Today we have an interview with Brooke Kramer who placed 4th in the latest Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her pictures:

You may be just 12 weeks away from this shape.

Do you want results like this? Read the blog and scroll down to listen to the interview with Brooke and learn how to get them.

Are you willing to stop making excuses and find the time to finally get in shape?

Brooke was pretty surprised when she saw her after pictures and the amazing transformation she went through. Like she said, you don’t realize how far you got until you put your before and after photos side by side. While the mirror is a far superior tool for tracking your progress than a weight scale, it can only show you your current look.

You see yourself every day and those daily changes are small. You may know that you improved and may see some lines you haven’t seen before, but this is nothing compared to the pictures where you can compare how you looked three months ago and how you look now.

When you take a look at your pictures after a transformation it’s usually such a big difference that most people don’t believe that it’s actually them. Sometimes not even their friends believe it.

This makes the camera one of the most important thing you have for tracking your progress.

Things Won’t Go as Planned, Anticipate It

Most people expect that when they make a plan everything will go accordingly. Well, that’s not how things work out, because put simply…sh!t happens.

You will slip up, you will make mistakes, you will doubt yourself and will be challenged along the way. And that’s perfectly fine, it’s called being human.

We are not machines. We are driven by emotions, beliefs and routines. We are also immensely affected by the environment we live in, people around us and by their emotions, beliefs and routines.

The truth is that if you understand and accept that you’re not going to be perfect all the way through your transformation you actually have better chance of succeeding.

Most people get discouraged when something goes wrong because they expected everything to be perfect. The minute they stray from their plan the feelings of giving creep in. You can’t let this happen. You’re not perfect, and you don’t have to be to make a big time change.

It’s what you do after you slip up that counts.

Stop blaming yourself for eating that extra slice of pizza…get your butt to the gym even though you didn’t fast 24 hours like you planned…As long as you keep getting back up every time you fall then you will achieve your goal and you will succeed.

Don’t let the number of times you fall define you…instead let the number of times you get back up define you.

This is what Brooke experienced. She doubted the training program, didn’t believe she could get the results and as a mother who is working over night she was extremely busy and always pressed for time and energy.

However, the great thing about Venus Index workouts is that we don’t tell you when to work out. If you do three workout sessions a week, you could workout on Monday, Wednesday, Friday if it fits for you. However, you can also work out on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday if you like. You can go to the gym in the morning before work or in the evening after work. Whatever suits you.

The important thing to understand is that there is no perfect time or perfect day to work out. The perfect window is when you can make it happen. Since we are all regular people with jobs or school, family and friends your fitness lifestyle should be structured around those things not the other way around.

Brooke decided to workout when she can and just have her son with her while training. There just wasn’t any other way for her to do it. And if you doubt her approach, just scroll back up and take a one more look at her 12-week transformation.

In order to stick to most of your plan and make sure you get back on track when you slip it’s a good idea to surround yourself with people that will support you and give you a hand when you need it.

Whether it is somebody on the Venus Index forum that you can text when you feel down or your boyfriend that will go with you to the gym to make sure you stick to your workouts. Do whatever you have to do to achieve your goal.

Brooke goes to the same gym as Naomi (previous winner) and saw how she transformed her body, so she decided to approach her and ask for advice. Naomi helped her figure out a way to make her goals reality and supported her along the way. And like Brooke told us, the most important thing was that Naomi made it seem realistic for her.

Brooke Has Been Dieting Since She Was 13

For Brooke the Venus Index and Eat Stop Eat was about finding something that would work long term, she wasn’t looking for some quick fix. Brooke tried dieting in the past…it seemed  like she tried every diet there is. While she got results from a few of them the issue was that since she didn’t understand the process, she always went back to eating like she did before and gained all the weight back.

For her (and her husband) it was always about finding a new diet. Truth to be told, she was dieting since the age of 13. And this is pretty crazy. Dieting for weight loss shouldn’t be a long term process. While it needs to be sustainable for some time, it should really only take a few months to get in contest shape…not decades.

If you allowed yourself to get out of shape in the past and gained weight as a result of your lifestyle, you need to create a deficit on a daily/weekly basis to lose weight. After that the goal is to find a way to stay where you are with minimum work. However, for Brooke it was always all in or nothing. She just couldn’t find the balance.

This time it was different. After reading Venus Index and Eat Stop Eat, she figured out how many calories she needed to first lose weight and then to maintain afterwards.

Based on that she decided to create a 3500 calorie deficit each week.

She typically did this by simply skipping meals during the day.

Fat loss is really just about calories in and calories out. Eating more often won’t do anything and it’s not going to speed up your metabolism either.

Brooke also allowed herself to eat whatever she wanted. She did focus on a high nutrient foods and a balanced diet, however if a social eating event came up, she wouldn’t restrict herself in terms of food choices. Rather than that she limited the total amount of what she ate.

Most people do the opposite and follow a diet that restricts them from eating foods like chocolate, pizza, burgers, fries, sweets, hot dogs, peanut butter, hot wings or ice-cream…in a nutshell all the naughty fun stuff. Well, no surprise that most people fail with their diet attempts and conclude that they can’t ever lose weight so they go back to where they started.

Don’t limit your food choices, limit the amount. Thus you can have anything and stay in a caloric deficit, which means burning fat.

When planning your diet, the smartest thing to do is to work from the meals you want to have and that you ‘need’ to have during the week…these ‘need to have’ meals would be dinner with family, lunch with boss, brunch with boyfriend, whatever. The ‘want to have’ meals are the social events like weddings, weekly barbecues or Friday/Saturday nights out.

