One Girls Journey From Fatass to Fabulous

Dear Thing Two;

Last year we had your ears pierced for your birthday. You were nervous, but so very excited to get to wear earrings like a big girl. I picked you up from school and took you to lunch and the pictures you drew on the placemat was full of designs that you wanted your earrings to look like.

When we got to the store in the mall, you started to get nervous. You felt the same way I did about the woman helping us. Her voice was a little too loud and shrill, and she was a little too hurried to comfort the nerves of a five year old who wasn’t sure exactly was about to happen. And instead of calling over a partner to handle piercing both ears at once, she did it alone, one lobe at a time. You were shocked and then devastated and then spitting mad at how much the first ear hurt that we almost had to walk out of there having gotten your EAR pierced, not your EARS.

I pinned you down, pried your shoulder away from your ear and told the woman to Go Go GO We got through the other lobe and made it home and spent several days helping you get through the trauma of mommy making you do it, and I thought a lot about the fact that it was so hard for you because you had no experience with pain. You don’t remember getting shots, you have barely had a skinned knee, had no break or sprain or stitch to toughen you up.

You hung on to this memory of me making you finish the process because it hurt your heart, too. You trusted me and I let you down and you didn’t really know what to do with that emotion. You were really upset with me. For a little while, The Great Ear Piercing Fail of 2012 changed our relationship. You held a grudge and I kind of got a sneak peak into what you’ll be like someday when the hurts get bigger.

Even now, a year later, you will still say that you wanted to stop after the first one. And still you get nervous that changing them will hurt. You hold tight to that which hurts you. And that, my dear Thing Two, you come by honestly.

Your fifth year brought you your first real BFF. The two of you have a language all your own. You play dress up and paint nails and watch Jesse and she taught you to like hot sauce and you helped her pass her swim test. Two years separate you, and someday those years will seem like a huge distance. But for now you two are like sisters, and I love the way you two love each other.

You said goodbye to your Woodson this year, and it still breaks my heart when you miss him out loud. But two weeks ago you opened your heart to two baby pound puppies that needed us to save them, and we also needed them to save us. They swooshed in with licks and smiles and puppy breath and their freckles make everyone notice them. They’re your babies, and you’ve dressed them in tutus and painted their nails and when they get on your lap and lick your face your giggle is like music.

Six will be a big year for you. Kindergarten and long hair and Dance Class. You’re so comfortable in your own body that I was nervous about saying yes to class; I didn’t want you to get self-conscious or critical of yourself, believing that there was a right and a wrong way to dance. But you love to click away on your tap shoes and show me your jazz moves and so I just have to swallow my own experiences and trust you to create your own.

This year your celebration will be all PINK! and Hello, Kitty and games at Chuck E. Cheese. No hurts this year, my sweet Thing Two. Just your BFF and cake and dancing.

Happy Birthday.
Love, Mama

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My biggest struggle in losing the 50 pounds that I’ve wanted to lose since beginning this here blog four years ago isn’t a lack of knowledge about how to do it. It isn’t because I have no resources or that I think that tracking or eating right is too hard. It isn’t because I battle a medical condition that makes losing weight tougher or because I have a food addiction or because I have an unsupportive family or anything like that. I usually end up loosening my grip because my life just isn’t hugely affected by my extra fifty pounds. I mean, I can run and jump and swim (and wear a bikini) and keep up with my kids and shop in just about any store I want to (sideyeing Asinine Abercrombie and Fitch) and about 90% of the time I feel pretty hot. I’m confident. I don’t avoid cameras. I weigh myself regularly and am never really surprised by the number, because my weight really doesn’t change. And I get to sweaty dance for a living. I’m happy.

So usually it doesn’t take long for my food-journaling-calorie-counting-say-no-to-cocktails-or-dessert mojo to wane because for me, sometimes it’s just much ado about nothing. I love to exercise and I love having lots of energy and I love playing with my kids and I love being at the beach. And also?  I love to cook big family meals, I love burgers and beers during football (basketball/hockey/whatever) season and I love seconds. So, yeah. I lose diet steam.

