IN HER WORDS

Lita at the Waimea-Canyon-Trail

There is a rapidly growing number of women maintaining the status of “Every-Day Venus”…

The number of Every-Day Venus women in our community is rapidly growing and it is exciting to watch.  Women are achieving their fitness goals and able to maintain the Venus Lifestyle for years.

Those of us who watch the activity in the Venus Forum have enjoyed Lita; her intelligence, wit, sense of humor, honesty, dedication to health and fitness, candor, and the fact that she is quite beautiful both inside and out.

Some of you might be interested in her stats:

Height: 5’5″

Baseline weight: Through the age of 23 I naturally maintained at 105 pounds.

Over the next 7 years, I steadily gained 55 pounds due to illness, medications and a change in lifestyle.

Between the ages of 30 and 36 years old, I dieted down to 120lbs, but I didn’t like the way my body looked and I didn’t know how to make it any better so I gave up and went back to my old habits. I repeated this cycle two or three times, staying between 120 and 150lbs but never liking what I saw in the mirror.

Lita’s Story

Lita was a previous winner in one of our Venus contests and we are lucky to have an interview with her and John.

A few of Lita’s Venus Contest pictures.

Here is some of Lita’s story in her own words:

At the age of 37 I decided to try weight loss through calorie restriction one more time; this time doing less cardio and more weight lifting and I began to get better results. Midway through this process,  I discovered John Barban’s Venus programs and philosophies and the amazing community full of like minded women who are on the same path as I was and who also understand the TRUTH about how few calories it is still “healthy” to eat. This reinforced what I was already coming to understand and embrace; that we just don’t “need” to eat as much food for “fuel” as the mass media and marketing would have us believe. Or, as they say on the Adonis side, you can’t just “muscle away your fat”. Eat less, train hard, and reveal the body of your dreams.

I learned that strength training is the key to creating a beautiful shape for the female body. I also learned that cardio is not the one and only secret to health and fitness for females.I learned what the puzzle pieces are and how to put them all together. It is really more simple than I thought it would be and there are only THREE!  DIET for weight loss, CARDIO for heart health (and a tiny bit of calorie burn) and STRENGTH TRAIN for beauty.

They are SEPARATE and we must do all three. Previously in life I had done these three things, but never learned how to balance and do them all at the same time for a specific and sustainable outcome. I have spent the last 3 years refining and perfecting my “Health Triad”. How much of each, how to practice them all and in what combinations, and how to make them habitual and ENJOYABLE.

Starting in April of 2011 I began to weight train, turned down my running miles and decreased my food consumption by 50%. I lost 30 pounds on my own over a 6 month period.

In October of 2011 I found Eat Stop Eat and the Venus program. I have used the principles of these programs to lose an additional ten pounds and KEEP it off for going on two years.

My average weight for the last 21 months has been 114 pounds and I have maintained within a 7 pound range during this time.

A typical day for me over the last two years looks like this:

Calories for me are anywhere from 800 a day to 1200 a day except for one day a week when I am a bit more relaxed and get in about 1400 to 1500.

My training consists of resistance training of my own design, Venus programs, Venus circuits, Adonis programs, or Brad Pilon’s Anabolic Again weight training program.  I workout 4-5 days a week depending on my moods or goals I also do medium or low intensity steady state cardio 4 to 5 days week for up to 45 minutes(usually brisk hill walking or running).

I also enjoy fun cardio like trail running or hiking with my husband.I try to get as many extra steps or movement as I can get in every day.

Outside of my formal fitness activities my life is sedentary. I am a calm person. I don’t fidget and I am not very emotionally emotive, so my non-exercise activity thermogenesis is very low. Therefore, I must do more than simply Venus workouts 3-4 times a week.

The support I can give and receive in the Venus community keeps me motivated and engaged in my process every day. The new research I’m exposed to through the Venus Immersion package has also been critical in keeping me educated and motivated to try new things and to stay the course. I think that staying mentally engaged and being creative with your willingness to keep learning and experimenting is a critical piece of maintenance success.

