Introducing: The Fathlete Bridal Blog! Celebrate!

This is not my wedding dress. But it could've been.

So, this blog is about me trying not to be a big fat girl. And my life, recently, became about being a bride. So now, this blog is going to be about being a bride, and not a big fat one.

And also about the difficulties of finding a tiara to go with a fro.

I should call it "Go With The Fro!"

Anyway, this is an interesting week for me, wedding and fitness wise. I am now officially divorced from my big gym, BiggestLoserFitness (ahem), and am maximizing my fitness dollar. I am still seeing Victor, the evil trainer (Hey, man!) and still running (I think I am doing at least two more half marathons before the wedding, because if I am always training, I am always focused.)

I also just purchased two home remedies - Jillian Michael's "The Shred" and the fearsome-looking P90X, along with a chin-up bar. I cannot do chin-ups now, but the P90x people swear I'll be able to do a thousand, plus bench press a bus and Jillian Michaels, when I'm done.

The cool thing is that my dress is beautiful as it is, although I'd love to lose about 10 pounds between now and June. Or just tighten up. Do the tighten up! I'm Archie Bell, and these here are the Drells! We got a new song called the 'Tighten Up!'

Sorry. Drell break.

A Fathlete Doesn't Want To Be The Fat Bridesmaid.

My close and dear almost-sister Kiki is getting married, which is why she flew me to Pennsylvania last weekend to do bridesmaid stuff, like meet her cake guy (fab!) see her wedding dress (I cried!) and get fitted for my beautiful bridesmaid dress, which is a lot prettier with me not in it.

Crappity.

I am trying to nudge myself off this plateau I'm on, but nevertheless felt pretty good about my weight going into the fitting at David's Bridal (and Lord, ain't that place a racket!), up until I actually put the dress on. I wasn't even phased, at first, by the presence of the two skinniest bridesmaids, because they're hot in their little skinny own way, and the Fathlete is hot in her own big-butted, muscle-woman, back-fatted way. Each to their own hotness, I say.

The problem was the size of the dress, which I knew would be bigger than my usual. And the bride, who now weighs about 12 pounds (and is gorgeous) warned me that she'd fit into the size I was about to try on, and Sister is much smaller than me. So when the smaller size, which is one up from what I usually wear, was too tight in the breasticles, I didn't mind. The next one up, a size I have not been since the late 90s, didn't fit either.

Uh-oh.

This meant that my dress, even though it's gonna be taken in, is in a size that I have never worn, even though I am not half the fat-ass I was in the late 90s. I know that it's my boobs, not everything else, and that I'm not really that size.

Bu I don't want to be at all. So I'm not gonna be. I promise you - and me - that when I get fitted for that dress in July, it will be a size smaller. At least. I know this is gonna hurt. But it's gotta happen.

A Fathlete Reclaims Her Former Glory...

...or at least gives it a good, flabby try.

On Friday, I finally picked up my new orthotics, which cost about eleventy-three dollars. However, they're my magic key to getting back on the road, to sort of being the runner I used to be, sorta kinda, and to maybe getting back the almost 38-year-old version of the body I had when I did my marathon in 2005.

Then again, this body, in its current flabbier state, danced me to a third-place victory in the not epic but insanely fun 2009 Dancing For The Stars competition last week at the Kravis Center here in bee-yoo-tiful West Palm Beach. When I watched the video, I was alarmed at the preponderance of back fat (and look for my upcoming autobiography - "Leslie Gray Streeter: A Preponderance of Back Fat") but thrilled at how much I looked like I knew what I was doing! It looked so effortless, particularly the steps that took me forever to get, like the sequence of fast kicks in the beginning.

I was rewarded a 10 by Hillie, one of the awesome judges, mostly because of my joy and because she saw me in one of my earlier rehearsals, when I looked like a manatee trying to audition for "A Chorus Line." I will hold onto that 10, and onto this awesome disco ball trophy, like Miss Havesham held onto her wedding cake.

Try and stop me.