Archives for June 2012

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

Check out her pictures:

It was a shock when Jannette found out that she can look better with a simpler approach.

Taking pictures at the same place, with the same lighting, in the same pose will help you see exactly how much you’ve improved.

Jannette is not a training novice. She used to own a gym and even today still trains people. And she is very passionate about it, she especially loves helping people like elderly, pregnant women, people with a disease; not your regular gym visitors.

Is Cardio Enough?

(Before you make any lifestyle changes you should always consult with your physician.)

Jannette told us that she thinks women especially need to do weight lifting, cardio is simply not enough.

However, she also said that even pregnant women should do weight lifting and she highly recommends it, both as a mother and as a trainer.

If you’re already training and you get pregnant, there is no reason to stop.

If you are healthy then you can pretty much do everything you did before. Sure a couple of lifts will not be possible due to the inflexibility, but that’s not such a big issue.

Who ever said weights were off limits for women an that a woman’s workout was meant to be cardio and abs only.

Women need to lift weights to have a slim, feminine figure with the perfect hourglass look, there is just no way around this. If you just do cardio, you will lean down, but will eventually just end up looking like a 12 year old boy.

Diet, Fasting, What works?

Jannette weighed herself at the same time each week and adjusted her diet based on this feedback.

This is a good approach. If you are simply not satisfied with how things are progressing and want to lose fat more quickly, you can just reduce your calorie intake or add a few fasts during the week. Just make sure you don’t overdo it, your diet has to remain sustainable.

Not everything will work for you, you must determine your best course of action.

For many people, fasting is what allows you to enjoy your weekends a bit more.

A diet you can’t sustain is useless and if you want to enjoy your weekend you need to follow a diet that allows this option.

The best diet is the one made around your lifestyle:

• What meals you don’t need to eat?
• What social events you have to attend?
• What are the lowest calorie options you can choose?
• What foods you have to eat that you crave, but have to watch yourself so you don’t overdo it?
• What days you will consume most of your calories?

A good diet plan doesn’t start with things you can’t have e.g. ice cream or pizza. Quite the opposite, it should start with what you must have e.g. dinner each day with your spouse, lunch each Sunday with your family, party each Friday and pizza every other week.

Once you know this, you can calculate how many calories you are left with in the week and fill it in with anything you want – low calorie options are always better, because you can eat more of them, and while dieting, you want to eat as much as possible.

You Must Lift Weights

There is just no way around it.

Most women think that lifting weight will turn them into a hulk woman, but that’s complete nonsense.

This belief may be present in our society due to a lack of examples of women who have been lifting weights regularly. As a result women are intimidated by the idea of lifting weights, but truth to be told, you are not going to build a feminine, good looking body without lifting weights.

Stop spending hours on the cardio machines, find what works and direct your energy efficiently.

Scared of Getting too Lean?

As you progress you may need to give yourself permission to keep improving, because there is a lots of BS in our society about how women should look.

It may even seem that thanks to media we have lost sense of what’s truly attractive.

Here is a thought…

You have a feminine shape no matter how lean you are.

There is also another good rule to follow – If you feel confident, you like what you see, you have achieved that body shape naturally and you are both lean and have toned muscles, then it’s healthy and looks great no matter what other people are saying.

You may not realize this at the beginning of your journey, but as you progress and improve, people will actually try to take you down and discourage you from further improvement.

It’s the unfortunate ‘crabs in a bucket’ mentality.

In a group of average people, one’s inspiration and transformation is always discouraged, because it would reveal insecurities of the others.

What you have to do is realize that any negativity you recieve is not about you, but rather about other people’s insecurities coming to the surface.

Tips from Jannette:

Listen to the interview here:

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Today we have an interview with Olya who placed 3rd in the Level 1 of our Open Category in the latest Venus Index Contest.

Check out her pictures:

Look at magazines for some inspiration and start practicing various poses.

Olya has been in our community for a while, but it took her a while to find her way and fully acquire the Venus Index lifestyle. But eventually she got it and today is one of the younger Venuses in our community.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can get in shape.

And quite frankly if you want to be in killer shape in your 50s, it’s necessary to handle your diet and start training young.

Let’s look into what approach you should take if you are in your 20s.

Yo-Yo Solution, how to fight the conventional “Lost 20, Gained 40 afterwards.”

Olya never had troubles losing fat earlier.

