I am doing a little something different today. Usually I interview fitness professionals or people who have the highest of certifications, experience, educations, etc., in training or nutrition-yada. Not to say the woman you are about to hear from does not have intelligence or education, it’s just to say that she isn’t a “Fitness Pro.” She makes no claims as such. She is just a mom who wants to help others and be able to do so spending as much time with her family as possible. She is also one heck of a researcher and author and been spotlighted in magazines like the Wall Street Journal and Computer World. Some might say leave fat loss to the professionals, but I say let’s hear multiple points of views, eh. I actually jumped on Barbara a little harsh in the beginning but I soon found out that her help guide is one of the most educational tools you can find because it teaches you how to do all this yourself. She teaches you to fish. If you already know what is crap information and what is not then you can read on for enjoyment but you may not need this information. However if you find yourself frustrated with a sea of diet books and information to weed through, you may want to keep reading.

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This is a really long interview. I was going to cut it short and edit it but really it is all fun and good info. The short of it is this:

If you want to know HOW to LOOK for fitness and health info on the internet and how to weed through the info you need to know then sit back and read awhile. You might learn something.

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Leigh Peele-Barbara for our readers can you go into a little background about who you are and what your journey has been about?

Barbara Ling-Sure! I’m a 43 year old mom of 4 who last year received quite the wakeup-call regarding my health (or lack of it, actually). At 5′3.5″, I weighed over 170 pounds and was discovering my endurance was a bit less than that of a fossilized clam - I couldn’t play with my kids or take them to fun places without having to sit down after 2 or 3 minutes to catch my breath.

You have to remember that during this time, I was a master at ignoring reality. I chose never to look at myself in the mirror because, quite frankly, my double-chins really depressed me (but not enough for me to do anything about it). Out of sight, out of mind….until that fateful day when I came across some of my kids’ Halloween candy (those candy necklaces) and scarfed it down. Right when I was done, I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and wow, it was like a punch to the gut. I was out of control; I realized if I chose to continue in my current path, I’d just get fatter and fatter and sicker and sicker.

The “sicker and sicker” part really bothered me - I really take great pride in how I raise my kids, and the idea that I might not be around in the future to guide them pissed me off to no end. I had to choose to take control and ownership of my actions. That was the turning point for me. I didn’t choose to lose weight for myself, so to say…I started on my journey for the sake of my family.

Let me pause and rewind for a second here. My main trade online is that of an Internet researcher and author - I’ve written over 20 books/ebooks and have been spotlighted in the Wall Street Journal, Computerworld, Inc. Magazine and the like. Finding things online is what I do best…and I put that skill to deadly earnest and began searching for resources that would help me lose weight.

My first “hit,” if you will, was the site http://weight-loss.fitness.com . Not only was I able to find great advice about how to start losing weight and getting healthy, but I also took advantage of their online diary resources. My online diary can be found HERE . I discovered that sharing my concerns and getting feedback from other interested individuals really helped keep me focused and on target for losing weight.

I suppose you can say, I choose to view my journey as an ongoing building of not just knowledge (in this case, weight loss and dieting) but also as an inner personal quest as well. I’ve discovered the depths of my own inner strength over the past many months…and it’s been rather surprising to me. One really interesting twist turned out to be that unbenkownst to me, I had a benign bone tumor on my right femur which caused quite a lot of discomfort during my workouts. I could have chosen to say, “hey! It’s too difficult to maintain, what the hell, give it up”… but I didn’t. Instead, I just kept repeating to myself, “I can DO this!” (no matter what “this” is) and refused to give up. It sounds melodramatic, I know. You never really do know what you’re capable of achieving until you’re staring at it square in the face.

Leigh Peele-That’s great Barbara! That goes a little beyond just “wanted to lose a few pounds for a reunion”. Not of course that there is anything wrong with that, I have known some smart fitness professionals who stumbled upon their career in that very manner. It’s just to say you really dug deep into yourself for change and that is fantastic. Speaking of a career, do you have any plans to actually become certified or take fitness to that kind of a step professionally?

Barbara Ling-You know, it’s funny you should ask that. I have been researching around what’s required to become certified, and reading up on all the postings at http://forums.jpfitness.com . I always favor gaining new knowledge for my own personal use.

That being said, in real life, I’m actually rather shy. Raising 4 children doesn’t give me a whole lot of time for a career outside the home, plus I’m still getting requests for teaching academics (I’m known as “Mean Mommy Ling” to my kids’ friends because of all the academics/ learning I give to my kids. Funny thing is, their parents then come to me to ask about teaching academics to their children….go figure. . I am much more comfortable referring individuals to certified fitness trainers who are passionately involved with their clientele and really live to make their lives better.

Leigh Peele-I don’t know, maybe we will see a “Mean Trainer Ling!” someday, it has a nice ring to it!

You mention trying to get a workout in outside of being a mom and it being so difficult. You also mention the internet forums, particularly weight-loss-forum, as a place of starting off point for education. Do you think you would have achieved what you have on this level without that as a tool?

