Wow! I took second!

It's still hard for me to believe. I actually placed in the Transformation Contest. I was so happy to finally finish a workout program and get control of my eating and my weight, that being chosen as one of Craig's final 8 in the contest was like icing on the cake. Now that the votes are all counted, I actually won 2nd place overall!

I'm still in shock. I want to thank Craig for his great fat burning workouts and want to thank all the people in the TTmembers.com forums who were there to give me encouragement on tough days and kick my butt when I needed it.

Social support is such a huge key when it comes to changing your body. I've always had great support at home from my family (well, except my grandma.. I'll have to mention that below), but this contest was what spurred me on when I was ready to give up. An encouraging word from someone who knows what you're going through, who is on the same journey as you, is huge, even if that person is just a name and face who lives halfway across the world. In the last TT contest, people were from 5 continents:

Some of my most frequent supporters were from New Zealand, England, Germany, and several states across the US.

Craig is starting a new TT Transformation Contest on May 1st! This could be your chance to burn fat, add muscle, and look great for the pool or beach this summer. Details will be coming soon on his blog.

The competition will be tougher this time around, but all that's going to do is raise your motivation level. You will rise to the level of your competition. Buy Turbulence Training today, and get started on your own transformation. Don't wait to look at the final pictures in 12 weeks and wonder if you could have made the same transformation. You can. But you have to get started.

Click Here to order Turbulence Training and get started on your journey!

The 12 Rules of Nutrition

While I was doing the Turbulence Training transformation contest, here are the 12 rules I tried to follow. These are the 12 things that I've tried to put into practice from all the reading I've done. They are all pretty much common sense, and most come directly or indirectly from Dr. Mohr's guidelines, which you receive as a bonus when you buy Turbulence Training. Be sure to read the manual for more details. Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritional expert, I just play one on the internet. These guidelines worked for me and the other 44 people who finished their 12 week Transformation.

1) Don't drink your calories. No sodas or juices. An exception to this rule would be a protein shake or chocolate milk after a workout. Also - remember that alcohol has calories, so cutting it out should speed up your fat loss.

2) Don't eat processed foods. If it comes from a box, don't eat it. If it has more than 5 ingredients, don't eat it.

3) Get your carbohydrates from natural sources. Oatmeal. Lots of veggies. Fruits. You can eat whole grains and whole wheat pastas, but try to get the majority of your carbs from sources other than bread/pasta/rice. And don't eat any refined flour products. Period.

4) No sugar. Seriously. Get rid of it. If you need to sweeten your tea or coffee, use stevia (a natural sweetner) or, if you must, splenda or aspertame. If you have a sweet craving, eat some fruit, or go with a handful of walnuts and raisins. (if you want the perfect ratio of walnuts to raisins, you'll need to join the TTMembers.com forum and ask RobB). (remember that your purchase of Turbulence Training comes with a free 3 month membership to the forums)

5) Eat protein with every meal. Beef, chicken, fish, pork, lamb, veal, elk, whatever.

6) Track your calories on Fitday or Calorieking for at least a week. Find out how much you are eating. If you aren't losing weight or inches, eat less.

7) Fats are good for you. Don't believe the hype about how they increase cholesterol and make you fat. They are an essential component to your fat loss.

8) Be at least 90% compliant. If you eat healthy 90% of the time, you can be lax about the other 10%. But try to limit yourself to one "reward" meal (not "cheat" meal) a week.

9) Take fish oil or fish oil capsules. Try to get 1.5g of EPA and DHA (Omega 3 fatty acids) daily. This will help your health and some studies have shown it increases your weight loss. But it's just important to take for health reasons.

10) Remember that each meal presents a new choice. You can choose to eat according to your plan, and get one step closer to your goal, or choose to not eat according to plan, and get one step further away. Fat loss is nothing more than a long string of good choices. If you blow it one meal and have an entire pizza with a bag of Doritos and wash it down with a 2L Mountain Dew, don't think that just because you ate more calories than the a small 3rd world nation, your whole day is shot so ya might as well knock back a quart of Coldstone icecream. Get back on track with the next meal.

11) Get rid of all your junk food. Give it away. Stock up with the foods you plan to eat. If it's not in the house, you can't eat it. Good for junk food. On the same note, though, if you don't have good food in your house, you can't eat it. You'll be more likely to go out and get a "healthy" fast food. Which isn't as healthy as you think. And sitting at the drive thru window, what sounds better. A McSalad with low-fat dressing and day old chicken, or a fresh, juicy Big Mac and fresh, hot french fries? Yeah, I thought so. So stock your fridge!

12) Finally, you didn't get overweight overnight. Likewise, you aren't going to lose all the fat overnight. Fat loss, done properly, takes time. Follow these principles, make them your new eating habits, follow the Turbulence Training workouts, and you'll burn the fat.

Vote for me!

Well, I made the cut! Craig Ballantyne (author of Turbulence Training) narrowed down the Transformation Contest to the final 8 contestants, and I am one of them. Now it's down to a vote for the winner, kinda like Turbulence Training Idol!

If you all could head on over to www.TransformationContest.com and vote for me, that would be great!

The Start of My Journey to Finding my Abs..

12 weeks ago, I was nearly 34 pounds heavier. I was 271 pounds, the heaviest I’d ever been in my life. I felt fat. My XL clothes were tight, and I had just bought size 40 jeans (a first in my life). Despite all this, I didn’t do anything about it, until my 3 year old son asked me why I had “big boobies.” I can’t think of a more embarrassing question a son can ask his Dad.

I have three kids, and my oldest is only 4 years old, so I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to getting in shape. I thought it took 90 minutes a day, 6 days a week to get into shape. In addition, I’ve never been able to stick with a nutrition or workout plan for longer than a month. Then I read about Turbulence Training

I found great support from Craig and the rest of the great people in the TTMembers.com forums. As I progressed further into my 12-week transformation, I found that my body was losing fat extremely quickly, but more importantly, my mindset was changing. I found myself looking forward to the workouts, and looking forward to eating good foods.

I never worked out more than 3 days a week. In fact, I had overworked myself at the beginning, and worked out only once in the first 18 days of the contest, and it showed: I only lost 2 pounds. For the last 66 days, I really started following the Turbulence Training program to the letter, and ended up losing 32 pounds in that time.

This is the first time in my life I feel like I am in decent shape. Before the contest, I couldn’t do any chinups, now I can do almost 4. Before, I had trouble bench pressing 55lb dumbbells. Now, I use 75lb dumbbells. Finally, the bodyweight 200 circuit that I did as my first TT workout took me nearly 30 minutes to complete, and made me feel like I was about to die afterward. Today, I did the exact same workout in under 13 minutes, and felt ready to do another couple rounds.

Turbulence Training works. I am proof of that. But I’m also proof that it only works if you put the principles into practice. Once I read the book, I intellectually knew how I could lose fat. Now that I’ve followed the program, I know how to lose fat.

Here are the results from my first 12-week transformation contest.