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

June 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment
I read many programs, diets and exercise plans. I have tried a personal trainer who supposedly designed a program for me specifically but I’ve never found anything like VI. I threw out the fat pants!

I read many programs, diets and exercise plans. I have tried a personal trainer who supposedly designed a program for me specifically but I’ve never found anything like VI. I threw out the fat pants!

 

Valerie Pallister came in first place in our Venus Transformation contest VT10.

 

I have been fairly active most of my life.  I used to run long distance and have had a gym membership for a good part of my adult life too.  I’ve been trim and then not so much.  Even running many miles a week, I have never been this lean!  I’ve tried to gain arm and shoulder muscle at the gym working those machines but never achieved much progress.  I can’t believe the back, shoulder and arm tone I have after just 14 weeks of doing Venus workouts!
 
I stumbled across Venus on Facebook shortly after the first of the year.  I had decided that since I’d gotten to my highest weight ever and the largest level of fat pants were getting tight that I needed to do something!  When I found Venus, I sped read the material and jumped right in.  I already had the mindset to do something and I knew quickly that Venus was the ticket!!  I also read through Eat Stop Eat which was so helpful in figuring out how to manage my caloric intake.
 
My journey was not without setbacks and disappointments but the community of women and the podcasts I listened to while working out (and driving, and cleaning house) kept me focused and kept me learning about tricks to try for my own challenges.  I’ve accomplished more than I thought was possible and am amazed at the condition of my body.
 
Most of all I have learned invaluable things about myself that I did not know, even at 45 years old! Its been an amazing and educational journey.
 
Out of all the diets that I’ve ever done, one thing I have never done after I reached a fat loss goal:  Threw out the fat pants!

I am so glad to tell you that 3 of my friends have purchased VI and two male friends are doing the Adonis program.   Gotta love it!  🙂

Thank you Venus!!
Valerie in MT

 

I always wanted toned shoulders and back but never knew how to or was able to achieve it. Till now! I could not be happier with the progress I have made using your program. I have learned so much about myself, how much I was eating before and what I am capable of in diet and exercise it’s amazing. I have replaced weight training with my lifelong love of running activities.

I always wanted toned shoulders and back but never knew how to or was able to achieve it. Till now! I could not be happier with the progress I have made using your program. I have learned so much about myself, how much I was eating before and what I am capable of in diet and exercise it’s amazing. I have replaced weight training with my lifelong love of running activities.

 

Questions and Answers with our Venus winner Valerie

 

How did you find the Venus Factor?

I found Venus on Facebook by chance. Watched the video and bought it.

 

What aspect of the program was most beneficial to you?

I haven’t struggled with my weight too much other than trying to keep it in check but the structure of the workouts and the success I had with building muscle where I never have before was the most beneficial to me. I also learned things about dieting and about what is possible from the other Venues.  It was a unique experience in that I learned much about myself along the way too.

 

Did you like the Venus workout?

As I stated previously, I loved the workouts!  I like how it was set up to be for women. Also that each exercise had a video demonstration so you could get the right form. I like the flexibility of interchangeable programs and the whole body workout of each one.  I am so amazed by the tone and definition the workouts helped me achieve.

 

Which workout(s) did you use?

I started with the basic Venus Factor workout. I tried the immersion trial and really liked having access to the other workouts available. Shortly after the contest started I started doing the circuits to challenge myself. I stuck with those the rest of the contest but I would go to the next difficulty level when I felt ready.  It was nice because while they were similar exercises, they were different enough to keep me interested and challenged.

 

What kept you motivated?

I didn’t keep it secret what I was doing. For me, people knowing I’m in a contest kept me motivated and accountable. Like having spectators in a running race as opposed to running alone where no one will see if you stop and walk. But just as in running, you have to find your internal motivation and reasons to train for race day, cause most of the time, it’s only you and yourself watching!  Most people only know of or see the final race day. It really is what you do when no ones watching that counts.

 

Do you have a particular style of eating?

No style but I try to eat higher protein while still trying to get plenty of fruits and veggies. I don’t eat much bread, pasta and potatoes though. Just because I can easily eat too much once I start. But if I eat them infrequently, it’s OK. I just try to keep it balanced and comfortable with what my life is like and what I like to eat.

 

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

I did use it. It worked well and I liked the change to 6/1 and 5/2. Much simpler and easier to keep track of than the previous protocol.  Also the flexibility of using the eat up day on social event days was helpful.  I only modified it by adding in fasting days. That worked well for me to offset any overage on calories other days. It was nice to think in weekly goals.

 

Did you use any supplements?

I had started drinking plexus drinks before I found Venus from a friend who is a distributor. I just continued that and my normal daily vitamins and glucosamine. I also began using creatine part way through the contest. I can tell I have better workouts if I have some before.

 

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

Yes, I liked being able to glean ideas and tips from other Venuses on the community. The supportive was awesome too. They are all great and so helpful!  It’s one of the great tools of Venus I believe.

 

Did you find support with friends and family?

My husband was very supportive but I did better when he wasn’t home just because I didn’t have to cook for him or go out to eat with him. I have a few very close friends who were very supportive as well. They were patient and interested in what I was learning and experiencing. One of them actually bought eat stop eat after I told her about it.

 

What was the hardest obstacle to conquer?

Social events and eating out. It’s hard to not eat everything they give you at a restaurant but I did learn techniques that enabled me to keep on track. Namely, banking calories!

 

How did you feel about your final pictures?

I am amazed at how I looked in them. I had some pictures taken when I was in my 20’s for my husband and I think these were better!  I never would’ve guessed I could get to that level of fitness.  I might have to get them done professionally sometime. These were taken by my husband in our living room.

 

Is this a lifestyle you will continue?

I will always use the techniques and tricks I learned from the Venus program. I won’t and don’t expect to be picture ready all the time but I have the knowledge of how to and that I actually can do what I need to if I want to get in picture shape again. Weightlifting is something I will continue always. I love the workouts and the results I get. It’s going to be fun to take pictures next April and see the muscle I’ve gained. I know it will take that long!!  But it’s now part of me and I love it!

 

What is your best advice for other Venuses?

Don’t beat yourself up for mistakes.  If you overeat one day or two, know you can fix it by doing the program and keep going. Never give up on yourself. Take progress pictures every about 6 weeks so you can compare them and see your progress.

That’s motivation there Venuses!

Workout consistently and make sure when your spending time at the gym or wherever you choose to workout, you make it worth while. Why bother if you don’t put the kind of effort in that will make you stronger and fitter?!

On the flip side, just listen to your body and don’t push through a pain. Tired and sore are good but pain during an exercise can lead to injury.

Also,the community for moral and educational support, listen to podcasts for helpful information and motivation.  Both are excellent resources.

You can find Valerie in our online community.

 

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

 

Dear Valerie,

I’d like to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart.  I know how hard you worked.  I watched your struggles though the weeks as you wrote your journal.  It was fun to see your strong victories after the weeks of struggle with social eating and vacations.

It was awesome to see you empowered by the Venus lifestyle as you embraced it with full gusto.  You learned the energy balance that was needed for you.  You learned to find your own sweet spot and walk your own tightrope.

It’s very nice to have you as part of our community and see you in there helping others out when you can.

Thank you for being a special part of our community Valerie!

All my best,

Roberta

Filed Under: Contest, transformation, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So You are Obese; There is Nothing Wrong with You

June 13, 2014 by 2 Comments
You may think there is something wrong with you. But no actually there is nothing wrong.

You may think there is something wrong with you. But no, actually there is nothing wrong.

 

We get many new women in the Venus community who quite often think there is something wrong with them because they eat when stressed, or just love food, and then became obese.

No, there is nothing wrong with you.

Of course we all love food.

At least 90% of human history was spent as the hunter-gatherer. It’s built into our genetic nature to eat when there is food. When a human senses danger or anxiety our body’s natural response is to trigger a “fight-or-flight” stress response. This increases hunger. Stress increases hunger, including the stress of lack of sleep.

In modern society we have an over abundance of food and we are less active in our daily lives. This is a bad situation all by itself, but then we add in the “fight-or-flight” stress induced in our brains during the stress of modern society and this is why we are obese. Our brain and body can’t tell the difference between modern anxiety and the threat we felt as early hunger-gatherer people in fear for our lives.

The stress and not understanding how to navigate the modern over abundance of food may be sabotaging your health. We all have to learn how to navigate the over abundance of food and reduce our stress as much as possible.

If you feel stress and hunger, the message your brain gets is “There is a problem.  I need food.  Or, there is not enough food!” Of course you likely have a house full of food, you are over weight, you are trying to diet, and the stress response in your brain can’t tell the difference. Your brain and body get the stress response and you want to eat. Of course you want to eat!

All of these things cause the stress response in our bodies:

  • When we are lonely it can increase our stress.
  • Our jobs cause stress, even jobs we love.
  • Resentment and anger cause stress.
  • Lack of sleep causes stress.
  • Bad relationships cause stress.
  • Excessive worry causes stress.
  • Childhood trauma causes stress.
  • Starting a new diet causes stress.
  • Starting a new workout causes stress.
  • Despair and hopelessness cause stress.

