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unhealthy relationship with food

My Unhealthy Relationship with Food

Chris Stocker 5 Comments

There’s been something that I’ve been thinking about in my head for a long time. I’ve never said anything to anyone about it, but I think it is time.

I have an unhealthy relationship with food and I have a problem.

A few nights ago, I was talking with my wife about how I just feel disgusted with myself. When I first met my wife I weighed in at a solid 205-210. I was in shape. I was going to the gym.

13 years later at my last doctor’s appointment, I weighed in at 292.5 pounds.

I have never publicly shared this weight before, so as I am typing this, I am feeling embarrassed, ashamed, anxious and a mix of other feelings.

You can do the math, but that is over 80 pounds in 13 years.

How did this happen? How could I let myself gain over 80 pounds?

Well, it was actually quite simple and easy.

I was lazy.

I ate like shit.

And when I would feel depressed, down, anxious, or any uncomfortable feeling, I would turn to food.

And, I would eat a lot of it.

Chinese food and purposely order more than I needed so that I could eat the leftovers (most of the time, I just ate it right then and there).

Here’s an example of a time that I did this.

I went to lunch with 2 coworkers. We went to the mall next to our job and went to the food court. Food court Chinese food is one of my top 2 or 3 comfort foods. I ordered two whole meals. I said the second one was going to be for dinner.

I sat down at the table and finished off the first one pretty quickly. I was obviously still hungry because of how fast I ate it. My coworkers weren’t done eating and I was having an extremely stressful day at work, so I just said, fuck it, I’m going to eat this second one right now.

It was instances like this that occurred way too often over the last 13 years. This didn’t just happen once, this happened a lot.

Vicious Cycle

Here is how the pattern works:

1. I get stressed out or super busy, so I just want to go out and eat something unhealthy.

2. I eat the unhealthy food and usually too much of it.

3. I then bitch and complain about how I feel and how disgusting I am and can’t stand the way that I look and why did I allow myself to eat like that.

4. Then just end up saying fuck it and continue to eat like shit for the next few days.

5. I finally snap out of it, go back to the gym, eat healthy and will lose a quick 5-8 pounds….. until I get stressed out.

I have an addiction and food is the drug.

It took me 13 years to finally come out and say this and to admit it to myself. I knew it was really a problem when I said the following the other day…

“I know I can stop whenever I want to, I just keep going back to it.”

The famous words of an addict.

I have these cravings for food and I will fight them and fight them hard. And then I get set into a mood where the only thing that will make me feel better (for a very short period of time) is food….lots of it.

As I’m typing this, I am saying to myself…. “wtf man, how did you let this shit happen to yourself.”

I have been working on de-stressing and calming anxiety and I have gotten a lot better at it….. A LOT. But the food thoughts still creep into my head.

A quote from a book that I have read “Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable” says:

“Teach the mind to train the body. You can’t get anywhere without first training your mind to get you there. Physical dominance can make you great, mental dominance is ultimately what makes you unstoppable.”


I am only two days in right now of knowing that I have some sort of problem and working on fixing it. It all starts in my head. My reality is the way that I perceive it to be.

I can fix this.

I have the mental toughness to be able to work myself through this. I think that writing this blog post is the second step after having the conversation with my wife about it.

Meditation and Breathing

I am working on replacing the food rages with meditation.

Meditation and breathing exercises have been my go to method over the last 9-12 months when I would begin to feel overwhelmed, or anxious or depressed. It was in those moments that I didn’t put those actions into play that I turned to food.

One thing that I heard from Tony Robbins in the past (and I do not condone his latest #metoo actions and think they were despicable) was that when we stress out and want to eat unhealthy food, why not train your brain to think that you should eat a salad or an apple when you feel stressed out.

I truly believe that our brains are the most powerful things in this world. When you can train your brain and control the way that it thinks, is when you can truly do amazing things.

This has felt great writing this post. I know a lot of people will not actually read this, but to know that I got it off my chest is a big relief. I feel like I have been holding this in for so long.

Here is to becoming a better version of me.

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Football and Diabetes Cause Stress Also

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Yesterday I talked about the only real stress about diabetes that I get is when it comes to re-ordering my pump supplies.  Of course there is other stress involved, but I don’t allow myself to stress for very long.  Except when it comes to one major thing, football.  That is right, my Philadelphia Eagles stress me the f*ck out!  This year is going to be even more stressful because of all the off-season acquisitions that we received.  I am not going to speak too much about football here, but basically every year that football starts my blood sugars get a little out of control.

I go to the bar to watch the games and I am  constantly snacking throughout the whole game.  But not this year.  I am challenging myself not to snack throughout the game and I am also going to try and eat before I go to the game and then after the game in order to save money while I am there.  I am also working on my mental toughness that I had in high school and was very disciplined and not lazy and it was all about mental toughness.

