Inspirational quotes, sayings, and images!

I think it’s just so cool when coming across the perfect quote, piece of writing, or image to help inspire, to serve as a reminder of what’s important to us, or to help give a push in a new direction.

Here is a collection of inspirational quotes, sayings, and images shared by Facebook friends, found in other places on the internet, and sent from some of the important people in my life. I hope they can help inspire you as much as they have helped inspire me and others and, if one of these happens to be the perfect image, saying or quote for you, awesome : )

(Clicking on the image enlarges it for easier reading)

Have a great day today!

The 2012 Spring Competition and Shoot Season so far!

Hi!

First, let me apologize for my super slackerdom in the blogging department! This has been a busy and awesome time of exciting work related and other important things and I am excited to share some of those!

First, Laura Robinson competed for the first time in Stratford Ontario. She did amazing! She had a great time, looked fantastic, and placed 3rd in the Bikini Open Category and 2nd in Bikini Masters. You can see her super awesomeness in the shot below and in this facebook album (this album also highlights the other necessities of showday: like backstage ridiculousness).

Laura being amazing at the OPA Stratford Champs!

On May 5th was the 2nd Annual Stephanie Worsfold Classic. Steph did such a great job, yet again! At this show, Gillian Mandich, Lisa McLelland, Tracey Lightfoot and Vanessa Shepley competed and all did great. This was a first time for both Tracey and Vanessa. Gillian ended up in 2nd for bikini short, Vanessa placed 3rd in Bikini Medium and Lisa placed 1st in Bikini Tall. This qualifies them all for the Natural Ontario’s! You can see pictures from that show in this facebook album.

From left to right, Lisa McLelland, Vanessa Shepley, Me, Tracey Lightfoot and Gillian Mandich backstage at the 2nd GNC Stephanie Worsfold Classic!

A week following Steph’s show, at the Sudbury Classic, Sherie Miron competed and placed 2nd in bikini medium. This qualifies her for the Ontario’s at the Toronto Pro Supershow where we will be connected in person, once again! Like several other local and distance-based clients, our communication with Sherie is mainly online (she is located in Sudbury, Ontario) and meeting her and hanging out last year at this very same show was so much fun. See you again soon Sherie!

Sherie being her fun, high energy self at her Kris Joseph Shoot

So, the next big event is the Toronto Pro Supershow in just over a week!! On stage will be Gillian Mandich, Lisa McLelland, Sherie Miron, and Meaghan Terzis for the bikini categories and four girls will also be on stage at the Oxygen Model Search. The Search takes place on the Saturday with Finals on the Sunday.

With so many different events running Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it is sure to be one exciting weekend. Good luck to all competitors of all events and categories!!

Some work from Vanessa’s shoot with Vasko Obscura. Her first physique shoot ever!

More pictures from shoots, events and more great news will be posted soon.

Have a great week!

Renee

The OPA/Stephanie Worsfold Competitor Workshop this coming Friday!

Re-posted from Fitnessforum.ca

 

Stephanie Worsfold is Fitness Forum’s Fit Foods sales representative. Fitness Forum is also a proud Sponsor of her show, the 2012 Stephanie Worsfold Classic taking place here in London, Ontario on May 5th. More on this great event to come soon!

 

 

 

 

Each year Steph holds really awesome workshops for competitors of all categories. The first one of the season was held a couple weeks ago and it was great! Another one will be held at Fitness Forum this Friday April 27th at 7PM. This will be a great workshop for all OPA competitors or anyone interested in competing in Fitness, Figure, Bikini, Physique or Bodybuilding.

 

Cost $25

 

There is no need to register, just show up!

 

You will receive tips on posing, suit selection, tanning, some things to remember the day of the show and many more helpful tips.

 

Guests include IFBB Pro Stephanie Worsfold, IFBB Pro Scott Milne, Oxygen Model and OPA Figure competitor Meaghan Terzis, OPA Figure Competitor, Fitness Forum Personal Trainer and Competition Prep Coach Renee Primeau, Pamela Bortmes of Pro Quality Tanning, Make-Up and Hair, Christy Wolfe of Wolfe Designs, Karen of KHP Designs, Judi Stone Douglas and John Douglas of Stone Photography, and OPA representatives that will go over judging criteria and answer any questions you may have.

