Drop Two Sizes Read online

  CONTENTS

  FRONT COVER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER 1: THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT

  CHAPTER 2: WHY THIS PLAN WORKS

  CHAPTER 3: GET READY TO DROP TWO SIZES!

  CHAPTER 4: THE WORKOUTS

  CHAPTER 5: THE MENU PLANS

  CHAPTER 6: PHASE ONE

  WORKOUTS

  RAMP

  Strength Workout 1

  Strength Workout 2

  Timed Metabolic Workout

  ROAD MAPS

  WEEK 1 (Days 1-7)

  WEEK 2 (Days 8-14)

  WEEK 3 (Days 15-21)

  WEEK 4 (Days 22-28)

  CHAPTER 7: PHASE TWO

  WORKOUTS

  RAMP

  Strength Workout 1

  Strength Workout 2

  Timed Metabolic Workout

  Complex Metabolic Workout

  ROAD MAPS

  WEEK 5 (Days 29-35)

  WEEK 6 (Days 36-42)

  WEEK 7 (Days 43-49)

  WEEK 8 (Days 50-56)

  CHAPTER 8: PHASE THREE

  WORKOUTS

  RAMP

  Strength Workout 1

  Strength Workout 2

  Complex Metabolic Workout

  ROAD MAPS

  WEEK 9 (Days 57-63)

  WEEK 10 (Days 64-70)

  WEEK 11 (Days 71-77)

  WEEK 12 (Days 78-84)

  CONGRATULATIONS!

  REFERENCES

  COPYRIGHT & CREDITS

  BACK COVER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you . . .

  To the clients of Results Fitness—As a coach, nothing could be more fulfilling than being a part of your journey, coaching you through obstacles and doubts, watching you transform, then being there to experience the moment when you fit into your jeans and your face lights up in disbelief while exclaiming “They fit!” Thank you to every single client with whom I have had the opportunity to work closely. You are my inspiration. I love what I do!

  To the Results Fitness team—Together we accomplished so much more than I ever could on my own. It is so incredible having a team who I consider my family to support me, to bounce ideas off of, to get feedback from, to use as guinea pigs, to learn from, to laugh and have fun with, and to be surrounded by every day—you are the most amazing, positive people. Every single one of you played a role in helping me create this book. A special thank you to Mike Wunsch and Craig Rasmussen, who are the masterminds behind the development of the programs at Results Fitness (including the one in this book) and Donna Bent, who reads everything I ever write (including this book) to make sure I look good. Thank you, team!

  To our Mastermind Coaching Members of Results Fitness University—Many of you ran this exact system and shared the stories of your clients’ successes, helping me to even further mold the plan laid out in this book. Together we are changing the way fitness is done!

  To the fitness industry—There are so many professionals in this industry who have influenced me, guided me, taught me, and inspired me throughout my career. Thank you to all of them for continuing to elevate this industry. A special thank you to Chris Poirier for giving me the opportunity to share my passion on the Perform Better tour; Thomas Plummer for always pushing me to take the next step and encouraging me to put the proposal for this book together; and all of my colleagues, whom I consider friends, for your ongoing influence and support.

  To Dr. Chris Mohr—Thank you for designing such easy-to-follow, delicious, effective menus for this book!

  To Adam Campbell—Thank you for your encouragement and help with the proposal for this book and for the opportunity to shoot my first workout DVDs to go along with it! I really appreciate your support, helping me share what I’m passionate about.

  To Ursula Cary, Jess Fromm, Marilyn Hauptly, Debbie McHugh, Angela Giannopoulos, George Karabotsos, Courtney Eltringham , Laura White, Allison Keane, and the rest of the team at Rodale Books —Thank you for bringing my book to life!

  To Michele Promaulayko and Jen Ator—I’m so proud to have the Women’s Health brand on this book. I love being a part of the WH team and appreciate the platform you give me to share my message with the WH audience.

  To my mom—Thank you for being my best friend, my biggest supporter, and the most amazing mom there is.

