The Best Day this Century, or Fat Lesbian's Adventures in Mail-Order ANYTHING

Dear Reader, 

You know those days when nothing goes right? When it feels like the deck is stacked against you before you finish your morning coffee, and then you realized that the cat peed in your left shoe to make a point? 

Last Thursday, I had the opposite of that day. Evidence is as follows:

1) Shortly after rising from a night of blissfully uninterrupted sleep, I receive my mail-order Stripper. 

(not that kind of stripper... meet the Kilo Stripper TT - CHROME)

2) Then I discovered that you can learn EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BIKE REPAIR on YouTube.

 (Eat it, Mechanic Jack!)

3) THEN I found $10 in my pocket...

4) Then we went to my 100th class at the Training Room! 

(I made t-shirts, obvi)

5) And was greeted by Heidi Brown, co-owner of the Training Room (think Allison Williams but taller and fun to talk to) who had prepared not only a 100 themed playlist, but this crazy work out...

(30 minutes of spinning followed by 100 Pushups, 100 Glute Bridges,

100 Burpees, 100 Jumping Jacks, 100 Squats. And I KILLED it!)

6) The evening ended with tequila shots, Mexican food, and Fit Lesbian getting food poisoning. The universe remains in balance. 

The cycling season has started, dear reader, and I can't wait to share the mayhem with you!

Sincerely, 

Fat Lesbian

Fat Finish, or The End is Here

Dear Reader, 

Fit Lesbian and I take a trip down to Miami at least once a year to visit family and take a break from the brutal north.

 

(Miami)

But this entire post is really just a pretense to share the following virtual victory dance.

Fit Lesbian and I went to a spinning studio in Boca Raton (that means Mouth of the Rat in Spanish) called FlyWheel because we had heard so many good things about it. Like all addictive goods, the first one is always free so we signed up, and here is what we found:

1) Torque Board = you see where you stand in power output rankings/race position

2) Super hot and energetic instructor = fun for everyone
3) Free towels, bottled water, AND spinning shoes = it's ok if you forget something at home

Fit Lesbian determined which class we should go to by doing obsessive recon on their website and watching which instructors' classes filled up first. After 3 weeks Angela was the clear winner, and for good reason. She knows people by name, has excellent taste in music, can pedal at 90+ RPM without using her hands, and she has a six pack. She did ask us if we were sisters, but she gets a pass on that because there aren't many lesbians in Miami, and we could be mistaken for German tourists. 

Anyway, we hop on the bikes and start rolling. Angela flashed us the Torque Board stats 4 times during our ride, and the first time I didn't even rank in the top 10. Then, TOTAL DOMINATION. The class was so hard Fit Lesbian almost barfed, but she ended up making the cut, ranking #6 for the lady board. By the end, I had not only come out first among the women, but beat all the men too!

 

(FlyWheel Torque Board: DOMINATED)

 

But the fun didn't end there. In order to relax, we tried to cram as much into our micro-vacation as possible. This time we also went to the Beaux Arts Festival, learned to surf, celebrated an 80th birthday, dined Cuban style, and ate diabetes inducing amounts of ice cream. 

(Post surfing snack with Cut Cousin @ Fit Lesbian's childhood sugar dispensary)

Now the fun has ended. My blood has thinned so much that I'm wearing gloves to type in my apartment, so I'm signing off, but before you go, check out Angela's blog too.

She got a kick out of our names and we started chatting about the Fat Lesbian blog. I found out she is a Boca-lebrity/dating advice columnist and has a blog of her own. She started the blogging because she had gotten out of a long term relationship and was having a hard time adjusting to the 21st century singles scene. Apparently the last time she was on a date people were still using pagers, so she's doing a public service for others in her situation. You can find her at essentiallyangela.com.

Sincerely, 

Fat Lesbian

Strong Finish, or Out Damn Spot(ify)!

