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Stress and Emotional Eating
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.
