Having a fitness or athletic goal is great, if your goal is truly a fitness or athletic based measurement. But what happens when those goals disappear and your days of being a competitive athlete are over? Do you just stop working out?…hardly…but the identity has to change…and the Venus Index is the perfect goal to shoot for once you don’t have to be ‘bigger stronger and faster’.
In todays podcast I interview Alison Scott (some of you may already know her from the forums and as one of the Venus Index ‘models’).
Ali talks about her struggles with body image, feeling feminine and changing her exercise and diet goals from an athletic performance base to an body shape base ala the Venus Index.
Ali explains how the new goal of achieving her ideal Venus Index gave her a new found confidence in her body and feeling feminine and ‘sexy’.
Working out changed from being a tool for athletic performance into a tool for shaping her body and to some degree her own self perception, her confidence and what it means to be feminine and attractive.
Finally having a definite target to shoot for (other than an arbitrary body weight goal) was the key to Ali’s transformation into something she thought she could never be.
John
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Becoming a Venus: Interview with Alison Scott
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About John Barban
Yesssss! An interview with a woman!!! So excited. Thanks for doing this guys.
AND SHE’S MY HEIGHT!!!
Great podcast! Finally a woman perspective and you know what? It works, cause now I’ve made up my mind that I want your program too in the near future! Because I see your program as a sculpting program and right now i’m just starting out in the just big chopping away kinda fase! know what I mean right?! 😉
But come summer time me and VI will be kickin’ it!!!
Ali you rock!!!
This was great to listen to, thanks. 🙂
I am still very intrigued at the difference in body types.
Ali looks amazing at 117 being 5’1.
I am 5’2. At my heaviest I was about 120 and looked horrible. 🙁
Today I weigh about 102 and have just a tad of stubborn fat around my backside. I am very happy with how I look.
Anyway, you don’t really hear about numbers being as low as mine unless they are associated with disorders. :p
I guess I have a really small frame.
I can relate to Ali on not believing there is so much fat to lose, especially because I couldn’t find anyone with the look I was going for with a weight so low.
I thought I was just different and had to have this fat around my hips to be healthy. My doctor fed this fear/thinking with the faulty BMI.
I am so glad I am free from all those ideas.
Now I enjoy seeing my muscles and eating the right amounts.
Just wanted to share that there are really tiny people out there. 😉
Hey Amber! (I’m Ali)
I totally know what you mean about being tiny – my mom is about my height and 105 pounds and is looking to lose some stubborn fat around her stomach – but her doctor tells her to put on weight just because the idea of weighing 100 pounds terrifies people for some reason. We’re just smaller! I still weigh right at the upper end of what I could at my height and not have a lot of fat on me, and I could easily lose another 5 pounds of fat in order to be really lean. There’s some variation in just how much muscle we carry and let me tell you, it’s ALL still on my legs haha! My advice is to keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let other people compare you to them or to others. Compare you to you. You know your goals better than anyone else can.
Thank, Ali!
Your advice is super encouraging and a rare find.
(I don’t know what I would do without my husband, but is nice to hear it from a woman for a change. Even though you have not seen me, I think you get the idea) ;P
It amazes me how socially acceptable it is to ‘comment’ on someone being underweight or skinny when they are healthy, but if someone is at all overweight they are normal or it is taboo to make any mention of it. (^obviously venting from recent experience^) 😉
I hope you have inspired your mom, too. 🙂 She can do it!
I trained my mom for the last year and she is looking great, so proud of her.
I am so close to being done with this fat loss phase – I will never give up! I haven’t come this close to quit.
I have found that eating low for a few weeks and then taking a break at maintenance calories for a week or two is good for me. Probably because…
For the last couple years I have really put my body through a lot – overtraining and under nourishing (not underfed you see, but under nourished from trying many different ‘diets’ lacking food groups).
That said, I am really looking forward to your next podcast and hearing about your food experience. Eating less has been a huge challenge greatly overcome by the wisdom and encouragement of Brad Pilon, John Barban, and Rusty Moore among others. THANKS GUYS!
And now a woman to represent as well. THANKS ALI!
Though the Venus program is not needed for me, I believe it is the accurate mix of information for so many women out there. I just want to support and bring people to the truth when there is so much confusion on caring for our bodies.
You are all doing great work, I appreciate it and keep it up.
Joyful,
Amber
You are so awesome for helping me solve this mtyersy.
I just want to say congratulations to Ali, but also I wish you’d given us more background on Ali (any maybe the other models) initially. S owe could understand their stories.
I’m only 5′ and build muscle on my legs and arms almost by just looking at a weight, so I looked at ALi and because she is still quite athletic looking, as well as being at her VI with a great figure, I was worried that the VI exercises would build bulk (yeah, I know, women don’t bulk, but that’s because men and women mean something different when they say ‘bulk’!). Now I know that Ali started really bulky and was losing bulk with the Venus exercises, not the other way around.
And Ali, if you’re reading this, you definitely don’t look like a child and you do definitely look sexy!
Thanks for doing this, both of you. More please!
Congratulations, Ali! You definitely look sexy.
I’m on week 7 of VI and I look forward to getting close to (if not get to it) my numbers during the contest. Reading about your progress gives me hope that it is possible for all women to look sexy and feel confident and stay there.
I look forward to part 2!
Great job, Ali!
Anna
I think that this is the best interview that you guys have done on either site, because of the strong emotional impact of the topics that were discussed.
To hear how Ali never felt that she could ever achieve the sexy physique and then hear the excitement in her voice when she talks about her current body is inspiring even to a guy.
