Today we have an interview with Roberta Saum who won the Level 2 of our Open Category in the latest Venus Index Contest.

Check out her pictures:

No need to comment, these pictures speak for themselves.

Roberta is extremely happy with the way she looks and she has every right to be, just look at the photos.

And she is 51, most girls who are in their 20’s or even 30’s would kill for that body!

Roberta ran marathons, lifted weights, did martial arts, and remained physically active for about 23 years. She was always overweight and always felt frustration about being overweight too.

Today she is a walking inspiration to everyone, her family, her friends and everyone in the gym.

Don’t ever be ashamed of your age. All of our Venus’s are older than you would expect and they are proud of that!

Presentation Is Everything

In the first contest Roberta knew nothing about posing and presentation.

She did well though.

However, if you really want to show everyone the hard work you have done, then you need to learn to pose, you need to learn how to present yourself.

The best looking model can look totally average if they’re not posing correctly.

The lights, posing, tan, angle, and some flexing is what makes all the difference, in one word – presentation.

Look up models, go through the magazines, model their poses and photos. Study how they look at the camera, facial expressions, muscle flexing and notice how the lights are set up, the angles of the shot, make up etc.

And practice…practice makes perfect.

This time, Roberta wanted the pictures for herself, not just for the contest. And she wanted to show her body better.

She reached her goals.

And like she said if you want to hit your goals bad enough you will reach them too.

Top quality picture, ready to be featured in a fitness magazine. Who says you can’t have this too?!

How to Shift from Losing Fat into Maintaining Leanness

This is the whole point of the Reverse Taper Diet that Roberta followed.

Throughout the contests we have noticed that there are basically three ways of eating you can have:

1. Eating too much, results in gaining fat
2. Eating less than you burn, results in losing fat
3. Eating at your energy expenditure, results in maintenance of your current body fat level

And we have noticed two other things:

1. The fat loss slows down as you get to lower body fat levels
2. It’s important to learn how to transition from eating for fat loss to eating for maintenance and find your sweet spot.

This is the issue with the traditional taper diets. You start with low calorie intake and end with even lower…a recipe for disaster. If you eat too low while being lean, you risk binging, overeating and rebounding, thus the name yo-yo dieting.

The better way of doing this is by starting with low calorie intake and slowly increasing it as you get closer to your goal.

The danger is that it’s boring and it takes some time until you see the results. But you can be sure the results will last.

At the beginning the fat literally melts away off of your body. Thanks to a lot of water retention you can be losing multiple pounds every week. However, once you get lean, then the frustration starts. You work and diet hard, but you step on a scale and nothing changes.

Like Roberta advises, the only thing you can do is to keep going and ditch the scale and only focus on the mirror and the pictures.

More tips from Roberta:

• Day to day there is nothing exciting about fat loss
• There is no magic pill
• A pound or two of muscle is enough to make it look different in the mirror
• You have to enjoy your food and your workouts in order to stick to your diet and routine in the long term
• If you have to drag yourself to the gym, find a way to like the training
• Don’t wait, waiting forty years for a good looking body is not necessary, why not have it this year?
• Put the scale away
• It’s never too late
• The posing is hard, it will take you hours till you learn some basic ones
• It’s worth it
• Lots of people give up, the process is not crazy or not exciting as they expect
• Surround yourself with people who will support you
• Let other models use Photoshop, be the one who actually looks exactly like on the pictures
• Help other people improve their physique

Links form Roberta’s interview:

• Roberta’s first interview with John – Be in the Best Shape of Your Life at 50
• Reverse Taper Diet – Use the RTD to prevent yourself from rebounding. The RTD style is the best way to lose weight AND keep it off.

Read Roberta’s experience with Venus Index in her own words:

This year has been an amazing year for me so for.  I started it off going on a Caribbean Christmas vacation that my husband promised me three years ago as incentive and a celebration if I reached my goal weight.   This year I learned how to maintain and I learned how to bring my weight back down after a three and a half week vacation.  I learned how to put away the scale and the tape measure and simply trust the process.  I used the…

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Today we have an interview with Lita. She placed 6th in the Open Category Level 1 in the latest Venus Index Contest.

Check out her pictures:

Be creative with your after photos! They represent your personality and achievements…and you will have them forever.

Lita was always pretty active. She did mountain biking, rock climbing, swimming and even tried running marathons.

But as she approached 160 pounds she realized that she wasn’t in the shape she wanted.

She was interested in fitness and wanted it to be a part of her life, so she started looking around the Internet for some advice on how to get in shape. She ran into some bodybuilding website and fitness pros.

And she really wanted to look like them, so she downloaded some bodybuilding split workouts and started following them.

Contest & the Permission to Be Light

Last year things changed, because Lita found one of the Venuses – Stephanie and thanks to her the Venus Index.

She bought the program, got into the community and just followed the protocols immediately.

And she got results!

That’s what happens when you set a goal, take it seriously and you are ready to take action.