Every now and again, though, something will happen that will make me start to wonder about the people in the world that don’t see me the same way I see myself. Sometimes it’s something quick – like seeing myself in a not-so-flattering photo – and I’ll shudder and move on. Sometimes it’s something unspoken, that I’ll think maybe I imagined it – like when Thing One said he didn’t want me to wear a bathing suit in the backyard when his friends were playing basketball in the driveway. Sometimes it’s innocent, like when Thing Two explained that she needed a potty seat because her bum was little and mine was big.

But sometimes it is something that, when it happens, stays with me in the back of my mind for a long time.

I was honored to be asked to be part of the Fitbloggin fashion show. I even volunteered to be a sports bra model, because why not? Have you seen me? What did I have to feel insecure about, wearing nothing but by bra in front of a couple hundred of my closest friends? I mean, I wear less fabric to the beach, right?

I was nervous. But I was more nervous about like, tripping up the steps than I was about wearing the bra and capris. It was a little nerve-wracking to think of going up there and being ME, without a bunch of glitter and some Latin music to support me, but whatever. I did it and it was an absolute blast.

And throughout the day I (along with everyone else involved) received a lot of hugs and high fives from friends who said how much they enjoyed the show, and how cool it was that there were real women as the models. And a bunch of people even said they were moved to tears at the level of self-confidence and the representation of REAL women in these bras and clothes. They said we were BRAVE.

Moved to tears.

Brave?

Blink. Blink blink.

Okay so I know it isn’t necessarily what they SAID, but what I began to HEAR was “Wow I just cried at that fashion show. To think your fat ass was courageous enough to get up on that runway wearing next to nothing! I’d never be able to do that! I’d be too embarrassed! How cool that YOU weren’t!”

It was kind of a running joke that evening with my roommates. And I laughed until I cried.

And then when I got home I kind of cried.

But whatever. I moved on and put my fat ass in a bikini and carried on with the summer. Opened the studio and kept moving forward. Occasionally that same feeling would come back, that thing where someone would say “Wow, I really admire your confidence” and my brain would add the backhand. Even during the Zumba convention. Never mind that I slipped on my first pair of ballet slippers when I was about four and I danced all the way through college, whenever I received a compliment on my dancing, I always heard “not bad for a big girl.”

Well, throughout the summer I worked on a few habits with some of my students. One of our instructors encourages us not to eat past 7PM, and I’ve actually gotten pretty good at that one. Thing One wanted to work out a lot this summer to be ready for basketball season, so I committed to keeping fast food to once a week – a difficult feat for the lazy days of summer, but we gave it a go. I cut down on diet soda. These are things I have no interest in eliminating totally, but the schedule-free, come what may life we lead when school is out makes it easy for this kind of consumption to increase.

And then a week ago I kind of quietly decided to start food journaling again. I fired up my My Fitness Pal app and entered all my information, and after the first day I successfully closed out my diary and then this came up:

BACKHAND!

If every day was like today? What, like you mean if I can manage to not eat like a horse and can get my fat ass up off the couch to move, this time I may be able to actually lose some weight? You’re an asshole, My Fitness Pal. A total asshole.

Anywho. I’ve kept it up for a week, and this stupid jerk app has kept me honest more than once. I am again reminded how many times I reach for something to eat when I’m not really hungry. And there are times when I AM hungry, but am out of calories. I don’t think it’s possible to try to lose weight and NEVER be hungry, but to some degree this week I think sometimes what presented as hunger was sometimes just that, but other times it was probably really just stress or boredom. So, we’ll see how it goes.

If you are frenemies with this app too, send TheMrsFatass a friend request. We can get together and talk about the app behind it’s back.

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Waking up last Wednesday morning at 4:30 to get the car packed up for our trek to Florida, I kept thinking that what I needed more than five days of Zumba® Fitness classes was five days of rest. My body had been taking a beating in the classes I was teaching, my brain was tired of holding on to every last detail of our business, and on top of it all, I was trying to keep the class material fresh and new for students when I could barely remember what day it was.