It was also great to hear about Ali overcoming the mental barriers when she reached certain weight marks as well as overcoming the identity crisis.
This interview had too many golden nuggets to list! One important point that was brought up is doing workouts that aren’t providing the desired look that you want to achieve. I find that many people are following a program just because it’s marketed like crazy and a lot of other people are following it, and ignoring whether or not the program is designed to meet your individual goals.
There’s no doubt that Ali has achieved a very sexy look. I’d go as far as saying that she looks better than many of the fitness models in the magazines.
Take Home Lesson… your potential is greater than you can imagine in this moment.
Scott,
Thank you so much for the positive remarks and feedback. I am genuinely happy that the interview and sharing my emotional/psychological/physical journey can be of value to others and hopefully help them achieve their goals. Furthermore, thank you for the enormous compliment. I never thought I could ever look like a fitness model!
Cheers,
Ali.
Thanks Ali and John for this very interesting interview. I cannot relate to being short, but I certainly can for my legs being the same just in a bigger frame. I recognize running is very slimming for this, but what exercise would be recommended to slim thighs without impact for those of us much older and knees that always yell they hurt? I will be reading this a few more times and thinking through extra bits of information. I am also looking forward to the next podcast on nutrition. Thanks so much and Ali you look GREAT.
thank you for the great post! i bought the venus index and i really like it i was wondering though if cardio is needed because i feel like i have big legs too..what would u recomend?
Hi Flowerd,
The cardio I did was just a tool for me to be able to “train my legs” without really “training my legs”. I couldn’t help but train, because it helps me control my appetite and food, but to make them smaller, the real answer is to not train legs at all! So running was a way for me to train my legs as little as possible in a way that wouldn’t cause me to put on any extra muscle mass. So by no means is cardio necessary, it was just a tool I used to eat less and train my legs only very lightly. If you like it and it works for you, then I’d say go for it, but if you just can’t stand cardio, don’t feel like you have to do it.
Cheers, Ali.
I love this interview, Ali and John!
Ali, I really appreciate how open you are about how what thought of yourself before your transformation. I think that women who feel that that they are destined to look unfeminine no matter what, as you felt about yourself before the change, will be very encouraged by what you’ve acheived.
I would love to know if you find yourself moving and behaving a bit differently now that you look more feminine.
I found it interesting to hear your voice and how you speak because you sound very feminine (intelligent and self reflective too) so you have that going for you as well!
I’m a petite woman too (just under 5’1) and agree with other posters here that depending on bone structure, etc. a lower weight (closer to 100 lbs) can be healthy and look nice. Even if I’m very fit, if I’m over 100 lbs, I will look a bit pudgy. Also, to be at VI, my weight definitely needs to be lower than 100 lbs.
Hi Lillea!
I completely sympathize with the tiny-ness. That’s what’s so nice about Venus, it’s about your shape and proportions, not some weight threshold. I mean, it’s so silly to have someone say “Oh I’d like to weigh x” You have no idea when you start what you’re going to look like 20 pounds down, so how could you possibly know whether that’s going to be the look you’ll be happy with.
To answer your question, I am much more confident now with my body. For a while, my personal relationships were suffering because I wasn’t confident with my body. I didn’t want to spend time with my girlfriends because I felt that I just was so much less attractive and it strained the relationship with the man I was dating. I had to be comfortable and confident with myself before I could be that way with others, and now I definitely am.
I think now I walk taller (ha, I wish!, but you know what I mean), am much more at ease with others, and find myself thinking about my body less. Interestingly, I think that was what I was after. Getting dressed in the morning without once thinking “do I look fat in this?” or wondering if I look okay. I’ve stopped catching glances of myself in store windows to check if I need to rearrange my clothing to conceal something. All of those little things that used to nag me constantly are gone. And that’s the biggest relief, oddly, is that being at a shape finally let me forget about my body and focus on whatever I’m doing instead.
Hi Ali!
Thank you for answering! That’s fantastic. 🙂 Wow, yes, confidence about our bodies can make such a phenomenal difference!
And speaking as a petite women, it’s interesting how being leaner can create the illusion that we’re taller than we are! Not that I mind being small in stature, except when I’m in the grocery store and have to climb onto the lower shelf of the freezer to reach the top shelf. lol
1) Ali were you taking any supplements?
2) Did it take you 12 weeks to get to your goal once you started VI? Or was it over 12 weeks?
Hi Anh,
To answer your questions, I didn’t take any supplements. That’s not to say they can’t be helpful (I know plenty of people who swear by them), but I don’t think they are necessary. I never felt like I needed to take any, so I didn’t!
The diet down I did was a slow cutdown for about 2 months and then a hard diet for the last two weeks. I picked the day to take my photos as my birthday so I could have fun eating that day 🙂 so I just worked backwards from there. As far as training, I follow Venus-style workouts plus my own cardio, but in the last while I have been working with John coming up with and testing out a new Advanced Venus workout that will be released soon!
I hope that answers your questions.
Cheers, Ali
Really enjoyed the interview and found it one of the most inspiring ones to which I’d listened. It was lovely to hear a real person’s perspective on the programme, particularly from someone like Ali who was already fit and strong.
Hi Ali!
Thanks for being the guinea pig for all of us!
I am 5’4″ but tend to have genetically bigger legs. I do have good shape but they do get bigger when I train. My issue is that my posterior still needs some lifting/rounding. What would you recommend for someone like “us” who builds easily on our legs, to keep our leg size down but still train the glutes for maximum bootyliciousness??
How do I know what my “numbers” are?