When you listen to the interview, you will notice that Lita is one of those women that doesn’t ask a bunch of questions before trying something new and isn’t arguing whether it will work for her or not before she’s even attempted it.

And that’s probably the easiest road to success. We’ve even had people downloading the workouts and following the plans without reading the manual. They learned it all by experience.

Not that we recommend skipping the manuals, but the best thing you can do is to try the system and judge by results. And that’s exactly what Lita did.

After a couple of months, she got in great shape, started getting comments on her fit physique and found some wonderful women in the Venus Community.

And when she saw the possibility to compete in one of the Venus Index Contests, she jumped right in.

For the contest Lita ate very low in calories, she even admits that she was unwilling to eat up to 1600 that the Reverse Taper calculator suggested because she didn’t feel it was right for her. Lita is an independent woman who obviously likes to think for herself. For the training she followed the Venus Index Workout Phase 1 and then progressed to phase 2.

In the interview she talks about giving yourself “Permission To Be Light”.

This is mostly a problem that guys run into, especially thanks to our social conditioning that leads them to believe they have to be big to earn respect, however even women seem to find the idea of being too light mentally challenging.

The truth is that there is no perfect weight for all women. The weight will differ based on height and genetics. Only you can determine what your best, healthiest, and happiest weight is once you arrive there and see a figure you like and feel good about.

And as you are losing fat, don’t be afraid to be light. You’ll never know for sure until you get there.

You have to realize that what you see on the scale is just a number that tells nothing about your body without considering muscle mass, proportion, Venus Index, conditioning, and most importantly how you feel.

That scale number is only relevant when you combine it with your height and most importantly a picture pinned next to it. It simply doesn’t say whether you look good or whether you are healthy. So, don’t take it as an indicator of either of those.

When you reach your Venus Index metrics, or as close to them as you’d like to get you may not weigh at all what you expected. This could mean you will be heavier than you expected, but it could also mean you’re lighter than you expected. There is no one ideal bodyweight for you, there is only a range. And within that range you will have to discover what fits best for you.

Expect Some Blow Back &  A Lot of Attention

You will have to be more careful with the clothes you wear, expect guys making comments on your looks, people asking about your fitness approach and getting some blow back from other women. This is something every Venus experiences.

You need to mentally prepare yourself for this and even though it doesn’t make sense to you why other people would tell you to stop getting in shape, it will happen as you get leaner. People will disapprove of what you are doing.

The key is to understand why and what you are doing and realize that people are insecure about how they look and this is just their way of trying to pull you back to make themselves feel better.

What’s the Deal with Taking Good Pictures?

Get a fitness photographer, while all good photographers will know how to take the pictures with lighting and everything, those who understand fitness and have experience in this industry will know how to make you look leaner and sharper with more definition. Which is what you want, you want to show your body at its best angle, so you might as well take advantage of this. The only negative side is that fitness photographers may charge more for this expertise.

And most importantly have fun during the contest and photoshoot itself!

Another thing you need to do is learn how to pose and flex your muscles. The women that always look stunning in photos have spent hours practicing this (even those who are not models!).

Do multiple shots. Expect that you will choose about 5 photos from 500.

When models do a professional photoshoot they will take hundreds even thousands of photos and choose just 2 or 3 for the magazine, from which they choose one for the cover.

Lita’s take home message for women like her:

• Your best self is the real you
• Be proud of your body and your achievements
• Aim for the athlete or model look you want not what other people are telling you
• Don’t get caught up with the mainstream fitness myths
• Women are afraid of developing an eating disorder, so they’d rather stay average than lose the weight. Don’t be like everyone else, get in shape!
• Everyone thinks about food, the real question is how much stress does it bring to your life?
• Fat debt – Not taking care of your body is just like ignoring your bank account (it will catch up with you!)
• Thinking about food choices and making good changes in your lifestyle and body is equally important as managing your bank account
• Ignoring problems won’t make them go away
• You have to get away from scale and function from body shape and body composition
• If you are lean and already have some experience working out, then the month to month changes are not going to be massive, it’s about refining and improving a little bit here and there
• A good looking body is usually a healthy body
• Ignore the average charts and recommendations, aim for the top and find your true numbers
• Being under 130 pounds is not a bad or unhealthy thing for taller girls if it’s where you just end up with the look and feel that you like…remember that weight number is irrelevant without all other metrics added to tell the whole story
• Test your health markers if you are unsure or want proof that the weight you end up at is indeed ‘healthy’ for you
• More information about your body is always a good thing

Links form Lita’s interview:

• Reverse Taper Diet – Stop using the ineffective traditional taper and reverse the process to avoid overeating after dieting and end the yo-yo dieting cycle
• Venus Index Workout Phase 1 and Phase 2 – Venus Index workouts focused on building your ideal hourglass shape
• Venus Index Community –  Forum full of amazing women, sharing all their fitness and lifestyle tips and tricks. You can get access by buying any Venus Index program here
• Learning to Maintain a Change: Interview With Erik Ledin Part 1
• Getting into “Stage” Contest Shape, Tracking Results is Key: Interview with Don Gauvreau

Read Lita’s experience with Venus Index in her own words:

I arrived at the VI Community just before the start of the VT4 contest period with a recent weight loss of 30lbs and measurements very near to the VI metrics. It was thrilling to discover a set of quantifiable measurements I could further train my body to. At the time, I didn’t really know where I should or wanted to go “next” with my physique and fitness goals. Finding the VI metrics gave me a new measure of refinement to work towards so I became…

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Today we have an interview with Alicia Spilde who placed 2nd in the Open Division Level 1 in the latest Venus Index Contest.

