The Sauna Suit
On Saturday morning I woke up with a very dry mouth and thirsty but had to put on my sauna suit, a plastic suit that makes you sweat, and get on the treadmill for 45 minutes, sweating away any remaining water in my body. My tennis shoes were soaking wet! And for my reward of sweating away an Olympic size pool off my legs I got to have ½ cup of ice chips. Oh boy! I couldn’t even take a shower to cool off because that would jeopardize my “spray” tan.
At 10 AM, I took a taxi over to the Trump Marina Hotel and had no idea where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. I finally found a room full of muscle men and women – that looked appropriate. But the registration process was chaotic. The guy in charge told us to be quiet, sit down and wait for our category to be called.
I still didn’t have my bikini on, my make-up done or my muscles pumped up. I walked into the room like a raw tuna on ice chips.
I was still in my sweat clothes when they called my category. Erika and Jill were back at the hotel with all my stuff because I thought I wasn’t going to compete until the evening. At 11 AM, I found out that I had to go on stage at 1 PM. I realized that it would probably take at least an hour to get my suit on. I called Jill and woke her and Erika up. Entourage? They were still sleeping!
At the weigh in, I found out that, despite popular belief that I’m shorter, I am officially 5’6” tall and I weigh 133.2 lbs.
Finally, Jill and Erika made it over with my bikini, make up and everything else I needed. Erika was still half asleep. We couldn’t find a dressing room, so we went into the handicapped stall in the bathroom. As I struggled into my suit, Jill increased my confidence level by repeating frequently, “Oh my God, oh my God, that’s a tiny suit! You are so brave Carolyn.” Imagine postage stamps on the top and the bottom that have to cling to the body, with nary a wrinkle. Wait, postage stamps may be covering too much!
Erika is filming the whole thing and Jill is in charge of getting my suit to stay on. She pulls out the Bikini Bite, the glue that holds the tiny patches of the bikini to my body. I “assume the position” while Jill reads the directions. Jill rubs me with Bikini Bite while rolling the suit up, but its application is very painful, feels like sandpaper rubbing my butt raw! Jill’s pushing and holding the suit in place, but it doesn’t stick. Jill finally puts on her glasses and reads the directions – she had left the plastic on the roller ball! Note to self: Jill needs to be reminded to wear her glasses while driving and applying Bikini Bite. I had road rash where she scraped me with the plastic roller. It was a lovely sight!
But Jill did redeem herself. She went out and found the official dressing room upstairs at the hotel. When we walked in, there were gel pads (to push up boobs) everywhere and white sheets to protect the furniture from the enormous amounts of spray tan. Mind you, Erika is still filming.
Jill gets ready for her next duty, “touch up tan” attendant. Again, I have to bend over so that Jill can put tanning cream on my gluteal clefts and my front and side cleavage Remember, it’s a small suit and there’s lots of “peekage” going on.
If you didn’t see me practicing in my 5-inch platform stilettos in the evenings at Fusion, you missed quite a show, but here’s a picture of my shoes. At this point, the shoes were the least of my worries. I had had a lot of training from Fusion clients in how to walk in heels, so that, believe it or not, was the easy part of the competition.