  To my dad—Thank you for introducing me to the gym all those years ago, being a strong role model throughout my life and always showing me how proud you are of me, which means more than you know.

  To my grandma, my biggest fan—Thank you for being so much fun to share my accomplishments with. No one shows more excitement than you do!

  To the rest of my family—Heather, Adam, Brent, Derek, Sandy, and, of course, Marie and John—You know me better than anyone and are all a part of my support team.

  To Alwyn—Life is an adventure when you share it with the right person, and I’m having a blast on our adventure together!

  To God—Throughout my life I have always leaned on my faith. I am absolutely blessed.

  —Rachel Cosgrove

  INTRODUCTION

  Was it fairly easy to lose weight in the past, but now you can’t shed a pound? Or worse, the more you try to lose weight, the more you seem to gain? Have you tried everything and still don’t see results? Clients often come to me expressing their frustration that “nothing is working.” They need a different approach to weight loss. And you might, too.

  There may be a few reasons your previous plans haven’t worked for you. After a lifetime of dieting, you have likely lost lean muscle each time you lost weight, slowing down your metabolism and making it harder and harder to see progress. This is especially true if you aren’t seeing results after following low-calorie diets and weight loss plans that may have worked in the past.

  Maybe you need different external feedback to monitor your progress. Up until now the scale has been the indicator of whether your diet or exercise program is working. If the scale doesn’t budge, then you assume that your program must not be working. You think: I’m a failure. This is not true! And this cycle gets you nowhere closer to your goals.

  By staying focused on the scale, you may be afraid of lifting weights and building muscle in fear that you will bulk up. But the fact is that your lean muscle mass, at this point, is most likely way below average. The only way to ever fit into your jeans again is to lift weights and gain lean body mass. This might keep that number on the scale from dropping as much as you are used to, but it will lead to an increased metabolism, which will reverse the damage you have done over a lifetime of dieting and—best of all—will lead to dropping two clothing sizes in just 8 to 12 weeks and completely reinventing your body. Now we’re talking!

  Excited? This is the feeling I want you to experience as you go through this book, which will tell you step by step exactly how to undo any damage from past diet plans and truly transform your body. Starting now, you will end the yo-yo diet trap and finally fit into your hottest wardrobe ever.

  How This Plan Works

  In August of 2009, our team launched a Skinny Jeans Challenge at our gym, Results Fitness, in Southern California. Working closely with our team of trainers, we watched as 20 women lost two jeans sizes in less than 12 weeks (most of them within 8 weeks). We’ve now run this challenge a number of times with consistent results. By following the very same program, you are guaranteed to drop two sizes in less than 12 weeks.

  I have had women all over the United States follow the system and philosophies in this book, and they’ve all dropped two sizes. What’s more, I have had coaches use this system at more than 50 gyms around the world—including gyms and clients in Switzerland, the Virgin Islands, Lebanon, Canada, and England—using this
exact system and achieved the same results each time. This plan works! You’ll read inspiring success stories from women all over the world who, just like you, wanted to transform their bodies—and they did.

  The surprising thing, though, is that although my clients have dropped two sizes—for example, from a size 12 to a size 8—the average weight loss during these challenges has been only 4 pounds on the scale. I have even had a woman gain 2 pounds on the scale over the 12 weeks—and still drop two clothing sizes! My clients are always shocked and happy when they realize the scale no longer works as an indicator of how much fat they have lost.

  Research at the Mayo Clinic published in Obesity Journal in May 2011 shows that weight loss does not equal fat loss. And two recent research studies from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands found clothing size to be an accurate indicator of your risk of health problems and disease. Clothes—not the scale—are the new indicator of health and fitness.

  This book offers a proven, day-by-day solution to drop at least two sizes, fit into your favorite clothes in record time, and be able to maintain the results for the long term. Don’t throw those skinny jeans out yet! Instead, throw out the scale and the fat clothes for good.

  Are you ready to drop two sizes? Read on!

