Archives for February 2012

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

Here is an interview with Kim. Kimberley placed 4th in latest Venus Index Contest in the Open category.

Check out her pictures:

Do you have what it takes to get this lean?

Kim placed in the last contest, so she wasn’t new to competing. She is actually the first girl to do two a back to back Venus Index contests.

She felt great after finishing her workout plan and had a massive boost in motivation. However, she wasn’t sure what to do next. This is where the community comes into play. She asked the girls on the forum and they helped direct her and push forward.

The Second Contest

Kimberley changed the way she ate and fasted. This time she decided to get this over with at the beginning of the week, so she fasted on Monday and on Tuesday and then started incorporating more meals back in, in the rest of the week and when she felt like it was getting out of control she would throw in couple of fasting days again.

There are countless ways of staying in a caloric deficit you just have to find a pattern that works best with your lifestyle circumstances and your own preferences. If you work and train a lot during the week and have fun and relax on the weekends then just restrict yourself during the week and let go a bit on your Friday nights and Saturday barbecues. And since you will be working a lot during the week, going to the gym and training you will find it easier to diet then compared to being out with your friends or at a barbecue.

Just remember that there will always be new sets of challenges. We all like to think that if we could get this one thing handled or once we achieve that one goal everything will be just fine, well it won’t. It will be different. And that’s totally okay, because you always need to have something to move forward towards.

In other words, once you get your waist down, there may be a different challenge figuring out how to stay there.

Kimberley had a really hard time figuring out how maintenance should work. This was probably the hardest thing for her.

There are basically three ways of eating.

1. The way you ate before the diet – Too much
2. The way you eat on a diet – Low
3. The way you will eat after the diet – Maintenance

Figuring out how to maintain requires a completely different approach and while it takes significantly less effort and involves way more food and fun, it will take you some time to find that sweet spot when you finally can say that “this is exactly how much I need to maintain”.

When Kim realized that there wasn’t really much to lose anymore, she stopped fasting, however once she did she started gaining weight again. So, she had incorporate fasting back in and started searching for a different way.

You see, there will always be a slight swing of the pendulum. Sometimes you will eat more, sometimes less.

Things will change, you will move to a different city, change jobs, start a family and suddenly your eating habits will be different. That’s just how it works. Sometimes there is a phase when you don’t have breakfast or dinner, sometimes you’ll be eating lunch, sometimes you don’t.

Don’t try to identify how maintenance is gonna be for you for the rest of your life and just roll with your current lifestyle circumstances.

Does It really Take Time to Build Muscle?

Kim had no idea how she was going to look once she got to her ideal VI numbers, she was a bit scared, and she still has some room for improvements, but the final pictures are great and since she didn’t have to lose much fat, she could just focus on gaining muscle and reshaping her body.

Here’s the deal with building muscle though. Gaining more muscle takes a really long time and you have to accept it. It’s not dramatic like the first fat loss transformation you may have been through.

You can get quite lean pretty quickly and then “grow” to your idea VI numbers.

Kim suggests to do as many workouts in a row as possible. When she got sore, she would take the day off. So, if you feel like you can handle the workouts more often then don’t treat them as a weekly outline per se, but rather as one series and go from one to the next.

Most of the time Kim would do 4-6 workouts a week. This pattern really worked for her, she loved it. If you feel like that’s too much, then do less in a row and work your way up to that. Kim also works out in a fasted state, which might help you with the strength and energy.

Once you have been through all the workouts you can also decide which ones felt the best and seemed to give you the best results and stick to those for as long as possible.

Now that Kim knows how certain workouts feel, she can decide which module was the best and gave her the best results and roll with that one. And you can do the same. If you have been through all of them and you feel like one module was really good and that you could squeeze some more muscle growth from it, then do it again right after the first one.

What to do if you want to look like Kim:

• The forum is great, girls help each other move forward and are constantly checking on each other
• Sometimes you need to step away from everything, to see it from a new perspective and keep rolling forward
• You will hit peaks and valleys, figure out why you are feeling like this and what to do to get past or through it
• Don’t worry about macro-nutrients, eat whatever you want and just stay in the caloric deficit
• It’s okay to read about fitness, but try to spend more time actually figuring it out yourself and implementing it in they gym
• You can’t rely on what one person says, take it and test it to see if it works, then make a judgment for yourself
• Don’t get upset if you gain a pound or two, find out the issue in your diet and push forward. Also remember to account for daily fluctuations in your weight due to water, food and hormones
• Don’t compare yourself to others
• Compete for your best look not against others
• Be happy with your after’s and progress and not worry about other people
• You have to be one of those people who can deal with the change when its thrown at you. If you are not then you must learn how to be one

Programs Kim uses:

• Phase 1 & Phase 2 – 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?

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Today we have an interview with Michelle Acorn. Michelle placed sixth in the latest Venus Index Transformation Contest.

Check out her pictures:

With a pretty simple approach, you can achieve some amazing results.

Michelle's back shot

Workout for muscle gain and hourglass shape, diet for fat loss.

Michelle Was Ready to Give Up

The Venus Index system was completely new approach to her and a pretty shocking workout style. She never tried anything like it, the workouts were challenging and the diet simple, completely contrary to what she did in the past.

