Contest

VT11 12-Week Transformation Winners Announced

August 18, 2014 by Roberta Saum 2 Comments

The VT11 results are in and the transformations and final pictures are simply amazing!

One thing I love about the focus for women in the Venus program is “The focus is proportions and shape (rather than weight loss at all costs or building muscle like a guy)” – John Barban.

Congratulations to everyone who entered and finished! This took hard work on the part of everyone and it shows.

Here are the winners:

First Place – Leann

Venus Factor is not just some diet. It has been a lifestyle change, for it has provided me with the right tools, skills, and mindset to manage my eating habits and get into the best health and shape of my life. Portion control, calorie budgeting, and lifting heavy are key. Flexibility and freedom to choose what and when you eat reigns. Finding balance in what you eat—and in life—is imperative. The online community is so supportive.

Second Place – Malissa

Wow is all I can say. I accidentally clicked on this ad on facebook six months ago and its the best mistake I’ve ever made. Went into this with no expectations just wanted to lose 20-30lbs and discovered I love weights and I’m so mad at myself for having a gym membership and using it for cardio classes. This program has helped me get to a level of fitness that I have never had in my entire life. The program has changed my life forever and helped me find a new passion.

Third Place – Tiffany

In regards to fun I didn’t know exercise could be fun, who knew?! Also the access to the Venus community, woman across the world all having ups and downs in life and sharing with each other. Very empowering! So without Venus yes I could live my life but would it be were it is today…no! No because the goals I talked about still wouldn’t be fulfilled and I have had them for a very long time, with no success from other programs. Thank you Venus coaches and creators, this is a part of me now.

Fourth Place – Joan

I felt stuck in a body I didn’t want. I thought I had tried everything. I lacked willpower to follow through with the hard work of trying to avoid certain foods. I don’t have to avoid anything with Venus. As long as I am accountable for the calories I consume, I can eat whatever I want. How cool is that? The variety in the workouts keep me from getting bored of the same thing day after day. I like change, and I love the change in my body. This is a process that has become my healthy lifestyle. Yay Venus, thank you for giving me my life back.

Fifth Place – Tabitha

This has been a true lifestyle change for my entire family. We no longer shop the way we used to, we find ourselves primarily shopping along the outside aisles of the store…no more boxed & processed food. We weigh & measure everything we eat. We very rarely eat fast food anymore and we don’t even miss it! Even my 11 year old daughter has started making healthier food choices (on her own) and she has started working out with me in the evenings! We have started cycling has a family and have gone several times over the summer. We have truly changed our lives thanks to Venus and Adonis!

Sixth Place – Lorie

I babysit for my 2 year old grand baby while my daughter goes to work. In that 2 years I have enjoyed eating way too many snacks, cokes and just about whatever I wanted. I did not go to many places, so I just wore my sweats all day and the weight has just crept up on me. I really was feeling depressed, and it was harder to run and play with my grand baby. I decided to do something about It. I joined the Venus contest, and now 12 weeks and 24 pounds later I am seeing muscles I thought were gone forever.

Seventh Place – Johanna

John, Roberta and his team have done an awesome job with the program structure because, it offer the flexibility I needed with my busy schedule and hectic life. This program gave me all the tools I needed to obtain the figure I wanted to recover. I felt I was having a personal coach that was leading me and encouraging me through my journey. I never thought it was possible to have the same weight and size again that I have when I was 20 years old. This is real and it works, consistency is the key.
I was looking myself in the mirror dreaming about having a tone body again and I decided the moment is now, “I just don’t dream about it anymore , I make it come true.”
Thank you John and Venus team for helping me and supported me to make my dream come true!!!!! 🙂

Eighth Place – Arionna

I have come to love the Venus Index system because for the first time I have learned that this is a journey that is not just about losing pounds. It’s not even really about losing inches (which is a great side benefit, don’t get me wrong!) but this is about a mindset.
Anyone who can successfully do this can do absolutely anything because it’s all about setting priorities and gaining some mental clarity and self control. I seemed to have epiphany after epiphany doing this system. Some days were really really hard and some days were super easy and some days were just days with nothing special about them.
I started this contest right during my husband’s third deployment while my kids and I were living in a foreign country and my sister and her husband came to visit and we also traveled to seven different countries while I did this. I feel like I could have blown this out of the water if all of this hadn’t been going on but the thing is, it’s about real life. And these are the things that happen in real life. People don’t exercise and diet in a vacuum. I had to learn to do it during real life, during stress, heartache, confusion, happiness, celebration, and vacation and it’s definitely do-able. I will definitely continue with this system for the rest of my life.

