The Journey to the Stage is OVER....

The Journey to the Stage is OVER....

But it truly was the best journey yet. I approached this journey knowing that it was not going to be easy. All offseason I struggled to lose and maintain weight. My slow thyroid and slow metabolism always makes this a battle. I either have to give up eating or enjoying ANYTHING not on my diet plan or starve myself for the day to eat a treat. It's nuts! So I knew a lot of cardio was in my future and that it would take low calories and hurting to get me where I wanted to be...shredded!

Mentally I spent the offseason taking Dahn Yoga, finding my true self, building my self esteem and realizing that it is okay to be ME! I learned strategies to deal with stress, anxiety and the negative voices that try to talk to me. I took hip hop dance class for two session and worked on my stage performance. Hired a posing coach, had my dance teacher work on my routine with me and sat back and watched all the pieces fall into place. I didn't complain once or make the people around me miserable. I get very neurotic about dieting and am a perfectionist in everything I do. I am often my own worst enemy. I often drive others nuts in the process of contest prep. I question everything cause I want to learn and drive people nuts with my "Do you think my glutes will come in?" kinda questions. I need to know I am on point every week.

Here are a few things I HAVE to remember for next year:
1. Take out stock in Gas X-The chewable kind will seem like crack at 4 weeks out...really!
2. Go to Cosco and buy as much toliet paper as possible! As you diet not only do you pee every 15 minutes but your bathroom habits change frequently day by day.
3. Buy baby wipes! See #2-they are a lot nicer on your tooshy when you get lean!
4. Have someone hold you accountable for your weekly cheat meal-I didn't go overboard this year and it seemed to work!
5. Icksnay on the PAM....it does have fats and calories and they do add up. It is not spray butter and if you eat to much you get nasty acid reflux....
6. Super Dieter's Tea is your friend! Get some!
7. Buy a case of liquid Stevia...if you go to the store to often you get questioned by the cashier's! They will think you are drinking the stuff!
8. Try NOT to chew gum and drink diet pop...it WILL bloat your stomach and make you feel full, but it will also make your stomach distend and make your weight go up!
9. It's okay to create "ME" time and shut your phone off....
10. NAP...it will keep you alive!
**11. Only give yourself a FEW days to eat whatever you want after the show...a week is TO long! UGH!

So I had a great contest prep...and a great week of eating. Now it's back to dieting and creating my NEW and IMPROVED physique for next year! Bringing it.......going to be unstopable!

Into the warped mind of Dr. Auerbach…..

Into the warped mind of Dr. Auerbach…..


So everyone is always probing me for answers to what is in my head. Some people, depending on my relationship with them I answer and some I don’t. It really all depends on trust. I have different levels of trust with different people. Some I tell more to, some I tell less, some I tell the bare bones to…..


My best friends and family are who I tell it ALL to. Even things they don’t necessarily want to know! My friends, I tell at little more to, enough details to allow them to know what is happening in my life without knowing TO much. My acquaintances I tell the bare bones of my life to. BUT here I will tell you all the answers to the 5 most asked questions about me…….


1. What is next for you? Bodybuilding? Physique?
Does anyone TRULY know what is next for them in their lives? NO! So I take all this with a grain of salt. I will compete in bodybuilding for as long as it survives and then it may be time for me to start looking at having kids, getting married and living a “normal” life.


2. What do you do for a living? I am a first grade/special education teacher. I teach all day, train all night. It’s emotionally and mentally draining daily. Then I go to the gym and get drained physically. SO by days end I am ready to pass out!


3. What religion are you?

Religion doesn’t define me in anyway. I am spiritual but not religious.


4. What do you like to do? I love music, movies, shopping at MAC, Guess and Victoria Secret, playing the guitar and training at the gym


5. Will you ever go back to your “rockstar” lifestyle? NO, I am over that lifestyle. I have matured and don’t find a need for it in my life anymore. I will however continue to play guitar and play in the band on occasion for the fun of it.

I am an open book, black and white, full disclosure kinda girl. Anything you ever want to know about me….ASK….I have nothing to hide!!

Where you been?

I didn't disappear, just have had a lot of great things going on in my life. As many of you know I have been dieting with Palumbo since I began on this bodybuilding journey. He has raised me into this spiritual, confident, knowledgeable force not to be reckoned with. Along the way he has shown me that I was not working up to my full potential OR giving myself enough credit for what I was capable of. So, you can imagine how honored I was when he asked me to be the Editor in Chief of RX Girl. It was like the culmination of all I have worked hard for. Now I have the ability to promote women in the industry that probably would not get attention otherwise. I have met SO many wonderful girls and it has put my mind at ease that all women are not created equal and that not all the girls in this industry are the same. So, I have also been traveling quite a lot covering some of the local level shows for RX as well as training for Powerlifting and Bodybuilding and teaching. Busy! Busy!

With the end of the school year rapidly approaching it is stressful to go to work. Lots of changes, gossip, rumors and end of the year paperwork. Not to mention having to pack up an entire classroom. So I am hoping the next month goes FAST!! I am also hoping the kiddos I get next year are a little less challenging!

Another year.......But a WHOLE new me!