Barbara Ling-Oh gosh, 100% beyond a doubt, no. I’m fond of saying that while nobody (except perhaps my mother) knows everything, everyone knows something! Put all of those “somethings” together, and you have a power worth reckoning.

I view the Internet as a godsend for folks who want to lose weight and get healthy. Everything you need to know is out there! The challenges, of course, are finding out exactly where the gold nuggets of information are hidden.

For example, when I first started my get-healthy plan, I figured that cutting out all the excess junk in my diet would be a good start. And because my favorite all-time “good” food happens to be home-made soup (ideally made with beef, chili peppers, chicken, etc. - it’s my cure-all for everything and makes a dandy breakfast or lunch or dinner), I could simply ensure all my protein and veggies were nestled into my soup meal 3 times a day. ‘Matter of fact, that bit of information was included in my Introduction post HERE .

But! The day before, I had wandered about http://weight-loss.fitness.com and started reading and reading and reading and …. and reading and reading and I came across a thread that discussed how important it is to keep your body well-hydrated.

Well! Being a mathematician and well-versed in the esoteric practice of “deduction”, I sat down and said to myself, Self, hmmmm. Your favorite food happens to be soup. And drinking water is supposed to be a good thing. Gasp! Can my soup intake be included in my water intake? Golly! I should ask about that!

So I did HERE .

Now, in hindsight, it looks pretty, well, obvious to me - if soup is made of water, obviously….drinking more soup means you’re ingesting more water. Kinda like common sense…but it was really great to have that forum to ask my silly question and not have to worry that others would say, hello! Idjut! Buy a clue!

No matter what you need to know…the Internet will provide you with a great launching pad. Want to exercise at home but not use workout DVDs? Walk over to http://getupmove.proboards26.com/ . Want to try specific weight-lifting exercises with dumbbells, but are too shy to ask someone to show you? Mosey on by http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html . Want to get the skinny on Intermittent Fasting? http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=309675 starts you off with over 120 pages (and the second part goes for more than 130 pages as well). And so on, and so on.

See what I mean?

Remember, I have the background of an Internet researcher. I’m a net pioneer and have been online since 1988; I have trained thousands of business folk how to find free resumes online, how to track down customer reviews of various products, how to phrase “help” questions so communities would flock to the rescue, etc. This stuff is second nature to me…. and apparently I’m NOT the norm. You only have to look at the weight loss forums and see the dozens of “How do I start? Where do I look?” etc. postings to realize, many people simply just don’t know where to begin their searches online. That realization is one reason why I wrote The Safe and Smart Internet Weight Loss Edge.

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Leigh Peele-You know, you bring up a real issue here and that is being able to trust the information you do find, how to research that information and getting feedback on that information. The goal, in my mind, is to collect all the data I can and decide for myself based on the facts presented. Now we’re letting some know you have basically put out a guide to do that, a book that helps you sort through all that information. Can you give us a brief description of how it works?

Barbara Ling-Certainly! I firmly believe that to really be an educated consumer on the Internet, you really need to know how to uncover the, ahem, more trustworthy informational sources. It’s extremely easy for anyone to throw up fake testimonials, build a scam site, ask their friends to flock to a forum and post positive reviews and the like….but armed with the tools of the Internet, you can almost always get to the
bottom of things.

Take Google, for example. Did you know that not only can you search on specific concepts like “weight loss” or “p90x reviews”, but you can also take advantage of limiting your search results to authority sites like http://weight-loss.fitness.com or http://weightloss.about.com , search specifically for keywords located in the title or URL of a page, uncover valuable pdf reports and more?

It’s quite easy to do! Google allows you to utilize search operators like “intitle” or “inurl” to target your queries. To make things easier for folks looking to lose weight, I crafted a Google Cheatsheet at http://www.fabfitmom.com/Google.html - it walks users through many of the excellent techniques they can use to zero in on quality information. I even built a custom search engine for weight loss as well at http://www.fabfitmom.com/explore/customSE.html .

But there’s the kicker - “quality!” How can you tell if something is quality or not? Here’s what I generally try to do: I’ll first search on authority sites for reviews or comments about my interest. If I don’t find anything has yet been written, I’ll post a question myself and ask for assistance. That’s one of the glories of the Internet - folks are generally quite eager to be helpful to those in need. And because these are authority sites, generally I’m pretty certain the information provided is of a legit nature.

What’s an authority site, I mind-read your next question? Well, for me, it’s an online resource to which many people flock; other sites link to it as a reference site and all in all, it’s withstood the test of time.

With that as an admittedly long introduction, my book, the Safe and Smart Internet Weight Loss Edge, teaches consumers how to use the Internet to uncover their own perfect weight loss plan. It does this by having the reader, first and foremost, be honest with herself or himself - what are their “must haves” when eating? Their “kinda sorta could live without?” Their personality for exercise? Their motivation? Their self-control? Their support system?