Maintaining a working knowledge of your body’s responses to different stimuli and keeping abreast of the latest research is the surest way to keep your interest level high, ensuring a lifelong active relationship with health and fitness.

I’m always saying in the community that fitness and beauty must become a lifelong “hobby”,  an “interest” that you research and practice actively all the time. When people treat it like a “one time” weight loss event, they just go back to their old ways. You must make friends with your body, learn about its needs on a deeper level and then seek to take care of it and nurture it like you would a child or a spouse.

Lita from left to right; 155 pounds, 128 pounds, 111 pounds, and 113 pounds.

When we get into weight training many of us find we struggle with gender differences

The neat thing about the Venus program is that it constantly evolves with new information and experiences learned.  The newly released Venus Factor incorporates even more gender differences in the fat loss program.  Venus has always been a program designed for the female shape “The focus is proportions and shape (rather than weight loss at all costs or building muscle like a guy)” – John Barban.

The soon to be released update of Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat also contains a lot of new information which Brad has researched regarding gender differences with fasting and training.  Anyone who has purchased this e-book will get the new update.

Lita, like so many of us, struggles with the differences between men and women in the gym:

I went through this very painful period over the summer where my husband and I would finish our workout and he would strut around and flex his muscles. He would be all pumped up and begging for compliments. I would make detailed comments and try to make him feel good.

But I felt too silly to do the same thing and besides, I wouldn’t get the same kind of pump that he gets, if any at all. Besides, while I know he’s impressed with my accomplishments, he’d sooner see me in a slinky gown than see me strutting around in my sports bra doing a lat flare. The whole thing really made me feel deflated and angry and cheated.

It took me awhile, but I finally made peace with the idea that “God don’t make no junk!” Mother Nature protects us from looking weird. So all of MY training gives me my ideal Venus metrics and beautiful SHAPE. It DOESN’T make me look more like a man with bulging muscles and popping veins. And this is an amazing thing.

When I finally said all this to my husband, I told him that I’m sorry for trying to take away HIS moment in the sun by being bitter about what is simply natural, he replied, “Hey, when I workout, I really do get a big pump and it looks materially different from before I start the workout.  But with you, your “before” is BETTER than my “after” because you look beautiful and amazing at ALL times.”

And then it all made sense.

Lita loves to enjoy outdoor exercise with her husband.

The value of the Venus online community

Our Venus community has had quite a long discussion on the topic of “The last 10 pounds”.  This is where we are entering fitness maintenance and body composition changes.

This is where many of us let our goals get hijacked, possibly looking at fitness model pictures, comparing ourselves to others, thinking we “should” be eating a certain amount of calories, or “should” have a certain look, or “should” be a certain weight or size, when really none of that matters.  We have achieved or exceeded our goal already, it’s time to enjoy our new life and our success!

Lita has learned to enjoy life as an Every-Day Venus. She has a beautiful feminine hour-glass shape.

As women we tend to beat ourselves up all too often.  We have a hard time accepting ourselves the way we were meant to be, or appreciating the success we have achieved.  We have a hard time being happy sometimes.  We are a constant work in progress, both mentally and physically.

Lita’s thoughts on the “last 10 pounds”:

I think the last ten pounds really, in actuality, means….going that last mile to make the body the way we ultimately want it. That might mean further fat loss, it might mean muscle gain, it might mean both.

But rarely is the dissatisfaction we experience that causes us to whine about those “last few pounds” actually just an issue of simply losing a couple more. It’s always about recomp and refinement. That’s why it is such a mystery and why we have a 31 page thread to discuss it.

I am hoping to visit Lita someday and enjoy the outdoors and some good quality Venus girl time.

Lita and I have developed a fun friendship through the community and we have so much in common.  Like her I really enjoy the outdoors, hiking, the gym, and enjoying good food!  It is my dream to get out to Lita’s area someday and visit with her;  go for hikes, enjoy some good food, and spend some good quality Venus girl time.  I have no doubt it will happen someday.

I hope the rest of you have enjoyed meeting Lita online as much as I have!

-Ro