My Journey With Weight Loss – Getting A Bit Of An Ego Boost

I had really hoped to shave 5 minutes off my 10 km run time today. However, it wasn’t long into the run that I realized this wasn’t going to happen for 2 reasons. Firstly even at 6am it was already humid so by time I was just a few minutes into the run I was already sticky. Secondly, the air quality. With all the forest fires in BC our skies, even near the ocean, are very smoke filled and hazy. I’m pretty sure that breathing in this air is the reason my legs were tired before I had even reached the halfway point.

As I have previously mentioned this COVID pandemic has been very hard on my husband and I. Tom works in the US but before March 2020 he was always home on weekends. When the borders closed he was still technically allowed to return home (as a Canadian citizen) but always would have to do 2 weeks of self isolation. We decided it simply didn’t make sense for him to come home before the Xmas holidays when he spent 2 weeks in a local hotel then came home for 10 days. When he left to go back to work at the beginning of January we had no idea when we would see each other again. But this week the borders opened and those fully vaccinated could cross and not be required to self isolate. So after 8 months and 10 days Tom and I had a date night last night at our favourite restaurant and it was fabulous.

Tom walked into the house yesterday and the first thing he said was oh my god you are skinny. He then handed me a bunch of clothes he had bought for me. The problem is some of the clothes he had bought were from the beginning of the year and were in a medium or size 10 which no longer fits me. After trying pretty much everything on and creating yet another donation pile, Tom asked if 2 of the dresses could be taken in because they looked good on me, they were just too big. I agreed I would take them to my tailor and see what could be done while secretly thinking hmm, I’ll get to brag about shrinking 4 sizes since the beginning of the year.

Today I tried to train Tom on the strengthening exercises I do regularly. We started with upper arm weights and I offered to let him use my 5 lb weights and I’d go down to the 3 lb ones. We did the first 4 exercises and after 2 sets his arms were tired. I laughed and said that I do 3 sets 5 times a week with those 5 lb weights. Yeah, he said, but have you seen how buff your arms are? I decided to skip several of the other exercises I normally do and move the the bridge lifts. I do these in the order of increasing difficulty so started off with a basic bridge. We then moved on to a marching bridge and I could see Tom was starting to struggle. We got to the final one, the dreaded one legged bridge lift and he barely survived. Apparently when Tom said he wanted me to train him I don’t think he fully comprehended exactly how hard I have worked to get this fit. Not his fault as he hasn’t been here to witness it.

The bottom line is not only has it been awesome having my husband home for a few days but it has been great for my ego. Tom constantly tells me how skinny I am, how great I look, how much younger I look and how proud he is of me. So, I have decided to succumb to a bit of vanity this weekend and soak up the ego boost.