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Peloton instructor Robin Arzon opens up about Type 1 diabetes diagnosis

The fitness instructor was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2014.
/ Source: TODAY

Robin Arzón was 32 years old and had just signed a contact with Peloton when she received a shocking diagnosis: Type 1 diabetes. 

Arzón, a vegan and fitness fanatic, was in disbelief. 

“I thought, ‘What the!? What am I going to do?’” Arzón, 40, revealed on the Second Life” podcast earlier this month. “The first question I asked the endocrinologist was, ‘How am I going to the run the race I have in three weeks?”

The race that Arzón was referring to was her first 50-mile ultramarathon.

“I was solution-oriented from the beginning,” Arzón, who is vice president of fitness programming at Peloton, explained. “There was zero time for self pity because self pity is poison. I just had to figure it out.”

Type 1 diabetes, often referred to as juvenile diabetes, is a disease that occurs when the body’s pancreas stops producing insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels. It is different from Type 2 diabetes, which makes up 90 to 95% of diabetes cases and is correlated with obesity. There is no cure for Type 1. The good news is that you can live a happy and healthy life with the condition — as Arzón has proved.

Arzón said her symptoms were increased thirst, frequent urination and fatigue, but she wasn't overly concerned.

“I was coming off of a trip to visit my sister who was living in India, and I thought, ‘Oh, I must have jet lag or something,” she recalled. But Arzón’s mother, a physician, suspected it was something more and recommended that her daughter schedule blood work.

The rest is history.

Arzón went on to run that 50-mile ultramarathon. In fact, she's completed three of them — and one 100-mile race.

“I really like to focus on what my body can do and where I want to take it,” she told Yahoo! Life last year. “I really look at things from a place of turning a loss into a lessons turning pain into power. And that’s a story arc that everyone can relate to.”

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