I don’t ever bring my meter with me to the bar.  Once again, this is changing as well.  It will go into Amanda’s purse and I will test my sugar after the first 3 quarters and then the fourth quarter, well, it’s the fourth quarter and I am just going to have to tough it out.

Bring on football and bring on the stress!

Re-Ordering Pump Supplies is Stressful

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

There are a lot of things that I don’t like about diabetes, but none of them really stress me out.  The only thing that stresses me out every single time is re-ordering pump supplies.  It is also the most rewarding thing to me when I open up that fresh new box from UPS and open up all the goodies.  Why is this the most stressful?  Because I re-ordered them in February, when my deductible was nice and fresh, so I owe the entire deductible when I order them.  It is now August and of course I have not paid off that deductible yet.  But guess what?  I can’t re-order these supplies until I pay up what is currently due.  Well that kind of money is not just laying around in my pocket where I can just easily pay that bill.

So, this is where it becomes stressful.  The good thing is that I have made some decisions in my life recently that will save me some money.  First and foremost, no more eating out at restaurants or fast food.  Fast food doesn’t hurt me too much in the wallet, but going to dinner and spending $30-$50 every time I go was hurting me, and that was once a week.  By cutting out those dinners, I am able to save myself almost $200 a month, so I will be good when I have to re-order my supplies.

I also want to order them soon so I can get another order in before the end of the year before my deductible restarts.  Ahh, the life of a diabetic, figuring out exactly what day you have to re-order your supplies so you can re-order just in time before a deductible starts over and also get the maximum length and time out of that re-order.

Well, anyway, I know that I just re-designed the site a few months ago, I am not happy with it and I am going to re-do it.  Should be up and running soon, maybe even a first draft of it tomorrow.

Insulin Close Call

Chris Stocker

This weekend provided me with a close call.  I knew that I had to re-order my insulin soon, but it was a little sooner than what I had expected.  I normally re-order my insulin when I see that I have about 3 vials left.  I thought that I had 4 vials of insulin, so I felt awesome that I was going to re-order it even sooner than I usually did.  Well, I only had 1 vial left.  There was 4 boxes in the bag still, however, I forgot that I took the vials out and didn’t throw the box out because I was too lazy. Last time that is going to happen.

I am not worried too much anymore because the last time that I checked online it said that it was going to be shipping tomorrow (Tuesday, August 2), and since it normally ships overnight I should have it before Thursday.  I go through insulin fast, but not that fast.  I use about 150 – 180 units of insulin a day so a vial is only about 4-7 days, depending on how much I eat.  On Sunday I wasn’t exactly sure when it was going to ship, so I didn’t eat as much food for dinner and then I skipped out on dessert for Amanda’s brother birthday.  It wasn’t because I can’t eat ice cream, it’s because I CHOSE not to eat ice cream.

You may be wondering why you haven’t seen me around on Twitter or blogging a lot often.  I am going through some big time thought process over here.  I can’t really talk about it too much on here for several reasons, but it would be a huge, as the Big Brother contestants always say, game changer.  Stay tuned

 

Car Accidents and Diabetes Emergency Kits

Chris Stocker 5 Comments

Some of you may know from yesterday that I got into a car accident.  Let’s start out first, that I am ok and I, nor the other person involved in the accident were injured, that is always the most important part whenever anybody is involved in a crash.  Long story short, the guy was at a stop sign and he tried to cut across 6 lanes of traffic, except I just so happened to be driving through the second lane and he hit the back door of my car.  There was no spinning out cutting into the other lane, luckily.  The long part was after I called 911 and was waiting for the police to come to the scene of the accident.  That is when I started getting nervous, anxious and felt like my sugar was going to be dropping.  I didn’t bring breakfast with me yesterday because I was going to stop and get breakfast on the way there, so I was hoping that my sugar didn’t go low.

I also didn’t have any Skittles or any candy because I was going to be stopping at the gas station to get some at lunch time.  This is another reason why you should always something on you because you don’t know when some sort of emergency is going to happen, you could be stuck on the side of the interstate or the Turnpike, or even at a golf course and not have any access to candy or juice.  Time to make a new emergency diabetes kit because I haven’t carried one around for several years (I usually always have candy in my laptop bag that goes most places with me, except for on the weekends).

This leads me to know what all of you have in your diabetes emergency kit?  Glucose tabs, juice, candy, Glucagon kit, whatever.  What kind of bag do you carry it in?  Do you take a larger kit for different situations such as in the car for a road trip, and then a smaller one when you go into the mall or store?

Love to hear your thoughts.

Stressed the Eff Out!

