Report card on the last month...

Made it through the hell month - yay! Mr D flies home today - double yay! I'm really exhausted but happy.

I'll give myself an A for effort and general parenting skills (the odd super-grouchy outburst but overall pretty ok on the dealing-with-little-boys-front)…

An A- for overall mental health.. have kept myself feeling generally positive and good, busy and focused.. at times of stress or sadness or whatever (that emotional malarkey that comes with being a fully alert i.e. sober human being) I've managed my way through ok..

And on the not-drinking score I get an A++++++++++!!!!! I never crave booze, I never have mournful thoughts about what I'm missing out on, I never regret being sober or worry about the rest of my life having no alcohol in it. So BIG UPS to me that I am nailing this living sober thing - YES!

However on the other lifestyle / personal care factors I'm afraid I get a D.

Have gained 2 1/2 kg. Am in a black hole of piggy-dom. Sometimes I just eat toast for lunch. Just 2-3 pieces of toast covered with butter. Thoughts of making a green juice might flicker through my mind and then I just reach for the toast. Chocolate buttons have regularly been finding their way down my throat at night. Any excuse for chips and dip is fine by me. Sometimes in the afternoon I'll just eat 10 rice crackers - buttered. Yes you read that right. I put butter on rice crackers.

It's not been pretty. On the diet front I am seriously struggling. And exercise…. what exercise..? There is none. Other than running up and down to the car and in-and-out of kindy/school/the supermarket/various houses & shops etc I am doing nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I may have nailed the biggest nasty of all - booze. But I'm no saintly angel gliding around with my lithe body, toned arms, ripped abs and washboard stomach. Shit no. Ha ha far from it. I'm definitely still a work in progress.

I get pissed off because I have a low-grade guilt about my diet (especially sugar) which is very reminiscent of the guilt I carried for so long with my boozing. It's not helped by my Facebook feed being full of 'I Quit Sugar'! recipes and photos of happy smiling slim sugar-free people. And so many bloody newspaper features and magazine articles about sugar and wheat and diet and general terrible-ness we do to our bodies …

It's enough to drive a girl to butter her rice crackers, I'm telling you.

Progress not perfection. Baby steps in the right direction. Go easy on myself.

I've got through this month.. I'm going to give myself a break and feel affectionate toward my extra kg that they helped me get through without killing the children .. and right now I'm going to go make myself a green juice.

Love, Mrs D xxx