Check out her pictures:

Be creative with your "Calendar model" pictures.

Alicia started lifting weights very young as she started working out in high school.

However, at college she didn’t want to keep going to the gym, mainly because there weren’t any girls that would go with her. Although was confident in the weight room, but she was intimidated by going there alone, she thought of it as a guys environment.

So, she became the “cardio queen” (her words).

As years went by, like almost every woman she was looking for some new diets and programs. And last year she was looking for something different, which lead her to finding Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat.

Eat Stop Eat was completely new to her.

No kidding, most people are used to eating every three hours, because the fitness media has done a great job of scaring us into believing if we don’t we’ll end up in starvation mode. So, it’s not hard to imagine what happens when you start talking about fasting.

However, like she told us, it’s stupid to eat breakfast if you are not hungry.

If you are forcing yourself to eat breakfast, you are not doing yourself any favors. Quite the opposite. Most people would benefit hugelyl from skipping breakfast.

Here are a few benefits of NOT eating the so called “most important meal of the day” and fasting instead:

• You will have more energy and focus
• You will get more things done
• You will see why you eat (hint: it’s not because you are hungry)
• You will be able to handle your cravings better and learn to control yourself more
• You will enjoy the food more when you do eat
• You will be free from the “what will I eat after this task is done” thinking
• You will probably consume way less calories during the day

It’s really okay not to eat breakfast or even launch, you will make it through the day, you won’t die, seriously.

Try fasting a few times.

To be honest this desire to eat has very little to do with hunger, it’s all in your head.

Just don’t talk about it with other people. Alicia suggests (and many other Venuses too) to keep your diet approach to yourself, because other people are full of BS they learned from reading magazines or watching TV and they will try to tell you (in their uneducated opinion) how wrong and unhealthy what you’re doing is. Be covert with your diet, it’s nobody else’s business.

Then Brad Pilon mentioned Venus Index in one of his newsletters and Alicia purchased it right away.

Are You One of Those Girls that Never Finish Anything?

This wasn’t the first time Alicia tried the VI contest. However, the first time she tried the Venus Index she had so much going on in her personal life that she just quit after two weeks.

If you are one of those girls that never finish anything, you really need to dig deeper into your reason why and find the core motivator behind your actions and develop the drive that keeps you pushing forward in life.

However, Alicia’s case was a bit different.

For her it was really just a matter of timing.

And she proved this to us the second time she tried the contest.

Maybe this is your case too. If your life is just too stressful now, career or personal wise then maybe wait a month and start after things are settled. Jsut make sure it’s not one of those things you say you will do later and never do it.

You should never make excuses!

Really commit to doing it and schedule the start for next month if you’re certain you can’t do it right now.

Once Alicia delivered her baby, her life wasn’t as chaotic and she ultimately got bored of just talking about fitness, Venus Index and competing and decided it’s finally the time to take action.

And this seems almost universal.

We have seen this with the guys over at Adonis Index several time too.

They will buy the program, but for some reason they are not ready or not willing to make the commitment and sometimes it takes them as long as 10 months to finally do it.

Alicia realized that she ran out of excuses and wasn’t walking the talk.

And since at that time the Venus Index Transformation Contest Number 4 was just announced she decided to get on board and do it.

Here is a photo of the happy Venus mom and child.

What Approach Should You Take for the Contest?

Alicia started with the VI workout phase 1, continued with the phase 2 and really enjoyed it.

What was interesting though was her diet. She didn’t have a long way to go and lost about 6 pounds, which is the difference between good and exceptional, but still it isn’t that much if you spread it over several months.

However, her diet was very strict during the contest. And she told us that she wouldn’t go so extreme again and doesn’t recommend it either. Mainly due to the fact that she couldn’t sleep and had very little energy…if it wasn’t for her supportive husband she would have probably given up.

She recorded all of her calories and stayed well under 1000 calories. She kept it tight the whole time, measuring all her foods in grams, so there was very little room for error.

She was losing almost a pound a week, but for a cost of not sleeping. And we see it all the time, all or nothing approach usually results in very little energy, especially towards the end of the contest.

(If this is your case, you might want to consider doing the Reverse Taper instead of the traditional ineffective and tiring forward taper)

Like Alicia said, she might have acheived better results if she didn’t restrict herself so much.

Advice?

Don’t over do it with your diet.