Ninth Place – Loretta

I’ve had so many people compliment me and some quite vocally (like today at a soccer game, one of the other moms was astonished to see how much I’d lost and said so very loudly!). Many ask me how I did it and I’ve come to the conclusion that weight loss is like smoking. You wont lose weight until you’re tired of seeing yourself and hurting every day from joints that are taxed by your weight. Once you reach that point, Venus is the way to get your life back!
Thank you Venus, John, Roberta, and all the wonderful ladies for the constant support in the blogs. I’m not quite to my goals, but I am very close – closer than I have been in over 20 years!!!

Tenth Place – Sue

The thing that struck a chord in me with Venus was the simplicity in the overriding diet philosophy – I can eat anything I want, provided I am accountable and responsible for it. And I can bank up my calories for special events. I LIKE THAT! It makes the whole thing so much more manageable .. and liveable! I also loved that I didn’t need to plan my own workouts .. just print it out and go do it.
Brain interference = Zero.
Thank you for the Venus program, the incentive of this contest and the incredible community you’ve built. I am so happy with myself and my journey and with my new starting point .. and I can’t WAIT to see what else I can do with this old bod!

Cover Model Category – Julie

This category is for any previous Contest winner who wants to participate. These photographs may be used for future book covers or calendars.

Julie shows us all how we can still have fun at age 53 with the help of the Venus Factor program.
“The mental energy required to get off the last 20 pounds was surprisingly challenging and required much more focus and diligence in sticking to my deficit eating than was required of me during the VT8 contest. I really had to toughen up my mental game. I learned that persistence beats perfection and to just put my head down and grind it out when the going got tough. Thankfully, I had a lot of support and inspiration and examples to follow from the Venus community in doing just that!”

Prior Miss Texas got her Venus back at age 52, and the pageant dress fits again!

August 4, 2014 by Roberta Saum Leave a Comment

Bonnie said “I fit back into the sequin dress now, my rear is smaller and my shoulders are bigger. Glory hallelujah!“

Bonnie Thwaits came in second place in our Venus Transformation contest VT10

Bonnie’s own words regarding the Venus Factor:

Howdy,

I was a senior at Texas A & M in 1985, I was also in the Corps of Cadets at A&M with an Amy contract. Women were not allowed in the school band and out of 21 female fish (freshman, like a plebe at Westpoint or Annapolis), only 4 of us (women) made it to our senior year. There were plus or minus 3000 guys in all branches at the military program which is the heart of Texas A & M. So about 4 army women out of 900 guys for the class of ’85. There was also a Texas superior court case argued at the same time to force A&M to allow women into the band and other military groups. (started in 1979) . We were controversial to say the least.

Staying in shape was not a problem! But getting respect as women was. I went out to prove that the girl with the rifle could look like the girl in the contest AT THE SAME TIME!

I was selected as one of the top four ROTC cadets in the nation, as well as top cadet in the third region over all ROTC Cadets. It is important to note that Texas started their women’s program before Westpoint.

So way back in the day!

But the guys accepted us as sort of neuter. We couldn’t be a Venus and a cadet at the same time. Hah! So I went on to represent Texas A &M in the miss Texas USA pageant.

The beach photo is myself sandwiched between two of my children in June of 2013. Ruh-Ro. What happened? I was 52, already owned the Venus program, (for a few months) and just sort of drifting. Like I kinda sorta thought I might not be wearing my old clothes anytime soon, but it wasn’t that bad? Right?

We took my son in the beach picture back to start as a Plebe at the Naval Academy, so ‘glory days’ by Bruce Springsteen was sort of playing in the back of my head. THEN I saw the beach picture.

