Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

So I came across this “inspirational pin” on Pinterest. Sexy guy, with sexy abs, with sexy text saying “Rid your mind of can’t”.

I’m calling bullshit. You can’t rid you’re mind of can’t. That crazy inner fat girl is always gonna be there. Always gonna be whisper “you can’t do this” in you’re ear. It’s not about ridding my mind of can’t. It’s kind of a human response when faced with a difficult challenge. “Inspirational” posts like this just sets up a really dangerous senerio.

Ok, so let’s say I’m out on a run that I just “can’t” get through. Maybe this will pop in my head “Rid your mind of can’t”. You know what, maybe I can’t. Maybe I can’t finish this run. Oh great so I screwed up at “ridding my mind”. Great I can’t even do that so how the heck am I supposed to get over this little challenge.

The trick is, not ridding you’re mind of “can’t”. The trick is doing it even if your brain says “can’t”.

OK. Rant over.

A new year and a new manifesto

It’s January right? So as a fitness blogger I should have my pompoms out in full in New Year Resolution Mode. Yawn. I’ve done that. I’ve ridden the New Year high to lose weight, run a 10k, blah, blah, blah. But there is something fundamental missing, not only in this resolution nonsense, something fundamentally missing in my life. Brace yourself, this may hit a nerve.

After all the work I’ve done on myself – therapy, self-help books, journaling, empowerment classes – after all that, at the end of the day, I’m still waiting for that delicious, glorious moment when I’m thin enough to finally think I have the right to think I’m pretty and sexy and when I can finally be happy.
Yup, that’s right, I don’t think I have the right to be happy because I’m not thin and because I’m not thin, I’m not pretty or sexy. You see, when I’m finally thin, all those things will just magically poof into existence.

I walk around most days thinking I’m basically invisible, no makeup on, schlummy (yes, it’s a technical term) clothes, hair like the Wild Woman of Borneo. After all, no one is going to take notice of me anyway so what does our matter? Translation – I don’t think I matter.

But what if, now this may get a little radical and scary, but what if, just what if, I claimed being sexy and gorgeous and happy as my birth right? Right now? Right this very second?. What if I made that my Excalibur to heave from the stone and raise into the air with a these-boots-were-made-for-walking kind of growl? What if I fought for THAT instead of ticks on the scale or calories saved? What if RIGHTNOW I declared I was one sexy mother fucker and lived my life that way? What would my life then look like?
See, I keep piling up all this evidence that that I’m not pretty. Like beans I toss in a jar which is about bursting at this point. I collect all these moments that provide evidence that I’m not pretty or desirable. The dates that stand me up, the boys that don’t return phone calls, the plus size jeans, the bad hair days, they are all collected and noted in my evidence file like I’m building this Hoover era dossier on why I suck. I never ever pay any sort of attention to the moments that confirm I am a hottie. I disregard them as flukes, freaks of nature, tricks of the light. Like the day three random strangers complemented my legs when I had the balls to wear a short skirt, I mean three men, stopped, turned around walked back to me just to say I had great legs and I totally blew that off as meaningless. Those moments get discredited as abnormal, aberrations, people talking crazy and obviously delusional and doing drugs.

But what if? What if I lived life right now as if I was perfect and glorious and oozing with sex appeal? What if I lived every moment as confirmation of being powerful and happy instead of hiding out and waiting for some future moment of ambiguous glory? And I’m not talking about goofy affirmations in the mirror or cheer leader pompom talks before going out on the town. What if I woke up in the morning and put my vampy red Chanel lipstick and my killer holy-crap-you’re-over-6foot-tall stilettos to work at my home office? What if I took on this manifest of keeping your head, heels and standards high? What would my life look like then?

I don’t know. But I’m sure as hell going to find out.

ouch

George Takei posted this picture on Facebook with the caption “Live the epic. Even if it means sliding flat on your face.”

Obviously, since I went through the trouble of coping the image and writing this post, there’s something there that’s stuck with me.

I feel like I’ve fallen down, and fallen down BIG TIME, making a giant ass out of myself in the process. I feel hurt, and bruised (and a little abused) and all embarrassed and I wanna take my little red ball and go home and hide in a blanket fort. So there.

Here’s the truth – my business is struggling, I’m turning 40 and I’m single, and most horribly of all, I’ve gained 30lbs and I’m a running blogger who isn’t running.

There. I said it.

I’ve been hanging my head and hiding out.

But here’s also the truth – I’m the only one who can get myself out of this.