You can always restrict the calories more. The bigger the deficit, the bigger the fat loss, however the key is to make it sustainable and not too strict so you can avoid any rebounds and stay lean after the dieting is over.

Alicia’s take home message for women like her:

• Use the Venus Index forum, the girls are just plain amazing
• Don’t restrict yourself too much
• Find someone who is supportive and shares your goals, that makes all the difference
• Keep pushing and going, the dieting is not forever, it will end at some point and you can go back to maintenance and enjoy your new body, it’s worth it and you will “value” the food you eat more
• When you get closer to your VI the effort is not exactly easier per se, it’s just different
• Do the transformation contest, you will learn a lot about yourself, your body and how you think
• Don’t expect to solve all of your life’s issues just by getting in better shape
• Your physical transformation will happen quicker than the mental and emotional part of it
• Your abs will probably show up just one or two weeks before the photoshoot if you want to get that lean
• Once you improve some area of your life, new challenges will arise, expect and accept it
• Don’t stress yourself out if your progress isn’t happening at the pace you want
• Changing how you look takes time, you have to undo all those “bad years”
• Learn to enjoy the process
• Be covert with your nutrition
• Hire a professional photographer, don’t ask your friends or family members to take the photos (listen to the interview to find out why)

Links form Alicia’s interview:

Eat Stop Eat – Lifestyle based on taking breaks from food

Venus Index Workout Phase 1 and Phase 2 – Venus Index workouts focused on building your ideal hourglass shape

Venus Index Community – Forum full of amazing women, sharing all their fitness and lifestyle tips and tricks

Read Alicia’s experience with Venus Index in her own words:

VT4 has been a life-changing experience for me.  For one, I actually FINISHED something.  I have started countless 12-week programs and have never finished one.  I entered VT3, but quit 2 weeks in.  For some reason, November 30, 2011 I decided to quit with the excuses and just GET IT DONE.  So I was very excited for VT4 to start.  I was well into my routine of workouts/diet when VT4 started, so I just did the work and got results.  My weight did not change a lot, nor did inches because I didn’t have that far to go, but my body changed.  I have muscle tone and shape that I have never had before.  I weigh…

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Today we have an interview with Kris West who placed 2nd in the Open Level 2 Division in the latest Venus Index Contest.

Check out her pictures:

Would you like to build a body like this?

I bet that you think Kris had to follow a very strict diet and work out every single day for two hours to prepare for a photoshoot like this in just a couple of weeks or months.

Well, if you’d think that, you would be wrong…

The Magic of Maintenance Point – The Minimalist/Maximalist Approach

After placing in one of the previous Venus Index Contests last year, Kris wanted to just maintain her physique. This contest for her was all about finding a way to put the least time and effort into the training and diet to stay looking good. She wanted to spend as little time as possible in the gym to keep her look and ate the maximum amount of calories she could eat without gaining fat.

Do you think this worked?

Well, judge by results not words:

Kris always wanted to look like Rachel McLish, well take a look at how well she stands compared to her role model.

How’s the Maintenance in Reality?

Kris trains during her launch breaks and her workouts are usually about an hour long, because she needs to get back to work. Her fitness is made around her work schedule and kids. Not the other way around as some magazines or “experts” would have you do.

This time Kris didn’t want to have more than 3 workouts a week. And being with Venus Index from the beginning and having lots of experience in fitness, she could play with different programs and “lego block” them into various ways (not something we’d recommend for beginners) and since the Venus Index workouts are designed this way, you can cycle them however you want. She combined the main Venus Index workout with one of the workouts from Adonis Index and cycled them week by week.

Since Kris didn’t do any cardio and wasn’t obsessing over her training she had more time for herself and even if something came up on the day of her workout, she would just go to the gym the next day.

She didn’t strive for some strict workout structure in her weekly schedule and just went whenever she wanted. And as long as you are consistent, you can keep it flexible, the key ISN’T to make your fitness your life, the key is to look good WHILE having a life.

And it’s really not that important when you go to the gym anyway. If you have four workouts a week and you do them four days in a row, that’s fine, but remember that leaving some rest days in between will help you to be stronger in your next workout thus get better results out of it.

For diet, Kris changed her approach a bit. She was always a one meal type of person. This time, she didn’t do any fasts and tried eating more meals a day. Not because she was afraid of Starvation Mode or some other fitness media myth, but rather because she wanted to test out some new things.

She started doing several mini meals during the day to keep more energy and out of cravings. While this may sound as a surprise from a Venus, the truth is that there is a big difference in how you should eat if have 50 pounds to lose vs maintaining visible abs all year round.

We are starting to find more and more evidence that not only does weight loss slow down and gets harder towards the end, but it also seems that once you get really lean (visible abs for women and single digit body fat for man) you need to eat more often and just can’t do 24 hour fasts anymore.

When you get very lean your body has very little fat in its storage and your appetite will be higher as a result and your body may will want to naturally store more fat. So, to stay lean and avoid binging it seems like a good idea to eat more often and not creating large calorie deficits on a daily basis.