Our brains are not wired for modern times. If we were still a hunter-gather and had had the fresh moose meat available we wouldn’t say “I’m on a diet and so won’t eat the moose meat!” No, we would feast. We are wired to eat the food when it’s available, especially when stressed.

The problem is we are stressed AND there is too much food available. We are acting just as we are designed, but we have to be trained to stop because it’s a health problem.

We all have the capacity to over eat. We all love food. We can all eat more than we need.

Oh yeah, and add in the fact that many modern foods are engineered with salt, sugar, and fat to deliberately keep us coming back for more and more and more. That really does not help us does it? Some of us have to keep those engineered “bliss point” foods out of the house. There are many reasons why modern foods are sabotaging our health.

John and Brad talk about the difference between our modern society compared to the Victorian era in England. They talk about this comparison and our capacity to eat more than we need in an Uncensored Podcast “A Moment in time.”  If you are an immersion customer take a listen because it’s a fascinating topic.

Some of us might have some emotional eating issues and need professional help, if so we have Dr. Nicola Bird to give us a hand. But for the most part many of us simply need to train ourselves how to navigate a sedentary society with an over abundance of food.  We also need to learn to reduce our stress as much as we can.

We all seem to know how to diet. We all seem to know how to over eat. That is why we all yo-yo with our weight. We all have to learn how to eat the right amount or “normal” amount of food. It takes a bit of training and all of us are capable of learning how to do it.

The Venus community is where we share ideas on how to do just that. None of us have to be perfect to succeed at fat loss in our modern society. We share our trials, tribulations, eating disasters, triumphs, and victories. We cheer each other on all along the journey.

If you have not participated in our online community, come on in! It’s a warm, friendly, and special place.

We also share recipes, so here’s my version of the flour-less pancake. It’s not that I don’t eat flour, it’s just that some meals I may need to focus more on protein and less calories.

 

Mash the banana with a fork, whip in the egg, and cook the pancake on a grill. Mix the yogurt, vanilla bean, and Stevia or Truvia. Top the pancake with the vanilla yogurt topping. Use coconut yogurt if you can't eat yogurt.

Mash the banana with a fork, whip in the egg, and cook the pancake on a grill.
Mix the yogurt, vanilla bean, and Stevia or Truvia.
Top the pancake with the vanilla yogurt topping. Use coconut yogurt if you can’t eat dairy yogurt.

 

PS We don’t have “good” or “bad” food lists in our community.  We are all different and everyone finds what works best for them.  I happen to follow a mostly organic style of eating which matches our Flat Belly Forever style of eating.   That is the food that works best for me and my own health, and also helps me keep my trim shape.

Remember that most of us who became over weight simply need to train ourselves how to eat the right amount of food in a modern society.  There is nothing wrong; we are merely human.

-Coach Roberta

You can find me in the online community.

If you want a Venus Premier Coach <<– Sign up here

PS You don’t have to be in a contest to get coaching.

Filed Under: Bodyfat, Diet, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to Stay Motivated When You Over Eat and Don’t Feel Like Exercising?

May 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment

MalissaMichelleRoberta-Mirror

How do I stay motivated when I over eat and don’t feel like exercising?

It is two weeks into the current Venus Transformation contest.  Whether you are in the contest or not, we are all striving to be our best and make positive changes in our lives.  We all want our dreams.  Keep the dream, go for the dream, live the dream!

You might be on a motivational roll, or you might be in a motivational slump.  We all have these ebbs and flows and need motivation to get back on track.

If you find yourself in a slump know this is normal.  It happens to all of us. Don’t give up. We are all human.  We all make mistakes.  We all have to motivate ourselves to get back on track.  None of us gets a free pass on this.

 

Listen to Dr. Nicola and John in our free podcasts:

Ask Nicola; Overcoming Inertia

Ask Nicola; What is Self Sabotage?

Ask Nicola; Are You Your Own Worst Self Critic?

Ask Nicola; Perfectionist Mindset

Ask Nicola; What Can You Do About Distorted Body Image?

Ask Nicola; Learn to Love Your Body

Ask Nicola; Three Things That Can Hinder Your Success

Ask Nicola; Can food be a reward?

Ask Nicola; What is closet eating?

Ask Nicola; Emotional Eating vs Emotional OVER-Eating

Ask Nicola; Identify Emotional Eating

 

Why the Venus program works

All of us love food. This is where we learn to manage it in a healthy manner for life. All of us have learned how to diet, and all of us have learned how to eat too much, but we have a hard time learning the middle ground. It is swimming up stream against society and social pressure to constantly eat high calorie foods. So we all have to learn to manage it like a budget.

Once the debt is paid off then we simply learn to have a one or two deficit days to offset the higher eating days.  We balance it like a checkbook for the week or over a period of time. It takes a bit of effort to get used to and then it just becomes second nature.

Just like kids who get money from their parents when they are young and don’t have to worry about where it comes from or how much is in the checkbook; we all have to grow up and become responsible with food intake. If not, we spend calories like it’s a credit card with no limit and then we get into fat debt again.

There is a lot of science behind why the workout is designed the way it is, and why the eating schedule is designed the way it is; both of those give you an advantage as well as keep leptin up.   But also not depriving yourself of foods you love is KEY.  Most other diets restrict you from foods you love and you go crazy eventually and over compensate for depriving yourself.

 

 I don’t like working out

Just do the best you can. It does not have to be all or nothing. Do something every day.  Do just enough to so that you don’t dread it. Think of ways to make it fun. Is it music, time to yourself, a new piece of workout gear, shoes, clothing, something new to look forward to, spending time with friends? Try something to make it fun.

The more you do it the more you will see things about your body change and that will motivate you. It might just be walking to the end of a driveway without getting winded anymore. For some of us who are older we find our arthritis doesn’t bother us as much. Rejoice in the health changes.

The more conditioned you become the better you will feel, and the more good biofeedback you will receive to keep you rolling on a positive trend.

Any little effort you put into exercise gives you “skin in the game” to keep rolling with all your other choices like food and not let the day go to wasted effort.

 

How to deal with over eating?

None of us are perfect. As John says in the in the Fat Loss Manual, give yourself “Permission to be Imperfect”; It’s a great message. We are not machines, we are human, so we bumble along the best we can.  The process still works if we are patient and don’t let peak eating days go on for a long string of time endlessly. Just increase awareness, live life, learn some new tools and tricks, be patient, and give it some time.

Day to day effort is all it takes. It is the daily choices.

You are not alone when you feel like you always want more food. Pretty much all of us want more, especially on a deficit. For three years while mostly on a deficit I had to constantly remind myself after every meal, and after finishing my small portions; “I can have more next time!” Drink a big glass of water or tea and walk away and get busy on a project, work, chores, whatever. Keep busy. Get away from food and get your mind on something else.  I still have to use this technique today.

My biggest advice on the over eating is that you can STOP whenever you decide to stop. You don’t have to think this is the end of the world and that you are doomed just because you over ate (and thus keep eating for no reason), just stop!

You may have to bump up your calories a bit. Anything under maintenance is a deficit. A slower more sustainable deficit is better than too low and then binging.  Sometimes binging is a sign that it’s too low of a deficit for you.  You might have too much stress in your life.  You might have some emotional issues to deal with (we all do); it does not mean there is anything wrong with you.  Hunger is our body’s natural reaction to any stress.

It does not matter what others are doing.  Quit comparing what you eat with what someone else eats.  What they do does not matter. You need to find what is right for YOU. All you need is a slight deficit over time, more deficit days than maintenance days, and keep the peak eating days to a minimum.

 

Looking at your string of positive days often

If you are using a calorie counting tool like MyFitnessPal then look at the 30 and 90 day calorie charts often to make sure your peaks are not too high, and not too often.

Get a calendar and use some fun pretty sparkle stickers for all deficit days, a different sticker for maintenance days, no stickers for over maintenance peaks, and a different sticker for workouts.  No negative stickers!

Remember that maintenance eating days are always a WIN. They are not backsliding.  They are eating normal. It’s the way you were meant to eat. It is just enough.  The calorie deficit is not the way you were meant to eat; it is corrective action to fix a health problem.  None of us are meant to stay on corrective action forever.  We need breaks from corrective action.  Corrective action is stress.

Then be motivated by the string of stickers or the graph of progress you see over time.

We all make mistakes. Every single one of us. We are all human, not machines.

Just stop where you are at if you are not on track and decide to get back on track.

Just DECIDE and DO IT.

Know you don’t have to be perfect.

Know you start with little steps.

Know you will feel pain.

Know you have to break through your fears.

 

The simplicity of Eat Less, Move More

The simplicity of “eat less and move more” is powerful. Sometimes we get far too caught up in the tools and letting them mess with our heads, when deep down we all know it’s just go to the gym and eat slightly less.  Listen to your body when you need to eat a little more some days (not binge!)  Rest from the gym when you need it. People figured this out before the age of technology.

Sometimes the age of technology is information overload, when this happens take a deep breath and listen to the simplicity in your heart and mind, it’s there. Then after a breather start looking around and navigating the technology if you want.

It doesn’t always matter about “counting” calories, so long as over all the calories in are less than the calories you ate to get you where you are today. That can mean smaller servings, or one less pudding, or don’t drink soft drinks.

