Bridal Photography, Boudoir and Glamour all in one!

Marissa and I in Montana, living it up!

 I had the pleasure of photographing a dear friend of mine, Marissa, this past week. She was one of my first clients when I had first started my business over 5 years ago! I meet Marissa while in Montana. She was a neighbor of mine and just happened to be from Illinois too! We just hit it off! Marissa is a kind soul, very artistic and outgoing. I was floored when she asked me if I'd do her wedding, I was honored!

Marissa and Steve's wedding was a blast! There was a hint of a beetles theme running throughout!

To see more Uselton sneak peeks visit us here

 A few months have now passed since their wedding day. Marissa decided to take the drive down from Bloomington to visit and to do her Bridal Boudoir shoot. 

You can do a bridal boudoir shoot before or after you're married. Some women like to give them to their soon to be grooms on their wedding days as gifts (and then wear the matching lingerie later  ;)  )

Marissa Au natural and all Vixen-ed up

Some like to do like Marissa is, and get them a bit after they are married as a gift. Either way, your man will swoon!

 

Marissa also was able to participate in a "Vamp the dress" session. This session is the opposite of "trash the dress". She brought in her dress and we added a few touches to vamp it up. 

 Sadly, Marissa was only able to visit me for 3 days, but we had a great time! I know she'll be back, both to visit her old Montana friend and to capture even more of lifes moments. I cant wait for the day to do her maternity session and her newborn babys photos! :)

 To schedule your bridal boudoir or glamour shoot, or vamp the dress email me at info@sexytransformations.com

2 Big reasons why you feel bad about yourself and how to fix it.

The 2 big reasons you feel bad about yourself and how to fix it.

This will not apply to everyone, but 10 to 1 you will find some of you in this article. 

1. You bad talk yourself. 

You know what I'm talking about, you step in front of the mirror and immediately go at yourself.  "Oh, look at my tummy its so big and gross!", "I have stretchmarks on my thighs, my arms are so flabby", etc etc etc

Fix.

STOP. When you find that you start putting yourself down, STOP! Then Reverse, reverse! Say it out loud to yourself. Seriously! Say what you do love. For instance, ... "I love my legs", then say something about them not related to appearance, because really, that's not all there is too you. "I love my long legs because  I can run fast with them!"  "My stretchmarks are from my daughter/son and reminds me of how much my body took care of them for 9 months" Whatever it is, make it a positive! Want to know mine? I have extra skin on my Tummy from my weight loss. It may or may not go away. At first I hated it, but now I remind myself that the extra skin I see is because my body is doing what I asked it to do. Be more healthy, have a smaller waist measurement etc. I see that extra skin as a victory!

  

2. You bad talk others.

OMFG. Fucking stop it. Seriously. I'm so sick of girls bad talking other people. Online, in public, to their friends, to strangers... No wonder you feel like people are talking about YOU. Because you do, don't you? I mean after all, that's what makes us self conscious. The thought of other people judging us. Right? How many times did you think. Oh, I shouldn't wear this, people might... *insert worried thought about people judging you here*. You are doing something called self projecting. You are putting your insecurities out there, and thinking that people feel that way about you, when in reality, they're probably too worried about themselves to even notice you.
Fix.
Stop being a troll. Its pretty easy. If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, then do us all a favor and shut up. Instead of looking at people and saying "OMG, she should NOT be wearing that" or whatever random snarky opinion you think of, look at them and COMPLIMENT THEM. "Wow, She looks great in that outfit, I want her confidence!" Then all of a sudden you realize that hey, maybe people are saying NICE things about me. Are they? You'll probably never know. If we got everyone in the world to be aware that everyone has feelings and saying rude shit is hurtful, its be a much nicer place, but the reality is there will always be some asshole that is going to say or do something that's not nice. The way YOU can control that is to have it in YOUR head that instead of people talking poorly about you, that they are actually taking you up, and all of a sudden you will walk with more confidence and feel much better about yourself, and in turn, people will see you as a confidant person, and confidence if fucking sexy. You know whats not sexy? Girls that dog other girls looks, morals or whatever it might be. Its GROSS and IMMATURE. If you find yourself doing it stop and think to yourself "Why do I find it necessary to say that?" More than likely you will come back with the answer that goes back to "self projection", in other words, you are calling out flaws that you find in yourself that bother you. Think about that...

Here's a nice little article (written by a brilliant person) that I LOVE too. take the time to read it

Why I dont hate "skinny" women 

and a final thought

 Stop basing your worth as a person on your appearance.

