February 28, 2019 • 51 mins
Amy is the only person her husband, Ben, has said “I love you” to...and he did that on purpose. Celebrity trainer, Erin Oprea chats about why you should throw away your scale. Cosmetic tattoo artist, Meegen Pearson (@beauty_by_meegen) stops by to talk microblading since our last episode stirred up a lot of questions! Amy tries out her weighted blanket.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Never guess up a little food for you. So life.
Oh it's pretty back. It was pretty beautiful than beautiful.
That's a little month you're kicking with. Four with a Brown, Okay,
(00:32):
really excited about what is to come on today's episode.
The four things that I have, I really like them.
Three guests and then me talking about waited blankets. Now,
my first guest is going to be my husband, which
this is a huge deal because that means we got
him to come back, y'all, we did it. His podcast
debut was like I don't know what the episode before last,
(00:55):
and he is not a person that's very open. He
doesn't like to talk, he doesn't like to share. But
I feel like he thinks that we are a safe
space for him, so that's amazing. He got good reviews,
good comments, good emails, so he you know, I used
that to lure him back on. And if you missed
(01:15):
the episode where he debuted on the podcast, he was
talking about PMS with me how to handle PMS like
a man, So you can go back and listen to that.
And in this episode, we're going to talk about when
he said I love you to me for the first time,
and we dive into our relationship, because I think you
might be surprised when he chose to tell me that
he loved me, because even I was a little surprised.
(01:39):
On this episode, also going to talk about why I
don't weigh myself anymore, and I've got celebrity trainer Aaron
Opria coming in to talk about that. She's a trainer
to big time people here in Nashville, you know, just
like Carrie Underwood, Kasey Musgraves, Marion Morris, Kelsey Ballerini, and
then I have no idea somehow I got lucky enough
she trains normal people too, So I have started to
(02:00):
work out with her in the last year and she's
amazing and it's really helping me become more confident with
my strong body and eating properly and not obsessing over
anything that the scale says. So we talked about that
and maybe you might want to throw away your scale
after you listen to this episode that I've got cosmetic
tattoo artist Megan Pearson on which she's who did my eyebrows.
(02:24):
So here's the deal. In the last episode, I told
you all that I got micro blading done and it
was a horrible experience I had to have laser tattoo removal,
and there was such a good response from that. I
got so many questions that I asked Megan, who corrected
my eyebrows, if she would come on and talk about
it a little bit further. And you know, she's works
as a lot of the country artists here keep it
(02:45):
on pretty, she does make up, and then that transition
to her doing actual tattooing and she's great, So she'll
be on today's episode. And then I got my weighted
blanket in, so I'm ready to review that and share
with you all whether I think a weighted blanket is
something that you to invest in as well. And in
that little segment, it's the fourth thing I recorded that
(03:06):
the other day, and I mentioned in there that I
was trying to get Amazon to approve me as an
influencer so to have like an Amazon shop page where
I could just send y'all to things that I talk
about and boom, the link is right there on my
page and you can buy it. So because sometimes I'm
like just google it. Well, now this is getting easier,
and then eventually this will lead to something that I'll
have on my website once that gets built. But Amazon
(03:29):
emailed me this morning and said I was approved. So
I'll go ahead and give you the shop page now,
because you'll hear in the Way to Blanket segment that
I'm I'm waiting on approval. But I'm no longer waiting.
I've got it. So if you go to Amazon dot com,
slash Shop, slash Radio, Amy, Boom, it's got all my
stuff up there. So in my Q and A show,
which launched earlier this week on Tuesday's, I now have
(03:52):
a Q and A episode where I'm going to answer
all your questions. One of the questions I got was
what kind of eye patches do you use? And I
gave the answer. I talked about two brands that I
really like, skin Iceland and Peter Thomas Roth. Well, guess what,
now they're on my Amazon page. So all you have
to do is go to Amazon dot com, slash Shop,
slash Radio, Amy and Boom. The link is right there
and you can just buy it. You don't have to
(04:13):
look it up and wonder am I buying the right thing?
You're actually buying what I buy on Amazon. I also
have some of the stuff up there to make my macha.
I've got some kitchen stuff that I can't live without.
My salt lamp is up there. I keep my salt
lamp in my room. I have it on all the time.
It helps with purifying the air, and you can read
all about it if you click on the salt lamp link.
(04:34):
But I've got lots of stuff up there, so I'm
kind of, you know, working on my little banner and
my picture to get that looking right. But yeah, if
you want to go shop my Amazon page, it's kind
of exciting. I got approved. I still don't have a
blue checkmark on Instagram, which I just hit five hundred
thousand followers, so yeah, half million followers can't get a
blue checkmark. I've been rejected by Instagram for the blue
(04:56):
checkmark like three times. So but hey, shout out to
Amazon for setting me as an influencer to have my
own shop page. It's like really exciting. But if you
happen to know anybody at Instagram that can hook a
girl up, because I think you know, having that blue
check mark, it's not an ego thing for me. It's
not like I need it to feel like, oh I
finally made it or anything. But I'm trying to engage
(05:16):
with more people and you know. I feel like sometimes
I'm reaching out to people and they don't they don't
know who I am, but I happen to be a
fan of theirs, and I want to see if they
want to come share their story and their stuff on
my podcast. And they're probably like, who is this girl.
She doesn't even have a blue check mark. I can't
take her seriously. And I need people to take me
seriously so that they'll come on the podcast and share
(05:37):
things with you that you know, I like about them.
So a lot of women are like food bloggers or
authors or different people that I'm inspired by and I
think they're cool. And again, if I'm just sending on
my d M and it's not popping up directly at
the top because I don't have a blue checkmark, or
they see the d M and they're like, oh, I
don't know if this is the real person. I'm not replying.
(05:58):
It's probably just some spam. I'm not spam. I want
people to come on and help inspire all of us.
So that's my little rant about my blue checkmark on Instagram.
But yeah, Amazon hooked it up Amazon dot Com slash shop,
and I think it's Ford slash Shop Forward Slash Radio Amy.
(06:18):
All right, so there we go. Let's move on into
today's episode, Husband's Coming Up First, backed by popular demand.
I have my husband been of twelve years military for
a long time. Grew up military. Your dad was in
the Air Force. And then I mean you knew from
(06:38):
an early age, like you wanted to go to the
Air Force academy. Yeah, and you did that? Did you
just burp? No, I was clearing my throat. You didn't
give me a chance to, like to my warm up?
What's your warm what's your warm up? Unique New York.
That's what you told me, Unique New York, New York.
How now brown cow? Now brown Cow? So you never
gave me a warm up? You just started in. Did
I say how long we've been married? Twelve years? I
(07:00):
did I know, but I didn't know. I didn't, Okay,
So and then much of that or about half of
our marriage, you were in the your Force and then not.
But like you're very like you knew at five what
you wanted to do, and you're very You make up
your mind about things and you do it sort of.
So I'm curious as to when you made up your
mind that the only people you wanted to say I
(07:20):
love you too, was your mom, your sister, and then
whomever you were going to marry. I think my mom
was the biggest proponent of that. She just said, make
sure you're careful who you say you're you love because
there's special words and if you tell everybody, then it's
not special, okay. Which that's what led to us, Stephen
talking about this is because our son, Stevenson, says I
(07:41):
love you to everybody. It's like everything. It's like an anchor. Man.
I love lamp, I love car, I love girl, I
love every girl, and I'll just point meet you and
be like, I love you. And so you've been really
trying to teach him to not overuse that word only. Yeah,
I just wanted to know that it's a special word,
like if you say that, if you say it to everybody,
(08:01):
then it's not special. Right. So so much so, we
never said I love you while we were dating. It
wasn't until you proposed and I said yes that you
finally said no. It was after yes, because had I
said no, you didn't want to say it to me
because then you would have said it to someone that
wasn't going to be your wife. Now, during the engagement,
(08:23):
there was still an opportunity for me to not become
your wife, but it ended up working out. Like really,
to steal that deal, you should have waited until I
said I do like at the altar. No, I mean
I think you have to, you know, from the guy's perspective,
I think at the proposal you have to make your
intentions known, like at that time you have to declare, like,
these are my intentions, Like literally, I love you and
(08:44):
I am putting it on the line, will you marry? Well, So,
you totally threw me for a lout because first of all,
we hadn't been dating that long, but we had known
each other a really long time since we were kids,
but we never dated until our twenties, which is a
super awkward long then we are friend Kevin Dr Lewis
was on a previous podcast which if you haven't heard
that one, it's about the placebo effect and you should
(09:07):
go back and listen to it if you have time.
Dr Lewis may come on again. He's good. He's your
best friend I've known in my whole life. Anyway, he
was getting married of all kinds of weird information. Yes
he is. So he was getting married. We were both
at the wedding. You were stationed in England at the time,
but you were a groomsman, so you came back and
(09:27):
where you were in town and we hadn't seen each
other in a while. And then I guess everybody's mission
at that wedding was to set us up, and it worked.
So then we started dating. And then a few months
after that you proposed, which I was totally thrown off
because you had never even said you loved me. I mean,
but I had said I love you to other people,
but you know that, Yeah, But I mean two boyfriends
(09:49):
that I had had in the past. I mean, I'm
sure there was a boyfriend I thought I loved in
high school or maybe a couple which I didn't, and
then two guys in college that I loved I did, right,
is that? Okay? I don't know? Yeah, your feelings, you
didn't know them, Okay, you did, You're right, you didn't
know them, But then you had never said it to me.
(10:10):
And then you got down on one knee and you repose,
and I'm like, oh my gosh, what is happening. And
then after I said yes, you said, okay, I've been
waiting to tell you this I love you yeah, which
was really sweet. Yeah, well, and I wanted to. I mean,
there's so there's so many things that we lose in
life and in the chance to actually share something special
is something that people can hold onto. Um, and that's,
you know, one of them. I thought that those words
(10:32):
mean something to me, and I think words didn't mean
things in general, like when you're talking, like the words
you say actually means something, so you need to be
careful what you say. Yeah, that's important to remember words matter.
I mean, I'm guilty of forgetting that. Yeah, we're definitely
even our relationship in twelve years, Like we get quick
with words. Sometimes we don't mean to say something we say,
and you know we were gat it later. Yeah, so
(10:52):
your mom played a part and you're not really saying
I love you until the time was right, and then
we ended up getting married. I think when you proposed,
we decided were going to wait almost a year. You
were going to Afghanistan in January two months later. I
was going to deploy posed in October, and so I thought, okay,
(11:12):
well we'll just get married next September. Why we decide
on that, I'm not sure. And then it kept getting
bumped up, bumped up, and then we decided on May.
And then my sister, who's married to your other best friend,
who another side story is my husband tried to date
her way back podcast when we were kids. Well, we
can get into it a little bit. I mean, because
(11:33):
technically you and her now husband y'all fought over her
in youth group. I won the coin toss, I won
the flip, and so what happened with that? I had
no game. I thought that just my being would attract
her knowing that I won the flip. So to set
the story up for people that might be a little
bit confused, we started going to a new church that
my husband been and his best friend Ben went to.
(11:56):
Not confusing at all, not confusing Ben and Ben. Well,
so my sister, I'm a young I'm younger, I'm like
almost four years younger than you, and so obviously we
would not work out un till later in life because
I was in junior high then you were in high school.
Actually at this point, I was in elementary school. So
my sister was near the youth group and she was
a cute new girl, and you and been flipped a
(12:17):
coin and you won the coin toss, and you had
two weeks to woo her and they to close the deal.
