Category Archives: Nutrition/ Diet

A Beginner’s Guide to Meal Prepping!

General Fitness, Living the Fit Lifestyle, Nutrition/ Diet, Weightloss, , , , , , ,

Hi everyone!  Hope this finds you well!  Wow—I just checked, and it looks like I haven’t done a post in 2 weeks!  Y’all probably wondered where I went!!   I’ve been busy throwing weights around I suppose!  Feels good to sit down and write!!

I frequently get asked A LOT about nutrition and what I recommend people eat.  I thought I’d give a brief overview  of how Shane and I plan our weekly meals, and then later over the next couple of weeks take things meal by meal to go further in detail.

“Meal Prepping” in my opinion can best be defined as pre-planning your meals, pre-cooking the meals you have planned, and then adhering to eating those meals that you have planned and cooked.

A beautiful sight, a week's worth of prepped meals!
A beautiful sight, a week’s worth of prepped meals!

I’m sure that many of you can relate to how things used to be in our household.  Let me give you a little back story on how our meals have evolved over our 10 year relationship.  When we were first married, I really took it upon myself as a newlywed to cook dinner for us every night.  Growing up, my family had always traditionally had dinner together and I really enjoyed cooking (and, I still do)! Shane and I would think ahead of time of what we wanted for dinner that week, I would grocery shop (*note—I LOVE to grocery shop!!), and then cook dinner when I got home from work.  We typically ate things a lot of American families do—spaghetti, tacos, stir frys, those frozen meals in bags (a.k.a. salt licks in a bag—they are full of sodium!), and every now and then I’d try out recipes I’d seen online, in a magazine, or on the Food network.  But this got to be exhausting.  I got tired of constantly cooking and cleaning after working a 10-12 hour day.  I wasn’t working out at the time, but who has time to cook a gourmet freaking dinner every night?!  We never fight, but there were oh so many nights where one of us didn’t want the “planned” dinner that night, or we got home too late to care and went out to dinner instead.  Food was often wasted, and pounds kept creeping up.  Sometimes I would take leftovers for lunch the next day, but we’d usually throw a lot out because I’d cook too much food for two people, oh and Shane never ate leftovers back then.  Honestly, we probably ate out or ordered in 4-5 nights a week easy.  Shane would never eat breakfast, never took snacks to work, and ate out for lunch every single day.

This is how we used to eat. Chicken Spaghetti. One of our old favorites and very, very unhealthy.
This is how we used to eat. Chicken Spaghetti. One of our old favorites and very, very unhealthy.
Another old favorite: chicken stuffed with cheese. We don't really miss meals like this anymore. Stick with clean eating and it gets easier!
Another old favorite: chicken stuffed with cheese. We don’t really miss meals like this anymore. Stick with clean eating and it gets easier!

Fast forward a few years.  When I joined Texas Fit Chicks boot camp, the trainers put a lot of emphasis on clean eating.  This opened up my eyes a lot!  I had always tried to be pretty healthy eater.  Since High School really, I would often choose healthier food options over burgers, pizza, etc., but the clean eating concept really clarified it a lot for me.   I would take snacks to work, but realize now that I was probably not eating enough food.  I would often skip breakfast, or have just a yogurt or pack of oatmeal, and maybe have a few almonds or a granola bar if I got hungry during the day at the office.  In my last job I often had to take clients out to lunch, which meant eating out almost every single day.  And the pounds just kept creeping on.  I still “cooked” dinner every night, but focused on healthier, cleaner options.  A lot of our dinner recipes from about 2012 – 2013 came from a website called skinnytaste.com.  It’s fabulous if you’re looking for simple, easy to make healthy dishes.  I still use them from time to time!