“It’s all about obtaining/keeping “the look” with the least effort and not stressing over the scale numbers.”

– Kris West

Links from Kris’ interview:

• VI Phase 1 and VI Phase 2 – Venus Index workouts focused on building your ideal hourglass shape
• Venus Index Community – Forum full of amazing women, sharing all their fitness and lifestyle tips and tricks
• Eat Stop Eat – Program that will teach you how to take simple breaks from food to lose weight while enjoying social eating events and eating the foods you love
• Adonis Index – Just like the Venus Index, just for men
• Vince DelMonte Interview Part 1 – The interview with Vince over at Adonis Index that Kris refers to in the interview
• Muscle Building is a Lifestyle: Interview with Kris West – The first interview with Kris

Read Kris’ experience with Venus Index in her own words:

After the last Open I pretty much decided I didn’t want to be in a deficit all the time.  With that being said and after listening to the Vince podcast I kind of had an AHA moment.  Physique competitors seemed to be the best at changing their look within the shortest amount of time.  What was their “secret”?  They also always speak of eating “mini meals” throughout the day.  I had tried this concept years ago when first trying to build muscle but could never really conform to the thought of eating every 3-4 hours so never really gave it an honest effort.

Maybe there was something to it…

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Today we have an interview with Terry Clauss who placed 3rd in the Transformation category in the latest Venus Index Contest.

Check out her pictures:

12 weeks is not much, but will help you get going in the right direction. And every bit counts, it will slow towards the end, but you will get there.

There is a good chance that Terry’s story will resemble to yours, because it’s just so common.

Issues with weight and eating often times start at an early age, we just don’t realize it.

When Terry was 13, her mother was worried that she was getting fat. She took Terry to a doctor who prescribed her diet pills (At the age of 13? WTF!?).

She would not eat and then binge afterwards. The weight loss and weight gain never ending cycle began.

Terry tried EVERY diet there is. From Atkins, to South Beach to Naturally Thin, Diet Solution, Weight Watchers, you name it, she did it.

She had little bits of success, but the issue with all of those diets was that they were all too restrictive. It wasn’t about eating less, it was all about cutting out entire food groups. This may be the conventional approach, but it’s just a ticking time bomb.

You will always make up for whatever you have removed from your diet.

For Terry it was starting to be pretty depressing to be constantly losing and gaining pounds of fat. Today Terry is 53 years old and has 40 years of unsuccessful attempts of dieting behind her. At first she was skeptical because she wasted so much money, time and effort on other programs in the past.

Could you imagine trying to lose weight for year after year for 40 years in a row? Without any significant or long-term success, how would you feel, would you think that it’s even possible to lose weight anymore?

At this stage most women think that it’s their hormones and they just can’t lose any weight no matter what they do.

Well, Terry decided to give Eat Stop Eat and Venus Index a chance.

At first she tried ESE and got some results with that, so she trusted Brad Pilon. When he sent an email about the results from the third Venus Index contest and she saw that the girls all looked like normal people and just after 12 weeks they got in great shape, she jumped right in.

She improved her physique and she is finally on her way to building a body she can be proud of and keep all year round.

What really drove her to do this was that her son was going to have a baby and like she said: “I didn’t want to be a chunky grandma.”, so she decided to get in better shape.

It’s never too late and even if you’ve been trying to lose weight and get in shape for the past 40 years without any results, you still have a chance to do so, you just need the right approach.

Terry is proof of that.

Don’t Be Afraid of a New Approach, You Have Nothing to Lose

When we are trying something new, we feel anxiety and excitement at the same time. Usually, we are excited about it, but once it’s time to take action we realize that it’s new and doesn’t feel very comfortable. On one hand it’s exciting, but on the other, we would rather go back to our previous habits.

Well, the biggest growth happens outside your comfort zone and if you want to get different and new results, you need different and new approaches. Doing uncomfortable things at first will expend your comfort zone.

It’s really up to you whether you will shape your future or just accept whatever comes your way.

Terry sat down and compared the pro’s and con’s.

She asked herself: “What is the worst thing that can happen?” and “What is the best thing that can happen?”

She also admitted that without having to send the before pictures at the beginning, she wouldn’t be so committed and would have probably dropped out during the first few weeks.

The Venus Index contest works as accountability and will help you stick to your plan, it will keep you motivated, because you want to send pictures that shows at least some kind of difference.

And after the contest?

Well, first this get’s you moving and then gives you momentum to continue and take it further.