To close the deal, which means like become boyfriend girlfriends. Right,
that's what you were like twelve thirteen years old, so
become her boyfriend and that did it didn't happen, right, No,
she didn't even know you were. Now, when we talk
about his adult she's like, been, I didn't even know
(12:39):
you were trying to pursue me. Like that's how not
strong your game was. You had no game. So then
once the two weeks was up, the other been swooped
in and then they became boyfriend and girlfriend, and now
there was some stuff in between, but now they're married
with four kids, and and then I was I eventually
grew up and you're like, oh, okay, I guess I
(13:00):
guess I'll ask the little sister out. No, it wasn't, no,
it was anything like that. I just came back from
you know, I went to the wedding and came back.
I was like, hey, look who grew up? Like wow,
see that's what I just said, and you go, no, No,
it wasn't like that. It wasn't It wasn't like, oh,
I'll take a second best. Well I was, okay, I'll
take the little little sister. It was more like it
was I didn't even have any intention. My sister is awesome.
(13:21):
I see why she was, and she did. She would
send pictures like at Christmas, I'd get a picture of
you every year. Yes, she was one of the main
culprits in setting us up because she thought we would
be great together. So but she is also the reason
why we ended up getting married eight weeks after you proposed,
like you propose an October then yeah, like I said,
we were get married the following September. Then it got
(13:42):
bumped to May. But then she was pregnant and do
in May. And she said, if y'all get married and
I go into labor, you're missing my husband, who's a groomsman.
You're missing me, who's a bridesmaid. You're missing my kids,
who are the ring bearer and the flower girl. And
then mom and dad would be torn. Should be at
the hospital with the baby or have been in Amy's wet.
I mean, it would be a whole thing. So yeah,
(14:03):
she she had a good point. So she's like, I
have an idea, y'all should get married on New Year's
Eve and I said, Christie, that is in eight weeks
and she was like, yeah, I'll help you. So we
did it. We got married and you know what everybody
thought is that we were pregnant. Didn't all your friends
from the Air Force who didn't know me, weren't they like,
oh my gosh, did you get her pregnant? Because they've
(14:23):
never even met you? And I lived in England for
four years at that time, and then all of a sudden,
you're marrying this girl in eight weeks shotgun wedding. But
fun fact, we hadn't even done it. Yeah, why are
you possing? Well, I didn't know we were going that far.
You Well, honey, we could be I say that. I've
said it on the radio a lot. I mean people know.
(14:46):
People knew at the time, because every even on the radio,
I was getting questions like, oh my goodness, are you pregnant?
And I was like, no, we're waiting until our wedding
night to have sex. Mm hmm, this is uncomfortable. Well,
if you can't tell like this, entire ma in relationship
has been me trying to be quiet and keep it
all the emotions and all the things internal and not
say anything. And it's been the opposite of amy, like
(15:08):
pulling everything out and sharing it with that. But I
think it's been healthy for you to share. That's why.
And I'm thank you for coming back on the podcast.
By the way, my pleasure. This is your second appearance,
and I know that it's hard for you, but I
think you actually like it because otherwise you wouldn't come back.
You like being more vulnerable. It feels good to share. No,
I don't like being more vulnerable. You don't know, Okay,
(15:31):
well I want to be more vulnerable. Well, I appreciate
you coming on at least to talk about the I
love you thing here. I know I did a one
eight with that. Like you were totally night You're like, hey,
this we're gonna talk. I was just talking to Stevenson about, Hey,
this is what you need to say, this is what
it means, and this is why I think I've been
saying it. Abounch. I think he's starting to understanding he is,
and Stuffia has even picked up on it his sister
because he was saying, oh, he was eating this chicken.
(15:54):
He was like, I love this chicken or something, and
so she was like, you don't love it you like it.
It's food, you love peepe all you like food, and
so she's picked up on you. You don't want to
just throw that love or around. But I mean, I'm
guilty of being like, oh I love this, I love this,
I love this, I love this. But I think they
were No, we're a good balance, and I think it
is important to remember that love matters, and our words matter.
(16:17):
So does love, but words matter, and that you know
we think about it, and that that's a special thing.
And I probably let myself love too quickly, and you know,
I mean, I don't regret those loves, but I think
it is special that knowing that you waited to say
I love you too, me or your future wife which
turned out to be me, Like, that's special. Well, I
(16:39):
think as I want our kids to hear the same.
I like to sure to grow up and know the
boy tells you he loves you within like he better
give you a ring when he's telling you he loves you,
like anything before that, you're like, no, it's too soon. Now,
you don't need to go that far, just because that's
how you did it. Because I don't want her to go, oh, dad, mom,
he loves me he just how long you open our
(17:01):
third day, he told me, okay, but maybe three months. Okay,
I know you're gonna be protective because she's your daughter.
We'll just have to We'll find the balance because I
know what it's like, and you know, I I wanted
to be loved and I had probably unhealthy relationships with
guys because you know, my dad left when I was eight,
(17:22):
and that translated into me and my sister. Both have
been open about the fact that we looked for love elsewhere,
even though we now our relationship with our dad is
much better than it was then. But he was he
was not always around, but he was still a good man,
still a good dad. He was doing the best he
could given the circumstances. And you know, obviously it would
(17:43):
have been better had he not left us. But that's
a whole another conversation. I don't hold anything against him
for that forgiveness has taken place. I actually get it.
And we know how hard marriages. We've been married twelve years,
Like I think that we can be like a little
bit more now, like okay, we get it. Like it's
not easy. So, um, where is I going with this?
I have no idea we started on just saying I
love you. We went to the coin toss, then we
(18:05):
went to the fact that you weren't pregnant or we
didn't do it before marriage because I was clarifying that
I couldn't be pregnant. Oh but that was the other
thing is that I probably loved others a little bit
too easy because I was craving the love and the
attention from guys. You know. So we we didn't enter
our marriage well all even say, like I didn't enter
(18:25):
Ben and I made a choice not to sleep together
till we were married, but that wasn't I hadn't made
that decision before you and I had done stuff before.
So that's something that I always thought I would say
for marriage too, which was a gift I wanted to
give to you, but I messed that up. But you know,
we're not perfect. No, nobody's perfect, and there's no pressure
(18:49):
on that. And these days it's like so different. I mean,
I don't really know where kids these days are, but
it does seem harder and harder for that to happen.
But you know, we did plan our wedding in eight weeks,
so we didn't have to wait a lot of time.
But I mean we waited, we did. Okay, Well, thank
you for coming on to talk about saying I love you.
(19:12):
That's always my plasure and the importance of words and
how words matter. Sorry, I took you on little rabbit trails.
Will you come back again? There's something I want to
have you back on for. Oh, let's talk about adoption
next time you come an infertility and kind of that
journey I want to Okay, no pressure. We started to
(19:33):
say with vulnerability, So now I'm thinking, Wow, we're really
gonna We're starting fertility and adoption very vulnerable. We started
today with vulnerability. No, you just told me thank you
for coming on because you like being vulnerable and I
don't like being vulnerable. But talk about fertility or we
can talk about that. Is you being vulnerable? I told
you it's a very twenty nineteen thing to do. All
the men are doing it, All the men are being
(19:55):
vulnerable and women where where did you read that? Everywhere? Okay, bye,
I have celebrity trainer Aaron Opria. Thank you for coming back.
I always love having you on the best. Now you
can hear previous episodes with Aaron. We talked about all
(20:17):
kinds of things, but today I brought you in to
talk about scales and weighing because I think that's something
that women especially get fixated on. And if you're a
guy listening right now, maybe maybe you weigh yourself. I
don't know, but I feel like it can be unhealthy
at times. It has been for me. But I was
(20:38):
encouraged by someone in the health world that I follow
and trust, and she encourages people to weigh themselves every
single day when they wake up. So I fell into
that and I started doing it, and it was not good.
And I'm happy to say that I haven't weighed myself
in months. That's amazing and and I and I'm okay
with it, and I feel better because I don't want
(20:58):
to get fixated and all wrapped around in the axle
about five pounds, which could be you know, water weight
or p MS or something that I just eight that's
going to fall off in a couple of days anyways,
right right, So we're so much more than a number
on a scale. Our weight's going to fluctuate on is
going to have high slows. You know, if we've taken
a lot of sodium and number goes up, we have
(21:19):
less sodium we sweat blah blah blah blah. You the
number on the scale doesn't matter. It's good to have
a good ballpark or where you're at in the beginning,
and then just continue to live a healthy, balanced lifestyle
and with consistency, the number will drop. Like I used
to weigh, I mean, I'm about fifteen pounds heavier than
I used to be. I'm not saying I'm any bigger,
(21:39):
but I'm about fifteen pounds heavier than I used to be. Yeah,
it's yeah, it's muscle, okay, which is probably what's happened
to Your number would probably be higher than what you're
used to being. I started to see it go up
when you and I started working out and I started
lifting weights. I started to see go up and I
would freak out again. That's why I haven't weighed myself
in months, because I don't that's not important. When I
(22:00):
and all my clothes, they fit. The most important thing.
The most important thing is actually how do you feel.
I feel great, I feel strong, I feel healthy, and
I am bigger than I was, but it's muscle and
I feel strong and healthy. Like I feel great, Like
you can run up a flight of stairs and you're
not dying at the top. What a great feeling. Go
out and play with your children, and you can walk
(22:22):
the dog, and you can do all these things and
you're not dying. It's about loving life and doing things
that you love doing, and not having to sit on
the bench while your kids are playing because you don't
feel good right and then and not getting depressed for
no reason because you wage yourself in the morning and
it's not the exact number. How mean you think it
should be that it is super depressing? Why do we
do that to ourselves? So many of I've struggled with it.
(22:44):
I went through a horrible phase of it, and it
made me crazy. It didn't make me happy. I didn't
feel happy. I felt like I was always like, what's
the scale? Going to ben, I go to the bathroom,
what's the scale? I go drink some water, what's the scale?
And I was like, that is a horrible way to
live at me. It takes a joy out of life.
And life is all about love. I mean, we only
get one love it, live it to this fullest. Still,
(23:07):
you need to eat a clean, balanced lifestyle. I'm not
saying that it has to be all perfect or all bad.
I mean, find a balance, find a balance that you
can live on forever. Just like in my four by
four diet book, I talk about still not taking one
food group out. I still want people to um have
a little bit of everything that they enjoy, but in
small amounts. You're right. Just find what it's going to
(23:29):
work for you and that balance. And that's that's what
I've been adopting into my life. There were times I've
definitely been way more strict than I am, but but
now I know, I work out, I work hard, and
I have some of that wiggle room that you know what,
if I mess up, who cares. It's not even a
mess up. It's living life. It's living Life's not like,
oh I ate this, So now I'm totally off the rails.
(23:51):
I should just eat whatever I want forever. It's kind
of like okay, which I'm still guilty of at times.
So you eat that and then you get up in
the morning and you move on. Don't wear your yourself
and get fixated on it. And guess that's what the
scale went up. It didn't and it would go up
on me. It's going to go up on you. It's
going to go up on everybody that's okay, right, just
don't like. I think it's good to have certain e
(24:12):
gauge on on what you should be with your clothes
and how they feel. And then if if you feel
like clothes are getting a little bit tight, then clean
it up. That means you're cheating way too much. Just
clean up the diet a little bit, get moving more,
and then you'll feel better instead of every day getting
fixed on a number, which you work with a lot
of female clients, like we're there, we get fixated on
(24:34):
the number we do. It's so crazy. I don't know,
but it's really a sad way because everyone has in
their mind that you have to be this certain number
to be beautiful. Or everybody is a different height and
structure and kinds of things. How do you know what
you're supposed to wear? You don't because we're all different. Everybody's.
God has blessed us to make us all different in
our own special way, and that's what keeps things from
(24:56):
being born. Could you imagine if we're all the same boring? No,
no way, that'd be so so boring. So I was like,
take advantage of what God's bless you with and go
work out move your body, eat clean, dance lots, because
what's life without dancing? Yes, Aaron doesn't love to dance.
