So it happened. I wondered if it would. And it did. The stress finally caught up to me: the stress of finishing a big work project while packing to move; moving day, accompanied by the worry of how I am going to afford to buy furniture (I have virtually none); being on my own, alone, in my own place, with everything I own piled up in boxes around me, for the first time since the late 90s. I thought I was handling it. I really did. But last night I snapped and ate a whole carton of ice cream.

The entire concept of my whole-foods mission went out the window. Highly-processed with Iots of sugar and fat, you say? Bring it on. Yep, I scarfed back a full tub of So Delicious Dairy-free Cashew-milk Salted Caramel Cluster. Not all in one sitting, mind you. But all in one evening. Because that’s so much more dignified. Oh, and I quaffed a bottle of rootbeer. Artisanal, family-owned, small-batch brewed, of course—nothing but the most pretentious of rootbeers for me when I’m self-medicating with food. But I’m not fooling anyone; we all know it’s still just pop. Might as well be mainlining sugar. Sigh.

So what’s a girl to do? I thought I had the answer. My first class of Beginner’s Yoga that I had signed up for at my new community centre was the next morning. Perfect. Mitigate the damage with some soul-soothing yoga. Good plan. I hit the snooze button a few too many times but managed to finally drag my ass out of bed and get organized. Not a moment to spare. Then I looked up my registration receipt and noticed that I had the time wrong; there was no hope of making it to the class on time. Arghhh. Best laid plans. “Well, I’m up and all dressed in workout gear,” I thought. “I’ll go for a walk.” But first lemme just lay back down for a few minutes. I’ll just close my eyes for half an hour and then head out. Right. I’ve heard that one before. Finally rolled out of bed at 2pm. Yep, mid-afternoon.

So how does one rescue a shitty day? With cupcakes, of course! I spent what was left of the afternoon exploring my new neighbourhood and stumbled upon a fabulous vegan cupcake bakery. Lemon cupcake? Yes, please. Oh, and a chocolate-vanilla one too. The only saving grace is said bakery is 16 blocks from my house. So there was some walking involved.

Thankfully there is a happy ending to my story. After gobbling up the aforementioned cupcakes, I jolted my body back to a whole-foods plant-based (WFPB) reality with a big kale salad and some quinoa & black bean salad. This is the only strategy that actually works to get me back on the healthy path. Recalibrate. Pressing the reset button. Whatever you want to call it, my body is reminded of what real food tastes like. Because I never feel great after I eat highly-processed foods—whether it’s cupcakes, ice cream, fried foods, donuts, whatever my poison of choice—I’m always tired and lethargic with a slightly off-kilter digestive system afterwards.

Putting suboptimal foods in my body not only stresses my physical body but it messes with my mental and emotional health too. I sleep too much, either sleeping in or napping a lot. Negative thoughts about my body run rampant in my head. Stresses and worries are disproportionately heightened. Obstacles suddenly seem insurmountable. So it’s critical to shake the processed-food blues as soon as possible or I start spinning down a scary vortex. And the secret is a hit of WFPB foods. Kale and black beans to the rescue. Give it a try and see if you can wake up from that processed-food coma.