Breakfast With Lizzie Armanto and Tony The Tiger.

Photo courtesy of Kellogg's

We cruised up to Hollywood to sit down and have a bowl of cereal with pro skateboarder Lizzie Armanto and we had a chance to discuss her new partnership with Kellogg's Cinnamon Frosted Flakes "Let your Gr-r-reat out campaign", women's skateboarding, and her hectic schedule as a pro skateboarder.

It should be mentioned that Lizzie started skating at age 14 and her rise in the sport has been nothing short of meteoric. At only 24 years old she has been leading the charge to bring women's skateboarding into mainstream media for the past few years and she's smoothly paving the way for the next generation. She gives credit to the people around her that have helped her along this path, she wants to make sure I know it's not just her alone making it all happen, that she has a lot of good people guiding and supporting her. But at the end of the day, it is Lizzie who has to skate and deliver.

Sitting down in a room by the pool at the iconic Mondrian hotel, Lizzie looks relaxed and at ease, even though she has been fielding questions from reporters like myself all day long. Her skateboard sits nearby, and she offers to make me a bowl of the new Cinnamon Frosted Flakes cereal she is helping to promote. The previous evening she spent a late night filming with Tony the Tiger, and while she should be exhausted from her crazy schedule, she's still the consummate professional.


So, Lizzie, it's a bit surreal to be sitting here at the Mondrian eating cereal with you on a weekday - what's up with that?

We're celebrating the release of the new Cinnamon Frosted Flakes because fans were pushing for it. I was stoked that they asked if I wanted to do stuff with Tony the Tiger, plus I just love breakfast. We're doing social media spots, some print stuff, it's been really fun.


Besides promoting the new Kellogg's Cinnamon Frosted Flakes, what else has been on your schedule?

I'm working on two video parts right now. One is mentally a lot, but now that I'm doing two, the pressure is definitely on. Contests are a place where I am really comfortable, where I'm able to do what I know how to do, this whole filming thing has made me feel like I am more of a beginner than I was when I first started doing contests because it's such a different process.  I have had to put a lot more mental energy into it, because I have always looked at contests like, do your best in the next 15 minutes, you go out and do what you feel like, and it's who was there that day that sees and remembers that, but in a video part you have 3 minutes of footage that lives on, so it's bigger than that.

Can you tell us what video parts you are working on? 

I'm working on the Thrasher part and also another one for Birdhouse and the due dates are almost on top of each other. Filming is hard in the sense that it takes a lot of planning. I like to feel like I'm just doing whatever, but for filming you have to be like - I'm doing this here - and putting all those parameters on my skating has changed the way I skate, but it's also for the better. I kind of push myself in a new way, which I really like.

You seem to have had quite a busy schedule for awhile now, is it hard to keep that up?

Editors Note: Lizzie's schedule is so packed these days that for the first time in years, she has had to make the hard choice not to compete in some top-tier contests.


I feel like for a long time I pushed for so long to make this all work, then I pushed past that and now I feel like I'm running with it. I'm doing it now and I have to keep the fire up, and I love it and it's fun and amazing, but mentally it's a lot.

There are a lot of obligations, unlike before - now you have deadlines, you have to have so much content, you have to work towards it. It's your own schedule which is nice, but you're never finished because in skating you can always do more, so at some point, you just have to cut it off and say you're done. It's hard to cut yourself off.

When do both these video parts come out?

Thrasher comes out first and then the Birdhouse part - both will be coming out this year.

Any thoughts or advice for girls coming up that are now doing contests?

At the end of the day, everyone is skating because they want to, you can't be bummed that maybe this judge didn't think you were good enough. If you like doing what you do, and you want to do it with your friends or you want to do it in a contest, that's sick, but if you're going to be bummed if someone thinks this or that, or someone wants to put you down, you should know better than that.

I'm not above it, because I know there have been times when I'm upset about something like that but then I have to tell myself "why am I upset? Is that stopping me from what I want to do?".  It's just remembering where to put my energy because there are so many other things I want to do.


That is pretty great advice for every girl out there. 

Make sure you keep your eyes out for the Thrasher and Birdhouse videos because we guarantee that Lizzie's parts are going to be well worth watching - over and over.


Thanks to Lizzie and Kellogg's for having us!