So I fell on my face and all the other little Pandas are laughing at me. Now I could go sulk, like I’ve been doing, so I could go climb that slide again and again and again until I can pull of a triple axle dismount.

So now it’s time to pull on my big girl panties and do what I know works and stop feeling sorry for myself and live the epic.

Do you ever feel like your Crazy Inner FatGirl is using any means possible to get her message through?

Toast is just a delivery system for Butter

Yes, I actually had this conversation with myself last night. Butter did not win.

I am shocked to say this, but the most awesome sample from a FitBloggin’12 sponsor was the Calcium Gummy Vitamins from Nature Made.

Nature Made Gummy Yummy

Nature Made was crazy generous. They made yoga mats and carriers for us and gave each of us a sample of the new gummy and melt vitamins. And when I say “sample” I mean a life sized jar, as if you went to Walgreens and picked it up off the shelf.

Here’s a secret frustrating thing about me. I hate taking pills. I just can’t seem to manage taking pills every day. And I have tried everything. I’ve done charts to give myself gold stars for taking them, heck I’ve even tried paying myself. Take your vitamins, get a dollar! Weight Watcher’s has a easy-peasy-just-click-here feature too and bupkis, I never click it.

WW makes it easy to click... and I don't

And this is not limited to vitamins. I can’t even take prescriptions the way I’m supposed. Yes, I’m one of those horrible human beings that never finishes out an antibiotic course and will be responsible for the super bug that kills humanity. My bad.

I was kid of dubious of the gummy vitamin concept. It’s medicine, you should not treat it as candy. But since I’ve had this whole jar of calcium gummies, I can’t let it go to waste.

Holy Healthy Batman. I have taken two calcium gummies every day since Fitbloggin. Now, that’s a record for me. Two straight weeks of being a good girl with my vitamins!

Here’s another interesting factoid about me… right after dinner, I need a sweet treat. Maybe it’s just a bad habit, but I’m stuck in dessert mode. There’s something about a little something-something sweet right after dinner that I crave. Now, usually I’m rumbling in the kitchen to find a doughnut or a Weight Watcher’s ice cream bar, but for the past two weeks, my post-dinner treat has been the calcium gummies.

How freakin’ weird is that? That a you can consider a vitamin a desert worthy treat?

The only problem is that it’s hard to stop at two. But I have a tricky solution! I’m headed over to Walgreens to pick up Multi Gummies and B Gummies. I’m so very tricky!

Fitbloggin’12 was last weekend. There was great people, great sponsors, great food, but it was kind of a weird weekend for me.

I'm angry, who knew!

First of all, I was presenting on building your brand. So I was nervous, and feeling unprepared. I missed pretty much the first day because I was fretting over my presentation. When it was over – whew – I could relax and do the conference thing.

FitBloggin’ is amazing because of the people who attend. It’s kind of like summer camp with out S’mores. I feel like I didn’t meet as many people this year as I did last year. But that’s a different blog post.

So the presentation went well, I chatted, hugged, laughed… and then…

Then came Tara’s panel “When you have a lot to lose” and I kind of lost it a bit. See, here’s the truth – I’m 30lbs heavier than I was this time last year.

Crap.

What do you do as a fitness and weight loss blogger when you are getting fat again? I got all emotional and messy. It wasn’t until that panel and a conversation with PinkyPie (AKA Renee) that I realized I’m angry.

I’m angry at myself that I have to do this all over again.

I’m angry that I let the pounds creep back on.

I’m angry that my clothes don’t fit.

And god help me if one more person says to me “if you did it once, you can do it again”

And I feel like a failure.

And to top it all off, I just don’t wanna! I know how hard it was losing it all the first time and I just don’t want to put that kind of effort into weight loss again.

I’m perpetually stuck in Monday mode right now. “I’ll start Monday”. “One last doughnut and I’ll get back on track”. “Oh look dumplings”. FatGirl has won and successfully beat FitGirl back into the closet.

FitBloggin was a week ago. Have run this week? Nope. Have I eaten doughnuts? Yup.

I’m angry. I’m frustrated. And I really don’t know what to do. So that was my Fitbloggin, how was yours?

I’ve been hanging out in the metaphysical world lately. What the hell does that mean? I’ve been looking at how I think, what works in my life, what doesn’t, who I am as a human being. Whoa I know, big weighty stuff. But an un-examined life isn’t worth living right?

Say it with me class... "I LOVE my life!"