Let’s make a step-by-step plan:

1. Calculate your BMR (this is the amount of calories your body burns without any additional exercise)
2. Decide how much weight you think you need to lose (it will probably be more than you think, but you need to start with at least some number)
3. Decide how quickly you want to lose this weight (more rapid weight loss means more restriction during the week)
4. Take a calendar or blank sheet of paper and start writing all the social eating events and meals you must have
5. Add an amount of calories you usually have during those meals
6. Calculate the difference…or in other words what you are left with after subtracting the social events and ‘must have’ meals from that number from your BMR

Brooke did something similar, she calculated how much she should eat to lose weight and how much she could eat to maintain her weight and then worked with that number around her social life.

Brooke usually did partial fasting skipping breakfast and lunch three times per week.

This pattern seems to work for most people. While there are those who prefer something sweet with their morning coffee, most people just go through the day fasted and then have a bigger meal or two in the afternoon and evening.

This works quite well for several reasons:

1. Fasted state helps you focus on studying or working
2. Fasted state is best for working out
3. Evening is a time when we socialize, have fun or rest – all those states are associated with eating , drinking or both

If you eat during the day, you may feel less energetic, less productive and you are more likely to skip your workout.

Let’s make a summary of everything Brooke talks about in the interview (link at the end of the article).

Take home advice from Brooke:

• First step is to JUST DO IT
• Don’t make excuses and reasons why it’s not the right time
• You need to make your program fit into your life’s schedule
• See what works for you and adjust along the way
• If something comes up, you can still do it, the point is that you are moving forward
• Learn the mindsets of the past winners
• Make sure you stick 100% to your workout at the beginning to create a routine, once you are past that state, you will miss not going to the gym
• In order to stick to the workout, you must enjoy the plan, this is why the Venus Index is so amazing, it changes and keeps the training fun all the time
• As soon as something is off limits it raises desire to have it, so don’t limit your food choices
• Make your diet-week based on social events and what is happening in that given week in your life
• If you eat one cookie don’t eat the whole box, one cookie won’t ruin your progress…don’t blow the rest of the day because of it
• Use calorie counters on your smart phone, you probably don’t even realize how many calories there are in certain foods you eat…you can access a food database just by pressing a button and check the calorie content in a matter of seconds

Links from the Interview:

• Venus Index Workout – Workout programs focused on building a toned and natural feminine body shape.
• Venus Index Community – What if there was a forum where all the cool girls hang out and were exchanging tips on how to get in shape and what works for them to build a healthy, good looking body?
• Eat Stop Eat – Diet and lifestyle protocol that will help you stay on track with your weight loss while enjoying social eating events at a same time.

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Here is an interview with Kim. Kimberley placed 4th in latest Venus Index Contest in the Open category.

Check out her pictures:

Do you have what it takes to get this lean?

Kim placed in the last contest, so she wasn’t new to competing. She is actually the first girl to do two a back to back Venus Index contests.

She felt great after finishing her workout plan and had a massive boost in motivation. However, she wasn’t sure what to do next. This is where the community comes into play. She asked the girls on the forum and they helped direct her and push forward.

The Second Contest

Kimberley changed the way she ate and fasted. This time she decided to get this over with at the beginning of the week, so she fasted on Monday and on Tuesday and then started incorporating more meals back in, in the rest of the week and when she felt like it was getting out of control she would throw in couple of fasting days again.

There are countless ways of staying in a caloric deficit you just have to find a pattern that works best with your lifestyle circumstances and your own preferences. If you work and train a lot during the week and have fun and relax on the weekends then just restrict yourself during the week and let go a bit on your Friday nights and Saturday barbecues. And since you will be working a lot during the week, going to the gym and training you will find it easier to diet then compared to being out with your friends or at a barbecue.

Just remember that there will always be new sets of challenges. We all like to think that if we could get this one thing handled or once we achieve that one goal everything will be just fine, well it won’t. It will be different. And that’s totally okay, because you always need to have something to move forward towards.

In other words, once you get your waist down, there may be a different challenge figuring out how to stay there.

Kimberley had a really hard time figuring out how maintenance should work. This was probably the hardest thing for her.

There are basically three ways of eating.

1. The way you ate before the diet – Too much
2. The way you eat on a diet – Low
3. The way you will eat after the diet – Maintenance

Figuring out how to maintain requires a completely different approach and while it takes significantly less effort and involves way more food and fun, it will take you some time to find that sweet spot when you finally can say that “this is exactly how much I need to maintain”.

When Kim realized that there wasn’t really much to lose anymore, she stopped fasting, however once she did she started gaining weight again. So, she had incorporate fasting back in and started searching for a different way.

You see, there will always be a slight swing of the pendulum. Sometimes you will eat more, sometimes less.

Things will change, you will move to a different city, change jobs, start a family and suddenly your eating habits will be different. That’s just how it works. Sometimes there is a phase when you don’t have breakfast or dinner, sometimes you’ll be eating lunch, sometimes you don’t.

Don’t try to identify how maintenance is gonna be for you for the rest of your life and just roll with your current lifestyle circumstances.

Does It really Take Time to Build Muscle?

Kim had no idea how she was going to look once she got to her ideal VI numbers, she was a bit scared, and she still has some room for improvements, but the final pictures are great and since she didn’t have to lose much fat, she could just focus on gaining muscle and reshaping her body.

Here’s the deal with building muscle though. Gaining more muscle takes a really long time and you have to accept it. It’s not dramatic like the first fat loss transformation you may have been through.

You can get quite lean pretty quickly and then “grow” to your idea VI numbers.