Dear Reader,

Imagine with me the thrill of opening a hopefully not hair covered or bed bug ridden hotel room door, the smell of ripe cab drivers, and the taste of weirdly pre-cooked/packaged airport food.  Welcome to the next 2 months of my life. Spending the last 2 months at home with no travel has allowed me to focus intensely on self-improvement and my budding new fit lifestyle. For starters, I began reading a goal setting book called Your Best Year Yet by Jinny S. Ditzler. (My main goal was to finish things I start…but I never finished the book…Really…) I work out when I want, I have a bunch of brown rice in the fridge, fresh fruit out the wazoo, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, all the time and resources I need to make smart, healthy decisions. Then I get to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport where the choices are Pit BBQ, Burger King, and Tequileria. Obviously I choose Tequileria.

The good news is I’ve been able to bring most of my good habits with me. After reading (most of) that nutrition book, I know what to look for on any menu from Kim’s Korean BBQ to Frank’s Fishy Snack Bar. I’ve also stopped pizza crying, and generally feeling like a failure at will power. Yay Nancy Clark! 

(Fiber)

But what has really helped is something wholly unexpected. Enter: Spotify

It’s “internet radio” but it has like every song ever, and you can listen to your playlists off line, AND  you can network with your friends on Facebook to see what’s good in the neighborhood.

In joining Spotify, 2 things happened:

1.)  I’m friends with Reverend Regan, one of the kick-ass spin instructors at The Training Room = I’ve got her playlists from all her classes at my fingertips. Sweet!

2.) I made friends with DJ Spins-A-Lot, a girl who goes to a bunch of the same classes as me, and who is also a curator of the most amazballs workout mixes you could ever hope to sweat to.

This has made working out in kind of nasty, always weird hotel gyms not only bearable, but enjoyable. Today, I didn’t even notice when the guy grunting out reps at the free weights blew his nose into his workout towel. Yes I did, and it was gross, but it was significantly less awful because I was listening to Bass Down Low a la 5KRemix Crew, brought to me courtesy of DJ Spins-A-Lot.

Sincerely,

Fat Lesbian

Also, Fat Shout Out to the guy in 10E who shared his jalapeno popcorn with me on the plane home. That was bitchin'.

Jogs with Terriers, or Showers with Beer

Dear Reader, 

Today, after an accidental 2 mile jog, I found myself drinking a coconut water in my shower. And then I remembered shower beers! If this concept is unfamiliar to you, then you missed a crucial part of your early adult development, and I strongly suggest you do some make-up homework.

But the point is that I went on a 2 mile jog! By accident!!!

"How could that happen?" you ask. It's the heart rate monitor, it's telling me what to do, though not in an OBEY SATAN kind of way. It calculates a crap ton of data based on your height/weight, age, and fitness level. Using its tiny brain, it produced a set of goals for me to achieve this week. To explain what these goals are, I have to tell you about the "Zones", so bear with me, or go here instead.

Zone 1 = walking like you have somewhere to be.
Zone 3 = anything from being breathless to working so hard you want to vomit.
Zone 2 = between zone 1 and zone 3.

It told me to do a set amount of time in each zone, and most of it was in zone 2. So I set out with the intention of going on a brisk walk with Chubby Puppy. Geared up and poop bags in hand, We went to that weird walking trail behind the Costco which I knew would be plowed but empty, and we started walking. I hit zone 1, no problem, but couldn't walk quite fast enough to maintain zone 2, so I started running. Then BAM, zone 3...also not what I was shooting for. I slowed down to get into zone 2, and realized I was jogging! Not only was I jogging, but I was jogging at a pace I could keep up for a really long time because I couldn't let myself get out of breath or I would be in zone 3 again. This meant I was going pretty slow, and even Chubby Puppy could keep up with me the entire time. F*cking Brilliant!

Now I have an easy way to feed my heart rate monitor, and a new workout partner. What has your watch done for you lately?

