Call 2009 my + 1 year

The other night I was drawn to thoughts of the blog I created and haven’t kept up. Sorry this has been the case. I feel a little guilty writing about this topic since my mantra and much of the content has shifted in the past few months. My attempts at remaining active and healthy have become lame excuses for not working out and eating.  The year hasn’t been a complete loss though.  I have learned some lessons, made some new friends and gained some things (pounds, years and pant sizes)  It’s been a plus one year all around.  Here are a few things I learned this year. 

  1. Somtimes, people throw rocks at you.
  2. Biking to work is one of the funnest, best ways to excercise. (Now STOP SNOWING!!)
  3. You can get bigger than your biggest fat pants.
  4. I still get surprised when people call me names, to be specific, ass and bitch.
  5. Reconnecting with old friends isn’t always a good thing.  Most time you realize you didn’t have anything in common in the first place.   
  6. The Wii Fit is completely ineffective if you never use it.
  7. Sometimes mantras have to be rewritten because I can’t get my ass off the couch.
  8. I can’t keep my knees together.
  9. Midway and O’hare both have Delta…but they fly different places.
  10. If I don’t drive them all crazy first, friends and family are the best things I’ve got going for me.

I’ll be ringing in the new year with a bottle of bubbly and some great apps.  Thinking of ways to move it next year.  Till then….Happy New Year to all of you.

I want my MAJAMAS!!!

I actually believe that plus size women want to wear stylish clothes. I know this is shocking to the world that the big girls would like to wear something that doesn’t look like a table cloth or oversized  Hanes t-shirt dress. We like to look good and feel good in our clothes. I have seen some cute clothes on the racks of stores that ignore my bigness. It seems to me that it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch (no pun intended) to tailor some for the big girl.

A local designer and chic wear specialist told me last week that we (meaning fat girls) don’t buy the clothes. “I couldn’t give the plus sized stuff away.” she said. I would have loved to have been there when she was passing these items out.

I am telling you and the rest of the world. We are dying for the cute clothes, especially in those fabrics you have over there lady Majama.  Make a Rosarito and a Genevieve in my size!! Give me a Cabo or a Quince!!! Give us a try once again. Throw in some yoga pants, leggings and other stuff and we’ll even wear it!!

Maybe we’ll even help you market it!!!!

Ever the environmentalist, the birds thank me

On my way to work yesterday I got to the top of the stairs from the el blue line.  As I was walking down the street I saw this little bitty bird hopping along.  I don’t usually stop for birds, but I rarely see infant birds on the street downtown.  This one, while not actually cute, looked so out of place and scared.  I watched it as many people passed us by.  Each time he tried to hop into the street, I would shoo him back.  I had a dilema, I couldn’t leave the bird to hop into rush hour traffic, but this looked like a rare bird.  Like maybe a falcon baby.  There are falcon nests in that area of the loop.  Peplexed I was thrilled when a young woman stopped and remarked on my rare baby bird find.  “Wow, you don’t see that every day” she said.  “I know, I know, but I don’t know what to do!”  I expained that there are many people at my work who would know exactly what to do with a baby falcon like this.  If she would wait on the sidewalk and make sure the baby didn’t go into the road, I would run to work, get a box and figure out what to do.  She agreed, halfheartedly and asked me to hurry.  So this big breasted baby bird saver environmental freak ran at top speed to work.  I took the elevator to the 16th floor and frantically began the search for a fellow bird saver.  I found a box and found a guy who knew the phone number of a bird rescue place.  I asked him to call it while I returned to the scene.  I rushed through the lobby, out the doors and around the corner only to find a new man, a hippy dude dressed a bit like Steve Erwin used to dress.  He is talking on the cell phone as I proudly display my cardboard box for the falcon baby.  After a few minutes on the phone, he gets off and with a tiny smirk says, “the baby pigeon thanks you.”

The pigeon population of America increases again…thanks to me.

For those of you curious, a baby pigeon looks nothing like a grown pigeon, though I am told nothing like a baby hawk either.  Here is a photo of a baby pigeon.

