Earlier this summer, creators, advocates, and other members of the diabetes community gathered at an event hosted by Quixote Executive Chef José Cepeda and Tandem Diabetes Care, a San Diego-based diabetes technology company, at the Lafayette Hotel. The afternoon offered a space for individuals to learn more about the incredible insulin delivery technology currently available for those living with diabetes along with the chance to enjoy a meal that was glucose-friendly and delicious.
But it was also an opportunity for individuals to connect, to feel seen and understood, and to find strength in the power of their community.
Chef José treated attendees to a cooking demonstration and offered tips and recipes for confidently managing glucose levels without compromising creativity or taste. This included his signature horchata rice pudding, a dish rooted in his Mexican heritage and one inspired by his own grandmother’s recipe. “She’s been a big inspiration for me,” he shared. “She taught me how to cook and how to work. She has always been present in my recipes and what I’m doing. Mostly all of my dishes are based on her recipes.”
Left: Taylor Rindfleisch, director of partner management at advocacy organization Beyond Type 1 with Chef José Cepeda, showing off their Tandem Mobi insulin pumps during an event for type 1 diabetes advocates at Quixote Restaurant in the Lafayette Hotel on May 13 (Image courtesy of Dylan Leonard for Tandem Diabetes Care).Right: Soph Mosca, LA-based content creator, and Chef José Cepeda show off their Tandem Mobi insulin pumps during an event for type 1 diabetes advocates at Quixote Restaurant in the Lafayette Hotel on May 13 (Image courtesy of Dylan Leonard for Tandem Diabetes Care).
Creating healthy dishes that honor his roots has long been important to Chef José. But educating others on the impact food has on health is another one of his passions—and it’s a deeply personal one, too.
Chef José was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 19 when he was in culinary school, dreaming of becoming a chef. Rather than letting the diagnosis hold him back, he took the lessons his grandmother gave him and kept working. Now 34 and having achieved his own dream, he takes pride in being a resource for other people living with type 1 diabetes. Just as he uses food to connect with his culture, he believes food can and should be a tool for connecting the diabetes community.
During his demonstration, Chef José discussed how he balances his desire to create bold, creative cooking dishes with the need to be mindful of his own health and that of his diners. He also got candid about the daily realities of living with type 1 diabetes.
He specifically credited the Tandem Mobi system with helping him manage his condition even in the high-stress, fast-paced world of a professional chef. Tandem Mobi is the world’s smallest, durable automated insulin delivery system for people living with diabetes,1 making it the #1 Favorite Pump, and the People’s Choice winner2. Chef José said the device’s small size allows him to go about his day without worrying it will get in the way and is especially perfect for working in tighter quarters, like a kitchen. The device is also equipped with Control-IQ+ technology, an automated insulin delivery (AID) feature from Tandem that can be used by those with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. With an AutoBolus feature, it is also the only AID algorithm that allows users to program extended boluses of up to eight hours, allowing it to better manage delayed glucose rises or prolonged eating. “It detects that I’m going low or high and adjusts my insulin, and that helps in my really busy lifestyle,” Chef José said. “I don’t have to prick myself or do injections.”
The Tandem Mobi is just one of the pump options offered by Tandem Diabetes Care, which is constantly working to reduce the burden of diabetes management by creating innovative solutions and empowering patients.
John Sheridan, President and CEO of Tandem Diabetes Care, stopped in to meet Chef José Cepeda during an event for type 1 diabetes advocates at Quixote Restaurant in the Lafayette Hotel on May 13. (Image courtesy of Dylan Leonard for Tandem Diabetes Care).
Tandem Diabetes Care President and CEO John Sheridan spoke to the importance of this mission at the event, sharing that two of his childhood friends live with type 1 diabetes. They didn’t use Tandem products when he first joined the company, but they’ve since become dedicated users. Sheridan said at the event that their ongoing feedback helps guide and inspire both his and the Tandem team’s work.