 

What you need to bring…

Posing suit or anything to show off your physique
Posing shoes (bodybuilders and physique no shoes required)

 

Everyone will go home with something from our sponsors.

 

Hope to see you there!!

Meditation

Reblogged from Renee Primeau's Blog:

Originally Posted @FITLODE

The odd stigma surrounding meditation and other forms of increasing self-awareness (e.g. Yoga) seem to be becoming almost non-existent.

We are becoming more comfortable with ourselves and even finding that meditation may be a gateway to feelings of satisfaction in life. We are becoming aware that taking responsibility for our inner space may be the answer to overall health and exterior achievement, whether it is a physical transformation, a personal or career goal.

Read more… 394 more words

IFBB Pro Stephanie Worsfold Competitor Workshop!!

 

Info from fitness forum blog

 

Stephanie Worsfold is Fitness Forum’s Fit Foods sales representative. Fitness Forum is also a proud Sponsor of her show, the 2012 Stephanie Worsfold Classic taking place here in London, Ontario on May 5th. More on this great event to come soon!

 

 

 

 

Each year Steph holds really awesome workshops for competitors of all categories. The first one of the season will be tomorrow night at 8PM at Fitness Forum. This will be a great workshop for all OPA competitors or anyone interested in competing in Fitness, Figure, Bikini, Physique and Bodybuilding.

 

Cost $25

 

There is no need to register, just show up! 

 

You will receive tips on posing, suit selection, tanning, some things to remember the day of the show and many more helpful tips.

 

Guest speakers include IFBB Pro Stephanie Worsfold, IFBB Pro Scott Milne, Oxygen Model and OPA Figure competitor Meaghan Terzis, OPA Figure Competitor, Fitness Forum Personal Trainer and Competition Prep Coach Renee Primeau, Pamela Bortmes of Pro Quality Tanning, Make-Up and Hair, Christy Wolfe of Wolfe Designs, Karen of KHP Designs, Judi Stone Douglas and John Douglas of Stone Photography, and OPA representatives that will go over judging criteria and answer any questions you may have.

 

What you need to bring…

Posing suit or anything to show off your physique
Posing shoes (bodybuilders and physique no shoes required)

 

Everyone will go home with something from our sponsors.

 

Hope to see you there!!  

Interview with Lion’s Den U

If you would like to check out the recent interview I did with Lion’s Den U, you can do so by clicking here: Lion’s Den U Female Fitness Friday Feature.

I hope your weekend is off to a great start!

Renee

Update of Super Things

Hi!

I hope you’re having a great night! I wanted to give an update about what the girls and I have been up to for the past little while and to fill you in on some exciting things in the works.

Some great work from Meaghan's recent shoot with Paula Tizzard

The spring show season is here! The OPA Stratford show kicks off the OPA season on April 14th with Stephanie Worsfold as your MC:) You’ll also see on stage super awesome clients/team members, Laura Robinson and Vanessa Shepley. This will be a first time for the both of them. They are doing great!

There are always lots of friendly faces and people to help out backstage at these shows if you need anything. Gillian Mandich, Lisa McLelland and I are excited to be among them for this show and if you need any help with your posing oil, bikini biting, etc. just come grab one of us.

Coming up in 7 short weeks is also Steph’s show, the 2nd Stephanie Worsfold Natural Ontario Qualifier! It ran so well last year, there was an awesome turnout and the stage showed some great, high quality, natural physiques. This year is going to be great as well, the location is set and Steph’s web-site is updated (with more changes to come soon). Check out Stephanieworsfold.ca for updated info.

On stage for Steph’s show will be Gillian Mandich, Lisa McLelland, Laura Robinson, Vanessa Shepley and Tracey Lightfoot (this is Tracey’s first show!). That same day, Sherie Miron willl be on stage at the OPA Sudbury show. They are doing great and I am loving working with them, watching their progress and learning from the differences between each of them.

Good luck to everyone prepping for Spring Shows!

On the shoot front, Rita Catolino is gearing up for an exciting shoot with Oxygen in a couple weeks (more info on that to come soon) and Meaghan Terzis has just been featured again in Oxygen! You can see her in the April 2012 issue. She has some more awesome news coming up that will be shared in the near future, as well.