Last year when we finally made the decision to really make fitness and nutrition part of our lifestyle, things totally changed.    I really began researching nutrition and the concept of macros, and what I should be eating in order to fuel my body, not just lose weight.  Instead of planning my weekly grocery list around recipes, I began planning it around protein, carb, and fat sources.  Things totally changed for us.  It wasn’t easy at first, but we figured out that having pre-cooked chicken, and simpler meals geared around hitting our macros really worked for our lifestyle and was SO much easier than freaking cooking every night.  Both of us eat 6 meals a day (3 meals, 3 “snacks”) and have one weekly cheat meal (Saturday nights!  Hooray!) where we go out to dinner.  It has saved us so much stress and money (that now gets put right into supplements, protein powders, and cute workout gear! HA), but the best part is not having the “what’s for dinner” debate every night.  Well that, and how freaking awesome you look and feel when you’re healthier!  I really don’t miss the stress of cooking a fancy schmancy meal every day.  Are our meals boring? Sure, some would say that, but we eat a lot of the same foods day after day and we’re okay with that.  This is a lifestyle.  It doesn’t work for everyone but it works for us.  Like I’ve said so many times before, nutrition is the BIGGEST component to getting results.  You can just eat clean, whole foods, really put a limit on eating out, cut back (or cut out!) alcohol, and NOT EVEN WORK OUT and see results.  On the other hand, however, you could bust your ass in the gym every day of the week, and if you’re eating crap you’ll never see results.  Interesting, huh?

We eat LOTS of sweet potatoes. This won't last a week!
We eat LOTS of sweet potatoes. This won’t last a week!

You don’t have to be super “hard core” with this.  Maybe just start by thinking okay, I’m going to cook dinner these nights, and go out to dinner these nights, and here’s what I’m going to have for dinner when I cook.  I’m going to pack a lunch every day for work instead of eating out, and I’m going to have xy and z for breakfast and snacks.  The tricky part, though, is being consistent with it, meal after meal, day after day.  It WILL get easier!

It might not look it, but this is a very healthy meal. Tuna steak with rice and veggies. We used almost no salt and just some soy sauce on the tuna.
It might not look it, but this is a very healthy meal. Tuna steak with rice and veggies. We used almost no salt and just some soy sauce on the tuna.

Here are my biggest tips for meal prepping and how it works for us:

  • ALWAYS have cooked chicken in the fridge. I change up our seasonings, and cook about 2 pounds of chicken twice a week.  We weigh it out when we eat or pack our meals.  Chicken will stay good for 4-5 days at a time.  Shane does the same thing with lean ground beef since that’s mostly what he eats during the day.
  • Cut up fresh veggies or buy frozen ones. You can microwave just about any vegetable in 2 minutes!  Season them with whatever flavorings you like and it will change up the taste.
  • DON’T BUY JUNK and you won’t be tempted to eat it! If it’s not in your house it’s not there to entice you.
  • I grocery shop once a week (every Sunday!) and buy everything we’ll need for that week. God knows how many hours I spent stopping by the grocery store on the way home from work after a long day just to wander around the aisles before I figured out what to make.  Going to the store once a week is so much easier!  I love a clean house and a well stocked fridge on a Sunday afternoon!  By Saturday night the following weekend, our pickin’s are slim and the fridge looks empty!
  • Have healthy food options at home and you won’t be tempted to eat out as much. Yes, this means grocery shopping, buying healthy options to eat for the week, and thinking ahead of time.
  • Bake sweet potatoes ahead of time! I bake about 8 at a time (350 for an hour and half and they’re perfect!) and they stay good for 4-5 days in the fridge.
  • Have quest bars, rice cakes (watch the sugar!!) and almonds on hand for healthy snacks and fats.
  • Shane weighs out most of his meals and puts them in Tupperware for the week so he can just grab and go when he’s headed out the door. I work from home most of the time, so I don’t have to do this, but I’ll admit it’s much easier and I do it a lot when we’re out and about on the weekends and such.
  • Every Sunday, I “baggie up” my supplements for the week—pre / intra / post workout, and my vitamins for the week as well. This saves A LOT of time and ensures I won’t miss something if I need to rush to get out the door.

Hopefully my tips and tricks were beneficial to you.  If this is a new concept for you, I would encourage you to try having your “meals planned” this week and see how things go.  I’m always HAPPY to answer questions and would LOVE to hear from you.  Feel free to email me at lipglossandlifting@gmail.com.

Till next time!

-Mere

What am I Supposed to do With Supplements?

General Fitness, Living the Fit Lifestyle, Nutrition/ Diet, , , , , , , , , ,

Hey gang!  Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted—I’ve been busy having awesome workouts and eating LOTS of healthy food!  I LOVE offseason!!!  We’re still on track for another show in the Fall.  Bring on the gainz!!!

