5:15 PM CST. I’m at work with just under two hours before I can leave for the day.
I have the munchies. Big time. There’s just no denying them.
I head to the vending machine with a pocket full of nickles, dimes, and a few quarters (I don’t know why, but I always try to get rid of my nickles and dimes and hold onto my quarters. Maybe because they are like pure gold to my kids…)
I fill my big mug full of ice, get two bottles of Diet Coke (yes, I know), and stare through the clear Plexiglas into the rows and rows of treats (all clearly labeled with accurate (+/- 20%) carb grams). My eyes are drawn to a favorite of mine – Cool Ranch Doritos.
“No” I tell myself, “not a good decision”. So I put in my $0.80 and punch the button for a bag of microwave popcorn.
Flash forward a bit, the bag of popcorn is happily at rest in my stomach, but I’m still jonesing for something. I stuck myself right in the middle of that nasty “salty/sweet” cycle. Damn.
Five of those little tiny bite size “Mr. Goodbar” chocolates and a SWAG bolus later, I found myself wondering if I really made a better decision? Or if I should have just went ahead and got my Doritos…
Oh Scott, computers – I just wrote a comment explaing what I do when I am crazy with hunger…… the dam computer swallowed it and it is gone. I have been swearing for the last five minutes!!!! Rewrite the whole thing? FRUSTRATION. In brief, I wrote a sign on a post it that said “HUNGRY – fix your bg!” It is so hard to not just eat. I needed that sign until I began to establish a pattern of “what to do”, but I still fail in sometimes. Often when I am hungry either my bg is in fact too low or dropping quickly. Then i drink coke b/c it works so much faster than anything else and that mean the chance is better I will not go eat something…. But often my bg is high when I am hungry and then exercise and/or a correction bolus are necessary. However it is difficult to pound what you should do into your head, when you just want to eat….. That little post-it helped me. If you really believe that adjusting the bg will make you feel less hungry it is a bit easier to not just EAT. Another thing Scott, I want to thank you so much for giving me the push to try and use my arms and thighs for insertion sites. I have thought this so many times when I was avoiding/just couldn’t face the OC group. I STILL wanted to thank you for your help! Why couldn’t I talk? I don’t know. I just couldn’t cope with more “diabetes”. Anything to do with the OC made me think and worry about D. I think I have it stuck in my head now that I can go to the OC and not talk about D. Don’t you hate how this D NEVER leaves us alone, always throw loopers at us?
Doritos, man. You’ve got to eat what you crave or the cravings just get out of control — just like overeating for a low….
Scott,
I’m no help on the sugar side of things, but have found when I’m dieting, it’s best to just give in to a craving every once in a while.
If I get a certain food on my mind that I want, I’ll end up eating the whole cabinet full of “healthy” food to avoid the one food I wanted. Then, I end up eating more calories than I would have if I had just had what I wanted in the first place.
Doritos and Sun Chips are the only things I ever take from my work vending machine.
Really.
I never take the Famous Amos Chocolate Chip cookies.
Really.
(sigh, like K, I think diet soda has become a trigger for sugar cravings. Weaning off it right now…)
Ditto what Julia said (minus the Tabasco on popcorn).
Sincerely,
Shannonymous
Many of the self-help-for-overeating books suggest honoring a craving to prevent grazing through the entire pasture scenario (like Drea said). Who knows. I rarely get specific cravings – just the desire to stuff whatever is available. I think that I do have “trigger” foods which perpetuate an all-out binge. Examples are: anything from Dairy Queen, MilkyWay caramels and Sun Chips. And recently I’ve begun to think that Diet Pepsi might also be one………heartbreaking.
One thing with vendfood, though is portion control (unless you have multiple portions).
I have learned to go with the craving….or I will spend the whole day eating to avoid what I really want 🙂 HA!!
Sorry the cool-ranch dorito gremlin found you.
LOL… The correct decision conundrum… Always a fantastic afternoon happenstance.
I have the same problem, just can’t leave food alone during the afternoon early evening they are both the same for me, sweet or savory have to have something, then feel I should not have done it. what a pain.
Oh boy, Cool Ranch Doritos are my favourite. On the rare occasion that I get hit by the afternoon munchies and don’t have anything with me, that’s what I end up picking from the vending machine – although, I prefer Diet Pepsi over Diet Coke. 🙂
And I can totally identify with the salty/sweet cycle. I can almost never have one without the other…
An apple and some peanut butter would have been a better choice. 😉 Just the popcorn would have been fine, too. Or popcorn AND an apple – hey, there you go. Bring in your own microwave popcorn. And some apples.
One of my diet tricks was to put Tabasco sauce on my popcorn – just a little at a time, otherwise it gets soggy and nasty. It satisfied me more than plain old popcorn would.
I hate popcorn and love dorritos, so I know what I would have done!