Sincerely, 
Fat Lesbian

Heart of Darkness, or MyFitnessNemesis

Dear Reader, 

Happy New Year! It's 2013 and how ridiculous is it to try to work out in sub-zero temperatures!?! I know people bike all year round, but they are mostly nuts. I rode my bike until it snowed, then I swore and started walking. 

In the spirit of our next trip around the sun, I've vowed to make cliche and superficial improvements to myself. Lose weight, i.e. look like a shorter, paler, Jillian Michaels. Totally realistic and achievable. To accomplish these goals, I've started to diet with the aid of an app/website called MyFitnessPal. Dear Reader, in case this is something you didn't already know, dieting is the absolute worst. News to me so I thought I would share. At my best, I hit my "average goal" for one week. However I regularly find myself irate over imagined slights, or crying into a piece of pizza over an unsatisfying "splurge." I've become unstable, and Fit Lesbian has had to take evasive action until I pull my shit together.

(Unstable)

Here is how I've been trying to pull said shit together with varying levels of success (success based on a 5 point scale):

1.) I bought a book about basic nutrition for athletes like me who may occasionally count french fries as a vegetable. It's called Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook. And when I read it, I'll let you know how it is.

 Success Level: N/A, incomplete, lazy, fail, just read the damn book. 

2.) I've started going to The Training Room, which is a fabulous little fitness center where they do personal training and group classes. And to my surprise, I love their group classes. I love them so much, that I walk 3 miles round trip to have my ass whooped by any one of their amazing trainers. And I go like 6 days a week! 

 Success Level: 5+, f*uk yeah, killin' it, I think that's Heidi's butt.

3.) Fit Lesbian and I got matching heart rate monitors. This has turned my life into a fitness video game. It tells me all kinds of things about my heart rate, calories burned, fitness level, fat burn percentage, zone targets, and IT GIVES ME TROPHIES. It's like a digipet for grown-ups.

(this trophy is Fit Lesbian's)
Success Level: 4, dyke-alike, geek it out, coolness rank dropping...

Soon I'll be back on the road every week exploring hotels in the nether regions of our country, but I am determined to figure out how to make this work, even in Plano, TX. And by June...Jillian Motherf*cking Michaels...or close.

Sincerely, 
Fat Lesbian
 

My Summer Vacation, or The Cesspool of Sin

Dear Reader,

Greetings from south of the Mason Dixon Line! Fit Lesbian and I have spent a week in southern Appalachia to attend a family reunion in Brevard, North Carolina. And we drove.  Boston to Brevard is about 17 hours so we threw the road bikes in the car, downloaded Atlas Shrugged, and set out for adventure.

Discoveries from My Summer Vacation

1) The audio book version of Atlas Shrugged is 62 hours long. By the time we get back to Boston, I will still have no idea who John Galt is.  

2) Roanoke, Virginia is adorable, chock full of cute restaurants, bikes, and artsy old signage. We still weren’t holding hands in the street or anything, but we were almost lulled into a sense of security by these left-leaning indicators. 

(Cute!)

3) Asheville, North Carolina has over 50 microbreweries, has yet to outlaw public nudity, and smells faintly of incense. While rallying support for an Anti Gay Marriage amendment,  Republican Senator James Forrester called Asheville a “Cesspool of Sin.” The local NPR station thought this was catchy, so they put it on T-shirts and gave them away during pledge drives.

 (I bought one.)

4) I only know one line from the song “Take My Breath Away”.

5) DON’T TAKE THE SCENIC ROUTE. The Blue Ridge Parkway has been dubbed the “most beautiful” road in North America and looks like this:

 (not scenic)

Bonus: it has two lanes so you have plenty of time to take in the view from behind the only other car on the road which will inevitably be driving 20mph. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs through the Appalachian Mountains, and is also where professional cyclists train because of the insane elevation gains, so we thought we would try it. We got up at 6:00am to beat the southern heat, and set out for a nice long 2 hour bike ride. We rode 8 miles in 45 minute and ended with Fit Lesbian yelling, “I can’t do this!” She received no protests from me. We turned around and rode downhill all the way back to the car.

