Kelly Clarkson‘s fabulous holiday album, Wrapped In Red, is the inspiration behind this year’s annual Divabetic Gift Guide. We asked our contributors to share their favorite ‘red’ gift suggestions for people living with diabetes on the Divabetic blog and Diabetes Late Nite podcast.

Our friend, Christel Oerum, is a certified personal trainer, diabetes advocate, and fitness personality and the co-founder of Diabetes Strong. She has been living with type 1 diabetes since 1997, and lives by the motto “there’s nothing you can’t do with diabetes.” 

With a wonderful life motto like that, we had to ask Chirstel to share her favortie ‘red’ activewear pieces and some advice and guidance on staying ‘diabetes strong’ during the holidays

“I’m obsessed with workout tights, capris to be specific,” says Christel. “Not sure you can ever have too many.  My favorite brands are Athleta and Senita.” 

Athleta Insulated Flurry PrimaLoft® Jacket is a great base layer for medium and high impact workouts in cold weather. It’s chafe-free seamless fabric and woven piecing with lightweight insulation provides additional coziness. 

“I have these Senita capris and I absolutely love them because the fit is great and they have pockets large enough to hold a cell phone, CGM receiver or insulin pump. Brilliant!”

“I wrote the Fit With Diabetes eBook to share my knowledge of how to exercise and eat healthily with insulin-dependent diabetes,” says Christel. “This is knowledge that I think is essential if you manage your diabetes with insulin – no matter if you use a pump, pen, needle or inhalable insulin.”

The Fit With Diabetes eBook is your chance to get your hands on over 80 pages of knowledge, techniques, and tools to set yourself up for success living with diabetes. After reading this book you’ll have the knowledge to: Set realistic diabetes, health, and fitness goals, Manage your food and insulin around workouts to limit high and low blood sugar, Successfully manage your weight with diabetes, Create healthy meal plans that won’t cause havoc on your blood sugar (or use the meal plan in the book), Create an exercise plan that is right for you (examples of beginner and advanced plans in the book) and More! 

Walking In A Winter Wonderland Advice from Christel Oerum

“ Remember everything counts when it comes to being active and walking is one of the most effective ways to reduce blood sugars,” add Christel Oerum. “Here are some tips to stay active over the holidays!”

Take the family for a stroll before and/or after dinner

Explore a museum (great way to get plenty of steps in without being in the cold)

Have a snowball fight or build a snowman

Diabetes Strong Co-Founder and Head Coach, Christel Oerum holds an MBA in Finance & Strategy and an ISSA Personal Trainer certification with specialization in Fitness and Diabetes (Level 3 certified from the Diabetes Motion Academy)

Diabetes Strong (originally TheFitBlog) was established in 2015 as a personal blog about Christel’s experiences as a fitness enthusiast living with type one diabetes.

Christel struggled to find easily accessible information about exercise and healthy nutrition with diabetes online, so she decided to create a website where she could share her own advice and invite experts from the diabetes community to contribute.

TheFitBlog quickly grew into one of the largest websites about health and diabetes and was re-launched in 2017 as Diabetes Strong, a diabetes portal with expert contributors from all over the world.

The goal of Diabetes Strong is to provide a platform where people living with (any type) of diabetes can find all the information they need to live healthy and active lives.

The information on Diabetes Strong always takes a positive approach to diabetes and follows Christel’s motto that “There is nothing you can’t do with diabetes.”

December’s Diabetes Late Nite Available on Demand for Free

Enjoy December’s Diabetes Late Nite podcast featuring holiday music from Kelly Clarkson’s iconic Wrapped In Red album courtesy of SONY Music. Guests include Poet Lorraine Brooks, Kathy Gold  RN, MSN, CDE, FAADE, Glucose Delivery Necklace Co-Creator Kris Maynard, Dr. Sara (Mandy) Reece, PharmD, CDE, BC=ADM, BCACP, FAADE, Maria Sakowitz, MS, RDN, LDN, CLT, and the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach. LISTEN NOW