My spirit, too, was just depleted. The opening of our studio was overwhelmingly joyous, but happiness and excitement can be just as exhausting as pain or sorrow. Not to mention that there was some pain involved in this birth. And my kids are always missing their dad and (and their dog is gone now, too) and I’m constantly wondering if they will resent all the time they have to spend in the studio and is doing an Insanity class together really family time? Also, the way the three of us in this trio fit together leaves me very often in the middle, staying calm and steady when one or the other needs to freak out for a minute. Even when on the inside I am not feeling calm and steady. And I don’t mind being in that place, really. But it takes a toll. It all takes a toll, the downs and the ups. And last Wednesday morning, I was tired. I fantasized about huddling up in the hotel with room service and the remote control, trying to shut out the craziness happening with the throngs of neon-clad instructors on the floors below. I needed a nap.

Or so I thought.

The Zumba Instructor Convention is a lot of splash and glitter and neon. Huge ballrooms with screens everywhere blasting branding messages, loud music at every turn, and the constant sound of jingling (you’d be amazed at what 8,000 people wearing the rubber Zumba bracelets with the little bells sound like). Sponsors handing out freebies and two stores full of Zumbawear to purchase and miles and miles of walking from one end of the event to the other. And people everywhere. As you may recall, I have this little anxiety thing. So constantly being in the middle of a gazillion strangers was at times enormously stressful.

But all of this spectacle and grandeur was all put together in such a magnificent way…for us. For all 8000 of us burned out instructors who second guessed coming there because we are all tired and spent from living our lives and doing our jobs and trying to make each of our own student feel like rock stars. And even in the midst of all of the noise, even when I was packed in to an event like a sardine or when someone would dance over into my space or step on my toe or when a concert would start 90 minutes late, what I felt was an enormous gratitude. Because all of these costumes and concerts and choreographed-to-the-last-second classes were all created to reenergize and revive each one of us. To make us excited again. To re-ignite our spark, so that we could go home and keep impacting lives. Starting with our own.

Samantha and I were very lucky last week. We got to experience the convention in a way thousands of other attendees did not. My worlds collided when a Fitbloggin’ friend invited us to a small cocktail party for media folks covering convention.

We got up close and personal with some home office staff, many of the instructors who appear on the DVDs that teach us choreography for our classes, and yes, Mr. Zumba himself, Beto Perez. He is constantly surrounded by security, handlers, and a swarm of fans who want a second to take a photo, and here I was that first night actually having his ‘people’ arrange a photo op just for us. It was so interesting to watch him circulate through the party with maybe just 50 of us in the room, shaking hands and posing for photos, making each thank you or nice to meet you sound fresh and genuine. I am constantly telling my students when they are presented with an opportunity to make something happen to take their moment, and that evening I had to take mine. I got to have an exchange with the man who invented the thing that has allowed me a livelihood. And I did it while wearing a trio fitness tee shirt, natch.

The week was full of this brand of moment-taking. A second of an exchange with Zumba Fitness CEO Alberto Perlman (like, he totally squeezed my arm and made eye contact guys!) was made even more meaningful after I learned he had been part of a conversation about how Zumba makes entrepreneurs, and the story of trio fitness was relayed to him. A compliment on my style from the instructor of what was probably my favorite dance class I’ve ever taken put a huge shot of self-confidence back in my heart. Receiving a handshake squeeze and a thank you from the man whose mixes I purchase for my classes every so often makes that music sound just a little clearer. And also? My friend invited me to stand on the mainstage – where the Zumba-lebrities had been dancing all week – so she could take my picture. Nobody looking at that photo would know that it was any different than any of the other 2013 Convention signs all over the hotel for us to take pictures in front of, but I know what it felt like to stand there and look out into the huge ballroom. It felt effing amazing.

