I was able to get away for a few days with the family and we headed up to Mackinac Island.

If you’ve ever been to the island, you know how unique it is.

There are no cars allowed anywhere on the island; it measures 8 miles around; the main modes of transportation are bike and horse; and it’s famous for the Christopher Reeve & Jane Seymour movie “Somewhere in Time” being filmed on the island – in particularly at the Grand Hotel.

A very romantic and interesting movie indeed…

Besides the horse manure throughout the streets and the constant advertisements for Mackinac Island fudge (arguably, as some people love the island for those very things), it’s a wonderful place to visit.

Yes, there are people who’s sole job is to pick up horse shit ALL.DAY.LONG.

There is a fudge shop on every corner. Imagine the smell of fudge and manure mixed together – and you have the smell of the island.

I’ve been coming to the island for as long as I can remember, at least since I was four years old.

However, this is the first time I have noticed how much the island was a cross section of America.

Why is it that as Americans, we need “BIGGER”? Why does that attract us? Apparently this restaurant feels it is an important advertisement to get people in the door. The “bigger burger” tag line is appealing to the public. It worked too, because there was a long line of folks OUTSIDE waiting for a table.

This restaurant is smart. They know that most Americans want bigger portion sizes… There is a mentality that we need more to eat. The more food we are given the better.

We rented bikes and took the 8 mile loop around the island, which is a wonderful bike ride. I have never in my life seen so many electronic wheelchairs on the island taking that loop as well.

(This photo was NOT taken on Mackinac Island, but depicts what I saw on the island.)

They rent these out now at the bike rental shops. Every single person that I saw in one was very obese and did not appear to have a handicap other than their weight. Of course, this is a snap judgment on my part, but that is what I saw. People zooming around in those little things, trying to keep up with others in their party that were on bikes.

This is a cross section of America. And it makes me incredibly sad.

Why is “BIGGER” better? How did we get to this point in our society?

I just had to post this article. I didn’t agree with how Southwest treated Kevin Smith, but I definitely do not agree with how they handled this situation. I’m not sure what is the right way to deal with this, but I would venture to say it would NOT be to punish the person that does NOT need two seats by removing her from the plane.

Link to article

NICK UT / Associated Press file, 2008

By Bob Shallit

Southwest Airlines made headlines earlier this year for kicking overweight actor-director Kevin Smith off a flight because he took up more than one seat.

Now we’re hearing the airline recently removed a 5-foot-4, 110-pound Sacramento-area woman from a plane so a hefty passenger could have an extra seat.

The incident happened last week on an early-evening Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Sacramento.

The local woman was flying standby, paid full fare for the last available seat, got on board, stowed her bags and sat down – only to be told she would have to deplane immediately.

The reason?

A late-arriving passenger required two seats because of her girth.

The Sacramento woman, a frequent-flying sales rep, was stunned.

“It didn’t seem right that I should have to leave to accommodate someone who had only paid for one seat,” she tells us. (She has asked to remain anonymous for fear some may regard her as insensitive.)

She’s even more miffed because she says Southwest personnel berated her when she questioned the decision to boot her from the plane.

She ended up getting on the next flight.

“It’s small potatoes, in the scheme of things,” she says. But she believes Southwest should have been more considerate.

Airline spokeswoman Marilee McInnis agrees.

“We know this was awkward and we should have handled it better,” she says, adding that the airline intends to apologize to the local woman.

McInnis says normal policy is to ask for volunteers when a flight is overbooked for any reason.

In this instance, she says, airline personnel may have been influenced to choose a faster course of action to reduce embarrassment for the late-arriving passenger.

Why the extra concern? The person requiring two seats was just 14 years old.

How do you think Southwest should have handled this?

I’m going out of town in less than a week and would like to open my blog up to some guest bloggers. If you are interested, please email me at afg@anonymousfatgirl.com as soon as possible with your post. Post topics are up to you as long as the topic is health, fitness or weight related. :)

Last night my husband and I were invited to dinner at our local casino buffet. The buffet contained some wonderful choices as always. As I hustled over to the salad bar, I was excited to see some homemade salsa and other fresh and healthy options. Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for the others) the line to the salad bar was pretty non-existent. Most of the buffet recipients were stacked up in lines around the highest caloric items possible.