Take Home Message:

• Focus on the Venus Index workouts, they work if you follow them as written
• Work out when you have the most energy, but make sure you go to the gym, don’t make excuses
• If you are not losing weight after weeks of dieting, your weight loss plan is not working, change it
• Some people don’t want to hear the truth about diet, it’s not sexy, what about you?
• Find what works for you and stick to it
• Don’t look for excuses, life does get in the way, but you have to deal with it in order to succeed
• Do it covertly, you don’t need to tell anybody
• People will start to ask you what you are doing, that’s when you can tell them about it if you choose to
• Enter the contest, don’t be afraid it, it’s a good motivator
• Venus Index is for normal people that have a job and a family
• If you take a break, don’t make it too long

Programs Terry Used:

1. Anything Goes Diet – Diet that allowed Terry to eat anything she wanted, without any meal plans to follow or list of “forbidden foods”
2. Eat Stop Eat – Terry did the Eat Stop Eat fasts twice a week
3. Reverse Taper Diet  – Diet protocol that Terry used along with AGD and ESE to avoid overeating after the contest was over
4. Venus Index Circuits – Venus Index workout plan Terry followed that helped her optimize her Venus Index ratio and get her closer to her idea body shape
5. Venus Index Community – Forum full of amazing women, sharing all their fitness and lifestyle tips and tricks

Read Terry’s experience with Venus Index in her own words

My journey through VT4 has been a wonderful one. I started the workout and have followed as best I could with some modifications when needed because of previous injuries and bad weak knees. In the beginning I was doing the 3 workouts per week and trying to do some cardio 3 other days. I eventually skipped the cardio and have just been doing the VI workouts because I was getting so tired from the cardio I was doing that I was losing my motivation to do anything…

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Today we bring you an interview with Shannon C who won the latest Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her pictures:

In just 12 weeks you can transform yourself and look like the girls on the magazine covers, the question is will you stop making excuses and finally do it?

A few years back Shannon hated her body and every single picture of herself. Being over 30 and not satisfied with the way she looked and felt about her body, she decided to get back in shape. She started doing roller blading and slowly got into weight training.

This helped her, but not in a way that she could stand in front of a mirror and say “wow”, it just wasn’t anything exceptional. It was one of the previous Venus Index winners Naomi who introduced her to the Venus Index approach. She would listen to the podcasts and hang around for a long time before trying the workouts.

It’s important to say that when she decided to start training with the Venus Index Shannon was pregnant, which many people would be against. Pregnancy itself is a challenge and most women would not want to train and watch their diet on top of it. However, Shannon herself told us that her first pregnancy was a disaster. During her first one she gained a lot of weight, and like she said, she just used it as an excuse to eat whatever she wanted, anytime she wanted without setting any limitations at all. As a result she gained a lot and felt terrible, having all sorts of weird health issues.

She admitted that it was completely ridiculous.

But this time, it was different. She didn’t allow herself to gain so much, felt great the whole way through and even her doctor told her to keep doing what she was doing, because it obviously improved her well-being.

Disclaimer: If you want to train or follow the Venus Index approach while being pregnant, consult your physician first, this is for information purposes only.

This time, for the second pregnancy Shannon followed the Venus Index workout, she would just do fewer sets than in the plan and was slowly lowering the intensity of the workouts towards the end of her pregnancy.

And you can’t really argue with this because like she and her physician both said, this time the pregnancy was healthier and felt way more comfortable. And her doctor was monitoring her the whole time.

And while she ate a bit more then she would normally, she still managed to stay at a reasonable weight.

She walked a lot and lifted weights and even received comments on how beautiful a pregnant woman she was. Pretty drastic difference compared to her first time, when she felt (in her own words) ‘like a whale’.

Obviously guys can’t imagine what it means being pregnant, but she told us that despite the challenges of being pregnant, it still should not be used as a licence to not move around (walking, weight lifting) and eat too much, that’s just plain unhealthy and it will be tougher for your to get in shape afterwards.

This time Shannon had more of a plan. She would even use Facebook and follow other pregnant athletes to keep motivated and inspired. Another technique she used was visualizing her post-pregnancy time.

She reveals more of her approach in the interview.

Shannon’s Challenges, Well…Apart from Being Pregnant

Obviously pregnancy is not the easiest and most fun time in the life, but Shannon still decided that she will stay at a reasonable weight and keep fit and it worked, she did gain less weight and was fit and felt “pretty good”.

And once she started nursing, she decided that she will enter the Venus Index competition. Which is exactly what she did and not only that, but she won the whole thing too!

Here are a few of her challenges that Shannon talks about in the interview:

• Waking up in the middle of night to take care of the baby
• Making sure that she was walking a lot during the day
• Nursing and staying in a caloric deficit
• Not seeing results on a daily basis
• The weight loss was slowing down towards the end of the contest
• Having to feed the baby in the middle of the workouts
• Not being able to set a fixed schedule
• Having to readjust her expectations
• Having to take care of her 7 year old daughter too
• Working around all the variables like job, kids, weight loss, sleep, workouts

And those are just a few of Shannon’s challenges.

No transformation we ever had was without mistakes, errors, challenges and struggles, however Shannon proved that no matter what is happening in your life right now, you can still get in great shape, even though there are other priorities and pressing matters to take care of. And quite frankly doing so will only help you with those challenges.