6) Pisgah National Forest: Since the last venture was so successful, we thought we would try another mountain which had this awesome sign to greet us:

(Bad Ass)

We climbed 2200 feet at which point I literally cried "Uncle!" It's a good thing I did too. Unbeknownst to me, Fit Lesbian had vowed to never again be the weak link. We may have ended up in Tennessee.

7) Fried chicken is the ideal recovery food.

(Fit Lesbian also enjoys eating dessert

while watching The Biggest Loser)

Sincerely,

Fat Lesbian

Who’s Afraid of a Stationary Bike? or, Fat Ego vs. a Bicycle Seat

Dear Reader,

I have a job that I love. Without getting into the boring details, essentially my job requires me to meet complete and total strangers over the phone, or in person, and make them like me. And I’m really good at it (this may be Fat Ego talking, but it’s working for us).

So far, my job has taken me to such dream boat destinations as Mobile, Alabama; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Plano, Texas; Reno, Nevada; and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. I know - you’re jealous. In my travels to this point the last place you would find me was a windowless hotel basement on a treadmill. Most of the time I was furiously scouring Yelp.com while endlessly expanding my search area for reviews from stray foodies who found themselves in unfamiliar lands.

Round 1: Fat Lesbian vs. Houston

For the first time, I have a reason to venture into the complimentary facilities. I don’t want to lose whatever muscle or endurance or whatever that I have gained while Bivnard and I are on forced separation. This is how, on my most recent visit to TX, I found myself overlooking the Houston skyline from the seat of a robot bicycle. The robot was personable enough, but was a little demanding for a first date.  “Pedal faster. Enter Weight. Beep bop boop.” 

Once we dispensed with the pleasantries, we settled in to watch a Wheel of Fortune marathon. I opted for the maximum distraction possible and listened to a podcast while watching. I don’t get the clues any faster when I’m actually listening to the show, as it turns out. 80 minutes later, I had worked my butt off and was wiping down my date wondering what I had been so afraid of.

Round 2: Fat Lesbian vs. Dallas

New day, new hotel. The gym is in its own separate building, so I walk over ready for a second date since they all look alike anyway, and discover a spinning class is starting in 5 minutes. A little back story on this:  the last time I went to a spinning class was at the behest of Fit Lesbian and her budding cycling fixation. She took me to a spinning “studio” which was actually a walk-in closet painted black and crammed with 14 stationary bicycles. There was literally not enough room to walk between the bikes if people were on them.  Once you were in, you were there for the entire terrifying ride. To add to the experience, the latest innovation in “stationary” bikes is that they sway side to side. This is intended to simulate the feeling of riding around turns, but if the bikes are placed too close together and you are not in sync with your neighbors (or can’t keep up) you run the risk of bumping sweaty body parts, and that’s no fun for anyone. I wedged myself into the corner, adjusted my bike as much I could knowing zero about bicycles that don’t move, and only a smidge more about those that do. The class room filled to capacity, the lights went down, and the music went up. By the time I was done, I was covered in other people’s bodily fluids and knew I would never sit down ever again.

Luckily, Fat Ego also tells me I am brave, so I signed up for my second spinning class. Since everything is bigger in Texas, the bikes were about 2 feet apart, and clearly took the term “stationary” at face value, no swaying. The instructor helped me adjust my bike, and I made it feel as close to riding Bivnard as I could. We did hills, sprints, hilly sprints, and the entire time the instructor helped us with our form, made sure we weren’t going into cardiac arrest, and even cracked a few jokes. I spun for an hour, and am happy to report that I am writing this entry in a seated position. Spinning: Conquered.

Success!!!

Sincerely,

Fat Lesbian