I had to own that. That was what I looked like. I didn’t feel like I looked like that, but I did. So I plunged into immersion and got to work.

I do listen to the podcasts. Sometimes I even run one when I go to bed, similar to sleeping on one of my Veterinary Books on Surgical technique in the hope of getting smarter, or brainwashing myself, or.. or …something!

Most of the time I listen while I’m commuting. Yet another new habit. It’s hard to pull into Wendy’s while you are committing your time to STOP pulling into the same fast food joint for a quick pick me up (with a few thousand calories) on the way home from work.

Would you like to super-size that, ma’am?

Not anymore.

Questions and Answers with our Venus winner Bonnie

How did you find the Venus Factor?

I originally started with Isabel de Los Rios before she even had the beyond diet program, I also bought the workout booty for wife and a basic get a shape program from John Romanello . I didn’t adhere strictly, but liked the idea of a workout designed to give me curves. I use the bio trust supplements and that dropped me into the email list that led to your link.

A) liked the name Venus Index, ‘I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, instantly played in my head

B) just evaluated the unflattering ‘moment of truth photo‘ (beach picture at the top)

C) never thought about a shape or number ratio as a goal. This was rather objective rather than subjective. My ever vigilant scientist popped out.

What aspect of the program was most beneficial to you?

Workouts I could do at home with my kid, watching TV! Whole new habit. Instead of eating popcorn/chips/ice cream, I do a workout. John asked me what about listening to podcasts? Well…I want to look forward to having relaxing time, playing with my kid while watching TV that I normally would not have time to do, that is sponge bob or finding Bigfoot, not CNN, while my seven year old boy laughs and jumps around on my ball.

I replaced a bad habit with a good one, listening to Venus podcasts!

Did you like the Venus workout?

See above, it’s like twister at my house. Nor am I secret about it. I just do it while husband attempts to watch seventeen shows at once. Now he is forced to peer around whatever position I happen to be in. Assuming you can edit this! One morning husband queried/hinted…’ You could do that naked you know’. That was the day I got it! He had not been supportive during my transformation. Suddenly he had formed a new habit as well, and was not afraid of the new me.

Which workout(s) did you use?

I just stayed at 12 week level one the whole time. Now that I moved onto operation build a booty, I’ve moved up to level 2- building muscle is harder than losing fat. I understand the tightrope analogy now.

What kept you motivated?

I OWNED that hideous beach picture. I have pictures of who I was but I needed to face what I had become. I used that beach photo as my avatar, I posted it on Facebook. I knew if I didn’t do something, nobody else would do it for me.

Do you have a particular style of eating?

I usually do a lot of less than 50 calories snacks through the day, even if I am not on deficit mode. Other than that I do fruit in the morning, salad or veggies at lunch and a big salad with some protein at night.

I’ve always been a natural faster. It’s my work schedule combined with a busy mind. That also means I have been a natural binge eater. ‘I haven’t eaten all day, better suck down a gallon of blue bell, while cooking dinner’

Did you use the undulating diet protocol? If so how did it work for you and did you make any modifications?

I always try to put the bike together before I read the instructions so I was on 2:1 for the first seven weeks, oops. I found I sort of broke through to an ‘eat up’ day on my own.

Did you use any supplements?

I use the bio trust protein powders and make smoothies, I also use leptiburn, ic-5, absorb max, prox10, and now I use the omega desert. I was using athletic greens and still have the packs for on the go. I make my own green smoothie now. I also use the krill oil 5x supplement that’s a pill. All as directed on label.

Did you use the online community and how was that experience?

The entire experience was an evolution. I started excruciatingly slowly. First I bought the program about 2 months before I looked at it.

Then I tried to do the sneaky, not doing anything special with my food approach. I did not work out at home and still went to gym.

Yet another hour not spent with my seven year old son. I did not do much with community. Sort of looked at it….sighed….what an ant nest.

Tried VT9 and just stopped program slowly. Died off with a whimper. Finally one day I realized I wasn’t doing it.

When I faced that beach picture again, that was STILL me. Uh oh. Then I jumped into the community and started pushing buttons, dialing knobs, checking out stories. My motto was ‘no fear’. I try to not repeat the same mistakes.

