Full Figured Fashion Week rolled through NYC this month and while I wasn’t able to attend as many events as I did last year, I did take part in a few, including the All White Boat Cruise around Manhattan.

When I got to the dock, I was greeted by a long line of curvy girls wearing white from head to toe.  All of the women on the cruise were beautiful and ranged in size from super tiny to extra large. To me, the best part was that every single person on the boat was dressed appropriately for their body. Some had mini dresses, some had maxi’s, some had pantsuits and EVERYONE had killer stilettos on. It was a plus size fashionista’s paradise!

So, why is it that whenever they talk about obesity in America, they use footage of people in cotton shorts, baggy t-shirts with their bellies jiggling as they hobble down the street?

That is not the image I have of fat people and I’m always curious to know where they find these slobby looking people to represent us because I don’t see them in real life… only on TV.

If anything, the overweight people I observe, try harder to look good and dress well because they know they have weight as an obstacle when it comes to aesthetics.

I wish the news networks would come to Full Figured Fashion Week or some of the BBW Parties in the city the next time then need footage of what Obesity in America looks like. Then we could give them footage of large men and women who still take care of themselves and understand how to dress appropriately for their bodies.

They could see that we don’t hobble down the streets, but we strut… with pride because we look fierce!

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I’ve heard it said that humans have more than five senses. Along with sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing there are things like balance and temperature. One additional sense that has always fascinated me is the sense of knowing when someone is looking at you.

We’ve all had that moment where we feel someones eyes on us before we actually see them looking. Or we suddenly look up instinctively only to find someone staring right at us.

Of course, if we’re not interested in the person who’s eyes are locked on us, this can be creepy. But for those of us who are single and looking, these instincts can come in pretty handy. The problem is knowing what do do with them….

Sunday afternoon as I was leaving the gym, I felt one of the trainers looking at me from the moment I walked out of the women’s locker room. At least, I thought he was looking at me, but I wasn’t sure. Actually, I was sure but as I’ve discussed before being a plus size princess in a gym isn’t always the easiest thing. So, I convinced myself that the trainer couldn’t be looking at me. I pulled my sunglasses over my eyes, turned the music up in my headphones and walked by him with my eyes averted to the ground.

Last night, I was back at the gym for kickboxing. After class, I was speaking to one of the girls that I’ve become friendly with and the trainer from the day before approached her to say hello. They hugged, made a little small talk (apparently he’s her trainer) and then she turned to me. “Do you know CeCe?” she asked. I reached my hand out to shake his and he gave me a little grin. “I saw you yesterday… I tried to say hello to you, but you ignored me.”

My face burned with embarrassment. Not only had he seen me, but he was trying to speak. “Oh… I must have been in my own world,” I lied.

He nodded, “Yeah, I guess so– you had your sunglasses on and everything, so I was like ‘okay, nevermind’”

Even though I knew that my insecurities had kept me from making eye contact, the trainer didn’t. From his perspective I was pretty sure I came off as a snobby b*tch, which was not my intention.

A lot of times people ask me about dating in the city and one of the main things I suggest is eye contact.

To be honest, eye contact is easier said than done, but looking someone in the eyes can be the catalyst for connections galore! (especially if you follow up with a smile).

I thought what happened to me this weekend is a good example of potential missed opportunity. I’m not interested in the trainer, but imagine if I was. Or if the same scenario happened with a cute guy on the train, or a hot bartender. My senses were telling me that he was interested (even, if just to say hello) but I let my insecurities kill the moment!

If your sixth sense is telling you that someone has their eyes on you, look around and find out who it is. If you think they’re cute, don’t shy away… listen to your instincts and hopefully you wont make my mistakes!

Before I jump into this post, I need to do a bit of blog housekeeping:

1.) If you’ve sent me an email over the past few weeks, I WILL respond, I promise… I’m not ignorning you,  things have just been very hectic for me.