Most people on their birthdays reflect back on the years of their life and what they wish they could of, would of or have not achieved. In the past I was one of these people, but through my studying of the Tao and Dahn Yoga I have learned that the power of the mind is far greater than that of the soul, heart or body. With the wings I am given I choose to "be alive" each day. Not just to wake up and breathe and go about what I do each day, but to really enjoy all I am given in my everyday and the everyday blessings I have. I told my students on Friday, after they celebrated my birthday with me that each one of them is a HUGE part of my life and without their love and support I wouldn't be me. See, through the story, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today" I have taught my students that we each have an invisible bucket filled with our emotions. We can choose each day to be a "bucket filler" or a "bucket dipper". This has made them think about their actions and how they talk and act with their peers. I have chosen to live my own life being a bucket filler to everyone who touches my heart, including the 25 eyes that stare at me each day and depend on me. I am not out to promote me, or show the world who I am, or what I can or have accomplished. I find my happiness in the hearts and smiles of the people I love. So today, on my birthday, I don't look back, I look ahead at all the days I have to be alive, to smile, to touch the lives of others, to gain through experience the lessons that tickle my heart songs and make my days on this earth the best they can be.

Ilchi Lee.....Dahn Yoga Sensation

When Times Get Tough, Reach for Your Dream

Birth of a Dream

Your worth comes from your sense of self-respect.
A real dream comes from within that value.
There’s something about dreams.
Dreams don’t always come from ideal situations.

In times of greatest adversity and most desperate need,
when you are going through the most difficult struggle—that’s when you need a dream.
People who have a dream overcome the hardship
and find greatness in themselves.

Many of the great people in human history
cherished a dream in the midst of suffering
and achieved a great vision.

People who have a dream
like people who have dreams.
When people with a dream meet each other
they create a new history and encounter miracles.

Dreams, if not cared for, vanish like the clouds.
We must become people who always speak of dreams,
so that we can open our eyes each morning
full of anticipation and excitement, with hopes and dreams.

Let’s talk about dreams.
They’re the key to overcoming any obstacle or hardship.
Let’s talk about dreams.

Ilchi Lee

AH HA Moment............

Ever have an AH HA moment? One where you realize what you have been doing wrong, how you have gone about something totally wrong or one in which you discover something about yourself? I have had many of these recently and wanted this blog to be about just that. I had the opportunity to guest pose for the first time. In the past I have never had anxiety, gotten nervous or even thought twice about being in front of an audience. I mean, I present at conferences all over the US, played in a cover band, teach in front of my peers and students daily without thinking twice. So why when I got up on stage was I SO darn nervous? I took hip hop dance all offseason and never feared performing. Well as I walked off the stage at the Egyptian Theatre, where I began bodybuilding 11 years ago, I realized the answer to this question. It wasn’t due to lack of preparation or not having a high self esteem. It really came down to one thing…..it does not come naturally to me. I can’t under the pressure on stage perform with the grace and flow I want to cause unless I can do it in my sleep it won’t happen. So now I know…the diet, the cardio the training, I do this year round, it is natural to me, but dancing and posing it not. So this year I will focus ALL my attention on just that. With my dance teacher working with me weekly, I will perform like I NEVER have before. Watch out…..here I come!!!!!!!!

Now, in the past I have shared my contest prep, my progress, my where abouts and my business with others. I have learned that really, no one needs to know anything except my trainer and diet coach. NO ONE. I don’t need others to toot my horn and tell me how good I look, how awesome my workouts are, how much size I put on or what they know I want to hear. I am confident enough in myself to do this on my own. I have a supportive trainer and diet coach in my corner to answer my questions and get me through the rough patches. Better than that I have ME. I am independent, confident and a great person, who has all the skills it takes internally to be my best. Its time to stop listening, close my eyes and start reflecting internally.

A Reminder to Stay Alive.....

After losing my dad is 2006, I woke up and finally started to live and create my life, instead of letting life create and mold me. My dad called me the unstoppable one and always told me when I hit a brick wall to find a way around it, thru it or over it. I was very close to my dad and it took my 5 years to cry and come to terms with losing him. After I did I felt free and after spending the last 6 months finding my true self and weeding my garden called life I thought I was in a pretty good spot. Until last week.

When I got my mom to the emergency room at 3am they immediately knew what was wrong. She had a hernia. Her bowel was popped out of it too. When she then went in for surgery, they found 3! At an elderly age healing from this is not easy. Especially when everything that COULD go wrong DOES! With a host of other health problems I sat and slept in the chair at her bedside listening to her in pain, wishing I could take it away and wondering how she was going to make it thru this at her age. I slept at the hospital for days as I watched my mom drugged up on pain killers having no clue what they were shooting her with or giving her to take. As the days went on it became apparent that their was NO WAY she was going to be able to take care of herself for a LONG TIME after leaving the hospital. So I began my adventure on finding a full time caregiver, figuring out how I was going to afford it since medicare doesn't pay for it and wondering why she couldn't just have one hernia and no complications. Then it hit me.............

This is g-d's reminder to me to stay alive....stay in the moment, live for today and tomorrow and have no regrets. This is a message sent to me from my dad to remind me that I am unstoppable, that I have the tools it takes to accomplish anything I set my mind to. Most people look at bad situations like this as bad, negative,etc..I decided to look at it positively. All those endless, sleepless nights in the hospital gave me a chance to have many heart to heart conversations with my mom, to spend time reminding her of how wonderful our family was, all we had to live for and how this surgery will only make her a stronger person. She shared with me all the things that she loves about me, how even though I run a hectic busy schedule and am a workaholic I always find time for her. She told me that I turned out the way she raised me to be and how even though I get hurt my self centered people and bitches she is glad I am not one.

It's funny how the scare of almost losing my mom turned into the greatest bonding moment.................So remember to stay alive....don't let life create and mold you, YOU create and mold your life!