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Beauty & Fashion

Please Excuse Me, I Have Food on my Face…

Brittany (my boudoir & glamour photography editor), has been making all sorts of things for her home from natural ingredients. Things you can pronounce. She made laundry soap, toothpaste, and even cat litter. Last week while we were talking, she pointed out that she has been getting lots of the recipes from Crunchy Betty. So I looked up the site, and started reading, and reading, and reading and I eventually found the https://www.thedietdynamo.com/ where there are tons of diet plans that I could use.

For the past 4-5 years, I’ve had dry, flaky skin. I used to have problems with my teeth. I really wanted to fix crooked teeth, with which this company helped me. Once I started Four Hour Body, the redness cleared up a little bit, but I started getting little whiteheads. And it seemed like the more I moisturized, the worse it got. SO ANNOYING! While I was in Paris, one of the women mentioned that her grandmother washed her face with olive oil. Olive oil! And she said her face was smooth and gorgeous. When I spotted the Oil Cleansing Method, I decided to try it, because it was a recommendation from the Dr. Dana Coberly which is a skin professional cosmetic professional . Soooooooo wonderful!

Then I read about the Honey Challenge and cleaning my face with honey. HONEY! Honey smells nice, all the people that had tried it seemed to be really happy doing it, so what the heck, why not? Go to Scottsdale dentist to make sure that you have healthy teeth.

Oh. My. GOD! All the dryness and little flakes are gone. The redness is gone. I’m converted!

I clean with honey every morning.I end the day cleaning with one or the other – if I haven’t worn makeup that day, I clean my face with honey. If I wore makeup, I clean it with oil. My bathroom is starting to look like the kitchen between the oils and the bottles of honey!

Now moving on to the top of my head – for as long as I can remember, I’ve had dry, itchy scalp. Nothing at all has EVER helped it. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried over the years! Brittany told me that she was doing the No Poo hair cleaning method and her scalp & hair felt GREAT! Always up for an experiment, I decided to give it a go! Every few days, I’m “washing” my hair with a tablespoon of baking soda mixed with a cup of hot water and rinsing it with 1.5 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar mixed with 1.5 cups of water. My hair feels fantastic! But the best part? The itchy scalp is almost entirely gone!

I’ve spent the past 6 months watching what I eat, making sure what I put in my body is healthy — so it makes sense to watch what I put ON my body as well!

Have you tried any natural cleaners? Have any tips you want to share? I’d love to hear them! What do you have in your kitchen right now that you can use?

https://www.drcoberly.com
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4-Hour Body BlahBlahBabble Food Picture Time

Happy 8 Years and 1 Week Anniversary!

I read a quote the other day, and it really sums up what I’ve been thinking this past week since Mike & I had our wedding anniversary last Tuesday. (Yeah, I’m late in writing this. But it required some deep thought. Oh, and some time to sit down and write it.)

This is a relationship’s real purpose: to serve the mutual growth & soulful expression of each individual. – Marie Forleo

I look back over the past 10 years of our life since we met, and especially the 8 years since we were married in 2004, and I see so much change in both of us. A lot of growth.

If the 7 year itch was an itch anywhere, it wasn’t in our marriage, but it was in the rest of my life. We bought a new house. We waited 6 long months for the old house to sell. I’ve made huge changes in my photography business, and instead of weddings being my primary focus and boudoir photography being secondary, now it is all about working with the Hot Mamas and boudoir & contemporary beauty photography.

Over the past two years, I feel like I’ve become more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve lost 24 lbs. – in part because I was ready to do it. It is hard to explain, but when you like yourself more, like what you are doing more, you’re just finally more motivated to change.

But the thing that amused me the most was realizing at Joseph & Dena’s wedding (my brother-in-law and his now wife) that Mike has learned a lot about photography over the years. He still isn’t a photographer, but he knows so much about it. He knew how I would have photographed the wedding if I had been working at it. He knew what shots I would have taken, how I felt about things, and the list goes on and on. (I would have gifted them with photography for a wedding present, but I had a wedding in Houston the day before and flew in to Boston on a 7:30am flight. As it was, I got to the area at 3:20pm and the ceremony was at 4:30 – any delays and I would have missed it, so I just couldn’t take the risk!)