2.) The winner of the Sweet Valley Confidential/Skinny Tees/Happy Feet Giveaway never emailed me to claim her prize, so I’m offering the pack to “REGRACHE”  If you want the prize pack, email me ASAP (I also want to know what the name of your dog is haha)

3.) I’m doing a giveaway on Twitter this week. Its a $50 giftcard to Figuresque. To enter, just tweet “Want to win a $50 gift card? Follow@thebiggirlblog, @Figuresque on Twitter and RT this to win! #plussize #fashion“

That’s it for now… here’s todays post!

I was doing a bit of spring/summer cleaning and organizing over the weekend. As I began to put things in their proper place, I started to look at my “gym corner”; my gym corner is a little nook in my apartment where I keep all of my work out gear for the week. In my gym corner are:

• A yoga mat
• A softball glove
• Boxing Gloves (pink, of course)
• Swimming Goggles
• and of course Sneakers

I had to laugh at myself because in a given week I use all of that equipment but if I showed my gym corner to a stranger they’d never guess it belonged to me.

A lot of times on dating sites, guys say they like “athletic” girls or a girl who “takes care of herself”. Of course, I always know that this is a polite way of saying “skinny, small, slender… not fat” and that’s okay, we all have our preferences.

But looking at my workout schedule and how active I am, I’m starting to wonder if I’m athletic. This week for example: I swam laps over on Sunday, took a full contact boxing class on Monday, played in a softball game on Tuesday and I’m taking a dance class later today. That’s a pretty average week for me.

These are things that I enjoy and I’m pretty good at all of those sports (except softball, I struck out this week ) Being active makes me feel good and has helped me lose 22 pounds. Its starting to become part of my lifestyle, so I’m wondering what you guys think.

Can big girls be athletic?

I was leaving the gym after an evening swim and the idea of putting biker shorts/spanx back on under my dress wasn’t appealing. Its only a 10 minute walk to my apartment, I thought to myself I should be fine. So I threw a dress on over my bathing suit and left the gym with bare legs and more importantly bare inner thighs. The walk home was fine until the last block when I was sure that steam was sizzling out from under my dress because the friction from my inner thighs was creating a heat like none other.

I got home, showered, threw on a pair of yoga pants and though nothing of my 10 minute walk until I woke the next morning to HUGE painful blister/boils on my inner thighs. Chub Rub was out to get me… again!

(Remember when my jeans died a slow and painful death due to Chub Rub? If not, click here to read that story)

I’ve accepted the fact that my jeans will never last more than a year before they have holes in the inner thigh, but I’ve always been sad that in the summer I can’t go completely bare legged. I would be so jealous of the girls in little flowy skirts and I’ve even fantasized about getting the fat sucked from my inner thighs just to make my life easier.

When I have on a short skirt or dress I always have to wear biker shorts/spanx or pantyhose to keep my inner thighs from touching and I hate it!

I hate always tugging my dresses down to make sure the bottom of my spanx aren’t showing and I hate that if a guy touches my leg, I have to stop him before he gets to my “chastity belt”. Its not cute… and its annoying.

I want to be freeeee!

Last week I was catching up on my plus size fashion blogs and I saw Monistat Soothing Care Chafing Relief Powder-Gel, 1.5-Ounce Tube listed on YFF. Its an anti-chafing cream and while I was pretty skeptical, I dream of spanx-less summers, so I ran out to buy it.

I’ve been using it for the last 14 days and I have had NO CHAFING! I mentioned it on twitter and someone said that the cream can also be used as a makeup primer which I tried and I really like (because I get super shiny). This cream seems to solve all my problems… its a miracle!

The $8 investment is soooo much cheaper than spanx. I use a dime size amount on the inside of each thigh and it lasts all day. I’ll usually reapply after work if I’m going out or something but that’s it. Guess I wont have to get liposuction after all!

Have any of you tried the Monistat Soothing Care for chafing or primer? How did it work for you?

We arrived at La Jolla Cove 15 minutes early. Although I was completely stoked about snorkeling, there was one thing that had me nervous.