We had a really fun posing session with just a few of us this past Sunday. Meaghan offered some very helpful posing/stage presence tips for the girls and we started into the details of the show: hair, make-up registration, etc. There will be another workshop held on Sunday April 1st. If you would like more info or to be a part of that, feel free to contact me at renee_primeau@hotmail.com.

Meaghan in the April 2012 issue of Oxygen Magazine

The girls I have been fortunate enough to have worked with and to be working with now are very unique and awesome. They are hard-working, level-headed (even with great successes in the industry) and I feel pretty blessed to work with such a great group. I feel like this is repeated a lot of times throughout different blog entries but I mean it and I really don’t even know where these girls came from, lol I don’t want to leave out those who have different goals from the shows and shoots, though.

There are other girls with just as important and very awesome personal goals, as well. Although these may not be seen as publicly as the physique comps or the shoots, they are just as incredible and extremely fulfilling to be a part of. I hope one day soon to have a couple of these great girls share their stories, hopes and successes.

More news to come soon. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Renee

Our Supports Arising out of Our Challenges

I met up for tea with an old friend tonight. She is a girl I have always admired for her pure strength, determination and positive attitude. Yes, she has down days like all of us, but she doesn’t veer too far from her great perspectives and gained wisdom. I love listening to her talk about all she’s been through and how she’s overcome what she has. And she explains it all with this awesome sparkle in her eye, like she’s just learned the most amazing and exciting things. And I guess in a lot of ways she has.

I think it’s pretty cool how challenges can affect all of us differently. There are real stories of those who have gone through difficulties and traumatic events, just as my friend has, and these things consume and seem to drag these people down. And then there are others who seem to use these situations to learn important lessons/skills and they use these lessons and developed skills to launch themselves forward.

We all have the option and capability of being the latter.

There will be challenges, difficult times can arise, sometimes we may not feel as though circumstances have been very fair to us, and sometimes downright crappy and awful seeming things can happen. But we will never be given more challenges than we are equipped to handle and we can always find support and strength in our challenges- when we choose to recognize that.

I remember reading somewhere that life offers us equal supports and challenges. We may be challenged in one area (perhaps by an unfortunate circumstance, event, set-back, etc.) and in turn we may develop skills, gain new perspectives/insights, bridge connections or develop strengths that we otherwise may not have (sometimes without even knowing we are doing this). These are our supports developed from our challenges.

If we think of things this way, a sort of clarity, acceptance and appreciation can help ease any anger, frustration or any other negative feeling we might have over circumstances or situations that we may or may not have any control over.

I hope, like my awesome friend, more of us can recognize the supports that can come from our challenges and that, as we all can, we will recognize our very real ability to launch ourselves forward with enthusiasm and strength.

4th place!

Congrats to Midori and Rita for both placing 4th in their height classes at the Arnold Amateur!!

Midori and Rita waiting to go on stage

Rita and Midori at the Arnold’s!

Rita Catolino and Midori Rutledge were both called in the top call-outs at the Arnold Amateur yesterday!!! They will be on stage again for finals around 10AM on Saturday and another update will be posted then!

Rita also has some very exciting shoots happening today.

This made water play a little tricky as we needed to limit the chances of bloating for her shoots today before coming in as tight as possible again for Saturday. The bloat I mean is, as most of you who have cut water for the stage or shoots may have experienced before, that really “pleasant” water retention that can be experienced the day following a show or any other time fluids are manipulated. All seems to have gone really well so far! She came in amazingly last night and just as great (if not better) this morning. With this being the time where, if water retention was going to be an issue, it would have likely been an issue now, this is very exciting!

As for Midori? She looks insane, lol. She has never looked better!

I loved learning from this pre-show plan. With all the shows I’ve manipulated water for and worked with others, there was only 1 day that needed to be worried about for both pre-judging and finals; a Saturday. This has been an awesome learning experience. Thanks a lot to Carter for, once again, allowing me to bounce the plan off him and for offering the great and helpful tips!

Good luck to everyone stepping back on stage Saturday.

Rita, Midori and other fellow Canadians at the Arnold's!

More pictures to follow soon!