The last two days have been rough.  If it’s not bad enough that I get trolled on a regular basis for being a “fat athlete,” my son was bullied in school yesterday in such a horrific way that I had to go into my level 20 raging bitch mom form.  Although I am a self-professed potty mouth, I never relish in the idea of looking like a lunatic mom, especially at the expense of my child or possibly scaring other children at his school.  It put me at a level of depression that I found myself crying in an attendance office, screaming at half of the administration, wondering who the hell was going to do anything about the series of events that my son has endured at this school for nearly 2 years.  In turn, I forego my workout sessions, took care of family and did my best to reserve my marbles for mental health sake.  My duties as a parent are the top of my list and it is by far, the most challenging workout presented to me to date.  Does it help that yesterday was my ten year wedding anniversary and we spent the day exploring our options in getting an emergency transfer for our son? 
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Alas, today is a new day and I woke up this morning seeking solace.  After I am done typing this blog, I will be starting the first day of my half marathon training.  If I am fortunate enough to land enough funds, I will quite possibly be training for three events that are literally weeks apart.  Thankfully, I have been putting in a lot of gym hours since the NYC Marathon in November that I feel confident in my ability to take on such strenuous challenges.  

Last week, my 9 year old son almost pushed me to the edge and I expressed a satirical desire to smoke crack.  My son, William, Jr, means the world to me but there are a few days where I used his body as a shake weight in my head.  I never understood this horrific statement that my dad used to say to me as a kid until I became a parent:
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Typically, this statement was followed up with chain smoking and watching one strange vein pop up on the left side of his face.  Miraculously, even in the dead of winter, you could see pools of sweat dripping down his face as his face would literally go into this strange hue of red.  If he smiled, I knew I was already in danger.  Unfortunately, like most children, I had amnesia within two minutes and my dad would bitch smack my soul to Jesus' door and give me the typical 1960 - 1990s song, playing on his favorite instrument, the belt, and sing sweet nothings of 'didn't I tell you to do what the fuck I said..."  My ass was the hand that the tambourine would tap to every beat.  Ah, modern day society might consider that to be child abuse.  I prefer to avoid catching a homicide charge on behalf of my child because I actually love him.  On days when I feel myself having an Ike Turner moment, I use the gym as my rehab.  

Perhaps you are severely traumatized reading this blurb or nervously chuckling because you have a similar story, hopefully not traumatic.  You might be wondering what the hell this has to do with my fitness journey, the joys of running, culinary work or anything in relation to what I typically talk about on my blog.  Well, I wanted to give you my top five reasons why working out is my form of catching a homicide charge. I promise you weight loss is not on this list.   Read and weep.
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Happy Valentine's Day, my fellow fatties (or thin mints).  Just in case you couldn't notice, I'm long winded in my blog posts.  I am in love with typing sarcastic rants about everything I'm passionate about, especially when there's a lesson to be learned.  

​Here's today's lesson:  Telling me that I'm not fat doesn't mean...

​I've been feeling like a double agent for a week now. I was completely loyal to my Planet Fitness membership but now I find myself feeling like I'm cheating.  I walked past the location, although taking me out of my way, just to see the locals.  At the moment, I refuse to part with the Barney reminiscent colors of that membership and will keep Blink Fitness and Planet Fitness.  If there was a hashtag for this, I'm sure it would go under #firstworldproblems or #gymproblems.  

Nevertheless, I managed to pack everything but my sneakers Friday morning and found myself making up curse words for the commute back home at 6am, practicing for the unofficial audition as an extra on Disney on Ice.  Obviously people in my neighborhood could give two bits of a shit about shoveling.  After almost making my 9 year old a cold case on Law & Order, I made it to the gym somewhere around 9am.  I followed my very mundane routine:  Assessed the gym, looked at my notebook to see the exercises that I planned out for the day, took a selfie and started my workout.  

I couldn't help but notice a few guys staring at me.  Coincidentally, I just finished writing a blog not even the night prior about The Fat & Skinny of Gym Anxiety and here goes these gentlemen transitioning from subtle stares to blatant gawking.  Perhaps they were looking at my ass or it was my imagination again.  Nope.  One of the members of Boyz II Hobos felt like it was imperative to interrupt my time on the battle ropes to pick my brain:

Yesterday, it was 64 damn degrees in New York City. It's February folks.  FEBRUARY!  Well, I guess mother nature was going through hot flashes and decided that she wants to remember that it's winter.  It's presently in the 30s and dropping.  I woke up at 4:45AM to a winter wonderland.  It's the most beautiful bipolar shit that I ever saw in my life but it'll be just like my personality in 12 hours:  messy, looking like dog shit but still persevering.  

Nevertheless, I took my 5'3, 220+ pounds of excellence to the gym at 6ish this morning and was semi delighted to see only a few people there.  My mood is much lighter when there's not that many folks in the gym.  If there's too many people, my anxiety spikes and it takes me 15 - 20 minutes to get out of my head for my workouts unless I have a buddy tagging along with me.  Doesn't phase me much when I'm training a client, strangely enough.  You would think that a self professed potty mouth with a degree in profanity would not be anxious about going to the gym at this point.  Well, I do.  I'll share some of my personal issues, along with a combination of ones that I heard over the last four years.
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