The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (5 page)

Myth #8: Exercising makes you tired and exhausts your body
. If you’re feeling too tired to exercise, it’s most likely because you’re just bored. Get up and start moving and you’ll be surprised when you feel a surge of energy!

Myth #9: You don’t need to work out if you’re already in great shape or if you’re still young
. Despite fitness level and age, you can always manage to take care of yourself, and there’s always room for improvement. Think of it as an insurance policy of sorts!

Myth #10: There’s not enough time to exercise if you’re working full-time
. Even if you’re feeling like your work schedule leaves you with no time to exercise, keep in mind that exercising can actually improve your work performance. Incorporating 30 minutes into your daily schedule for working out will be well worth it as exercise has been proven to elevate mood, which naturally leads to far better results and more productivity in the work place. Take a look at our 14-Day Rapid Body Sculpting Workout.

Myth #11: The gym is intimidating!
The gym actually intimidates more people than you think. Even those so-called “gym rats” don’t always feel confident. Any time you’re feeling nervous about being in the gym, remember that you’re in there to do a job and you owe it to yourself to conquer your fears by facing them head on! Motivate yourself by thinking about the fact that you’re doing what most people won’t do or don’t think they have time to do. It’s all about getting in great shape by doing what you gotta do!

Myth #12: The gym is crowded, dirty, and it’s just not for me!
If you really don’t like the gym, build one in your own home—it’s not as difficult as you would think. All you need is a pair of adjustable dumbbells. This is all the equipment that many of our Body Sculpting Programs require. If you want to get more fancy, you can get a weight bench as well. Remember: It’s quality, not quantity that matters. You can still get a great workout with very little equipment.

Myth #13: If you’ve failed once, you’re doomed to fail again
. The first step in conquering past failures is to stop blaming yourself. Chances are, if you didn’t stick to the plan, it’s likely because the plan just wasn’t right for you. Be sure to set realistic goals & outcomes for yourself and write down your short-term, mid-term & long-term goals. This will make a world of difference! Take a look at our Goal Setting Section on
this page
for help with this.

Myth #14: You need to give all of your attention to your family, which leaves no time for working out
. If you don’t start taking care of yourself, you won’t be able to care for your family and they may even end up having to take care of you! Giving yourself the time to exercise and stay healthy doesn’t mean you’re being selfish. In fact, the healthier you are, the better equipped you will be to care for the people you love.

Myth #15: It’s impossible to find the time to work out if you have a baby
. Consider bringing your baby with you–many gyms and health clubs now have child-care services. If your gym doesn’t offer this service, find a friend or family member to baby-sit for an
hour or so while you work out. You can make it work if you really want to.

Myth #16: You need to stretch before training with weights
. Not necessarily. You should not do any static stretching (also known as isometric stretching, in which you hold the stretch for a certain amount of time) before weight training. This actually sends a signal to the muscles that they should relax, which is the last thing you want your muscles doing before a set of exercises. You should instead be using dynamic stretches, which warm and ready the muscles for the upcoming workload by performing active stretches with no holding point. You can also prepare the muscles for the lifting activity by performing the actual weight training movement that you are about to perform, using either light weight or no weight.

UNNECESSARY GADGETS

Let’s talk about all of the exercise contraptions we see on TV. First of all, why do we need to pay over $80 to perform an abdominal crunch? The abdominal crunch is perhaps the most inexpensive and simple exercise there is to target the abdominal muscles. Do we need a machine to help us do it? We think not!

Ads for such gadgets promise abs in minutes a day. But did you ever read the fine print on the TV screen? It usually reads that the statements are true as long as you combine the exercise with a sensible diet—which brings us to the next point. You do not need to enslave yourself everyday to hours of abdominal work—only 5 to 10 minutes of ab work is sufficient. What really brings out the definition in your midsection is a sensible nutritional program and aerobic exercise. Combined, these components burn fat in order for your definition to appear. The abdominal work only builds the muscle covered by the fat. Besides, there is no way in which you can only reduce the fat in one section (spot reduction) without reducing it in the rest of your body.

Once again why do we need to purchase an ab machine? To avoid neck strain? If you don’t know what you are doing you can strain your neck with or without the machine.

Unless you are recovering from a back injury and are not yet strong enough to do a crunch by yourself, save your hard-earned dollars for more meaningful things. All you need to perform an abdominal crunch is the floor and the proper instruction on how to execute the exercise correctly.

CELLULITE CREAMS

We have all seen commercials that promise to eliminate cellulite by rubbing the latest cream discovered in some secret tree in God-knows-where. At Custom Physiques we have talked with many women who have used such products with no results. Good luck finding any real scientific research that proves these products work. Again, save your hard-earned money.

The only thing that eliminates cellulite from your body is a systematic approach to eliminating fat through the nutritional practices we describe along with a training routine that is designed to tone and eliminate body fat from all angles. That is the only way that the battle against cellulite can be won. Don’t let anybody mislead you.

WEIGHT LOSS CLINICS

Why pay others every month to tell you what to do when you are fully capable of figuring out what to do yourself after reading this book? We have seen what most weight loss clinics offer
and we are not impressed! Not only do you have to pay an unbelievable fee (sometimes on a monthly basis) to get a diet that may not be as efficient as it could be (most of these programs are low protein diets); some require you to buy special foods (provided by them, of course, on top of the initial fee). Others charge you by the pounds you lose. Hey, what a concept! You do the work and you get to pay someone else for your success!

