The Arnold - Some Reviews and a Giveaway

Oh. My. Goodness!!! It's been almost 2 months since The Arnold. But I'm here to talk about it.

The Arnold Sports Festival aka The Arnold is a super fun and awesome fitness event (this is my very awesome descriptive copy), their description sounds much more informational.
The Arnold Sports Festival is the largest multi-sports festival in the nation. The event annually hosts 18,000 athletes competing in 44 sports and events, including 12 Olympic sports. The three-day Arnold Fitness EXPO located within the Greater Columbus Convention Center welcomes more than 700 exhibitors offering the latest in fitness apparel, equipment, training tools, and nutrition. Visitors gather to see professional athletes, NFL stars, and elite fitness celebrities, many who appear in the EXPO booths to welcome the visitors each year. New in 2012 are the Olympic Trials for Weightlifting and NPC Men's Physique.

So basically, Dave and I went and played at the Expo, saw some preliminaries events, met some of my most favorite fitness figures, and tried a TON of samples.  Oh and we saw some interesting people too.

I'm going to break this theme into a few posts. People I met, The Preliminary things we saw, and The things we sampled.

Today is going to be about the things we tried.  I wont bore you and talk about the weird samples we tried, the things I didn't care for or the things I got samples of and have yet to try. I'm going to tell you about the very few things I bought because if I actually took the time to buy something then it means I really REALLY wanted it, otherwise I would have just used my sample.


Butter Toffee Crunch Good Grab Bar - Oh Yeah!

Oh Yeah! Samples are the best! I even like to kiss them.

People. I want you to run not walk... RUN to your nearest nutrition store and buy yourself a box of these. Actually they aren't available in stores yet. But they had them at the expo and I was in heaven. I originally went to their booth because I am big BIG fan of Amanda Adams (woot! woot! shout out to my home girl - actually we're not home girls, she's really nice though and I HIGHLY recommend you meet her if you can) and she was there representing this awesome company. But while there I chatted with her, tried some samples and spun the wheel to win a free protein drink. I'm not sure that I can accurately describe the awesomeness of these new bars. They are like heaven... in your mouth. Like angels sing around your head as you eat them. That last statement might not be true, or maybe it is and you can't see the angels. But trust me when I tell you that all of their stuff is great. When I spun the wheel I won a protein shake, I got the Bananas and Creme protein drink and it was awesome too. I've always heard how yummy their stuff is but hadn't ever tried it. You need to check them out. p.s. I'm giving away a box of these bars at the end of this blog post so make sure you enter to win them.

Me and Amanda Adams!

Stacker Bottle:

Stacker Bottle's are the best!

From their website:

Stacker Bottle was created to provide a more convenient way to carry powders, pills, healthy snacks, and much more!

So I love this bottle. It's 3 little compartments that seal into each other, with the a little insert that can hold pills and almonds (thats what I do). Here is is why I love it. I take one part of it to the gym in the morning and I put my after workout pills in it (like my BCAA's and my multi) and then the bottom bottle holds my oats for my breakfast. Wham Bam! I pour my dry oats into a bowl add hot water and I'm eating within 10 minutes of my workout. Love it! I also really love that I can dispense my protein powder so easily too. Just awesome. So I highly recommend you get this. You will love it.  Oh and what's that? I'm giving one away at the end of this post? Well you better keep reading so you can enter. :)

Femme Fitale Workout Gloves:

Rocking my Femme Fitale Gloves

They are all the rage for us workout ladies. They look cute and they work. Thats the big thing for me. That I keep my hands looking girly, aside from the fact that I eat my nails like I'm starving, I don't want calluses or scratchy hands. Well these gloves are awesome. I really don't care that they are cute. In fact I'd rather have plain jane black simple gloves, I don't need girly colors with crystals they actually make me feel more self conscience working out next to those grunting men but I don't care. They work and they are awesome!  Here I am rocking them at the gym a few weeks ago. Oh and I got a small but probably should have gotten an extra small - I just couldn't wear purple gloves and the small was the only size left in pink.

N.O. Xplode - by BSN

N.O. Xplode is great!

