Burn the Fat Holiday Challenge 2012

I've been on the free email list of Tom Venuto's Burn The Fat Inner Circle since 2010. As soon as it released, I purchased his print book for "regular" folks, The Body Fat Solution. His flagship offering is the more expensive e-book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, along with a paid members-only forum a the Inner Circle website. He offers two contests each year to Inner Circle members, the 90-day Summer Challenge and the 49-day Holiday Challenge. There are multiple prizes offered for different category winners, the grand prize typically a trip to Maui. Each year I've watched the contests go by as I was pregnant in 2010 and "too busy" to workout afterward.

On-and-off had been my exercise mode for years. Prior to 2004 it was nonexistent. That's when I began dating Bodybuilding Boy. I was always a bookworm and though I loved the outdoors, I preferred to read there rather than play. I mean, I was thin. What was the point of exercise? Well, now I know the point but that's a topic for another day. Bodybuilding Boy gave me some of his mom's old Gilad VHS tapes and wrote up a routine for me to follow that nearly killed me. Not a great way to start. Throughout my pregnancies and in-between,I've been looking for a routine I can actually enjoy and stick with, and I think I found it.

I learned much through Tom's book and web articles, so this year I decided to give it a shot and go for the "Holy Grail" nomination, to build as much muscle as possible while burning fat. This is much harder than just dropping weight. What I learned over those 7 weeks was priceless and I am going to share that on this blog. The verdict still isn't out yet on that nomination -- it's announced tomorrow. But I am proud of what I've done so far. And in the two weeks since contest end, I have continued to improve. That's the best part.

contest before-after