Tonight I thought I’d talk briefly about supplements.  This is a subject area that most people don’t know a lot about. When taken correctly, supplements can really help you get the most benefit out of your training, help your muscles recover, and keep your energy levels up to keep pushing hard in the gym.  The point of supplements are to “supplement” your nutrition to provide your body with the right nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.  Supplements can include pre and post workouts, BCAAs, proteins, and vitamins, just to name a few.  There are a million different types of supplements, from a million different brands, and it can all be really overwhelming!  I know I was overwhelmed when I first started looking into them.  Where’s a girl to start?!  In true Lipglossandlifting form, I thought I’d break them down for beginners, and what I would suggest you incorporate as basics.  Be forewarned, however, this stuff is expensive.  Be sure to do your research with brands and go with QUALITY.  Supplements are usually cheaper when you buy bigger quantities as well.  We usually buy ours on www.Amazon.com, www.lockoutsupplements.com, or www.bodybuildlng.com.

I buy a lot of supplements!
I buy a lot of supplements!

Multi-Vitamins

I highly suggest a good quality multivitamin to take everyday.  WE don’t get all of the vitamins we need from the food we eat, and a good multi will help keep your immune system up and help with your skin, nails, etc.  I personally use Optiwomen by Optimum Nutrition.  Two a day—easy!  Recently I also incorporated a calcium supplement and Vitamin D supplement as well, since they’re beneficial for women in particular.  Fish Oil or EFA (essential fatty acids) pills are good to take too since they help your body repair, particularly in regard to reducing inflammation and promoting heart health.

Pre-Workouts

Every true gym lover needs a pre-workout!  They are designed to give you an energy boost, improve muscle strength and stamina, therefore helping you get the most benefit out of your weightlifting.  They help you power through like a beast!  Some have caffeine, or stimulants, others don’t.  Creatine is a muscle-building ingredient that many preworkouts have as well, but I would research it before deciding whether or not taking a “pre” with creatine in it is for you.  If you’ve never tried one or are sensitive to caffeine, I would start with BSN’s N.O. explode.  It’s pretty mild, but will definitely help you focus and give you more of a pump after your training.  Some of my favorite pre-workouts are Formulation 1’s, N.O. Explode, and Optimum Nutrition’s Pre-Workout.   These typically run you between $20 and $30.

Post-Workout

Every workout you have is taxing on your body.  It’s super important to give your body the nutrients and protein it needs right after you workout so that your muscles can begin to recover and grow.  The “anabolic window” that you may have heard of is really the 30 minute timeframe after you workout in which is the ideal time to do this.  Branch Chain Amino Acids or BCAAS and protein are the two biggest things your body needs after working out.  BSN has a great product called AminoX that I love!  Optimum Nutrition and Formulation 1 also make great BCAA products.  AminoX Fruit Punch flavor is the absolute best—Shane and I use it EVERY SINGLE workout!  I use it as an intra-workout supplement, and then follow with a protein shake afterwards.  Ideally you need to consume an equal ratio of grams of protein to grams of carbohydrates within your anabolic window too, but I would suggest starting with BCAAs.  There’s another product called Aftershock I used for a long time as a post workout that was pretty good.

Whey Protein

Whey protein is a really easy way to incorporate more protein into your diet.  Most people don’t know this, but to build muscle you really need to be consuming 1- 1 ½ grams of protein per pound of bodyweight a day.  To give you an idea of how much that is, 4oz of chicken has about 25 grams of protein.  See what I meant by eating 5-6 times a day and incorporating protein into each meal??  Protein is the main building block of muscle.  Remember that muscle burns fat, so if you’re really wanting to lose body fat, start eating more protein, lift heavy, and build that muscle!  Whey protein comes in a powder form most often, and you can mix it with either water or almond milk to make it into a shake.  It can be blended or baked too, and you can really get creative with how you incorporate it into your diet.  I usually use Whey protein as a snack, and as my post workout shake with a carbohydrate supplement as well.  Keep in mind that protein also keeps you feeling fuller longer.  Most whey proteins have about 120 calories and 25 grams of protein per serving, and are sugar free with low carbs as well.  My favorites would be Cellucor’s Red Velvet Cake Batter (it tastes like a Sprinkles cupcake!), Optimum Nutrition’s Caramel Toffee Fudge and Birthday Cake, and Dymatize’s Mint Chocolate.  They are all DELICIOUS!  I would never steer you wrong with flavors!!  Whey protein is expensive, so it pays to buy larger quantities.  It stays good a long time, and 5lb container will run you $50-$60, but will have 75 servings or so.

