Ep. 26 – Building a Diabetes Community Through Vulnerability, Movement and Mindset (Diabetes with Mily)

Host: John Pemberton, RD
Guest: Diabetes with Milly (Milly)

Episode page: Detailed show notes

In this episode, Milly joins John to explore how real community forms when people with type 1 diabetes feel safe enough to be vulnerable. Diagnosed during lockdown and thrown into DKA in the final year of her biology degree, Milly rebuilt her life through movement, self-experimenting with strength training, discovering yoga, and eventually travelling alone to India for formal practice in breathwork, mindset and nervous-system regulation.

What began as a personal diary on Instagram became Diabetes with Milly — a space where 10,000+ people find honesty, humour and connection, and where the Glucose Gals WhatsApp community now supports hundreds of women navigating type 1 diabetes, menstrual cycles, trauma echoes, and real-life blood glucose chaos.

This conversation sits firmly “Beyond the Numbers”: the human reality of diagnosis, burnout, highs that trigger old trauma, rebuilding confidence, and how movement and mindfulness can reshape the emotional experience of living with the condition.

Your community is not optional — it is protective infrastructure.

What This Episode Covers

• Diagnosis in lockdown: DKA, isolation, and learning to manage T1D without real-world support
• Sport to strength training: using exercise as both therapy and education
• Yoga, India, breathwork and regulating the panic response during hypos
• Trauma memory: why highs can trigger the emotional weight of diagnosis
• Building an online presence through vulnerability, not perfection
• Creating the Glucose Gals WhatsApp community (250+ women)
• Women’s health, menstrual cycles and why female physiology in T1D is so understudied
• Milly’s plans for a new master’s → PhD in women’s exercise physiology
• The future: UK meet-ups, movement spaces, and combining strength + yoga for holistic T1D support

Key Insights

Vulnerability builds community.
People don’t gather around perfect numbers — they gather around honesty.

Movement changes glucose, but also mindset.
Strength training, yoga and breathwork each shape the physiological and emotional response to hypo/hyper stress.

Trauma echoes are real.
Diagnosis anniversaries, unexplained highs and body sensations can resurface early memories; normalising this reduces shame.

Representation matters.
Women with T1D need research that reflects menstrual cycles, hormonal phases and real-world fluctuations.

People need pe

For collaboration, partnerships, or press enquiries: John Pemberton — john@theglucoseneverlies.com

For creative, social, and production enquiries: Anjanee Kohli — anj@theglucoseneverlies.com

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