52 Year Old Cancer Survivor, Wife, and Mom of 5 Ditches Her Chocolate Pity Parties and Loses 100 Pounds

Summary: Today we are honored to listen to Julie Johansen who placed first in the 8th Venus Index Transformation Contest.         Read what Julie wrote about her experience with the Venus Factor: Though not heavy as a youth, upon reaching adulthood my weight started creeping up to where I found myself as much as 100 pounds overweight. Twice I successfully lost large amounts of weight, but, unknowingly, my calories were still too high. So it involved increasingly more and more hours of my day spent in exercising in order to continue to see any pounds coming off. I felt guilty and narcissistic for spending so much time on myself instead of my family and work, and would eventually give up, putting the weight back on and more. Finding Venus solved this problem for me. It was a huge eye opener to learn that calorie control is the real key to fat loss and the workouts are to give me the hourglass shape that I had previously assumed were only for the genetically blessed. Since I got the habit of working out down pat early on, I focused more attention on strictly keeping to the weekly calorie budget. While I’m still a work in progress, I love that the exercises target the areas that make women look good! For mental motivation I turned to the online community for encouragement and answers to questions. I learned that perfection is not possible for me and that when I feel that I have “blown it,” then I simply STOP, do damage control and tell myself that I am not a failure, just a “delayed success” and promptly get right back on track, with fewer and fewer setbacks as time goes on. With consistent effort, my progress is assured now that I’m experiencing how to effectively manage my three big “M’s”: my mouth, my muscles and my mind. I feel so appreciative that Venus has given me the truth and the tools to make these changes permanent!     Listen to Julie's interview here, and please “like” it when you’re done: