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In just a few short days, I will be officially on the second round of sugar detoxing. My sugar and carb cravings have gotten a little out of hand.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been testing a salsa recipe, which I convinced myself I needed chips to “test” the salsa. Quite a bit of those chips have not had any relationship to any salsa, and my belly bloat is starting to show again.
Granted, there are ways that I notice a positive difference after the last detox. I notice that I do not automatically reach for sugar for my tea or coffee anymore. Bitter chocolate is not as bitter as it was before my first round of detoxing. Even though I’ve been allowing my food habits to get out of hand again, it is still not as bad as it was before I did the detox the last time. That makes me feel better.
What makes me nervous, though, is that I am doing this at one of the most stressful times of the year at my job. I thought about deciding to wait until another time when things weren’t so crazy. Yet, part of the goal of the detoxing is to get my food habits under control, which also means getting them under control when life is stressful and I am much more likely to get off track and eat something bad to soothe my nerves.
It helps to decide for yourself what you hope to gain from the experience going in. My first goal is that I hope to bring my blood sugar down below 100. Last time I went from 109 to 100. Being faced with a diagnosis of prediabetes prompted me to do the detox in the first place. To be able to say that I have truly averted the diagnosis, I need to get my blood sugar under 100 and stay there.My second goal is to learn new ways to handle work-related stress. In the past, I have turned to chocolate or candy or other junk to get through a particularly stressful day. Or I might come home and have wine with dinner or sometimes for dinner. I need to identify when the stress is building and find new ways to cope.
There are a couple of things that seem to help me relieve stress. Writing helps so I can work on doing more creative writing. Developing recipes seems to help. Despite the chips, developing the salsa recipe was quite satisfying and felt like a great stress reliever.
Exercise is always a good option. I hope to exercise a little bit most days of the week. Anything from yoga to walking on my treadmill to taking walks at work when I feel the urge to snack.
The bottom line is that if I don’t learn to get a handle on these habits now, they will continue to control my life. I don’t want food to control my life. I want to enjoy food for the wholesome nutrition that it is.
