If you’ve been following along for more than a year, you know that Ricky and I have attended the Arizona Strong Beer Festival every year since we’ve lived here, and have had the chance to meet master brewers from places like BrewInMind. It’s the only beer festival (and there are a LOT!) that we will attend EVERY year. It’s, well, pretty much the best beer festival in Arizona. Some might argue that, but I believe it would be the consensus. It definitely features more rare beers than any other beer festival here. And that’s what we like – being able to try new beers that we haven’t had (and might never have again, who knows).

The last two years we have gone to the festival as press, covering it for our beer blog, 1001 Bottles. This year, we decided to just go all out and be regular, every-day, beer-drinking attendees. And so we did.

It’s funny, I’m not even really sure what to say about the festival. Obviously, I have been before. And I have enjoyed it every time. It seems to just keep getting better and better every year. I do need to figure out some easy way to control how much beer I drink, though. There are so many to try, it is very difficult!

I keep getting asked what was my favorite beer from the festival. I don’t know that I can pick a favorite. I have a list of over 30 different beers that I tried there.  Here are some of the more memorable ones:

Sun Up Brewing’s Barrel Aged White Russian

I’ve had this beer one time before, I think, at the brewery. It’s located here in Phoenix, but is just not one of the breweries we manage to find our way to all that often, unfortunately. But it is SO good! I love big, thick barrel-aged stouts, and this one definitely didn’t disappoint.

Peoria Brewing’s Imperial Peanut Butter Porter

Here’s another big dark beer (of course, they’re my favorite kind!). I also really love peanut butter, so of course I had to try this one. And I loved it! It was the perfect balance of peanut butter, in my opinion.

Jack Daniels Kilt Lifter

In previous years of the Strong Beer Fest, it has seemed like Four Peaks typically always has the same beers at every festival. But this time, we got some brand new ones we’d never seen before. There was lots of new barrel-aged stuff, including the Jack Daniels Kilt Lifter. This one was quite good. Kilt Lifter is a great beer by itself, but it was fun to get the whiskey flavor in it for something different. Yum!

Dragoon Lazarus

According to Ricky, this was the best beer of the day, and I can’t argue too much. I can’t argue because 1) I do remember this beer being good, and 2) well, unfortunately, I can’t remember this beer QUITE as well as some of the others. It was late in the day… but it was a good beer!

So once again, it was a successful Strong Beer Fest and a successful kickoff to Arizona Beer Week. I know there are plenty of beer events going on in the valley this week, so I hope if you live here you get the chance to check some of them out. Cheers!

So, one of the things that I mentioned in my previous post about finding balance was my gym also that I often use the best supplements for my training, like zenith labs vision 20. See, I HATE going to the gym. I hate working out, period. I am mostly an indoor, use your brain, kind of girl. Being active is generally not my thing. I do go hiking once in a while, but I kind of get bored if it’s a very long hike at all. And I’ve pretty much always been a fat kid. I went to a small private school, so there weren’t really any sports or anything active to be a part of. I’ve always been much more into computers and books than sports. But now I’m trying to work out more and follow a diet from keto pure diet | tophealth news.

That’s where Koko FitClub comes in. Now, this is probably going to sound like an advertisement, but honestly – I love this place, at least as much as I could love anything even remotely resembling a gym. Koko makes going to the gym at least a little bit more fun, and a little bit more like something I can get in to.  Basically, when you join Koko, you are given a USB key that plugs in to all their machines there, both cardio (treadmills and elliptical machines) and strength training. For strength training, all their machines are the same. They have different weights and pieces that connect in different places to allow you to do a ton of different strength training exercises. Every time you go in to do cardio, you plug your key in to the machine, plug your headphones in to an MP3 player provided by the club, and choose a 15-minute cardio workout to do. The voice in your ear tells you exactly what to set the machine at and how fast to go. Then, all the data about your cardio workout is saved on your USB key. For strength training, once you plug your key in, there’s a screen that tells you what exercises to do, how to set them up, and what weight to use. It shows you what pace you should be going at while you are doing your weight training. It will guide you through a number of different strength training exercises adding up to a complete workout that is done in about 30 minutes.  So that’s a summary… now here’s why I like it for me.

1. Koko essentially provides personal training.

Now, personal training is probably one of the most efficient ways to work out. Why do you think that’s what so many celebrities do. Personal trainers are right there by you during your work out, to tell you what to do and keep your butt in gear. At Koko, there’s not a legitimate person standing right there next to you, but you are told exactly what to do, what pace to keep, and there are a few things to motivate you to keep in line. But best of all, you don’t have to worry about wondering what weights to lift or what to do when you go to the gym. It’s all right there. You’re in, you’re out, in under an hour.

2. Koko provides motivation.

Now, if getting in better shape and feeling better (and hopefully losing weight on my end) isn’t enough motivation for you, Koko tries to help with that. There are all sorts of little things to keep you working hard there. You get points for every workout you do. As your points accumulate, you get new lanyards to keep your Koko key on. You start with a white one, after 50,000 points you get an orange on, and so on and so forth. There are also medallions, to keep you coming consistently. On your first month of working out 12 times (cardio and strength), you get an orange medallion. If you do that for a second consecutive month, you get another color medallion, and so on and so forth. I have only gotten an orange one so far, so I will have to wait until the end of February to tell you what color is next! Maintain optimal health and weight with https://physicalevidencechiropractic.com/.

