Food was awful all weekend. But today was the worst. It was my husband's b-day and I made a cake for him. I ate so much. I am so ready to get back on track.

I'm about to get deep and personal here, so I'm giving you fair warning. My husband has a mild problem with alcohol. I say mild, because he does not get drunk. He has a few beers each evening and more on the weekends. Occasionally he gets buzzed. It really bothers me but he says there is no problem. I worry about how this will affect the kids. Well, last night was one of the occasions where he did get buzzed--not drunk, but definitely tipsy with impaired judgement. I was pretty upset about it.

This morning I was praying about this and the verse came to mind that said, (this is not an exact quote), "Before you judge someone else, get the plank out of your own eye." Okay that is a terrrible paraphrase. I hope anyone reading this knows what I'm talking about. Anyway, I thought about my own addiction to food and how often I turn to food for stress relief, for comfort, and such.

Now, this does not mean that I can't say anything to him about his behavior or set limits on him. I will do that. But it just made me look at what I am doing and think about how I have an addiction too. My addiction to food may not be as obviously harmful to my children and people around me as alcohol, but it is still harmful to them. And it is very much as harmful to my own health as the alcohol is to his.

I need to stop turning to food for emotional reasons just as much as he needs to stop turning to alcohol for the same reasons. One key difference between us is that I'm aware of my addiction to food and I'm dealing with it. He is still in denial land. There is nothing I can do about his behavior except pray for him, set limits on him as much as I can, and then let it go. I can, however, do something about my behavior and that is why I am here. To learn to deal with things in different ways instead of turning to food.

I am working on my December goals for PNP. I think I am going to have one goal area for my emotional health as this is where I have the most trouble with food. How I will deal with things instead of using food as my drug.

So, just a rough draft so far. In December:

!. Follow food plan with 100% compliance, including splurge meals.

2. Be accountable with the Dec. goal thread and my personal journal.

3. Complete 6 workouts per week. (I get in 5 and have trouble getting one in on the weekends.)

4. Dealing with emotions without using food--still working on putting this in goal form. (??)

That's all for now.