Throughout the afternoon, guests had honest and heartfelt conversations about what it’s like to live with type 1 diabetes. They bonded over diagnosis stories, hospital experiences, and the daily management of blood glucose, and they weren’t afraid to be vulnerable about the financial costs of care or the emotional impact it can have on relationships, parenting, and sleep. They even shared tips on navigating diabetes devices with different outfits—especially when creating content—and offered their own resources of support.
Jules McKelvey, one of the attendees, called the event more than a meal; it was a chance to feel seen, supported, and connected with others who share similar challenges to him. Chef José agreed. While his goal is often to be the one inspiring others, Chef José found that he was the one feeling the inspiration that afternoon. “For the first time I felt understood by all the people around me,” he said.
This may have been the first time, but it won’t be the last. Chef José said he hopes to plan more events in the future that unite the diabetes community through food.
As of June, 2025. Data on file, Tandem Diabetes Care.
Seagrove PWD Survey: Nov. 2024.
Important Safety Information: RX ONLY. Indicated for patients with type 1 diabetes, 2 years and older and for patients with type 2 diabetes, 18 years and older. BOXED WARNING: Control-IQ+ technology should not be used in anyone under the age of 2 years old with type 1 diabetes or under the age of 18 years old with type 2 diabetes. It should also not be used in patients who require less than a total daily insulin dose of 5 units of insulin per day or who weigh less than 20 pounds, as those are the required minimum values needed for Control-IQ+ to operate safely. Safety info: tandemdiabetes.com/safetyinfo.
The Best Gym in San Diego Isn’t Really a Gym Anymore
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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Your feet and ankles probably aren’t something you give much thought to—until something goes wrong. Orthopedic surgeons at Scripps Clinic are on the leading edge of foot and ankle reconstruction, treating patients with sports injuries, deformities, traumatic injuries and other conditions. That includes repairing torn Achilles tendons with a minimally invasive procedure that shrinks the incision site to less than a centimeter, and performing advanced ankle replacement on some patients with ankle arthritis. Read more about Scripps’ innovations in foot and ankle care here.
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Mai Vue was just 34 weeks pregnant when she delivered her baby. Her pregnancy had been complicated, and she’d had a recent second trimester pregnancy loss, which led to her receiving specialized care from Sean Daneshmand, MD, a Scripps Clinic perinatologist who oversees high-risk pregnancies. Dr. Daneshmand and his team took care of Mai during her pregnancy, through the birth of her healthy baby girl and beyond. Mai was part of a program Scripps launched to provide support to new moms in the weeks and months after delivery. The postpartum program, known as Scripps Health’s Fourth Trimester Continuum of Care, provides care for women with high-risk pregnancies to optimize their health after childbirth and reduce the risk of complications in future pregnancies. Click here to learn more.
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It’s estimated that one in five people in the U.S. will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. When you factor in living in a sun-soaked city like San Diego and the outdoorsy lifestyle that comes with it, that figure can jump to as high as one in three, which makes early detection and intervention all the more important. Dermatologists at Bighorn Mohs and Dermatology Center are using innovative imaging methods and advanced surgical techniques to diagnose and treat skin cancer. For certain cancers in sensitive spots, like the face, dermatologists perform Mohs surgery, removing skin tissue layer by layer until reaching healthy, cancer-free tissue. They also use a process called immunohistochemistry to view tissue samples taken during Mohs surgery in far greater detail than previous methods. Read more about how Scripps is advancing skin cancer care here.
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When endurance athlete Isaac Sanchez learned he had cancer, he felt blindsided. He was healthy, surfed often and was training for an Ironman triathlon. But he had to put that on hold to undergo treatment. His physicians at Scripps Cancer Center developed a plan to treat the cancer in his tonsil and lymph nodes that included six-and-a-half weeks of near-daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy. He also worked with a Scripps Cancer Center dietitian to enhance his nutrition to promote strength and healing. Today, Isaac’s back to doing what he loves. Read more of his story here.
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