Spinning again, I am going to need some new clothes

Okay, I promise, not all of my posts are going to be about clothing.  I do have to continue this thread for a while though.  Glad to hear a couple of you have reached out and ordered some Aerotech shorts.  Let me know how you like them.  I am here to tell you I am going to need some new ones soon.  I don’t have enought to get me through the week.  (Much to the disbelief of my friend Steve, I actually do wash the clothing and have more than one pair.)  I digress.

I wanted to let you know that I went back to spin class this morning.  I have been absent for more than weeks…it’s been months.  What a refreshing reminder of how much I can actually sweat in the course of 45 minutes.  I was very happy that the cycling instructor actually took the time to go from cyclist to cyclist to check on our form and bike set up.  Anyhow, 3 hours later and my cheecks are no longer bright red and my body temperature is back to normal.  I heard an interesting bit on NPR about the benefits of interval training this morning.  I always feel so good after class, but studies are really showing the amazing benefits of speed bursts instead of a steady consistent pace.  So, I am shaking up the system here and am going to keep it up….it is only a matter of weeks till the hilly hundred.

Ask and you shall receive

I have been commuting to work on bike this summer.  I wear these bike shorts every day that I commute, they are awesome.  I love the inside leg hem detail…it is a great little feature and reminder of the designer.   The colleague that I ride in with asked me if I was going to continue this adventure through the winter.  I was completely dumbfounded because….hello….I live in Chicago, so the rides in will be quite chilly.  I started to think about how I am going to dress myself for the cold ass weather.  I started to do some reasearch online and remembered the folks from Aero Tech Designs.  I wondered if they might be willing to help a big girl out.  So, I posed a question to the owner to see how she feels about cold weather tights for plus size bikers.  Lo and behold, I get a message back from her, almost immediately asking if I would be willing to sample some clothes, give her feedback and by winter, she’ll have some plus size winter wear.  Gals, guys, I am here to tell you that we need to start asking for things.  This just took a simple e-mail.  I am going to blog about this in the coming weeks to let you know how the experience has been.  In the meantime, if you want some bike wear gear, check them out.

September 2, 2009

Received a great little package from Aerotech to take a look at their tights and try them out.  What fantastic material.  Just as strong and flexible as the shorts that I own.  I love them.  The padding is great and made my hilly weekend ride very comfortable.  Each pair of tights is hemmable so that people like me (shorties) can have them hemmed or hem them on their own.  I gave Cathy some other suggestions for improvement, we’ll see which, if any, were helpful.  I thought the sizing was a tad off, but that could just be that my butt has been getting bigger over the past year.  I couldn’t tell if they were true to the 2X sizing they said they were.  LOVED them though, and loved the idea that there may be some winter wear coming from aerotech for the big girls.  Can’t wait to hear what she says!!

Adventure Racing…interesting, fun or insane??

Been off triathlons this season. Wanted to come clean about that. I haven’t completely given up the sport, just taken a bit of a break…just ask the workout girls or the swim coach. What I have decided though, is that something has got to give. I have been hearing more and more about adventure racing. My girl Kitty has done some wild ones here in the big shoulders city. I have another girlfriend who is doing insane things in Michigan…like really crazy 15 hour races. What I want to know is, how do you ease into this sport, what are some good races to set entry goals on? I need to know what races you like, hate, and which ones I don’t have to kill myself to train for and finish. Ideas and suggestions are seriously welcome and wanted!!

Where do the fat chicks shop for athlete clothes?

This is a recurring theme here.  More and more people are asking me where to get the plus size gear.  As you peruse the old posts, you’ll see that there are a variety of places out there.  I, however, have yet to find a one stop shop for all of my fat gal athletics.  I am up for posting your ideas and recent shopping attempts!!  I want the swim suits that don’t cut into the hinterlands, the tri suit that zips without requiring liposuction, the bike shorts that plain fit.  Tell me one, tell me all, where do you get your plus size action????

New Lady Ice Cream hits the road

A new bike commuter hit the  road in May.  If it didn’t still feel like winter here, I would be riding in all of the time.  I hadn’t used the bike to get to work since in the 90s.  Pitiful really.  So, this group I biked with has a path that wanders through some interesting neigborhoods.  Various street vendors shout at the group and welcome them on thier daily commute.  As one gave me a high five and cheered me on the way, he called me “new lady ice cream.”  I know he was referring to my skin color, because how could he know about my favorite food group?  Check out my new pannier I bought at Dan’s.  I got one in Maroon.  So far, so good, and it comes with a “waterproof” cover for the rainy days.  Though I must say that they day I got caught in the complete downpour the inner bike was a little damp.

