The Desk Job Playbook
Eight meetings, one mailbox trip, and a CGM drifting up by 3pm for no food-related reason. Welcome to October, the real-life month of the Keep It Moving challenge, starting with everyone whose job owns their body eight hours a day...
The episode, word for word
Let me describe a day, and you tell me if it sounds familiar. Eight meetings. Count it: Zoom, Zoom, Teams, Zoom, a phone call I somehow also take sitting at my desk, Zoom. Lunch is a sandwich eaten with one hand while reading email with the other, like some kind of sad office octopus. And by 3pm my CGM is drifting up for no food-related reason at all, because my legs have been on administrative leave since breakfast.
That's my Tuesday, people. Sometimes my Tuesday through Friday. And welcome to October, because this month is all about real life.
I'm Neil Greathouse, this is Your Best T1D Year, and this week is for everybody whose job owns their body for eight hours a day. The teachers grading at a desk after the kids leave. The office workers. The farmer doing the books all winter. The nurses who are on their feet all shift and then chart for three hours. If a chair is part of your paycheck, this is your playbook.
Okay, here's the principle, and it's the only thing you have to remember today. Don't ADD movement to your day. HIDE movement inside your day. Adding requires willpower and a free half hour, and you have neither. I checked. I looked at your calendar, metaphorically, and it's a crime scene. Hiding, though? Hiding requires nothing but sneakiness. And we are sneaky people. We carry emergency candy at all times. We're basically Ocean's Eleven with glucose tabs.
So here's the playbook, five plays, easiest first.
Play one: the standing call. Any call where you're not sharing a screen, you take on your feet. Pace if you can. You will sound smarter. That's not science, that's just what happens when blood reaches your legs, you start talking like you're giving a TED talk instead of filing a report.
Play two: the top-of-the-hour get-up. Calendar reminder, watch buzz, whatever it takes. Every hour, two minutes, up and moving. Remember, the ADA's own 2025 standards say break up sitting every 30 minutes. This is that, adapted for a person with an actual boss.
Play three: the far bathroom. Always the far one. People, if your building has two floors, congratulations, you own a StairMaster. It came with the job.
Play four: the water glass trick. One glass at a time instead of the giant emotional-support water bottle. Now hydration schedules your movement for you. Two habits, one move. July listeners, you know we love this.
Play five: the walking lunch. Even ten minutes. Remember DiPietro from September, three short walks beat one long one? Lunch is one of your three cracks. Use it.
None of these look like exercise, and that's the whole point. Nobody at work needs to know you're doing a challenge. You're just the person who takes calls standing and mysteriously always uses the far bathroom. Let them wonder.
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Your challenge this week: pick TWO plays from the playbook and run them every workday. Just two. Then hit reply on the newsletter and tell me which two, because I'm building a list of the plays people actually keep.
yourbestt1dyear.com for the free tracker. About 2,000 of us are hiding movement inside our jobs this week like it's contraband.
You're not doing a bad job. You're doing a difficult job, on top of a whole other job somebody actually pays you for.
We are the ones, people. Living with it, loving somebody who has it, raising kiddos with it. We are the ones. My name is Neil. Wednesday's episode is for every body that can't just go for a walk, and it might be the most important one this month. See you then.
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.
