Reclaim Your Rise: Type 1 Diabetes with Lauren Bongiorno
Lauren Bongiorno is a Nationally Board Certified Health Coach and the founder and CEO of Risely Health. Featured on the TODAY show and other media outlets, Risely helps people and families impacted by Type 1 Diabetes take ownership over their health so they can transform their life with more freedom and confidence. Lauren has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 7 years old and has experienced firsthand that when health transforms, so does everything else - our relationships, our time, our career, our families, and, most importantly, ourselves. Each week she will bring you lessons from her own personal diabetes experience, strategies that are key to understanding your body’s patterns, and guests who will speak to everything from advances in technology to all things hormones, exercise, relationships, and mindset. All of this so that over time, you TOO can reclaim your rise.
Reclaim Your Rise: Type 1 Diabetes with Lauren Bongiorno
169. 'Can You Eat That?': Untangling Food Freedom After a Lifetime of Diet Culture and T1D
In this week’s episode, Lauren sits down with Alison Abate Black, a graduate of the DCB coaching program and a Type 1 diabetic of 25 years, for a deeply honest conversation about the fine line between grace and avoidance. Alison opens up about her journey from “winging it” with her diabetes to building real confidence with food—and how food freedom, while empowering at first, eventually started pulling her away from the goals that mattered most. Together, they explore what it means to give yourself too much grace, and how compassion without intention can become a quiet form of self-sabotage. As Alison prepares for pregnancy, she’s learning to redefine grace—not as permission to stay stuck, but as conscious, aligned choices that support her vision for long-term health. This episode is a powerful reminder that transformation isn’t a clean before-and-after—it’s a living, breathing process. If you’ve ever asked yourself whether the self-love you’re practicing is truly serving you, this conversation will meet you right where you are.
Quick Takeaways:
- Finding Balance: Weight, Health, and Happiness
- Navigating Emotional Eating and Food Freedom
- Hidden Forms of Self-Sabotage
Timestamps:
- [03:09] What inspired Lauren to have Alison on: “just because I can dose for it doesn't mean that's what I need all the time.”
- [04:11] The beginning of Alison’s T1D journey
- [04:39] “I never had a deep sense of control…’
- [05:26] “I kind of was like a status quo diabetic, but it always felt like I wanted to be more than that.”
- [09:58] Emotional eating: “So I would eat and that would make me feel better…”
- [11:50] What managing eating a challenging meal looks like NOW
- [16:04] “... Really it's like the diabetes version of a diet trap, right?”
- [20:48] Relatability over advice
- [21:55] What sustainable changes she made to lower her A1C in the low 6.0’s for the last year & a half
- [23:38] The conversations around pregnancy that completely changed her perspective
What to do now:
- Follow me @lauren_bongiorno and @riselyhealth on Instagram to stay in the loop when new episodes drop.
- Apply for coaching and talk to our team so you can reclaim the life you deserve.