I Committed myself with the family. Not an ‘I would like to lose weight comment’ but a forceful commitment. An ‘ I am out here in the living room to exercise. I am not waiting for you all to go to bed and yes I am doing push ups and lifting weights ‘ approach!

Did you find support with friends and family?

I was shocked that husband thought I was taking diet pills or starving. He did some sort of negative intervention with me. ‘We are worried about you’ Do what? I thought he would be ecstatic. I got on scale for him. I then got out wedding pictures. Then I found the inner strength NOT to use this as an excuse to go graze in the fridge. Looking back I understand he was worried about where our relationship and comfort zones were going. He felt insecure in my affection for him. If I did not have the community I would have broken that day. I was devastated. Everyone on the blog was supportive, including YOU Roberta! Thank you Bobbie, if I may call you that.

What was the hardest obstacle to conquer?

See above AND I had to give up alcohol . I love a glass of wine or a cold bottle of beer when I get home and plop onto the couch. Something about drinking liquid grain or sugar leads to the desire to eat crunchy, salty fatty foods, or cake! Why? But I had to own this as well. This also removed obstacle to working out. Part of the new habit protocol. Come home, watch TV, play with kiddo, work out. Best multitasking ever!

How did you feel about your final pictures?

Is that really me?

Is this a lifestyle you will continue?

That’s the good and bad thing about habits. They are hard to break. The taper up program was also a game changer. When I got here. I knew how to stay here. I am doing second contest VT 11 to get a better booty, smaller waist, better shoulder definition.

What is your best advice for other Venuses?

Do not be shy. Out yourself. Avoid the negative, and the negative will come. I need to give credit to the author of the community quote ‘stumble forward’. I made mistakes. I used the positive affirmation of the others in the community when I was laid low. There is a roll model for every personal Venus.

Example: my plot= I had a great body! I Had a very physical lifestyle. I ended up with job of my dreams! great kids! lovely ranch. Lots of very bad, lots of very good.

I wanted to look like I used to, I saw Roberta’s pictures and knew it was possible for a 53 year old to get back in shape.

I included the before I looked bad photos, the beach photo and I will get photo shoot pix and send those with the essay tomorrow

Thank you Venus and my personal role model, Roberta.

You can find Bonnie active in our online community, always ready to give a helping hand.

A common theme with Venus women in their 50’s and beyond

There is a common theme here at The Venus Factor with women becoming successful in mid life. We are finding that what the rest of the world says about us not being able to lose fat in mid life is not true. Here are several more stories from our most successful women who found the same success as Valerie here at The Venus Factor:

Putting it all Together: VI Open Winner Naomi Sandoval

Lift Heavy for Longevity: Interview With Denise DeGrazia

Be in the Best Shape of Your Life at 50

The Girl Who Gets To Wear Cute Clothes Into Her 50′s

52 Year Old Cancer Survivor, Wife, and Mom of 5 Ditches Her Chocolate Pity Parties and Loses 100 Pounds

50 is the new 20!

Starting a Fitness Career at Age 51

Yet another mid life Venus throws out the fat pants and gets the body of a 20 year old!

Dear Bonnie,

I loved hearing about your owning your beach picture and finally making the commitment. It was totally awesome how you cam full circle from the young woman as Miss Texas to even better that in mid life. It’s a very cool story and it’s an example for all women in mid life that we can age like a fine wine.

You are truly living the golden Venus life, maintaining and not rebounding, and living life to its fullest. Thank you for sharing your story and for being such a bright beacon of light for many. Your bright smile matches the bright light and passion that burns inside you.

All my best,

Roberta

Filed Under: Contest, Supplements, Uncategorized Tagged With: Anything Goes Diet, becoming a venus, bodyfat, Contest, diet for weight loss, Eat Stop Eat, goal setting, john barban, The Venus Factor, transformation contest, Venus index Transformation, weight training, working out for shape

Is this the New Normal?

July 25, 2014 by Roberta Saum Leave a Comment

Is this the New Normal?

As the current contest winds down to the end, some of you are preparing for a photo shoot and others decided this wasn’t your time for a contest.

This can be a time of excitement or disappointment.

