Summary: 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: 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.