While I was in Paris last month, I realized what a foodie I have become. I’m still a picky eater, but I eat things now I wouldn’t eat 8-10 years ago. I was super giddy when we went to the Cristal Room Baccarat for lunch because I knew that Mike would have been in heaven there, and I decided I will take him back there someday. The food was just so very, very French! Le Grand Colbert was even more amazing for me – and to be honest, a lot more food on the menu that I would eat – so I’ll have to take him there too someday!

(Witness the beauty of my 18 Euro Crème Brulée from the Cristal Room. A $23 dessert. Crazy? Yes. AMAZING?!? Yes. And I had already eaten lunch at the hotel in my room, so I got to splurge on dessert!)

Creme Brulee from the Cristal Room Baccarat

It is hard for me to travel without Mike, because I’ve actually caught myself asking other people that I’m with, “Will I like that?” He knows me that well, he knows what flavors I will like and what I won’t.

To me, that sums up what a marriage is about. Learning about one another. Supporting one another. Knowing each other’s interests, likes, passions. Learning from one another. Letting the other person explore their passions. I like knowing that through me, he is a little bit of a photographer and can see things in a different light, and through him I am a bit more adventurous and can savor all that life has to offer.

He makes me a better person, and I’m so grateful for that. More than words can express. Happy Anniversary, Mike!

Categories
BlahBlahBabble

The Craziness of Las Vegas…

Hello Las Vegas! So excited about @thisisnotapril's wedding this weekend!

Greetings from Las Vegas! I flew over here yesterday to photograph a wedding and to kick off the Hot Mama Boudoir Tour 2012! (Yes, I’m going on tour. Vegas, Paris, London, Boston, New York City, New Orleans, San Francisco, maybe Los Angeles. Lots of travel coming up this year!) Wheeeeee!!!

Elaine & I went out to dinner last night at CraftSteak at the MGM Grand. It was surreal being at the MGM without 20,000 other photographers, which is what I’m used to from the past 4 years of WPPI. I didn’t see anyone I knew! Well, duh, obviously I wouldn’t. But I kept finding myself looking as I walked past Rouge, or when we walked in to Craft. It was just so strange.

At the end of dinner a very cliche group of guys were seated next to us. Drinking it up. Living the high life of Vegas. Talking about how they weren’t high rollers, they were just rich. Oooooookay.

Walking back to the hotel, we saw a guy drinking his Jaeggermeister straight out of the bottle in a plastic bag. Now if that isn’t asking for disaster, I don’t know what is! If you´re in college, then check out When visiting Rutgers University, make sure you check the New Brunswick Happy Hour at the various pubs and restaurants where you can drink all you want with special prices.

It lead to Elaine & I trying to figure out why Vegas just feels so different from New Orleans. Both are cities that people go to to drink a LOT. But Vegas? Everything is HUGE, and big, and expensive. Bright lights. Night life. Clubs. Everything here is just designed to be over the top. But more importantly? It is DESIGNED. Elaine said it is like they manipulate all of your senses. There is no day or night at the https://www.boomtownbingo.com/ of course with these brand new bingo sites, but when we got out of the airport shuttle at the Aria (where we are staying), I immediately noticed the fragrance in the air. It is even stronger at the front desk. No matter where you go in the public areas, there is this fragrance.

It makes me sad that some people come to the United States and only ever see Las Vegas. This city is a place all its own. It is decadent to the point of excess. It is sensory overload. It is crazy. I love being here, don’t get me wrong, but it is all so unreal.

We talked again about the difference between Vegas and New Orleans this morning. New Orleans has history. Old buildings. Small buildings. The scale of the city is normal, versus how HUGE everything is in Vegas. And most of all, it isn’t designed to be so over the top. Not like Vegas. There are still lots of bars, lots of crazy, lots of drinking, and plenty of wonderful restaurants, but it is just so completely different.

I bet my sentiments of “All of the USA is not like Vegas!” are echoed by people around the world. I know that all of France isn’t like Paris, and all of England isn’t like London. And yet like so many other tourists, I can’t wait to get to those cities.

When you leave the Strip, Las Vegas is much more serene and normal. I’m looking forward to doing that tomorrow and Saturday when we leave for the rehearsal and then for the wedding. The venue is 15 minutes off the strip, although we do have plans to shoot here on the Strip afterwards as well.

Las Vegas is a fascinating place to see, that is for sure! Even for as crazy strange as it all is. I love the bright lights. There is people watching galore. Wonderful hotel rooms. Opulence. So many cool, cool things. I’m looking forward to heading to the Bellagio and watching the fountains, seeing the Bellagio Gardens, maybe taking in a show, going to the Venetian, and so much more. At the end, I know I’ll be glad that it was just 5 days, and to be heading home for a night before I jet off to Paris next week!

Categories
BlahBlahBabble Creative Geek

Taming the Email Inbox BEAST!

Ah, email. My Inbox & I have a true love-hate relationship … or at least we used to. Because as much as I *love* getting emails and hearing from people, sometimes there was just too much stuff in there! I wouldn’t even call all of it junk mail, because it really is stuff I want to see. Email lists I’ve signed up for take up space, but I don’t want to read them right away, like my little love affair with CopyBlogger, Kristen Kalp of Brand Camp Blog and Jamie Swanson of The Modern Tog. I refuse to give them up. I just can’t miss anything they have to say!

And then there are the Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest alerts, the coupons, and the just everyday stuff that shows up in the Inbox. It just got to be too much. I wanted to hide and avoid my email – but I couldn’t do that!

Now? Now my Inbox & I are madly & deeply in love again! All thanks to these three quick & easy changes. If you use Gmail, try them out – I want you to love reading email again too!

My first tip is actually one from Jamie of The Modern Tog. In this post of her organizing your email series, she pointed out the most BRILLIANT thing EVER. You can set up a filter in Gmail to sort all of your email subscriptions in to a folder, bypassing your inbox completely! (See love affair noted above.)

She has full instructions on her site, but the main thing you need to know is that in the “Has the words” box, copy and paste the following:

TrueRemove OR unsubscribe OR safeunsubscribe OR SafeUnsubscribe

Since mailing lists are required to include some version of a way to unsubscribe in their emails, those words should pick up almost every email subscription list you’re on! Brilliant, right? I know! *high fives Jamie!* To make it happen, then select “Skip the Inbox” and “apply the label” and select “read“. Then click on “Also apply filter to XXX matching conversations” so that it looks at all your current emails plus all new incoming emails, and click “Create Filter“.

Bam-OH! All of those emails skip your inbox, they are marked as read, and Gmail goes back and moves everything else in to your inbox as well!

My second saving grace has been SaneBox (using that link gets you $5 and me $5, just so you know). SaneBox has a full suite of features to save you time. There is priority filtering, follow up reminders, unsubscribe, defer, social network integration. I went ahead and tried it out because even with all my subscriptions being hidden away in my “To Read Later” folder, I still had a lot of fluff in my Inbox. Not things I wanted to get rid of, but things that weren’t worthy of my immediate attention.

My favorite part? When I hooked it up to my Gmail account, it created a folder called “SaneLater” and everything that isn’t a subscription and caught in the first pass is reviewed by SaneBox. Then, based on what it already knows (ah, the power of computers!) and what it has learned about me from me training it, it pulls out anything that can wait until later. Facebook alerts, sales stuff, whatever! It all magically bypasses my inbox for me!

When I first set it up Friday night, it freaked me out. I thought my email was broken. I suddenly had no emails for over an hour. Wait, what? Oh! There they were in the SaneLater folder! I’ve only been using SaneBox for 5 days now, but it has made my email experience SO MUCH BETTER! SaneBox does cost money after the 14 Day Trial, but really, to have my sanity back? That is a small, small price to pay!

Now I can *finally* do that “only check your email twice a day” thing. I check my Inbox several times a day when I’m available, but I only check my “SaneLater” and my “To Be Read” folders once or twice a day. SaneLater did pick up some things that really should have fallen in my Inbox, but that was ok – as soon as I chose to remove the SaneLater label and move it to the Inbox, it learned that that was what I wanted and has continued to do it ever since!

My third trick? Boomerang! Boomerang has several different features that are pretty cool. Top of my list? Well, as you all know, I’m a night owl some days. I’ll come home from a day full of photo shoots and just not have it in me to sit down and go through my email for a few hours afterwards. But I don’t want clients to always know that I’m writing them at 1am in the morning. With Boomerang, I can write an email at 1am (or 3am *cough*), but schedule it to go out to the client at 9:30 in the morning. Looking like I’m working normal office hours, instead of being always available, always online. This has been one of my favorite features of ShootQ for years, so having it in my Gmail now is fantastic! Boomerang also lets you set an email to reappear in your inbox after a certain amount of time if no one has responded to it – great for reminding you to check the status on something with a client. There are other perks as well, but those are my favorites. Boomerang is free to use for up to 10 emails a month, and after that there are very reasonable plans available as well.