My Brain aka The Black Hole

A counselor told me that more people start going to therapy during this time of year than any other time of year.  I don’t think this is surprising, given the way I have been feeling the past couple of weeks.  So, I began to poll people to see how they have been feeling lately.  The shocking results are this…..98.62% of the people I know feel like crap right now.  Isn’t that interesting?  There are all sorts of reasons this is true:  

  • The winter isn’t quite over.  At least in the Midwest the weather is beautiful today, but we all know this is an attempt to lure us into putting our winter clothes away only to have to pull them out of boxes in a couple of days.   Argh!   
  • There are no real holidays in the dead of winter.  Once Christmas, Hanukah and the King of Thailand’s birthday have passed, we’ve got NOTHING until Easter, which despite celebrating the resurrection, at best, is a good meal and quick bunny egg hunt.   
  • With that extra hour per day, I have another hour to sit and feel like crap about the many things I am doing wrong…..do I spend enough time with the kids, should they be reading more, have I been a good friend, are these pants too short?

    •  Here is what I am going to try to do for the next week.  Every time I think something negative that will only bring me down I am going to say the phrase, “Black Hole approaching, divert, divert!.” out loud.  Not a shout, mind you, but I am going to actually say it.   If I am in a meeting and I can’t say it without getting locked up, I am going to write it on my notepad.  If I am swimming while this happens, shouting it in my brain or mouthing it will have to do.  

    I am going to try to keep a tally, you do the same.

    Life is too short to spend it all thinking bad things…just read the headlines.

    Legwarmers = bulging thigh girl superhero for the fat girl
    Here is an example of a pair of legwarmers. Reminder, if I wore these they would hit just above my knees....very sexy

    Here is an example of a pair of legwarmers. If I wore these they would hit just above my knees....very sexy

    Last night as I was  waiting for the fierce blizzard that never came but kept me up all night, I was thinking about appropriate, fashionable items for someone my size to wear during the winter.   There was a time when I didn’t think of these things at all, but alas one day on the way to work I looked at myself in a glass storefront window and the bottom back of my skirt was safely tucked into the waist of my long underwear.  Yes, my ass was hanging out for not just a walk to work from the el, but the walk from home to the el and an entire train ride.  How did I not notice, you may ask?  Layering my friends, much layering.  By the way, thanks to those of you who saw me and said nothing.  Anyway, as I think about that faux pas, I start to go through winter wardrobe do’s and don’ts for us big chicks. 

    Coat?  Yes, that is acceptable clothing.  And I say for Chicago winters, any shape size is a go.  Stadium, puffy, short, ski, go for it.

    Sweater?  Yep, that is too, acceptable.

    Gloves?  OOOHHH getting getting risque, maybe mittens. 

    Legwarmers?   Ye….yes, I said legwarmers.   So here is the nitty gritty truth of the matter.  I LOVE legwarmers, especially the styles (are they really?) of legwarmers I see the 20 somethings out there wearing on my way to the train.  How convenient as well, I bet they really keep those calves warm…oohh I am jealous.  But here is my question.  I am 5 ‘ 3″ tall.  You figure a pair of legwarmers are at least a foot high.  On me that comes to my knees.  Combine that with a sweater on top and jeans on the bottom and I am essentially bulging thigh girl in leg warmers.  Mind you, I have tried none of this out.  I am simply trying to sort through appropriate cold weather gear waiting for the blizzard.   Here is my decision. 

    On some days, what you wear and how you look never matter, at least to the people that I know and even to the citizens of Chicago who watched me prance around with my ass hanging out in the long underwear.  Those days, I may be able to get away with legwarmers.  Most days though, I think I would just look like BULGING THIGH GIRL THE SUPERHERO!!!.  But you know what, even if I did, at least I’d be warm.  I also bet someone out there would be checking out my legwarmers thinking….”legwarmers?  I just love legwarmers.”