Every Saturday you can find her at Whiskey Row from
four to six. I will be home to cook dinner
(25:19):
at that point and she takes her own beat juice
with her because she makes a beat juice. Vodka. No tequila, tequila,
Oh not vodka, sorry, yeah, no, I order the tequila
at the bar, bring my own beat lemon and ginger juice,
and it's like a nice little cocktail and it's so cute.
If you follow Aaron on Instagram, she's at aaron Opria
(25:40):
and it's her and her husband and every Saturday they're
out dancing, which Ben and I we want to try
to go, and I've talked to a couple of other people.
They want to join you too. Do they really have
a party of me on the rooftop? Ben? Doesn't it
really dance? Though? He will that day be a Seans dancing.
He'll dance a Sean. The dancing is just a reminder
of that's part of of having fun and having that balance,
Like you're not out saying don't ever go out and drink, drink, drink,
(26:05):
fun and have you know, or have a doughnut like
those are your favorite things. But just know that if
you're someone that's fixed it on the number, if you
go do that stuff may way more the next day,
and then that'll spiral into some sort of crazy obsession
or depression about well, I hate my body. So then
and then you do it again and again and again,
and it does just cycle. So what what you need
(26:28):
to do is live life, have fun, do that stuff,
and then don't weigh yourself the next day, and just
keep moving and take care of yourself. I guarantee if
I got on the scale this morning after yesterday, I
mean I still a healthy well yeah to the most
far as my son's birthday. Had half a doughnut, but
I I had tequila and I had one piece of pizza,
and my scale would be upright normally do that, Yeah,
(26:50):
I would be up about five pounds today. Oh my gosh.
Yeah absolutely, I can feel in my face, but the
face is sodium. That's cool, tomorrow'll be gone. But if
I got up this morning and I'm like, oh, I'm
up five pounds, if I would have waited, I'd be like, oh,
forget it, I give up that's the mindset of a
lot of people. I give up. I'm just gonna I've
already lost it, so I'm just gonna keep on going.
And that's where we get in trouble. So that's why
(27:10):
I'm like, that's why I know I'm up today. I'm
going to eat clean, get back on track, and it'll
be back down a couple of days. I'll be fine,
no big deal. And then also no too, I'll just
ree itade. I think I mentioned this earlier, but if
you're adding weights into your routine and you didn't before,
the scale is going to go up, because I do
see that mostly so it doesn't happen every time, but
as a majority of the scale usually goes up and some.
(27:33):
But one thing you do need to make sure of
when you add weights is you don't want to overeat
people overestimate they're like, oh, I worked out today, so
I can have this because you hear if you lift weights,
like if you do your metabolis, metabolism goes up for
twenty four hours. Yes, true, yes, but that doesn't mean
you need to go eat a whole box of pasta.
Let me. You still need to remember portion control and
(27:55):
even when I was talking about cheating. Cheating isn't a
free for all. You should balance out you're cheating. I'm
not telling you go drink a bottle of tequila. I'm
telling you a couple of drinks isn't going to kill you.
But mixed between in between each drink, have the water,
balance it out. Have a piece of pizza. You don't
need eat the whole large pizza. Yeah, so balance I
had a piece of pizza, so I only ate half
a donut. If I would have had a whole donor,
(28:16):
I would have had a piece of pizza. I balance
it out because I already had the tequila, so I
don't need it all. And then this morning clean back on,
back on track. So while you're here, I also want
to bring up since we just encourage people to, you know,
throw out the scales or at least moving yourself every day.
Get moving because your new step bet is starting. Actually,
we're in the warm up week right now. Favorite thing ever,
(28:38):
but March three is the deadline for the legit, Like
the warm up week will be over and people need
to sign up. And I joined the game. I did
it earlier this year and it was so fun. It
kept me moving and I was encouraged by even emails
I was getting from people that I had told I
was doing it, and they signed up and joined your
game too, and they're like, oh my gosh, this is
been a game changer for me, Like I was feeling
(29:00):
depressed or I couldn't get out of bed, like I
just put this motivated them to get moving. So I
just thought I just wanted to share that with you.
I was getting. Game is my favorite thing ever. I'm
obsessed with them because the more you move, the better
you feel. The more you set, the worst you feel,
so the worst it gets. So just get your body moving.
Your body is a machine that's made to move. So
what step it is is you pay forty dollars. Everybody
(29:21):
pays forty and then you're It pulls the history of
your fitness track or whether it's your watch or your phone,
and it's gonna take your average and up at about
thirty percent, and that's gonna be your average for the
next five weeks for you to get if you've already played,
it's gonna only up at a hundred or two. It
doesn't I've already played, so it doesn't a dozen up
at again, just the first time, and then if you
(29:42):
get your steps, you're getting your four dollars back. So
you're just investing in yourself to make yourself move again
for the next five weeks, you guys can do It's
five weeks and with that time, you're gonna start establishing
new healthy habits of moving and you realize how much
better you feel. So then you're not gonna want to
sit all the time. Yeah, you really do. Like I've
done it. I will admit I did Aaron's that last
summer and I lost the forty bucks because I got eliminated,
(30:03):
like right away, I didn't get my step Yeah, and
it was like want want want so then, but then
this earlier this year, I did it and it felt
so awesome to get my forty bucks back and then
some the rest of the pot from the people that
had dropped out. So join us if you want to.
Just download the step bet app and under the game code,
which is the very important part because some people are
(30:24):
like I just signed up for a random game, Like what,
you should join our game because that way we're all
doing this together. It's the Aaron Opria. That's the game
code you enter, and that's e R I n O
p R E A boom boom, Let's get this step party,
go do that. Um we will. We'll have Aaron. Thank
(30:44):
you for coming on again. I'll have you back, Let's
hang out again. So I'm always like having Aaron's perspective
on because I love that she's all about the balance.
So on last week's episode, I talked about how I
got my eyebrow was micro bladed and it went horribly wrong.
I got so many emails and questions about it that
(31:06):
I contacted Megan Pearson, who did my brows redid my
brows from the horrible experience, to see if she could
come on and talk about it, because so many of
you seem interested in microblading. So I was like, Okay,
I've got to bring the expert on. So Megan is here,
and she's Beauty by Megan on Instagram and it's Beauty
Underscore by Underscore Megan, and Megan is m E. G E. N.
(31:30):
And she's a cosmetic tattoo and makeup artist. She's one
of the best in Nashville and she works a lot
of country stars. Again, I found you because Kelsey Ballerini
posted about you. I was about eight months into my
my micro bladed brows that I hated, but I was
just living with them. You know, most people don't know
like you can do anything about it. I was like, well,
(31:51):
I guess one day maybe they'll fade. So I saw
Kelsey post about you, so I thought, I'm just going
to reach out. So I d m you on Instagram
explain to you my situation. Then eventually got an appointment
with you to come in just so you could look
at them, because I wanted a second opinion. Yes, I
wanted you to look at them and see if you
saw as a professional what I saw, which was a
(32:13):
mistake or mistakes two of them. Do I have to broads? Yeah?
And I went in and I loved how honest you
were with me. You're like, yeah, And I thought maybe
you could kind of just microblade around them and make
them different and fix them. And you looked at me
and you said, sweetie, UM, I can help you, but
you're going to have to get these lasered off and
(32:34):
then come back to say, yeah, that's the unfortunate thing
is a lot of people don't know that that's the stuff.
You can't if they're really small and have almost faded away.
Absolutely Usually you can rework them. But when they're pretty
prominent still, which I think that was your problem, is
that they were a little too prominent, too prominent and
very thick. Yeah yeah, and that's another thing. Maybe like
(32:55):
thick and feathery is really in right now, but that
just didn't fit my my face structure and to go
from like thin too thick. And then that's a good point.
You know, while we're talking about it, you bring up
as the person doing the micro blading, like do you
have to watch out for trends and what people want
and them like, hey, this is your face, yes, yes,
(33:17):
And as I did, you know, hear and makeup for
six years. That's how I met Kelsey. That taught me
a lot of the artists that i've you know, micro
bladed now. And it's there's so many trends that come
and go with makeup, with brows, everything, So it's just
you can't tattoo based on a trend, you know, I
want a tattoo based on longevity and what's gonna look
best for your face. Not everyone can handle fluffy brows,
because as long as you get that base right, you
(33:39):
can always with pencil or powder, like create more of
the trendy look exactly, and a lot of people want
to think that micro blading, Oh, I'm gonna have to
throw in my pencil and just because I get my
eyebrows microbladd I'll never have to touch them again. That's
not necessarily the case. If you pencil your eyebrows in
pretty heavily, that's penciling powder in all over the entire eyebrow.
(34:00):
Micro Blading is the opposite of that. We wanted to
have a soft, pretty feathery effect. So if we, you know,
go in there and add all these beautiful little hair
like strokes, which is the point of micro blading versus
traditional tattooing, then that just means that, um, it's a
perfect stencil for if you still want to powder your
brows in. But I would rather go minimal and more
natural and let you add more if you need to.
(34:23):
I feel like that was some questions I was getting.
How do you know what to do in the shape,
And that's the thing. You specialized in this so you
can look at someone's face and know what brow shape
is going to be good for them, especially because you're
a makeup artist, you know, And that then eventually you
got into this so, but what about when the like I,
I speak up a lot, like that's a good thing.
(34:45):
That's a good thing because I feel like every stroke
like and and but you want that I would encourage people.
And from the emails I've been getting, there's apparently a
lot of people out there that are considering micro blading
to not be scared to speak up. No, yeah, and
I love that about you, Like I know you kept
saying like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm like no,
like this teamwork and I have I have post traumatic situation, understand,
(35:10):
But a lot of people do. I get a lot
of emails, um and pictures of people who are messaging
me saying like what can I do, like help, and
I send them to Nashville Beauty Girl and then send
them back to me. And that's an unfortunate process. But
if you're just open and honest at the beginning, and
don't be afraid if you look at something and you're like, hmm,
I don't know if that looks right, like, help people.
(35:30):
And in the way I approach microblading, and I think
is really important to find an artist is that um
it always comes with a touch up that's included because
you need that touch up. I would rather start off
with less is more. So I'm going to build a brow.
Um that's gonna be nice and soft and pretty and
more reserved. And then when you come back and for
that touch up, we can always add more. I'd rather
you live with them for you know, eight weeks and
(35:53):
then decide we need to add some more fluff, you know,
like if you would have gone in there and done
that first and started off way more reserves. Swear to you.
I said to her, I want to start I'd rather
start off small and come back. And then they ended
up big. And I know I I did have a
desire to have more eyebrows, but maybe and maybe I
over expressed that. Maybe, And that's that's that's why I
(36:14):
came away with two huge brows. But you don't have
a lot to start with. It really didn't. A big
brow to you was probably like a little you know,
I mean, a normal sized brow versus a big brow.
So how important because you know, like the shape of
faces and makeup and when you're creating a look for somebody,
how important is the brow? Oh my gosh, it's everything.
(36:36):
I mean, if you have on brows and lashes, that's it.
You know that that's your face. So if you know too,
you know, like you were taken to a what's the
like a desert island and you could only take one
beauty product with you, it would be a brow psel Absolutely,
have you? I mean you know what if I know? Yes,
I know, I feel like it's a toss up between
mascara and browse. But these days now with microblading and lashins,
(37:00):
it's like, oh, you would have to take your lash
extension person and your brown person to the island, which
everyone would be happy because what else? But um, so okay,
so brows are important because I've been talking with I
don't think my sister will mind me putting her out here,
but I want to encourage my sister. I don't know
(37:22):
if she plucked all of hers away, I did. That's what. Well,
first of all, I was born with minimal brows. I
had half brow situation, which shout out Laura Petrowski who
is in Austin, and she posted something on her Instagram
that she too is a half brow and she's another
person that said on Instagram after she listened to my
podcast that she was considering microblading, and I would encourage
(37:43):
her to go for it because she's drawing them in
every day and she works in news, she's on TV.
