Summary: Here's your new interview with one of the contestants from the 5th Venus Index Transformation Contest. Today John talks to Teresa Shaner finished forth in the contest and earned herself a spot on Venus Index Calendar. Check out her transformation pictures from the 12 Week Contest: While most people chose to submit their transformation pictures at the 20 week contest deadline, Teresa decided to take her pictures after only 12 weeks. This decision has now motivated Teresa to push through the full 20 week transformation. She's "All-In" and ready to take it to next level! Prior to this contest, Teresa had difficulty gaining momentum needed for her to finish a transformation contest. One obstacle she and several mothers encountered is that once she had done everything for her kids, she had very little energy and time for herself. However, as we've seen before with our previous Venus winners, if you want to take care of other people you need to take care of yourself first. Teresa wanted to feel better and live a healthier lifestyle. Having a history of family health issues made her even more determined to start focusing on this. She didn't want be placed in that risk category as she grew older. Before she would always try to do the workouts in the evenings, which has a lot of disadvantages. She made the decision to perform her workouts and cardio in the the morning. The turning point came one day when she woke up and wasn't feeling dizzy. She decided to do her workout early in the day, which was a brand new experience. When she got home later that day she didn't have the stress to push herself to do the workout, because she's already done it. Working out in the morning is not only beneficial in terms of more energy throughout the day, but it also removes the pressure to do the workout and eliminates the opportunity to skip the training. The longer you wait to do the workout, the greater your chances are of not going. After two weeks Teresa realized that working out in the morning was the best thing to do. Why? Because the last time she missed a workout was 4 weeks ago, and that way only because she was out the night before. She thought she would end up with less energy, but the opposite came true. Pick the Smartest Diet Approach for Successful Weight Loss For the diet we usually don't give any specific rules, just one rule - you gotta eat less calories than you burn in order to lose fat. However, there are a few things that can help you with it. One of those is making smarter choices that have fewer calories - fruits and vegetables. Especially vegetables are very dense and filling and have almost no calories at all and if you are a good cook you can make some tasty meals. That's what Teresa did, she chose a diet that consisted mostly of vegetables and lean protein rather than burgers and refined products. There is really nothing wrong with eating "processed" stuff, but they aren't volume food, they have a lot of calories and won't satisfy a lot. Food Is Just Like Alcohol, It Connects People... In times past Teresa weighed 118 pounds, then she got married and had her first child. She started getting away from the health and lean ideal and began to gain a couple of pounds. She gained 69 pounds after her first child and never lost it all. She also revealed to us that it was very uncomfortable and that there was a lot of pressure on the back. After a second child she gained 72 pounds and again, never lost it all. When she started the VI contest she was already dieting for the past 4 years, but just like she said, she was never truly focused on getting it off, she had some progress and then was stuck at 170 for a really long time. The contest helped her focus, she had a deadline to shoot for, it's more serious when you take pictures, and compete. It's no longer just dieting for the sake of dieting and maybe losing some weight,