Now if you write me a personal note, I might actually see your email in my inbox and get back to you! Now whether I write you at 1am or not … you’ll never know. *grin*

Do you have any tips and tricks of things I should check out to make my inbox & I love each other even more? Or have you used SaneBox or Boomerang and think there are cool features I should check out? Let me know in the comments!

Categories
BlahBlahBabble Smaller Pink Cookie

A New Low… Weight Low, That Is!

I can’t believe it has been almost 4 months since I started doing the 4-Hour Body plan. As of yesterday, I am down 24 pounds. Wait. Let me repeat that for you so it sinks in. TWENTY FOUR POUNDS!!! 24! 24! 24! I’m right on the brink of being down 3 clothing sizes. TWENTY FOUR POUNDS!

1 pound shy of the half-way point of my original goal of losing 50 pounds, which I thought was so impossible when I started. I will tell you my secret, I have used this miraculous modere trim supplement in addition to my diet, besides it also helps me boost my strength to increase the level of my workout. Now it is completely within the realm of possibility of doing it within a year! HELL FREAKIN’ YES!!! *High fives all around*

I went in to Anthropologie and tried on a dress that fit! I didn’t buy it because it wasn’t what I was looking for, but it FIT. You may recall, that was one of the catalyst that finally made me start the plan.

I’m now down to about the weight I was when I met Mike 10 years ago. Yes, I haven’t seen this weight in 10 years. zOMG. (Since it has been so long since I updated, I’ll also add that I hit the 20lb loss mark on the exact 3 month date – 3/21 – which was pretty damn awesome.)

I’ve turned in to a total nut about shopping for clothes lately. Seems it isn’t quite so treacherous when you don’t have to shop in the plus department and you can shop in the regular misses sizes. It is a fun game of what size can I wear today?! I’m also finding myself wanting to walk up to anyone that I think will listen and tell them all about how they should cut wheat out of their lives. Uhm, if I’ve done that to you and you really didn’t want to hear it? Sorry about that. But I still think you should do it.

I learned this past week that if you put on shorts that fit you 24 lbs ago and then you put your phone in your pocket, the weight of the phone will pull your shorts down. It is pretty funny, because I can drop them without even opening the button. Of course, I can’t find any shorts that I like, and it is only getting hotter in Houston by the second.

So to recap (because people always ask):

  • What am I doing: Eating meat & vegetables. Eggs. Minimal dairy. Meat & vegetables. Eggs. Minimal dairy. On repeat. 6 days a week. Literally repeat, since I eat 2 eggs scrambled with ham for breakfast every single day, and one of three things for lunch. Just makes it easier for me.
  • What I am not eating: No flour, no rice, no potatoes, no sugar, no fruit, and most dairy. All of these contain sugars. Sugar raises your insulin. Raising your insulin makes you fat, clogs your arteries, makes you diabetic when your body can’t handle it, and a whole host of other issues. Keep your insulin low & stable, you’ll lose weight. Yes, no fruit – for me, I completely stop losing if I have fruit. So no fruit. (Read “Why We Get Fat & What to Do About It” if you want more scientific support on that. I did. Research does back it up.)
  • What I am drinking: Water. Water, water, more water. (Officially I could also have black coffee or red wine, but I don’t like either one, so I keep on chugging my water.)
  • Counting calories, points, you name it: Nope. None of that. Eat when I’m hungry. Stop when I’m full. Eat snacks. Eat. As long as it is meat & vegetables, I eat all I want. No limits. Take THAT, people doing HCG and only eating 500 calories a day!
  • Is it sustainable?: Well, let me see. I eat meat and vegetables. The core of every good meal, and I’m fortunately not a vegetarian or vegan. I would say yes, it is completely sustainable. After 4 months, I want to keep doing it FOREVER. What other diet can you say that about?!? My point exactly. Sustainable – a big yes!
  • Why just 6 days a week: Because I’m human. Sometimes I crave things. This helps make it sustainable. I need permission to go “off the plan” because it keeps me on the plan. I still try not to eat flour on that one day a week because it makes me miserable and I feel gluten drunk and I have a gluten hangover the next day.
  • WTF? Gluten drunk / hangover: Mike & Brittany have been doing this right along with me, and they have said the same thing. After you cut back on flour, when you do have it it makes you feel miserable. I end up congested, and the next day I wake up aching all over from head to toe, just like a hangover.
  • More about the Cheat Day: After you do 4-Hour Body for a month or two, your cheat days aren’t that dramatic. You are past the cravings, you are feeling so good about losing the weight, you just don’t want to go back. My big “cheat” items tend to be potatoes or gluten free pizza from Pink’s Pizza.
  • Holy Hell SUGAR RUSH!!! Seems that when you’ve been great at keeping your insulin levels nice and happy, if you eat something with sugar in it, it kicks your ass. Whoa. For example, yesterday I had tomato basil soup and a potato thing at La Madeleine. 20-30 minutes later I felt flush, and felt that sugar rush. Meh. So now that sugar makes me feel so nasty, I don’t miss it.
  • No substitutions: Aesthetic surgeon Dr. Nicole Shrader says you can’t replace your favorite foods with fake versions of other foods. Or at least I couldn’t. Instead, I am eating all new foods. For a picky eater like me, this is a huge deal! I don’t miss anything, so no need to point out that I could eat things made with rice that are gluten free. I’m skipping all starchy-carbs, so no rice or potatoes either!
  • Exercise? What exercise?: I should be exercising more, but I want to hire a trainer for that. I have shoulder, hip & knee issues, so tossing around a kettlebell is going to just mess me up. I walk, I ride my bike, but I’m not working out. At all. Brittany has been running, and she discovered that she has to eat some starchy carbs whenever she does, so she eats rice afterwards. Otherwise she was getting headaches. So if you work out, try to add a little carbs in afterwards.