Kim suggests to do as many workouts in a row as possible. When she got sore, she would take the day off. So, if you feel like you can handle the workouts more often then don’t treat them as a weekly outline per se, but rather as one series and go from one to the next.

Most of the time Kim would do 4-6 workouts a week. This pattern really worked for her, she loved it. If you feel like that’s too much, then do less in a row and work your way up to that. Kim also works out in a fasted state, which might help you with the strength and energy.

Once you have been through all the workouts you can also decide which ones felt the best and seemed to give you the best results and stick to those for as long as possible.

Now that Kim knows how certain workouts feel, she can decide which module was the best and gave her the best results and roll with that one. And you can do the same. If you have been through all of them and you feel like one module was really good and that you could squeeze some more muscle growth from it, then do it again right after the first one.

What to do if you want to look like Kim:

• The forum is great, girls help each other move forward and are constantly checking on each other
• Sometimes you need to step away from everything, to see it from a new perspective and keep rolling forward
• You will hit peaks and valleys, figure out why you are feeling like this and what to do to get past or through it
• Don’t worry about macro-nutrients, eat whatever you want and just stay in the caloric deficit
• It’s okay to read about fitness, but try to spend more time actually figuring it out yourself and implementing it in they gym
• You can’t rely on what one person says, take it and test it to see if it works, then make a judgment for yourself
• Don’t get upset if you gain a pound or two, find out the issue in your diet and push forward. Also remember to account for daily fluctuations in your weight due to water, food and hormones
• Don’t compare yourself to others
• Compete for your best look not against others
• Be happy with your after’s and progress and not worry about other people
• You have to be one of those people who can deal with the change when its thrown at you. If you are not then you must learn how to be one

Programs Kim uses:

• Phase 1 & Phase 2 – Workout programs focused on building a toned and natural feminine body shape.
• Venus Index Community – What if there was a forum where all the cool girls hang out and were exchanging tips on how to get in shape and what works for them to build a healthy, good looking body?

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today we have an interview with Michelle Acorn. Michelle placed sixth in the latest Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her pictures:

With a pretty simple approach, you can achieve some amazing results.

Michelle's back shot

Workout for muscle gain and hourglass shape, diet for fat loss.

Michelle Was Ready to Give Up

The Venus Index system was completely new approach to her and a pretty shocking workout style. She never tried anything like it, the workouts were challenging and the diet simple, completely contrary to what she did in the past.

Michelle worked out in the past, but it wasn’t a priority.

And from a fat loss stand point, she never dieted in her life, always just looking for better and faster way to lose weight.

She never found a good plan and never stuck to any program. Well at least until her co-worker sent her an email with a link to a previous VI contest. Looking at the girls’ transformations was a huge wake up call for her.

While she’d lost a few pounds in the past, it always got to a point where she stopped.

She was giving up, so the Venus Index came exactly at a right time. Michelle decided to enter the contest, she saw it as a way to stay motivated and have some accountability.

Once she checked the program and saw the rest of the amazing transformations, she bought it and started right away. And after a few weeks of training she added Eat Stop Eat fasts and started paying more attention to her diet as well.

It’s All about Calories

Fasting helped her understand that in order to lose weight meal timing or food choices didn’t matter, it’s all about calories in and out.

At first fasting scared her, her mind was playing with her and trying to convince her that it’s not a good idea, however she gave it a shot and to her surprise discovered that she felt fine and didn’t crave any food during the fast itself. It took her as little as three fasts to get used to them. After that she practiced intermittent fasting once a week and on the non-fasting days decided to shoot for 700-1000 calories a day.

This worked really well for her.

Fat loss is really just a matter of eating under your energy expenditure. The mix of food and the choices are entirely up to you and your own preferences and lifestyle. Sure it’s probably not a good idea to eat only pizza, because you would probably not enjoy having just a few slices for the whole day, however you can still have some tasty snacks. For example Michelle was snacking on her kids’ 100 calorie snacks, she just kept the amount low.

At the end of the contest she stopped fasting and upped her calories a bit. This is the theory behind the Transformation Diet. Here is the thing, most people start dieting slowly, and cut their calories even more when they are closer to contest shape. However, this often times leads to a lack of energy, tiredness, moodiness and all sorts of other unwanted effects. your body can handle a limited amount of systemic stress before you push it over the edge. And this is exactly what most people experience before the end of the contest, and that can lead to a rebound. Believe it or not many fitness models gain as much as 30 pounds right after their contest.

What’s the point of that? Having a great body for two weeks while feeling like crap to get it? And then immediately rebounding and being out of shape for the rest of the year?

No, thanks.

There is a better way. The way that Michelle has done it and how the Transformation Diet is designed. Diet the right way from the beginning and quickly get to your ideal bodyweight, once you are there, increase your calories intake to maintenance or BMR and have energy for the final weeks as you become leaner and leaner. This will also prevent you from rebounding afterwards.

Workouts Must Be Challenging

Michelle did the VI workouts phase one and was pretty sore in the beginning, but after a few sessions she could handle the workouts pretty well. And that’s just how it works. If you are not used to a well-designed workout, the first few weeks might be pretty challenging, because your body has to adjust to the stress you are putting it under. Once you go through this part, it will feel much better and your body will be ready for the weekly workout load long term.

So, don’t worry if you are just starting out with this, the feeling of soreness will go away after a short while. A similar thing happens with fasting, after a few fasts you get used to it and don’t even think about it.

Michelle did no extra cardio, and in her workouts she focused on training for muscle and decided to let the diet take of the fat loss, which is the best approach you can take for long term success and avoiding any risk of rebounding.