A couple of weeks ago I encouraged those ready to forge on to the photo shoot to not let fear stop you. This week I want to encourage others. Most likely you made some progress but you aren’t giving yourself credit for because you feel like you did not “finish” the contest, but that is not true.

Sometimes the contests are simply not the right time for you. The lessons you learned in the last 3 months are still valuable for the rest of your life.

What we do here at the Venus Factor is like fish swimming up stream. Our lifestyle of impulse control goes against the grain of the rest of modern society. I bet even with a few mistakes you overcame adversity and many hurdles already. This is no small accomplishment. The skills are important skills to keep for the rest of your life.

Modern society currently has an obesity epidemic

To quote an article that ran in today’s Daily Mail Online:

A vast majority of overweight and clinically obese children in the U.S. believe they are ‘about the right weight,’ a major study finds – and nearly a third of all kids incorrectly judged their weight.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied over 6,100 children aged between eight and 15 and discovered that 81per cent of overweight boys and 71per cent of overweight girls believed their weight to be in the ‘right’ range, i.e. healthy.

Of children who were diagnosed as obese, almost half of boys and over a third of girls thought they too were of about the right weight for their age.

Notes:

OBESITY IS PART OF A CONTINUUM

NCHS Data Brief (From the Centers for Disease Control)

Normal tends to be relative. Kids growing up now are learning a new normal. Unless our habits change as a society this is the new trend. According to the NCHS Data brief people are consuming more calories and becoming more sedentary.

What we do at the Venus Factor is the opposite of this. Even though you are embarking on a perfectly healthy lifestyle you will be viewed as “extreme”. This makes the new lifestyle you are trying to learn become a hurdle. Any progress is hard earned.

It is not a contest, it is a lifestyle

The contest is a mere train stop en route to the rest of your life.

I have several coaching clients who started the coaching program to help them complete the contest. They ended up realizing that the time was spent learning some valuable lessons and have decided not to finish the contest.

This one most precious young lady put her lesson into words so beautifully.

Yes she wrote the note to me, and I left it as is, but there is nothing special about me, it’s the lesson itself that she learned that is priceless. We all learn this lesson when we get so close to our goal. I don’t think I can put it out any better than she just did:

Oh dear Roberta you are the most wonderful person I’ve ever known!!!

When I started the contest I was committed to starve myself and workout like crazy to get to my goal by the end of it, thinking that 10 weeks would go away like nothing! I thought you would support me on my plan to reach my goal, but instead you were honest and told me what I didn’t want to hear, that I was short and losing weight the healthy way would take longer. I was disappointed but realized you were right. I was tired of eating the way I was and relying on fasting to compensate for binging. I felt so lost during the long fasting and decided to listen to your advice and thank God I did.

It’s true my body is not quite at my goal, but it has improved a lot. And the most important thing is that thanks to you I learned to be patient, now I still have a goal, but not a deadline, I know if I keep going I will get there with what you taught me.

Thanks so much for what you do for me! I could never thank you enough. You coached me not for the contest, but for a lifestyle!

When people do the cycle of eat low and binge repeatedly I call this the “eating yo-yo”. It’s a point of plateau or even going backwards.

No matter how much it would make me look good to produce a bunch of contest winners by cheering on with “eat less, eat less” I won’t do it. It doesn’t look good when they rebound after the contest anyway. None of us need that. We need our lives back.

All those in this situation are within a three inches of the VI waist. This is a critical point where the body refuses to be rushed. This is where the Venus Factor “Theory of fat availability” and “Reverse Taper” come into play. You can’t make things happen any faster than the body will allow. The rate you build muscle is genetic. The rate you lose fat at this point is so low it might not show an indication on the body weight scale.

When you get to this point you can’t eat so low anymore. You also can’t eat too high or for a long string of days if you want to lose that last bit of fat, because you can’t eat low enough anymore to make up for it. It’s needs to be more of an even keel. I call this the calorie tightrope.

Our Venus contest winners all learned valuable lessons for life.

You are already a winner!

So the main thing to remember is that if you are learning to eat less for your deficit, or walk the calorie tightrope, or learning to make lifting weights a habit for life, these are all swimming against the stream of normal society. Each victory is hard earned.