She would just stop eating dinner and did her own version of Eat Stop Eat without knowing it.

But then at a dancing audition they told her to lose even more fat.

And since fasting isn’t hard and rather it’s the coming out of the fast, this desire to lose even more fat opened a Pandoras box for her.

And this is how she would deal with it: She would come out of a fast and eat everything that was around – not a good idea, totally detrimental to the benefits of fasting.

Then she did all sorts of stuff like master cleanse or low carb diet.

Then she tried a raw food diet, got addicted to nuts and nut butter. Then did paleo.

She felt out of control.

She gained a lot. She lost about 20 pounds, but gained about 40. This totally messed her up.

How to Transform yourself

You have to learn how to deal with your emotional stuff first, even before doing any caloric restrictions.

Olya started working with Dr. Bird, who is the go to psychotherapist for the Venus Index.

Losing fat is mostly psychological rather than physiological issue. Everyone can learn how many calories they need to lose fat and quite frankly we all know that it’s just about eating less.

The real underlying issue is in finding how to do that. How to make yourself eat less, how to cut foods, what meals you have to have, how to avoid eating out of boredom, emotional stress and such.

That’s the real challenge.

Also, if in the past you tried dieting, but did all the conventional diets that tell you to eat only certain food categories and avoid others, because they are “bad” for you, then you have developed lots of bad habits and mindsets and you need to handle those as well.

What’s also important to realize that it’s not gonna happen overnight.

You can be happy, healthy and have a balanced life, but it will take a while. It will also take a lot of hard work and rewiring and destroying bad habits you developed in the past without even knowing about them.

What can help is surrounding yourself with positive people who will help you achieve your goals. Choose wisely, most people are not supportive.

In order to transform you have to psychologically put attention into this area of your life. However, you have to see your attention and focus as a fuel tank. There is only so much of it each day until it runs out.

Start believing in yourself. Self-sabotage and fear of success are the biggest enemies of transformation.

In order to maximize the results, be smart with the timing.

It Took Olya a year to finally find the right time to do the transformation.

Just like with the attention, certain times might not be the best. Make sure it’s possible for you to do this.

This time Olay was developing success routines and she was pre-planning lots of things.

She would pack things the night before in order to set her day up for success.

She also learned to view her workouts as a gift not a punishment.

This helped her stick to the workouts and not miss them.

Do all this and you will start seeing results and tangible progress.

Just be careful with the information and people you allow to get close to you and affect you.

There is too much negative bs out there.

Learn to manage yourself and manage stress.

Every time Olya was at work she was in a good mood and if she would be frustrated in any situation she would just walk away.

Today Olya is more in control of her life, her body, she feels good about herself and how she looks, enjoys the process and has a healthy attitude.

She experienced a lot of growth and development inside and out.

Remember that the transformation is both physical and psychological.

More tips from Olya:

• Your body is the manifestation of your inner self
• Start believing in yourself and give yourself the gift of support
• Things go wrong all the time, stop punishing yourself for it
• Despite your childhood genetics or what happened in the past you are in control of your life and your body today, stop looking for excuses and just do it
• Don’t calculate calories for the day, but rather for the week
• If you eat a bit more on one day, then you can just subtract the calories from your budget for the next day, this can help you stay on track and not worry about it
• Exercise is a great stress reliever
• Cardio can help you boost your calorie budget
• Get the workouts done in morning or afternoon so you are free for the evening to go out with your friends if that is important to you
• Take a step back and look at yourself if there is something you have been putting off and DO THAT
• Don’t compare yourself to other people
• You might need a few contests to get this handled
• Taking photographs is awesome, appreciate the preparation for the shoot
• Practice posing, look at magazines, check what angles look the best

Links form Olya’s interview:

• 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
• Overcoming Emotional Eating: Reprogramming Your Mind to Control Your Weight – VI Interview with Dr Nicola Bird
• Self Imaging Therapy – Dr Nicola Bird’s website
• 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

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

What a journey this has been! It dates back to when I discovered Venus Index program in December 2010! It’s been a year and a half and somehow the last two competitions just didn’t happen for me. But here I am at the end of VT4 and though I always think I could have pushed harder and better, I am proud of where I am right now and today. In fact, just seeing the progression and noticing seemingly idiotic things like fitting into old jeans and not having to pose only from a certain angle in photos, is worth every effort and every setback that I have…

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Listen to the interview here:

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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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Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download