A lot of the stuff we drive ourselves crazy with just simply isn’t real. I mean, how many times have you looked at a fashion magazine and a little tiny part of yourself dies because you don’t look like that model on the cover? The crazy part of that is, THAT model doesn’t look like that either! She’s been ‘shopped into fantasy to uphold some lunatics idea of what sells stuff. Jumping off that soap box for a moment…

I’ve been taking a look at the conversations I have with people, the endless loop of monolgue that runs through my head, the actual words I use when talking about myself and my life. And it breaks my heart to say this, on the whole, it’s some pretty negative stuff. Sure, I have my moments where I think I’m awesome and can take on the world. And then there are moments that if I caught myself  saying these exact same things to a 5-year-old, I’d want to call Family Services and get that abusive nut arrested.

So, what if I could change the way I talked about my life, could that change the way I experience my life? I’m saying yes, and there’s tons of really interesting and juicy brain science to back that up not to mention 3,000 years of Buddhist teachings that show you exactly how to do that.

So these are the thoughts that have been rumbling around my little red head when a friend told me about this self-esteem class she took. One of the assignments was to say “I love my body” three time while looking in a mirror, three times a day (“even if it feels like a lie”). She said it completely shifted her relationship with her body. So that got me thinking…

If how you think, and how you speak actually create how you experience the world, what if I just started talking about the things I love about my life instead of the crappy parts that are going on. Yeah, the crappy parts are still there, and need to be dealt with, but what if I just stopped talking about them? Hmmmm…

So what do you love about your life? Even if things are really bleak, there’s something you love, the smell of your shampoo, the way the dog looks at you, the sound of your purse snapping shut. There are tons of little things I can draw on even when things are not looking good. I’ve had a rocky start to my day and yet, just now in the kitchen I cut open a vacuum-sealed package of coffee and I LOVE that moment when air rushes in and it goes from a solid block to a mushy mass in a heartbeat. I LOVE that!

So what do YOU LOVE about your life!?

I’m kind of a marketing geek. I’m the girl that tells everyone to shut up during commercials so that I can watch. Yeah, it comes with the territory when you own your very own marketing and social media company. I get gleeful and excited pouring over metrics and insights and data. You can see some really interesting stories in the data. I can tell clients things about their users that boggles their minds, like shopping habits and sleeping patterns. It’s awesome.

I try really hard not to get crazy with the analytics of my own properties. I can very easily be that kind of blogger that writes a post and then agonizes over why its bee 10 mins and I’ve gotten only three hits. So I pop into Google Analytics a few times a month just to get the lay of the land.

I could not stop chuckling when I saw this.

Fat girl in a pineapple hat? We don't need no stinking hats.

Not 1, not 2, but three people have arrived at FatGirlsCanRun.com in the past month by googling “a fat girl in a pineapple hat”. Say it with me class – WTF. I don’t think I have ever mentioned pineapples and I’m certain I’ve never talked about a pineapple hat, and I have most certainly never written the phrase “a fat girl in a pineapple hat”.

So being the marketing geek that I am, this is now an lesson in SEO keyword blogging.

Many, many things will effect where you show up in a Google search for any key word or phrase. If you want to rank well for a specific key word, blogging is an excellent way to do that. For a unique phrase like “a fat girl in a pineapple hat”, just one well-done blog post might be enough to get you to Page One. If you’re using a more competitive key word like “Blogging for SEO”, you’re going to have blog that sucker again and again with fresh content, as the new Google algorithm gives you demerits for duplicate content. So blog and blog often and really show that you know what you’re talking about.

There are a few structural things you can do in your post to give you an even better edge.

• Use the key word in the title
• Use the key word in the first paragraph (I didn’t do this here as I’m just kid of goofing around)
• Use an image and make sure you key word is in the caption AND the Alt text.
• Use the key word as possible in the post without sounding goofy and stupid.
• Use the key word as a tag or category marker

Now, I’ll be really curious to see how I rank for “a fat girl in a pineapple hat” in a few days time. Yeah, I make my own fun.

I’ve been silent for a while. I could tell you I’ve been busy, that my fabulous life is just so full of fabulous things that I just don’t have the time to sit down and write because, well, I’m just too buys being fabulous.

And then my Pinocchio nose would have me trapped in my office and I’d have to call 911 to come and saw it off.

Here’s the truth – I don’t feel good about myself right now. My weight is up, I’m not running and I’m very much enjoying hiding inside Chinese dumplings and pints of ice cream.

I’m in this mode of seeking comfort and little ways to make myself feel better about myself. And that usually means Chinese food, Mac and Cheese, and the like.

