Day 45: A Big Mistake

You learn things about yourself on a diet.  Probably the biggest thing I have learned is just how dependent upon food I have been in my life.  Food, as I have mentioned before, is an emotional way for me to vent.  Some people watch football, others surf the Internet endlessly, I eat.  I eat whenever I am bored, whenever I am sad, whenever I am happy.  Frankly, I tend to eat just whenever.  I truly believe it is a form of addiction.

The other day, I had a (non-diet) setback in my life.  I was pretty disappointed--REALLY disappointed--by the news.  The problem was that my general coping mechanism, eating with reckless abandon, was not available to me.  So instead I brooded, frustrated and a little angry.  Emily and I went out on a date (on which we did not go to dinner), and on the way home, she asked if I would take the babysitter home.  Now, generally we have an unwritten rule that I pick babysitters up and she drops them off.  I had picked the babysitter up, so I expected that she would be taking the babysitter home.  Emily was tired, and she was really hungry (remember, I didn't take her out for dinner), but despite knowing that, when she asked if I could take the babysitter home for her, I snapped.  I am not sure why I got so upset, but I was mad, and I took it out on my poor wife.

I don't tell this story to air dirty laundry or anything.  My wife and I have worked hard enough on our relationship that we are generally able to resolve our differences and make our relationship stronger when we have arguments or disagreements.  Still, I was (and still am) embarrassed and disappointed with my lack of gratitude towards her and my own selfishness during the course of this diet.  I really haven't thought about her needs much over the last six weeks, particularly since she has sacrified our weekly "Tony's-Turkey-Sub-with-Cheese" night at home after the kids go to bed (for those Manassas-ites who don't know about Tony's NY Pizza: (1) you should be ashamed of yourselves and (2) you should immediately go out and try one of their pizzas or subs!  Oh, and beware of imitations, apparently they are out there.), our weekly date night where we go somewhere nice to eat, cookies and other sweets, and even the occasional night without having to cook when I just take the kids to Chick-Fil-A.  She has even stayed up late and helped me make my food for the week.  With all of this, she has endured, uncomplaining, with the hardships of my diet.

I know we live in a world where we can't admit that we aren't perfect, but for those of you who do not already know, I am not (I know that may come as a shocker to some of you!).  I make a lot of mistakes, but the worst ones aren't about food, they're about attitude, and attitude seems to be the key to this whole diet thing.  A diet, I suppose, is about overcoming one's dependence upon food--both the physical dependence and the emotional dependence.  It is a hard road to travel, probably like any road of recovery.  But success seems to be rooted not simply in refraining from eating what I want to eat.  It is rooted in being humble enough to admit that I am (at least in one aspect of my life) a failure, to seek help from people (such as my wife) who love me, and then saying I am sorry when I really screw things up. 

I just feel terrible that my poor wife has to be a victim of the emotional effects of breaking my destructive habits.  It really makes me wish I had never built up the destructive habits in the first place.  Then again, wishing is the worst of all strategies and though I may be a failure when it comes to living healthy, that is something I am intent on changing.