Michelle worked out in the past, but it wasn’t a priority.

And from a fat loss stand point, she never dieted in her life, always just looking for better and faster way to lose weight.

She never found a good plan and never stuck to any program. Well at least until her co-worker sent her an email with a link to a previous VI contest. Looking at the girls’ transformations was a huge wake up call for her.

While she’d lost a few pounds in the past, it always got to a point where she stopped.

She was giving up, so the Venus Index came exactly at a right time. Michelle decided to enter the contest, she saw it as a way to stay motivated and have some accountability.

Once she checked the program and saw the rest of the amazing transformations, she bought it and started right away. And after a few weeks of training she added Eat Stop Eat fasts and started paying more attention to her diet as well.

It’s All about Calories

Fasting helped her understand that in order to lose weight meal timing or food choices didn’t matter, it’s all about calories in and out.

At first fasting scared her, her mind was playing with her and trying to convince her that it’s not a good idea, however she gave it a shot and to her surprise discovered that she felt fine and didn’t crave any food during the fast itself. It took her as little as three fasts to get used to them. After that she practiced intermittent fasting once a week and on the non-fasting days decided to shoot for 700-1000 calories a day.

This worked really well for her.

Fat loss is really just a matter of eating under your energy expenditure. The mix of food and the choices are entirely up to you and your own preferences and lifestyle. Sure it’s probably not a good idea to eat only pizza, because you would probably not enjoy having just a few slices for the whole day, however you can still have some tasty snacks. For example Michelle was snacking on her kids’ 100 calorie snacks, she just kept the amount low.

At the end of the contest she stopped fasting and upped her calories a bit. This is the theory behind the Transformation Diet. Here is the thing, most people start dieting slowly, and cut their calories even more when they are closer to contest shape. However, this often times leads to a lack of energy, tiredness, moodiness and all sorts of other unwanted effects. your body can handle a limited amount of systemic stress before you push it over the edge. And this is exactly what most people experience before the end of the contest, and that can lead to a rebound. Believe it or not many fitness models gain as much as 30 pounds right after their contest.

What’s the point of that? Having a great body for two weeks while feeling like crap to get it? And then immediately rebounding and being out of shape for the rest of the year?

No, thanks.

There is a better way. The way that Michelle has done it and how the Transformation Diet is designed. Diet the right way from the beginning and quickly get to your ideal bodyweight, once you are there, increase your calories intake to maintenance or BMR and have energy for the final weeks as you become leaner and leaner. This will also prevent you from rebounding afterwards.

Workouts Must Be Challenging

Michelle did the VI workouts phase one and was pretty sore in the beginning, but after a few sessions she could handle the workouts pretty well. And that’s just how it works. If you are not used to a well-designed workout, the first few weeks might be pretty challenging, because your body has to adjust to the stress you are putting it under. Once you go through this part, it will feel much better and your body will be ready for the weekly workout load long term.

So, don’t worry if you are just starting out with this, the feeling of soreness will go away after a short while. A similar thing happens with fasting, after a few fasts you get used to it and don’t even think about it.

Michelle did no extra cardio, and in her workouts she focused on training for muscle and decided to let the diet take of the fat loss, which is the best approach you can take for long term success and avoiding any risk of rebounding.

Keep it simple and effective, keep working out for muscle gaining and shape and dieting for fat loss. Remember that cardio will help you increase your calorie deficit, but you can never out train a bad diet, plus the more activities you do, the more rest you might need for the rest of the day. There is always the law of diminishing returns with ever increasing amounts of cardio. Finding a balance between exercise volume and calories consumed should be your goal.

This way you keep your fitness lifestyle simple compared to eating at certain times, watching macronutrients and spending countless hours on treadmills. In Michelle’s own words: “It’s the easiest thing I have ever done.”

And you don’t have to tell anyone about it. As soon as Michelle realized that people don’t understand how simple it is and are looking for a magic pill or an insanely complicated approach (so they could say it’s impossible to do) she just started saying that she is simply “dieting and exercising”. After a while she didn’t even bother explaining what she was doing at all. The only person that really knew what she was doing was her co-worker that is in the Venus Index Community with her.

This is the power of  VI Community, all the girls there are not only supportive, but they are on the same page as you or Michelle. She was a bit shy at the beginning, but after a while started posting pictures and talking to others about her progress and challenges, which made it even more exciting and fun.

This is important, because even if people ask you what you are doing and you tell them: “I just work out a few hours a week and eat less”, they will discredit you as not knowing what you are doing and will tell you it’s unhealthy or that it doesn’t work.

Let others comment on your results, not your approach, keep that one for yourself and you will be better off.

Take home message from Michelle:

• You really have to want to do it, there are no results without commitment
• For Michelle this was the easiest and simplest thing she has ever done and ironically, she is in the best shape of her life
• Michelle was shy at first, but admits that it’s important to ask questions and post updates in the VI community to stay motivated

Words & phrases mentioned in the interview:

Venus Index Community – You will never find a more outgoing and friendly community than this one.

Venus Index Workout – VI workouts are designed to maximize your genetic potential, build your best shape and look your best both in a bikini and clothes.

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.

Transformation Diet – Brand new diet protocol to help you keep energy towards the end of the contest and avoid post contest rebounds.

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download