Summary: Today we have an interview with Carrie Gleason. Carrie was third in the last Venus Index Contest in the Open Category. Check out her photos: How to Work Out to Get an Ideal Body When Carrie first saw her pictures she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She literally asked herself whether that's really her. And that happens to a lot of people after a transformation. Your body changes faster than your mind. It'll actually take a while for you to accept and believe it's really you, especially if you were used to something completely different for the past twenty years. Carrie always felt confident in her clothes and felt like she looked good, but she wasn't that comfortable in a bikini. This is a pretty big difference. Clothes can help you show your body, but also hide certain areas that would be exposed otherwise. You could say it feels 'safe' in clothes. If you are not a Victoria's Secret model who is used to spending her days in lingerie in front of a camera, you can go years wearing the same clothes not realizing you have gained some weight. And like Carrie said, she wasn't overweight, but she just didn't have that slim waist and toned body she has now. The Venus Index finally gave her confidence to feel great and sexy in a bikini again. She always focused on weight and didn't think of specific measurements or exact measurable goals. In her own words: "That's what I love on the Venus Index, it's not about the weight, it's all about the proportions and shape of my body". And that is the point, you can build a body that is ideal and attainable for your height, instead if trying to attain the body of a genetic freak fitness model. Carrie loved the fact that she can basically design her body and use specific workout structures to reshape it. The Venus Index is about getting to a specific, measurable goal that comes from a mathematical formula that is based on your height NOT weight. She always felt she needed to improve a bit, but thought that the best way to get in shape is by spending countless hours doing cardio and hundreds of crunches. In high school she did sports like every other girl and since she wasn't exceptional in any of them she decided to start exercising to keep her weight in a healthy range. She started going to the gym, but really to do just running on a treadmill and stair-master. She thought that lifting weights would cause her to grow and become big and bulky. There is this common misconception that lifting weights will somehow turn you into some freak and you will look like a female version of hulk or like some female steroid enhanced bodybuilder. That is not what really happens. A woman's body is different from a man's and you can't build the same muscle size as men even if you wanted. Female bodybuilders who desire the same muscular development as a man start taking drugs to take it to that level...and that is where it gets ugly. For you weight lifting is just a chance to tone your body into its natural and most attractive and healthy shape. This is where the Venus Index comes into play. The most attractive look is the hourglass shape. This realization probably doesn't come as anything new to you. Well, the best advice is usually the one you already know. Take a look at your training, do you train in way that supports this fact? When Carrie got over her disbelief that "weights equal big muscles", she approached it from the wrong starting point. She did what all the magazines told her to do, training one muscle group per day the way advanced male bodybuilders would train. Your Workout is really a tool for you to tone and shape your body, if you want to achieve the ideal, you need to pursue the hourglass shape and this requires a specific workout structure. Like Carrie said, now she is lifting weights for a reason, not just randomly throwing them in however she likes. The workout suddenly has a purpose!
