The secret to achieving your weight loss goals

Whilst a lot of time and effort is put into the physical fitness and nutritional aspect of losing fat, often very little if any time is set aside to work on developing and maintaining a good strong and focused mindset.

Having the right mindset and setting aside regular time to work on and improve your mental state with regard to your fitness and health goals is essential to maintaining consistency and 'sticking' with it. It is essential to helping you through the tough times and to helping you refocus and get back into it when things don't go quite to plan rather than giving up.

Aside from the practical benefits of the planning and preparation process mentioned in an earlier post, it is also part of my 'mental fitness' program. It helps to create top of mind awareness so I don't 'forget' what I am trying to achieve. During the days that lead up to the start of the challenge, I try to dedicate time each day (doesn't always happen!) to work on my planning and preparation which keeps me thinking about my goals and helps build up excitement and commitment.

Other things that help prepare me mentally are talking to people about what I am doing (plus that adds an extra touch of accountability!), thinking about things as I drive to and from work and reading information about nutrition and fitness. Probably the best and most effective way to prepare yourself mentally is to find a nice quiet place and spend a few moments just sitting, thinking and visualising yourself doing your exercises, saying no to some yummy food that you ordinarily would find hard to resist or looking great in your favourite pair of jeans.

It is amazing how much it helps just writing posts for my blog, or writing in my journal in the TT member area or talking to other members of TT online. I also collect motivational literature and subscribe to a number of free newsletters that always have inspirational and motivational stuff in them. Every thing that I do that is related to my fitness and weight loss goals helps to prepare me mentally. Recently I became part of the Magic100 community which has also played a huge part in ensuring I maintain focus on my goals. I will talk more about Magic100 in future posts. If you are interested in finding out more now go to the Magic100 website. In brief, the Magic100 is the best goal setting process I have ever come across and believe me, I searched high and low for a great goal setting process that would work for me. If you are sick and tired of drifting aimlessly and never really achieving the things that you want to then I highly recommend the Magic100.

Having and maintaining the right mindset is so very important to your ongoing success. In the past this area was overlooked in the various fitness programs that were available. I was never taught this at any of the gyms I belonged to. No one really discussed it at all. That is not the case now. Any good fitness program will have information on goal setting and other areas related to getting yourself in the right place mentally.

I know it works and I know it HAS to be an ongoing commitment - a lifestyle thing. The moment I stop paying attention to my mental fitness when it comes to my weight loss goals, my willpower and focus start to leave me. It doesn't happen suddenly - it happens over several weeks, but eventually I end up going right back to my old habits once again.

Do some research. Find out ways that you can work on your own mental fitness to develop strength and commitment to reach your goals.

And the winner is...

Find out tomorrow night! Craig is announcing the winner of the first Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge tomorrow sometime so I will post here when I know. Very exciting.

Preparation for the next TT Challenge

The countdown is on! Only 15 days to go until the Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge starts.

As I have mentioned previously, preparation and planning is a big piece of the puzzle in achieving your goals, especially weight and fitness goals. If you don't have everything planned prior to starting your fitness program it is easy to find excuses not to take the steps you need to to reach your goals. You may not have had a chance to buy your Swiss ball on the day you start and find you can't do those Swiss ball crunches so use that as an excuse 'to start next week when you get the Swiss ball' or not do your cardio workout because it is raining and you have not planned ahead for what cardio you are going to if you don't want to go outside in bad weather. In the past I have tended to use the smallest excuse not to do things - all because I have not planned well in advance.

The past couple of weeks I have been thinking about my plan of attack for the next challenge and for the next two weeks I will start to take action towards preparing for the challenge.

Some of the things I will be doing in preparation for the next Turbulence Training Challenge include;

• Plan what I need to plan! I keep a list and add to it when I think of things


• Choose which Turbulence Training exercise programs I am going to do for the entire 12 weeks


• Update and print the workout sheets for each program and put them in my workout folder. I recreated and customised the workout sheets in the TT manual so I now have an electronic version of them which I update each time I change my program


• Set up my excel spreadsheet with all the correct dates etc. I have an excel spread sheet which I use to record my progress on a weekly basis (fat loss, measurements, weight etc) and daily basis (calories, breakdown of carbs/protein/fat, how I am feeling physically and mentally, a bit about my day, what goals I have achieved, how long it took to do my workout etc


• Read through each workout and study the videos of them from the TT member area to make sure I know how to do each exercise properly. I will practice any exercise I need to to ensure I know how to do them properly so I avoid injuring myself and so I get the most out of the exercise... yep, I will watch myself in a mirror!