I made a comment at some point about how I always wanted this kind of access to convention, and Samantha joked “becoming a little power hungry are we?” and I laughed but really? It wasn’t about power at all. It was truly about access. Being able to get these behind-the-scenes looks at how it all comes together. I have driven my partners crazy with my attention to detail, but that attention can make a good experience for a student into a great one. Spending several hours watching rehearsals for 2 master classes wasn’t about hanging out with the cool kids, it was about absorbing how these amazing instructors choose music and put choreography together and rehearse and communicate and bring the best out of the people they are working with. That is the kind of information to internalize and bring back home to my studio. That is what is going to make me a better teacher, business owner, and person.

So I took moments. Lots of them.

At one point I received a text from a friend that read  You don’t get attention because you wear the flashiest Zumba clothes or dance the loudest or proclaim how fabulous you are. You don’t have to tell me about your years in dance to show me you’re a dancer, and you don’t have to tell me you’re a good teacher for me to know it’s true. You attract attention because you share the spotlight with the people around you. Your humility is something that can’t be taught. You belong here. I’m proud of you. Well, I don’t know that all of that is true, but I do know that the week was full of exchanges like that, exchanges full of positivity and hopefulness that you can really help somebody that can fill you back up and make you excited to get back at it when your plane lands at home.

These were the moments that made Convention so amazing to me. I’m really glad I didn’t hide out with room service and the remote.

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This is happening…

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Dear Thing One and Thing Two,

When we all rolled out of bed on Saturday we were excited. You both had plans with friends, we were going to have a house full of kids, the snacks were purchased and the sun was shining and everything was falling into place for a wonderful day.

Just like always, Woodson was sniffing around after us. Always underfoot, always looking for a treat and a belly rub, always wanting to be right in the middle of whatever it was we were doing. He was my alarm clock, nudging me with that big wet nose every morning, always ready to get started with his day a good hour or so before I was. But we had kind of a morning routine. And we went through the motions together.

If I would have known that this was the day we would be saying goodbye to him, I would have taken more time. Given a few more snuggles and scratches and definitely snapped a few more selfies. You remember Woodson being an early Christmas present, tugging and chewing at the big red bow around his neck, but I remember Woodson being kind of a lifeline during a really turbulent part of my life. He was a sweet and funny and smelly distraction that kept me moving forward.

I know you two are sad and confused. Things happened so fast. I can’t really write yet about the actual situation that changed the course of the day. I can’t really make sense of it. So what I will say is this: What happened that afternoon was a bad thing. It could have been much worse and thank God it wasn’t. But it could have been. We can’t keep a dog that bites. Even just one time is way too many. We just can’t keep a dog that bites.

You have both asked me a lot of questions this weekend, and I don’t really know how to answer them all, but I’m doing the best I can. No, I don’t know why Woodson did this. No, I don’t think we can trust he won’t do it again. No, we don’t have to stop talking about him. No, we don’t have to stop loving him. No, we most certainly do not have to be glad he’s gone. No, I’m not going to send you away if you do something bad, because people are different than dogs. Yes, I love him. Yes, we can forgive him. Yes, I think he misses us and yes I’m sure he loved us and yes I believe he wouldn’t do anything to hurt his family. But something got into him Saturday, and he hurt somebody else, and we can’t wait around to see if it will happen a second time. There is a lot involved in being a responsible pet owner besides the feeding and the walking and the loving. He had to go.

But here is the thing; I know you two understand. You both are wise well beyond your years, and I can see from your behavior this weekend that you understand why Woodson had to leave. I was so proud of you both, your strength and your bravery in saying goodbye to him. Watching you two pet him and hug him and take some last photos with him, holding back tears until the car was out of view, well, I was just in awe that you two were able to say goodbye with such grace. There are lots of grownups in the world who couldn’t handle a situation like this with the same level of maturity. There just isn’t a word big enough to describe my love for the two of you.

So here’s the thing; I think that the years we had with Woodson don’t have to be defined by this one action. If we all agree that we understand why he had to go, and we have acknowledged that, then it’s okay instead to remember all that was good about having him in our family. All of the funny nicknames (The Baron Poopstick von Shartsalot), and all the funny voices we made for him, and the way he was a bed hog, and how he loved to go swim in the lake, and the way he made us feel safe when we were home alone at night, and how his paws smelled like Fritos , and how much he loved peanut butter, and the way he’d lay on his back and his lips would flap open and he’d look like such a goofball. And that time that he farted in his own mouth. Let’s remember those things, and love him for the kind of dog he was when he’d sit patiently while Thing Two blew bubbles in his face or always follow Thing One around when he had Funyuns or practically smother me while he curled up in my lap. Let’s remember how he liked to carry a stick in his mouth when he took a walk and how handsome he looked in his Michigan football jersey.

