I Suck as a Blogger

Wow. I haven't posted in over 6 months. Seriously? Um. Sorry. I've been a little busy.

I'm still working 3 (long) days - 12-14 hour shifts - at the urgent care. I recently picked up a second job...

Wait for it...

I'm working in a GYM! Yes me, who used to weigh 100 pounds more than I do now.

I've been working out there for over a year and today my trainer and I are grand opening our brand new smoothie bar, which I have created all original recipes for and will be running. This is our baby:

I'm in love.

Photo Shoot With My Trainer

My husband Scott and I scheduled a photo shoot with my fitness trainer, Tania, for our photography company SM Squared Photography. I usually just assist Scott, lug his lights around, etc. but this time when we showed up, Tania said that what she wanted to do was a personal training session with me and one of the girls who works in the gym who is practically a daughter-in-law to Tania. I protested - no, I said, I wasn't even wearing sneakers. ("What size shoe do you wear?" Tania asked. "An eight," I replied. "Perfect, she said, "I have an extra pair for you.") Oh, but I'm not dressed for a photo shoot. "Get Stephanie a Beachside t-shirt," was the answer. "I'm already signed up for a Kangoo class tonight." "That's ok, we'll be done in plenty of time, and I've seen you do PLENTY of double workouts. You can do it."

Ok then. No more excuses. Here are some of the images from our shoot. We used the Indo-row rowing machines, kettle bells, plyo boxes, TRX straps, ropes, Real Ryder bikes, body bars, and more. It was a pretty tough workout and really shows the diversity of a Beachside workout. I love this woman. She is an amazing trainer and has inspired me so much!

Before and Now

My friend April is a fellow member of my surgical support group. She's also a photographer, a Crossfit instructor, and mom to three little kids (including a set of twins). In other words...she's amazing! I don't attend my support group very often anymore - it conflicts with the time of my Kangoo class and I HATE to miss that if I don't have to - but I try to go every few months. At the last one, I had my Kangoo boots in the car and April wanted to see what they were like so I strapped them on and bounced around while April took some shots. She made this little collage with one of my "before" pics and this is what she sent me:

That, my friends, is what a lap band, determination, hard work, and an awesome fitness studio can do. I'm pretty proud of myself for the difference.

I also wanted to take a minute to tell you about my new venture. My husband and I started a photography business. Scott has been interested in photography for way longer than I have known him - he had a darkroom in the condo he was living in when we started dating, before digital was a big thing. He's a wonderful photographer and I've been pushing him to do it for other people, so we started a business. He's had several wonderful photo shoots and is extremely talented at fitness photography - he was the official photographer for my gym's fitness expo. But then he did something we are incredibly proud of. One of my trainers, Nikki, was so happy with the photos he took of her that she had Scott do a shoot with her and one of her own trainers. Check out a few of the pics here:

I'm so proud of Scott. Please check out some more of the photos from the shoot on his blog here:

Our blog can be found here: http://smsquaredphotography.blogspot.com/

New Dietbet and Fitness Expo

I'm going on a Caribbean cruise with the beautiful Lap Band Gal in a couple of months and I'd like to lose a few more pounds before I go...after all, the rooms on a cruise ship are tiny and the more space we have the better. :-)  So I decided to do another Dietbet and bet $25 that I would lose 4% of my body weight in 28 days. These things are TOUGH but they're really good for keeping me focused for a month. And even if I don't win and "only" lose 3-4 pounds in a month, that's still pretty good! But I'm going for the whole enchilada (mmmm...enchiladas) and trying to actually WIN so I have some extra spending money for alcohol on the cruise. Did I say alcohol? Um. I meant for locally crafted souvenirs of the highest quality and...oh hell. You know I'll spend it on pina coladas.

Ahem. Anyway, if you'd like to join and try to win some of my money, the link to the Dietbet that starts tomorrow is: HERE.


Also, last weekend, my fitness studio held an expo at the convention center to show the public what we're all about. There were demonstration classes all day. We were even on the news! My husband was the official photographer for the event and I wanted to share some of the pics with you. We had an amazing time.

Shannon the trainer - she teaches rowing, boot camps, and cycling. She's lost a LOT of weight and is a huge inspiration.

 Nikki the trainer...she teaches circuit and Zumba.

Kangoo Feet

Kangooing with my girls.

My FAVORITE trainer, Tania. She teaches all the Kangoo classes.

One of my favorite parts of Kangoo is when we use the hula hoops. SO much fun!