It's just a lot. So and that was the thing
for me when I started getting done, like I have
to be up super early, I have to be ready.
It's nice to just wake up and feel like certain
steps are taking care of and I feel more together.
And you know, the brow is an important part of
(38:03):
your look. And my sister has plucked hers away, but
then she grew them out for a year. She's like,
I'm not going to touch them because I want to
see how much they'll go back. But she's forty one
and four kids and hormone changes and I don't know
how things grow. But she didn't plug them for a
year and nothing, nothing has grown back. And I thought,
she goes Amy, I haven't plucked them in a year,
And I said, what, okay, you need to come see Megan,
(38:26):
like for your birthday, I want to get you microblading.
And that's actually I gave that to her on her
last birthday, which was a few months ago. So I
need to book her. We've got to get her to Nashville,
book her with you, and I need to probably get
on your books because I know you're hard to get into,
but I want her to get that because I really
feel like it will help shape Oh my gosh, does
it does well as a woman age. Like, one of
(38:47):
the biggest things that I see is, um, the brows
kind of start to fade out in the middle. You're
the beginning first, so you know, the corner of your
your nose, that area, it starts to fade out, and
then women start to look at themselves and there I
feel like I'm getting like batter, you know, or my
nose is getting larger. But it's totally an illusion. As
that space widens in between your eyebrows, it just makes
(39:09):
your whole face look bigger. And then the second thing
that goes is the tail. That's like with women, it's
like either the beginning or the tail is just starts
to fade off and then it just you lose your arch,
You lose that just clean, kind of polished look. And
if you can just at least have a guideline there,
like you were saying, um, just because no one wants
to have to fill in their brows every single morning,
(39:29):
you know, if you go work out, if you have kids,
just having Yes, it just wipes right off. That was me. Yes,
And then people be like, what happened to your eyebrows?
And I'd be like, oh, that's a sensitive topic. Yes,
And it goes to show that sometimes what you're made
fun of for as a kid sticks with you, like
that stuff sticks with me, like going to the pool
(39:51):
when I was younger, you know, high school, especially when
I was really getting into makeup and pencilia. I mean,
let's be honest, I've never really been into makeup, but
when I died to actually put makeup on, you never
have known exactly what I'm doing, and I normally do
it sloppily and with my fingers. But I got a
team of people around you, and that's why I rely
(40:11):
on you for brows and Carrie Nashville Beauty Girl and
Kelly Velvet's Edge. Yes, I have. I have people that
I tried to get tips from and teach me well,
but you know, it's stuck with me. And here I
am thirty seven years old and still self conscious about
my brows because they don't grow, they don't grow back.
(40:31):
It's like your sister, you can literally grow out. I
mean even my little tails were like practically gone, you know,
and I probably haven't touched them in five years. You know,
do you micro blade your own brows? I'm trying to
get braver to do that. If I could just take
my head off and do it myself, that would be wonderful.
But I'm one of those people where it's like I
could get my brows bladed once and I'd probably never
(40:54):
have to touch them again because they're pretty full. You
know you have full, Yeah, they're I'm lucky. But the
tails are sad, like if I wiped this makeup off,
like it's sad. So I'm I'm going to play around
with it. I've done a couple like in there, but
it's you know, I do it upside down, so it's
like the angles I just can't even picture. So I
could go really great or maybe I'll call carry me like, hey,
can you lay sure this off? Because I just screwed
(41:15):
my own brocess start over it. Yeah, So Megan's amazing.
Just know that if you're in Nashville or you want
to reach out to or even on Instagram, if you've
got questions beauty Underscore by Underscore Megan, that's your Instagram
handle and then you can catch her on Gmail. If
you want to send her an email, It's Megan Pearson
at gmail dot com. M E E G E N
(41:37):
P E A R s O N. I feel like
I have to spell things. Yeah, podcast. And then sometimes
they're like, I got the email, and everyone does mind.
Everyone puts an A on the end, everyone does m
E G A in. But it's not it's all ease,
yes or by. I should get that email, just because
I'm sure I get those all the time. Yeah, some
regular Megan is getting all your micro blading mouth. We're awesome,
(42:01):
thank you for coming in, and you know, doing a
follow up on this because it was such a popular
topic this week. I have a review on my weighted
blanket and I got to say I'm a fan, so
I got it in. I spent some time with it.
If you can get one, you should totally do it.
They are expensive, which is a bummer because it's something
(42:23):
that's so awesome for you. But maybe if you're someone
who has to medicate or do something else to get
rid of some of your anxiety, this actually might be
cheaper than having to take medicine and actually better for
your body, so it's valuable. And then I saw online
there are d I Y weighted blankets, so if you
google like do it yourself, maybe you could make your
own weighted blanket at home. I love mine, definitely going
(42:46):
to keep using it, and I kind of wish I
could travel with it because sometimes my anxiety goes up
when I travel or my more restless. I don't feel
as grounded and man, if I could take the Way
to Blanket with me, I feel like I would like
a champ when I travel. So yeah, maybe if you
are someone who struggles with anxiety, I totally recommend this,
(43:08):
or you're you're feeling unsettled, they say the Way to
Blanket really can give you that grounded feeling. And if
you are anxious or stressed or something like that, your
body is producing cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and
the Way to Blanket can help that, so highly recommend
it for that reason. Calming your body down, it can
reduce nervous system activity. So if you're trying to unwind
(43:30):
at the end of the day but your mind is
still racing, well, the weighted blanket can help help with that.
I did see that you should be getting a blanket
that is five to ten percent of your body weight,
so keep that in mind if you want it to
be effective. I mean, it just helped me want to
I mean you can't really move when it's on. I
mean you can't a little bit, but I'm less restless,
(43:51):
Like it just automatically calms you down. I can't explain it,
but it's pretty genius. And if you think about it.
They have those blankets for dogs, not not blankets, but
vest what were those things called, oh, the thunder shirts.
So my dog, Josie ear old dog. We have a
dog car and now we lost Josie to cancer, but
she would freak out during thunderstorms and I always thought
about getting her one of those thunder shirts because I
would see how it would like keep dogs calm. And
(44:13):
I never tried it out with her, but I mean,
if you think about it, it it totally makes sense. And
if it works for dogs when they're stressed out, then
a weighted blanket would work for humans. I mean, you
should definitely give it a try. I also saw two
that they work more for than just anxiety, like if
you have o c D, post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder,
(44:33):
like a lot of those can be related to the
lowering of serotonin levels in the body and the deep
touch that's provided by a weighted blanket can help boost
those levels back up. How crazy is that? And then
I read they could even like help with focus, which
I have a d D big time. I don't medicate
myself for it, and it's something I really have to monitor.
(44:54):
But I saw that they did a study with weighted
vests on kids that were in school because they didn't
have the the blankets on them. Although I will say
my friend Andrea, who's a teacher, she keeps some weighted
blankets I think in her classroom and if sometimes if
students need to go into the corner and sit down,
they'll put the weighted blanket on and then once they're
ready to join the class back they're more calm and
(45:15):
focused and ready to you know, listen and not be
all over the place. But anyway back to the A
d D. Which see I kind of went off on
a little trail there, But one study took students with
attention difficulties and hyperactivity and they put the weighted vests on.
It's which the same thing as like the way to blanket,
and their ability to stay on task increased up to
(45:37):
which is a lot, So I may have to start
doing work with my weighted blanket on because I feel
like I'll focus more. Maybe I should put the way
to blanket on while I do this podcast, and then
I'll be able to focus more. So anyway, if you
if you're shopping around for him, know that they can
be sort of pricey, anywhere from a hundred to two
hundred dollars, which you know a lot of you all
(45:58):
have been asking exactly what buy and where I buy it.
I get a lot of stuff on Amazon, so I
actually just started working on one of those Amazon shop
pages that I'm building together all my favorite things because
you know, on here before I've talked about this face
mask that my face person tells me to use. It's
got a red light and a blue light and I
wear it at night. And I got on Amazon, and
(46:18):
I get more questions about that thing, and I wish
I could just be like, oh, yeah, here it is.
Here it is. But now I can send you to
my Amazon shop page and boom, you'll know the exact
one that I buy. I'm waiting for approval from Amazon
right now, because you have to be an influencer and
then you get approved. So that's what we're waiting on,
and as soon as that shot pages up, it'll be
so easy to send you all there. But remember they're
(46:38):
a little pricey, but I think totally worth it, and
then you can do it yourself, like a d I
y way to blanket. You just gotta google it and
look it up. I personally have not made one again,
got mine on Amazon, but I'm just trying to let
you know that there are people that make their own
in case you can't afford to get one. Okay, all right,
big fan away to Blankets, can't wait to go home
and get in mine. Well that's a wrap on today's episode.
(47:07):
I wanna thank my husband again for coming on because
it's super hard for him to do. And I think
it was because the first time he came on, he
got such a good response, Like I was getting really
nice emails and tweets and little Instagram messages, and I
think that that encouraged him to like have a little
confidence that it's it's good to speak up and share
(47:28):
your thoughts and feelings and things in your life. So
keep that stuff coming because then I can get him
back to talk about more things and I'll share with him,
like you did so good look at all these notes,
which I really appreciate the emails so much. So we've
been getting so many questions that I wanted to start
a Q and A episode, which started this week. If
you haven't gone back to listen to that or you
(47:48):
didn't realize it loaded well, on Tuesday, we put up
a Q and A. So every Tuesday there will be
about a ten to fifteen minute episode that will have
four questions with four answers, and then every third day
you'll have this normal episode that we've been doing, which
will have four different things like topics, interviews, or whatever
I'm going to be talking about. And if you subscribe
(48:10):
to Four Things with Amy Brown, where we listen to podcasts,
then I think it will automatically just load up for you.
So if you haven't subscribed, do that. I always we
appreciate the subscribers and anybody that writes a review you're amazing, uh,
you know, gives the stars and all the things like
that's just helpful in growing the podcast. So we appreciate that.
I do a big thank you to Elizabeth and Mike
(48:32):
for always getting the podcasts up making it happen. My
other guests today Uh, Megan who talked about eyebrows, and
Megan Pearson, she's awesome, and then Aaron Opria. Really they're
very busy people and they take time on their day
to come sit and talk with me. So hopefully their
information was beneficial to you in some way, shape or form.
(48:53):
So now i'll do a quick email shout out. I
think I'll still keep the shoutouts at the end of
each episode. I'll do a quick email shout out in
addition to doing the Q and A emails on Tuesday.
But this is a cool note that I got from David.
It's not so much a question, but I just liked
the information and I thought it was fitting at least
for me, and I wanted to share it from David.
(49:13):
I know you named your dog Cara after Supergirl. I
don't know if you know this or not, but Cara
like a c H, like a hard c h as
emboch c h a r a Cara is anxiou Greek
for joy keep ringing light where you go. So David,
thank you so much for sharing that with me. I
had no idea that uh Cara was Greek for joy,
(49:35):
and I have joy tattooed on my wrist like joy
is a big part of my life. And now like
our dog Cara, who are kids randomly name because they're
obsessed with Supergirl? Uh sure her anxious Greek name. Her
meaning is joy, So I love that so much. I
love when you find out how joy, just like or
(49:56):
a word or something that's important to you, keeps finding
its way back into your life. And also shout out
David because I know there's probably not a lot of
guys listening to my podcast, so I think I pulled
this email as well to be like what we have
guys listening. Y'all can email me too and let me
know if there's any topics y'all want to hear. I
think I have such a female brain towards this podcast
(50:19):
that I may be leaving some guys out there listening.
So if there's something y'all would like to hear me
cover or maybe even my husband since now he's not
opposed to coming on, send me emails four things with
Amy Round at gmail dot com and maybe we can
get some topics that guys would enjoy too. Okay, I
am going to let y'all go, but thank you as
(50:40):
always for listening. You're awesome. A little food for yourself.