So I've tried a few brands of pre-workout drinks. I used to use the Xtend in Watermelon but when they changed the formula I really hated it. So I gave myself a task to find a pre-workout drink that tasted good and actually worked. I tried the BSN N.O. Xplode in the Raspberry Lemonade and LOVED it. Too bad they were only testing out the flavor. I tried a few other samples around the expo but I kept going back to the N.O. Xplode so I bought the Fruit Punch flavor and it's really good too. Not as good as the Raspberry Lemonade so whenever that flavor comes out I will first in line to get it.  So for those of you who aren't familiar with a pre-workout drink let me talk about what the gist of it.  A pre-workout drink will give you some energy to get you through your workout, which is really important for me since I go to the gym first thing in the morning. I'm tired. I don't like getting out of bed and honestly I can tell when I haven't had my pre-workout, its not mental. So the downside to taking a pre-workout, specifically N.O. Xplode, is that it contains creatine, which can cause you to retain water and look a little thicker, which no one wants. But it's temporary. So just because you have some creatine doesn't mean you will retain that water for the rest of your life. Oh and guess what else? I'm giving away a sample of this too. Just one sample but still, its coming from my Expo stash.

So I emailed some of my favorites from the expo and asked for some samples for my readers, and you know what? They said YES! So here is what I'm giving away. 1 Hot Pink Stacker Bottle, 1 box of Butter Toffee Crunch OhYeah! bars (there are 12 bars in each box) and a sample of N.O. Xplode from my Arnold Stash. Contest begins NOW and ends 5/1/12 so make sure your get your entry in.

Here is how to enter:

Click LIKE this post on the top or the bottom of this post then click the “I DID THIS” button in the rafflecopter box below and you’ll be entered to win The Arnold FUNtastic package (thats what I'm calling it)!

Want a second way to win? Well leave a comment telling me what you favorite way to workout is? Keep it PG please. then click the “I DID THIS” button in the rafflecopter box below and you'll be entered again.

p.s. this contest is limited to US residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

xo, Steph

Dear Weak Stephanie,

I saw this yesterday on Rachel Mac's page (if you dont like her page yet, well you probably should). I asked her if I could post this on my blog and she said "Post away". So here it is. If you read yesterday's post you know I was going through a tough time in my weight loss journey and after writing that I saw this. It was perfect and something that I needed... as a reminder... for when it gets tough again. 

Dear Weak Stephanie,

I get it. You're dying for a piece of candy. Maybe it's not the candy (or the pastries, or whatever), maybe you're bored, you're hungry, you're tired of thinking about the candy all day and you're just saying screw it. One bite, one piece, one serving/helping, and then i'm done, I'll go to the gym, I'll go home for the night, I'm still on track.

You're bored.

This is absolutely the stupidest reason imaginable to throw yourself off track, feel disappointed in yourself and your lack of self-control, give yourself a belly you'll have to work off for four days, screw up the carb deficit that I work hard every single day to create, feel cranky, avoid plans with friends or your boyfriend, dread the weekend, add stress to your already stressful life, etc. Remember, you never get bored of accidentally discovering how slim you are, whether it's in the fitting room, when lining up progress pictures, in the locker room at the gym, when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a window as you walk down the street, when someone calls you "slim" or "toned" or "fit". THOSE THINGS never get boring. Focus on how fun and exciting that part of the process is and ignore the rest. For my sake.

You're hungry.

Go drink four glasses of water right now. Back? OK. Are you still hungry? If so, email someone you can confide in. Or eat a protein bar, or go microwave some broccoli. You know that will fill you up and do good things for your body and your goals. You don't want the broccoli? Then you're not hungry.

You're saying "Screw it."

If you want to quit this journey, decide to quit and then you can eat pizza and drink beer every night. You an go out with your friends and eat hors d'oeuvres all night long. you won't feel good, but at least you will be free.