As I sat there, I started noticing how the majority of the people at the buffet were overweight or obese. (Me included!) Every so often, a thin person would be among the masses. A year ago I would have never noticed all of the unhealthy choices at the buffet or all of the overweight patrons.

Is this our new culture? Or was this only a cross section of the overweight, chain smoking casino patrons? I’m not sure.

On a very basic level there has to be some personal responsibility. For most of my life, I’ve never had that. I was personally irresponsible. I would eat whatever food I wanted, no matter how bad I knew the food was for me. There was nothing that was “off limits”. Everything was “on” all the time.  A quick road to instant gratification – that created a long road of unhappiness.

When our very culture or environment promotes obesity, weight will most definitely rise.

• Buffets and predominantly unhealthy choices in our society promote obesity.
• A lack of personal responsibility promotes obesity.
• Lack of awareness and knowledge promotes obesity.

Question: Do you think personal responsibility play a role in our culture’s issues with obesity?

On Monday I sat in my small office skimming through my Quick Books receivables feeling depressed and sad that my clients are so far behind in paying me for my work and services. As a web designer in a shit-tastic economy, I’ve developed a bit of a pessimistic outlook that has delved into my personal life as well in many regards.

Day to day dealings with clients that promise to pay another day, the hope of a new client and all of the work that goes into putting together detailed proposals and ideas that are easily dismissed, or an ass reaming via telephone by a difficult client are a part of my daily work life most days. Add to that my withdrawals from the damn Chinese Buffet I stopped frequenting this week. Yeah, I know…

On Monday afternoon I received a phone call from a potential new client whom was referred to me. Immediately I was put off as the client had me on speaker phone. One of my biggest pet peeves. Who can’t just pick up the phone and give me 100% of their attention? Seriously? I sat on the phone for several minutes as he asked me to “hold” while he did not put me on hold but rather carried on side conversations with others in his office as I listened on. Sigh…

He was polite but at this point I was already irritated – the speaker phone, my shitty receivables and a million other reasons. I agreed to put together a proposal for him by the next day against my better judgement. After all, a friend referred him, and maybe, just MAYBE this client would pan out so it was worth a try, right?

Today I decided to give the client a call after faxing over my proposal to see if he received it. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind stopping by his office to meet up right away and I agreed to do so. I grumbled to myself as I hopped into my hot vehicle. I had hoped to blow off the last few hours of the work day so I could go swim in the pool with the kids. Guess that wasn’t happening right away.

I’ve been to enough of these face meetings to know what to expect most times. I figured the guy was probably an arrogant and well-to-do business owner based on the impression I received on the phone. Little did I know our meeting would rock my world.

When I walked into his office, I was shocked at what was before my eyes. I saw a good looking, fifty-something aged paraplegic in an automatic wheelchair struggling to maneuver around his small office. He lifted a fragile hand to shake mine and introduced himself to me. I felt like a fucking ass.

No wonder why he had me on speaker phone. He probably couldn’t maneuver well enough to pick up the handset. I had done it. I had classified this individual sight unseen based on our brief telephone encounter and my past experiences. I wonder how I’d like that if someone did the same to me based on my appearance? Having tattoos and being a big girl I can only imagine what must be going through their minds when they meet me…

As our meeting went on, we moved into the conference room and I realized I had met a kind spirit. He told me he was very impressed by my proposal and that he wanted me to start right away on his project and cut me a check on the spot. I asked him how long he had been in his line of business. He answered, “For twenty two years, which of the last eight I have been paralyzed.” At this point, I asked him politely if I may ask what had happened as I had a feeling he wanted me to ask. It was kind of the white elephant in the room so to speak.