Like many other Venus Index contestants Shannon used stickers for her calendar to see how many neutral, bad and good days she had. That helped her a lot despite her challenges. It’s about simplicity and it’s pointless to record everything, this simple method will help you keep on track. You can easily see how many workouts you had, when you stayed in a caloric deficit, when you did cardio, and when you overate and didn’t train. And at the end, it all comes down to whether you had more positive days than negative ones.

Remember that nothing is ever perfect.

“They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward.”

Thomas Edison

As long as you are moving forward, you are doing great. Don’t beat yourself up, just because it’s slower than you want. Even falling is a movement, as long as it’s forward, you are doing good.

Take home advice from Shannon’s interview:

• It’s helpful to look at your first before pictures to keep yourself motivated
• Don’t beat yourself up for having bad or neutral days, that’s normal, nothing is ever perfect
• Don’t deprive yourself of the foods you like, you can even have a Mocha and cheesecake every day if you want, just make sure you cut the calories on the other stuff and stay in the deficit
• Some people like suffering and they feel that you absolutely have to make fat loss difficult, but that’s BS, fat loss is simple, it’s just about calories in and out
• If after pregnancy, a nursing mother of two with a regular job can do this, anyone can
• It’s possible to travel and maintain your level of fitness
• Venus Index approach still requires effort, but it isn’t restrictive, it’s rather about directing your effort intelligently
• The body you will build at the end is worth every drop of your effort
• Don’t talk about your fitness approach with other girls outside the VI Community, they will not understand or believe you and will try to convince you that what you are doing is wrong
• Get in the Venus Index Community to be around same minded girls, it’s important to have social support and this is the easiest way to get it
• Don’t turn your lifestyle constrains into excuses, that’s easy and anyone can do that, be different and figure out a way around them
• Being in shape will translate into being a better mother, wife and friend
• It’s okay to let your daughters try the Venus Index workouts and learn healthy exercise habits at an early age

Programs Shannon Used:

• Reverse Taper Diet – Most fitness diets fail, because they get tougher as you are getting towards the end. Why not reverse it and make dieting easier?
• Anything Goes Diet (Aka AGD) – The first ever designed diet that’s not giving you a list of forbidden foods and meal plans, eat whatever and whenever you want
• VI Phase 1 and VI Phase 2– Venus Index workouts focused on building your ideal hourglass shape
• Venus Index Community – You will not find a more friendlier and supportive women’s community in this industry

Read Shannon’s experience with Venus Index in her own words:

These 12 weeks have been a continuation of a 6 month transformation that I began September 27, 2011, when my son Hunter was born.  I weighed about 185 lbs just before his birth, which was 45 lbs over what I weighed in early 2011 when I found out I was pregnant.  Despite the weight gain, I had a very healthy pregnancy.  I continued to work out with weights right up to the weekend before he was born, I walked, I swam, I barely bought any maternity clothes, I even wore a bikini all summer!  The blood pressure and swelling issues I experienced during my first pregnancy 7 years ago did not resurface…

Click here to read the rest of the story

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Here is an interview with Lara Campbell. Lara placed 2nd in latest Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her pictures:

Would you like to make a transformation like this in just three months?

Once you get in shape it's all about showing your new body. A nice tan with a good pose will do the trick.

Lara's back shot. 12-week difference.

The Secret of Having Good Fitness Photos

When you are preparing for a photoshoot you basically have two options. Either set up the shoot at your apartment or hire a photographer and a studio. Several girls (and guys) have proven to us that you can shoot great pictures at your home and still place well in the contest.

However, there are certain benefits to hiring a professional. When you book a session with a photographer 12 weeks prior to the photoshoot (or 6 weeks like Lara) you suddenly have accountability and it will force you to stick to your plan and really show up at your best. When you have a booked session it suddenly feels “real” and you will be more motivated.

At the beginning Lara was probably like most girls, she wanted to do the contest, but wasn’t sure if she really should and could.

Then in week six, things changed, because she decided to book the session.

Lara also started going through fitness magazines and searching for photos online to learn the different poses that a fitness model would use for the cover shot.

If you thought that a picture is just a snapshot of reality then you would be wrong.

There is a lot more that goes into it a picture, especially if the object of the picture is a person.

In this industry showing up in killer shape is just the beginning of a good shoot. Tanning, lighting, posing and of course editing is all necessary to get a magazine cover calibre picture. And even then the photographer picks just two or three pictures out of a thousand that will make it to the editor table for a final edit.

Put simply there is a lot more than you are aware of.

And this is exactly what our Venus competitors experience.

Lara took it seriously and learned several poses, fasted before the shoot and really did her best.

Her husband was supportive and constantly reminding her to flex certain muscles during the shoot. Her photographer knew what he was doing and advising her on how to pose, where to position her body, how to show her abs etc.

Through the eyes of the camera and in a picture you will look completely different then you do in reality. Pictures can hide your shape. Looking good in reality is one thing, but to look great in a picture, you need to take things a little bit further.

