An interview with a success story, Caitlin Johnson

If you don’t know who Caitlin is, you soon will. She
appears in the June 2005 issue of Ironman magazine.
But Caitlin isn’t your everyday super competitor/fitness model.
Let’s face it, a lot of women look at the women in these magazines.
and I wish they were blessed with their genetics. They think that they
You don’t have your problems, nor your metabolism and they don’t
they have to work almost as hard to look as good as they do.
They’re just lucky.

Well, no more apologies. Cat worked very hard to get
where is she. And I had the pleasure of interviewing this
amazing young woman. After reading this inspiring interview,
you can go to my site and see some wonderful before and after photos.

1. Cat, you have managed to lose 70 pounds of fat. This is phenomenal and congratulations once again. You must be very proud of what you have achieved. Many people are not happy with their weight, their job, etc. What was it that finally motivated you to get into the gym and start eating right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you’re like most people, you must have been unhappy with your appearance for a while before committing to doing anything about it.

If this is true, what do you think kept you from acting all that time?

A. 1) When you’re stuck in an unhealthy but familiar lifestyle, there has to be something extreme that motivates you to do it.
change your life. For me it was the scale and me doing 182 pounds, which was 20 pounds away from 200 pounds. In my mind
200 pounds was too heavy and I decided that I could never get to that weight and be able to live with myself.

Second, I had just taken a kickboxing class from a teacher who had the best physique and I could relate to her because she was short and female.

Every day that I trained with Denise Hart I worked hard because I tried hard to look like her. What stopped me from really putting my
My whole heart in coaching before is that I didn’t relate to the other coaches because they were men and I couldn’t relate to them.
Even now, as a competitive athlete, my coaches relate to me because they have all been athletes.

2. How did you start with your new lifestyle? In other words, what changes did you make or plan to give yourself the best chance of success?

A. 2) To start with, Denise gave me a plan and I tried to follow it to the best of my ability. Small meals, no sugar or fat, lots of cardio and two full body circuits.

3. What problems did you have to overcome to keep up with your new fitness program? Obviously, she must have been living a dramatically different lifestyle than she had previously lived. Some of the popular excuses I’ve heard from people I’ve trained include “not enough time” (both to exercise and eat right), “eating healthy is too expensive”, “I don’t see results fast enough”, “weights it will make me big and bulky”, “I will have trouble sticking to an exercise routine”. What were the obstacles you had to overcome?

A 3) For me, if I have a plan to follow, I’m fine. It is when I am not restrained that I lose control. At first I had to realize that if I drank 3 beers a night I was not going to lose weight. I also have a pretty sweet tooth so I had to cut out my sugary Starbucks
drink outside

4) How did you overcome those problems? What specific techniques did you use to make your dreams come true?

A 4) Denise would be hard on me and tell me not to waste her time. She was right and the tougher she was on me the better I
I was. She usually says “Do you want it?” In my mind that made me try really hard and never give up.

5) Moving forward and knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently?

R 5) I would have signed with Kim Oddo at the beginning. It took me four years because I didn’t eat much protein and then
for a few years i did the no carb diet which was a total waste of time.

6. What would you have done in the same way and will you continue to do in the future?

TO 6) CARDIO BABY! Burn calories, raise endorphins, relieve stress, etc.

7. Do you think that continuous feedback and motivational tools would help to maintain a fitness program? For example, appearing in the June 2005 Ironman must be very motivating. This will not be a motivational tool that most people can use. Before you achieved that kind of success, what kind of motivational tools did you lose to keep going? After all, you don’t lose 70 pounds of fat overnight and it must have been some time before you were able to see the positive changes in the mirror.

A 7) What some people don’t know is that a support team can be the most important thing in training to reach a difficult goal. me
I really believe in having a great coach like Joanne Rubienstein, Kim Oddo, Stephen Bauer or Denise Hart.

I personally love it
train, so I don’t need motivation to go to the gym, but when the results diminish, I need someone to tell me that I can do it.
What kept me going was the belief that I could do it and prove the world wrong.

Sometimes it seems my job is to prove
wrong people They speak what they say, but in the end I will achieve what I strive for and they will look foolish for saying that.
I will never achieve my goal. Sorry if that was a bit annoying, but I’m tired of people doubting me. If I can lose 40% of body fat,
I think I can make it to Olympia!

8. If you had a close friend or family member interested in following in your fitness footsteps, what would you advise you to tell them?

A 8) Run away and find a nice job! I really believe that I did all this by fate. I don’t even remember the time
I said I want to be a competitor. Dieting and training are hard and rewarding at the same time. I have achieved a lot
but I also sacrifice many things in life that are nice.

All I can say is that I am after a DREAM and I will not give up until I
achieve it It’s not just for me, it’s for the general population who have lost faith in themselves. My advice is to go after
your dreams, believe in yourself and find the right people to help you. That is the key to success!

-CAT

See before and after photos of Cat at http://www.buildleanmuscle.com/caitlin-johnson.html