Meagan,

How is married life treating you?

I was looking at your pics on Facebook, absolutely gorgeous wedding.

You looked fantastic; what did you lose like 20 pounds or something?

I hate to ask, but how on earth did you manage to lose that much weight so fast?

Aria

Aria,

So good to hear from you, Matt and I are doing great.

Thank you so much and yes I did.

I actually lost 22 pounds and I’m still having a hard time believing it sometimes…

I was so caught up in planning the wedding that I completely lost track of time.

I was looking in the mirror and it hit me. I was like “OMG, my ass is HUGE”. I got on the scale and realized I now had 45 days to drop 2 dress sizes.

I was getting married in my mom’s dress. Having it not fit WASN’T AN OPTION…

I really got lucky Aria; I had just reconnected with an old high school friend (no lie Aria, it was literally like 2 weeks before I stepped on the scale that he was telling me about a website he had recently set up for weight loss).

He was a ginormous help. I would have never done it without him.

Seriously.

The 2 workouts he sent me changed my life.

The 1st focused on strength training (specifically bodyweight workouts) while the 2nd focused on interval training (instead of typical cardio).

Of course he also showed me where to get more help with my diet (which was definitely the most difficult element to change no doubt). However after just the first 14 days I had already dropped 10 pounds.

Still unbelievable when I think about it; let me find those workouts and I’ll send them to you…

Meagan

P.S. Check out this video he showed me. It helped me understand what I was going to need to do and why I was going to need to do it…

Josh: Hey Aria, so tell me how you are doing?

Aria: Very well Josh, thanks for having me.

Josh: Thanks for being here. As you know I wanted to do an interview with you to get some insight to your success.

My goal is to help others follow in your footsteps and find success for themselves too.

Aria: Sounds great Josh, where should we begin?

Josh: Well I guess it would be best to start from the beginning…why did you decide to change your lifestyle?

When was enough, enough?

Aria: Short answer: I just wasn’t confident or happy in my own skin.

It all started at my 10 year high school reunion, which was about 5 years ago.

I was still recovering from my pregnancy with little Timmy and just felt like everyone was staring at me the whole time. It made me very uncomfortable; it felt very negative and judgmental if that makes sense.

Difficult to explain, but after that night my self-conscious was shot.

I had intended on making changes straight away, I really did, but then life just kind of got in the way.

I just kind of moved on from it, never really forgetting about it, but never motivated enough to actually do something.

It wasn’t until I got my invitation for my upcoming high school reunion that the insecurity overwhelmed me…it might as well had been 5 years ago. Everything came rushing back to me.

So I took those feelings and used the upcoming reunion as my deadline.

This would be my motivation, the final piece I needed to actually change my life. I simply wasn’t going through that again.

I wanted to be comfortable and have fun while I caught up with my old friends, not hiding in a corner sulking and feeling bad for myself. The self-loathing is cancerous Josh. No one should feel that way about themselves. Life is too short.

Josh: So what do you think would have happened if you hadn’t made the change?

Aria: Wow I don’t know, I mean I know I would have been really depressed and frustrated. I hated myself, looking in the mirror was a nightmare.

It would have been tough surviving that again. It really got embarrassing after a while.

Josh: Alright cool. So you were able to take your past failure and use it as motivation to make a change in your life.

So what was your goal? What exactly were you trying to achieve?

Aria: Well I set out with the goal of losing 15 pounds before the reunion. I only had about 30 days and knew that was probably the most realistic result in that short of a time-frame.

I wasn’t going to be unhealthy about it. Definitely not. There is so much garbage out there that promote these “magic solutions” and they just don’t work.

I read somewhere that the weight loss supplement industry is worth something like $33 billion dollars. I couldn’t believe that considering all the junk they hoc. And the diet pills and supplements are useless.

Well most of them anyway. Sorry for the rant. What was the question?

Josh: Lol. What were you trying to achieve?

Aria: Right, sorry. Lol. Well basically my goal was to be 15 pounds lighter by the end of 30 days, but I wanted to lose the weight as healthily as possible. No shortcuts. I wanted real, tangible results.

I felt that if I could lose 15 lbs of fat and tone up my body beforehand, then people would be looking at me for the “right reasons.”

I hadn’t felt sexy in a very very long time. So long in fact that I had forgotten what it felt like to command positive attention.

Josh: That’s great. So how did you get started?

Aria: I searched the Internet, but I couldn’t find anything real. Found mostly garbage and nearly gave up trying. I was actually pretty frustrated.

I couldn’t find anything “real.” Everything was this “magic” bullet B.S. that I know would be a waste of my time and money.

I’m not a big believer in counting calories, so weight watchers was immediately out. Not that I think it can’t work, it is just complex and the failure rate is pretty high.

Same thing with a lot of the other mass market ideas. They are so general and generic. It is just about eating less than normal and tracking everything. Again, this would certainly work, but it is a bit high maintenance.

I really needed something that was all but guaranteed to work and that was easy to follow. I think that was really the key, “something to follow.” Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. That was really my mindset.