• Decide on my nutrition plan, read any material I need to to familarise myself with the plan and make a list of any additional food I need to get prior to starting the program


• Start thinking about and writing down my goals for the challenge


• Decide what days, what time etc I am going to do my workouts. I am usually a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday in the morning girl. I am flexible with this though - just as long as I get the three workouts done each week


• Make sure I have all the fitness clothes and shoes that I need.


• Read through my motivational literature each day to start getting my mind focused. I have a folder in my computer where I put motivational quotes, articles and stories that I come across each day.


• Try to get as many 'jobs' out of the way so I can put my focus and energy into the challenge as much as possible


• Decide how I am going to approach the journal side of the TT challenge. One of the requirements of entering the challenge is that you must make journal entries in the TT Transformation Challenge forum. In the last challenge I made the commitment to write something everyday which really helped me keep on track. This time I may reduce that to a minimum of once a week as I now also have my blog to update. Still deciding.


• Start building up my fitness and strength so I can hit the challenge running! During the last challenge I had just had a long holiday and was pretty unfit. It took me five to six weeks to start building up my strength and fitness. In hindsight, I wish I had started doing some walking and gentle exercise for few weeks before had... well, actually I wish I had done this for the past 20 years then I wouldn't be Mrs Blobby now!

These are just some of the things I will be doing in the next few weeks. Because this is my second challenge I have a lot of things already in place but there is still a lot to do if I want to make sure I am as successful as I can be in achieving my goals. This may seem like an overkill to some of you 'spur of the moment' people who think planning and preparation is a big fat waste of time. If you are considering doing this challenge then you are obviously not in the shape you want to be in and you might want to have a think about why this is!? Could it be because you have not prepared and planned enough in the future?

!!!!NEWS FLASH!!! The eight finalists have been chosen!

Craig and his team have made the first difficult decision towards finding the winner of the 2008 Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge. They have narrowed it down to eight finalists. It is now up to us to vote for who we think should be the overall winner.

If you want to see these amazing transformations, read about the journey each finalist went on during the past 12 weeks and make your vote CLICK HERE.

Why doing the TT Transformation Challenge helped me to reach my goal

Where do I start! There are so many reasons why taking part in the Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge really helped me keep on track and get the results that I did. Here are some of them:

Made me accountable for my actions

We were required to post a regular journal of our experiences on the TT Transformation Challenge forum. I set a number of goals right at the start and one of those was that I would make an entry every single day of the Challenge, this included recording how many calories I had for the day and a break down of the percentage of carbohydrates, protein and fat I had for the day (another goal I set was to have 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat).

I also made a commitment not to be totally honest about my food in my journal. This was a really great incentive to eat healthily! There were so many times when I felt like a 'treat' and then remembered that I would have to tell everyone on the forum about it. The urge to eat the naughty food very quickly went!

Gave me the opportunity to learn from others

What I found interesting was that even though we were all from different parts of the world, different walks of life, male and female, we all seemed to have similar challenges. Hearing how another member dealt with yummy temptations with friends at a lunch date helped me when I faced a similar challenge a few days later.
There were days when I felt tired or a bit down, or was sick or injured and negative thoughts would creep into my mind. I would get home from work, check the forum and there waiting for me, would be amazing comments of support and encouragement from everyone.

It was helpful seeing what other people ate and how they approached the nutrition side of things. It was also great to be able to talk about the various exercises to make sure I was doing them correctly.

Gave me the opportunity to help others

It was great to be able to help others a little to achieve their weight loss goals as well. I know how much being overweight can impact on so many other areas of a person’s life and how hard it can be to lose that weight. I also know that more often than not most people who have put on weight are dealing with other underlying issues in their lives which makes committing to a healthy fitness and nutrition plan that much harder. Any help, even if it is just a little encouraging comment here and there, can make a difference.

Enabled me to have direct contact with Craig Ballantyne, the creator of the Turbulence Training system, whenever I needed to
Usually the author or creator of this type of program remains an illusive mystery. Not Craig. He was absolutely amazing at keeping up with how we were all doing and posting encouraging comments along the way. It was hard enough for me to find time to keep in touch with the small group of people I became friends with during the challenge, let alone every single participant. I think for the next one he is going to need to employ a mini-Craig! I am sure everyone will understand.