Keep it simple and effective, keep working out for muscle gaining and shape and dieting for fat loss. Remember that cardio will help you increase your calorie deficit, but you can never out train a bad diet, plus the more activities you do, the more rest you might need for the rest of the day. There is always the law of diminishing returns with ever increasing amounts of cardio. Finding a balance between exercise volume and calories consumed should be your goal.

This way you keep your fitness lifestyle simple compared to eating at certain times, watching macronutrients and spending countless hours on treadmills. In Michelle’s own words: “It’s the easiest thing I have ever done.”

And you don’t have to tell anyone about it. As soon as Michelle realized that people don’t understand how simple it is and are looking for a magic pill or an insanely complicated approach (so they could say it’s impossible to do) she just started saying that she is simply “dieting and exercising”. After a while she didn’t even bother explaining what she was doing at all. The only person that really knew what she was doing was her co-worker that is in the Venus Index Community with her.

This is the power of  VI Community, all the girls there are not only supportive, but they are on the same page as you or Michelle. She was a bit shy at the beginning, but after a while started posting pictures and talking to others about her progress and challenges, which made it even more exciting and fun.

This is important, because even if people ask you what you are doing and you tell them: “I just work out a few hours a week and eat less”, they will discredit you as not knowing what you are doing and will tell you it’s unhealthy or that it doesn’t work.

Let others comment on your results, not your approach, keep that one for yourself and you will be better off.

Take home message from Michelle:

• You really have to want to do it, there are no results without commitment
• For Michelle this was the easiest and simplest thing she has ever done and ironically, she is in the best shape of her life
• Michelle was shy at first, but admits that it’s important to ask questions and post updates in the VI community to stay motivated

Words & phrases mentioned in the interview:

Venus Index Community – You will never find a more outgoing and friendly community than this one.

Venus Index Workout – VI workouts are designed to maximize your genetic potential, build your best shape and look your best both in a bikini and clothes.

Eat Stop Eat – Diet and lifestyle protocol that will help you stay on track with your weight loss while enjoying social eating events at a same time.

Transformation Diet – Brand new diet protocol to help you keep energy towards the end of the contest and avoid post contest rebounds.

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today we have an interview with Roberta Saum, who placed second in the last Venus Index Contest in the Open category.

Check out her pictures:

Roberta loves the Venus workouts and it shows!

There is no magic bullet, it really takes a lot of effort to build a body like this.

Here is a fun before and after picture of Roberta…same costume, different Roberta!

Roberta never tried any program specifically designed for look. She was running everyday and lifting in the gym, just following some advice from the guys she knew. Her training plan was pretty similar to a bodybuilding split – chest on Monday, legs on Wednesday and so on.

She was doing mostly what the guys were doing, not really thinking about training for a specific shape.

She was pretty strong though and over the years she build significant muscle mass. Training combined with running also contributed to pretty good conditioning. However, she wasn’t in the shape that she would like.

She was stuck and was doing the same stuff day after day and not getting the results she was after – a slim, toned, feminine physique.

Venus Index Changed Everything

Venus Index is completely different from anything Roberta ever done. Before VI she usually trained for about 30 minutes without any structure that would be getting her towards any specific goal, it was basically lifting to stay fit. This is why she loved the VI workouts, because there is more than one group of muscles trained in every session and it’s designed to get you to a specific goal – perfect Venus Index shape.

Not having a training plan designed to get you to a specific body shape that is attractive is a pretty common problem and it’s more common for women than men. Most women just do cardio and abdominal training while they are at the gym. Then there is a small fraction that lift weights, but it’s usually in a manner that doesn’t focus on bringing certain muscle groups up and supporting the feminine shape.

Only a few women like bikini model competitors actually know how to approach strength training to build a specific looking body.

You have to focus on training your body in a way the accentuates your shoulders and hips and minimizes the look of your waist. This requires some thought and variety with your training program, rather than following a male bodybuilder pattern of individual muscle group splits.

If you can keep your waist down and work on your hips and shoulders, then you will be moving towards the ideal VI shape.

The look is not the only thing you will build with the Venus Index.

A interesting ‘side effect’ that Roberta experienced was a strength and endurance boost. Her running significantly improved since she started training with VI. And while the purpose is the look first and foremost, you will also experience an increase in your strength and conditioning.

Roberta also proved that you can do significant work on top of the regular workouts. While she was focusing mainly on building the shape, she didn’t give up the running. She still ran 5-6 miles four to five days a week.

The combination of running and lifting with VI really worked for Roberta. The only thing that changed was that she no longer puts her running first. Now it always comes second after VI training.

It’s Okay to Eat Less Food and Feel Slightly Hungry

After reading the Eat Stop Eat protocol, Roberta learned to deal with hunger pretty quickly. She started to understand that it’s a signal that her body is losing fat and that if she grabbed something to eat like she did before, she would actually be halting her fat burning while her body digested her latest meal.

She never had a problem with overeating, but still she never realized how much food she was eating. And that’s pretty common. If you don’t really watch what you’re eating and just go through life ‘winging it’ on your diet you could end up gaining a few pounds each year, but those few pounds may easily turn into 8, 10 or 15 pounds every couple of years.

You see, most people are not obese. The reason for weight gain, is not constant overeating, or medicating with food or some metabolic issue. Most people are perfectly fine. The issue though is that today we have an abundance of food, food is a big part of our culture and we can’t resist eating a bit more at social eating events. Just try to remember how much food you had at the last barbeque, wedding, birthday party or over the holidays, probably a bit more than you usually have during your regular day, right?

And that is the point, it gradually adds up over the years and then one day you wake up wondering where those 25 extra pounds came from.