Likewise, it doesn’t matter about being perfect with the exercise, doing something is better than doing nothing.

If you want to get stronger that doesn’t have to be perfect either, as long as the amount of exercise you did this week is somehow a little more than the amount of exercise you did last week. That can be going a little longer, or lifting a little heavier, or walking a little faster. Bodies take time to change, and lives take time to change too.

I hope this helps!

-Coach Roberta

 

If you want a Venus Premier Coach <<– Sign up here

PS You don’t have to be in a contest to get coaching.

 

Filed Under: Diet, Exercise, Uncategorized, Weight training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How I Lost Belly Fat and got my Abs back

April 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment
I made a lot of mistakes and it took me a year and a half to get my abs back

I made a lot of mistakes and it took me a year and a half to get my abs back

 

I’ve made a lot of mistakes this past year and a half. I am an imperfect human with many flaws and I know it.  I hope that explaining the mistakes I have made might help someone.

Most of us know that words are only a small part of communication so you probably would not realize how afraid I was to post this picture (yet at the same time how proud I am of it), or how vulnerable I feel when I post a video of myself in my own backyard.

Someone in the online community said the picture was pretty cool and likened me to a tough Janet Jackson type chick.  Little would anyone know that I am far from anything like a tough chick.  As Randy said about me recently, I’m like the tin man with a soft squishy marshmallow inside.

Part of the story I’m going to tell here involves the fact that I’m a 53-year-old female who has been going through menopause for several years.  There I said it; it’s an icky topic that is TMI for many.  But it’s a reality for women my age and that includes many new members of the Venus community.

Just this morning I showed this picture to my husband Randy.  He was the one who took the short video, but I am the one who freeze framed two frames from the video and superimposed them together.  I told Randy I was really happy with this picture because I felt like it showed the real me (no makeup, in gym clothes, in my own back yard, in natural movement that was not “posing”).  As my friends in the gym would say, it’s me in my “element”.

I am also very happy with the picture because it shows I finally I got my abs back!  I have been struggling for a year and a half to get to exactly this point.

This morning as I showed the picture to Randy I said “Don’t you like it?”  He groaned.  Of course he likes it, what else would he say?  Certainly nothing that would cause me to repeat another recent episode of “Nobody likes me, every body hates me!”  READ: Wild female menopause hormone episodes increased by hot flashes, insomnia, and hypersensitivity.  Oh yeah.  Crazy stuff.

 

Was it hormones or calorie counting?

Menopause hormones. That’s a big part of what I struggled with last year and the issues are still not resolved.  I attributed most of my problems to that but I was wrong.  Yes there’s a problem with them, but they did not cause me to gain fat or to have trouble losing fat.

I caused many of my own health issues.

Looking back I’ve noticed some strange behavior once I started counting calories.

When I started the fat loss process back in 2009 I did not count calories.

I was at the peak of my obesity eating 100% organic food.  I soaked, dried, and milled all of my own grain.  I made homemade sauerkraut and kombucha.  I soaked and cooked organic legumes and chickpeas (and still do as I love the improved taste and could never go back to anything else). I ate only free-range grass fed meat and dairy, with no added hormones.  I used raw organic cream and butter.  I ate full fat organic live cultured yogurt.  I followed Weston Price Wise Traditions style of eating and relied heavily “Nourishing Traditions” which I still consider one of the best cookbooks in existence.

I also lost 85 pounds eating the same way, I just cut my portion sizes way down, ate my food on desert plates, and practiced some prolonged nightly fasting as well as some Eat Stop Eat intermittent fasting.  I got all the way down to 10% body fat eating all organic and not counting a single calorie.  Portion control was key.

Then I floundered at how to eat normal (maintenance) as most of us do once we reach our fat loss goal.  You see, we know how to diet (eat less), and we know how to over eat (that’s how we became overweight in the first place), but we have a hard time learning how to just eat normal.

That’s when I started counting calories.  There is nothing wrong with counting calories.  I intend to keep counting because I do like having the data and it helps with troubleshooting health issues.  I also think it’s important because most of us females are so small that we have very little margin for error if we want to remain lean athletes.  We can’t eat too low when we are lean, and we can’t eat too much if we want to remain lean.  The margin of error for me is only about 200 calories.  It’s very hard to walk that fine of a line without tracking calories.

 

Here’s the problem I created for myself when I started counting calories

I was so focused on calories that I unintentionally started cutting out healthy fat and started adding in “short cut” foods; artificial sweeteners, artificial butter flavor, miracle noodles, Glucomannan powder, sugar free Jell-O and pudding, and artificial creamer.  I had even cut out the fish oil that my doctor recommended because I thought it was too many calories.

I started getting a clue last year when I wrote “Successful Weight Loss; There Are No Shortcuts”.

But it didn’t totally sink in yet.  I cut out all of those foods and then reverted back to artificial butter and creamer, and still used sugar free pudding on occasion, as well as a few other products with Splenda.

I continued to have problems with inflammation and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to lose the little bit of extra fat around my belly.  I know it wasn’t much and I certainly was not fat, but it just wasn’t where I felt my best.

I also experimented with Carb Back-Loading, which had some disastrous affects along with some very good take away points, which I have kept.  I will talk more about that later.

I continued to get thicker around the waist and had a little emotional breakdown. I began to focus more on getting my peak calorie days back in control but I was still having sleep issues due to hot flashes and insomnia.  I had a lot of strange food cravings that were hard to control.

 

The research project that got me back on the healthy track

After the New Year John and Brad had me work on a research project for them.  During the research I relearned much of what I used to practice with the Weston Price foundation and Nourishing Traditions.

The research lead me to science that backed the fact that Splenda and many food chemicals harm your gut flora.  I was also reminded of how important fermented foods, prebiotic, and probiotic foods are to keeping your gut flora healthy.  I also learned that unhealthy gut flora can hinder fat loss.

The light bulb flashed in my mind.  I gathered up all of the containers of creamer, Splenda products, and sugar free pudding mixes and tossed them in the trash.  My husband was quite happy because he never liked that I was using those products.  I’ve started making sure I eat something fermented everyday again and my husband started drinking kombucha with me, which was a pleasant surprise.

 

Still, those hormones again

Even with the hormone problems that still exist for me I’ve dropped all the belly fat and got my abs back just by making the few healthy changes to my diet.  At my already extreme low body fat I could not lower my calories very much, but what I found over the last two months is that my strange food cravings went away and I’m able to keep my peak calorie days under control.

I’ve started seeing a new doctor and got my hormones checked.  Some of my friends in the Venus online community already know that I’m pretty tired of waking up every day feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck.  It turns out that many of my hormones are low; TSH, DHEA, Progesterone, Estradiol, and my free testosterone is almost zero.  Dr. Campbell is starting me on some Bio-identical hormone replacement and I’m still waiting patiently to see how it will affect me.  I’m hoping it will help me feel better soon.

I asked the doctor how on earth do I have so much muscle with no testosterone?  He said “I don’t know, but I would have loved to see a baseline when you were younger!”  And “Girl, you got some guns on you!”  That made me feel pretty good; I do work hard.  I’m far from perfect but I put a lot of effort into all I do.

In the meantime I really am happy that I got my Abs back!

 

Carb Back-Loading take away points and caveats

I mentioned that I found some caveats with John Kiefer’s Carb Back-Loading protocol.

First problem, it was designed for men.  Not counting calories works fine for men because they are bigger, have a bigger metabolism, and have more room for error with calorie intake.  For women who want to maintain a lean athletic physique that includes “having abs” (which Kiefer likes to show his program gives you), most likely it’s too fine a line to not count those calories.

Second problem, eating white sugar and white flour is like heroin to a female on a calorie deficit at the end of the day when she is most ego depleted. This scenario is a disaster waiting to happen.  I prefer corn grits, corn tortillas, potato, sweet potato, sourdough bread, or popcorn, and I usually only have room for one serving at night, if that.

I did like the science and research and found it well worth the read for the timing of protein and carbs in relation to how fat is stored and how it effects muscle.

I also follow Kiefer’s advice on skipping breakfast when I’m not hungry, working out fasted (although I prefer mid day with my schedule as opposed to evening), and saving my carbs for later in the day after I’ve worked out.

The last benefit that I took away from Kiefer’s protocol was ending my long distance cardio.  I now only do HIIT and low intensity cardio for not longer than 50 minutes (unless I’m out hiking which isn’t all that often).  This is working out really well for me.  I’m less fatigued, less stressed, less hungry, and better able to keep my eating habits under control.

 

 

Interesting tip for capturing photos

The picture I posted here today were two superimposed freeze frames from this short video taken last weekend.  I had Randy take the video just to see how I looked with my newly found long lost abs.  It was a cool trick John told me about in order to capture muscle tone, striations, etc. that you sometimes see in the mirror but have a hard time capturing in pictures.  I hadn’t thought of it until after we viewed the video.  I thought it worked pretty well.

It might come in handy for some of you taking pictures this weekend!

I’m looking forward to viewing the VT-10 contests results next week.  If you are in the contest make sure to enter your photo’s into the tracker contest dashboard tool.  The contest deadline is April 14, 2014.

Have a great weekend!

-Ro

 You can find me in the Venus online community as RobertaSaum.

