You know the feeling you have when you get back to the office after a vacation – you have a bazillion things on your to-do list, over 300 emails to sift through and planning meetings all day? Yup, that’s been my week! Needless to say I’ve been coming home exhausted and have had little to no energy to cook, blog or do wedding related things. This is the reason I should have blogged about FitBloggin’ while I was there… I’ll need to remind myself of this feeling at my next blogging conference.
So yes this is a little late, but better late than never, right? Just in case you haven’t heard, FitBloggin’ was awesome. This was my third year attending and I’m always impressed with how great of a job Roni does at organizing the conference – she’s a rockstar. Instead of tradition recap I think I’ll stick with sharing the top 5 things I learned while attending FitBloggin’.
1.) Conferences are all about the people!
Dinner at Brio. From left to right: Laughing Cow reps Allison, and Brittney on the left (Brittney tweets for TLC), Sarah, me, Julie, Monica, Tina and Lindsay. Photo from Sarah.
I always take away a few tidbits of information from the conference sessions but conferences are truly about connecting with old friends, meeting new friends and building relationships. It’s the perfect chance to turn internet friends into real life friends. I already knew this one, but FitBloggin’ reinforced it!
I met with so many awesome people at this year’s conference.
Case in point – Brittany of Barr and Table. She and I connected via twitter months ago and finally got to meet in person at FitBloggin’. It was a grand day!
I also got to meet Gina of Skinny Taste. I’ve been reading her blog (and drooling over her recipes) for ages so it was really fun to meet her in person. As expected, she’s a sweetheart!
2.) Conferences with workouts are the best!
Most normal conferences don’t have workouts built into the schedule, alas every morning at FitBloggin’ there was at least one or two workouts to get our hearts pumping. I didn’t get to attend all of them but I think my favorite was probably the Friday morning workout with Cathe Friedrich. We used our body weight, one regular resistance band, one continuous resistance band and two sliding discs to do a bunch of cardio and strength training moves. I was super sweaty by the end of it!
3.) I might actually like CrossFit.
I haven’t really talked about my experience with CrossFit on the blog yet. In a nut shell, after attending a half dozen intro sessions a local gym, I decided it wasn’t my cup of tea. When I heard the Reebok team was leading a CrossFit workout on Friday morning at FitBloggin’ I decided I would give it another try.
We did two amraps (as many reps as possible) of air squats, sit-ups and burps with a partner. Each exercise was done for one minute and then we had a rest period of one minute while we cheered on our partner for a minute. You would think that a six minute workout would be a piece of cake, but it was actually quite awesome!
Sarah (my roomie for the weekend) and I glistening after the CrossFit workout.
So as it turns out, I actually do like CrossFit style workouts… ones that use body weight and focus on pushing my limits. I think it’s the heavy/Olympic lifting that I don’t like – I just don’t have a desire to lift things heavier than me over my head. Sure I want to be strong, but I personally think there are better methods out there FOR ME to build strength.
Truth.
4.) Laughing Cow Cinnamon Cream Cheese is amazing.
I’m not a big cream cheese person, but after hearing rave reviews about the cinnamon, I had to try Laughing Cow’s cream cheese. I’m glad I did, because it’s really good. I can’t wait to buy some and spread it on cinnamon raisin bread or stir it into oatmeal. OMG.
5.) Bloggers know how to have a good time!
I think that often times people think that fitness/healthy living bloggers always eat 100% healthy and never let loose and indulge. From my personal experience, I know that’s not the case – I’m all about balance and I love to indulge in good food!
For instance, on Friday night of the conference, Lauren planned an awesome dinner for a large group of a bloggers at Pazo, a Mediterranean restaurant nearby our hotel.
We snacked on a few appetizers and sipped champagne while waiting for the group to arrive and then ordered a bunch of tapas for everyone to share. I think my favorite thing of the whole night was the little sunflower seed crackers they bring to all the tables as a starter – they were crunchy and nutty with a sweet flavor. They actually have the recipe posted on their website so I’m pretty sure I need to make them soon! My favorites of the tapas that we ordered were the zucchini cakes, scallops and the spicy eggplant salad.
The food was lovely but the company was even better.
From left to right: Me, Julie, Tina, Monica, Sarah, Lauren, Lindsay, Sarah and Karen. Photo from Tina.
Saturday night was a little more casual as a group of us headed to Blue Agave in Federal Hill for skinny margaritas.
Sadly I don’t have a picture of the whole group, but it was a blast getting to check out another local spot – thanks to the local BMORE girls for taking us to a happening place. Oh, and if you ever check out Blue Agave, definitely try the sweet and spicy margaritas – they’re amazing!
So there you have it – my FitBloggin’ in a nut shell. I realize I didn’t go over the content of the sessions, but if you’re interested in learning about what was covered, check out the FitBloggin’ site for Live Blog recaps!
The post 5 Things I Learned at FitBloggin’ appeared first on Eating Bird Food.