Life always pretty, but hey, it's pretty beautiful thing laughs.
(51:04):
A little more things tightened up because of course said
he can't. You'll kick in it with Four Things with
Amy Brown,
Never guess up a little food for you. So life.
Oh it's pretty back. It was pretty beautiful than beautiful.
That's a little month you're kicking with. Four with a Brown, Okay,
(00:32):
really excited about what is to come on today's episode.
The four things that I have, I really like them.
Three guests and then me talking about waited blankets. Now,
my first guest is going to be my husband, which
this is a huge deal because that means we got
him to come back, y'all, we did it. His podcast
debut was like I don't know what the episode before last,
(00:55):
and he is not a person that's very open. He
doesn't like to talk, he doesn't like to share. But
I feel like he thinks that we are a safe
space for him, so that's amazing. He got good reviews,
good comments, good emails, so he you know, I used
that to lure him back on. And if you missed
(01:15):
the episode where he debuted on the podcast, he was
talking about PMS with me how to handle PMS like
a man, So you can go back and listen to that.
And in this episode, we're going to talk about when
he said I love you to me for the first time,
and we dive into our relationship, because I think you
might be surprised when he chose to tell me that
he loved me, because even I was a little surprised.
(01:39):
On this episode, also going to talk about why I
don't weigh myself anymore, and I've got celebrity trainer Aaron
Opria coming in to talk about that. She's a trainer
to big time people here in Nashville, you know, just
like Carrie Underwood, Kasey Musgraves, Marion Morris, Kelsey Ballerini, and
then I have no idea somehow I got lucky enough
she trains normal people too, So I have started to
(02:00):
work out with her in the last year and she's
amazing and it's really helping me become more confident with
my strong body and eating properly and not obsessing over
anything that the scale says. So we talked about that
and maybe you might want to throw away your scale
after you listen to this episode that I've got cosmetic
tattoo artist Megan Pearson on which she's who did my eyebrows.
(02:24):
So here's the deal. In the last episode, I told
you all that I got micro blading done and it
was a horrible experience I had to have laser tattoo removal,
and there was such a good response from that. I
got so many questions that I asked Megan, who corrected
my eyebrows, if she would come on and talk about
it a little bit further. And you know, she's works
as a lot of the country artists here keep it
(02:45):
on pretty, she does make up, and then that transition
to her doing actual tattooing and she's great, So she'll
be on today's episode. And then I got my weighted
blanket in, so I'm ready to review that and share
with you all whether I think a weighted blanket is
something that you to invest in as well. And in
that little segment, it's the fourth thing I recorded that
(03:06):
the other day, and I mentioned in there that I
was trying to get Amazon to approve me as an
influencer so to have like an Amazon shop page where
I could just send y'all to things that I talk
about and boom, the link is right there on my
page and you can buy it. So because sometimes I'm
like just google it. Well, now this is getting easier,
and then eventually this will lead to something that I'll
have on my website once that gets built. But Amazon
(03:29):
emailed me this morning and said I was approved. So
I'll go ahead and give you the shop page now,
because you'll hear in the Way to Blanket segment that
I'm I'm waiting on approval. But I'm no longer waiting.
I've got it. So if you go to Amazon dot com,
slash Shop, slash Radio, Amy, Boom, it's got all my
stuff up there. So in my Q and A show,
which launched earlier this week on Tuesday's, I now have
(03:52):
a Q and A episode where I'm going to answer
all your questions. One of the questions I got was
what kind of eye patches do you use? And I
gave the answer. I talked about two brands that I
really like, skin Iceland and Peter Thomas Roth. Well, guess what,
now they're on my Amazon page. So all you have
to do is go to Amazon dot com, slash Shop,
slash Radio, Amy and Boom. The link is right there
and you can just buy it. You don't have to
(04:13):
look it up and wonder am I buying the right thing?
You're actually buying what I buy on Amazon. I also
have some of the stuff up there to make my macha.
I've got some kitchen stuff that I can't live without.
My salt lamp is up there. I keep my salt
lamp in my room. I have it on all the time.
It helps with purifying the air, and you can read
all about it if you click on the salt lamp link.
(04:34):
But I've got lots of stuff up there, so I'm
kind of, you know, working on my little banner and
my picture to get that looking right. But yeah, if
you want to go shop my Amazon page, it's kind
of exciting. I got approved. I still don't have a
blue checkmark on Instagram, which I just hit five hundred
thousand followers, so yeah, half million followers can't get a
blue checkmark. I've been rejected by Instagram for the blue
(04:56):
checkmark like three times. So but hey, shout out to
Amazon for setting me as an influencer to have my
own shop page. It's like really exciting. But if you
happen to know anybody at Instagram that can hook a
girl up, because I think you know, having that blue
check mark, it's not an ego thing for me. It's
not like I need it to feel like, oh I
finally made it or anything. But I'm trying to engage
(05:16):
with more people and you know. I feel like sometimes
I'm reaching out to people and they don't they don't
know who I am, but I happen to be a
fan of theirs, and I want to see if they
want to come share their story and their stuff on
my podcast. And they're probably like, who is this girl.
She doesn't even have a blue check mark. I can't
take her seriously. And I need people to take me
seriously so that they'll come on the podcast and share
(05:37):
things with you that you know, I like about them.
So a lot of women are like food bloggers or
authors or different people that I'm inspired by and I
think they're cool. And again, if I'm just sending on
my d M and it's not popping up directly at
the top because I don't have a blue checkmark, or
they see the d M and they're like, oh, I
don't know if this is the real person. I'm not replying.
(05:58):
It's probably just some spam. I'm not spam. I want
people to come on and help inspire all of us.
So that's my little rant about my blue checkmark on Instagram.
But yeah, Amazon hooked it up Amazon dot Com slash shop,
and I think it's Ford slash Shop Forward Slash Radio Amy.
(06:18):
All right, so there we go. Let's move on into
today's episode, Husband's Coming Up First, backed by popular demand.
I have my husband been of twelve years military for
a long time. Grew up military. Your dad was in
the Air Force. And then I mean you knew from
(06:38):
an early age, like you wanted to go to the
Air Force academy. Yeah, and you did that? Did you
just burp? No, I was clearing my throat. You didn't
give me a chance to, like to my warm up?
What's your warm what's your warm up? Unique New York.
That's what you told me, Unique New York, New York.
How now brown cow? Now brown Cow? So you never
gave me a warm up? You just started in. Did
I say how long we've been married? Twelve years? I
(07:00):
did I know, but I didn't know. I didn't, Okay,
So and then much of that or about half of
our marriage, you were in the your Force and then not.
But like you're very like you knew at five what
you wanted to do, and you're very You make up
your mind about things and you do it sort of.
So I'm curious as to when you made up your
mind that the only people you wanted to say I
(07:20):
love you too, was your mom, your sister, and then
whomever you were going to marry. I think my mom
was the biggest proponent of that. She just said, make
sure you're careful who you say you're you love because
there's special words and if you tell everybody, then it's
not special, okay. Which that's what led to us, Stephen
talking about this is because our son, Stevenson, says I
(07:41):
love you to everybody. It's like everything. It's like an anchor. Man.
I love lamp, I love car, I love girl, I
love every girl, and I'll just point meet you and
be like, I love you. And so you've been really
trying to teach him to not overuse that word only. Yeah,
I just wanted to know that it's a special word,
like if you say that, if you say it to everybody,
(08:01):
then it's not special. Right. So so much so, we
never said I love you while we were dating. It
wasn't until you proposed and I said yes that you
finally said no. It was after yes, because had I
said no, you didn't want to say it to me
because then you would have said it to someone that
wasn't going to be your wife. Now, during the engagement,
(08:23):
there was still an opportunity for me to not become
your wife, but it ended up working out. Like really,
to steal that deal, you should have waited until I
said I do like at the altar. No, I mean
I think you have to, you know, from the guy's perspective,
I think at the proposal you have to make your
intentions known, like at that time you have to declare, like,
these are my intentions, Like literally, I love you and
(08:44):
I am putting it on the line, will you marry? Well, So,
you totally threw me for a lout because first of all,
we hadn't been dating that long, but we had known
each other a really long time since we were kids,
but we never dated until our twenties, which is a
super awkward long then we are friend Kevin Dr Lewis
was on a previous podcast which if you haven't heard
that one, it's about the placebo effect and you should
(09:07):
go back and listen to it if you have time.
Dr Lewis may come on again. He's good. He's your
best friend I've known in my whole life. Anyway, he
was getting married of all kinds of weird information. Yes
he is. So he was getting married. We were both
at the wedding. You were stationed in England at the time,
but you were a groomsman, so you came back and
(09:27):
where you were in town and we hadn't seen each
other in a while. And then I guess everybody's mission
at that wedding was to set us up, and it worked.
So then we started dating. And then a few months
after that you proposed, which I was totally thrown off
because you had never even said you loved me. I mean,
but I had said I love you to other people,
but you know that, Yeah, But I mean two boyfriends
(09:49):
that I had had in the past. I mean, I'm
sure there was a boyfriend I thought I loved in
high school or maybe a couple which I didn't, and
then two guys in college that I loved I did, right,
is that? Okay? I don't know? Yeah, your feelings, you
didn't know them, Okay, you did, You're right, you didn't
know them, But then you had never said it to me.
(10:10):
And then you got down on one knee and you repose,
and I'm like, oh my gosh, what is happening. And
then after I said yes, you said, okay, I've been
waiting to tell you this I love you yeah, which
was really sweet. Yeah, well, and I wanted to. I mean,
there's so there's so many things that we lose in
life and in the chance to actually share something special
is something that people can hold onto. Um, and that's,
you know, one of them. I thought that those words
(10:32):
mean something to me, and I think words didn't mean
things in general, like when you're talking, like the words
you say actually means something, so you need to be
careful what you say. Yeah, that's important to remember words matter.
I mean, I'm guilty of forgetting that. Yeah, we're definitely
even our relationship in twelve years, Like we get quick
with words. Sometimes we don't mean to say something we say,
and you know we were gat it later. Yeah, so
(10:52):
your mom played a part and you're not really saying
I love you until the time was right, and then
we ended up getting married. I think when you proposed,
we decided were going to wait almost a year. You
were going to Afghanistan in January two months later. I
was going to deploy posed in October, and so I thought, okay,
(11:12):
well we'll just get married next September. Why we decide
on that, I'm not sure. And then it kept getting
bumped up, bumped up, and then we decided on May.
And then my sister, who's married to your other best friend,
who another side story is my husband tried to date
her way back podcast when we were kids. Well, we
can get into it a little bit. I mean, because
(11:33):
technically you and her now husband y'all fought over her
in youth group. I won the coin toss, I won
the flip, and so what happened with that? I had
no game. I thought that just my being would attract
her knowing that I won the flip. So to set
the story up for people that might be a little
bit confused, we started going to a new church that
my husband been and his best friend Ben went to.
(11:56):
Not confusing at all, not confusing Ben and Ben. Well,
so my sister, I'm a young I'm younger, I'm like
almost four years younger than you, and so obviously we
would not work out un till later in life because
I was in junior high then you were in high school.
Actually at this point, I was in elementary school. So
my sister was near the youth group and she was
a cute new girl, and you and been flipped a
(12:17):
coin and you won the coin toss, and you had
two weeks to woo her and they to close the deal.
To close the deal, which means like become boyfriend girlfriends. Right,
that's what you were like twelve thirteen years old, so
become her boyfriend and that did it didn't happen, right, No,
she didn't even know you were. Now, when we talk
about his adult she's like, been, I didn't even know
(12:39):
you were trying to pursue me. Like that's how not
strong your game was. You had no game. So then
once the two weeks was up, the other been swooped
in and then they became boyfriend and girlfriend, and now
there was some stuff in between, but now they're married
with four kids, and and then I was I eventually
grew up and you're like, oh, okay, I guess I
(13:00):
guess I'll ask the little sister out. No, it wasn't, no,
it was anything like that. I just came back from
you know, I went to the wedding and came back.