But I just couldn’t find it and that was why I was getting frustrated.

I was tired of reading pages about supplements and pills and ridiculous programs.

You know I had actually seen a program promising weight loss of 25 lbs in 25 days? How is that healthy?

Turns out it isn’t.

It is basically a 5 day cycle, 2 days of which are basically fasting. Plus you have to buy about $400 worth of supplements, which is just ridiculous after paying the $67 just to get the program.

And there are TONS of programs like this, all hype with their BIG promises. In the end they are unsafe and waste your precious time and money.

I honestly got bored with looking and logged into Facebook to kill some time before I had to run some errands.

And then I got insanely lucky. My friend Meagan was uploading pics from her wedding and she looked fantastic.

I had seen her just a few months ago and I KNOW she didn’t look like that.

She really looked amazing…

I remember thinking that she had to have lost some serious weight, so I messaged her asking her how she did it…

Of course you know how this goes, but she told me about how she got caught up in planning for the wedding and how she lost track of time.

She seemed really distraught actually, very stressed out about not being able to fit into her mom’s dress.

But she also told me about how she reconnected with you and how you helped her out. She was definitely very grateful and I can understand why…

She sent me the strength and interval workouts that you had her doing and then told me about the Diet Solution Program, again something that you directed her too.

Basically she told me the same things you told her lol.

Josh: Awesome. I’m just glad I could help. I’ve put a lot time and effort into my research and it is nice to see it helping someone. So what specifically did you change?

Aria: Well the first thing I did was I eliminated all liquid sugar from my diet. That was really huge, I had no idea how much it was slowly killing me.

I replaced all beverages with water and green tea. No more soda’s, juices, or alcohol unless it is a cheat day.

I also started with the workouts immediately, the combination was unlike anything I had ever done before.

Not many people know or understand the benefits of interval training versus standard cardio and it seems like even fewer understand the importance of utilizing strength training at all.

Josh: That is exactly right Aria. Spot on. So what challenges did you face?

Aria: I think my initial challenges were fairly common ones. I needed to make sure I stayed motivated all the time and not in spurts. That was probably the initial, most challenging aspect.

So I stole Meagan’s idea and I went out and bought my dress. It was a size 6 and I planned on fitting into it. Everyday I looked at it for motivation.

I found that the #1 thing necessary for success is preparation. The better I prepared for the week, the easier it was to stay on track.

I actually created a calendar in Excel that I used to map out what I was going to eat, when I was I going to eat it, and any “surprises” that I could plan for, such as my son’s birthday dinner etc.

I also put my workouts on there. This kept me accountable and helped make sure I didn’t miss them.

It may sound a bit over-the-top, but it really is essential. Otherwise it is WAY TO EASY to get off track.

Without that preparation I don’t think I would have succeeded.

Josh: Yes. Failure to plan means planning to fail. Preparation really is the key to succeeding because it is so difficult to break out of our daily habits otherwise.

Aria: Agreed, but the bottom line is that it is a lifestyle change and you need to be prepared in order to successfully make that change.

So many people HATE that term, but a lifestyle change for 30 days is still a lifestyle change. You still need to ACTUALLY MAKE THE CHANGES if you want to ACTUALLY CHANGE.

Whether or not you continue long-term is ultimately up to you, but no one can do it for you.

Josh: That is tremendous insight Aria and I couldn’t agree with you more. So many people search for that diet pill or supplement that will do all the work for you. But it doesn’t exist or else we’d all have it already.

I even had a close friend of mine recently ask me if I had something like that for him. I was like “no dude, that stuff doesn’t exist. You need to change your diet and use strength and interval training man. Drop that treadmill because it is wasting your time.”

He then went on to drink a bunch of shots and beer for the next 2 hours. You can only do so much for people. We can tell them what to do, and it will be the right thing for them, but it is ultimately up to them to make the changes.

There really are no shortcuts with this stuff.

So Aria, any other tips for our listeners?

Aria: Well the first thing I suggest is to get your hands on the Diet Solution Program. Then you can follow the “14 Days to a Sexy Body” pdf and start the strength and interval training workouts. That combination will be all you need for the first 2 weeks.

After that you can move onto the main manual and implement changes at your own pace.

Are you doing anything with the workouts Josh? I know that they aren’t included in the DSP, but I think you should give them away somehow. Can’t you do a bonus or something?

Josh: That is an idea…

Aria: I think it would really help, otherwise people may have a difficult time finding effective workout programs on their own.

The diet alone is great, but you NEED the exercise too.

Josh: Well I can’t argue with you on that one lol, I’ll work on putting something together.

Aria: Once you have the DSP and the workouts then you just need something to keep you motivated.

Make sure you put this in a place that you see everyday.

After that it comes down to how well you prepare. So come up with a way that works for you. Whatever it takes for you to stay on track.

I’m telling you it is DEFINITELY worth it.

Josh: Alright everyone, but unfortunately it looks like we are out of time. Thanks again for being here Aria and thank you everyone for listening. I’ll work on putting a bonus package together for those of you interested in picking up the Diet Solution Program.