Category Archives: the interwebs

Last week, I attended FitBloggin’ 2013, a conference for healthy living oriented bloggers in Portland, OR.

There were a lot of bits about that trip that were worthy of note, but one of the standouts for me was participating in a fashion show.

It was organized by the incredible Emmie, who asked participants if they’d be willing to model with just a sports bra and no shirt ahead of time. Over email I was very cavalier about it. It’s just my body and why shouldn’t other people see what I look like in a sports bra? Isn’t that the whole point of modeling something? So that other people can see what it looks like on an actual body? It’s no big deal. And the more I act like it’s no big deal, the more it isn’t one. Right? !!

But as it loomed ever closer, I started to have some feelings. About the looking and the seeing and the putting it all out there. I was nervous. Scared, even. Feelings that increased dramatically as I was lined up in the hallway waiting for my turn to step out and walk the runway.

When it was time, I put on some cheap pink sunglasses and stomped out in the conference room and whipped off my shirt, throwing it aside with a maniacal vigor, displaying my shiny pink Enell sports bra in all its glory.

I blame the nerves. I was so scared that I just went balls deep. I did not so much as walk the runway, as strut it. Like a jive talking peacock. I’m not sure I could walk like this again now if I wanted to.

Exhibit A: strutting

I got to one end, leaned over, and I shimmied. It was all “God wouldn’t have given you maracas if he didn’t want you to shake ’em!” It was a shimmy I had never managed to produce in any Zumba or dance class or in any of my own comedic stylings.

Exhibit B: Shimmying

There was one more point on the runway that I had to get to and then it would be over. I was still riding on a wave of adrenaline. I know there was a huge room full of people, but I didn’t really see them.

Exhibit C: a moment of sultry calm

The whole point of a sports bra is to control bounce, so I felt like I should probably demonstrate. In my mind I was going to do jumping jacks, but what happened instead, I think, was chaotic, gleeful leaping.

And that was that. The entire group did some rounds all together, walking around in a line, with none of the pressure that the solo performance did.

We finished and I put my shirt back on, high on exhilaration.

It was scary, but I’m so glad and amazed that I did it. A million thanks to Emmie and Enell for the opportunity.

A mere eleven days after coming home from Italy, I was back on an airplane to Baltimore to go to a blogging conference called FitBloggin.  It’s billed “For bloggers interested in fitness, wellness, good food and a healthy lifestyle. Two days of education, networking, friendship and fun.”

Which sounded reasonable.  And I was chomping at the bit to meet my friend, Caroline, in the real life.  We’ve been super good interweb pals who’d never met in person.

Hanging out with Caroline was awesome.  Of course, it’s really nice to just have a go-to-gal when you’re trying to socialize with 300 strangers, but I think we would have had a grand time even if had just been us.  We stayed up too late chattering into the night and we needled each other into getting up and doing all of the workouts offered.

me and caroline, at the hotel bar
picture stolen from caroline

Speaking of the workouts…
They were my favorite thing about the conference. We completed a yoga class, a Crossfit workout, and a crazy aerobics class on the first day. Then an intense boot camp, a trampoline class, and a Zumba class on the second day. The final day was just a 5k.

I don’t have enough hours in the day to do so much working out in my regular life, so this was a really neat opportunity.

Plus, I learned in a totally non-snarky environment that Zumba is not for me.

The 5k was especially awesome, because I ran it with a cool lady named Michelle aka The Running Jewess, who made me go just a little bit faster than I would normally be inclined to.  Which is just the right sort of running partner, really.  Full of the love-loathe.  AND!  She’s local (at Stanford) and also going to be running the upcoming half marathon in San Jose, too, so hopefully I will see her there.

Like at ALT Summit, there was a sort of inner-sanctum of bloggers who seemed to largely know one another already and who did the presentations for most of the sessions.  I knew of some of these folks, but not many.  And I was surprised to learn that the majority of the bloggers were weight-loss oriented.  If I had to guess, I’d characterize the attendees as 75% weight-loss and 25% fitness focused (although the two are not entirely distinct, of course).  And of those weight-loss types, maybe at least half of them were big losers — people who already had lost 100+ pounds or who were working on losing that much or more.

So there was a lot of emotion and sharing and story telling wrapped up in the experience of having lost or having to lose so much weight, and in a place surrounded by others in the same sort of situation, emotions were running high and there was much love and bonding.

For me, it felt a little like I was watching a really interesting tv show.  They were all compelling stories, but I couldn’t completely identify with them.  My weight hasn’t really ruined my feelings of self worth and I haven’t gone through some process of learning to accept me for me.  I’m pretty sure that I’ve been awesome since forever.

I was also not using social media in the same way that most folks there seemed to be.  They’d meet with their eyeballs and then turn around, walk away and then tweet to each other how nice it was to have met.  We were also strongly encouraged to “talk” to the sponsors via Twitter and Instagram, pretty much constantly.  Which is just a really different sort of blogging approach than I have… my philosophy is definitely geared more towards minimal followers and free stuff!
The sneakers I got, though, were pretty nice.  So, uh… thanks, @Reebok?

Overall, it great to have a venue to meet up with Caroline and very cool that we had all these workouts to do together. And I definitely liked lots of new people.  I didn’t get as much out of the sessions as many other people did, but my general impression is still a good one.

Next year’s FitBloggin is taking place in Portland, which is WAY more convenient for me than Baltimore was, so the temptation to go again is there.  No promises yet, but we’ll see!

Anyway, a few more pictures…

action shot on the trampoline
also stolen from caroline

triangle pose in the yoga photobooth thing.

jazz hands at the start of the 5k.
that’s michelle next to me in the yellow.