My Third Fitbloggin’ Has Come and Gone

Every year, bloggers from far and wide gather for a few days of education, camaraderie, and connection at the Fitbloggin’ conference. It was my third year going, after attending in Portland and Denver. This time around, it was in Indianapolis, which meant I could finally cross “canoodling with a statue of four-term mayor William H Hudnut III” off my bucket list.

This year’s Fitbloggin’ marked the start of a new chapter for

Watch My 5-Minute Presentation on Stair Racing!

In June, I went to the Fitbloggin’ conference in Denver. I had a blast hanging out with a couple hundred other health and fitness bloggers, seeing old friends, and making new ones, too. (Here’s my recap post.)

I WAS A SPEAKER, TOO! I gave a well-received presentation during the keynote event, called Ignite Fitness.

I haven’t talked much about this yet, because I was waiting for the video to go online. THE VIDEO IS NOW ONLINE, and you can watch it RIGHT HERE!

A Tremendous Weekend at Fitbloggin’

I was in Denver this past weekend for Fitbloggin’, an annual conference for health, fitness and weight loss bloggers. I’ve only been once before, two years ago, and I was excited to go back, for a few reasons:

1. I get to see friends, meet new people, and hang out with folks that do the same thing I do.
2. I SPOKE THIS YEAR!

The keynote event at Fitbloggin’ is called Ignite Fitness, where a bunch of people

Two Awesome Farmers Market Finds

I’m racing to get a bunch of stuff done before leaving for the Fitbloggin’ conference in Denver, so this one’s short and sweet. I met up with my friends Heather and Nancy at the Hollywood Farmers Market over the weekend, and found two things that practically made me jump up and down. Two!

1) ROMANESCO BROCCOLI!

This variety of broccoli is the

Fitbloggin Part Three: Fitbloggin Friends and Portland Wildlife

I’m a little bummed that this is my last Fitbloggin recap post. I had a great time in Portland attending this conference, and I’ve been able to relive all the memories while putting together these posts. But I suppose, moving forward, I’ll have these posts to relive those memories… so it’s time well spent!

Before I dive into Fitbloggin for the last time, I’m really geeked about something else. It’s a big day for Keep It Up, David – so big that I created a graphic especially for the occasion! Break out the champagne, because this is my…

SEVEN HUNDRED POSTS of adventures, creativity, emotions, and pride. SEVEN HUNDRED POSTS of encouragement, struggles and successes. SEVEN HUNDRED POSTS of reminding myself that I’m worth it, and that I should keep it up.

Man oh man! I didn’t have any goals or expectations when I started this blog in the fall of 2010, but if I knew back then that I’d still be going strong 700 posts later, fueled and supported by an amazing group of readers, I’d be floored. Just floored. Big thanks to everyone that swings by, and keeps coming back, just to check in with what’s going on in my little corner of the world.

Let’s dive back into Fitbloggin, shall we?

Fitbloggin Part Two: Ass-Kicking Workouts…and Local Celebrities!

Ready for more stories from the Fitbloggin conference in Portland? I got lots more to share, and today, I’m going to focus on exercise, because I took a couple classes that were truly one-of-a-kind experiences. At the end of my last post, I showed pictures from a run I took around downtown Portland, and that run was the only exercise I did solo.

The morning after the run I got up at the crack of dawn for a 6am boot camp class. We met in a big room inside the hotel, and after a quick warm-up, all of us (about 40-50 people total) headed outside, and did a bulk of the workout in Pioneer Square, a big plaza across the street.

The plaza was pretty empty at 6am, so we had a ton of space. The class was led by Erin Kreitz Shirey, a trainer who writes at Dig Deep, Play Hard. Erin is a dynamo of a woman – full of energy and passion and… currently pregnant! She led us through all sorts of excruciating exercises: squats, planks, push-ups, burpees, mountain climbers, frog jumps, and a lot of running up and down stairs.

It was towards the end of the class that things got really interesting.

Fitbloggin Part One: My Stressful Race to Portland

I got home today from a wonderful three days at Fitbloggin, a conference for health, wellness, and weight loss bloggers that was held in beautiful Portland, Oregon. I learned a lot, met a ton of people, and have a lot to share, including loads of pictures, so I’m going to spread it out over multiple posts. The thought of trying to sum up the past three days in one post makes my head hurt.

The trip got off to a horrible start. The plan was to get to LAX via the Van Nuys FlyAway. It’s a shuttle bus from my part of town to the airport that saves me a ton of money in parking costs. The shuttles leave at specific times, and I get to the FlyAway station with time to spare, park my car, buy a round-trip shuttle ticket ($14), and board the shuttle a few minutes before it leaves. I just happened to be rearranging items in my carry-on bag when I noticed this:

MY DRIVER’S LICENSE IS GONE.

Back to Slimmons

My efforts to get back into shape continue. A huge motivating factor has been the Double-D Workout Challenge that I’m doing with my friend Debbie – there’s nothing like the threat of owing someone money to get me moving! The Double-D Workout Challenge is pretty simple. Basically, we each committed to 5 workouts a week. If you miss a workout, you get a strike. Three strikes, and you owe the other person money (in the form of a gift card). For more details, check out this post.

We’ve been doing the Double-D Workout Challenge since the beginning of May, and so far, I haven’t missed a workout. Except, of course,