Here's my haul from a recent supplement shopping trip!
Here’s my haul from a recent supplement shopping trip!

Here’s my current “stack” of supplements.  Most people don’t need all of these, but this I thought I’d share mine in case you were curious.

  • Optimum Nutrition Optiwomen Multi
  • Calcium supplement
  • Vitamin D3 supplement
  • MRM Smartblend EFA capsules
  • Hydroxycut Hardcore Elite Fatburner
  • Optimum Nutrition Pre-Workout (Green Apple tastes like a jolly rancher!)
  • BSN AminoX taken while I workout (the Fruit Punch flavor is just fabulous)
  • Post-workout shake with Whey Protein and Glycoject carbohydrate supplement
  • Creatine 2x a day
  • L-Glutamine mixed with pre and post workout supplements
  • I also use whey protein as a snack from time to time
This is part of my daily supplement stack. Lots to take!
This is part of my daily supplement stack. Lots to take!

If any of you have questions or other product recommendations you love I’d love to hear about them!  Feel free to email me at lipglossandlifting@gmail.com.  Happy lifting!

Till next time,

-Mere

So What is this “Clean Eating” Anyway?

Living the Fit Lifestyle, Nutrition/ Diet, Weightloss, , , , , , ,

When I first started working out and making healthier eating choices back in 2012, I kept hearing the term “eat clean” thrown around and I had no clue what it meant.  Did it mean eat organic?  Going vegan?  So, in true Mere form, I researched it.  That was over 3 years ago, and let me tell you, it takes some getting used to, but sticking to eating clean will make a tremendous difference in your life and is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Plus, it will help you drop pounds fast!  It did for Shane and me, and countless others we know, and it will for you too when you are consistent with it. I want to remind everyone that I am not a nutritionist, and I am not a trainer (yet).  However, I hope that I can use my L&L platform to share with all of you what clean eating means to me and how it has helped me on my journey.  This is a topic I am very passionate about, and I’m sorry in advance if I offend anyone, but my mission here is to promote health and fitness, and making healthy food choices is a fundamental part of that.

No matter how long you spend at the gym, you won't get results unless you eat clean.
No matter how long you spend at the gym, you won’t get results unless you eat clean.

We as a society are absolutely BOMBARDED with food propaganda.  Everywhere you look, you’ll see the latest and greatest drive-thru dollar menu special, restaurant deals and steals, or on the flip side the “healthy”, “low calorie” foods begging you to give them a try.  I saw this first hand when literally every freaking commercial I saw on TV while I was slaving away to cardio involved something with food.  It was nuts!  Our obesity rate as a country is higher than it’s ever been, and that doesn’t even include Americans who are overweight.  Nearly 1 out of 3 kids are obese.  It’s a problem that’s getting worse and worse, and is predicted to continue to skyrocket unless we as a society change how we eat.

A brief history lesson for you:  fifty plus years ago, the food landscape in America was a totally different than it is today.  Grocery stores carried staples—produce, meat, dairy and bread;  basically the things that you’d see in the 4 food groups.  Then came the arrival of the “fast food concept” and things totally changed.  People wanted to get food faster, started eating out more, and wanted “convenient foods”.  The business boomed, and here we are in 2015 with an obesity epidemic that is out of control because of how much JUNK is available for people to eat.

“Clean Eating” is essentially the concept of getting back to whole, natural foods.  It means consuming a diet PRIMARILY of plant based foods, protein, and carbohydrates coming from complex carbohydrate and whole grain sources.  Fats come from nuts, nut butters, olive oils, and avocados.  A “clean eater” typically abstains from simple carbohydrates (i.e. the “white carbs”—pasta, bread, chips, corn and flour based foods), sugars, alcohol, and keeps dairy and butter / vegetable oils to a minimum.  It means avoiding “packaged” foods like chips, cookies, packaged meats, frozen dinners, and anything processed or artificial.  Clean Eating also means eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day to keep your metabolism burning and hunger at bay.

I’m not here to judge you and I am not perfect.  I’m human, and I’ll be the first to tell you that I love me some Double Stuff Oreos and that once in a blue moon I’ll go through a drive-thru (Chick-Fil-A for the win!).  However, clean eating is a lifestyle.  I promise you, once you get past the first few weeks, the cravings will subside and you will begin to feel a lot healthier and have much more energy!  Your body will thank you, and you will keep getting healthier and healthier!