Gave me the extra motivation to get through the more difficult times I had during the challenge

I entered this challenge to help me get back into the habit of exercising regularly and to lose some weight. It was never my intention to 'compete' to win. Committing to the challenge, knowing that it was something official and knowing that friends and family were aware I was doing the challenge made me keep going in situations where ordinarily I definitely would have stopped and said I was going to 'start again on Monday' and 'Monday' may never have arrived.
Enabled me to learn so much about myself
For every kilogram (or pound!) I lost, I gained much more in the way of self-awareness, self-discipline and insight into who the real me is now.

As I said at the beginning, there are so many reasons why doing a challenge like this helped me get started on the road to reaching goals in so many areas of my life. Too many to list them all here!

Why I think TT is the best fat loss system I have ever used

The best way to lose fat is by doing resistance type exercises so that you build muscle, increase your metabolism and therefore burn more fat. Building muscle doesn't mean getting big and bulky - unless that is what you want to do! Cardio is another important aspect of burning fat. I have tried many different ways to burn fat, gain muscle and improve my fitness over the years.

All of the programs I have tried in the past have required a minimum of three day a week, 45 to 60 minute resistance training workouts and at least four day a week long, slow boring cardio sessions. That has meant I have had to commit to exercising six days a week. I can do that for a short period of time but after a month or so I would start skipping workouts. I would begin to feel as though I was 'failing' and eventually I would lose motivation and give up. During the entire 12 weeks of the Turbulence Training Challenge I only missed five workouts, three when I was really sick and two when I was injured! I was also unwell throughout most of the challenge and had to deal with a number of personal issues. In the past this would have been enough to make me give up on whatever workout program I was doing. Because I only had to exercise three times a week it was easy to push myself to do them.

There are a lot of other activities that I enjoy doing such as walking, jogging, yoga, gardening, swimming... and well too many to list here! In the past I have never had the time or the energy to do any of these things when involved in a workout program. Now I have a whole four other days to do these things if I want to!

Craig does all the work in putting the programs together and all I have to do is do them. This leaves me free to focus totally on the nutrition side of things, which is a big enough challenge as I LOVE food!

Because new workouts are being introduced all the time and each workout is for only four weeks, I never get bored with them.

Using a workout system that is online gives me the freedom and flexibility to do what I want when I want to. I don't have to commit myself to being anywhere at a certain time or 'talk' about what I am doing if I don't feel like it.

Tomorrow I am going to tell you why I found taking part in the Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge was so helpful in achieving the results I have in the past 12 weeks.

What is Turbulence Training?

Ok. So there is the most painful part of this blog over and done with - my before and after pics are posted! This is the fat loss I achieved in 12 weeks, exercising only three days a week, for under an hour each day! Even more amazing, I was not very well through most of the the 12 weeks and therefore my self discipline with food and nutrition was not as good as it could have been. Today I am going to give you an overview of what Turbulence Training is.

What is Turbulence Training?

Turbulence Training is a workout system put together by Craig Ballantyne. The workouts are designed to achieve maximum fat loss and/or muscle gain in the minimum amount of time. They are varied, easy to follow, versatile and they work!

What do the workouts involve?

The workouts are a combination of resistance training and cardio.

There are workouts suitable for doing from home with minimum equipment (swiss ball, bench and dumbbells), others perfect for those of you who have absolutely no equipment or are on holiday, and all of the workouts are fine to use if you are a member of a gym.

How many times a week are the workouts done and how long are they?

Most of the workouts are completed only THREE times a week and are only 45 minutes long!

Final day of the Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge!

Yayyyy! I am so happy and so proud of myself. Today was the last day of the 12 week Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge for me! If someone had told me last year that by this time in 2008 I would have entered and completed a body transformation challenge I would not have believed them. It has been such an amazing experience.

Enough on that for now. I am off to bathe in the great sense of satisfaction that I am feeling right now! Over the coming weeks you will get to hear all about the challenge... and see the dreaded before and after photos!

But wait, there's more! Craig Ballentyne is holding another Turbulence Training Transformation Competition that starts in May. I will be posting more details on this next week. As I am only half way to reaching my goal weight I will be joining in with this challenge as well and will be posting most days about my experiences. I can't wait!