When out for a run at the weekend I had failed to appreciate how warm it was and when another runner came out of an alleyway in a small pair of loose fitting shorts I thought that would have been a better option. Would I have had the confidence to wear them though? I doubt it!
She obviously heard me running behind and turned her head. To my surprise she was one of my friends from our running group, I could hardly believe it as she looked so different. I knew she had lost a lot of weight but this was the first time I had really noticed although I have not seen her since before Christmas.
We ran together for quite some time and she explained how although she has been gradually loosing weight, she had been wearing the same clothes which were just getting baggy. In the past she had been on various crash diets, lost a few pounds, bought new clothes and then put the weight back on again. She hadn't wanted to repeat that this time but with logic that only makes sense in your own head linked the buying of new clothes with getting fat again.
Just before Christmas, her husband told her she needed to get some clothes that fit as she is looking like a bag lady (very subtle!!). He said that in the past he could see that her crash diets made her miserable and so that is why they never lasted. With her running and the whole healthy lifestyle that she has now adopted, he can see she enjoys it and is going to stick to it. Now, rather than 'comfort eating' she now 'comfort runs'. The weekly shop no longer has more biscuits that anything else and he had eaten more vegetables this last year than the rest of his life.
One evening he took he up to their room and told her to try on everything she owned and each item was either going to be kept if it fitted, of binned if it didn't. She was then to replace what had been binned with new. The money he had saved on travel by working from home was to be spent on her clothes. She was a bit concerned that he may get a liking for his new found dominance but would let it go for now. 
Before she had even tried on the first item, he told her that her underwear was to go in the discard pile when she had finished ( apparently that wasn't just a ploy to get he out of them!!).
By the time she had finished there was very little left in the keep pile other than socks. The discard pile included most of he shoes too as they just fell off her feet. She had to keep some clothes from the discard pile until her on-line deliveries started to arrive.
Before our C25K, she classed herself as as size 14, mainly because she could fit in some clothes marked size 14/16. When she went clothes shopping, she picked size 14, then had to change them for a bigger size 'if they came up small' which they inevitably did. Her discard pile had quite a lot of size 18's and 'extra large' in it.
Her on-line shop had the same problem, but now some size 10's 'come up a bit big' so had to go back for a smaller size.
She said her husband probably didn't appreciate the enormity of the task he had initiated but stuck to his guns and took all her old clothes to the recycling centre once she had her replacement wardrobe. He told her he would love her no matter what size she was but that he could see she was so much happier now and that with her new clothes she can show off all her hard work. When she said that it almost made me cry.
I am not sure I would do any stretching in those shorts of hers, not in public anyway. She has already had one 'exposing' incident early in our C25K runs and although that didn't phase her, will stick in our minds forever. I have never laughed so much in my life before and still get the giggles every time I think of it.
Surprise long 15k run on Day 15 of the run streak, very nice though.
Two very different runs.
Two very different runs
Very happy run in the rain!:)
