The first half of the year at my job is pretty stressful, but this week and next happen to be the two most stressful weeks of the year for me. I tend to be on pins and needles most of the time until the two major projects we are working on are completed and published.
It may seem a bit nuts of me to be starting the detox next week, but there is a method to my madness. When I did the detox in January, I learned a lot about how I use food to manage my stress and emotions, and not in a good way. I need to break myself of these bad habits, habits that have slowly crept back into my diet since the January detox ended. I plan to structure this round of detoxing to fit my current life circumstances in hopes that I will develop better ways of handling stress than resorting to chocolate overload.
Since I know ahead of time that this stress is coming, I have the opportunity to plan for it now and build modifications into my diet. Typically, sweet potatoes are reserved for those doing intense exercise, but since I will be under intense stress, I am making that allowance during this particular round of detox. I would rather turn to sweet potatoes than sugar if I find I need carbs. Please note that I did not have sweet potatoes in my diet during the last detox, nor would I choose to include them at other times of the year that are not as stressful.
In preparation for this detox, I’ve also spent the past few months waking myself up a few minutes earlier each week. Starting next week (or maybe sooner), I will be using that time to get in some yoga in the mornings. It should help mitigate the stress levels. Even just a few minutes would be better than nothing.
This week I am also doing some meal planning and preparation. I’m searching for recipes that I can either throw in my Instant Pot to save time or make ahead, like this weekend.
Oh, did I mention that we have friends coming into town from overseas next week? Yeah, I have that to deal with, too. But I can do this. Planning is the key to success so I will be a planning (and maybe cleaning) fool this week.