Here are some good resources that helped me learn more about the clean eating lifestyle.  Tosca Reno is like the “mother” of clean eating.  All of her books are awesome, but I fell in love with the “Eat Clean Diet”.  The movie “Food Inc.” will make you rethink how and where your food comes from.  HBO’s documentary “Weight of the Nation” is incredibly thought provoking.

I’d like to  share some of our staples that we eat on a daily basis with you — my shopping list if you will.  This is list is not the be-all end-all, but it will give you a good starting point for your clean eating journey.

Here's my haul on a typical trip to the grocery store.
Here’s my haul on a typical trip to the grocery store.

Produce—this makes up about 30% of my cart

  • SALAD, greens, spinach
  • Tomatoes
  • Avocados
  • A mix of fibrous veggies—asparagus, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, green beans, broccoli are our go-tos.
  • Bananas
  • Berries
  • Sweet potatoes and regular potatoes

Meat—this makes up another 30% or so

  • Lean proteins—think white meats. Chicken, ground turkey, white fish (tilapia, mahi mahi, cod).  Try to buy organic or natural if at all possible
  • Lean ground beef (for Shane – he gets a bit more fat than I do and needs more calories)

Grains / Nuts

  • Rice cakes (we get organic brown rice cakes and you can also find flavored rice cakes with low sugar)
  • Brown and white rice
  • Almonds! Emerald has awesome vanilla roasted and cinnamon roasted almonds that I’m absolutely obsessed with.
  • Oats
  • Quinoa
  • Nut butters (be very careful of added sugar – buy the natural versions)

Dairy

  • Nonfat Greek yogurt (plain is best, but you can get flavored as well – if you by flavored yogurt, be cognizant of the sugar content)
  • Eggs (try to go organic here too, or cage free at the very least)
  • Egg whites (cage free or organic)
  • Almond milk

Here are the “rules” I typically recommend for beginners. I’m not an expert, and this is just a general overview of clean eating, so you’ll need to do additional research.

  • Stick to NATURAL, nutrient dense foods. If it has a long ingredient list, comes in a box, or could be found on the center aisles of the grocery store (and isn’t listed above) it’s probably not very “clean”.  If it wasn’t around in 1945, it’s probably not real food or “clean”. I need to make one important caveat – there are certain processed foods like Quest bars and protein powders that serve an important purpose for athletes. However, if you don’t work out a lot or you aren’t trying to add muscle mass, then you probably don’t need those types of food.
  • Shop the perimeter of the store—here’s where you’ll find the produce, meats, and dairy.
  • Avoid alcohol and consuming empty calories in sodas, juices, etc.
  • Avoid baked goods and packaged goods. Also avoid breads, pastas, and chips, etc.
  • Cook at home more!!!
  • Aim to eat 5-6 small meals a day.

Lastly, be careful of foods that are supposed to be “healthy” i.e. low fat cookies, or baked chips, or low-cal yogurts and ice creams, etc.  They are often laden with added sugar, salt and chemicals, and they don’t provide much nutrition for their caloric values.  You’ll find that when you eat “packaged” foods, you’re hungrier more often because the carbohydrates are “simple” and digest quickly, and cause spikes in blood sugar leading to more cravings and hunger.  Also, there’s virtually no protein in them (protein also keeps your hunger at bay and is the main nutrient needed for building muscles).

Eating clean doesn't mean bad food. Tell me this breakfast doesn't look awesome!
Eating clean doesn’t mean bad food. Tell me this breakfast doesn’t look awesome!

My email address is lipglossandlifting@gmail.com.  I am SO HAPPY to answer questions and help you get started on the “clean eating” path.  Once you have been eating clean for about a month (the cravings will go away, I promise!), you’ll wonder how you ever ate any differently and your body will thank you for fueling it properly!  You can still enjoy eating out and “cheat” foods in moderation, and you will find that you crave them less and appreciate them more.  Plus, clean eating is a requirement to get big and strong muscles!