But I staged a coup in my own brain last night. I needed something to shake me up and shake me out of this blue mood I’ve been in. The Dumplings were calling my name…

But I resisted and did my nails instead!

pretty nails keeps me from the dumplings.

Pinterest has me totally obsessed with nail art. And I noticed that doing my nails makes me feel good. Actually, better than good. I can look down and see these tiny works of art on my fingers and revel in feeling girlie and pretty and you know what? Its totally not dependent on my weight or what I’m wearing or what’s in my fridge.

FatGirl and FabGirl have tea before a night on the town.

FabGirl: So, we’re going out tonight, black jeans or a skirt and tights?

FatGril: No no, I’m staying in. I have a lot to do. {emergency cheesecake stands by}

FabGirl: Don’t be silly, of course we’re going out. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’re going to celebrate love… {wistful sighs and naughty eye sparkles}

FatGirl: No really. I have to update the virus protection on my computer and I have 134 videos in my Hulu queue, really I have too much to do {nervously eyes cheesecake, fingers twitch towards the fork}

FabGirl: We haven’t been out forever. Our friends miss us, and you never know, Dreamy McDreamy might just waltz into our lives tonight.

FatGirl: Yeah, whatever, that’s great but these pins will not just pin themselves on to Pintrest, you know. I’ve got stuff to do,  going out is too much work.

FabGirl: Stop being silly, we’re going to see our friends, have a fruity cocktail, dance a little…

FatGirl: DANCE?? DANCE?? You’re a freakin’ lunatic. Fat Girls don’t dance. Everyone will point and laugh. “Oh look at that fat girl. Get out of the way, she might squish you and can you believe she wore that? Fat AND trampy”. Look, I don’t want to have a boyfriend, I’m perfectly fine on my own. If I had a boyfriend, I’d have to lose like 50lbs before he’d love me anyway. He’d constantly be commenting on what I was eating when we went out to dinner and at some point, we’d have to NAKED together and who in their right freakin’ minds wants to be naked with me. No one wants to date a fat girl. Fat girls don’t date. When I lose the 50lbs then I’ll be happy and sexy and someone will want to date me. We’re just going to stay home and watch Once Upon a Time and it will be fine {forgets the fork, dives face first into the cheesecake}

To say that relationships have been an issue for me is kind of an understatement. I made some bad choices. No, that’s not really true. I made the only choice I could make at that exact point in my life with all the information that I had. I fell in love with a guy who, somewhere in him, was a nice person, but was wrapped up in his own pain that he couldn’t deal with his own emotions. No, that’s not really true either. I fell in love with the idea of the person I wanted him to be, thinking that I would then be the person I wanted to be.

And then that ended. Badly. And I gained 50lbs.

For a long time this is how I thought dating worked – be skinny, then you’ll be happy, then you’ll have a fun, sexy loving relationship.

But what if I could be happy RIGHT NOW. Right this second. Wouldn’t the result then be skinny and in love? I mean, after all who wants to be in love with a grumpy person who is also fat?

I had this revelation the other day. I keep throwing up reasons why I can’t date:

• I’m not at my goal weight.
• I don’t have the right clothes.
• I don’t have time.
• I just started a business, that’s more important right now.
• I really don’t feel great about how I look and don’t want to get naked with someone.

Then I was asked a very simple question: What are you concerns about being in a relationship? The answer is two fold. 1) Obviously I’m scared of getting hurt. 2) I’m scared that I could actually get exactly what I want and then I have to deal with that.

Whoa.

What if Mr. McDreamy were to enter my life today? What if I had to actually walk the talk and be a responsible adult and make room in my life for someone? What if there was another person on this earth who accepted me for what I was and what I wasn’t? What if there was someone who loved me for me? Crap. I’d then have to love me for me.

I started looking at the reality of my dating life. I get several offers a week from online dating sites from men who want to meet me. I don’t have a fake picture up there, and I think I actually have my true weight listed on one of them (none of that “I’m curvy” stuff). There are actually quite a few people taking the effort to email me with interest. And I’m shunning all that with a story about “I don’t have time” which is actually hiding “I feel fat” which is actually hiding “I don’t know that I can love myself enough”

Whoa.

And this all has comes about because that’s exactly what may be happening. A guy, we’ll call him The Frenchman, contacted me via a dating site. I made him jump through hoops to schedule a time for drinks. I was like a freakin’ Nay-saying Ninja throwing out all these impossible limitations. He deflected them all and made it work and we had a lovely night together. If I could create the perfect man for myself, the Frenchman comes pretty darn close. And it scares the pants off me.

I don’t know where this is going, but I’m ready to find out.