I’m going to miss him too. But we’ll get through this together. I promise.

I love you two with my whole entire heart,
Mama

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One thing that has kept me too busy to write regularly is that I had a (work) baby. Samantha and I (and a lovely third lady who doesn’t have a blog for me to link to) gave birth to a group fitness studio on June 1^st. The gestation was long – trio fitness was conceived over a year ago, and branding began long before we had an actual studio – but labor was short. About 2 months from first meeting with a new partner to the opening of the doors.

And all of a sudden I’ve gone from a person with a dream to a person with responsibility to execute that dream in such a way that people’s paychecks don’t bounce and the lights stay on.

There has been a lot about this process that has been lovely, and yes, a lot like the excitement when a baby is born. We received a beautiful bouquet of flowers on our opening day. Lots of hugs and happy tears and cards with sentimental words and also a hell of a lot of advice. People stopped by to offer assistance – to get the mirrors unloaded or to help build our platform or to hang our mailbox or decipher an instruction manual or to tell us who to talk to at the paper that will write a really good article. Overall I have been just knocked over by all of the people who really want to see us succeed; who understand our vision and believe in our mission and who were willing to look past those first few hot weeks until we got the AC system right or got banners in the windows to block the blinding afternoon sun, and who will still bring friends and coworkers and acquaintances with them every time they come to class because they know who we are on the inside and believe wholeheartedly that the kinks will get worked out (and the dressing room will soon be emptied of the odds and ends) and that the studio will be fabulous. That it already IS fabulous.

Ironically I guess, lots of the things we were able to do in the year leading up to opening the studio are a lot harder to do now. Every day I think of someone I should reach out to, who hasn’t been to class in a while and who might need to know they are missed. Every day after class I want to post a picture and tag everyone and give a virtual high five for all their hard work. Every day I want to be able to send a text to someone who I know is working hard and feeling like it’s not enough. But sometimes I just can’t fit it all in now. Sometimes it’s all I can do just to connect with all of the people who are standing in front of me during a class, making sure I say hello and thank you and frick an A right you did that pushup. Sometimes now, after I’ve sent calendars to print and figured out everyone’s schedule and answered the phone 10 times a day (ack!) and washed a load of towels, sometimes when I get home I just don’t have anything left.

And that sucks. Because my students haven’t become any less special.

So there has been some B-Side. And the truth is our opening did ruffle some feathers. Some people didn’t like our exits at other gyms or studios in order to open our own doors. Some people felt we deserted them. And I hate that, I really do. Because my heart is still full of those people, but sometimes you have to make a hard decision. Sometimes you have to just take a turn and go your own way.

I had a rough day today and at one point somebody said “what kind of a person are you?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, but that didn’t stop me from formulating about a million different answers in my head. I mean, I’ve lived with myself almost 40 years now so I doubt there is anybody alive who is more familiar with my shortcomings than I am. I’m willing to own any truth about myself, flattering or otherwise, but it must be just that. A truth. I won’t be responsible for living up to anyone’s fabrication.

I am familiar with my strengths, too, for the record. Some of them. But I don’t think the question was about those.

If I got to actually answer that question, I’d say I’m equal parts intuitive and ignorant about how best to raise this baby. Sometimes I’ll get it right, sometimes I’ll screw things up. And sometimes I’ll ignore advice I should heed. But I am blessed. Surrounded by people professionally who are the best at what they do, and surrounded by people personally who are the best at being who they are, and if that saying about you being the company you keep is even 1% true, then the kind of person I am must be pretty effing awesome, because that is who I am surrounded by. I am surrounded by awesome.

What kind of a person are you?

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