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

It has been such a long time since my last endo or CDE visit. I was supposed to have one on July 25th, but I was on vacation and also, I never received a call from the doctor’s office so it makes me wonder if I even had an appointment anyway? My endo is one of the top in the area so it took me 6 months to initially get in and since she hasn’t seen me in a long time, I may be back on that waiting list again. There was even scarier news that happened yesterday.

I received a letter from CobraServ who is a company that my COBRA continuing coverage was being processed through stating that my account with them had been terminated on June 30, 2010, but the letter was dated July 25, 2010. That doesn’t make sense that it would come 30 days later because there is the whole 63 days of continuing coverage issue. Well, wouldn’t you think that I would receive a letter or e-mail from my former employer stating that they switched companies to handle this stuff? Of course not. They are so incompetent that I wouldn’t expect anything more from them anyway. If you can’t trust them with the health insurance of a 3 year employee, would you really trust them to deliver on your 90 day supply? Just saying.

Moving on. I haven’t heard back from the new company yet, but I only sent an e-mail so I will have to give a call to them later on. I have been extremely stressed these last few days. Thursday night I test drove a 2010 Hyundai Elantra and fell in love with it, especially the new design and extended warranty. Saturday I went in to get all the paperwork done and after 4 hours on Saturday I had to come back Sunday to finalize the paperwork. I left the lot on Sunday with the new car and leaving my trade in as long as I came back on Monday with proof of residence, easy enough right? Absolutely not. I live in a house, I get my mail at a UPS Store. So since all my bank statements are going to a UPS box, that doesn’t prove that I live where I say I live and the bank doesn’t want to give the loan out because of that. Are you serious?

So, they give you the car and then a day later they say….oops, we may need to take it back, are you kidding me? They want 3 months of bank statements going to where I live, why? Wouldn’t you rather prefer that my most recent statement is to the residential address? It is just so damn frustrating, so wish me luck and keep your fingers crossed that this small little technicality doesn’t screw up getting a new car. A bank statement going to a UPS store location, that I pay for on a monthly basis as opposed to the envelope going to my residence, how can that determine whether or not you get a loan?

Life of a Diabetic Has Been Busy

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

The life of this diabetic has been crazy busy over the last few days.  This new work schedule is finely starting to feel normal, and I must admit, I actually like the schedule.  Let’s take a look at how my new day goes:

7:00 a.m. – Alarm goes off

7:15 a.m. – I actually wake up

7:15 a.m. – test blood sugar

7:20 a.m. – coffee, breakfast, shower

8:00 a.m. – hitting the road for my commute

8:45 a.m. – get to work and test sugar again to see how breakfast was holding up

11:00 a.m. – test sugar to see if correction was good

12:30 p.m. – test sugar because it is lunch time soon

2:30 p.m. – test sugar to see how good my bolus was

5:30 p.m. – test sugar once more because I am getting ready to leave at 6 to drive home

7:00 p.m. get home from work and go for a quick walk

7:30 p.m. – get home from walk, start to cook, eat and cleanup dinner

9:00 p.m. log into blog, check out comments, attempt to respond to twitter comments

10:00 p.m. – check sugar

12:30 a.m – laying in bed trying to fall asleep to start the same thing over the next day.

There is not one time throughout the day that I hate that busy schedule.  I absolutely love it.  Living a schedule like this with type 1 diabetes or any disease in that matter can start to wear on your health if you are not taking care of yourself properly.  I try to force myself to test my blood sugar during these times because I know that I will forget to do it.  I set the alarm on my pump now, I have never used that alarm before in my life.  I think it might annoy my co-workers, but nobody has said anything yet.  They are all usually listening to music anyway, so I don’t think they even notice.

Tonight I am going to be up later because I have a lot of other things to take care of, lots and lots of e-mails I haven’t responded to in almost 3-4 days.  So if you e-mailed me, sorry I will get to it tonight, promise.

Time for that energy drink.

Have a great Friday tomorrow everybody.

Ever Feel Like You Are Always Falling Behind?

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how hard you are working or how much effort you are putting into something that you are just always falling behind?  I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.  Sometimes I just feel that I can never catch up.  No matter what it is.  As soon as you try to catch up on your work, you fall behind on exercise.  You try to catch up on tv / movies / reading, you fall behind on work.  You catch up on e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, and you fall behind on family time.  It is just one big revolving cycle.  There is one thing that sometimes takes a back seat, but I need to make sure it moves right up to the front of the line, diabetes.

Too often I am skipping a test because I am busy and just want to eat quickly and guestimate my bolus.  “I’ll just bolus for the carbs and then check later to correct”.  How often do you find yourself saying it?  Because I know I’m not the only one who odes that either. But as bad as I know it is, I still do it.  Why?  I guess it’s kind of like a kid knowing a stove is hot, but still touching it anyway?  Or is that just a bad analogy?