It’s really important to realize how much food we have within our reach on a daily basis.

Once you do it’s just about learning to manage yourself and plan for those events in advance.

Roberta was never what she would call ‘lean’, but with a few fasts per week and controlling the calorie intake on other days, she easily stayed in a deficit during the week and could still enjoy her weekly barbecue events.

In the past Roberta would never skip a meal and would never allow herself to be hungry. However, if you want to stay lean and still enjoy social eating events, then logically you have to make up for it later on (or better yet in advance). This is what most people don’t realize, you can eat more than you burn on some days, you don’t have to diet on weddings, or during thanksgiving and other holidays, but you have to “pay off” those calories sooner or later, otherwise they get stored as bodyfat.

Whether you prefer restricting calories throughout the day or just fasting, you gotta find a way to cut down those calories.

What worked for Roberta was fasting almost everyday and having just one big meal a day, because let’s be honest, no mater how much you think you can eat, there is only so many calories you can eat at one meal.

Then once she got leaner she stopped restricting herself so much.

This is a pretty common pattern. Once you get down to a lower body fat level, extreme dieting and big caloric deficits are not possible anymore. You have to find a way to create a small deficit on a regular basis.

It’s not that you could not manage fasting for 24 hours several times a week, but after the fasts you will end up eating it back up. It may not happen immediately after the fast, it can be delayed even two days, but the urge to eat all the way back up will ultimately come.

This is why most people change their approach to fasting and reduce it to 14-16 hours and fast more frequently when they get really lean.

It’s still about creating a deficit, but just a smaller one more often.

What to do if you want to look like Roberta:

• Follow the Venus Index Workouts and focus on building the hourglass shape
• Find a way to eat less, the key to the VI look is a slim waist
• Fasting is a great way to cut calories, just find the protocol that works for you the best, for Roberta it was Eat Stop Eat, and the length of your preferred fast will likely change as you get leaner
• Cut your portions down and think about what you are eating
• Love your workouts, you have to enjoy what you are doing to be consistent and to do it properly
• No diet will ever tone your body, you need to work out, in fact you need both – diet and exercise
• Don’t do just cardio and ab training, you have to lift heavy and focus on other muscles too

Words & phrases mentioned in the interview:

Venus Index Workout – Workout program focused on building a toned and natural feminine body shape.

Venus Index Community – What if there was a forum where all the cool girls hang out and were exchanging tips on how to get in shape and what works for them to build a healthy, good looking body?

Eat Stop Eat – Lifestyle and diet protocol by Brad Pilon focusing on balancing social eating events with fat loss.

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today’s interview is with Elisa Miller, who place fifth in our third Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her pictures:

Elisa at 42 years old, probably at the best shape of her life. Ironically with doing less complex and complicated things.

When you take pictures, make sure you wear high heals. That simple tweak makes a big difference.

Don't be afraid of dreaming. Anybody can be in shape. You just need to do some work and put what you learn into practice.

Elisa has a history of gaining and losing weight, orthorexia, food schizophrenia and now placing in a online transformation contest. Let’s take a look how she managed to get from unhealthy eating to surprising her husband with a body transformation and placing in the Venus Index contest.

Elisa’s History

Elisa is 5’6”, 42 years old, she is a mother and a wife. Not exactly a description of someone you would expect to place in a fitness contest. This is one of many examples that anybody can do it and no matter what lifestyle or responsibilities you have, you can look good. It’s time to put all of your excuses behind and focus on improving yourself.

Let’s take a look at Elisa’s diet history, which is rather unusual.

When she turned 30 a lot of things had changed in her life. Her child was born and her father got sick. She had to take care of them both. This wasn’t an easy task. Having her father now at home and having a baby constantly seeking attention required lot of effort and energy. There wasn’t much time she would get for herself.

At the end of day she was often times resentful and depressed. And as a result she ended up using food to escape from her reality and help her calm down. When everybody went to sleep, it was “her night time”. She took some ice-cream and some cookies and watched TV.

Nobody would see, nobody would know and she would have her few hours alone at peace.

As months went by this resulted in a decent weight gain. She knew that it was wrong and that she shouldn’t be doing it, but she didn’t care. She was caring for everyone else accept her. It was almost her way of getting back.

You might be surprised that she is actually the one that her friends and family see as the “healthy food” expert.

Her mother was a healthy food fanatic, always teaching her to eat only organic and raw food, no chocolate, no chips or any tasty burgers (boo).

And then there was her father who was going behind her mothers back and taking her for ice-cream and chocolate (yay!).

This resulted in developing almost a schizophrenia about food. During the day she was eating only “healthy foods” and if she prepared something that wasn’t on this list she would spit it out. Then at night she would eat all the ice-cream and sweats in the house.

This is a very unhealthy perception of food to always see food as either good or bad.

This lead to several things like weight gain, feeling guilty, social inflexibility with food among others. After this approach she tried several diets including the paleo approach, during those years her weight was constantly going up and down.

What Finally Worked

Elisa was sick of the old approach and decided to try something different. Which probably wasn’t easy considering the way she was raised. But she decided to take it in her hands and take a step out of her comfort zone.

Important factor for her was recognizing that what she was doing was causing her more harm than good and simply wasn’t working.

When she got her hands on the Venus Index Workout and the diet protocols (AGD  & ESE) she found out that this approach was much better and made so much sense. At the beginning she was afraid of having to be even more strict than she was so far. Also she wasn’t sure if she could do this. However, it was a huge relief since to her surprise this new approach was more flexible and enjoyable than the things she was doing her whole life.

Sometimes the simpler things work better than the complex and difficult ones.