Have you ever seen so many smiles in a fitness class? :-)

One of my favorite couples - They take Kangoo to a whole new level by adding a ballroom dancing element to it.

And just for fun...I know we have the crazy eyes but I had to share this. My Kangoo girls and I went out to celebrate an amazing milestone this weekend...one of the girls being 3 years breast cancer free...and we just had SO much fun. I love them. I never knew my life could be so focused on my workouts and the people I do them with.

I realized a few days ago that when I wrote my original list of reasons that I wanted to lose weight, one of the items was:

45. To learn a sport.

Kangoo is definitely a sport! It may not be a team sport in the traditional sense but it's something athletic that I love to do and I'm pretty good at it. So yeah...another item crossed off my list. :-)

One of Them

Last Saturday night I went out with a bunch of the girls I work out with at my fitness studio. We started out at a bowling alley and were there for about an hour and then we got kicked out. Yep. I'm 37 years old and got kicked out of a bowling alley like some 17 year old punk. One of the girls had called the bowling alley and asked if alcohol was allowed there and since there was a bar, she was told yes. So she made a batch of sangria and brought it in. However, although alcohol from the bar is allowed, outside food and beverage is not, so cops were called, the sangria was confiscated and we were tossed out on the street like common thugs.

I have to admit...it was great.

So, what were a group of women supposed to do at 10:30 on a Saturday night? We ended up at Chili's with giant margaritas and baskets of chips and salsa and queso. (Yeah, I know. Eeeeek. The calories. Whatever.)

So as I'm sitting there laughing my head off, drinking a margarita, and really enjoying these awesome women...these fit, athletic women I've been working out with for over 6 months...I realized something...

I'm one of them.

They didn't know me when I was morbidly obese. I mean, I obviously still have some weight to lose and I'm working on it, but the thing I have in common with these women is fitness.

We text each other before class to make sure we'll be there.

We save each other spots in the front of the class.

We share hair ties and bottles of water and protein bars.

Ain't that some shit? I've been working out often enough that my gym friends are becoming real friends.

My life is different.

Steakless

My husband said he wasn't happy that I had to gross him out instead of other people so I'm going to share this with you so he's not alone.
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DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SOMETHING REALLY YUCKY.
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Ok so here goes...

I've eaten steak twice this week without issue and got cocky and probably ate too much (4 oz. maybe, and some corn on the cob).

I PB'ed. Bad. The worst one in a loooooong time.

I PB'ed so hard that a chunk of steak came out my nose. I'm not kidding. I blew my nose and there was a piece of steak. I almost barfed again because that was just so gross.

After over an hour of PB, recover, think that it's over, sip a tiny bit of water to get the taste out of my mouth, and then run to the bathroom to PB again, I brought out the big guns and gulped a small cup of sparkling lemon lime flavored bubbly water to get things moving. It had the desired "roto rooter" effect, I burped, and the offensive nasty bits went down.

Thank goodness.

It's going to be awhile before I eat red meat again.

On a good note...I needed a new pair of shorts that actually fit since it's a gazillion degrees out and we're spending the day outside at a mango festival tomorrow. I bought this outfit at Old Navy. Size 14 shorts, and I don't hate the way my legs look in them, and a size MEDIUM shirt. (Oh, and a new haircut that I really love.)

Working Out

Wow...I haven't blogged in a month and a half...crazy. I know that often when people stop blogging for any extended length of time it's usually because they have fallen off the wagon. Thankfully, this is not the case here. I've been kicking butt at the gym and just been too busy to blog!

I've been doing tons of Kangoo. I even had the opportunity to take my friend's 14 year old daughter with me and she loved it! I've lost somewhere around 16 pounds since starting Kangoo...after a year long plateau. I love my bouncy shoes!





I burn somewhere between 800 and 1200 calories per hour doing Kangoo. I use a heart rate monitor during each class and get a report like this after class that shows the levels of activity as well as my calorie burn. This was a 960 calorie class.

And this is my trainer, Tania, climbing the rope. She is AMAZING and so inspiring! She is totally my Jillian. I take several of her classes, Kangoo being my favorite, but I also do boot camps, Tabata, BOSU, etc.

This morning I'm going to the studio to try a Piloxing class. I've never done Piloxing but it's a cross between Pilates, boxing, and ballet. They're having a guest trainer to teach this - it's a master class and I'm a teeny bit nervous (it looks pretty intense) but I think it will be fun.

Tonight I'm doing something I haven't done in probably 20 years - roller skating! My gym group is having a get together at a skating rink for a fun and active night out.

Gotta run...have to finish my protein shake and get to the gym. :-)