i want to thank my husband for not noticing my weight loss

Seriously, my husband did not notice the first 14 kilos. He put it down to seeing me every day. My work mates noticed the first six. Even prior to my operation for the lap band i had dropped a dress size. But the Archduke only noticed once i got to about 60 kilos.

i want to put in a good word for the open blindness of marriage. He didn't notice my weight loss but then again he may not have noticed my greying hair and the random whiskers i keep pulling out of my chin, or my fashion mis-steps. And i in return have not (much) noticed his weight gain or the hair slippage. We age and change together and apart. It's the frog in the pot story, what therapists call 'news of difference'. One day you wake up and discover you are living with a stranger. That is news of difference. If you're smart, and of course provided your marriage is not abusive or destructive, you never receive the news.

These days, i have lost 17 kilos. I hover around 58 kilos. I have lost 17 cm off my waist. i am a size 12-14 depending on what garment it is. i still make some food mistakes but mostly i am comfortable. i have conquered the chain stores, which is suprisingly if superficially liberating.

i got fit enough to consider running. Here is a good guide to running for absolute beginners who have only ever run for buses and then arrive on the bus wheezing and gasping and needing to be helped into seats.

Start slower than you think you should. You will have tried running in the past and what happens is you start off at full noise and then collapse early and feel a failure. Start with a sort of fast shuffle, which is technically running because both feet are off the ground, but has a really short shuffly style. It is not elegant and it is barely faster than walking, but it doesn't exhaust you and you discover after a while you can just hit a speed that suits you and you can keep moving. Building on success, you can shuffle round the block and then speed up with your leftover energy at the end. so you arrive through the gate really running and feeling you have achieved something. After further time of this you can go faster and for longer. You realise you can just keep on and on. And now you are running.