There is much more to you than looks and besides, you are the sexiest you out there and they're are reasons why others will never be as awesome as YOU. Write down your positive qualities, both physical and non physical. I bet you come up with more than you think! Have you're friends help too! Ask them what they like about you. You might just be surprised! Keep them and read them often. :)

Quick healthy eats. Jump start your weight loss with these food staples!

Just a quick mid-week post!

People ask me all the time what my favorite things to eat are. Well let me tell you that I'm a VOLUME eater. Meaning, I like to eat A LOT. So I need something that fits into keeping me full and things that I can snack on all day long. Here's some of my favorites!

Breakfast!!
I LOVE http://www.betteroats.com/ They are yummy. They even have a raw version. you get a box of packets for around 1.25 at Deirburgs.

Ever heard of PB2? They have regular AND chocolate. OMG. What is it? Its basically de-fatted peanut butter thats in powder form. You can add water to it to make really yummy peanut butter OR you can add it to shakes or other things to up your protein intake! For a serving its 2 TBS for 45 calories and 1.5 grams of fat and 5 grams of protein. I'm not saying give up peanut butter all together (because its a GOOD fat), but this helps on days when you want to cut out some calories. 

I put mine in my oatmeal  with bananas!

Another good use for PB2 is making a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I use sara lee's mulitgrain bread (only 45 calories a slice!) This is my GO TO after a nice run. Its filling and delish!














So snacks????

Ok I LIVE on raw veggies. And yes, I "dress them up with ranch. But I use light ranch AND I measure it out and dip my veggies into it. Helps with portion control, I usually have ranch left and I eat a LOT of veggies. The one big thing I suggest is to make sure you pre cut all your veggies OR you wont eat them. Really. When we're wanting to snack we want something fast and easy. Convenience people! So how can you make eating veggies convenient? PRE MAKING THEM!.

Now its easy to eat them on the go and you're pretty much only getting calories from your dressing (so stick to a serving size of ranch) Looks good huh??

Another fun food is Kale. I will like a recipe here  and yes its very much like chips except its GOOD for you!!!










Remember, volume VS calories. A good book to read is "Eat this, not that" http://www.eatthisnotthatbook.com/uof/eatthisnotthatbook/2012ps/?keycode=184762


Much much much more to come. Next time I'll tackle dinner under 400 calories. YUM.

How loving myself helped me to lose 125LBS

So how'd I go from the person on the left to the person on the right? Well, I can tell you it wasnt no damn diet, no magic weight loss pills or silly cleansing system. In fact, I'll tell you exactly how I did it. The good, the bad and the ugly. But first, lets start at the beginning...








I've always been a big girl. I remember when I was a kid (before department stores had plus size departments) I had to shop in the adult section. My mother was always worried that I was too big for my age, even though I was happy and very active.

So, that's how I grew up. I knew I wasn't skinny, but I really didnt care. It seemed like other people cared more than I did, especially family. I cannot even tell you how many times I've heard, "But you have such a pretty face!!" I know that's not meant as an insult, but really, that's exactly what it is. I went from a confidant and active kid, to this shell of a person that felt like they were never good enough for anyone. See, that's the thing. You hear things enough, you start to believe them....

 Fast forward to my late teens....

Guess what? I was still overweight.... Who'd seen that one coming? All of the diets that my mother had put me on, or I had put myself on, didn't work. I even had a doctor prescribe pills to lose weight and they worked! Until I stopped taking them of course.

I became frustrated and stopped caring about what I ate. Why did it matter anyways? I couldn't stick to diets and they never really helped me anyways. Anything I lost initially, I'd gain right back. And besides, I fucking love cookies!

  I was afraid that someone might call me a name or make fun of me. I mean, so afraid that I avoided situations, like eating lunch at school or avoiding shopping because people might think that I was too fat to shop there. This thought process is something I developed when I as a kid and it just never seemed to go away. I felt ugly, inferior, somehow less worthy because I wasn't thin.

Most of my early adult years I spent hiding behind other people and never going outside of my comfort zone. I stayed like this for years, until one day I heard this phrase (I cannot tell you how or where, I heard it). "Fake it til you make it". 

Those six little words inspired me. I was anything but a confidant person. I was shy, scarred and afraid to let people get to know me.

But I could fake it.

So by my mid 20s that's exactly what I did. I put myself into situations that scared me before, like shopping and eating in public. After a while, they stopped being scary. I couldn't believe how quickly I started to feel "normal". But my weight was always in the back of my mind. 

Most of my friends will tell you that I was a confidant outgoing person, but really, I was just faking it. 

Still, forcing myself to do things that were new and made me uncomfortable led to some of the best experiences of my life. 

My first Pool team!

