Eating While Distressed

I have a big confession.  Last week was not a good food week. I was preparing for my first full semester that involved a boatload of pre-reading on physiology. Yikes! I was also deep into writing my first academic paper in over 20 years. Another yikes! Needless to say I was stressed out! You can relate, right? It may not be schoolwork, but I’m sure the demands of your work and/or home life can leave you feeling the same way – super anxious with zero energy.

It was one of those days that left me feeling insecure. I had been at the library ALL day. I was a little frustrated with my paper. I’d read several clinical research articles where I had no flippin’ clue of the meaning. I was doubting my decision to take this leap. I’m thinking I’m not smart enough and won’t be able to do this. I’m thinking if I fail who will be there ready to have a laugh. UGH! How many of you have been in this place? Well if you have, you know it stinks and it can be really hard to get out of.  So what do I do?

With my emotional and physical energy tapped out, I made the BRILLIANT decision to stop by the grocery store to pick up some fresh produce for dinner. Let me tell you, I walked every inch of that store including the prepared foods section only to end up with nothing. No worries though. To my great horror, I have a foolproof method of fixing such situations that if left unchecked kicks right in. In under 5 minutes, I had purchased 6 cookies, 6 mini chocolate croissants, a bag of popcorn, and a bottle of kombucha. Holy Toledo, Batman!!

What in the world is going on?! Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. This is really bad. I ate all the croissants IN THE CAR before I made it home!!  People, it is less than 2 miles! Houston, we have a problem! Thank God for the kombucha or it would have been a total disaster. LOL! For dinner, I grazed on some random things in the house – peanut butter toast and a hard-boiled egg, plus 2 of the cookies.  Thankfully, I was able to show some restraint and did not open the bag of popcorn.

The next morning my body told me it had been a really bad day.  I felt like total crap – bloated, sluggish, queasy and constipated!  How was I going to turn this around?  I am proud to say that I didn’t continue to pile it on.  If you are familiar with such situations, you know we have a tendency to beat ourselves up long afterwards and figure if we’ve had such a moment then what is the point of even trying to do what’s good for us at all.  I’ve grown!  I let it go!  Plus, I’ve been feeling good for a long time now and I didn’t want to go back to feeling like that all the time.

I knew exactly what to do to relieve my symptoms and restore my path to good health.  I made a great smoothie for breakfast, ate a delicious salad for lunch, drank a lot of water throughout the day, and made a delicious asparagus and leek soup.  I ate that soup for the next few days and was back to feeling great and back into my routine of eating well.  I say this to say there will always be blips, but they don’t have to derail.  Get back up and keep moving forward!

Here is the Roasted Asparagus Soup that turned my food detour around.  It’s very good and Spring is asparagus time!  Not in the mood for soup?  Try this great Asparagus Salad from Eating Well.

As always, I am cheering you on.

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  1. Fitoru keto

    Awesome blog! I really love reading articles like this. Thank you so much for posting!

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