During the 12-week preparation for the photoshoot you will find that the last week will be really intense prep and then almost three hours of shooting to get four or five great shots. However, it’s worth it. You will get into an amazing shape, discover things about yourself you were never aware of and as a bonus not only get a chance to participate in a fitness contest and win, but you will have great pictures of yourself for the rest of your life.

Lara’s History of Weight Loss Attempts

At university she had a pretty sedentary lifestyle and just typical student life, drinking and eating. She became a victim of emotional eating and at her height of little over five foot she got to an unhealthy bodyweight of around 160lbs.

And was understandably unhappy with her physique.

As a result she started running, steadily increasing distance and eating a bit less.

She lost about 30 pounds and got to 130 pounds.

At this point she began feeling a bit frustrated, because she wanted to lose more weight, but what more could she possibly do? Did she really want to run even more?

After a while her eating start to creep up again and she started gaining weight again.

Lara realized this and started introducing more things to her lifestyle that would possibly help her. Little did she know back then that by taking classes in Taekwondo was just hijacking her goals and wasn’t helping her lose any weight. In the class there were some overweight people and after a while she realized that having a black belt requires a lot of work and doesn’t necessarily mean being lean.

At this point she was 150 pounds and felt really heavy and upset when she was running. She hit rock bottom and didn’t know what she was going to do.

She decided to train for a marathon for 12 weeks, but she didn’t lose a pound.

Since she really wanted to get this area of her life handled she started reading more books and consuming fitness media. At one point she was even considering becoming a fitness trainer and getting the certificate to “learn all their secrets”.

She started learning that cardio isn’t necessarily the key to fat loss and that she can out eat cardio and that after a while you get pretty efficient at certain styles of training and the effect it will have on your fat loss won’t be as significant as it was at the beginning. This made sense to her, since her biggest fat loss happened when she started running. She went from couch potato to runner and since she was inefficient at running at first she lost a ton of weight fast.

After searching the internet for some time she found Eat Stop Eat and ultimately the Venus Index community.

The Diet Part is the Most Important Key for the Contest

After going through ESE and VI she found out that the missing piece in her plan were calories. She never really cared about this and once she started paying attention to calories, she lost all the weight she wanted.

She always thought that people who count calories are in some weird weight loss groups and that this approach never works, but there is a difference between just counting calories and doing it right.

She just took the BMR estimate provided and calculated how much she needs to eat below that to lose a pound every week.

She had an excel sheet to track her calorie intake and just log what she ate. This is it, she never worried about macronutrients and running anymore.

Before, the marathon running was her identity, she was eating a lot to be able to run, and always increasing the distance, she began to relate and identify with the suffering part of the running. Like she said the running was like a badge of honor. The thing is, she totally forgot why she got into running in the first place – to lose weight.

Another case of goal hijacking. Starting something because you have a goal then changing your focus into a different goal that you never wanted. Building muscle and powerlifting, getting in shape and taking drugs, losing weight and running are just a few examples of goal hijacking.

Take a look at yourself and examine your lifestyle, do you allow your goals to get hijacked in any areas of your life?

If your real goal is to lose weight it’s just about calories.

What to do if you want to look like Lara:

• Accept that you may be the kind of person that eats too much if you don’t think about it
• Listen to the stories of other people who’ve successfully lost weight
• Workout consistency is crucial
• Make sure you give your best in the gym, workout after workout
• Don’t be afraid to imagine how you are going to look once you get in shape, think of the life you will have, your mind will only do what it’s seen before
• Get some pictures of fitness models and look at how they stand and pose, try it yourself
• There is no plain front view look in fitness posing, that’s the least flattering one, you always want some twist
• You absolutely have to pay attention to calories if you want to lose weight
• Start fasting on a weekly basis
• Don’t be afraid of skipping meals, all the girls that are in shape do that even if they don’t speak about it
• If you eat a bit more on the weekend, save up the calories during the week
• It’s okay to slip if you get back on track, it’s all about a controlled stumble forward
• Don’t identify yourself with physical activities and diets
• One bad day is nothing if you have a whole string of good ones
• Look forward, never back
• You can have a chocolate every day, it can be something to look forward to
• Don’t label foods as good or bad, it’s just food
• All foods are okay in moderation
• Learn to be guilt free in your diet
• Don’t hide what you eat from others and most importantly admit it to yourself
• Read the fitness media with caution, most stuff is not revealed to you

Programs Lara used for this contest:

• Venus Index Workout – Workout programs focused on building a toned and natural feminine body shape.
• Eat Stop Eat – Diet and lifestyle protocol that will help you stay on track with your weight loss while enjoying social eating events at a same time.
• Anything Goes Diet – Diet protocol to help you gradually lose weight week after week
• Jason Haynes Interview

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

Check out her pictures:

You may be just 12 weeks away from this shape.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things Won’t Go as Planned, Anticipate It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brooke Has Been Dieting Since She Was 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s make a step-by-step plan:

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

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

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

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

This works quite well for several reasons:

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

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

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

Take home advice from Brooke:

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

Links from the Interview:

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

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download