Interview With Bright Spots & Landmines Author Adam Brown

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Adam Brown, the Senior Editor at diaTribe and columnist behind the excellent Adam’s Corner has written his first book, Bright Spots and Landmines.

Adam, who resides in San Francisco, has lived with diabetes for 15 years and is also the Head of Diabetes Technology & Digital Health at Close Concerns. He is much wiser than his 28 years and has recently made himself one of the Diabetes Online Community’s most respected members. We interviewed him to learn all about his new book:

DD: Why did you write Bright Spots & Landmines?

When I started writing my diaTribe column (Adam’s Corner) in 2013, my goal was to write highly actionable articles sharing useful diabetes tips, discoveries, and experiments. To my complete surprise, over 600,000 people have read these articles to date, and I’ve received hundreds of emails and comments sharing gratitude and kindness. I still can’t believe it! Since each column stands alone, I wanted this book to be a single guide that distills all the most helpful things I’ve learned in four areas: food, mindset, exercise, and sleep.

My goal from the beginning has been to write a guide so actionable, anyone with diabetes (or a caregiver) can pick it up and immediately improve some aspect of his/her life. Based on the early reviews, I’m super encouraged so far!

Who is Bright Spots & Landmines for?

I’ve worked extremely hard to make this book useful for a wide spectrum of people: type 1, type 2, prediabetes, caregivers, and healthcare providers. I had every single one of these groups read drafts of the book and provide feedback on it. If you currently have diabetes, the content is designed to be actionable whether you were newly diagnosed or have had 50+ years of diabetes – I also had both of these groups read Bright Spots & Landmines.

There are a lot of diabetes books out there nowadays, why should someone consider reading THIS one?

A great question, and one I agonized over when I was starting this project. Does this book add value? Bright Spots & Landmines is:

• Focused on direct actions that people can take to improve their lives with diabetes and prediabetes.
• Grounded in four areas not often addressed in a single guide: food, mindset, exercise, and sleep.
• Written from a person-with-diabetes perspective and based on over 50,000 hours wearing continuous glucose monitoring, more than 10,000 hours writing professionally about diabetes, and learning from hundreds of diabetes conferences and leading thinkers.
• Vetted by the world-class diaTribe advisory board and over 500 years of combined diabetes experience in the feedback process.
• Filled with illustrations, pictures, and real-life examples – it’s a gorgeous book!
• Covers daily successes (Bright Spots) and mistakes (Landmines) – this is not a book that talks down to readers.
• About half the length of a typical non-fiction book.
• Written in an easy modular style – readers can gain tons of useful insights without reading cover to cover.
• Non-perishable advice – my goal was to write a book that will be relevant for years and not tied to a particular device or drug.

What are Bright Spots and Landmines? What are some examples in the life of a person with diabetes?

The book has 43 Diabetes Bright Spots and 16 Diabetes Landmines, and each includes specific actions I use to encourage/avoid them.

The goal with “Bright Spots” is to identify what works and focus on doing those things more often. In other words, “What’s going well in my diabetes that I should keep doing? What happens on my best days? What foods and decisions keep my blood glucose in the tight range of 70-140 mg/dl (4-8 mmol/l)? What puts me in a positive frame of mind? How can I do more of these things each day?”

Examples:

• Eat less than 30 grams of carbohydrates at one time.
• Remember why in-range blood sugars benefit me TODAY (I’m happier, more productive, in a better mood, and a kinder person to loved ones).
• Walk after I eat and to correct high BGs.
• Get at least seven hours of sleep.

Conversely, the point of Diabetes Landmines is to uncover what doesn’t work and find ways to do those things less often. “What decisions do I make repeatedly that explode into out-of-range blood glucose values over 200 mg/dl or less than 70 mg/dl? What happens on my most challenging days with diabetes? What choices do I always regret? What repeatedly brings on negative feelings? How can I do fewer of these things each day?” Examples:

• Hypoglycemia binge: overeating to correct a low, only to go high afterwards.
• Eating white bread and potatoes and sugary foods.
• Asking unproductive questions like “How is this possible?” or “Why am I so terrible at this?”

Clarifying these Landmines upfront helps develop a plan of attack: What safeguards can I set up to avoid them? How can I build routines that reduce the chances of stumbling onto them?

Why are you practically giving this book away?

We believe that cost should not be a barrier to doing better with diabetes.

Bright Spots and Landmines is priced as low as possible on Amazon (less than $7 in paperback, $1.99 on Kindle), and is available as a free/name-your-own-price download at diaTribe.org/BrightSpots. Those were very deliberate decisions and things we spent a lot of time researching and refining.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted this book to reach as many people with diabetes as possible, which is why we chose to self-publish it and give it away. Any proceeds from the name-your-own price download go to The diaTribe Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. I won’t personally get any royalties from sales/downloads of this book – again, that was something I was very committed to from the start.

In your book, do you talk about what you eat and how you exercise?

Yes! Chapter one addresses food in depth, including exactly what I eat to keep my BG in range and what foods I try to avoid. But it’s not just a meal plan; Bright Spots & Landmines is like my operating system for dealing with food every day: restaurant ordering strategies, kitchen/pantry set up, internal questions I ask, groceries, and beyond. The food chapter contains a lot of hacks and shortcuts that I’ve found really helpful for making better mealtime decisions.

Exercise is addressed in chapter three and touches on three very critical things: how I manage BGs during exercise, how I fit activity into a busy life, and how to make exercise fun.

Is there hope for people who aren’t managing their diabetes at all right now?

Yes! One of the themes of this book – and my life – is that knowledge is an incredible vehicle for self-improvement.

I did extremely poorly with diabetes when I was diagnosed – running an A1c in the 8%-9% range, including lots of highs and lows and an episode of severe hypoglycemia. The introduction to Bright Spots & Landmines talks about why: we got terrible advice on what to eat, I didn’t take diabetes seriously, and the tools to manage diabetes were not as good.

With the right approach, I firmly believe making small (or big) changes is possible – regardless of where someone starts with their diabetes. If you read some Bright Spots & Landmines testimonials or Amazon reviews, the advice in this book has already produced some great changes in readers’ lives – including some with very high A1c’s. This is what keeps me going!

I know you’re a few years younger than me but, hopefully this reference will make sense: If Carmen San Diego had diabetes, where in the world would she be?

Everywhere (!), and I mean that on two levels:

1. Diabetes can seriously invade every area of life – thoughts, energy levels, relationships, ability to do things that make me happy, etc.
2. We all know someone with diabetes, since there are more than 400 million of us globally.

With that word in mind, my hope is that this book becomes available everywhere it can make a difference. Thank you SO much for sharing this in Diabetes Daily!

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Thank you, Adam! Go here to get his book.

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