Keri Lynn Ford

I have had such an incredible week! This past weekend I rocked the P28 Protein Bread Booth at the Natural Products Expo West with "Billy the Breadman" and Chris C., one of the three brothers that owns New York Bakery. I felt right at home with my fellow east coasters and we definitely had a lot of laughs. It was also really fun to see my friends when they came by the booth to visit me. By Sunday, I was loopy with exhaustion I had a raspy voice to show for it. After enjoying some extra sleep on Monday morning, I didn't have time to be tired and I had to immediately switch gears in preparation for my shoot with Noel Daganta this week at 6 Degree Fitness.

Chris making his 38,406,048,238 peanut butter sandwich of the weekend.Noel was refreshing to shoot with and he explained that certain poses translates best into print. He is as talented, as he is friendly, and I felt very comfortable shooting with him. After the 5-hour shoot, I indulged in some Chardonnay followed by a fabulous dinner of red potatoes, grilled burger patties and an array of sauteed veggies. I was a happy girl! Although I haven't had any cheat meals scheduled into my diet, these mini mental breaks always rejuvenate me. It makes me even more excited to jump back on plan and get back to the gym.

Today I hit the gym with all new workouts... although I will sheepishly admit that I am sore from yesterday's shoot of holding poses and squeezing muscles. The first part of today's workout included a lot of compound movements using kettlebells followed by weighted abs and a series of twenty 30 second sprints. My sprint tally cheat sheet.I finished my sprints in 18:36 with minimal rest between each sprint at a 9.0 speed. I challenge you to try it out and beat my time! It's hard to do that many sprints with such little recovery time, and I had to make sure I tallied each sprint so I wouldn't lose track of how many I had left. Most likely Monday I will be starting a new diet as well and you all know that I'm hoping it includes oatmeal!

Thank you to the team of people that help make it all happen, including 6 Degree Fitness for closing the gym and providing an awesome location for our shoot.

xoxo
K

Happy Wednesday! This week has been great. My food is on point, my workouts are on point and I am SO SORE still from Monday's workout. Holy legs! I am loving some of the new boxing workout moves in my exercises too. I can also tell you that today was an extra fabulous day because... it was an oatmeal day!

What doesn't belong here? Hmmm

One week from today I will be shooting with fitness photographer Noel Daganta on some upcoming (secret) projects. I can't spill the beans yet, but I am really excited! Noel is not only talented, but an incredibly nice guy that I have a lot of business respect for. My diet and workouts will stay the same up until the shoot.

Also, this Friday through Sunday I will be at the P28 Bread booth at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA. While I LOVE LOVE LOVE this show, I know I will need to be well-prepared because there will be easy-to-grab samples EVERYWHERE. This specific expo is amazing because of the sheer volume of booths and industry folk, including retail buyers, distributors, gym/nutrition store/restaurant owners, dietitians and other food connoisseurs. The crowd that this expo usually draws is incredibly knowledgeable from the way the food is packaged to the ingredients on the label.

Stay tuned for more updates and pictures from the Expo West!

Read my latest feature as FitnessX Magazine's March 2012 Model of the Month! Photos by: Eva Simon and PictureGroove

Thank you, FitnessX Magazine for the feature!

xoxo
Keri

Back in February of this year, I was presented with the opportunity to work a booth at The Arnold. At the time, I was working a full-time design job and I was crushed I wouldn't be able to take the time off to fly out to Ohio.

My expo badge!

Later that month, I was given an awesome opportunity to work a local organic agave nectar booth, called Orgave, at The Natural Products Expo West (and I only needed to play hookie for one day from work). The Natural Products Expo West is an annual, three-day expo of the world’s largest natural, organic + healthy products with over 3000 exhibits and nearly 56,000 industry members in attendance. Being the Promotional Model for the Orgave booth included doing product demos, answering questions, conducting radio interviews and networking with possible buyers or retailers. I was so thrilled to be working the expo that I didn't even take a lunch break. Instead, I went around to booths tasting samples and chatting with the people working the booths. I specifically approached booths that interested me or that could be a potential contact for Orgave for use in their products.

The first day I was drawn to one booth in particular: an organic egg white protein powder booth called Gifted Earth Originals (anything with the word protein and I am there!) It was here I met Mark Bruland, Brand Manager of GEO. After striking up a conversation about my fitness background, goals and career, I also told Mark that I was working the Orgave booth at the expo. I asked if they had considered sweetening their product with our Orgave instead of Stevia. He asked if I was sponsored. At the time, I was excited to network, but I never expected that my sales pitch on behalf of another company would grant me a sponsorship opportunity.

mmm. My favorite flavor, Divine Chocolate GEO.

Later that weekend, Mark brought the President of GEO (and Eggology I might add) along with the President's daughter, Genevieve, dressed in a chicken suit (the poor thing!) to come and meet me at my booth. I made sure to follow up with Mark immediately after the expo. A few months later I drove up to Eggology headquarters and before I knew it we were signing a contract for me to be the very first Official GEO Sponsored Athlete and Spokesmodel!!!!

Get ready because this next year is going to be an EGGciting whirlwind of sponsored fitness competitions, GEO media interviews, product photo shoots, national online and print coverage and featured Keri Lynn Ford recipes made with GEO on their blog! I could not be more thrilled and blessed to be representing such an amazing company, and the good-hearted people behind it.

Thank you, GEO, for believing in me enough to be the face and future of your products and company, we have so many great things ahead of us!

Genevieve and I at the Natural Products Expo West