Filed Under: fat loss, Food, Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Do you make this obvious mistake when measuring your fat loss progress?

April 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment

 

Comparing your rate of fat loss change to another is like comparing apples to oranges.

Comparing your rate of fat loss change to another is like
comparing apples to oranges.

 

Do you compare your rate of change to another person?

It is like comparing apples to oranges.  All of us come into the process with a different genetics, age, height, body fat percentage, health, physical conditioning, history of dieting, and the list goes on.

Fat loss does not happen linearly, it happens in random chunks.  We all have some periods of time where it appears that nothing is happening.  People call it a plateau but it is not really a plateau.  It’s just that the body weight scale can’t tell you what is happening. Water alone can fluctuate several pounds within any given day!

There are far to many factors that the scale can’t show:

  • allergies
  • muscle soreness
  • inflamation
  • muscle building
  • water retenion
  • food allergies
  • sodium
  • water loss
  • hormone fluctuations
  • food digestion
  • food allergies

And many more…

 

Water in the body can fluctuate several pounds on any given day

The body weight scale is really only good as a trend over time, sometimes months.  It took me two years to lose 60 pounds; think about that, it’s not very fast (probably because I’m very tiny and short;  it included large chunks of times where it appeared no change was taking place.  But I stuck with the process and didn’t worry about it and finally something kicked loose.  It happened in random chunks like that the whole time.  It’s a good thing I didn’t get discouraged and give up or I would never have achieved my goal and I wouldn’t have the new life I have right now.

Sometimes people give up and if they would have waited just a week longer they might have gotten their random “whoosh”.  That whoosh is sometimes just what you need to keep you going again through the next apparent plateau (which really is not a plateau).

New people come in all the time and complain that nothing has happened for 3 weeks!  

Three weeks is not very long at all.

Most of us do see results in 3 weeks but it really depends on the randomness that your body decides to drop it.  Usually those that have their big “losses” in the beginning will eventually also have some slow down and chunkiness in progress.

This is exactly why Jake protected his wife from seeing the scale when she was in the last contest.  Michelle talked about how that worked for her and then John explained why that was such a clever idea!  It’s probably a big reason she stayed motivated and came in first place.  It is also exactly what I did in VT4 where I got first place.

 

Be encouraged by users in the community who sometimes had to wait 6 weeks to see results!

Here’s a list of ladies in the forum who had to be very patient and some of them waited 6 weeks before they saw a change. These ladies are always encouraging others and have great stories and words of wisdom.

Read their blogs and be encouraged and inspired.

nfaith

Valerie in MT

Living vintageously in a modern world

triggs

SteelerMom

Susie

heatherb

heavenlymercy

Andrea

Lou Ann Tigergal

kellydunwell

melindaworland

tracylys

april

angels1chance

lisa32

 

Here’s some words of wisdom from John Barban on the subject:

The terms ‘fat loss’ and ‘weight loss’ often get used interchangeably, but they shouldn’t.

 If you lose a pound of fat, then technically you should weigh a pound less. This however is hard to detect if your daily water fluctuation and the amount of food and drinks you have in your body can be as much as 5-7lbs in any given day. If you just drink a few glasses of water you will easily be a pound heavier due to the extra water weight added to your body. Eating a big meal can easily add 3-5 pounds of weight to your body while you’re digesting and assimilating the food. These are temporary gains in body weight and do not necessarily mean you’ve gained body mass be it fat or muscle. It’s really just food in your gut.

 Understanding that your daily body ‘weight’ can fluctuate 3-5 pounds just from the weight of the food you have eaten it’s not surprising that you may not really be able to detect a 1 pound decrease in fat mass. At least not detectably on a scale.

 Also when you have a significant amount of fat to lose (in excess of 40lbs) you’re body will be carrying excess water along with the excess fat. This means that if and when you decide to start cutting fat you will experience a ‘weight’ loss that exceeds your actual ‘fat’ loss. As you lose body fat you will also lose a certain amount of excess water retention. This is a good thing as excess water makes you look smooth and bloated and it takes away from your muscular definition.

 It’s typical for someone to lose twice as much ‘weight’ as ‘fat’ in the initial stages of a fat loss cut down. Someone who needs to drop 40lbs will likely see a big weight loss at the beginning. It’s a good bet that in the first 2-4 weeks at least 50% of the ‘weight’ that is coming off is water, the rest is actual fat. This higher ratio of weight loss to fat loss starts to drop as you get to lower body fat percentages.

 It seems that as you drop below approx 25% body fat you can assume that most of the actual weight you lose is due purely to fat loss.

 Finally when you’re close to or below 20% body fat or lower you may notice that you get visibly leaner and can lose fat without seeing your bodyweight change much at all. At this final stage you will be lean enough that even minor changes in fat levels will make a difference on your visible definition. These changes will be proportionally small when it comes to measurable weight, however the changes they make to your visible definition will be big.

 It’s true that losing 1 pound of fat when you’re body fat is 30% will not even be noticeable, however losing a full pound of fat when your body fat is 20% will make a dramatic difference in your look even if the scale doesn’t budge.

 Finally your muscle hydration and weight training status will also change how full and heavy your muscles are on a day to day basis. Having fully hydrated and glycogen loaded muscles can dramatically increase your bodyweight, even if it only lasts for a day or two. This ability of your muscles to swell with water, nutrients and glycogen can also throw off your measurement of fat loss vs weight loss. When you’re very lean you can actually lose fat, and even gain weight at the same time. These likely won’t be huge swings but it’s definitely possible.

 In summary:

 You can you lose fat without losing weight.

 You can even gain weight while losing fat.

 If you have lots of fat to lose, you’ll start out by losing significantly more weight than is accounted for by fat due to a reduction in water retention…this is a good thing.

 When you’re approaching 20% body fat and attempting to cut even lower you will likely get leaner without seeing much of a change in body weight. (this odd effect is partly why people think the last 10 pounds are harder to lose.)

 In reality they’re still losing fat but the total amount of weight that is coming off starts to slow down.

 John

 

User quotes show how wildly the rate of change varies for each person

I went through the blogs today for a couple of hours and collected various progress report quotes from the top of blogs (you might see some of your own words here).  They are in chronological order from the last couple of weeks.  I was actually happy to see that most were happy posts, but some were frustration.

Besides the fact that the rate of change varies quite wildly from one person to the next, so does the mindset.  Some people were happy with just a few pounds where others had lost more than that and were unhappy and frustrated.  Mindset is EVERYTHING!

 

 

It was my weigh-in day this morning, and no movement, same as last week. BUT, I lost an inch off my bust, from 37″ to 36″, which I am hoping is my back bacon, and not my boobs! HA! Hey, a loss is a loss, am I right?

 

Week 10 and I lost another pound. My official weigh in days are Thursdays, but I couldn’t wait this morning. I had to see. Last week 158.6, this week 157.6. WHOA! This is weird to me because I lost close to 5 pounds the first 2 weeks on this program, then is slowed to about a half pound/week after that. It was slow going. I was starting to get frustrated, but I promised myself I wouldn’t quit.

 

Week 6 almost finished. The inches are coming off, but extremely slow!! I’ve only lost one inch in the waist, one inch in the shoulders, and 1/2 inch in the hips in the last three weeks!!! I guess it’s better than nothing.

 

It’s a lifetime of habit; but it was worth it. I am down 9 lbs. in 11 days.

 

The first week on this I only lose 2 pounds…..I hoped that by the end of week 2 I would have lost alot more, because I really tried hard this week. I didn’t lose any pounds…I’m very discouraged. I have 105 pounds to lose and I am tired of trying. I always hope but it seems like those dreams are always dashed….not sure what to do right now..any help?

 

I have lost 7 1/2 lbs to date and I have lost a total of 4.5 inches off my body. Things are changing, at a pace I can manage 🙂

 

I’m feeling so good about myself I’m down 5lbs in the first week. I’ve done a ton of reading and making sure that I’m active everyday.

 

Well I completed my first two weeks.
I am only down 4 pds overall….just yesterday I was down 5pds…lol
Trying not to get discouraged after listening to some people who have lost 9 pds in first week…….everyone’s different

 

I’ve determined that even though the scale as not even budged a 1/10 since March 7th, that I still must be doing something right. I lose anywhere from a 1/4″ to 1/2″ varying from every spot I measure (upper arm, shoulders, waist, hips, upper thigh). My muscle is getting better; I see some serious arm muscle when I flex. I REALLY wish the scale would keep going down, though. I’m going into my 10th week and I’ve only lost 13 pounds or so I dunno…. I’m sort of frustrated. It’d be great if I at least went down a size… what gives?

 

Well, i officially ended week 1 and could NOT be happier with my results! I am down 8.2 pounds in 7 days, which is more than I lost in 2.5 months on Weight Watchers this year!

 

Well I’m slowing down. The first 2 weeks that I was on the program (2 weigh in but only 11 days) I lost 3.5 lbs each time. The following 2 weigh in were 1.5 lbs each and now today’s was only half a pound!

 

Can I just say how excited I am? I started out at 188 pounds, and weighed in this am at 176. I am down 9.3 inches, too.

 

So, this morning when I weighed myself I was 174.2 Yippee!
It seems like so long ago, but last year before getting pregnant I weighed over 200 pounds.