So...is it the freedom that you really want? No. You're having a momentary lapse. Well, think about me. The one who preps all her food for the week on Sunday night, the one with abs, the one who's going to stand up on stage in front of 10,000 people and turn her back and stick out her butt. I'm the one who feels awesome in her clothes, the one who prances around the gym like she owns the place, the one who drags herself out of bed to do early morning cardio, the one who inspires her family, and friends. Think about what you're doing to ME, Strong Stephanie, when you let a momentary "oh screw it" overtake and overcome all of the hard work I put in every single day, every time I go to a bar and wave off the waiter when he asks what I want to drink, every time I skillfully assemble a healthy, trap-free meal at a restaurant while everyone else orders fries and a third (or fourth...) beer or regular Coke.

And you know very well there's no such things as "Just One Bite."

Every single time you tell yourself you can handle having one taste of something, you're wrong. Is it because you're literally powerless in the face of sugar, is your insulin really swinging that hard that you can not resist? You know that you have a ton of self control. EVEN YOU (I obviously do). This isn't about saying no; by the time you've had the first bite of sugar, you've given UP on saying no. You're saying "yes," and you will continue to do so until it's time to go home or there is no more freakin' candy left in the bowl (did you REALLY want a Mounds yesterday? They're VILE!) So don't ever let yourself cross over into saying "yes" to junk. Say "NO" for HEAVEN SAKE!!

A message from me to you.

I love you (even though you are the weak version of me) because we are the same person. You have a ton to be proud of and you should love the process and love how far you have come. You can go even farther, and you will be around less and less as time passes, you won't have to read this letter as often. You are strong inside, this is only temporary, and it will pass. Now go get a cup of water and get back to kicking a**.

Love,

Strong Stephanie

P.S. I'll be back tomorrow morning when you wake up.

Now is a REALLY Good Time

Warning: This is a super personal, random and long post. I'll be back tomorrow with fun posts.

via//

Ok internet friends... I'm gonna get real with you. Back in January I wrote a blog post about how I was gonna get fit, how I had a game plan, how I was not going to fail. Well I'm here to tell you that I did not get fit, I did not follow my game plan, and I did fail... temporarily. I didn't do what I needed to do and it sucks to see yourself failing and see that you aren't doing anything about it. I'm really good about talking to people about how to succeed in their journey, I can talk to you about how to eat healthy, how to work out and how to motivate yourself, but sometimes I'm not the best at following my own rules. I'm like the crooked cop, I wanna put you in jail for being bad but here I am stealing money (this a metaphor, I don't really steal money and I'm not a cop). So here I am. I am telling you I failed. But what am I doing about it?  Well I'm back. And I decided that Now is a REALLY good time. I mean, there never really is a GOOD time, but right now is THE time to do it, because if I let myself get any worse than I am now, then I'm never going to get better.

Another issue I've been battling is acknowledging that I have self image issues and even when I'm thin I think I'm not, and when I'm not thin I just get depressed because I think about how I once looked, which is never a good thing, to compare yourself to yourself. BAD STEPHY. I realized I was in a bad spot when I was supposed to go to the gym and meet hubs a few Saturday's ago, but I was still laying in bed, and I started to cry because I realized at that moment what I was doing. I didn't want to go to the gym because I would see myself in the mirrors and I'd see how fat my arms had gotten, or how my shoulders weren't defined anymore, and that my rolls were increasingly more noticeable. So I laid there, crying because at that moment I was that person in those commercials, that didn't want to do anything and why? Because of something I could control, so I got up, went to the gym and did 45 minutes, not without causing a slight scene where I started crying when I got to the gym.  Dave had asked where I'd been, and I had to again admit what I'd known all along, that my depression was getting worse as my weight was getting worse and I cried on his shoulder for a few minutes in the weight room, where people could see me (which if you know me, you know I don't cry in front of anyone, let alone strengers). It's been a rough past few weeks since that Saturday, which is why I've been a little quiet on here. I didn't want to talk about this because admitting to myself that I had a problem was hard enough but admitting to the internet world... well that is harder.

So I waited. I waited till today to tell you. Honestly, I waited till today to tell you because I was worried that I wasn't going to get better and that I was going to gain the other 30 pounds back.