The website said Providing a mask, snorkel, fins, and a 7-millimeter wetsuit, the water-recreation emporium outfits squadrons of snorkelers for guided sightseeing at La Jolla Cove Underwater Park.

A 7 millimeter wetsuit? *sigh* I wasn’t sure that they would have a suit that fit me, but I really wanted to go. I called the company and expressed my concerns. They said they had suits up to a XXL but that meant nothing to me, I had a feeling that XXL would be for a well built man not a Plus Size Princess. But the company also assured me that if I didn’t fit into the suit, I could go on another excursion instead like stand up paddleboarding or kayaking (which had a 350 pound weight limit, but I’m under that *whew*).

So my sister, Denise, and I get to La Jolla and meet up with our instructor who is the typical pot head surfer. I walk up to him and say “hey, we’re here early so I can see if I can fit into the wetsuit”.

“Cool,” he says with a grin. Then he just stares at us in that spacey way that only a pothead can.

“Soooo, can you give us a suit?” I say, waving my hand in his face.

“Oh, right… yeah– totally!” he says, then he reaches into his box of equipment and pulls out a suit. I go into the bathroom and attempt to pull the suit on which is like trying to pull a tiny water balloon over my entire body.

Awkward.

I look into the suit and see that its a size XL not and XXL. By this time I have the suit up over my knees, so I waddle out and ask the instructor if he has an XXL like the guy on the phone promised he would. He blinks at me a few times and then says “yeah… I do”. I try to step out of the suit but its like glue around my legs.

Denise and I walk/waddle, respectively, to a bench nearby. We decide that I will sit and hold onto the sides of the bench while she pulls the suit off of my legs.

“Ready? One… Two… Three… AHHHHHHH!”

The suit budges like an inch down my calves and people walking by are trying not to look, but looking. Usually I’d be mortified by this situation, but being with my sister tends to put me at ease and situations like this become hilarious. Five minutes later we have the suit off and are both panting and laughing.

“a size XXL isn’t going to be much better than the XL,” I say breathlessly, “we might have to do the kayaking.”

We go back to tell the instructor that the suit isn’t fitting me. Of course at that moment there is another snorkeler who is like 5’1 and 90 pounds whining that her suit is too big! (I did my best not to give her the major **sideeye**). As I explain my situation to our pothead instructor, he calmly says “why don’t you just snorkel without the suit?”

“That’s an option?!” I ask incredulously… why he didn’t say that in the beginning, I have no idea!

Anyway, we had an amazing time in the water looking at the beautiful fish and then the seals who live in the cove came and swam with us too. They came within arms distance of us and were showing off… it was so cute! I didn’t take my camera into the ocean, but here’s a photo of the seals on the rocks where they hang out. Overall it was a beautiful day with nature and I’m glad I did it. First parasailing in Miami last year, now snorkeling! Another extreme adventure concquered by a Plus Size Princess!

TRAVEL TIP: We snorkeled for $35 using a groupon! A few weeks before I traveled to San Diego, I updated my groupon account so that it would send me deals for San Diego. I figured it would help save money on the trip and maybe we’d get a good deal on a restaurant or something. If you’re not a Groupon member, sign up here, its free, it has saved me sooo much money and it can help you do fun things on vacation.

Have any of you gone snorkeling or scuba diving? If so, have you managed to get into a wetsuit?

When AOL and Jeep asked me what inspired me, the answer was easy… Love and Music.

I’ve been very lucky to have a life filled with love and music. Everything I do boils back to those two things… I moved to New York to study music and of course love was always in the back of my mind . I grew up in a house full of love and music and most of my friends are loving and musically talented.

My musical collection is pretty huge and I have a memory attached to all of the songs I love. While I’m blogging I’m constantly listening to music because my favorite artists inspire me.

So when I created my inspiration board on the AOL Jeep site, it was all about love and music because I’m all about love and music. Who knew I was so simple!

You can create your inspiration board here. Creating one enters you for a chance to win a $50 gift card weekly, and all inspiration board creators are entered for a chance to win a $4500 gift card.