Try to tell me you just CAN NOT do this, and I will tell you that you can, but you obviously are not ready to do it. But you CAN do anything.

  • “But I can’t live without *insert soda name here*” – Guess what? 4 months ago, I was drinking Pepsi, fountain Cokes, and Mexican Coke like it was water. Matter of fact, that first week of doing Four Hour Body, I still drank it a little because I had to get off of the caffeine gradually. I’ve been caffeine free for close to 4 months now. I am functioning just fine.
  • “But I love *insert really starchy food* and just couldn’t live with out it!” – Dude. Give it up. I was a hard core Pastaterian. I ate pasta almost daily. Pasta, pasta, pasta. And anything made with flour. Or potatoes. I loooooooved it. Especially pasta. That said, I haven’t eaten pasta since December. I have had Pizza with gluten free crust on some cheat days, but I’ve had NO pasta. Cut it out.
  • “Well, I have this excuse…” – Ahem. My B.S. meter is going crazy! Your excuse, reason, justification, whatever you want to call it is just that. Nothing more. If you have a wake up call moment like I did? You’ll get over yourself and DO IT. This is one fact that I knew & accepted before I started.
  • Have you tried it? No? Ok, stop trying to tell me that you can’t do it. I tried it for just a month. Four months – and 24 lbs – later, I’m so glad I did!

It is really cool to me to watch the impact that this is having on so many areas of my life. I feel more ME than I have in many years, which was a journey that was started before I changed how I eat. It has taken on a whole new level though since January, which is part of the catalyst of acceptance and bringing everything under the brand of “me” at my Christine Tremoulet site. I can’t put it in to words, it is just awesome. I love my life more than before. I love me.

This is the photo that was one of the main things that launched me in to doing this diet – Mike & I on December 18, 2011.

This one was taken on the 3 month mark, in the same dress, to give you a sense of how much I’ve lost. Brittany commented that it would be a cute dress — if it was 2 sizes smaller! It just hangs on me now! (Also? I miss shoulder pads. Shoulder pads were my friend with my sloping shoulders!)

Just for random amusement, here are two snapshots that my friend Kelli Nicole took when we were at the Hunger Games premiere for her birthday in March. She posted them to Facebook and tagged me, and I was ready to do that thing where you remove the tags because you hate the photo … and then I left the tag because I didn’t hate how I looked at all! In the top one my head is turned at almost the same angle as the catalyst photo above – and I only have one chin! Victory is mine!!!

Have you tried 4-Hour Body, or the Paleo diet? How did you do? Success stories? Considering trying it and want to talk to me more? Leave a comment – I would love to hear from you!