Nicky's Chip Challenge

Type 1 & LADA
61

  • Come on Nick, just eat one. Nobody will know. Just have a few. I won’t tell anyone. It will be our secret.

  • If you eat some it will make you feel better. You will feel much better

  • If you eat one, you might as well eat a hand-full. Or why not eat the whole bag, right? It’s basically the same thing.

@Nickyghaleb, is that the stuff the chips say to you? What do the chips say to you? What do they sound like at 12am? Do they sound like me?

Tell me what they say.

Can you hang on without the chips for a few more hours? Can you make it until morning? If you can make it to the morning, I will “give” you something that will help.

62

FWIW @Nickyghaleb, I had to make myself a rule that everything I eat (other than treating lows) gets put on a plate, in a bowl, etc. I can’t let myself eat directly out of containers or bags. If I eat chips out of the bag, that means I’m not counting. If I’m not counting, them I’m not dosing and certainly not prebolusing. And honestly, I never feel full (probably fast emptying stomach c/o T1D?). This makes fun/mindless snacking devastating for me bc I can out-eat everybody on the planet. So I could eat a whole bag and not realize it. It used to be quite the party trick in my pre-T1D days.

You might be facing a different food challenge than what I have…but wanted to throw it out there/cheer you on.

2 Likes
63

They talk a little dirtier than that, but yes… :grin:

Seriously, they don’t talk to me. It’s 100% my own brain’s betrayal. That’s what it is. In that moment, when the thought occurs, everything I know to be true, everything that’s prevented me from having one up until that point, every idea for better alternative— it all just disappears. And I think, maybe I’ll have a chip. That simple. Pure deception.

Other unhelpful thoughts that occur around food:

  1. Eff it. I don’t care. (That’s the most dangerous one)

  2. I have done well today, so it’s okay.

  3. I’ve already screwed up, so why not?

  4. I’m going to have whatever I want because tomorrow I’m done.

  5. This is sick, and I deserve to be sick.

So that one… That was hard to even write. It doesn’t have the same power it used to have, but it’s always there, just on the other side of all of the other thinking. That one has really disappeared as I’ve gotten better control because I just don’t feel sick anymore. It’s not gone though. I have a long history of depression, but as long as I’m not under its thumb, thoughts like that are more scarce.

Okay. I know how much you like a positive vibe… And this is not really cutting it. I can offer positivity or I can offer honesty, but I can’t guarantee them both at the same time.

Yes, I can hold off until morning. I’d like to just go put them in the trash, but that’s no solution either. I’d just buy them again.

Tomorrow will be harder. Way harder. It’s another example of my very flawed thinking. Okay I ran. I was good today. I was focused. Tomorrow is my rest day. By early afternoon, I’ll be looking for things to really spruce up my “vacation”. It’s my vacation thinking—even though I’m not on vacation. When I don’t exercise, I want to enjoy my day off and have it extend to everything— enjoy the day off from eating right, from diabetes… It’s why exercise is so important to me because it helps me to keep my head on right.

I have a feeling when you thought this up, you didn’t picture all of this. This is a lot of me stuff, and we can nip it whenever you want.

1 Like
64

This is an excellent idea. What funny is that I also have that rule—for the most part— with most foods other than chips. :roll_eyes: Chips are my tired food. My sad food. My bored food. My happy food. Sometimes I just stand in the pantry eating them while I recover from a crash. That is the worst possible scenario because I’m eating to fix everything in my head, and when I crash, the stuff in my head can get pretty messy. I went through a period where I would not correct with anything other than glucose tablets for a crash. It was lame, but it took away that temptation. I’ve nevwr overeaten glucose tablets. Not once. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try to get back to that thinking… treating a low isn’t eating. I know lots of people do see it as an opportunity, and I absolutely get why, but maybe it can’t be for me.

Chips are an absolutely terrible hypo food anyway. :woman_facepalming:

65

You don’t owe me or anyone else here a thing. Write what you feel. That’s fine.

I pictured all of this. I know you. Why do you think I picked today to start this? Was that a coincidence? Nope.

I will have exactly what you need on Wednesday. This is all part of it. Hang tight. I promise tomorrow you will feel a great relief.

2 Likes
66

I’ve only very briefly touched on my history of food quirks (/disordered eating) here on FUD, but I know you’ve talked about your past with it a bit more. Told me about it when I was brand new here, even! I’ll say, I’ve thought all of these things. A lot of times. Even the last one. Like you said, it’s not as bad now and it’s much less frequent for me to think like that, but the thoughts pop up now and then.

Anyways I get away with my chip binges by being truly excellent at guesstimating and bolusing for how many I’m going to eat. It’s a talent, like using the beloved blood sugar force but specific to the intersection between my chip cravings, hunger, boredness, and how many are left in the bag…

But of course, for the sake of the challenge, your chips are evil and you shouldn’t eat them!

4 Likes
67

Wow. I may or may not be sitting here at midnight having just eaten some tortilla chips even after a BG fiasco due to them last night…

4 Likes
68

That’s coincidental. I made that rule for myself last month. I’m terrible at properly treating hypos with fun food. It never pans out for me.

