Great article -what you SHOULD expect from your efforts

mmtiernan

Today's email article by Tom Venuto is a great read:

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BURN THE FAT Q & A WITH TOM
VENUTO, AUTHOR OF BURN THE FAT
http://www.BurnTheFat.com

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QUESTION: Dear Tom, I read every single word on your website
today - even your "disclaimer" about testimonials from your
contest not being typical results.

You always sign your emails "Expect Success" and I like that,
but this all made me wonder, what SHOULD I expect?
What results can a 54 year-old woman with an office job
who can, at most, devote 1 hour a day to exercise, expect?

A realistic answer, please. I'm overweight and my BMI is
approx 27%. Thank you.

-Sandra

ANSWER: Well first of all, your willingness to do up to
an hour a day of exercise speaks volumes. Most people are
looking for a short cut right out of the gate.

You have an impressive work ethic - and provided your nutrition
is spot on, I believe you can accomplish a lot.

An hour a day by the way - if you mean formal training - is
MORE than enough to make great things happen. In fact, even
for very dedicated trainees, I often say that 5 hours a week
total for all formal training combined can really make things
happen.

I also often say that if you're doing 5 or 6 or thereabouts
hours of training per week, and you're not getting excellent
results, you can rest assured it's not a training problem,
it's a nutrition problem (or failure to comply to a good
nutrition plan you already have).

As for what you can expect - results may vary from person
to person but as the website says, 1 to 2 lbs per week of
fat loss is typical.

One reason it varies is due to body size. Very overweight
individuals can often drop more than 2 lbs per week, sometimes
substantially more. The loss is relative to your starting
weight, so keep that in mind.

The reverse is also true, some people who are down to the last
10 or so, if they're expecting 2 or 3 lbs a week, so as to
hit that goal in only 3 weeks or so, that might not
be realistic. The leaner you are the slower the continued
fat loss usually is.

(on a related side note, that is why most bodybuilders like
myself, only aim to drop about a pound a week before contests-
we don't have all that much left to lose and losing it fast
without losing muscle is difficult to do).

In the first week or two, many people see much faster weight
loss, especially if they decided to reduce the calories in
the form of carbs (carbs cause an extra drop on the scale
from water and glycogen weight).

Do remember though that water wt loss comes right back on
when you rehydrate or carb back up.

So in summary, it's somewhat uncommon for most people to
drop much more than 2.5 to 3 lbs per week of pure fat. If
the body weight loss on the scale is more than that, it's
usually water weight.

Exception: If someone is heavy, then 1% of total body weight
per week is not uncommon.

The important thing we teach in Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
is Body composition, and how your goal is not merely losing
pounds on the scale, but improving your body composition and
transforming your body.

It's not how much you weigh as much as it is what part of
your weight is muscle and what part is fat - that's body
composition.

To manage your expectations, it's also important to know
that almost nobody reaches their long term destination in
a straight line of travel.

Instead, they zig zag their way to their goal, being off
course most of the time, in reality, and simply correcting
course all along the way. As long as you have a clear
destination in sight, it's not difficult to do.

Without clear goals, well, good luck.

The key is the course corrections and the mental attitude
to not lose heart when you are temporarily off course.

If you think about it, an airplane or guided missile or
torpedo is off course most of the time too; but It has a
computer system - a cybernetic mechanism - that realizes when
it is off course, then it zeros Back in on the target and
when using that kind of "feedback loop system", it always
hits its target.

As for the "not typical" results from our body transformation
challenges, yes that is true. I would not promise that anyone
and everyone will get those types of results under normal
circumstances.

"Haters" often show up and say, "steroids, photoshop, blah
blah, blah." But the truth is all the transformation photos
we have ever published are real and legit and the results
occured in as little as 49 days, just like they say.

But the truth also is, these results can't be expected not only
without very hard work, but also without some special
conditions...

There are 2 things which have produced the exceptional
transformations you see in a lot of our before and afters
and this is quite important, for honesty and for disclosure on
my part - and for you to understand if you want better results.

One is that we run transformation contests with prizes, which
help to increase motivation. You may or may not enter one of
our Challenges, but if you don't, then you have to ask yourself,
"what will MY motivation be?"

The simple way to pull out your motivation is to ask the
questions, 'WHY do I want to archive my Goal? Whats important
to me about achieving my goal? How will my live change when
I achieve this? Why is That important."

Behind every success story is a powerful reason why.

Two is that you can never ever underestimate the negative
influence of toxic people and never underestimate
the power and influence of a positive support group.

The best success stories we've seen took place in our
Burn the fat inner circle support group / forums during
one of our challenges.

The accountability, the support, the friendship, the encouragement,
the camaraderie, has to be experienced to be appreciated.
So if you don't plug in with us, you have to ask yourself
whether you have the support you need in the real world;
Friends, family, workplace.

If you have negativity among co workers or friends, it's a
must to counterbalance that with positive support if you can't
get away from those energy vampires and dream-stealers.

Good news: 1 genuine support partner can counterbalance 10
of those toxic people! :-)

I truly believe that if you have a great program (which MUST
include training and nutrition - NOT just a diet), a goal
with a powerful reason why you want to achieve it and a
strong support system, you cannot fail

You will not only get results, you will dramatically increase
the odds of being one of those success stories with above
average results like the ones you may have seen in our
success story photos and member profiles.

Oh, and last but not least - the 40 to 50-something crowd
has always dominated our contests, so you should never expect
less just because you are over 40 or 50.

See a couple examples here:

Rapid fat loss at any age:
http://www.burnthefat.com/rapid_fat_loss_at_any_age.html (men)

Topt 3 women in our last burn the fat challenge (overall winner - over 40!)
http://www.burnthefatinnercircle.com/public/Burn-the-Fat-2011-Holiday-Challenge-womens-Top-3.cfm

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto,
http://www.BurnTheFat.com

kducky22

Great post. Thanks for sharing!