My New Mural - Bath Junkie

Here is my latest mural job.  This was done over at San Tan mall in Gilbert, AZ at a store called Bath Junkie.  This is a really unique store that has all types of bath products, soaps, lotions, cologne, shampoos etc., as well as house cleaning products and products for your pets.

The unique part of this store is that you pick the product, and then there is a wall of different scents to choose from.  You can mix up to three to four scents to customize your product!  They even have a menu of mixed scents that you can try out as well.  This is by far the coolest store to come around in a while.

They also host parties.  Princess parties for girls, nights out with the girls...any occasion really.  So my job was to paint a life-size french-style bathtub for the party goers to stand in front of, and receive a picture to take home with them. 

You can see the party table to the right, and the wall of scents on the left.  Above the bath tub I painted a chalkboard with a fancy frame.  Bath Junkie will write the name of the birthday girl or their scent of the month on the chalkboard.

I used gold paint for the frame, faucet and mirror.

The owner wanted extra foo foo-ness so I added glitter to the bubbles.

Details.

This was a really fun project. The total size was 4.5 x 6.5 feet.

Alpha-Elite-est, The Gym Month 5

It's been 5 months since I started back at the gym.  I've done hundreds of burpees, box jumps and mountain climbers.  I've shed blood from doing planks, as well as shedding sweat and tears.  I've suffered jitters from fat burners (my idea), sand in my eyes from sandbag cleans, bruised pinkie fingers from boxing and an occasional midnight binge, polishing off boxes of ice cream.  Is it worth it?  You bet.

The Alpha Elite Training team is a personal training duo, Kimberly Elliott (my trainer), and Andrew Hangartner (who've I trained with in the past.  Their philosophy is based off of education and motivation.  They educate their clients to make them more inclined to continue on a successful path of fitness and nutrition.  Their clients learn what to do and eat and why.

Kimberly and Andrew don't just run you through a killer workout to burn calories, (in fact don't even dare mention calorie counting to them!)  They actually sit down with each individual client to find out who they are and what they envision for themselves.  They then create a plan of action to help clients obtain their goals.

The Alpha Elite team is definitely NOT "one-size-fits-all" trainers.  But you have to be willing to do the work necessary to obtain your goals.  It's not easy and it is a TON of work, but when you see your results, the  self gratification is more than I can explain.  I've been training with Kimberly 3 times a week, as well as going to my gym on the off days.

The top 10 things I have learned and obtained from training with Alpha Elite:

1) Everyone is different.  Alpha Elite follows a carb-cycling diet.  However it WILL be adjusted to fit your body, and how  your body reacts to the food.  For instance, my body loses more fat eating (complex) carbs at every meal, I eat 5-6 measured meals a day-depending on how late I stay up.

2) Boobs are the first thing to go.

3) I've doubled my weight used in bent-over rows (20lbs each hand), reverse flys (10lbs), seated rows (60-70 lbs), and lateral pulldowns.  I've also increased weight in dumbell curls and overhead presses-basically my whole upper body.

4) I hate leg workouts.  I've struggled for a year with my legs.  Anyone who knows me from high school knows that I was NOT an athlete.  Therefore my legs had never really built any muscle in them.  The result is in training my legs and trying to build muscle, there is no "muscle memory" for my legs to fall back on.  So I'm basically building muscle from scratch and will take longer to do so than an ex-athlete.

5) The area where the top of your back thigh meets the bottom of your butt is affectionately called a 'bu-thigh" or a "thass".

6) Water is essential to losing weight.  If you are an active person, you want to drink at least a gallon a day.  It sounds like a lot, but after a while, your body starts to crave it.  FYI, 8-500ml bottles equals a little over a gallon.

7)  THROW YOUR SCALE AWAY!!! Your body goes through weight changes throughout the day and throughout the week.  Especially women, who gain a lot of water weight once a month.  The true test of losing weight and inches, is how well your clothes fit.  Buy a goal-outfit and measure yourself against that and how well you fit into it.

8)  I've lost major visible size in my stomach area and I've leaned out in my back and shoulders.  I can actually start to see definition in my arms and shoulders.  I'm in-between sizes right now.  I was a 13-14, but now I fit in-between a 10 and an 8!  Major success!

9) A tan really makes you look skinnier.