I was like, hey, look who grew up? Like wow,
see that's what I just said, and you go, no, No,
it wasn't like that. It wasn't It wasn't like, oh,
I'll take a second best. Well I was, okay, I'll
take the little little sister. It was more like it
was I didn't even have any intention. My sister is awesome.
(13:21):
I see why she was, and she did. She would
send pictures like at Christmas, I'd get a picture of
you every year. Yes, she was one of the main
culprits in setting us up because she thought we would
be great together. So but she is also the reason
why we ended up getting married eight weeks after you proposed,
like you propose an October then yeah, like I said,
we were get married the following September. Then it got
(13:42):
bumped to May. But then she was pregnant and do
in May. And she said, if y'all get married and
I go into labor, you're missing my husband, who's a groomsman.
You're missing me, who's a bridesmaid. You're missing my kids,
who are the ring bearer and the flower girl. And
then mom and dad would be torn. Should be at
the hospital with the baby or have been in Amy's wet.
I mean, it would be a whole thing. So yeah,
(14:03):
she she had a good point. So she's like, I
have an idea, y'all should get married on New Year's
Eve and I said, Christie, that is in eight weeks
and she was like, yeah, I'll help you. So we
did it. We got married and you know what everybody
thought is that we were pregnant. Didn't all your friends
from the Air Force who didn't know me, weren't they like,
oh my gosh, did you get her pregnant? Because they've
(14:23):
never even met you? And I lived in England for
four years at that time, and then all of a sudden,
you're marrying this girl in eight weeks shotgun wedding. But
fun fact, we hadn't even done it. Yeah, why are
you possing? Well, I didn't know we were going that far.
You Well, honey, we could be I say that. I've
said it on the radio a lot. I mean people know.
(14:46):
People knew at the time, because every even on the radio,
I was getting questions like, oh my goodness, are you pregnant?
And I was like, no, we're waiting until our wedding
night to have sex. Mm hmm, this is uncomfortable. Well,
if you can't tell like this, entire ma in relationship
has been me trying to be quiet and keep it
all the emotions and all the things internal and not
say anything. And it's been the opposite of amy, like
(15:08):
pulling everything out and sharing it with that. But I
think it's been healthy for you to share. That's why.
And I'm thank you for coming back on the podcast.
By the way, my pleasure. This is your second appearance,
and I know that it's hard for you, but I
think you actually like it because otherwise you wouldn't come back.
You like being more vulnerable. It feels good to share. No,
I don't like being more vulnerable. You don't know, Okay,
(15:31):
well I want to be more vulnerable. Well, I appreciate
you coming on at least to talk about the I
love you thing here. I know I did a one
eight with that. Like you were totally night You're like, hey,
this we're gonna talk. I was just talking to Stevenson about, Hey,
this is what you need to say, this is what
it means, and this is why I think I've been
saying it. Abounch. I think he's starting to understanding he is,
and Stuffia has even picked up on it his sister
because he was saying, oh, he was eating this chicken.
(15:54):
He was like, I love this chicken or something, and
so she was like, you don't love it you like it.
It's food, you love peepe all you like food, and
so she's picked up on you. You don't want to
just throw that love or around. But I mean, I'm
guilty of being like, oh I love this, I love this,
I love this, I love this. But I think they
were No, we're a good balance, and I think it
is important to remember that love matters, and our words matter.
(16:17):
So does love, but words matter, and that you know
we think about it, and that that's a special thing.
And I probably let myself love too quickly, and you know,
I mean, I don't regret those loves, but I think
it is special that knowing that you waited to say
I love you too, me or your future wife which
turned out to be me, Like, that's special. Well, I
(16:39):
think as I want our kids to hear the same.
I like to sure to grow up and know the
boy tells you he loves you within like he better
give you a ring when he's telling you he loves you,
like anything before that, you're like, no, it's too soon. Now,
you don't need to go that far, just because that's
how you did it. Because I don't want her to go, oh, dad, mom,
he loves me he just how long you open our
(17:01):
third day, he told me, okay, but maybe three months. Okay,
I know you're gonna be protective because she's your daughter.
We'll just have to We'll find the balance because I
know what it's like, and you know, I I wanted
to be loved and I had probably unhealthy relationships with
guys because you know, my dad left when I was eight,
(17:22):
and that translated into me and my sister. Both have
been open about the fact that we looked for love elsewhere,
even though we now our relationship with our dad is
much better than it was then. But he was he
was not always around, but he was still a good man,
still a good dad. He was doing the best he
could given the circumstances. And you know, obviously it would
(17:43):
have been better had he not left us. But that's
a whole another conversation. I don't hold anything against him
for that forgiveness has taken place. I actually get it.
And we know how hard marriages. We've been married twelve years,
Like I think that we can be like a little
bit more now, like okay, we get it. Like it's
not easy. So, um, where is I going with this?
I have no idea we started on just saying I
love you. We went to the coin toss, then we
(18:05):
went to the fact that you weren't pregnant or we
didn't do it before marriage because I was clarifying that
I couldn't be pregnant. Oh but that was the other
thing is that I probably loved others a little bit
too easy because I was craving the love and the
attention from guys. You know. So we we didn't enter
our marriage well all even say, like I didn't enter
(18:25):
Ben and I made a choice not to sleep together
till we were married, but that wasn't I hadn't made
that decision before you and I had done stuff before.
So that's something that I always thought I would say
for marriage too, which was a gift I wanted to
give to you, but I messed that up. But you know,
we're not perfect. No, nobody's perfect, and there's no pressure
(18:49):
on that. And these days it's like so different. I mean,
I don't really know where kids these days are, but
it does seem harder and harder for that to happen.
But you know, we did plan our wedding in eight weeks,
so we didn't have to wait a lot of time.
But I mean we waited, we did. Okay, Well, thank
you for coming on to talk about saying I love you.
(19:12):
That's always my plasure and the importance of words and
how words matter. Sorry, I took you on little rabbit trails.
Will you come back again? There's something I want to
have you back on for. Oh, let's talk about adoption
next time you come an infertility and kind of that
journey I want to Okay, no pressure. We started to
(19:33):
say with vulnerability, So now I'm thinking, Wow, we're really
gonna We're starting fertility and adoption very vulnerable. We started
today with vulnerability. No, you just told me thank you
for coming on because you like being vulnerable and I
don't like being vulnerable. But talk about fertility or we
can talk about that. Is you being vulnerable? I told
you it's a very twenty nineteen thing to do. All
the men are doing it, All the men are being
(19:55):
vulnerable and women where where did you read that? Everywhere? Okay, bye,
I have celebrity trainer Aaron Opria. Thank you for coming back.
I always love having you on the best. Now you
can hear previous episodes with Aaron. We talked about all
(20:17):
kinds of things, but today I brought you in to
talk about scales and weighing because I think that's something
that women especially get fixated on. And if you're a
guy listening right now, maybe maybe you weigh yourself. I
don't know, but I feel like it can be unhealthy
at times. It has been for me. But I was
(20:38):
encouraged by someone in the health world that I follow
and trust, and she encourages people to weigh themselves every
single day when they wake up. So I fell into
that and I started doing it, and it was not good.
And I'm happy to say that I haven't weighed myself
in months. That's amazing and and I and I'm okay
with it, and I feel better because I don't want
(20:58):
to get fixated and all wrapped around in the axle
about five pounds, which could be you know, water weight
or p MS or something that I just eight that's
going to fall off in a couple of days anyways,
right right, So we're so much more than a number
on a scale. Our weight's going to fluctuate on is
going to have high slows. You know, if we've taken
a lot of sodium and number goes up, we have
(21:19):
less sodium we sweat blah blah blah blah. You the
number on the scale doesn't matter. It's good to have
a good ballpark or where you're at in the beginning,
and then just continue to live a healthy, balanced lifestyle
and with consistency, the number will drop. Like I used
to weigh, I mean, I'm about fifteen pounds heavier than
I used to be. I'm not saying I'm any bigger,
(21:39):
but I'm about fifteen pounds heavier than I used to be. Yeah,
it's yeah, it's muscle, okay, which is probably what's happened
to Your number would probably be higher than what you're
used to being. I started to see it go up
when you and I started working out and I started
lifting weights. I started to see go up and I
would freak out again. That's why I haven't weighed myself
in months, because I don't that's not important. When I
(22:00):
and all my clothes, they fit. The most important thing.
The most important thing is actually how do you feel.
I feel great, I feel strong, I feel healthy, and
I am bigger than I was, but it's muscle and
I feel strong and healthy. Like I feel great, Like
you can run up a flight of stairs and you're
not dying at the top. What a great feeling. Go
out and play with your children, and you can walk
(22:22):
the dog, and you can do all these things and
you're not dying. It's about loving life and doing things
that you love doing, and not having to sit on
the bench while your kids are playing because you don't
feel good right and then and not getting depressed for
no reason because you wage yourself in the morning and
it's not the exact number. How mean you think it
should be that it is super depressing? Why do we
do that to ourselves? So many of I've struggled with it.
(22:44):
I went through a horrible phase of it, and it
made me crazy. It didn't make me happy. I didn't
feel happy. I felt like I was always like, what's
the scale? Going to ben, I go to the bathroom,
what's the scale? I go drink some water, what's the scale?
And I was like, that is a horrible way to
live at me. It takes a joy out of life.
And life is all about love. I mean, we only
get one love it, live it to this fullest. Still,
(23:07):
you need to eat a clean, balanced lifestyle. I'm not
saying that it has to be all perfect or all bad.
I mean, find a balance, find a balance that you
can live on forever. Just like in my four by
four diet book, I talk about still not taking one
food group out. I still want people to um have
a little bit of everything that they enjoy, but in
small amounts. You're right. Just find what it's going to
(23:29):
work for you and that balance. And that's that's what
I've been adopting into my life. There were times I've
definitely been way more strict than I am, but but
now I know, I work out, I work hard, and
I have some of that wiggle room that you know what,
if I mess up, who cares. It's not even a
mess up. It's living life. It's living Life's not like,
oh I ate this, So now I'm totally off the rails.
(23:51):
I should just eat whatever I want forever. It's kind
of like okay, which I'm still guilty of at times.
So you eat that and then you get up in
the morning and you move on. Don't wear your yourself
and get fixated on it. And guess that's what the
scale went up. It didn't and it would go up
on me. It's going to go up on you. It's
going to go up on everybody that's okay, right, just
don't like. I think it's good to have certain e
(24:12):
gauge on on what you should be with your clothes
and how they feel. And then if if you feel
like clothes are getting a little bit tight, then clean
it up. That means you're cheating way too much. Just
clean up the diet a little bit, get moving more,
and then you'll feel better instead of every day getting
fixed on a number, which you work with a lot
of female clients, like we're there, we get fixated on
(24:34):
the number we do. It's so crazy. I don't know,
but it's really a sad way because everyone has in
their mind that you have to be this certain number
to be beautiful. Or everybody is a different height and
structure and kinds of things. How do you know what
you're supposed to wear? You don't because we're all different. Everybody's.
God has blessed us to make us all different in
our own special way, and that's what keeps things from
(24:56):
being born. Could you imagine if we're all the same boring? No,
no way, that'd be so so boring. So I was like,
take advantage of what God's bless you with and go
work out move your body, eat clean, dance lots, because
what's life without dancing? Yes, Aaron doesn't love to dance.
Every Saturday you can find her at Whiskey Row from
four to six. I will be home to cook dinner
(25:19):
at that point and she takes her own beat juice
with her because she makes a beat juice. Vodka. No tequila, tequila,
Oh not vodka, sorry, yeah, no, I order the tequila
at the bar, bring my own beat lemon and ginger juice,
and it's like a nice little cocktail and it's so cute.