She immediately jumped on board and completely changed her lifestyle and her view of food.

No more paleo, no more good food – bad food paradigm. Only calories in vs. calories out and an intense workout on top of that for a more feminine and sexy body shape.

She admitted that what was she was doing before was pretty much a waste of time and it’s a pity that  it took her so many years until she discovered the truth.

She was eating everything like any other person, the only difference was that she felt guilty after eating those “unhealthy foods”. She only showed other people when she ate so called ‘good foods’.

However, she made her decision to end this. She didn’t want to live the way she lived before, under the shadow of her parents and by their rules.

She unsubscribed from all the “paleo lifestyle” experts and “healthy food” nutritionists and decided to do what makes sense and is most logical.

Once she was ready to leave the nonsense behind and  started incorporating all the advice from the Venus Index protocols everything just took off from there.

And she never looked back.

When her husband got home, after several months of being away, he was astounded to see her transformation. Elisa’s goal was to hit the 140 mark when he got back. Not only that but she super-passed it by 13 pounds, her final weight was 127 pounds.

Spectacular result for somebody who didn’t believe it was possible to go from 180lbs to her pre-baby weight, or even further.

Now she is proud of herself and happy with the way she looks.

Take home message from Elisa

• Stop with the whole obsession with the scale. Focus on your shape and proportions.
• There is no bad or good food. It’s all about calories in and out. Food itself is just an form of  energy covered by taste, you don’t need to feel guilty
• It’s possible to dream, you just need to take the required action to make your dreams a reality
• Don’t beat yourself up just because you did something wrong or not according to plan, simply get back on track and adjust your plan
• Take baby steps, everyday do a little to get closer to your goal – one day at a time
• Everybody should enter the contest, it’s extremely motivating and it is so much fun
• Find a nutrition plan or a way to eat that suits you the best and that you can sustain for a longer period of time.
• Don’t restrict your calories too much, because that will result in overeating afterwards
• There are two ways of dieting for the contest, you either lower your calories at the end or lower them at the beginning and slightly turn to maintenance towards the end of your transformation. The second option (aka Reverse Taper Diet) seems to work better for most people since at the end you have little fat stored on your body that will get burned so it makes sense to eat slightly below maintenance to have less deficit compared to having big deficit, which is not sustainable for a long time and often leads to post-contest rebound
• Discover your limits and back off if you feel like your approach is too difficult
• Be clear on what you are doing, use training for building more muscles and shaping your body and use diet to lose fat and lean out
• Don’t blame others for your weight gain, it’s your responsibility, you need to accept it and handle it, because nobody else will
• Don’t use food as a medicine for depression

Programs Elisa used for the transformation:

Anything Goes Diet – “Diet without rules”, forget about carb cycling, macro-nutrients or unhealthy foods. Eat what you like and lose weight.

Eat Stop Eat – Lifestyle protocol that will help you achieve your fitness goals despite the social eating events you have to attend.

Venus Index Workout – Workout focused on building a toned and natural feminine body shape.

Venus Community – What if there was a forum where all the cool girls hung out and were exchanging tips and support on how to get in shape and what works for them to build a healthy, good looking body?

Listen to the interview here:

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It’s time for the next interview, today with Kelly Hancock who won the third Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her amazing transformation for yourself:

Kelly has undergone an unbelievable transformation.

She did a great job.

Simply Amazing!

Kelly said that she feels proud of her body and is very happy with the results and she has a damn good reason to be. A lot of things change when you get in shape, not only that other people will act differently toward you, but your own behavior will change as well. For example what people find out after a big transformation (both guys and girls) is that you become a calm and confident person. Things you are not capable of controlling will stop affecting you and the things that are in your control, well you suddenly realize that you can change them, so there is no reason to get upset because of those either.

Kelly’s Journey

Kelly while at school was an active person, she played lots of sports and didn’t really worry about her look. Well, as lifestyle changed after school, her weight changed as well. She wasn’t playing any sports and with her job stress became a big challenge.

Based on this it probably comes as a no surprise that she gained some weight.

In 2008 she started doing cardio on the elliptical for an hour every night and eating salad for dinner. She had no idea how to get in shape, but this seemed like a logical approach.

She lost about 20 pounds while doing this. Well, because she had no idea how to lose weight and how to keep it off, due to her lifestyle circumstances she gained it all back.

This cycle of losing and then regaining continued for a while and was causing her a lot of frustration.

She also joined gym and started reading bodybuilding forums, because she was interested in having a toned and defined body and the gym seemed to be the answer.

Ultimately she found the Adonis Index that had some great information, but the workouts were focused on guys. Luckily there was a program with the same approach for women, enter the Venus Index.

This was what she was looking for all those years.

Losing and gaining showed her that she has no control over her body, so she needed to try a different approach and the information provided at Venus Index was logical, based on science and made sense to her.

In November 2010 Kelly bought the program and started doing the workout.

She was also very active in the Venus Community and learned some great tips there. For example she found out that fat loss is all about calories and that based on the Eat Stop Eat approach many of girls were fasting on a weekly basis.

She incorporated that in her lifestyle as well.

She wanted to try a little experiment and fasted six days in a row.  It wasn’t scary like you might think, she realized that her body could function without food for multiple days, in fact the only side effect was that she  just got bored. No kidding, it’s not exactly a fun thing to do.

This was good enough proof for her that it works.

She wanted to take it to the next level and fast until she got to 130 pounds and ripped.

Well, she did exactly what she set out to do. The only issue was that after 12 days of being without food, she ended up blowing it completely. Kelly started massively overeating and beating herself up over that, which lead to overeating again. This wasn’t a good experience and she felt ashamed of those months.

