4 Weeks. 20 Pounds. And the secret to life.

I wrote this as just a little mini-update in Valerie’s private Facebook group for her Red Carpet Ready girls…

So forgive if it’s a bit raw. The ladies seemed to like it so Valerie asked if I’d like to share it with her readers.

I’ve had some really great results over the past 4 weeks: almost 20 pounds of fat loss & a few pounds of muscle gained.

Thought a little kickoff bit of inspiration before the Memorial Day weekend got started was as good a time as any.

NOTE: This isn’t some veiled testimonial for Valerie’s programs or anything – though I do credit the Valslide for much of my progress because of the flexibility it creates in my workouts and schedule. And hey, what do you know, her stuff is on sale. So you should buy some things.

30 second back-story:

If you don’t know me, I’m the lucky guy who gets to work with Valerie on any internet/web project that requires extreme nerdiness. My name is Ryan Orrico. I moved to LA from Chicago a few years ago and brought a lot of my bad habits with me. Throughout these 3 years, I’ve got from extremely fat and out of shape – to mad-decent, and back. And forth. And back. And forth.

I live in extremes. I’m either full-on with my training and diet – or full-OFF.

The past 6-ish months, I’ve been full-off. Terrible food, no exercise and even smoking cigarettes! (GROSS!)

Well, knowing that summer is upon us – and I live in the land of beautiful people – this could not (and will not) stand, man!

This is what my schedule looked like about 4 weeks ago…

– Wake up at about 11am. Eat shit. Smoke.

– Go to a cafe to work. Eat more shit. Struggle all day to come up with some creative thoughts and be productive.

– Spend all day doing that. Don’t do much else except sit on my ass and grind through my projects.

– Go home at about 9pm, eat a ton more shit (including like 2 pounds of rice pudding) & watch TV.

– Work some more and go to bed at like 3am.

Fast forward to today – things are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

– I wake up early and feel energized.

– I consistently workout and it doesn’t feel like a chore.

– I feel 1000x more creative.

– I’m repulsed by the idea of smoking

– and I just all-around feel amazing.

My body is still a work in progress – but I’m about 15-17 pounds lighter on the scale – depending on the day. And I’ve added a few pounds of muscle to my frame…

I’m not sure that I’ll be able to pull my shirt off in the next few weeks, like my man, John Romaniello, point at my abs and say “quick! someone call the vet, ‘cuz these puppies are SICK!” – but soon, my friend.

Here’s my post:

Crazy shit. About 4 weeks ago, the idea of working out, eating anything but sandwiches and rice pudding (LOVE!), and basically doing anything except being an idiot – didn’t really even cross my mind.

Maybe a little bit – I do sort of remember starting to get the “go pick up heavy things” itch – but it certainly wasn’t important to me.

Then fast forward to 2 nights ago.

Knowing I had to be at this workshop at 9am the next morning (about 2 hours away) – I found myself straight FRANTIC about how I was going to fit my workout in before I left. (WTF!)

This required me having to be up at 4:30am and at the gym by 5.

That night, I was starting to get the same excitement I used to have about upcoming training sessions – Like visualizing how I was going to just straight crush some shit.

Then I even woke up EARLY because I was kind of excited about it.

Not to say waking up that early didn’t totally blow – but still… quite a difference from just 4 weeks ago.

From being pretty much grossed out by the idea of not eating and doing what I wanted… to being excited about waking up at 4:30am to workout.

And hoping I would be able to find some decent food while I was at the workshop.

What in the actual fuck happened to me?

I blame what Charles Duhigg calls “keystone habits” in his awesome book: The Power of Habit.

To paraphrase his awesomeness: a keystone habit is a small, easy to understand habit that when done regularly ripples out and changes your behavior in a bunch of other ways.

He talked about this massive corporation undergoing huge changes – bringing in this unknown CEO – who, instead of talking about focusing on “increasing profits” or what you’d think the investors would want to hear about…

He said he was going to work on improving worker safety. (WTF?)

One broker said on the CEOs first day – he advised all of his clients with stock in the company to sell everything.

Which ended up turning out to be the worst advice he had given his entire career.

Read the book to learn more – but the gist is that this small change in the company ended up creating global change and increased profits by like 8 billion percent or something.

So for me, my new keystone habit was “daily movement.”

Not even “working out” or “exercising.”

Like the most ridiculously abstract simple thing I could think of.

I straight went on a “morning walk” like some geriatric mofo for the first few days.

If you're ever in LA, you have to go here: Maha Yoga.

Then – somewhat painstakingly – dragged myself to yoga. (couldn’t motivate myself to workout alone yet, and the fact that the instructor is a turbo-hottie with a bangin’ booty didn’t hurt!  *cough* Stephanie *cough*)

At this point, I’d already drastically cut the amount of cigarettes I was smoking — but still, I smoked after yoga. Gross, I know.

(remember, just wanted to focus on ONE thing.)

Anyways, from there – I went to yoga almost every day for about a week or so… then started throwing in a weight training workout.

But I only did that because I WANTED to – I felt weak in yoga – so I wanted to fix that. (KEYSTONE, YO!)

Without planning to eat higher quality food yet, I just started to crave it.

Feeling strong in yoga became important to me, so then I started doing the shit that would facilitate that… without feeling like I “had” to.

I WANTED to.

Then the snowball started rolling.

And now I think in the past 30 or so days, I’ve not trained maybe 2-3 days. And those were days I forced myself to take off… and I’ve gone off-plan with my food like less than 5 times.

None of this really feels like much of an effort really.

It’s just what I do.

And I’ve seen some pretty insane results so far.

I leave you with this!

Focus on one thing.

Valerie has spoken about this before.

Don’t try to get all of your ducks in a row before you start. You’re too busy and you have enough shit to worry about.

Instead of resisting getting started because there’s too much to do – workout, cardio, go shopping, cook more, take supplements, etc.

Just do one thing right and let the ripple happen.

Just go move around a little bit every day.

Do like me and go for a geriatric style walk around your local mall.

Then next thing you know, you’ll be freaking out wondering how the hell you’re going to get your workout in before you have to leave for work in the morning.

Check out Valerie’s Memorial Day sale or these animals are going to be extremely disappointed in you!