10) Food=Fuel.  Just like your car need gas to go, your metabolism needs food to go.  The more you eat, the more you will lose.   Sure, crash diets may make you lose weight, but if you're like me, the weight ALWAYS comes back.  Following a food for fuel diet teaches you how to eat correctly and lose weight the correct way, and how to keep it off.  I now know how to read my body, and what to do to adjust my food to produce results.

These past months have definitely not been easy, but with a trainer like Kimberly, I've stayed motivated, worked past the difficulties and feelings of wanting to quit.  I've even begun running intervals, which I've always maintained in the past that I would never run unless it was for my life.  I actually have some girlfriends who want me to run a 5k with them, (3 miles).  Maybe I'll do it.  Kimberly seems to think it would be a breeze for me.

We'll see!

What's Better? Low-Fat Yogurt

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Today is the 5th of 7 installments of an article I read in Muscle and Fitness Hers magazine.  It's about myths of certain foods you think are better for you.  Today is low-fat yogurt.

The Dirt:

A serving of low-fat yogurt may contain a petty sum of fats, but it is weighed down by about 17g of sugar - which makes it slightly redundant.  According to a 2009 study published in Circulation, you should consume no more than 100 calories of added sugar per day.  A cup of low-fat yogurt chews up nearly 70 of these calories.  Unless you're consuming these simple carbs immediately post workout, that amount of sugar will rattle your clean-eating efforts.

The Clean-Up

Low-Fat Greek Yogurt

Although Greek yogurt starts out the same as regular yogurt, its consistency thickens through processing and, depending on the brand, results in twice the protein and about half the carbs.  However, Greek yogurt sacrifices something in the process - whey, which leaves you with mostly slow-digesting casein protein and a a little less calcium.

Family, Friends and Sake Bombers

Well another year older...I'm definitely in my mid to late 30's....sigh.  I was never one to freak out about age.  I tend to live in the moment and never worry about the long-term future, (hubby HATES that sometimes).  But as I approach 40, it's kind of hitting me a little.  I mean, do I worry about trying to have another child? Or should I start worrying about retirement?  Or both?

Usually my long term goals are things like:

Will I have enough wine for game night on Friday?

or

What cute outfit will Aubrie wear on her first day of school?

or

If I do two extra sets of plyometrics today, MAYBE I'll be able to eat that half pint of Ben and Jerry's tomorrow.

But lately, I've actually surprised myself by setting money aside for a Gym Membership renewal, 2 MONTHS away!  Whoosh...what a rush to think that far ahead.  I mean, I think I just got dizzy.

One thing that I always look forward to is my birthday month.  Yes you read correctly, I said month.  Not just a day, or a week, but I get a whole birthday MONTH.  Weather hubby likes it or not.  And this birthday was particularly great because my sister left her husband and three boys to come celebrate it with me.

She endured a missed flight, and a 5 hour turbulent ride from Virginia, PASSED where I live in Phoenix to San Diego, only to change planes and get to Phoenix.  God love her for making it here the same day, and the almost midnight pickup arrival time, made me flashback to 15 years ago when 11pm was usually the time I was first leaving the house to go watch a band play.  Now a days, I'm usually I passed out on the couch watching CSI or something.  It felt good driving on an almost vacant highway at that time of night!

So every year, my girlfriend's get together and try to do something fun for our birthdays.  Last year for mine, we took pole dancing lessons, then went to eat.  After that there was a strip club across the street and we tried to get in, but they wanted to charge us 10$!! I mean  we were women for crying out loud.  So instead we headed over to a casino and instead of getting carded for the dance club we were let in for free and were asked if we were there for the "Cougar Contest." F-ing half-my-age-bouncer-that-I-could-easily-squash.

This year it was Sushi.  Some of my GF's couldn't make it but we had a blast anyway.

I get sake Bombers any chance I can get

Hope from Peanutbutterandhopey.com, myself and Noelle.

(Gotta have two glasses of beer for those sake bombers.)

Noelle and Me

Julie (My Sister), and me.

The next night, actually ON my birthday, we went out to dinner with our close friends.

Hope and Me

Julie and Aubrie

BFF's Aubrie and Emma

After that, we went back to Hope's house for Game night.  My sister brought along a bottle of vodka that looked like a machine gun.

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We then took turns taking pictures as Charlie's Angles.

I didn't actually open it until Memorial Day though...

It was a great couple of days, and true to herself, Julie got a picture of me the next morning and then played with apps on her new iPad...then uploaded it to facebook.

...sigh...