 

Ok so I’m almost 2 weeks in and have only dropped 3 lbs, but not seeing any significant change. I’m kinda thinking the amount of carbs is a bit high on the meal plans. I see loads of post of women that are dropping weight like crazy. Any suggestions as to what has helped make significant changes in other people?

 

I’m going to start week 5 and I’m stuck in -4 pounds. I don’t know what happens. I don’t have any problem with the calorie intake and also I’m doing 3-4 times exercise per week I believe in the program but, something is wrong with me.

 

In that three weeks I lost 2 lbs….. but it was 2lbs of FAT, I am positive there was no water loss this time. I can fit into a size 4 jeans still 7 lbs from my ideal weight range and 21 lbs from my target weight! Soooooo cool! And here I was thinking I was sabotaging myself…. silly me….

 

I started on week 5. I did finally weigh myself – 11 lbs down since the end of week 1. My work belt and pants are definitely looser. I haven’t done any measuring lately.

 

Was 78.6kg (2 weeks ago) Now 73.9kg I just wanted to scream it out loud LOL

 

Yay down 5.6 lbs!!! Started at 196lbs and now 190.4lbs. Love that I can still eat what I want as long as I am still within calories. Workouts are going well too as I have lost inches too.

 

I lost another two pounds, one inch off my hips and two inches off my waist. This is awesome.
For me I can tell that shoulders and thighs are going to be the slow ones.

 

Okay week one weigh in. I lost 1 pound and 1 inch. Hopeful to lose more. My son been great. We been doing Zumba together.

 

I have had a moderate start to Venus. I had a little over 60lbs to lose. So far I am down 14!

 

I was surprised to see that I am down 9 lbs. woohoo
145 to 136. I’m getting my fit on. I am really liking the results!

 

I am coming to the end of week 10 and I am happy that I have reached my Venus goals for my hips and shoulders, but my stomach is 3 or 4 inches away. My progress has been slow, but I am almost there. I am 9 lbs and 3 inches always from reaching my Venus goal. I don’t think that I will do it in the next 2 weeks. but I will get there. I hear the last 10 lbs are the hardest to lose.

 

So here are the results for my first 12 weeks.

Started at 92kg or 202.5lbs now 79.8kg or 175.7lbs with a loss this week of 1.7kg or 3.7lbs, total lost of 12.2kg or 26.8lbs.

Shoulders total loss of 14cm or 5.6 inch
Bust total loss of 14.5cm or 5.8 inch
Arms total loss of 5cm or 2 inch each
Waist total loss of 14cm or 5.6 inch
Hips total loss of 21.5 cm or 8.6 inch
Legs total loss of 8cm or 3.2 inch each

Grant total of 90cm or 36 inch

I have been on the program for one week. I am down one pound.

 

Definitely feeling smaller all over and clothes looser. Weight is down 16 lbs and waist is 2″ smaller.

 

Well, finishing up week 3 and enjoying the diet.
Its not as hard as i thought it would be. I didn’t lose any weight again though. That is very frustrating. I saw 169.2 once and then the next day right back up over 170 again.
So very frustrating!!

 

Down to 145 this morning!! Hello size 10! (Down from 13) can’t wait to buy a pair of size 8 jeans….hopefully soon!

 

This week I managed to be 1 pound lighter and remove .5 cm from my waist.  Total of 7.6 pounds in 3 weeks.

 

Well, I am simply AMAZED to find that I am not only loosing weight but also loosing inches everywhere… Down to 9 pounds of weight loss & more than 12 inches here and there after 3 weeks.

 

I just finished week 12 on the program and I feel fantastic! I lost 3 more pounds this week for a total loss of 22 pounds since the beginning of January!

 

Start date: 30/12/2013 Waist: 81 cm Shoulder 110cm and weight 63 kilos
Today: Waist 74cm Shoulder 102cm weight 56.3 kilos
Total Lost to date Waist -7.0cm Shoulder-8.0cm weight -6.7cm
So in just over 3 months I am nearly 7 kilos lighter, which is fantastic.

 

So after my first week I am down 5 lbs.

 

It’s the end of my fourth week and NOTHING is happening! I waffle between 209 and 208. My measurements are exactly the same….I am soo frustrated!

 

 

Wow, that sure is a lot of variety.  So what will you do next time you start to get discouraged?

I hope you come back and look at some of the community blogs for encouragement, read John’s words of wisdom, or just focus on the process.

Have a great weekend!

-Ro

You can find me in the Venus online community as RobertaSaum.

Filed Under: fat loss, Uncategorized, weight loss Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Dark Side of Workouts; Uncensored podcast

March 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
John and Brad are talking about Exercise-Induced Rhabdomyolysis

John and Brad speak to us about Exercise-Induced Rhabdomyolysis

 

In today’s uncensored podcast John and Brad will speak to us about Exercise-Induced Rhabdomyolysis.

 

General adaptation response is a normal part of working out, but if exercise is taken to the extreme you can go into Rhabdomyolysis. Normal exercise is just enough to have general adaptation response. It’s important to realize that muscle building and fat loss happens in short consistency over time. It can’t be done too fast.

There is some glorification regarding extreme exercise exertion and exhaustion and even Rhabdomyolysis, but this is a serious condition that can be fatal.

When I listened to this podcast it suddenly dawned on me that I’ve most likely experienced Rhabdomyolysis and didn’t know it.  I’ve always talked about my ultra running experiences and the fact that I got sick and the doctor prescribed antibiotics each time I ran more than 40 miles in one day.  At the time the doctor didn’t know what was wrong, just that my white blood cell count was high.  I’d never thought to tell him that I had recently run more than 40 miles in a day.  The doctor didn’t ask if I’d done any strenuous exercise and I’m willing to bet at 5’1″ and 150 pounds I really didn’t look like much of an athlete.

The third time this condition happened I’d called it quits.  I realized that this wasn’t healthy for me.  I didn’t know what was happening or why, but it became clear to me that ultra running wasn’t healthy for me.  I’d completed the “Run on the Sly” 50 mile race on Sept 6, 1998 at the age of 37 and that was my last ultra run ever. The 26.2 mile marathons didn’t give me this problem, but certainly there was a pattern for me when I went over 40 miles (over 26.2 miles is considered “ultra running”).  I had wanted to train for the “Western States 100” race but it was time to put that on hold.

The Western States 100 is a popular ultra endurance race held annually in California.  Having been a long time runner it was my dream to complete it as it’s almost literally in my back yard. I’d always thought I’d come back to it someday, but now I know that I won’t.

 

It's difficult 50 mile ultra run, quite hilly, and it was hot and humid when I ran it in September of 1998. I'd earned my shiny brass belt buckle by completing it and I'd always been proud of the accomplishment.

“Run on the Sly” is a difficult 50 mile ultra run, quite hilly, and it was hot and humid when I ran it in September of 1998. I’d earned my shiny brass belt buckle by completing it and I’d always been proud of the accomplishment.

 

The “Run on the Sly” is a 50 mile run is also in the mountains in California and is a qualifying race for the Western States 100. It’s difficult run, quite hilly, and it was hot and humid when I ran it in September of 1998.  I’d earned my shiny brass belt buckle by completing it and I’d always been proud of the accomplishment.  I used to always tell people when life got rough or when I was having a bad day that it could never be worse than getting up at 3am (and dragging along a grumpy husband who thought I was nuts) and running up and down hills for 11 hours and 40 minutes.

That was my bench mark for a rough day.  I still remember how much I hurt when it was over and I needed Randy’s help getting into the passenger seat of our lifted Toyota 4×4 pick up truck, literally in tears, and I had said “I’m never going to do this again!” Ultra runners will say you should never make a decision about running after a race like that, but now 16 years later I know it’s really true, I never will.

Since I’ve been a part of the Venus community and lifestyle I realize you don’t have to exercise to an extreme to lose fat or to get whatever physique you want.  With much less effort I now look like a fitness competitor when I’m actually not.

At the Venus Factor we believe exercise should be fun and enjoyable.  There is no need get extreme.  In fact too much strenuous exercise can decrease your leptin, increase your hunger, make you fatigued and lethargic, and hinder your ability to lose fat.  Our workout and nutrition programs are designed to help you keep your leptin level up and to be a sustainable lifestyle long term.  Of course you will have days you don’t feel like working out and have to push through, all of us have those days, but there is no need to beat yourself into the ground with exercise.

-Ro

 

Listen to what John and Brad have to say about Exercise-Induced Rhabdomyolysis here:

 

IMMERSION Clients May Login and Download Podcast Here

(If you are using Venus Index Mobile, go to the left menu -> My products -> right menu -> Uncensored Season 3 -> enjoy, you can assign star to add it into Favorites for easier access next time, if you don’t have access to Uncensored Podcasts you can purchase Immersion Package inside the App Shop)

Not a Venus Index IMMERSION client? Click here to find out more…

 

Filed Under: stress, Uncategorized, Uncensored Podcasts S03 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

What equipment do you need for the Venus Factor Workout?

March 7, 2014 by Leave a Comment

 

Shannon is a young mom who lost 50 pounds and is in the best shape of her life.

Shannon is a young mom who lost 50 pounds
and is in the best shape of her life.