BUT I had hope. I had hope that going to The Arnold this past weekend would help me. And it did. I went there originally thinking that after seeing all those hot bodies that I would be guilted into getting back in shape. But something else happened. I became motivated. I felt like I could do this again. I felt alive again. I'm happier when I'm healthy, I'm happier when I'm at the gym. I'm happier when I'm eating clean. I'm happier when I'm doing something that I love. So peoples. I'm back and I'm better than ever!

I can't wait to share with you about my weekend, the samples I tried, the people I met and the stuff I bought, but I'll leave that for another day. For now I'm going to show you 2 pictures of of me with the people who have motivated me over the past few years, whether they knew it or not.

Me and Jamie Eason

Me and Davey

Ok, so thats my rant and my story. Oh and if you're wondering what my new plan is, well thats simple. Clean Eating and working out, specifically the LiveFit program again because I had great success with it before.

xo, Steph

10 Commandments of the Weight Room | Sunday morning Humor

It's Sunday. It's cold. It's snowing (sorta... It's not sticking where I live). Hubs is napping on the bed. Kitties are running amuck and I'm sitting in bed drinking coffee and watching YouTube videos. Sounds like a great Sunday to me. Hehe.

Most of you know I go to the gym. I'm not a cardio bunny. I lift weights, I don't do classes (much) and nine times out of ten I'm the only girl in the weight room with those silly grunting men. So when hubs showed me these videos I died. They are just awesome and hilarious and totally remind me of some of the gym guys I see there. No wonder I haven't been getting all the results I wanted. I need more oil (see the 10th commandment). Enjoy!!






You might recognize him. He's from those hilarious new Old Spice commercials (Terry Crews)  where he busts into walls and stuff. Just awesomeness.

Oh and don't forget we're (by we're I mean me... I am) having a giveaway and the last day to enter is Monday at Midnight. Yay!! Hope you've entered or shared with your friends!!! Enter HERE!!!!
xo, Steph

1/6th of the way through Hot Yoga yeah!!!!

 Yesterday was Day 10 of Hot Yoga. It was a stressful day of work and dealing with the car insurance company so I was very thankful to have this to go to. It's funny how good it can feel to get there and just get in my zone. Yesterday was also a good yoga day for me. I had better balance, I was calm and I was able to keep distractions out of the way.  I was so happy to have a good day because the day before and even the past few days were pretty crummy yoga days. But TODAY was my day and it was a good one. I'm 1/6th of the way through.  Nice!!!

 

Ok friends. Tonight we're gonna see The Civil Wars and I am so so so excited!!!

 

xo, Steph

Making an Action Plan | Workouts and Hot Yoga

I know. It's January. All I'm thinking about it working out, eating healthy, and not caring about how my hair looks after I do Hot Yoga in the morning before work.

Messy Messy Hair.

Tell me I am not the only one? Right? Cause I wanna talk fashion and clothes and what not but its January. I'm on one of those, "Hey we can't spend money on fun stuff like clothes" budget months so I'm not really chatting about that. You've seen all my clothes, I wore them for 30 days in my photo a day challenge I did. So what am I going to talk about nowadays? Well in all honesty... this blog is my blog to write about what I want to write about. You may not like what I write about some days (even though secretly I hope you do), but I want to be able to write about the things I find neat, rad or cool, or dorky - whatevs. I JUST WANT TO WRITE (that should be said like the I just want to dance!!!! phrase) So I am. I'm writing.

So ya, like I said earlier, it's January and I'm back to this working out and clean eating thing. Is it fun? Yes, right now it is! Will it be in a few weeks? Maybe... Probably not. But will I stick with it? Yes!!! Why? Because my goal is to have 1 ab poke through that stomach of mine. I only need 1, I mean it might look strange, but I want to have for the first time in my entire life an ab that I can see when I'm wearing my bathing suit.

It's easy to make goals, like I want to lose weight. But where is your action plan? How are you going to get to point B? Well I make mini points into my Point B, so my Point B is actually Point H or P or Z... enough you get it. I want to get to Point Z but I realize that to get there I have to go through point B, C, D, E, F, etc... So those of you who read my blog keep that in mind when you work towards your goals, any of them, doesn't have to be weightloss related.