I'm never afraid to make an ass out of myself at Karaoke!

and I joined a Roller Derby team~

I was just having so much fun, being this super confidant crazy person that I almost fooled myself...

By the time I was 28 years old. I had gotten up to my heaviest weight at that time (245 ish) and I acted like it did not bother me. I wore sexy clothes, I didn't take shit from anyone, and I had a style all my own. Hell, I even drew attention to myself. I got attention from guys, I had great friends and I was really happy. 

But just underneath that facade, was a person spiraling out of control. 

I was eating whatever I wanted, Drinking every night in excess and smoking like a chimney. 

It wasn't until much later that I discovered that this behavior was how I dealt with that inner demon from my childhood that was still lingering around all these years later. 

My heaviest weight was April 2011 (pictured here). I cannot tell you exactly how much I weighed, as I stopped weighing myself at 300LBS. What I can tell you is that I was unhappy with my looks and how I felt. And so was my body. I was now wearing 22/24 clothing, out of breath from walking up a small flight of stairs and, well, just miserable. Did I mention that I had YEARS of untreated high blood pressure? Things were finally catching up with me. My skin looked dull, my hair was brittle and dry my nails were weak. I was tanning myself because it made me look "smaller" and my skin was becoming more and more damaged. 

Then I woke up. It was actually the morning after the photo above was taken. I'm not sure if i was drugged that night, or just drank to much. That happened to me often. Drinking too much and either doing something really fucking embarrassing or simply not remembering, or both.

I cannot tell you what clicked in my head that morning. I'm surprised anything could click over the pounding I had in my brain. But something did click. I vowed that I would quit smoking, drinking and eating poorly. All the things that I knew were my crutches. The things I leaned on when times were hard or when I was stressed. I knew that IF I could give them all up, at once, in some grand effort, that I could do ANYTHING. No more excuses, no more "tomorrow", or "after this big project at work". No excuses about upcoming vacations, holidays. No excuses anymore. 

Then, and only then, I knew that I would be able to stand on my own two feet. Crutches be damned.

Quitting cold turkey sucked. I mean, really sucked. I think the devil himself would have stayed the hell away from me for that first week. But I got through it. I didn't turn to food or booze either, which I would have done previously to weaken the blow. I couldn't. I quit them too. 

And the time I chose could not have been worse. I had just recently moved from Montana to Illinois, after my now ex-husband and I split up. I was working a full time job (about 45-60 hours a week), running a full time photography business, dealing with my dog who has cancer and a heart problem and my pending divorce. Did I mention it was review time at work? It was the worse part of the year...

So I started visiting websites for food and exercise ideas. See, I already tried every diet out there (sans the really dangerous/stupid ones like HGH *shudders*)

1 month later

I knew that the only way that i was going to get healthy was to eat better and exercise. And that's exactly what I did.  ------->


I didn't know how much it would change my life!






Within MONTHS I was down 50, 60 and it just kept going....

And wait there's more...

My skin (always terrible acne) started clearing, my hair grew, my nails were strong, I STOPPED tanning, I started to really feel amazing. My back stopped aching, my joints no longer hurt, I felt STRONG and happy. And best of all, my blood pressure returned to normal after years of extreme numbers (My doctor said that could NEVER happen without meds. Screw you Doc, you don't know it all)

And you know what I realized in that first 20 pounds that I lost? Do you know why I knew it was going to be different this time?

www.sexytransformations.com

Because I wasnt worried about losing weight. I just wanted to take care of myself. To Love myself. Whether my body is fat or not.  FAT is not a derogatory word. Its simply a word. I stopped fearing being fat. I stopped caring if other people thought i was beautiful, because, you know what? I AM. I even did a little impromptu boudoir shoot during my mid weight loss to celebrate my body.

 (I will post more photos and why YOU shouldnt wait for things you want to do based on your weight in another blog)

I started caring for it best I could. Then I realized that I never hated myself. I was just afraid to be me. I hid behind the food, the booze the smoking... And with all those things gone it forced me to do a lot of soul searching, and that's when I really found myself. Hiding in there. That little girl that loved life so much before. The one that didn't care what people said. didn't care if people thought she was fat. The kind little girl that didn't like for people to be mean to other people, who wanted to put herself out there but she had been stuck behind that wall of fear for so many years. The little girl that just like to do what she liked to do, thank you very much.

And she was ready to come out and play. 

This is just the beginning of my journey and my blog! If you'd like to know more, please visit on Fridays. I'll be posting about healthy lifestyle, my personal weight loss progress, photography, boudoir sessions and the clients, fashion and everyday life. I'll also be posting to do Q&A's so you can ask me all the questions you'd like!