The Venus Factor workout can be done at home, or at a gym

 

 

The workout is designed for all levels; beginners to advanced

The beginner workout is one hour for three days a week.

If you are a beginner and new to exercise you can break up the sessions.  For example you can do one set of everything and that would take 20 minutes a day.

Everyone starts somewhere. All that matters is that you start and then build up your strength from there.  You can also modify exercises to your own level, you can do pushups against a counter until you build strength, or start them on your knees.

No matter what your level you use the correct size dumbbell weights for you and then work your way up.  It does not matter what weights someone else uses.  All that matters is that you start at your own level and build your own body and your own strength.

Sometimes when you are just starting you can do the exercises with no weights, and you can hang onto something to help keep your balance if you need to until you build up strength.

What you will need:

  • Dumbbells; 1 pound up to 25 pounds
  • Stability ball
  • Sturdy step up block
  • Sturdy flat bench

Optional:

  • Kettle bells
  • Ab wheel
  • Barbell
  • E-Z curl bar

 

Shannon is one of our veteran Venuses who has lost weight and also maintained her new shape with the Venus Factor for several years now.  She recently started a thread in our online community explaining the workout equipment she purchased for her home.

Here is more information regarding our workouts:

What about doing other workouts along with the Venus workouts?

We encourage you to do all the exercise you enjoy.  The three day a week Venus workouts are perfect cross training for many activities.  I have found that the Venus workouts improved my running performance.  Recently I found that my strength gained with the Venus Factor workouts were put to the test.

The Venus workout is designed for women to improve the female physique. It also has the added benefit (like any other lifting routine) to improve bone density, health, strength, endurance, and functionality.  For many women other more cardio intense workouts might cause extra fatigue, stress, and hunger.

I described a recent workout experience where I experienced increased hunger and inflammation, and I’ve also experienced “compensating for the increased energy expenditure by being less active throughout the rest of the day” when I was training for marathons and ultra marathons.

If your goal is to lose fat, the longer more intense cardio workouts might contradict that goal.

 

Shannon’s in-home gym setup

1.Dumbbells-Some people like adjustable ones. I do too, but I prefer something like a PowerBlock or Bowflex adjustable DB set because I don’t like changing weights on and off a bar with clips when super-setting two exercises back to back. If you want to make it easiest without any need to switch, get solid dumbbells of varying sizes. I would not buy anything smaller than a 5 unless you are totally new to working out. You will outgrow 2’s and 3’s very quickly.

Hopefully you have some idea where to start. If you are totally new, maybe 5’s, 8’s, 10’s, 12’s? For back and chest exercises, you may need to go heavier. As you need more, you can buy heavier DB sets. If you have a husband who also works out, you may end up with quite a lot of DBs. We eventually bought a rack ($200) after keeping them on an old coffee table for years! This is in no way required but if you end up buying a set off craigslist, I’ve noticed people selling sets with racks included, it’s a nice to have for organization.

Shannon's at home dumbbell rack

Shannon’s in-home dumbbell rack 

 

Some kind of step or bench for step-ups. An aerobic bench step, or a basic but stable weight bench. The bench will also be useful for chest presses and one-arm rows and other exercises. If you don’t have a bench, you can step up onto something stable like a bottom stair, use a yoga mat for chest presses, and rest your hand on a chair for one-arm rows. Keep in mind at the highest, the highest step you use should probably be about knee height for you (I remember Denise saying that at one point and it definitely works much better for me not to try to step too high.) So while my husband uses the flat bench we have, I use a shorter bench for step-ups.

3. Stability ball. These are pretty cheap and around new years you can pick one up for under $10. They look to be around $20 on Amazon. Read reviews as I’ve found some of the pumps can be less than durable. Be sure to get one that is appropriate for your height, they will say a certain size “For heights 5′ to 5’5”, etc. And never stand on one. One of our stability balls is blue and visible in one of the pictures.

If you are getting into the work out at home thing, as we have been doing over the past 13 years, you can accumulate quite a bit of stuff making your home workout area just as good as any gym. Mind you, we haven’t paid for a gym membership in over 13 years…nor have we used this equipment consistently all the time we’ve had it, but have been using most of it very consistently for about 4 years now.

We have a half cage squat rack, which my husband Brian is using for floor bench presses in this picture. It cost us maybe $400 for the cage + barbell weights over 10 years ago. It has a pulldown attachment and seated row attachment and you can use it for barbell squats, bench presses with a bench, use the bar for inverted rows or elevated push-ups, bent over rows, and various other barbell exercises.

We have a half cage squat rack, which my husband Brian is using for floor bench presses

We have a half cage squat rack, which my husband Brian is using for floor bench presses.

To the right of the cage, you can see the PowerBlock adjustable dumbbells on a stand that we picked up used off Craigslist for a total of $150 (new PowerBlock DBs + stand are $800 total on Amazon).

In the following picture you can see our poor neglected elliptical and upright bike. They don’t get a lot of use…To the right is a blue incline bench we picked up off Craigslist for $75. It goes from sitting straight up (I use it for step-ups at this height as it’s perfect for me at 5’4.5″) to pretty far inclined for seated incline presses, curls, etc.

Our poor neglected elliptical and upright bike. They don't get a lot of use...To the right is a blue incline bench.

Our poor neglected elliptical and upright bike. They don’t get a lot of use…To the right is a blue incline bench.

Finally, a flat bench we picked up for $50. Technically it’s an ab bench but we just use it as a flat bench for various exercises. Brian uses it for step-ups as he’s taller than me (5’10”).

Technically it's an ab bench but we just use it as a flat bench for various exercises..

Technically it’s an ab bench but we just use it as a flat bench for various exercises.

We also have a doorway pull-up bar with resistance bands I’ve used for assistance when working up to these. Bands called FitCords (you can get them on Amazon) work well, and you can search band assisted pull-up on Youtube for a video of how to do pull-ups with bands. We also have a TRX which I use occasionally for push-ups and inverted rows and a kettlestack handle which allows you to use standard weight plates to make kettlebells of various sizes depending on your needs. I don’t do much with those right now but they’re good for variety.

Anyhow, hope that is helpful to give you a vision of what you can do at home given some space and investment! Gym memberships vary it seems from $10 a month to higher. If you prefer working out at home and have a room or half a large room to dedicate to it, you can definitely apply that membership money instead to giving yourself a nice workout area. The mirrors we have are inexpensive ones we bought and mounted, and some are mirrored plastic film stretched on frames. I like having plenty of mirrors around for checking my form and admiring my Venus body.

Happy workouts, all!

-Shannon

Shannon’s Venus online profile

 

About her home gym Shannon says “Working out at home can provide you great flexibility, especially if you have kids. For me, the barrier of getting to the gym was just too high when I started back to working out regularly in mid-2009, and I was pretty unhappy with my body such that I would not have felt good about getting into workout clothes in a new gym environment. With my home gym, I could get up early, grab some coffee, stumble down the hall and get going without the need to pack or get into a car, etc. It’s been a life saver for me!”

I’ve found I mostly like to go to a gym but I’m also setup to workout at home.  Sometimes we get snowed in and it’s nice to have both options.

So what about you? Do you workout at home are at the gym?  There are pro’s and con’s.  We would love to hear your comments.

-Ro

Filed Under: Exercise, Shape, Uncategorized, Weight training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Beware of Fitness Goal Hijacking

February 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Michele and Christina on the left took me under their wing at the Spartan workout. Next to them is Andi who was our instructor for the day.

Michele and Christina on the far right took me under their wing at the Spartan workout.
Next to them is Andi who was our instructor for the day.
It was a really fun day!

What are your reasons for weight loss?

What are your reasons for embarking on this journey in the first place?  What are your goals?  Keep them in the forefront of your mind as you move forward.

I remember when I was frustrated, overweight, and obese for so many years.  My goal at first was simply to get back to health, maybe wear a size 8 or so (the smallest I’d ever been as an adult), and just be able to enjoy life and physical activities with my family the way I’d used to.

Since I started working in law enforcement I also wanted to be a super fit chick and be able to do all of the physical duties well.  What happened instead, to my absolute horror and disappointment, is that my weight crept up until I’d finally reached the obese category.

I hadn’t yet learned what the Venus system taught me; that there was nothing wrong with my metabolism – I’m just a tiny person.  Tiny people don’t need so much food. When you are overweight it’s hard realize how small you really are, but your height should give you a clue.

In general, when you are short – you are tiny.  Just because you have a lot of muscle for your height doesn’t mean you get to eat more (if you want to stay trim). My muscle is off the charts high and I still only get to eat the same amount as the average 5’1″ female.  That’s because muscle does not burn as much energy as your internal organs.

Even when we exercise many of us don’t really get to eat that much more either.  Of course we burn some energy when we work, but not nearly as much as all the HRM’s report. Even at 12% body fat I don’t get to eat that much more, although I do have to consider it more now when deciding how much to eat each day. I base the amount on how I feel – not a calculator or what some fitness guru says.

If I’m gaining fat that is a huge clue, in fact the only clue, that yes I am eating too much food if my goal is to lose or stay the same.

The bottom line is that you can’t outwork or outrun too much food.

