Summary: Today we have an interview with Judy Rabil who placed 6th in our latest Venus Index Transformation Contest. Check out her pictures: Judy spent an entire decade doing martial arts. She also trained bodybuilding and powerlifting style with her sister. Her approach was to first learn to stabilize the joints, then work on the strength followed by developing explosive power. She naturally has great endurance, but very little strength, however, her sister was stronger than anyone she knew. She was so powerful that all the guys in the gym felt weak when they saw Judy's sister, and Judy was often intimidated by her. On the other hand when it came to cardio she could go run a marathon, while her sister could barely run a mile. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. When her sister got injured and was unable to work out, Judy also stopped training because her sister was her coach. Judy decided to focus on Martial Arts without the supplement of strength training. She was intimated to go the gym on her own, her coach just wasn't there with her anymore and she wasn't ready to go it alone. However, she started getting injured during her martial arts workouts (broken bones and tendons) and felt terrible. One day she decided to stop, she walked out and never went back. "Then I Found Venus Index Podcasts at iTunes..." Before, Judy would wake up and go to bed in pain. At no point during the day did she experience relief. This is a terrible way to live, and if you can relate, you should continue reading and listen to her interview. Judy is in her 40s and truth be told, at this age your body just doesn't heal as quickly as it did in your teens and twenties. In January 2008 she slowly made her way back to the gym, which was pretty hard because she was conditioned (for well over 10 years) to exercise with other people, never alone. Upon her return to the gym scene, she fell in love with yoga and the group setting of it all, but found out that she just couldn't do the same routines over and over again even though they were perfectly balanced. Then she saw the VI podcasts at iTunes and specifically one called "Overestimating calories" caught her attention. Judy always thought that she burned plenty of calories during her workouts and never limited what she ate. Since she was doing a LOT of activity she believed she could get away with eating ice cream and fries whenever she wanted. So when she stopped doing all her fitness activities, and her calorie intake remained the same, you can guess what the result was - weight gain. At that point she felt miserable. And it didn't help that she thought (and was always told by her sister) that she needs to eat, often and a lot. She was lead to believe that she needs to eat snacks, pre-workout and post-workout meals, because they are all necessary. This is why she got a bit angry when she heard Barban saying that this approach is nuts and that you don't need to eat at all and actually you should eat very little to begin with. Although Judy was very insecure about her diet, she slowly realized she should and actually even COULD eat way less than she was used to, and that it's okay to eat half of a candy bar and then throw the other half away; furthermore, she doesn't have to eat in the morning if she doesn't want to. Then another surprise came with the Venus Index workout plans. She was always used to do bodybuilding splits and performing them at very low repetitions. Suddenly, she wasn't doing any leg presses, pull ups, dips with chains; no more power movements. At first it made her a bit concerned that the workout wouldn't work for her, because she is simply not doing enough work. However, despite her skepticism she gave it a shot. She did the program exactly as it was written,held onto some yoga and some spinning routines and committed to training 7 days a week. During phase 1 of VI she got sick, had no energy and felt bloated.