So whats my action plan? Here we go. For the next 60 days I am doing 2 different programs. I talked about them briefly yesterday but here they are.

Hot Yoga at Hot Yoga Nashville for 60 days STRAIGHT. What do I want to get out of this? I want to feel better mentally, and stretch my body, to melt some fat and to get great workouts.

 Jamie Eason Live Fit Trainer - Stick in Phase 1 for 2 months then move to the 2 other phases. Why am I doing that instead of the normal 4 weeks of Phase 1? Well honestly... because I have the 60 days of Hot Yoga that I'm doing and since I've already done the program once I know I wont be able to get my Hot Yoga in once I move into Phase 2. So I'm doing 2 months of Phase 1, building muscle and gaining some muscle that I lost with those 2 months I took off in Nov and Dec. I wouldn't recomend doing this if its your first time through the 12 weeks program but since I've done it before I'm making modifications to work for me.

But what am I going to do after those 60 days? Glad you asked internet friends. I plan to move into the 2nd and 3rd phase of the program. I am still undecided on if I want to do the Carb cycling or not in that last phase. I struggled with this part of it, and I'm certain that is why I had a total binge after I finished it. Ok... that and the fact that it was Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and I had already been in my best friends wedding and honestly... I'm still that fat girl who likes to eat bad food.

So thats another thing. Know yourself. Know what you can and cant do. I know me. I know how I am. I know that I can't cheat on my diet or my program. If I do I will not stop and I will keep eating bad. Just plain and simple. I can't do it. Some people can, good for them and lucky for them. I am just not one of them. But I know myself and my limitations, and for me I just cant go to Wendy's and have that Frosty and Chili with a French Fry. I just can't because tomorrow I will want it again and I will give in and that is how you gain 10 pounds between Nov and Dec. So I didnt really eat that, it was an example of what I want right now, but I'm not. I'm eating chicken, and a salad, and oatmeal (because I ate my bread for breakfast and forgot it was for lunch).

So ya. This will take me in to June, where I will go from there I am not sure, but for now I have an action plan that gets me till then. I'll figure June and beyond after that.

Wow this is a wordy post. I'm like my dad, I can talk for hours to a brick wall. Which is kinda what this is like sometimes. :)

Hope you have a great day! I'm done with Hot yoga for today so its a rest night, then back at it tomorrow.

xo, Steph

I did it | Diary of 60 days of Hot Yoga

So I haven't actually finished Hot Yoga but I have started it. Last summer I did the 30 day challenge which was 30 days straight and I had great results. So I know I'm going to see awesome results this time too.

Day 1 was on Monday. Actually I'm not just doing Hot Yoga, I'm also doing the 12 week Jamie Eason LiveFit trainer. I did that last year and had great result but I super cheated in November and December and didn't work out so I feel like I lost what results I made. It's a 3 phase program where you don't do cardio in the first phase. I'm changing it up for me. I'm doing 2 month in phase 1 while I do my Hot yoga. I'm pretty excited.

So today I'm on both my 4th day in Hot Yoga and on my LiveFit and I'm crazy sore. CRAZY SORE!!! So far I'm really enjoying it, again. I feel soo out of practice. I'm all wibble wobbly. I have bad balance so I find yoga to be difficult anyway and when you add all that sweat and hotness it's like I can't even stand up. One thing I try to do when we first start is to make an expression of what I want my practice to be. Over the past few days it was Acceptance. Accepting that I can't always do the "tree pose" without falling. Accepting that I'm not always going to be able to get my arms and legs low enough for the "Eagle Pose" and it's ok. Tomorrow is another day and it could be better. Today's word was Distractions. Do not allow the other people who are distracting affect my practice. Did it work? Kinda. But then it goes back to accepting that it was only half way effective. Which means that I only let people distract me a little and then I remembered my word and all was better.

Anyway... I wanted to tell you about how the Hot Yoga is going. Hope you're having a great week!

xo, Steph

Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? HA!