  “The difference is that I didn’t just lose weight and get smaller; I actually changed my body. People don’t ask me if I lost weight—they ask me if I have been working out. I feel empowered!”

  —LISA ROUSSO, DROPPED FOUR SIZES

  If you’re like most women, you probably have three categories of clothing in your closet.

  Your “skinny” clothes, which you refuse to throw out, even though you never wear them

  Your “fat” clothes, which you don’t wear often, but keep around (even though their mere presence makes you so mad at yourself for rebounding from the last diet you were on)

  Your “in-between” clothes, which are probably the clothes you spend the most time wearing (except maybe when you’re feeling bloated after the holidays and pull out your “fat” clothes for a while)

  Throughout your lifetime you have probably yo-yoed up and down, going on and off diets, struggling to be able to throw out all of your fat clothes for good. And the real dream? To one day have only “skinny” clothes in your closet. Sound familiar?

  Does your “skinny” wardrobe include a pair of coveted “skinny” jeans that you now can’t even get over your hips? Maybe one day you’ll fit into them, but it seems so far away from where you are now. Are you wondering if you should give up and throw them out? Hang on!

  A FALSE IDEAL

  If you are, like the average woman, size 10 or above, you have probably been disappointed when shopping because most boutique and high-end fashion clothing stores don’t cater to you. In fashion, size 14 is where plus-size starts, despite it being the size of the “average” woman. A Los Angeles Times article from 2009 titled “Fashion’s Invisible Woman” said it perfectly:

  “When it comes to shopping, the average American man has it made. At 189.8 pounds and a size 44 regular jacket, he can wear Abercrombie & Fitch, American Apparel or Armani. Department stores, mall retailers and designer boutiques all cater to his physique—even when it’s saddled with love handles, a sagging chest or a moderate paunch. In menswear, schlubby is accommodated. But the average US woman, who is 162.9 pounds and wears a size 14, is treated like an anomaly by apparel brands and retailers—who seem to assume that no one over size 10 follows fashion’s capricious trends.”

  In a quest to fit into your skinny jeans and the fashionable apparel at most clothing stores, you may have considered going on a diet or doing whatever will work to look and feel the way you want to. But this “ideal” often leads to disaster. Three out of every four American women between the ages of 25 and 45 report having disordered eating behaviors, according to a survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dieting this way leads to temporary weight loss and a focus on hitting the magic number on the scale. You may have hit this magic number in the past and bought yourself a pair of fashionable jeans in your new size—your “skinny” jeans. The problem is that the majority of the weight loss you achieved was likely from reduced lean muscle mass, the loss of which slows down your metabolism—and keeping your metabolism humming is one of the keys to lasting weight loss.

  You may have been on this roller-coaster ride, even recently, and already gained pounds back at this point, returning to the weight you were originally or even getting heavier. Your size 12 or 14 jeans (now known as your “fat” jeans) may fit even worse because your body is now made up of more fat and less muscle.

  First, know this: You’re not alone. This yo-yo phenomenon is very common among women, and many times the process is repeated over and over for a lifetime. A study conducted in Australia in 2009 suggested that women ages 25 to 45 (most of you reading this book) are at the highest risk of gaining weight, and those with children are at increased risk because of weight gain associated with pregnancy and subsequent lifestyle changes. The study noted that average self-reported weight gain is almost 1½ pounds per year. From 25 to 45, that adds up! The goal of this challenge is to reverse that.

  You may have a number on the scale associated with those skinny clothes, which you have reached before—it’s where you think you have to be in order to look and feel the way you want to. Throughout your lifetime, you may have reached this magic number on the scale more than once by following various crash diets and plans, but each time the results were fleeting, as the pounds slowly crept back on.

  A restrictive diet sets you up to fail. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011 looked at the long-term hormonal effects of weight loss from a low-calorie diet. The results showed the damage was still evident a year later, with a number of hormones still affected, including appetite control hormones. You’ll still feel hungrier and more likely to binge a whole year after you’ve finished your low-calorie diet. It is impossible to maintain your weight loss when your body is fighting you to gain the weight back even a whole year later. A different approach—this one—that includes exercise, fueling your body with the right foods, and not focusing on weight loss will set you up to succeed.