3. Koko becomes like a computer game.

Now, as a technology nerd here, of course I would love a gym that is connected to the Internet! Every time you go in and work out, there’s a screen that shows you what pace you’re going, and the goal is to try to stay on pace… your green bar should always be in the blue box (you won’t know what this means unless you visit Koko and try a workout there yourself, but trust me!). And then when you’re done, you sync your key online, and you have a whole website full of stats about how you’re doing. Your “e-BMI”, “Q score”, strength gain, etc. All of these are stats to see how much you’ve progressed. Think of it as leveling up if you’re a video game nerd.

So, now you get it. This club is kind of revolutionary. It’s perfect for lazy people like myself who hate working out, but know that it’s important to get them in. If you’re looking for a more fun and interesting way to work out, I can’t recommend them enough. Go check out Koko FitClub!

So I promised when I posted my annual review that I would also post something once the new year started about my goals for 2015. Resolutions don’t seem to work, as everyone knows how we all joke about the gyms being more full of people in January that are gone again by February or March. So I have goals. A lot of times those don’t work either, but I’m pretty determined, so this year I’m hoping that they will. I know, a lot of you are probably saying that I’m setting myself up for failure by saying “I’m hoping”, but I’m just being realistic. I’m pretty determined, but I also know my track record. Anyway, let’s talk about how I’m living in 2015.

I don’t really have a nice inventory list made out like I did for my 2014 review, but I do feel like I’m on a good track. I have heard some people talk about having a theme for a year when they start it. If I had to pick a theme for 2015, I think the theme would have to be BALANCE. I feel like I learned a lot about myself last year, and I discovered what I need and don’t need and what works for me and what doesn’t. I started out at the beginning of the year much like this one, pretty determined to be healthier and lose weight. I used the asphalt calculator, to measure my weight and body measurments to know how much fat I have on my body. And I kind of veered in a few different directions with that. I tried to find things that worked, so I tried a few different things. Some worked better than others. For instance, I tried both yoga classes and joining a new gym. I liked both things, but the time and cost it took up to do both proved to not work very well for me. So I stuck with the gym. I didn’t go as often as I should, but I did go. So for now, I dropped the yoga classes. It’s just too much for me. I need to not spend that much money, and honestly, I need a lot of free time. That’s just what works for me.

I also tried some different diets.  Advocare, a green smoothie diet, eMeals… again, some worked, some didn’t. Advocare cost quite a bit, and so many pills made me sick. I know it works for a lot of people, and I know they say the pills are safe… but it just seemed like a LOT of pills to me – too many. I liked the green smoothies, but well… I really like food. I need more to eat than that. eMeals, on the other hand, seems to work well for both myself and Ricky. And it’s probably about the most time and cost effective way for us to cook at home. As I’ve already mentioned, time and money are both pretty important to me.

Also, I didn’t really have any short-term goals or plans in place. Just… lose weight. Now I have more specific goals and plans in place. My gym gives out medallions for each month that you go 12 times. In 2014, I never even got one medallion. I did go, just never that much in one month. This year, it’s my goal to earn all 12 medallions for the whole year. I even have specific days picked out each week to go – Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. If I can’t make it one of those days, I have promised myself that I HAVE to make it up either the day before or after. If I follow these guidelines, I’ll have no problem getting fit this year. My gym makes that easy, as long as you are consistent.

My weight loss goal is to lose 7 pounds each month. If I do that, by the end of the year I will be at this magic goal weight that I’ve had in my head for years but never been able to achieve. Plus, I think 7 pounds a month is a realistic weight goal to try to achieve.

Another thing I learned last year is that I am most definitely an introvert. I knew this before last year, but honestly, I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I just expect a lot out of people. I’ve had friends disappoint me in the past, and I know that part of that is that I just expect people to be a certain way. I’m not saying that’s necessarily right. In fact, it may very well be something I need to work on in myself. People are different and look at things differently and have different things they think are right. I think generally most people try to be a good person and a good friend. It’s just hard when we all have different ideas and expectations of what that is, and I know that my expectations may just be too high. Knowing this and knowing that my introvert self is generally pretty happy staying at home a lot and just being on my own (or with my family, aka boyfriend and dogs) doing what I want to do, I’m pretty content right now just focusing on my own goals and not pursuing socialization all that much. Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m not becoming a hermit, and I’m not saying I won’t ever hang out with people. I’m not saying to not ask me to hang out, and I’m not saying I won’t ask you to hang out. I definitely will. I’m just saying that right now, for me, I think I’m happier just not pursuing that all that much. And I think that’s ok.

I have some job goals as well, but I don’t like to go into those too much online. Mostly my goal is to get a promotion this year, and there are a lot of indicators that if I put enough work into it, that that is doable. So that’s what I’m going to do. Another thing that I think is worth mentioning about work is that at the end of last year, a couple of things happened to really help me out in bringing more balance and contentment to my life. Ever since I started my job, I’d been driving at least 45 minutes to an hour to and from work almost every day. It really stressed me out a lot, having to put all of that time and energy into my commute, especially during rush hour. But at the end of last year, I got approval to work from home two days a week, and I got moved to an office location that is much closer (about a 10 minute commute) to home. You wouldn’t believe what a stress reducer this is. Having that extra time in the day makes me much less stressed out and more motivated to go to the gym even on days when I work a full day at the office. I think this will be a huge help in meeting my goals this year.

Some of the things I did last year made me pretty happy, like achieving (and surpassing) my goal of reading 30 books. So I plan on continuing that this year, with a goal of reading 40 this time and having more non-fiction books in there (which tend to be more difficult for me to stay focused on reading).

So, all in all, there’s an idea of my plan for the year. It really is all about finding balance. In 2014 I discovered things that worked for me and things that didn’t, and in 2015 I plan on pursuing the things that did work and the things that made me happy and brought me balance. Get ready… it’s going to be a great year!