This girl never fakes it!

No, you bunch of suspicious (but kind and well-meaning) old bags, I'm not just putting on a brave face! My life really is going great.

It's just over a month since Mark and I separated, but I've realised I was much further down that track than I had admitted to myself. And because it was me who made the ultimate decision, it was all pretty much settled in my head before it happened.

Yes, it was really hard and I was devastated at the time. But I have quickly picked myself up and moved on.

The question has been asked (by lots of people) - how much did my weight-loss have to do with this other major change in my life?

That's a hard one to answer. I certainly didn't wake up one day and go "I'm not fat anymore, think I'll leave my man!".

I do think that making such a major change in my life over the last two years has made me recognise I have the strength to change things I am not happy with. That I don't have to settle for things that don't give me what I want.

It's not that I was desperately unhappy with Mark. I describe it more as 'absence of happiness'. And that's not what I want from my life.

Nor did I give up at the first sign of trouble. Relationships really have to be worked at, but you also have to be able to recognise when something is no longer worth the work.

So, that part of my life is over. And I'm moving on. And I'm happy.

Don't worry

Thanks for your concern, I'm absolutely fine.

• Living in a furnished 2 bedroom apartment right in town
• Hardly ever drive my car because I can walk everywhere
• Joined a new gym that absolutely suits my extreme geek-ness - you log in and it tracks all your exercise and lots of other fancy stuff
• Jake has been in Valencia and Paris and is now trying to find work in England to shore up the state of his finances
• Lots of good things happening in my life
• Blogging is low on the priorities at the moment

See ya later!

Photo time!

For all those tedious reasons you've now read about, I hadn't got around to posting photos of Jake's departure.


The day before he left was ANZAC Day, so I had a whole day off to help him rush around and get things organised. His lovely Wellington auntie took this photo that day:

The next morning the boys left Wellington airport at 8.30. A crowd of friends turned out to say goodbye, which was lovely and also helped distract me. Here Jake is with his mate Jacob - the one he's travelling with. And yes, Jake is still slightly drunk from going out the night before. His hangover hit somewhere between Auckland and Kuala Lumpur.

And a last shot with his mum before he went off to discover the world (I wonder if anyone thought to warn the world before he went?).

As far as I know, they're in Spain at the moment - that's what his very brief email on Tuesday said. Don't ask me where in Spain, all I got was a country, no details.

Looking forward

Not looking forward to anything specific, just looking forward instead of back.

Thanks you all for the support. Your comments, texts, emails and calls have meant the world to me.

During the weekend I sent Jake an email to tell him what had happened. It wasn't the ideal way to tell him, but calling him is difficult for lots of reasons.

I had an email back this morning - typically short but all I needed was to hear from him. As I expected, his main concern is that I am okay and things aren't too hard. He's in Spain at the moment - that just seems so exciting to me!

The rental market in Wellington (particularly for city apartments) is a bit nuts - lots of people looking. The first couple I looked at I walked straight back out of. There was nothing wrong with them, I just wasn't coping with the situation and didn't want to fall apart in front of strangers. I'm past that now and will be able to approach it more calmly.

The duathlon on Sunday was great. I didn't feel like doing the whole thing, so I walked with Felicity and didn't bother with the bike. Felicity was amazing - she overtook lots of people on the bike and kept a huge smile on her face the whole time. It was lovely to see her again and catch up with a few other bloggers too.

I have been managing to exercise every day - yesterday was an hour of walking with 15 minutes of running thrown in. Because I'm living in the city my incidental exercise is higher too. I walk to work (just leave my car at work all the time), down to the supermarket for supplies, across town to look at apartments, that sort of thing. Eating is mostly okay too - helped by the completely empty pantry!

And last night I had the best night's sleep since all this happened, so things really are on the up.

I know I will still have moments of feeling very down, but I am in a positive frame of mind most of the time.

And I'm a very resilient woman!

Time to tell all

I know you're not a stupid bunch, so many of you will have picked up that my life hasn't been all roses of late.

Yes, Jake leaving has been hard for me, but the other thing that's happened is that Mark and I have separated.

It actually happened the day after Jake left, but things had been building towards that decision for some time.

I have held off blogging about it until I had told my parents. Those few of you who do already know - thank you for your support, it means the world to me.

You can imagine the last week or so has been pretty rough for me. Something that helps get me through is that I am quite clear I have made the right decision. That makes the other stuff easier to handle, as I am not sitting around trying to decide if I've done the right thing.

I have moved out of the house and am living in a temporary apartment while I try to find somewhere to live. I'm looking forward to having my own space and just having some time to get my head together.

At least I have not boarded the emotional eating wagon. I haven't stuck to my training plan this week, but I have done something every day - usually a 30 minute run.

So, life is tough at the moment, but I have every hope that it will all start to get better soon.

I'm not a good example!

Okay, so I have done basically no exercise for the last two weeks, although I was very active for the first two weeks of the month.

And my eating hasn't exactly been exemplary. Although, again, I did well at the start of the month.

And for all this half-arsed effort? My monthly weigh-in shows - a 100 gram loss!

Completely, utterly, fine by me.

I guess what this does say is: my incidental exercise is higher than it used to be, and, even when I'm not strictly tracking my food, I naturally have much better eating habits. So smug!

But I do need to get myself organised and into a routine again.

Action plan for the rest of this week (Monday and Tuesday having already been rest days!) goes:
Wednesday: 45 minute walk
Thursday: 20 minute cross trainer, upper body and core workout
Friday: 30 minute run
Saturday: 45 minute cardio blast and full body workout
Sunday: supposed to be doing the duathlon, but I'll make that call when I see how much my fitness has suffered