If you follow Aaron on Instagram, she's at aaron Opria
(25:40):
and it's her and her husband and every Saturday they're
out dancing, which Ben and I we want to try
to go, and I've talked to a couple of other people.
They want to join you too. Do they really have
a party of me on the rooftop? Ben? Doesn't it
really dance? Though? He will that day be a Seans dancing.
He'll dance a Sean. The dancing is just a reminder
of that's part of of having fun and having that balance,
Like you're not out saying don't ever go out and drink, drink, drink,
(26:05):
fun and have you know, or have a doughnut like
those are your favorite things. But just know that if
you're someone that's fixed it on the number, if you
go do that stuff may way more the next day,
and then that'll spiral into some sort of crazy obsession
or depression about well, I hate my body. So then
and then you do it again and again and again,
and it does just cycle. So what what you need
(26:28):
to do is live life, have fun, do that stuff,
and then don't weigh yourself the next day, and just
keep moving and take care of yourself. I guarantee if
I got on the scale this morning after yesterday, I
mean I still a healthy well yeah to the most
far as my son's birthday. Had half a doughnut, but
I I had tequila and I had one piece of pizza,
and my scale would be upright normally do that, Yeah,
(26:50):
I would be up about five pounds today. Oh my gosh.
Yeah absolutely, I can feel in my face, but the
face is sodium. That's cool, tomorrow'll be gone. But if
I got up this morning and I'm like, oh, I'm
up five pounds, if I would have waited, I'd be like, oh,
forget it, I give up that's the mindset of a
lot of people. I give up. I'm just gonna I've
already lost it, so I'm just gonna keep on going.
And that's where we get in trouble. So that's why
(27:10):
I'm like, that's why I know I'm up today. I'm
going to eat clean, get back on track, and it'll
be back down a couple of days. I'll be fine,
no big deal. And then also no too, I'll just
ree itade. I think I mentioned this earlier, but if
you're adding weights into your routine and you didn't before,
the scale is going to go up, because I do
see that mostly so it doesn't happen every time, but
as a majority of the scale usually goes up and some.
(27:33):
But one thing you do need to make sure of
when you add weights is you don't want to overeat
people overestimate they're like, oh, I worked out today, so
I can have this because you hear if you lift weights,
like if you do your metabolis, metabolism goes up for
twenty four hours. Yes, true, yes, but that doesn't mean
you need to go eat a whole box of pasta.
Let me. You still need to remember portion control and
(27:55):
even when I was talking about cheating. Cheating isn't a
free for all. You should balance out you're cheating. I'm
not telling you go drink a bottle of tequila. I'm
telling you a couple of drinks isn't going to kill you.
But mixed between in between each drink, have the water,
balance it out. Have a piece of pizza. You don't
need eat the whole large pizza. Yeah, so balance I
had a piece of pizza, so I only ate half
a donut. If I would have had a whole donor,
(28:16):
I would have had a piece of pizza. I balance
it out because I already had the tequila, so I
don't need it all. And then this morning clean back on,
back on track. So while you're here, I also want
to bring up since we just encourage people to, you know,
throw out the scales or at least moving yourself every day.
Get moving because your new step bet is starting. Actually,
we're in the warm up week right now. Favorite thing ever,
(28:38):
but March three is the deadline for the legit, Like
the warm up week will be over and people need
to sign up. And I joined the game. I did
it earlier this year and it was so fun. It
kept me moving and I was encouraged by even emails
I was getting from people that I had told I
was doing it, and they signed up and joined your
game too, and they're like, oh my gosh, this is
been a game changer for me, Like I was feeling
(29:00):
depressed or I couldn't get out of bed, like I
just put this motivated them to get moving. So I
just thought I just wanted to share that with you.
I was getting. Game is my favorite thing ever. I'm
obsessed with them because the more you move, the better
you feel. The more you set, the worst you feel,
so the worst it gets. So just get your body moving.
Your body is a machine that's made to move. So
what step it is is you pay forty dollars. Everybody
(29:21):
pays forty and then you're It pulls the history of
your fitness track or whether it's your watch or your phone,
and it's gonna take your average and up at about
thirty percent, and that's gonna be your average for the
next five weeks for you to get if you've already played,
it's gonna only up at a hundred or two. It
doesn't I've already played, so it doesn't a dozen up
at again, just the first time, and then if you
(29:42):
get your steps, you're getting your four dollars back. So
you're just investing in yourself to make yourself move again
for the next five weeks, you guys can do It's
five weeks and with that time, you're gonna start establishing
new healthy habits of moving and you realize how much
better you feel. So then you're not gonna want to
sit all the time. Yeah, you really do. Like I've
done it. I will admit I did Aaron's that last
summer and I lost the forty bucks because I got eliminated,
(30:03):
like right away, I didn't get my step Yeah, and
it was like want want want so then, but then
this earlier this year, I did it and it felt
so awesome to get my forty bucks back and then
some the rest of the pot from the people that
had dropped out. So join us if you want to.
Just download the step bet app and under the game code,
which is the very important part because some people are
(30:24):
like I just signed up for a random game, Like what,
you should join our game because that way we're all
doing this together. It's the Aaron Opria. That's the game
code you enter, and that's e R I n O
p R E A boom boom, Let's get this step party,
go do that. Um we will. We'll have Aaron. Thank
(30:44):
you for coming on again. I'll have you back, Let's
hang out again. So I'm always like having Aaron's perspective
on because I love that she's all about the balance.
So on last week's episode, I talked about how I
got my eyebrow was micro bladed and it went horribly wrong.
I got so many emails and questions about it that
(31:06):
I contacted Megan Pearson, who did my brows redid my
brows from the horrible experience, to see if she could
come on and talk about it, because so many of
you seem interested in microblading. So I was like, Okay,
I've got to bring the expert on. So Megan is here,
and she's Beauty by Megan on Instagram and it's Beauty
Underscore by Underscore Megan, and Megan is m E. G E. N.
(31:30):
And she's a cosmetic tattoo and makeup artist. She's one
of the best in Nashville and she works a lot
of country stars. Again, I found you because Kelsey Ballerini
posted about you. I was about eight months into my
my micro bladed brows that I hated, but I was
just living with them. You know, most people don't know
like you can do anything about it. I was like, well,
(31:51):
I guess one day maybe they'll fade. So I saw
Kelsey post about you, so I thought, I'm just going
to reach out. So I d m you on Instagram
explain to you my situation. Then eventually got an appointment
with you to come in just so you could look
at them, because I wanted a second opinion. Yes, I
wanted you to look at them and see if you
saw as a professional what I saw, which was a
(32:13):
mistake or mistakes two of them. Do I have to broads? Yeah?
And I went in and I loved how honest you
were with me. You're like, yeah, And I thought maybe
you could kind of just microblade around them and make
them different and fix them. And you looked at me
and you said, sweetie, UM, I can help you, but
you're going to have to get these lasered off and
(32:34):
then come back to say, yeah, that's the unfortunate thing
is a lot of people don't know that that's the stuff.
You can't if they're really small and have almost faded away.
Absolutely Usually you can rework them. But when they're pretty
prominent still, which I think that was your problem, is
that they were a little too prominent, too prominent and
very thick. Yeah yeah, and that's another thing. Maybe like
(32:55):
thick and feathery is really in right now, but that
just didn't fit my my face structure and to go
from like thin too thick. And then that's a good point.
You know, while we're talking about it, you bring up
as the person doing the micro blading, like do you
have to watch out for trends and what people want
and them like, hey, this is your face, yes, yes,
(33:17):
And as I did, you know, hear and makeup for
six years. That's how I met Kelsey. That taught me
a lot of the artists that i've you know, micro
bladed now. And it's there's so many trends that come
and go with makeup, with brows, everything, So it's just
you can't tattoo based on a trend, you know, I
want a tattoo based on longevity and what's gonna look
best for your face. Not everyone can handle fluffy brows,
because as long as you get that base right, you
(33:39):
can always with pencil or powder, like create more of
the trendy look exactly, and a lot of people want
to think that micro blading, Oh, I'm gonna have to
throw in my pencil and just because I get my
eyebrows microbladd I'll never have to touch them again. That's
not necessarily the case. If you pencil your eyebrows in
pretty heavily, that's penciling powder in all over the entire eyebrow.
(34:00):
Micro Blading is the opposite of that. We wanted to
have a soft, pretty feathery effect. So if we, you know,
go in there and add all these beautiful little hair
like strokes, which is the point of micro blading versus
traditional tattooing, then that just means that, um, it's a
perfect stencil for if you still want to powder your
brows in. But I would rather go minimal and more
natural and let you add more if you need to.
(34:23):
I feel like that was some questions I was getting.
How do you know what to do in the shape,
And that's the thing. You specialized in this so you
can look at someone's face and know what brow shape
is going to be good for them, especially because you're
a makeup artist, you know, And that then eventually you
got into this so, but what about when the like I,
I speak up a lot, like that's a good thing.
(34:45):
That's a good thing because I feel like every stroke
like and and but you want that I would encourage people.
And from the emails I've been getting, there's apparently a
lot of people out there that are considering micro blading
to not be scared to speak up. No, yeah, and
I love that about you, Like I know you kept
saying like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm like no,
like this teamwork and I have I have post traumatic situation, understand,
(35:10):
But a lot of people do. I get a lot
of emails, um and pictures of people who are messaging
me saying like what can I do, like help, and
I send them to Nashville Beauty Girl and then send
them back to me. And that's an unfortunate process. But
if you're just open and honest at the beginning, and
don't be afraid if you look at something and you're like, hmm,
I don't know if that looks right, like, help people.
(35:30):
And in the way I approach microblading, and I think
is really important to find an artist is that um
it always comes with a touch up that's included because
you need that touch up. I would rather start off
with less is more. So I'm going to build a brow.
Um that's gonna be nice and soft and pretty and
more reserved. And then when you come back and for
that touch up, we can always add more. I'd rather
you live with them for you know, eight weeks and
(35:53):
then decide we need to add some more fluff, you know,
like if you would have gone in there and done
that first and started off way more reserves. Swear to you.
I said to her, I want to start I'd rather
start off small and come back. And then they ended
up big. And I know I I did have a
desire to have more eyebrows, but maybe and maybe I
over expressed that. Maybe, And that's that's that's why I
(36:14):
came away with two huge brows. But you don't have
a lot to start with. It really didn't. A big
brow to you was probably like a little you know,
I mean, a normal sized brow versus a big brow.
So how important because you know, like the shape of
faces and makeup and when you're creating a look for somebody,
how important is the brow? Oh my gosh, it's everything.
(36:36):
I mean, if you have on brows and lashes, that's it.
You know that that's your face. So if you know too,
you know, like you were taken to a what's the
like a desert island and you could only take one
beauty product with you, it would be a brow psel Absolutely,
have you? I mean you know what if I know? Yes,
I know, I feel like it's a toss up between
mascara and browse. But these days now with microblading and lashins,
(37:00):
it's like, oh, you would have to take your lash
extension person and your brown person to the island, which
everyone would be happy because what else? But um, so okay,
so brows are important because I've been talking with I
don't think my sister will mind me putting her out here,
but I want to encourage my sister. I don't know
(37:22):
if she plucked all of hers away, I did. That's what. Well,
first of all, I was born with minimal brows. I
had half brow situation, which shout out Laura Petrowski who
is in Austin, and she posted something on her Instagram
that she too is a half brow and she's another
person that said on Instagram after she listened to my
podcast that she was considering microblading, and I would encourage
(37:43):
her to go for it because she's drawing them in
every day and she works in news, she's on TV.
It's just a lot. So and that was the thing
for me when I started getting done, like I have
to be up super early, I have to be ready.
It's nice to just wake up and feel like certain
steps are taking care of and I feel more together.