DRUGS FOR WEIGHT LOSS

If what you want is health and permanent weight loss, don’t touch any kind of weight loss drugs. Many are very dangerous (remember Phen-Fen?) and can cause serious side effects such as heart problems and possibly death. Besides, once you stop using them you begin to gain all of the weight back. So what’s the use? People criticize bodybuilders for using steroids and everybody preaches about their dangers. Well, using weight loss drugs (and this includes those formulas that claim to be natural but contain ephedrine) is exactly the same thing! There is nothing different here; it’s using dangerous drugs in order to achieve a pleasing cosmetic effect.

When Phen-Fen came out people flocked to their doctors in order to get a prescription. Unfortunately, many were given the drug despite the fact that research indicated that this drug combination had some serious side effects. So after a few people got rich off it, the drug was pulled from the market. However, the damage was already done.

The only solid and safe solution that takes the weight off permanently is the correct combination of diet, exercise and rest. Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is full of it! Therefore, once again, save your money, but more importantly, save your health. Stay off the drugs.

FAQ:

What if one of these weight loss clinics actually motivates me to lose weight and keep me on track to meet my goals?

ANSWER:

By all means, if you find that you just can’t stick to the program and need an outside source to keep you afloat, do what you need to do. We would like to think that anyone can stick to this program and motivate themselves to excel. However, life can sometimes get the best of us. If you find yourself needing additional support, do what you need to keep on your journey. Your health is with the extra money, don’t you agree?

THE MOST COMMON DIETER’S MISTAKE: LESS IS BETTER

When people think of a diet they think of pain, hunger, and food deprivation. At first, most dieters reduce their food intake dramatically and see that in the first week they lose around ten pounds of weight. They say, “Great! In order to lose more weight I need to eat less.” After a few weeks they notice that they are not losing as fast as they had hoped. Frustrated, they start to starve themselves even more. Before we continue, let’s stop right here and explain what is going on inside the body.

The first week the person will lose weight as the metabolism gets shocked by the lessened food intake. However, most of the weight lost is derived from water with only three to four pounds coming from fat. The second week the body, still not adjusted to the shock, continues to lose weight (though not as fast as the first week). By the third week the body begins to take counter measures in order to adjust to the lowered caloric intake. Think about it, what do you do when your light bill goes up? You probably begin to save electricity in order to save money. The body is just like you. When it sees that its metabolic costs are too high (in other words, losing fat because the metabolism is too high), then it decides to save energy and lowers the metabolism in an attempt to keep the fat on. Therefore, the person experiences a slowdown in weight loss or just comes to a standstill. The way you save electricity is by turning appliances off, etc. The way your body saves energy is by losing muscle, because muscle is the most expensive tissue to maintain.

FAQ:

Isn’t bulimia a problem that only females can get?

ANSWER:

Whenever I tell someone that I was bulimic, they are shocked and say that they never knew that a man could have such a disorder. The truth of the matter is that there are many men who are bulimic. You’d be surprised if you knew how many athletes–and average men–binge and purge. Men are very good at keeping to themselves. We are also not as likely to ask for help as our female counterparts.

Bulimia is not a gender specific disease; it is a problem that exists for us all. Please be advised that bulimia is a deadly eating disorder, and if you are bulimic or have ever considered binging and purging, your life is at serious risk. There is no part-time bulimia; if you think that binging and purging once in a while is okay, you’re dead wrong. The effects of disturbing your digestive and nervous systems in such a way will add up and inevitably will catch up with you in ways that you’d rather not experience. Please educate yourself on its perils, and please feel free to email me, James Villepigue, for support:
[email protected]
. I’ve been there.

So by looking at the scenario above, let’s see what may happen to someone (we’ll call her Denise) who is determined to lose weight but does not know how to go about doing so.

As Denise notices that her weight loss comes to a sudden halt, she decides to reduce her caloric intake further. For the first few weeks this in fact works, but afterwards the weight loss comes to a standstill again. After a few cycles of the same thing, Denise continues to spiral downward. At this point most people (99 percent) just forget about the diet and start eating everything in sight. They gain back all of the weight and then some (remember it will be easier for them to gain weight now because they lowered their metabolism by using the wrong dieting practices). However, there is a very determined one percent of dieters who will not give up.

These people continue the cycle described above. They begin to look pale and feel cold. They are hungry all the time but deny it. Sometimes they go without food or water for the whole day. They look at themselves in the mirror and they still see themselves fat, even though everyone tells them that they are already skinny (very skinny). They are afraid to drink water because they think water will make them gain weight. This condition is called anorexia nervosa, a condition that I (Hugo) suffered from in my early teens.

People with this condition are not totally crazy in seeing themselves as fat. Even though they look very skinny in clothes, if you take their fat percentage you will probably see that it is around 20-30 percent. Anorexics had an original ideal physique in mind that was toned, hard and firm. In the hopes of attaining this physique they continue on their downward spiral.
However, they never seem to achieve what they want so they figure that the answer is fewer calories. See how the cycle is created?

The only cure for conditions like this is education. We remember that when we used to be overweight everybody used to tease us, poke fun at us and tell us to stop eating. People treated us as if we were diseased. Therefore, we decided to take action and started doing what people told us to: “Stop eating!”

However, the only solution for losing weight (fat) and keeping it off, while at the same time building a lean and hard physique, is eating the correct combinations of food, along with doing weight training and aerobic exercise. So please, never fall into the trap of thinking that eating less will get you good results!

BULIMIA