Today when Kelly is going through her old diary, the feelings come back and like she said, she felt like a failure and was disappointed by what she did.

She was intentionally stuffing herself with food, not working out and all this justifying by her studying and making excuses about not having time for the workouts.

Ever did something you knew is not right for you, but you did it anyway and just rationalized the behavior afterwards?

Like she said, not a very positive chapter of her life. She felt like she let herself, her friends and the girls in the community down.

Obviously she had to do something to get out of this less than positive space.

She decided to turn this upside down and start over again.

She moved to a different city, changed her job to a more flexible one with less stress. She regained control over her food and her workouts and got back on track with the Venus Index.

This resulted in feeling control over her life again, having freedom in her choices, not being a slave to her work schedule and finally being able to take care of her body again.

After listening to several podcasts and talking to her friends in the Venus Index community she knew that  she could do it.

Kelly’s Approach for the Contest

After four weeks Kelly was able to stop counting calories, because she already got to level of being able to ‘eyeball it’.

You can do the same. Most of us eat pretty similar meals every week, so it takes as little as four weeks to know the calorie content in those meals and once you do you can just focus on the portion and “eye ball” it. This is the big difference between the calorie counting and calorie guessing approaches.

Calorie guessing is more freeing and simpler than weighing every meal and tracking down the exact calorie content of that food. Plus if you over guess the content you are consciously leaving some room for error. So even if you make a mistake, it will be accounted for.

There were days when Kelly would eat half a pizza and have some beers, but there were also days when she would have just a few apples and a salad. If you balance it and stick to calorie restriction you can lose fat on almost any diet you choose. In other words you can lose fat while eating your favorite foods.

Sounds nice doesn’t it? There are some modifications you will have to make, for example if your favorite meal is pizza then you will have to restrict yourself a lot, because a whole pizza is pretty high in calories. So, it makes sense to stick to low calorie choices like vegetables, fruits, chicken and other foods that can fill you up and then from time to time you can have your pizza or whatever your favorite denser calorie choices are.

You can chose whatever you want to eat, the rule is to limit the amount. Do that and you will lose fat.

After Kelly got her calorie intake in check she moved to the next thing and that was her workouts.

She started going to the gym right after work, did one hour of weights, following the Venus Index workout protocols (for those more interested it was specifically the circuits and the shoulder specialization) and then she did two hours of low intensity cardio.

This was enough to get into contest shape, and most importantly to stay there instead of gaining it all back like she did before. The maintenance point is important as well. It’s not as hard as getting in shape, but it still requires some effort and figuring out on your part.

However, this was all just the “mechanical” stuff, in order for this to work and really win the contest and stay in a great shape even afterwards she needed to figure out how to stay sharp as well. There is a quote that sums this up perfectly:

Success in any area is foremost 80% psychology and only 20 % mechanics.

Tony Robbins

For Kelly it was her internal reflection that made it possible. She began with the question: “What pressure have I put on myself that is unnecessary?” From this point she started shutting down things that were robbing her of energy and not helping her achieve her goals in any way. She started putting herself first and taking care of her life first.

This is something that you may have a hard time grasping.

Would you be comfortable saying this: “I put myself first, I am the priority in my life”?

Give yourself a sincere answer.

You absolutely need to get to a state of mind where you can say “Yes!”.

Why?

It’s simple and don’t worry it doesn’t mean you should be arrogant or selfish, quite the opposite.

Here is a great analogy and if you’ve ever traveled by plane you already heard it. When you sit down and prepare for the flight you are filled in on the basics of what to do if something goes wrong. In that case you are supposed to put a gas mask on yourself FIRST, even if you have a child sitting next to you, you are supposed to put it on yourself FIRST.

Does this mean that the airlines don’t want you to save your kid? Of course not. But if you start putting the mask on your kid and you faint, then you can’t help them anymore.

Are you starting to see where this is going?

If you ever want to help other people achieve their goals, help them get over their challenges and get that great feeling of knowing that you are contributing to this society in some way then you have to take care of yourself first. This is true in all of the areas of your life – relationships, finance and both health and look.

So to get back to Kelly’s challenge, when she put herself first and stopped doing what other people wanted her to do she suddenly gained control over her actions, could achieve what she wanted and that lead to many other great things. When she got to where she is now, other people started to seek out her advice.

The moral of the story is to make yourself a priority and then you will be able to take care of others as well.

If you want to look like Kelly, here is a summary of the things she thinks are important to someone in the position she was in:

• Cut everything out of your life that is putting unnecessary pressure on you
• Stop doing what other people want you to do and make yourself the priority
• Don’t get affected by the things you can’t control and handle the things you can control – that is the path to happiness
• Intelligent hard effort pays off
• Figure out when you can go to the gym on regular basis and start going there
• Walking on a tredmill in front of TV may help you avoid stuffing yourself with unnecessary food in the evening at home in front of the tv…if you’re going to watch tv anyway, might as well workout at the same time
• It’s okay to have few bad days, just stay on track
• Eat less and only when you are hungry
• Find yourself a support group
• If you assume you are alone you create your own isolation – remember that you’re not alone
• Don’t be scared to ask for help

Words & phrases mentioned in the interview:

Adonis Index – Workouts for men

Venus Index Workouts – Workouts designed to maximize your genetic potential to look your best both in bikini and clothes

Venus Index Community – You will never find a more supportive, accepting, forgiving, outgoing, and RESULTS based community like you’ll find with the Venus Index Community.

