In which this loser is married to a winner

When you lose weight and get fit, you get all the credit.

All the compliments, all the kudos, all the praise and glory.

And that is fun and rewarding, for sure.

But in my life, there is one person who deserves just as much admiration as me, and that's my husband.

I've batted this subject around in my head on many a run and I never got down to writing it, but I thought today it's fitting as it is our 14th wedding anniversary.

Yes, I did all the obvious work, but Keith has done untold heavy-lifting behind the scenes. He may not be in the gym with me or eating how I eat, but he's done just as much work, with no public credit.

Just a few examples:

• All the childcare when I am at bootcamp or out on a run. Every Sunday, our Sundays don't start, really, until my long run is over. Then we can begin our day. If I have a race, push any plans back further. I get up at 5 am six days a week for work or working out. Every Sunday, Keith lets me sleep in, enjoy a leisurely breakfast and then go run, all while he's wrangling children (almost 7, 5 and 3), baking them cinnamon rolls and trying to wake the hell up himself. 

• He's supported us on his one income with three young kids and still somehow finding a way for us to afford bootcamp, 14 months of Weight Watchers, the gym, $85 running tights, race fees, you name it. (Yes, I work part-time for Weight Watchers, but that income doesn't pay many bills.)

• He's watched me fall asleep like clockwork about 35 minutes after I sit down on the couch every single time we try to watch TV together. God bless him for all the one-sided conversations he's had with himself before he realized I was asleep or about to be so with some nonsensical, mumbled answer to his question. After the kids are in bed and we finally get time to ourselves, alone, to relax and de-stress with "our" shows, I fall asleep. Every. Time.

• When I'm about to lose it, he lets me get my shit together, whether it's eating a meal or getting out of the house. 

I am positive person and that is on full-display here. But I am human. I struggle. And, seriously, when my program gets hard mentally or the scale is not moving, you do not want to live with me unfiltered. On the days it's hard and the kids are driving me crazy or work is demanding (or both, God help us), I just want to eat myself into a coma. But I can't and it's full-out war in my head. I am fighting every single instinct and habit in my brain and it is not pretty.

That pressure valve has to release somewhere, and I can be a bitch, to put it mildly.

When you love someone who's trying to change something fundamental about themselves, be it food, another addiction, habit, what have you, it's not easy. Nor pretty. Those spouses/partners deserve so much praise because supporting that person in any way they can is "Wuv, twoo wuv," to quote The Princess Bride.

I was at a healthy weight when we started dating. I was overweight when he got married and I was obese by the time we started having children. Never once did he get on me about me weight or told me to start shaping up. He left that up to me and I would guess silently suffered as I did, waiting for my head to get in the game. He loved me at 287 lbs and he loves me today. 

And, a reminder, he's seen me through 100+ lb weight losses twice. Twice. Not only was it richer or poorer, it was having and holding through thick, thin, thick and thin again.

He's seen me at my best and at my worst. And on those nights when he walks through the door and everyone in the house is yelling and/or crying and it's all hitting the fan, I am constantly amazed he has never turned on his heel and left for a calmer port, like Kabul.

And for that, I am truly grateful. I may be a loser, but when it comes to a husband, I am the biggest winner I know.