And you know, the brow is an important part of
(38:03):
your look. And my sister has plucked hers away, but
then she grew them out for a year. She's like,
I'm not going to touch them because I want to
see how much they'll go back. But she's forty one
and four kids and hormone changes and I don't know
how things grow. But she didn't plug them for a
year and nothing, nothing has grown back. And I thought,
she goes Amy, I haven't plucked them in a year,
And I said, what, okay, you need to come see Megan,
(38:26):
like for your birthday, I want to get you microblading.
And that's actually I gave that to her on her
last birthday, which was a few months ago. So I
need to book her. We've got to get her to Nashville,
book her with you, and I need to probably get
on your books because I know you're hard to get into,
but I want her to get that because I really
feel like it will help shape Oh my gosh, does
it does well as a woman age. Like, one of
(38:47):
the biggest things that I see is, um, the brows
kind of start to fade out in the middle. You're
the beginning first, so you know, the corner of your
your nose, that area, it starts to fade out, and
then women start to look at themselves and there I
feel like I'm getting like batter, you know, or my
nose is getting larger. But it's totally an illusion. As
that space widens in between your eyebrows, it just makes
(39:09):
your whole face look bigger. And then the second thing
that goes is the tail. That's like with women, it's
like either the beginning or the tail is just starts
to fade off and then it just you lose your arch,
You lose that just clean, kind of polished look. And
if you can just at least have a guideline there,
like you were saying, um, just because no one wants
to have to fill in their brows every single morning,
(39:29):
you know, if you go work out, if you have kids,
just having Yes, it just wipes right off. That was me. Yes,
And then people be like, what happened to your eyebrows?
And I'd be like, oh, that's a sensitive topic. Yes,
And it goes to show that sometimes what you're made
fun of for as a kid sticks with you, like
that stuff sticks with me, like going to the pool
(39:51):
when I was younger, you know, high school, especially when
I was really getting into makeup and pencilia. I mean,
let's be honest, I've never really been into makeup, but
when I died to actually put makeup on, you never
have known exactly what I'm doing, and I normally do
it sloppily and with my fingers. But I got a
team of people around you, and that's why I rely
(40:11):
on you for brows and Carrie Nashville Beauty Girl and
Kelly Velvet's Edge. Yes, I have. I have people that
I tried to get tips from and teach me well,
but you know, it's stuck with me. And here I
am thirty seven years old and still self conscious about
my brows because they don't grow, they don't grow back.
(40:31):
It's like your sister, you can literally grow out. I
mean even my little tails were like practically gone, you know,
and I probably haven't touched them in five years. You know,
do you micro blade your own brows? I'm trying to
get braver to do that. If I could just take
my head off and do it myself, that would be wonderful.
But I'm one of those people where it's like I
could get my brows bladed once and I'd probably never
(40:54):
have to touch them again because they're pretty full. You
know you have full, Yeah, they're I'm lucky. But the
tails are sad, like if I wiped this makeup off,
like it's sad. So I'm I'm going to play around
with it. I've done a couple like in there, but
it's you know, I do it upside down, so it's
like the angles I just can't even picture. So I
could go really great or maybe I'll call carry me like, hey,
can you lay sure this off? Because I just screwed
(41:15):
my own brocess start over it. Yeah, So Megan's amazing.
Just know that if you're in Nashville or you want
to reach out to or even on Instagram, if you've
got questions beauty Underscore by Underscore Megan, that's your Instagram
handle and then you can catch her on Gmail. If
you want to send her an email, It's Megan Pearson
at gmail dot com. M E E G E N
(41:37):
P E A R s O N. I feel like
I have to spell things. Yeah, podcast. And then sometimes
they're like, I got the email, and everyone does mind.
Everyone puts an A on the end, everyone does m
E G A in. But it's not it's all ease,
yes or by. I should get that email, just because
I'm sure I get those all the time. Yeah, some
regular Megan is getting all your micro blading mouth. We're awesome,
(42:01):
thank you for coming in, and you know, doing a
follow up on this because it was such a popular
topic this week. I have a review on my weighted
blanket and I got to say I'm a fan, so
I got it in. I spent some time with it.
If you can get one, you should totally do it.
They are expensive, which is a bummer because it's something
(42:23):
that's so awesome for you. But maybe if you're someone
who has to medicate or do something else to get
rid of some of your anxiety, this actually might be
cheaper than having to take medicine and actually better for
your body, so it's valuable. And then I saw online
there are d I Y weighted blankets, so if you
google like do it yourself, maybe you could make your
own weighted blanket at home. I love mine, definitely going
(42:46):
to keep using it, and I kind of wish I
could travel with it because sometimes my anxiety goes up
when I travel or my more restless. I don't feel
as grounded and man, if I could take the Way
to Blanket with me, I feel like I would like
a champ when I travel. So yeah, maybe if you
are someone who struggles with anxiety, I totally recommend this,
(43:08):
or you're you're feeling unsettled, they say the Way to
Blanket really can give you that grounded feeling. And if
you are anxious or stressed or something like that, your
body is producing cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and
the Way to Blanket can help that, so highly recommend
it for that reason. Calming your body down, it can
reduce nervous system activity. So if you're trying to unwind
(43:30):
at the end of the day but your mind is
still racing, well, the weighted blanket can help help with that.
I did see that you should be getting a blanket
that is five to ten percent of your body weight,
so keep that in mind if you want it to
be effective. I mean, it just helped me want to
I mean you can't really move when it's on. I
mean you can't a little bit, but I'm less restless,
(43:51):
Like it just automatically calms you down. I can't explain it,
but it's pretty genius. And if you think about it.
They have those blankets for dogs, not not blankets, but
vest what were those things called, oh, the thunder shirts.
So my dog, Josie ear old dog. We have a
dog car and now we lost Josie to cancer, but
she would freak out during thunderstorms and I always thought
about getting her one of those thunder shirts because I
would see how it would like keep dogs calm. And
(44:13):
I never tried it out with her, but I mean,
if you think about it, it it totally makes sense. And
if it works for dogs when they're stressed out, then
a weighted blanket would work for humans. I mean, you
should definitely give it a try. I also saw two
that they work more for than just anxiety, like if
you have o c D, post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder,
(44:33):
like a lot of those can be related to the
lowering of serotonin levels in the body and the deep
touch that's provided by a weighted blanket can help boost
those levels back up. How crazy is that? And then
I read they could even like help with focus, which
I have a d D big time. I don't medicate
myself for it, and it's something I really have to monitor.
(44:54):
But I saw that they did a study with weighted
vests on kids that were in school because they didn't
have the the blankets on them. Although I will say
my friend Andrea, who's a teacher, she keeps some weighted
blankets I think in her classroom and if sometimes if
students need to go into the corner and sit down,
they'll put the weighted blanket on and then once they're
ready to join the class back they're more calm and
(45:15):
focused and ready to you know, listen and not be
all over the place. But anyway back to the A
d D. Which see I kind of went off on
a little trail there, But one study took students with
attention difficulties and hyperactivity and they put the weighted vests on.
It's which the same thing as like the way to blanket,
and their ability to stay on task increased up to
(45:37):
which is a lot, So I may have to start
doing work with my weighted blanket on because I feel
like I'll focus more. Maybe I should put the way
to blanket on while I do this podcast, and then
I'll be able to focus more. So anyway, if you
if you're shopping around for him, know that they can
be sort of pricey, anywhere from a hundred to two
hundred dollars, which you know a lot of you all
(45:58):
have been asking exactly what buy and where I buy it.
I get a lot of stuff on Amazon, so I
actually just started working on one of those Amazon shop
pages that I'm building together all my favorite things because
you know, on here before I've talked about this face
mask that my face person tells me to use. It's
got a red light and a blue light and I
wear it at night. And I got on Amazon, and
(46:18):
I get more questions about that thing, and I wish
I could just be like, oh, yeah, here it is.
Here it is. But now I can send you to
my Amazon shop page and boom, you'll know the exact
one that I buy. I'm waiting for approval from Amazon
right now, because you have to be an influencer and
then you get approved. So that's what we're waiting on,
and as soon as that shot pages up, it'll be
so easy to send you all there. But remember they're
(46:38):
a little pricey, but I think totally worth it, and
then you can do it yourself, like a d I
y way to blanket. You just gotta google it and
look it up. I personally have not made one again,
got mine on Amazon, but I'm just trying to let
you know that there are people that make their own
in case you can't afford to get one. Okay, all right,
big fan away to Blankets, can't wait to go home
and get in mine. Well that's a wrap on today's episode.
(47:07):
I wanna thank my husband again for coming on because
it's super hard for him to do. And I think
it was because the first time he came on, he
got such a good response, Like I was getting really
nice emails and tweets and little Instagram messages, and I
think that that encouraged him to like have a little
confidence that it's it's good to speak up and share
(47:28):
your thoughts and feelings and things in your life. So
keep that stuff coming because then I can get him
back to talk about more things and I'll share with him,
like you did so good look at all these notes,
which I really appreciate the emails so much. So we've
been getting so many questions that I wanted to start
a Q and A episode, which started this week. If
you haven't gone back to listen to that or you
(47:48):
didn't realize it loaded well, on Tuesday, we put up
a Q and A. So every Tuesday there will be
about a ten to fifteen minute episode that will have
four questions with four answers, and then every third day
you'll have this normal episode that we've been doing, which
will have four different things like topics, interviews, or whatever
I'm going to be talking about. And if you subscribe
(48:10):
to Four Things with Amy Brown, where we listen to podcasts,
then I think it will automatically just load up for you.
So if you haven't subscribed, do that. I always we
appreciate the subscribers and anybody that writes a review you're amazing, uh,
you know, gives the stars and all the things like
that's just helpful in growing the podcast. So we appreciate that.
I do a big thank you to Elizabeth and Mike
(48:32):
for always getting the podcasts up making it happen. My
other guests today Uh, Megan who talked about eyebrows, and
Megan Pearson, she's awesome, and then Aaron Opria. Really they're
very busy people and they take time on their day
to come sit and talk with me. So hopefully their
information was beneficial to you in some way, shape or form.
(48:53):
So now i'll do a quick email shout out. I
think I'll still keep the shoutouts at the end of
each episode. I'll do a quick email shout out in
addition to doing the Q and A emails on Tuesday.
But this is a cool note that I got from David.
It's not so much a question, but I just liked
the information and I thought it was fitting at least
for me, and I wanted to share it from David.
(49:13):
I know you named your dog Cara after Supergirl. I
don't know if you know this or not, but Cara
like a c H, like a hard c h as
emboch c h a r a Cara is anxiou Greek
for joy keep ringing light where you go. So David,
thank you so much for sharing that with me. I
had no idea that uh Cara was Greek for joy,
(49:35):
and I have joy tattooed on my wrist like joy
is a big part of my life. And now like
our dog Cara, who are kids randomly name because they're
obsessed with Supergirl? Uh sure her anxious Greek name. Her
meaning is joy, So I love that so much. I
love when you find out how joy, just like or
(49:56):
a word or something that's important to you, keeps finding
its way back into your life. And also shout out
David because I know there's probably not a lot of
guys listening to my podcast, so I think I pulled
this email as well to be like what we have
guys listening. Y'all can email me too and let me
know if there's any topics y'all want to hear. I
think I have such a female brain towards this podcast
(50:19):
that I may be leaving some guys out there listening.
So if there's something y'all would like to hear me
cover or maybe even my husband since now he's not
opposed to coming on, send me emails four things with
Amy Round at gmail dot com and maybe we can
get some topics that guys would enjoy too. Okay, I
am going to let y'all go, but thank you as
(50:40):
always for listening. You're awesome. A little food for yourself.
Life always pretty, but hey, it's pretty beautiful thing laughs.
(51:04):
A little more things tightened up because of course said
he can't. You'll kick in it with Four Things with
Amy Brown,
4 Things with Amy Brown News
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