Eat Stop Eat – Lifestyle and diet protocol by Brad Pilon focusing on fat loss

Listen to the interview here: View Profile: jwilliams – The Official Hugo Community – Online Slots

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Today you get a chance to listen to Alisha’s interview. She managed to win for the second time! In the first contest she won the transformation category and in the last one she won the open, so you could say she did it all.

Here are her latest pictures, check this out:

Most people don't realize that they are just couple of months from a cover model body.

For the first contest it was very goal specific, Alisha wanted to lose fat and get more fit. However, this time she had to show a completely different look in order to take first place. She had to build more muscle and focus on building a specific shape.

What the real challenge for her though was figuring out her “sweet spot” where she could maintain a great looking body and her peace if mind.

She worked really hard, and was completely tired afterwards.

For the first contest she was afraid of looking too skinny. And while she was excited by how much bodyfat she lost other people were telling her that she was too skinny.

Alisha will admit, she probably took it too far, because even people that she met for the first time were asking her if she is okay, because her face seems skinny.

But it is really hard to do all in just twelve weeks. It’s one thing to lose fat, but building muscle is completely different, that takes more time, especially for women.

This is why it takes several contests to get close to your ideal proportions. For this second one Alisha achieved what you could call a body re-composition. Her upper body and face is definitely not skinny anymore, her body is symmetrical and her measurements are near perfect.

What Alisha Did Differently This Time

Right after the first contest Alisha was decided not to compete again.

But she felt a bit left out and started thinking about it.

What really changed her mind was seeing the results from the second contest and the fact that a lot of girls that placed in this one mentioned her being a big inspiration for them. For her that was the coolest thing that could have happened.

She made up her mind and decide to compete again.

This time was a little different. Not only did she have to come up with a new plan, because she needed to show up with different pictures, but this time around she didn’t really need to lose much fat. She stopped punishing herself for eating a bit more on certain days and made her weekends maintenance days.

Here are her pictures from the previous contest:

These are the pictures from Alisha's first contest. As you can see, for this contest her main focus was on building muscle rather than losing fat.

The difference was that she knew where she started and how many inches and pounds she had to lose to get back to her contest shape. The only thing she needed to do was mark the calendar and get going.

Her goal was to win, she wouldn’t even submit her pictures if she looked the same.

There were 12 weeks of hard work in the gym ahead of her.

Weekends were the maintenance days and week days were the “dieting days”. Four weeks out she changed the plan and went low carb for the entire week while keeping low calories. This kept away her hunger, however after this trial she realized that she isn’t able to lift that much in the gym anymore. She had to adjust to a point where she would get enough carbs in her meals and have energy for her workouts.

There are different ways. If you want to try let’s say three different approaches and determine which works for you best, it will take three contests until you do determine the best method. Your body is your own experiment. Or as once Madonna put it:

I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.

Madonna

Once you know what works for you the best, you will have a template you can use over and over again.

There Is a Difference between Photoshoot Shape & Everyday Shape

What most people don’t realize is that you look different in reality than you do on camera or in pictures. This is why you need to go more extreme for the photoshoot to show the world how you actually look. This may be hard to grasp, but if you have ever taken some good pictures you know this already. There is just so much going on at a photoshoot such as lighting, how far are you from the camera, tanning, posing heel height, background etc.

Extreme techniques like water depletion and carb loading are a way of helping you look your best for the photos. This is only sustainable for several hours though.

Obviously this is only visible if you drop the fat on your muscles, but once you do you will be surprised how water, food and training can make you  look sharper or bloated. And you need to learn what makes you look better to take the photos in your best state.

Once you do the contest you will have a new set of challenges in front of you. The biggest might be figuring out how to stay where you are and not go back to your pre-contest body.

In other words you need to find your maintenance point. Good analogy would be a swinging pendulum. If you were used to overeating your pendulum is swinging mostly to the left, if you started eating less for the contest it’s going to be swinging to the right. But if you go too far to the right, the pendulum will get too high and while it will stop there for a fraction of a second it will quickly fall to the left, which you might see as some kind of overeating after the contest that a lot of fitness models undergo. This is the proverbial yo-yo dieting.

The idea is to go through several contests and get in the best shape possible, reshape your body and focus on building a lifestyle that allows you maintaining this new body with as little effort as possible or in other words you need to figure out what you have to do to minimize the swing of your body pendulum.

Please understand that bodyweight is a range, it will keep changing based on your daily actions, the idea is not to have it stable (which is impossible), but not go too far up or down…reduce the swing of pendulum.

Take Home Message

•  The big thing is not to be so hard on yourself, be more realistic with your goals, realize what the range of those goals will be based on lifestyle, understand you will have fluctuations and expect it, if it’s not working change your pattern
• Commit to doing the contest
• Bodyweight is not stable, you have a range based on what you eat and drink
• Sometimes you may not notice that you are progressing and the stagnation is really just in your mind
• Expect people to disagree with your approach
• Gaining muscle takes time and one contest is not enough for full body re-composition
• Go through as many contests as possible, you will always learn something new about your body and improve your shape
• Don’t punish yourself over slipping away from time to time, you are allowed to take a step back as long as you keep taking two steps forward…you don’t have to be perfect, just consistently improve over time
• If you are tall, then an inch on your waist won’t be that noticeable and my actually be within your maintenance range
• Don’t compare yourself to others
• Track everything
• Never give up…ever

Words & phases mentioned in the interview:

• VI workouts – Venus Index workouts
• Venus Index Contest No.:1
• Venus Index Contest No.:2
• Venus Index Contest No.:3
• Alisha’s First Interview
• Interview with Erik Ledin
• Uncensored Podcasts

Listen to the interview here:

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