Why does it have to be so difficult to manage at times?  I do so well managing it for weeks at a time, but then I get complacent with my numbers and start to slack and then all of my hard work is now ruined with a few days of really high numbers.  That’s it.  I’m putting my foot down diabetes. You are not going to make me feel like crap ever again.  I am going to test, test, test and test again when I feel like you are starting to win a battle over me.  If you are gaining on me, I will send in reinforcements in the form of insulin and conquer you!

Take that one diabetes.

Life of a Diabetic Weekend Recap

Chris Stocker

First, I want to thank you all for your feedback, RT’s, and comments from the Fired Up Friday post about drink options.  I am glad to hear that I am not just being a drama queen (or would it be king?) and overreacting to something like this.  Anywho, the weekend was great!  It of course went by way too fast, but I accomplished a lot.  Friday night, Amanda and I were going to see that Shutter Island movie but decided to wait a week or two so there is not as many people there when we go to see it.  I hate being in a crowded movie theater, I don’t like tight spaces.  Plus, since I’m diabetic, my blood sugar can get high as we all know and I will need to run to the bathroom a million times during the movie.  Since, we decided not to go that night, we didn’t do anything.  My blood sugars were still a little high all night Friday, in the 175-190 range.

Saturday morning was the WordCamp Miami conference, so I was up at 6:00 a.m.  I got my stuff ready the night before because I knew I would forget either my meter, or extra insulin, or a couple extra infusion sets, etc.  The conference was a lot of fun and I learned a lot more about WordPress then I initially knew going down there, so it was well worth it.  If you are interested in that type of geeky, web stuff as well, then read my other blog as well, Chris Stocker, Inc. because I don’t talk too much about on it here.  Saturday night we headed up to West Palm Beach for the Opening Night of the Waterfront.  It was basically just some streets blocked off and lots of food, beer, live entertainment.  I’m not so sure about the exact history of it, but I gave you a link if you’re interested, but it was fun.  Amanda and I ate at some Mexican place and the insulin didn’t seem to take, so that type 1 diabetes thing I have made the sugars a little high, about 275.

Sunday morning was another little community thing that Amanda, her brother, and myself went to.  It was in Lake Worth, FL and it was some outdoor thing where artists and kids were drawing on the street with chalk, it was actually pretty damn cool.  I’m having trouble with my camera uploading things, so I will post some of the pictures tomorrow from it.  Other than that, it was time to go home and get to work.  I have a few blogs that I am almost finished designing for clients and a couple of other websites that are still in process.  I’m getting a little stressed from the work, but after these couple projects are finished it will slow down because there aren’t any other large projects lined up right now, but I prefer to be extremely busy like that.  The busier I am, the more of these I drink.Rip It Sugar Free Energy Drink - Diabetes

Finally, for the bad news.  My ear is still clogged up pretty bad, so I am going back to the doctor on Tuesday to just make sure that I don’t have an infection or something else worse going on.  I found a place that will accept the insurance, so it won’t be as much money to pay for this visit.  I really appreciate all your help and suggestions.  The Neti Pot worked miracles, but it doesn’t keep it un-clogged, it always seems to clog back up after I use it, or sometimes it doesn’t even work.  It’s just becoming frustrating right now.  But, just another obstacle to overcome when you have a life of a diabetic

Weekend Filled with Work

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Here it is another Friday and another week gone. Where has the time gone. This had been one of the busiest and craziest weeks of my life. Everything from battling high blood sugars, extrely high blood sugars, meetings with clients, writing proposals and contracts, actually doing the consulting work, exercising, dieting, losing weight, 3 am bed times with 7 am wake-ups. What a week!

I used to get so excited about Fridays and the weekend starting. But now? Not so much. I used to be able to relax on the weekends and go out on Fridays and Saturdays and have a good time. I have decides not to do that anymore. I will only go out one of the two nights and not even late either. Instead, I have a lot of work to get done in such a small amount of time.

Currently I am writing 2 daily blogs, I do on site consulting for about 25 hours a week at Volvo Aero Services and managing some other consulting services, trying to exercise and eat healthy, which is almost impossible when you’re working at a pace like this.

But you know what? This is the life that I chose, so I am not complaining about it because I love it! I’m doing what I have always wanted to do, screw the sleep. I know that it’s not the best for my health, but ya know what no matter what I do, there will always be something that is not good for your health.

Last thing I want to mention. This Sunday I am going to the 25th anniversary of the Chili Cook Off. Google it because I am typing this on my WP app and can’t add a link. It features Zac Brown Band, Gloriana, Sara Evans, Montgomery Gentry, and Rodney Adkins. Should be a great time.

Have a good weekend y’all.