“Fall in love with taking care of your body.” —Tone It Up
Recently, I hosted a giveaway to give one lucky winner a chance to attend the Tone It Up Tour in Dallas with me.
Today, I wanted to give you the scoop on what it’s like attending a fitness event like TIU’s tour.
Check out the rest of this article to see snapshots from the big day!
I was able to take Jamie with me and it was so much fun!
It was a warm day so I went for a tank top and cropped leggings. Definitely no regrets on this outfit choice!
ENVIRONMENT
We arrived about 10:45am and the line to get in was extremely long. However, they had two lines going, one for VIP and one for general admission.
Once we were in, there was a cute rosé garden set up to the left with rugs, pillows, poufs, pink garden chairs, flowers, wine stations and a private area in the back for the meet and greets.
Across the garden, a braid bar, massage station, DIY jewelry, TIU gear shop and vendor booths such as CORE, Issey Miyake and Health Ade Kombucha lined both sides of the main activity area.
The food station had a menu consisting of healthy quinoa and kale salad, banh mi (definitely not authentic Vietnamese btw), protein boxes and more.
Water bins full of ice and CORE water bottles were placed throughout the area and cute pink vanity stations were set up so girls could refresh without having to go to the bathroom.
The rosé stations were cute and professional. Servers check your ID before they serve you and you’re back to mingling with other VIPs!
As girls were mingling, music was playing. You could take part in the workouts, take a break, get your hair done, go back to working out, get a massage, go back to working out and then wander around to meet new friends. You could really do anything as the environment was very lively yet laid back.
Here’s the description right off of the TIU website so you can see which tickets come with what:
GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET:
Experience of a lifetime! Comes with official Tour Bag, Booty Band, & Special Goodies! You’ll also workout with CorePower Yoga, Jillian Michaels, and K&K!
Enjoy the Braid Bar, Beauty Stations, DIY Jewelry, Activities, Live DJ Madds & MORE SURPRISES! Each city will have a special flare! Plus delicious food and rosé will be available to you for purchase! Get ready to connect with so many babes in your area!
VIP TICKET (M&G with Karena/Katrina):
Includes all workouts and activities above, an exclusive VIP Bag with amazing goodies inside PLUS Meet & Greet with K&K and access to the VIP area, Rosé Garden, Beach Babe Lounge, and Exclusive Activities unique to each city.
VIP TICKET (M&G with Jillian Michaels):
Includes General Admission Access PLUS separate Meet & Greet with Jillian Michaels and access to the above VIP area, Rosé Garden, Beach Babe Lounge, Exclusive Activities unique to each city!
I woke up with sore muscles (and about three shades darker) the next day so you can bet that I took Sabbath day very seriously, haha!
PEOPLE
We started workouts (which all took place outside) with CorePower Yoga and it was so fun to see a ton of girls do tree and downward dog poses. After yoga was Jillian Michaels and let me tell you, her workouts are CRAZY. I couldn’t do a lot of them so I had to modify, but hey, at least I tried!
Karena and Katrina were last and their workouts were hard yet fun! Katrina came all the way to the back of the lawn where we were at to check on us and ask how we were doing while Karena led the workout. I thought that was so sweet! Karena came and did the same for the girls in the middle.
In between workout sessions, we had live music from DJ Madds so it was great to meet and mingle with other TIU ladies. ALL of the girls we met during the event were SO friendly and sweet!
We all ended up taking each other’s photos and exchanging Instagram handles (hi Alana, Lauren, Tania, Margarita and Bri and her mom)! Even the reps from the brands that were there were awesome! Definitely not intimidating at all!
Girls were so sweet to stop and converse with me when I gave them compliments. I also got to ask a few girls about their take on APL sneakers when I saw them wearing this shoe brand I’ve been dying to try. It was great to see APLs in real life on other women. (Totally getting myself a rose gold pair!) I made so many friends during the event!
FITNESS LEVEL
I’m happy to report that the workouts on this tour are for every fitness level. Being a former athlete and trying to get back in shape after my accident, I didn’t feel intimidated at all.
The workouts were hard, but they had modifications for a lot of it. CorePower was repetitive, but easy to catch on if you’re a new yogi.
Not going to lie. Jillian’s workouts were insanely hard! K&K’s workouts were challenging yet doable. Some of their sets reminded me of some sets in BBG.
So many girls of all different body shapes were there to work on their health and I felt no vibes of judgement at all. Many women had rockin’ bods so that totally motivated me to keep pushing myself with my health goals.
EXPERIENCE/FEEDBACK
I was extremely impressed with this event! It was my first big health event so I was expecting it to be a bit stressful. However, it took me completely by surprise!
Entrance to the event wasn’t a super long wait. The teams from brands that sponsored the event were so friendly! I got to meet the CORE team too!
It was great to be able to put my “Core intention” on a sticker and put it on their banner. If you look closely, my sticker is to the left of my head in pink. It says, “To inspire others to live a high performance life! Sweat diamonds, baby!”
The meet and greet with Karena and Katrina was so smooth. They had a guy who made sure your phone was open to your camera and hands it to a girl who chats you up (maybe to keep you from being nervous?).
Your phone is then handed to someone who takes photos of K&K hugging you and right when you say hi to the girls, someone else already has your phone and is snapping away!
You walk away with great photos of you and K&K (with great lighting might I add)!
With the amount of things you could do, I was happy to see that we could do whatever we wanted.
I definitely felt that the TIU team wanted us to do what we wanted to do. There was no pressure whatsoever.
If I had more time in between workouts, I would’ve totally taken advantage of the braid bar, DIY jewelry and massage station.
WHAT I GAINED
I walked away feeling inspired, motivated and more positive about my ability to work out again. Meeting new people was easier than I thought too. I also learned that I like working out in groups so I’ll be doing more classes, group workouts and events like this in the future to keep myself going.
I had heard so much about TIU over the years so to experience this event was a great blessing!
After doing some research, I learned that Karena and Katrina initially met at a gym and their friendship blossomed from there. They both began TIU for around $600! The cost covered a camcorder, a MacBook with iMovie software and their website domain.
They founded TIU with an investment of about $3000 (includes the costs I mentioned above) and to this day, have remained a self-funded company! I’m pretty sure their choice to stay self-funded is to keep control and integrity of the brand as tight knit as possible which is very smart of them to do.
Talk about BOSS BABES!!!
All in all, it was a great day and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to have experienced an event like this and meet some incredible business women too!
Would you go to a Tone It Up Tour event after seeing how my day went?
Disclosure: A HUGE thank you to CORE for your partnership and for providing tickets for me to attend such a great event!