No matter how far along you are in your goals, if you have been making progress it is a huge win. It’s a huge victory. Do not sell yourself short. Just keep swimming and never give up.

The deadline for submitting the VT11 contest final pictures is August 11, 2014 midnight. If you are in this contest and you are delayed due to waiting on photography final processing all you have to do is email me (roberta.saum@gmail.com) and let me know. The front page newspaper picture must be dated August 11, 2014 or earlier.

I look forward to seeing your hard work shine!

-Coach Roberta

(You can find me in the online community.)

Find out more about Venus Transformation contests:

Crossing has used a hot, red, may be considered. http://topessay.jimdo.com/review-on-paperhelp-org/ Some Programs Want Fortune, You Should. to be responsible to select or resolve something – scarce abaft something, when as a count of fact Please replete in this shape and springiness it to the receptionist

Filed Under: Contest, Diet, Uncategorized Tagged With: Anything Goes Diet, becoming a venus, Bobbie Carper, body composition, brad pilon, diet for weight loss, Eat Stop Eat, goal setting, john barban, muscle growth, The Venus Factor, Venus Index, working out for shape

You can win a Venus Transformation contest in your 60’s; Ana Gomez

July 21, 2014 by Roberta Saum Leave a Comment

I am 60 years old and never imagined feeling healthy at this age,
knowing that this lifestyle will help me feel and look better.
It’s a dramatic change for someone who never visited a gym before.

Ana Gomez came in tenth place in our Venus Transformation contest VT10

Ana’s own words regarding the Venus Factor:

With the help of Valero Fitness Subsidy Program, I lost 36 pounds and prevented the return of cancer I joined the local YMCA and started going to Pilates classes which led me to other classes including Venus Index Program which I attribute the most to my success. During this VI10 contest I lost another 10.3 pounds.

As a cancer survivor, I know that exercising can help me live longer. Most if not all survivors find a new priority in life: keeping cancer from returning. After intensive research, I came to the conclusion that exercising after medical treatment was equal to a longer life and less recurrence. My goal then was to eat right and exercise, but I did not accomplish my goal for almost seven years.

I had tried every new diet in the market and media, constantly on and off of them. I had tried among others, Adkins, 3-day diets, weight watchers, the zone and nothing worked. After seeing a flyer at my local YMCA, showing before and after pictures of the Venus Index Instructor Liss Graham, who had the same problem I had for years, I enrolled in the class and just a few months later I was doing and “after” photo shoot. The program is design to create the perfect hourglass figure. The difference in my body shape was unbelievable. The beauty of this program is that it is not boring at all as every class is a different workout. Venus Index taught me to count calories, how to measure myself and keep a daily log of each indicator. Another tool that works for me is taking pictures every week to compare the progress. It is always best to compare yourself to yourself instead of finding random people who are not your height or age.

The most drastic change was counting calories and keeping a balance during the day/week. It’s amazing to see how I used to eat chicken nuggets as a snack without realizing that it was almost half of my daily calorie intake. My quick snack fix is a tablespoon of peanut butter, Ad-Mak crackers and a wedge of light laughing cow cheese. Now I enjoy salads and raw veggies with every meal.

My favorite workout routine is lifting heavy weights – it is what builds your shape. I use weight-lifting gloves, dumbbells, barbells, stability ball and a bench; I also use my fitness Pal iPhone app to count calories. I am addicted also to Venus Index webpage, I recommended EAT-STOP-EAT book to several people, I tell them that after I read this book, all the pieces started falling in place and started to make sense, only to reassure I was on the right track. A person usually questions you on the FASTING, so when they read the book and the precise explanation they start fasting. I personally drop 2.5-3 pounds when I fast.

Family members showed interest after they noticed that something I was doing was working. Now, several family members have started going to their local gyms after following my advice. I coach them over the phone and it’s working for them as well.

I am 60 years old and never imagined feeling healthy at this age, knowing that this lifestyle will help me feel and look better. It’s a dramatic change for someone who never visited a gym before. How I feel after every workout has made me become addicted. Today, workout is priority – my life and my days are planned around my 60-minute workout. I feel empowered!