Till next time,

-Mere

From Clueless to Confident

Contest Prep, General Fitness, Living the Fit Lifestyle, Nutrition/ Diet, Weightloss, Workouts, , , , , , , , , , , ,

We left off on the last post about what ultimately led me to compete.  To be honest, once I started learning how to build muscle by lifting weights and doing resistance training in the gym, and more importantly once I started seeing the changes in my body, I was hooked!  To me, lifting as a woman is empowering.  It builds more than just muscles.  It brings confidence, and relieves stress.  When I’m in the gym, everything else good and bad in my life or day fades away.  It’s just me and my tunes, and my rep, and the mind / muscle connection.  I discovered quickly what “failing out on a rep” meant and fell in love.  The feeling of pushing myself to get through a tough set challenged me like nothing else had before.  I could feel myself getting stronger, and since I was recording and logging my workouts (I just used a journal, but Shane has a cool app called Fitocracy), I could see my improvements week by week too.

A lot of people ask me how I started, how I figured out how to work out, how I went from being clueless to being able to confidently walk into a gym (we joined LA Fitness Memorial Day weekend 2014, which was really my FIRST gym membership ever) and know what I was doing.  I’m kind of a nerd at heart, and to be honest, I started researching online and just kept Googling, reading, Youtubing, and Pinteresting.  There is a TON of great information and numerous articles  available to you online.  As I mentioned in my last post, Bodybuilding.com is a great place to start.  The sources are credible, and there are awesome videos for form, training plans, etc. all right there at the click of a mouse.  I credit Jamie Eason’s Live Fit program on the site for really laying my foundation of weight training.

Baby biceps. Before we joined LA Fitness.
Baby biceps. Before we joined LA Fitness. Spring 2014.

The more I trained (that’s what we gymrats call working out), the more I absolutely grew to crave it.  I wanted to know more and learn more about this whole new world.  Beginning around January of 2014, and continuing through the spring and summer, I was eating clean 90% of the time and training 5-6 days a week.  I dropped my bootcamp membership in May, and dropped 10 pounds in 10 weeks when I began lifting 5 days a week instead of 3.  The bootcamp was fantastic, but I built more muscle by lifting heavy and often.  I now know that the muscle was burning fat, hence the weight loss.  I really wasn’t doing a lot of cardio at that point.  As far as nutrition goes, I was eating 6 meals a day, but wasn’t sure that I was getting the right macros, etc.  I was aiming for a lot of protein, and clean, “whole” foods, but I also now know I wasn’t really eating the right combination of macros to really build muscle.  Don’t worry, I’ll do several posts later on what I eat and what “clean eating” really means.

Now, back to the question of what made me decide to compete…  As of late summer of 2014, I had been reading Oxygen and Muscle & Fitness Hers magazines for about a year (I started reading them before I got serious about lifting), and I had seen girls in those magazines that just looked amazing.  They had the toned, muscular yet feminine look I was after!  I started seeing a trend that most of them were “competitors”, and I began to research things like the NPC (National Physique Committee—the largest and “grand daddy” of all Bodybuilding Federations), Figure, Bikini, Competition Prep, and I got very curious about the process and the whole competition experience.  I loved clean eating and working out, and had made it a lifestyle at this point, and competing would be the pinnacle of putting those two pieces together into a pretty extreme form, getting in peak physical condition, while competing against myself and fellow women to ultimately do something few others can say that they have done.  I was excited and nervous as hell at the mere THOUGHT of doing this.  Me, a BODYBUILDER?!?!?  I had only been lifting for six months!

Just after we joined LA Fitness. I still love hanging leg raises for abs! Early Summer 2014.
Just after we joined LA Fitness. I still love hanging leg raises for abs! Early Summer 2014.

I did more research, read more articles, talked to an acquaintance of mine (now a good friend, teammate, and mentor, Tonya!) who was also getting ready to compete and decided that I needed to see this in action.  Because I would be turning 30 soon, I wanted a goal to work towards, a challenge, something that could push me out of my comfort zone.  I loved this lifestyle and wanted to take it to the next level.  And to look AMAZING after a 12-week process, well, that would just be the icing on the cake!  Shane was totally on board, too.  We went to our first Bodybuilding competition in September of 2014, and I knew the second that I walked in and saw the tables of Quest Bars, friendly people with protein shakers in hand, supplement reps, meal preppers, sparkles, tans, and smiles, that I had found a crowd who “got” my obsession with this lifestyle.  I was surrounded by girly-girls who loved to lift too. Before I went to the show, I knew that one of two things was going to happen—either I would run towards the hills, or I would think to myself, dammit give me some stripper heels, some more muscle, and put me on that stage! As you all know, I obviously chose to get up on that stage and to rock it!

Till next time!

-Mere