Fat AND Beautiful

I wrote this great piece recently that I was going to title Fat AND Beautiful. It was about the people who hear me say “I’m fat” and immediately jump to reassure me that I am, instead, beautiful.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like hearing that I’m beautiful, and it’s very kind of them to be protecting me from what they see as bad self-talk, but I AM fat. Thing is, I am beautiful too. Fat is not the opposite of Beautiful, they aren’t mutually exclusive either.

But it has happened a number of times and every time it happens I’m surprised that anyone would immediately think that the opposite of fat is beautiful.

The problem is: I’ve lost that piece.  I wrote it on paper and it’s floating around in a note book, like many of my notebooks, filled with brilliance. (Because, you see,  I’m smart along with being fat and beautiful, but I’m also forgetful and easily distracted too.)

Anyway, that piece was supposed to be the launching off point for a sponsored discussion of health and wellness.  Yup, me talking health and wellness.  Prepare yourselves, it’s going to be a bumpy one…

As many of you regular readers know I live 2 lives.  One a sedentary urban life filled with computers, food events and brief stints of bicycle riding, the other an active rural life filled with dogs, fires, kayaks and brief stints of roofing.

The problem is one makes the body ill-prepared for the other.  And as I get older (yup, I’m throwing that in there too!), I’m finding that I need to be more active in my sedentary urban life to ensure I’m able to live my active rural life.

With some recent annoyances arising through another groupon-gone-wrong, I have found myself without a gym.

[Note: this is where the post starts being about a sponsored experience… well, a paragraph down, but I figured I’d give you some lead time to get in the mood…]

So when I met Lisa, the PR & communications spark behind Booty Camp Fitness, and she so impressed me with her willingness to listen to my rant about Fat and Beautiful not being mutually exclusive,  I thought Booty Camp might be an interesting thing to try, but left it at that.

When I ran into Lisa again at the She’s Connected conference talking about Booty Camp, the 4-week and 8-week programs and their core values of: Fun, Friendly & Fitness and it sparked an idea. So I reconnected with Lisa and asked if they had any interested in a fat, 46-year-old woman with bad knees coming in and blogging about the Booty Camp experience.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be doing Booty Camp Fitness for the next 4 weeks, Tuesdays and Thursdays. They say they “get you bikini-ready in as little as two nights a week” which I think is unlikely in my case, but luckily that’s not what I’m looking for. I am looking for something that will get me moving, build my strength and let me have fun doing it where I won’t be overly self-conscious of not being a size 4. My goals are strength and stamina not weight-loss, though I won’t complain if I drop a pound or two.

I will be blogging as I go so expect a little whining, some endorphin-fueled enthusiasm and some numbers (in relative terms only). I’ll be using the logo above to identify this series at the top of each post.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to be turning unsweetened.ca into a fitness or weight-loss blog, and I’ll still be talking luscious, tasty food, adventures and all the silliness I normally blog about.

Booty Camp Fitness prepare to meet Fat and Beautiful!

Note: This post is the first post in my sponsored Booty Camp Series of posts. for more information on my sponsored posts please read my disclosure statement