You carve your figure with your fork.

In other words:

1)  Body shape is built by challenging the muscle.

2)  Body shape is revealed by creating the body composition necessary to let the shape built in #1 show.  You carve it out with your fork by dietary choices.

Fitness Fantasies will NOT help you

Having a plan, vision, and ideal is one thing. That’s goals, not fantasies.  There is a difference.

It is heartbreaking to see women slave away at their workouts, aspiring to perfection in their technique, yet still not achieving their body shaping goals.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

Working hard in training – your workouts is important for achieving optimal body shaping.  Don’t get me wrong.

But a well trained body carrying extra layers of avoir du pois – fat – is like the light under the bushel.  You may feel it, but you just can’t see it.

Stop looking for the magic workout bullet

If you are wishing and hoping that doing JUST the right exercise in just the right way will be the magic bullet for melting away body fat to reveal your hard-earned muscle, it’s time for a wake-up call.

Yes, it IS a priority when it comes to shaping muscle, protecting your joints, and building beautiful posture along with health and well-being, that you get your exercise forms right.  This isn’t about that.

It’s about that desire for a slim, shapely body which gives you the physical confidence you crave.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this desire and there is also absolutely no reason you need to resign yourself to “healthy at any size” if you don’t want to.

Discipline and commitment

To achieve your ideal, it will take a commitment to your vision and dream.

It will take discipline of diet.

Have you been hammering out workouts for years, hoping it’ll do the trick?

Then it’s time to make a choice.  Get with the program about dietary choices making a difference, or stop torturing yourself.

Vicki’s 20 lb. weight loss?  She got off the fence about diet.

Once you get off the fence about this one, your life will change.  Trust me.

Case in point, Vicki.  Vicki was featured here not long ago with her story of dramatic weight loss:  Vicki’s new attitude;  oh, and she’s down 20 lbs.   Maybe 20 lbs doesn’t sound like dramatic to you, but to Vicki it was.  It was life changing.

Vicki was a guest speaker on recent calls for my Mastermind Group as well as Woman’s Fitness Blueprint, sharing some highlights of her experience with dietary change and weight loss.  Here are some excerpts from the transcript:

Q: Vicki, what was your biggest challenge in making changes, during and after the Woman’s Fitness Blueprint class, that gave you success?

Vicki: Oh, that’s easy.  Changing the way I had to eat. That was my biggest problem area.  Because I thought, if I….well, first of all, I thought that I was just going to really miss junk food.  But, I don’t.  And also it was going to be a big departure from the way everybody around me eats.    I knew that I had to change.  I really had to work through that.  And I knew that if I wanted to get healthy, that had to change.  And when you told me that nutrition was such a huge part of getting healthy and losing weight and feeling good, it just clicked, and I was like, “OK!” That’s the way it has to be!

Q. So what was the biggest change for you?  How did  your eating change?

Vicki: I have gone to eating mostly whole foods.  Lots of veggies, organic, just highly nutritious foods.  Instead of processed foods and junk food, and anything in a box or quick.   It’s been a slow change as I’ve learned new methods, different ways of cooking.  It’s going really well.  I started upping my vegetable counts, and that’s been huge.  So I really recommend that.

Q. Huge in terms of making the whole journey a little easier?  You’re feeling better?

Vicki: It’s been amazing, the energy increase that I’ve had.  I’ve been sleeping better, and my skin is clearing up.  And I KNEW what I had to do to get my skin to clear up.  I knew it was vegetables!

It’s up to you

There is a very small percentage of the population that truly has a metabolic disorder that interferes with weight loss.  And there are those with thyroid issues, deepening the challenge.  But these are not the biggest obstacles to fat loss and achieving desirable weight and body composition goals.

Being trim, fit, strong and energetic are such worthwhile activities for improving the quality of your life.  You CAN have mastery of your dietary choices, and develop the strength of mind to achieve your ideals.

Just remember you can’t out train a bad diet, and you do not,  most likely, have the body of your cousin’s best friend who can eat whatever she wants and still be thin.

Believe me, once I got that – and it took me a long time, my friend – weight loss success was simply a matter of time!  Embrace your success!