The Chair is Winning
Welcome to Keep It Moving, the new 8-week challenge for people with type 1 diabetes, and meet the villain: the chair. Nobody decides to sit for half a day. The chair decides for you, quietly, like a Netflix autoplay countdown, and your blood sugar...
The episode, word for word
Yesterday I was in eight meetings. Eight of them. Count it: eight back-to-back Zoom calls. Somewhere around hour three, I realized I hadn't stood up since breakfast. My legs are out here basically filing for unemployment.
This shouldn't be funny, but it kind of is. I ran that morning. I went at 4am, out the door, got my miles in, felt like an absolute champion. And then I sat down at my desk and did not meaningfully move again until dinner. Look, I have a standing desk. Some days I even use it. And then I just stand there, kind of wobbling back and forth, like rocking, like one of those inflatable tube flailing-arm guys outside of a car dealership. That isn't movement. Okay, that's just standing for a little while.
Welcome to Keep It Moving. This is our brand-new eight-week challenge, and I'm going to introduce you to the villain right away, because unlike pizza, this one doesn't jump scare you. Remember, pizza is the Michael Myers: it sits up at midnight when you thought it was dead. The chair is a different kind of villain. People, the chair never scares you even once. The chair is just a Netflix autoplay countdown: "Next episode in five, four, three, two..." You did absolutely nothing, but somehow you've committed to three more hours of your favorite binge-worthy show. Nobody ever decides they want to sit for half a day. The chair decides for you, quietly, sneakily, while you're not looking, and that's what makes it the most deadly and dangerous villain out there.
I'm Neil Greathouse. I've been living with type 1 since Valentine's Day of 1992, and this is Your Best T1D Year.
Here's the deal for the next eight weeks: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is not some influencer fitness challenge. Okay, nobody's going to make you buy moisture-wicking anything. I'm not going to sit out here drinking protein shakes eight hours a day. The problem we are going after is the sitting. The long, unbroken stretches of it, and honestly, what they do to our blood sugar. Because I can feel it in my own body. When I'm at my desk most of the day, and that is my job, that's what I do, I'm typically on calls at my desk, I can tell my insulin sensitivity has dropped by the afternoon. I can feel it. I need more insulin as the day goes on, and nothing really changed except how long I sat there. I don't really even say this out loud that often, but that bothers me every single time it happens.
And the timing is on purpose. Okay, this is early September. The fall slump is coming. People, winter is coming, right? The season where the walks start to go away because it gets cooler out, and your couch is over there beckoning to you, calling you, waving at you, comforting you from afar. We're going to get ahead of it this year, together, before that whole cycle starts.
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Your challenge this week is almost insultingly easy. Okay, I don't want you to change anything. I just want you to notice something at the end of each day. What was your longest unbroken sit? Your butt was down on a chair for how long? What was the longest stretch? I don't need you to feel bad about it. Don't cry about it. I don't need you to shame spiral and start going "woe is me." We're just taking the before picture, mentally, in your head.
And if you want in, for real, on this challenge, go to yourbestt1dyear.com. Free newsletter, free tracker built for this exact challenge, and we've got about 2,000 people doing this right along with you, all over the world. They're in it. They're going, "Yes. I want this to be my best T1D year."
I want to remind you: you are not doing a bad job. You are doing a difficult job. Hold on to that, because it matters. Okay, we're getting ready to do eight weeks. We're going to talk about some movement. It's go time.
Remember, we are the ones. If you're living with type 1 diabetes, if you love somebody who has it, if you're a caregiver, if one of your kiddos has type 1 diabetes. We are the ones. My name is Neil. I'll see you in the next episode on Friday.
This is the episode script as read on the mic. It's education and encouragement, not medical advice. Talk to your care team before changing anything about your management.