My goals changed along the way.  I had reached size 8 before joining Venus.  Why did I keep going?  My friend told me about Eat Stop Eat and I wanted to learn WHY what I was doing for fat loss finally worked.  Through Eat Stop Eat I found the Venus Factor.

With Venus I found the goals to achieve the ideal shape intriguing and frankly I LOVED the workouts.  So with these two programs I exceeded my wildest dream of ever being fit. I even finally impressed some pretty fit guys at the Sheriff’s department and yes I can now do my physical duties well!

It’s okay to change your goal, but it’s important to think about why and make sure you don’t let your fitness goals get hijacked.

Here’s how I let myself get goal hijacked

I have a couple of examples where I still tend to get goal hijacked if I’m not thoughtful about WHY I’m doing what I do:

1) I sometimes still try to get to a size 2 – it is a goal hijack

2) I sometimes still want to test my race strength – it is a goal hijack

Neither of these fit my long term purpose; to be healthy, functionally strong, have a good quality life into older age, and feel good about my shape.  Yet I find myself striving for both of those at times and I have to pause and think about it.  It’s not wrong to pursue either of those, it’s just that sometimes I might have other goals and these may conflict with those.

When my dear husband Randy can see that I’m pursuing hijack goal #1 he sometimes shakes his head.  That was the size when I was 10% body fat for my Venus Transformation Contest pictures for VT3 and VT4.  When I tell Randy “but I don’t fit into some of my favorite jeans anymore!”, he replies “Then you bought the wrong size pants!  Go buy the right size!”

So I take a deep breath and realize I let myself get goal hijacked once again by going down a strange female emotional path.  We are all human after all. The best I can do is be aware that this is what happens to me and then get back on the right track. I just let it go and remember why I started this journey in the first place.

John likes to remind me that I already proved what I needed to prove when I finished my contest pictures.  I’m done.  I don’t ever have to do it again.  I don’t have to keep proving it.  I can just live my life now.  I’m happy and healthy.  But I am merely human, I get sidetracked with these hijack moments, and I am a bit hardwired to keep improving and be my best.

So I’ll just keep reminding myself that I’m living my dream already, and Randy will keep nudging me when he sees me veering off track.

I almost let my goal get hijacked again with Spartan races

Recently I almost let myself get hijacked again with #2.  I had started training a client who wants to improve her strength and get a bit leaner for Spartan Races.  I’d never heard of Spartan races before and it kind of sounds like fun, so I went to a Spartan workout event to check it out.  It was a fairly intense 2 hour workout.

I met a woman close to my age with the daughter of a friend of hers, Michele and Christina.  I had never been to one of these events so they took me under their wing during the workout and we had a fun picture taken at the end of the day.

When I checked in at the event they had T-shirts for everyone.  I’m pretty small, only 5’1″ and with the small T-shirt fitting kind of loose and being middle aged I could tell no one really thought much of me at first.

But as the hundreds of people lined up in rows and I blended in with the crowd for the 2 hour workout people around me started noticing me purely by my strength. With no prior experience I could pretty much do anything the instructor threw at us.

At rest we were supposed to hold the plank position. For example when the Spartan instructor (Andi Hardy) said do 10 pushups, she also said if you can whip them out quickly and it’s too easy then keep doing them or get in the plank position and rest there. Then she said if pushups are too easy (me me, yes, pick me! haha) then do the dive bomber pushups.

So I started doing dive bomber pushups. Then when she called out burpees I did the dive bomber pushups with those – and yes that finally got me tired out by then end. I was able to do the duck walk across the gym, alligator crawl, and a bunch of other stuff.

It was all a FUN DAY, I got a really cool T-shirt, I made some new friends (Michele and I are staying in touch), and I re-established my long term goals, but I must admit it aggravated the arthritis in my hips for over a week afterwards. I am 53 years old after all, and my hip problems are hereditary.

Here’s a video of the dive bomber pushup:

For me the day was a real testament to the awesomeness of the Venus Factor workouts.  Venus is all I ever do besides a little HIIT running and low intensity cardio.   Venus workouts made me functionally strong.  This is why I recommend the 3 day a week workout as cross training for these types of endurance races.

The reason I can even do the dive bomber pushup is a direct result of the Venus Factor workout, so I called it a Venus Factor dive bomber pushup – but it is not actually part of any of our workouts.  From now I will almost always do the dive bomber pushup when the workout calls for pushups.  Why?  Because I can – and it still fits my long term goals.

Michele has done several races and said she can tell I’m strong enough right now to any of them, even the long races. So I got caught up in the idea.  I almost let myself get goal hijacked again.

What happened after I paused to ponder my fitness goals

The week after this event was a reminder to me why doing this type of workout too often goes against my current goals.  Even though I’m strong and was able do whatever was thrown at me there that day – I paid for it later.  I’ve been a bit sore all week, swollen from the soreness, bloated, and extremely hungry all week.  So hungry that I know I went over my maintenance intake several days.  I also had a bit of fatigue induced insomnia (this happens more in my middle age) which also helped to increase my hunger hormones.

As disciplined as I am with food it’s not enough to combat this type of hunger.  It’s not an “I’m bored” or “I just want to eat more” hunger.  It’s a deep hunger caused by fatigue.  It’s the type of hunger that if I try to fight too hard I won’t be able to sleep and the hunger will increase.  Some of this is caused by the fact that I’m still extremely lean for a female (as shown with a DXA scan).

So I ate a bit more food, choose healthy food, ate it slowly and with purpose, until I’d had enough that I could sleep peacefully. I was not happy that I ate more than maintenance, but I know I ate what my body needed at the time.  This does not help me stay lean if that’s what I want, so this type of training goes against my goals.

If I do a Spartan Race it will be for fun with a team, maybe once a year or so. I’m pretty much done with too many of the ultra intense workouts that push me to extreme, make me fatigued, and increase my hunger hormones through the roof.  On occasion it can be a good test of my strength.

I just need to know that I will have a week of extra hunger, bloating, and aggravated arthritis after an event.  It’s not something I want to do very often.

On the other hand I could change my workouts to include some Spartan workouts.  I could condition myself to do more animal moves, burpees, climbing ropes, mud crawling, and spear throwing and I wouldn’t get quite as sore from an event.

But that would increase my core and as you can see from the video my core is pretty thick for a female even now at 13-15% body fat.  It’s not always so attractive.  It’s part of what I don’t like about my shape, and it is partly why I tend to want to strive for getting leaner and back to a size 2.   Another drawback for me is that my arthritis would still be aggravated by those types of workouts.

So again there is nothing wrong with deciding to do any kind of intense race or workout if it fits your goals and your lifestyle.  Even though it would be a totally fun challenge for me, getting competitive just doesn’t fit my main goal for fitness at this point in my life.

I’ve already achieved my fitness and shape goals.  I just need to maintain, which alone takes effort and I’m a pretty busy girl these days.

What will you do to keep on track with your own goals and not allow them to get hijacked?  Remember your long term goals and why you chose them.

If you decide to change your goals think about WHY you are changing them and does it really match how you want to live your life?

Have a great weekend!

-Ro

 

 

Filed Under: Bodyfat, Diet, Exercise, stress, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to Walk the Calorie Tightrope for Fat Loss and Maintaining

February 7, 2014 by 2 Comments

I summarized my fat loss journey in the 3 minute video recorded a few days ago.  I mentioned how I learned the tricks about how to keep my shape. I learned how to walk the tightrope through the online Venus community.

 

About the tightrope…

So about the tightrope…

We get a lot of questions regarding how much to eat, when to eat, when not to eat, and how to time meals.  We have a lot of information regarding this, but it’s all just suggestions and things to try.  What really matters is starting somewhere; trying something, experimenting, and finding what works for you.  The answer is truly IN YOU.

It is like walking a tightrope.  No one can tell you EXACTLY how to do it, you have to step out and find your own balance.

Total freedom with food

We have total freedom with food;  we all get to decide what we put into our bodies and when to do it.  Never again do we have to allow someone else to tell us what and when to eat, or how much to eat.

What works for one person may not work for another person.

This is the main reason why our system is not a one size fits all DVD program; because there is no such thing.  Everyone is uniquely different with just a couple things in common;

  • We are human and we make mistakes.
  • We must all experiment and find what works.
  • We all need a calorie deficit in order to lose fat.  End of story.
  • We all need some resistance training to build our shape, improve our quality of life, and increase bone density.
  • We all have to learn to walk our own “tightrope”

 

Where you are in your fat loss journey matters

The calorie tightrope is slightly easier to walk when you have a higher body fat percentage, then it gets a bit trickier as you get close to your goal because of The theory of fat availability:

 

The Theory of Fat Availability:

  • There is a set amount of fat that can be released from a fat cell.
  • The more fat you have, the more fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
  • The less fat you have, the less fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
  • Towards the end of a transformation, when body fat is extremely low you may not have enough fat to handle a large caloric deficit anymore.

At the extreme low end, when your body fat cannot ‘keep up’ with the energy deficit you’ve imposed on your body, the energy MUST come from SOMEWHERE. This is when you are at risk of losing lean body mass during dieting (commonly referred to as ‘starvation mode’). This happens at extremely low levels of body fat, under 6% in men and 12% in women [Friedl K.E. J Appl Phsiol, 1994].