  Every time you’ve reached your magic number on the scale, you have most likely lost muscle, which slows down your metabolism and makes it harder and harder to ever fit into those “skinny” clothes. Each time you crash dieted, you exchanged muscle for fat, changing the way you look for the worse and slowing your metabolism more and more.

  THE EMOTIONAL COST OF DIETING

  Going through these ups and downs not only changes your shape, but it’s also an emotional roller coaster. Each time you gain back the weight, you feel like a failure, and so begins the negative dialogue. I’m a failure. I have no willpower. I’ll never be thin. Beating yourself up does nothing but make your self-esteem plummet, kill your confidence, and cast a hopeless pall on the idea of getting in shape.

  When the scale tops out at your limit (or maybe it’s when you can no longer zip up that trusty black dress), you jump on a crash diet that seemed to work before. You’ll weigh yourself each week, or worse, each day, letting the scale decide whether you will be in a good mood or a bad mood that day. At this point, however, the scale doesn’t budge like it used to, making the entire process more frustrating.

  You may have added exercise into the equation, usually in the form of aerobics, including walking or running, in which calories are burned but lean body mass is not built. Once again, the body will break down muscle as a form of fuel.

  After this cycle of dieting, weight loss, skinny jeans, weight gain, and the return to fat jeans, the average woman is still a size 14 or higher, doesn’t fit into her “skinny” clothes, and has slowed her metabolism down because her lean muscle mass is now practically nonexistent. Now, the same diets that worked before to get into those smaller clothes no longer work. Does this sound like you?

  As the years go by, it gets harde
r and harder to reach this magic number, especially with increasing demands on your schedule, family, career, and other stresses. Your body no longer responds like it used to. Even the strictest diet doesn’t work like it did in the past. This is discouraging, and you may feel like you will never look and feel the way you want to and above all, never fit into your favorite clothes again.

  Why Muscle Matters

  Does adding or losing muscle really affect your metabolism?

  YES! There have been research studies that have shown an increase of anywhere from 6 calories a day up to 50 calories a day burned for 1 pound of muscle added. With the type of strength training programs you'll be doing, you'll notice a boost of closer to 50 calories a day burned per pound of muscle gained, although it makes more sense to look at the body and metabolism as a whole rather than how many calories 1 pound of muscle burns (since it is impossible to use that 1 pound on its own). Researcher Wayne Westcott, PhD, CSCS, instructor in the exercise science department at Quincy College in Massachusetts, wrote an excellent article comparing the different studies that have been done and concluded that the 6-calories-a-day equation is inaccurate and that it could be closer to 35 calories. He showed that with a very basic strength program (not the cutting-edge protocol you'll find in this book), the average person gains about 3 pounds of muscle over 3 months and increases his or her resting metabolism by about 7 percent. With this program I have seen women gain much more than 3 pounds of muscle in 3 months. Their average weight loss is 4 pounds, but they lose 2 clothing sizes—or more!

  THROW OUT THE SCALE!

  Working with hundreds of women over the years, I have realized that women need external feedback when we’re working to transform our bodies. When we look into a mirror, it is very hard for us to see positive changes because we’re usually so focused on our own flaws.

  Research shows that women are much more critical of themselves than men are when it comes to evaluating their own appearance. In fact, statistics have shown that 8 out of 10 women are dissatisfied with their reflections in the mirror, many seeing distorted images of themselves no matter how much they’re changing. (Most women look back at pictures of themselves and simply think, “I was fat,” not, “What a great family vacation. I looked really fit in those hiking shorts!”) Over their lifetimes, since they can’t count on the mirror, women have learned that the scale will tell them if their bodies are changing or not. Women give the scale too much power because it is the only definitive indicator they seem to have. “If the scale says X, I am where I want to be,” they reason.