1 Like
69

I am, too. It’s an easy enough fix though, and that is to save eating for when I’m hungry and glucose tablets for when I’m low. Then just hope the two never occur at the same time. :smiley:

3 Likes
70

I’m nominating you, @Pianoplayer7008, for the next chip challenge.

If I survive it. :grinning:

71

Good thing… because it was coming one way or another. That just means I won’t have to disappear at the end. :upside_down_face:

I thought you were in it to have fun. Which would explain all my laughing yesterday. Before realizing you were being serious. :grin:

I had no intentions of doing this now or maybe ever, but I’m grateful. Very grateful. If I had known it was what we were about to do, I would’ve started preparations… and that’s never good. So I made it through last night with no chips. No chocolate chips either because even though that would’ve been slick, it would’ve also been stupid. I did crash, I did start with applesauce before moving onto cereal—- hence the fresh commitment this morning to correcting with tabs— because I did rebound. But all of that, I hope, is just a diabetic thing. None of it felt out of control, and that’s where my late night crashes most often end.

I’m rambling. I’m here for the reward. You heard the important stuff about my making it through, so I’m here to find out what you’ve got that will make today possible. Today’s harder.

Off to go volunteer and enjoy little people.

And, thank you, @Eric. :two_hearts:

4 Likes
72

Oh, but I love my chips… :see_no_evil:

1 Like
73

How would you feel about a run today? A “bonus” run? It will make you feel so much better at the end than anything inside that bag of chips.

1 Like
74

Oh, that would be fantastic. :hugs: That will definitey make today easier. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
75

Okay. Here it is.

You have to promise me that if you feel any pain, or any kind of twinge in your hip,
you will stop.

Do 3 repeats:

  • Run 3/4 mile at 8:34 pace (7.0 mph)
  • Run 1/4 mile at 7:30 pace (8.0 mph)

Keep a very high cadence. Protect yourself. If you feel anything weird, you need to stop.

When you are done, tell me how you feel. Tell me everything you feel, both physically and mentally.

76

I would like to share with everyone what I said would happen before we did this.

I wanted to go on record with it and have it “notarized” before we started any of this. So I sent Chris a PM with my prediction before we started any of this chip stuff.

@Chris, can you share the PM I sent you about this yesterday?

And @T1Allison, @elver, @glitzabetes, @Pianoplayer7008, @TravelingOn, @Michel, @docslotnick, @Thomas, @Beacher, I want you all to see it too, since you were participating in this thread.

4 Likes
77

Sure @Eric, Here is what was sent to me prior to the start of the Chip Challenge:

11/27/18

Nicky,
I do not believe you will fail. I have full faith in what you can do. I know exactly how you will manage the chip challenge. You will succeed.

I believe in your strength completely. I believe in you 100%.

But I want you to believe in yourself with the same fervor that I believe in you. You do not have to prove a thing to me. You just have to prove it to yourself.

And I know you will do that. Look at the date. On 11/27/18 I am saying that I believe in you, and I know that you will succeed. It’s all about motivation. That’s really all the disease comes down to. Nothing else.

Thanks Chris!
Eric

P.S.
I do not believe any of the stuff about women being weak, or you not being strong enough to do this. It’s all about motivation. :wink:

I know you will eventually figure this out and forgive me. I hope everyone else will too.

8 Likes
78

@Eric,

Still thinking Jack Nicholson.

I am incredibly amused by all of this.

I knew you were too smart to be that Blatantly sexist. I figured that if you were sexist at all (which I patently don’t believe that you are), you’d still be too smart to be that publicly stupid. :grin:

I understand if you are blushing from all of those compliments I just laid out there. Revel in it, man.

4 Likes
79

Oh, I didn’t take that part seriously. You’d likely get your butt whooped if any of us women thought that wasn’t staged. :rofl:

The part you got me on was the prediction. I genuinely didn’t know what you thought I could do, so this part

Almost got a tear. Almost. But so did your recommendation of my running 12 fast miles on my day off… :rofl:

I didn’t eat the chips last night, I haven’t eaten them today, and all of this will be too fresh for me to even think about them tonight. But my brain is quite good at trickery, and when this all fades… it’ll boil down to a simple choice again. So I appreciate your helping me to do this thinking. And in front of you all. I do this thinking regularly, but there aren’t usually so many of us in my head. :grin:

The chips are not okay. When I eat chips at night, my blood sugar often goes, and remains, above a 400. When I fight back with big boluses, I wake up to dangerous lows. Truly. If this were poison I were trying to cut out, I’d have no problem seeing how sick it makes me and being done. I need to do that with this.

And I didn’t run, @Eric. Just so you know. I decided a dance would be good for me, too. But I still had thoughts … mostly I can’t believe I almost fell for that running crap and well, at least I’m not running, but also ones about how I can do this with the chips— or without the chips I should say.

Thanks for being a good friend. :two_hearts:

6 Likes
80

Right? I actually am offended that he thought we couldn’t tell the difference. :rofl:

2 Likes