 

The good news about this is that if you are overweight you know you don’t have to worry about “starvation mode” because it’s a myth unless you have extremely low body fat.   Think about it; There is no such thing as starving fat people!

Even so, when you are overweight and embark on the calorie deficit for fat loss it is hard. It is corrective action for a health problem we all got ourselves into and it’s not the way we were meant to live our lives.  So of course it is not fun!  

 

Learning to walk your own tightrope

We can give you highly accurate guidelines like we do with our Venus Factor Virtual Nutritionist but it is just an estimate or place for you to start.  You will have to experiment, step out on a limb and learn to walk the tightrope.  One side is too much food and the other side is not enough food.

Our calculator does not tell someone how much to eat, it gives someone a RANGE to experiment with.

You have to look at the upper and lower limit, pick a place to start, then YOU GET TO DECIDE and will need to adjust depending on how your body reacts.  Remember, you have total freedom and YOU are the one in charge of your body.

No one can tell you exactly how to balance on the tightrope.  All they can do is give you a few tricks and tips.  Then you have to take a few steps and learn how to walk the rope.  You have a training rope, you have a safety net, and when you fall it’s not the end of the world.  You just get up and keep going.  Eventually your balance gets better and better.

 

The walk on the tightrope changes for you as you go along

The cool thing about our online community is that you can read stories about what works for others, and try something new and see if it works for you.  Some things will work for you, some won’t.  Some things will work for you now but not later, and then yet again it might work again in a new season of your life.

The balance constantly ebbs and flows, every day is different, every week is different, every season is different, every person is different. The calculator can’t give you the answer. Other people can’t give you the answer.  The answer is literally IN YOU.  You have to find it.

 

You are not broken!

Brad Pilon wrote something very interesting recently along these lines about how your body ebbs and flows:

 

A deficit is NOT a number less than what a calculator told you to eat. And a deficit is certainly NOT any amount of calories less than what you are used to eating. The amount of calories it takes to be in a deficit is also NOT fixed – it changes from day-to-day and month-to-month, depending on a number of factors including your activity level, body composition, age, and a whole host of other factors. It is a moving goal post that is and always will be defined by a loss of body mass.

If you eat a prescribed number of calories from some diet given to you by some weight loss coach and you do not lose body mass, you are NOT BROKEN, the diet was.

 

 

Brad and John are full of wisdom that they love to share with us in their blogs, in the uncensored podcasts they produce, and in our immersion coaching calls.  All of us in this community are successful in our fat loss journey because of what we have learned from these guys.  We all try our hardest to share what we learned inside the Venus community.

 

Will you step out on a limb and learn to walk your own tightrope?

As you embark on your weekend what will you do to further your progress?  Will you step out on a limb and starting learning to walk your own tightrope?

Remember to have some patience and allow your body some time to make the changes happen.  If you try to rush and are impatient it actually slows down your progress in the long run.

If you are in the “last 10 pounds” category it can take much longer per The Theory of Fat Availability.  Being impatient at this point in the game is a definite sabotage point.  If you really want to win this game focus on having patience.

 

On another fun note I took this picture this morning because it finally snowed here in the Sierra Nevada’s in California (it has been a drought here this winter).  If you watched the video you might have noticed the wind even though I was in a fairly sheltered spot – the storm was coming – and I was freezing in the video!

And yes, this is my back yard! 🙂

The weather changes fast in the mountains!

The weather changes fast in the mountains!

 

Have a great Friday and week-end!

-Ro

PS  The Venus Factor 2014 Calendar is HERE.

 

Filed Under: Diet, Exercise, fat loss, Health, Uncategorized, weight loss, Weight training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Just Say No to Guilt and Shame For Eating!

January 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

 

Randy's watched me go through the whole gamut of emotions; frustration, panic, sense of urgency, impatience, shame, guilt, happy excitement, insecurity, then confidence. Even at my worst and obese he always called me his lovely wife. Here we are in Rome, Italy.

Randy’s watched me go through the whole gamut of emotions; frustration, panic, sense of urgency, impatience, shame, guilt, happy excitement, insecurity, then confidence. Even at my worst and obese he always called me his lovely wife. Here we are in Rome, Italy.

It’s easier said than done!

This is all so much easier said than done.  I’ve been there too so I know.

We all test our boundaries with calories both up and down.  It’s never the end of the world.  Really!  It’s simply part of the learning process.

Always your body is the end game.  Not the calculator, not the chart, not the theory, not what the fitness guru said or did, not what works for someone else, and certainly not what someone else tells you to do.

I am not hungry.  Do I have to eat up to my maintenance calorie level?

I see a lot of comments and questions from those new to this process:

I am not hungry.  Do I have to eat up to my maintenance calorie level?

No one around here is going to tell you that you have to eat when you are not hungry.  You own this.  You get to decide.  Part of the freedom of our program is that you take ownership of what you put in your body.  We don’t tell you when to eat, what to eat, or how much to eat.  You get to own it now.  The calorie calculator is just a starting point for you to start your own experiment from.  It’s a suggestion.  It’s a starting point.  It’s an estimate (actually a very close and accurate estimate – but still an estimate).  Ultimately you get to decide.  The answer is in your own body.  Your body really is the end game.

This is hard for many to get used to because we got so used to the years of yo-yo diets and people telling us about good foods and bad foods.

Taking corrective action is not how you are meant to live life!

For many people when there is still a lot of body fat and even though you have yo-yoed all over the map with diets – you actually can eat at a fairly aggressive deficit – if you haven’t already had a history of doing so – and feel perfectly fine.

It can be kind of fun. You think wow this isn’t so bad.  You get used to it.  You adjust to it.  You get so happy that the scale is going down that you don’t want to stop.  You sort of get addicted to seeing the scale go down.  Then you feel guilty for eating up to maintenance.  Or you don’t feel hungry and don’t feel like doing it.  Or you are afraid of gaining weight.  Usually it’s a combination of all these things.

At some point you need to stop the deficit or take a break.  It is corrective action for a health problem and it is not how you are meant to live your life.

If you eat too low for too long you and keep doing it you will crash and binge.  No one is immune from that.  It’s happened to me a couple of times and I learned from it.  It’s not the end of the world.  You learn and you move on.  And if you love your body and want to take care of it you break this cycle right away – the eat low – binge – beat self-up/guilt/shame – eat low – binge cycle is not healthy for the mind, body, or spirit.

It’s something you learn – the sooner the better

Then you learn to eat up just a little.  Not over eat, just normal eating for you.  You should not feel guilt for this, or fear, but we all go through a phase of this after we lose weight.

We have fear of gaining it back.  But really, we all test this boundary too.  If we eat a little too much the weight creeps up a bit.  No big deal.  We learn and we take corrective action (not fun!  Never is!) And it’s really not the end of the world either.  In fact it’s part of the maintenance cycle.

You never reach your goal and just stay there – we all have these little mini cycles to deal with for the rest of our life.  The more you do this – the more you learn your boundaries.  It’s never the end of the world – but sometimes the emotions get out of hand and you panic.  Don’t panic.  Take a deep breath and do what needs to be done.  It’s really not that big a deal.  Learn and move on. Take care of that precious body.

It’s recovery from the stress

Maintenance “eat up” days are recovery days from the calorie deficit.  They are just like rest days from your workouts.  It gives you a chance to recover and rest from the deficit.  This is important for your sustainable fat loss.

It’s training for your new life

We all flounder when we achieve our fat loss goal.  We pinch ourselves and feel like we are in a dream.  We float on compliments.  We feel like impostors in our own bodies.  It takes a while for our mind to catch up to our body.  We also have fear of losing our success.   We fear eating.  Yet if we had taken little maintenance “eat up” breaks we would already have learned that there is nothing to fear.  We would have already trained ourselves for this stage of the game.  Taking a break from the deficit truly is “training” for the day that will come – when you reach success.  It will help you keep your success and it will help reduce some of your “floundering” with your new self and your new life.

Taking ownership is freedom!

I love the freedom.  Eat what you want, when you want, you get to decide.  You own your body.  You own what you put into it.  You own the consequences.

When I first learned this I was amazed at how it made me feel.  Never again will I allow someone to tell me to eat when I don’t want to.  If I go to a birthday party and decide I don’t want cake – no one can make me eat it.  But if I want some cake that is my choice too!  Total freedom.  Total ownership.

We will not tell you when to eat more either.  You get to decide.  You get to learn the lessons.  You get to test the limits for yourself.  But those of us who have been there and done that will at least give you this information so that you can make the best choice for yourself.  It’s still your choice.

I know it’s hard but stop the guilt and stop the shame.  Let yourself learn your limits.  Know that your body is the end game.  When you eat too much it stores fat.  When you eat the right amount it mostly stays the same.  When you actually learn to have a slight deficit you can maintain a short cycle of fat loss.

I know it’s hard to take the emotions out of it, and the sense of urgency and fear.  But those are never going to make things happen faster. The body adjusts in its own way, its own time – and likes to have love and care.

So this is just a quick note to remind you to just say no to guilt or shame from eating.  Every day is a perfect day to make good choices.  And whatever you choose – it is probably not the end of the world!

Have a great weekend!

-Ro

Filed Under: Diet, Food, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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