you're stressed about that, right? You're not paying attention. Because you're not paying attention. You go upstairs looking for a snack, while you're, you know, doing something just to grab, and you happen to grab something that's probably not the healthiest eat, it's probably pretty sugar heavy. And you Bolus late, that kind of stuff. So now you're chasing. So when I did, when I, beginning in November, you know, a lot of people are getting fired from our company, I happen to be one of them. I just went back to the basics, I stopped looking at the horizon focused on that, and said, This is what I'm gonna make sure I'm paying attention to because obviously, it's gonna go out of whack. And every time you put up a new podcast, you're learning something new from somebody else about their thing, something will stick with you that they said that I'm feeling that too, but they're overcoming it. So I don't feel alone so much. So he just gives you another way to focus on it in just like, that was a girl from Switzerland. She was just saying she stopped weekly checking in with in that kind of was messing her up a bit. And that's probably exactly what's happening with me, because I wasn't checking in with any podcasts. Right? So just kind of paying attention to the Facebook groups and stuff. And that's not everything. You got to have those constant educational reminders over and over again, Laura, that were from Switzerland. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Her accent was awesome. By the way, I went to Switzerland. And I just literally felt like I was sitting in Vermont with another Swiss guy. listening to them talk. It was great.

Scott Benner 1:04:15
Excellent. So okay, sorry, I take your point that there's, there's something about an economy of time, and having to stay focused on the things that are important and it being easy for other life things to pull you away. And then you don't have that time and then that's then we're on that slippery slope of we'll just grab something. And then three months later, we don't know what happened like that.

Adam 1:04:38
Yeah. Again, you need debrief and quarters is what I always do. Look back at all the variables with my my health plan going. I really screwed that up and I own it. And then I'm going to fix it in the cool thing about rucking is it doesn't take much to get that those numbers back down. You know, like, if I do happen to be chasing one day It's easy to throw a rock on and go around the block to help that insulin take off faster before you hit high before you go outside of your 180 range in my wife called it rage, rucking, because, like, I'll eat dinner. I missed the Bolus somehow. So now I'm like shooting up past 200. And I just she sees me just get up, throw some shoes on throw a rock kind of just rage out the door. I come back she goes, how you feeling like, back at 1:50am? Cool.

Scott Benner 1:05:23
Adam, it took you the entire recording, but you did it. Yeah, you named your episode. What is it? I got to be honest with you. 30 seconds ago, I was like, I wonder what I'll call this. And I've been trying to I've been trying to do wordplay in my head, like the whole time you were talking with, you know, replacing the F and the R. And I couldn't find and now all of a sudden you were just like rage rocking. I was like, oh, there we go. There

Adam 1:05:51
it is. You can rage Bolus and then redirect at the same time because that's exactly what I've done. I've done in the past. So

Scott Benner 1:05:58
if somebody was it, you I, on the Facebook page, I kind of had to remind everybody to be like human beings recently, around around arguing about COVID vaccines when I just basically I ended up saying, Look, if you're gonna use the word COVID or COVID vaccine, and it's not to help somebody with their blood sugar, like we're done like I'm not doing anymore. Somebody called my post a rage. Bolus or rage like posters. Probably. So yeah. They just made me think of that just now which I by the way was not enraged. When I wrote it. I was just a lot more direct.

Adam 1:06:32
Yeah, unless I mean, right. And sometimes you need directness to snap people out of it, you know. And it's, I happen to find those COVID posts are kind of comical in the comments. So I love it like, like anyone have a fact I'm like, I'm going to get it now. I have not grown a tail, so I feel good about it. Or I'm kind of mad. I don't have a tail. It just depends on how I feel that

Scott Benner 1:06:53
day was in jest from the perspective of someone running a Facebook group. There's 18,000 people in there. And I'm not going to allow the good work that the Facebook page does to be waylaid by 35 people who have a strong opinion about something like I'm glad you have a strong kotel someone else who cares. That's not what we're talking about here. You know,

Adam 1:07:12
for sure, yeah, it's the same. There's other Facebook groups and part of you in the rocking community. If you're a new guy and ask a question, I feel sorry for them because their posts are gonna get hijacked, and they're gonna get made fun. It's just I stay away from a lot of these Facebook groups anymore, because it's just like really guys,