He obliged and told me how in July 2002 he was carrying a bag of wine bottles from a weekend of fun and with friends in his garage and how he slipped on a small puddle of water from his car’s air conditioning unit. I sat in amazement as he bravely told me how his life had changed in an instant. His feet flew straight up from under him and he landed hard on the cement on his back. He couldn’t get up; the wine bottles had all shattered upon falling. He was in so much shock that he didn’t realize as he tried to maneuver his body to turn that he had cut himself all over his middle section with broken glass as he couldn’t feel a thing. It wasn’t until after being in the garage for an hour or so and in a pool of blood that his child found him. And so began his journey through surgeries and more. He told me that every worse case scenario that could happen has happened to him since this injury and during his recovery, including financial troubles due to the economy. I told him that it’s time he had some good luck and that good luck started with calling me. And I meant it. At least I elicited a smile out of him, but what I really meant was that I was determined to help him in any way I could with the success of his web project.

Meeting someone like this guy leaves an imprint on your soul. You realize that at any moment, life can give you something very unexpected and unwanted, even in your prime. The next time I whine and complain to myself about my clients not paying timely or about not wanting to workout, I will think of him. I have my legs. I have the ability to do things standing up – like workout or getting a shitty part time job if necessary. He does not. I wonder if he ever wants to get in the pool with his children? I have that opportunity to do that. It may not have been today, but I can do it any day.

I’ve been blessed with meeting some wonderful people in my life, but I’ve found it’s the ones that have faced extreme adversity that I learn the most from. I met him only a few hours ago, and I have a feeling meeting him will shape my life forever.

So many of you are finding my blog by searching the engines with the following terms:

going to the gym for the first time
scared to be the fat girl jogging on a treadmill
overweight people afraid of going to the gym
scared to work out among plastic people
fat and afraid to sweat at the gym
obese and scared to go to the gym

Everyday I see these terms time and time again. I get it. You are scared to go and workout at the gym. And all I have to ask you is WHY???

Educating overweight/obese/scared-to-go-to-the-gym people has become my mission. I was once ambivalent about working out at the gym as an obese person. You can call it scared or afraid or whatever you want, but there really aren’t many things I am scared of and I just thought, “the gym is NOT for big people.”

Just because you are big doesn’t mean you can’t do a real push up. Just sayin’.

But the truth of the matter is, the gym is for EVERYONE. On any given day that I go to the gym, I see people of varying sizes. I see pretty people, I see not so pretty people. I see flabby folks and I see extremely fit folks.

One of my blog commenters (Harry) reminded me in a past post that:

“The gym is a safe-haven for obese people. If there’s any place where you won’t be judged then it’s on the treadmill, getting your sweat on.”

Personally, I’m to a point where I enjoy going when there are a bunch of fit people at the gym. I am far from my ideal goal weight and I’m sure I stick out like a sore thumb among the fitness crazed, but I do not care. I watch these fit bodies and I compete with them in my own way. They have no idea I’m doing this, I’m sure. I compete with them at cardio, I compete with weights and a lot of the time I outlast them in some way. It’s a wonderful way to push myself.

Soup cans? I don’t think so...

I’ve found I can jog for almost 30 minutes without stopping at a speed of 5.7 all because a fit person next to me ran for 25. Do you know how many skinny women go to the gym and press or curl 5 lb weights? I giggle inside because I know I could do 30 lb weights if I had to, although I prefer to do 20 lb weights. I also know SHE could do more than that. I want to tell her just because she’s thin doesn’t mean she has to lift soup cans, you know?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not out to make fun of anyone and I sincerely try not to judge others. Rather the point I’m trying to make is, I’ve come up with a way to push myself and eliminate fear from my workouts in the gym. I’m not afraid to go to the gym. I’m not afraid to workout with some very thin or fit people and I’m not afraid to challenge myself and you shouldn’t be either – NO MATTER WHAT YOUR SIZE.

Something to keep in mind here is that most people that are working out at the gym are not paying attention to you. They are too focused on their workouts to really pay any notice to what you are doing.

Taking that first step and going to the gym last November (as nervous as I was at first) changed my life. If I would have quit going before the end of the first month, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be here blogging. So give it a month and see if you like it before you decide if it’s really fear keeping you away or another reason.