Scott Benner 1:07:28
I realized my group runs incredibly smoothly. It's this one does the one thing that it just I'm like, Look guys, like, that's not what this space is for. Like, I I'm excited for you that you have some very hard, like, held theories about things and you want to share them, share them somewhere where someone's asking about it, like this is not I think sometimes people don't understand the power of their social media. And right and that they want to I mean, listen, Adam i i have a fairly large following of people, you know, whether it's social media or this podcast, and I don't have the amount of power to move people in a direction that you might imagine so you know, you and your 400 Twitter followers are probably not the power block that you imagine you are yeah like it's just It doesn't work that way but

Adam 1:08:19
yeah, people are drawn to that negativity sometimes to when they post something negative about something people are drawn to it and I hear it's it's just fire anyway just blows up.

Scott Benner 1:08:28
Apparently my rage post took care of it. Alright, man, I gotta jump but I appreciate you doing this very much.

Adam 1:08:35
Oh, no worries, man. Thank you so much.

Scott Benner 1:08:37
Yeah, have a great day.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox you spell that GVOKEGL You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'd also like to thank us, Matt and remind you to go to us med.com forward slash juicebox or call 888-721-1514 To get your free benefits check. And if you're in the Orlando area, and you'd like to hear me speak at an upcoming event, you should check out touched by type one.org.

I hope you enjoy this episode of The Juicebox Podcast don't forget to check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. And of course if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at episode 210 In your podcast player, or are available at juicebox podcast.com and diabetes pro tip.com. If you've already heard the Pro Tip series and are looking for more management content, well guess what we have for you There are currently 26 episodes in the after dark series everything from an interview with a sex worker with type one to someone with bipolar, and everything in between. After Dark Knight your speed, how about an entire grouping of episodes all about algorithm pumping 14 episodes about looping on the pod five control IQ and the mini med Medtronic 670 G. There are also a ton of episodes where Jenny Smith and I have answered questions asked by listeners those episodes are called ask Scott and Jenny. And there are 18 of them at this point. There are lists available at Facebook, right you know, the Facebook machine Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, it's a private group at the top of the page, you click on Featured and in there all of these lists, like the after dark and the Ascot and Jenny stuff. In that same place, you'll find lists of the new and growing bold beginning series. This series is where Jenny and I take feedback from the listeners we asked them, What do you wish you knew at diagnosis, and channeling I have broken up into a series and it's going along very well. I think we're five or six episodes into it. Go find the bolt beginning series list in the Facebook group. Under the featured tab. That's the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. Are you interested in celiac There are nine episodes just about celiac. Again, head over to Facebook, look in that featured tab. When you get there you'll also find 19 episodes grouped together called Talking with children. These are interviews that I've done with kids as you can tell by the title talking with children. The defining diabetes series is 44 episodes long. This is a really great breakdown where Jenny Smith and I go through all of the terms that you use with diabetes and really explain them to you in an easy to understand digestible way. In short episodes, the finding diabetes 44 episodes long please listen. Everything from Bolus feet on the floor rage Bolus bumping nudge hydration pump brake antibodies, things you need to understand if you're using insulin. There's a series all about thyroid defining thyroid series again, Jenny Smith and I define the things you need to understand for living with thyroid disease. And there's a bonus episode with that with Dr. Addy Benito where she thoroughly explains thyroid disease in Episode 413. We also have 10 episodes grouped together about this ordered eating. And there is a ton of information about how to Bolus for fat and protein. And if that doesn't make sense to you go find that list. bolusing for fat and protein seven episodes that will change the way you think about using your insulin. And if you're looking for mental wellness episodes. Currently there are 13 on the list many with Erica Forsythe. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist who also has had type one diabetes for three decades. Eric and I frequently talk about things that fit right into her professional profile. Two great grouping of episodes. So there's something for everybody. They're all right there in your podcast player. But if you can't find them, you go to into Juicebox Podcast, type on diabetes on Facebook, go up to the feature tab. And that's where all those lists exist. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.


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