When the above is determined, I then walk the reader on exactly how to zero in on resources that will help them determine their ultimate diet. I take them by the hand and give examples for effective searching to uncover the answers they need to make an informed choice…and to bypass the scams that are waiting to “sell them the dream.” For example, let’s say that someone has heard about the “6 Week Body Makeover” or “Cabbage Soup Diet” or “Diet Pills” or “Taebo” or …. I show them uncover customer reviews, forum discussions, news articles and the like. Such resources can
often go a long way to revealing if something is a scam or not.

And of course, there’s the 900+ categorized importable diet/weight loss resource links that I include as well - you can see an example at http://www.fabfitmom.com/images/favorites.jpg

Leigh Peele-I can say, Barbara, that I myself am quite “Google Friendly” and find it very helpful during late night researches. One of the reasons I feel my training service outweighs others is because I am very big on educating my clients, not just “do as I say”. So to me a product like this is more valuable than a lot of this so called “breakthrough products” because what is left after you run through a program? You still don’t know anything, you just minimized a (usually crappy) routine. So to me not having a fat loss book but the ultimate guide to teaching your self fat loss is a great approach.

Now you mention scam diets and figuring out the “trickery” of fitness and diet products. Would you mind giving my readers a specific example of investing one particular diet. Let’s take Kimkin’s, how would using your product a reader go about catching their scam?

Barbara Ling- Ah, Kimkins. Unlike many of the obvious diet scams, this one flew many individuals’ radars because of the widespread media acceptance of it by Woman’s World (who ran an article about it entitled, Better than Gastric bypass! http://www.cookingtlc.net/forums/showthread.php?p=129604 has a copy of the cover). Alas, the article was printed even though the diet creator refused to meet with any of the editors or writers (you can get the full timeline at
http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/b/2007/12/02/kimkins-diet-scam-update.htm ).

Thus, right from the get-go, there’s a “want to believe” mob mentality out there - my gosh, a honest-to-goodness magazine has given their seal of approval! That should be the first clue to slow down and take a deep breath; I always advocate, what works for one person might not work for another. Don’t get ready to hand over your cash yet! First put the diet thru what I call the “Me Filter” - would it work for the person I currently am?

Here’s how a reader of my book would do this. First, she or he would determine of what the diet consists. Back when it was popularly promoted, the basis was 1,200 calories a day I believe.

EEEEEEEEEKKKKK! As people require more than that just to keep their basal metabolic rate on an even keel, this is the FIRST indication that the diet is just plain unsafe. But let’s say that with hope springing eternal and all that jazz, our reader decides, well, let me explore further. She can search for

“diet name” scam

ie

kimkins scam

http://www.google.com/search?q=kimkins+scam

to read other people’s comments on it.

She can search for

kimkins reviews

http://www.google.com/search?q=kimkins+reviews

and see what others have written about it. Perhaps most valuably, she can research on:

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kimkins (reviews OR comments OR experiences) forum

http://www.google.com/search?q=kimkins+%28reviews+OR+comments+OR+experiences%29+forum

Remember, quite often diet plans are discussed on forums…and many times people will ask for other’s comments or reviews or experiences with it. Hence the OR construct above.

Doing this kind of research would show beyond a doubt the scam-ness of the diet. And of course, one could also search on the various news sites as well to see what popular media now says. Again, it’s all a matter of first being totally honest with yourself (what kinds of food/exercise MUST I have, what kinds can I live without, what kinds wouldn’t I do even if 352 cows came thundering home) putting any diet plan through your “Me Filter”, researching the health aspect and doing your own personal research.

That’s how a reader of my book would begin his or her research.

Leigh Peele-”Me Filter” is a great concept and teaches the value of listening to your inner self, something that a lot of people just run right past. It’s hard because you do see these magazines full of these endorsements and scams. Most diet pill advertisements look like actual articles in magazines, maybe you could come up with a magazine “me filter” in the future;)

Okay, Barbara, it’s now tip time….

What are your Top 3 tips for choosing the right diet program for yourself?

Barbara Ling-

1.) First and foremost, you need to be *committed*. If there’s no commitment, you’ll only give up at the first roadblock into which you run. That leads to yo-yo dieting which generally leads to weight gain which is often followed by, what the hell, nothing will work anyways, why even try?

I liken it to what I’ve learned in my martial arts classes. Day in, and day out, in all of my karate classes and sword classes and self-defense classes I would always hear, “Commit to your action!” (generally followed by, ’cause if you don’t, you’ll be beaten face-first into the ground). You need to have “turned the key” in your mind that you are a warrior committed to gaining back your health and fitness.

2.) Next, you need to be 110% honest with yourself and know thyself! Don’t try lifestyle changes that have restrictions you *know* could not endure (such as no coffee, or no coffee, or did I mention, no coffee?). Seriously, let’s say you’re on your feet 8 hours a day taking care of customers…. you probably won’t be able to fit in “6 small meals a day.” That’s okay! Look for something that would work with your current situation.

Let’s take another example. If you absolutely must have desserts as a treat, don’t throw yourself whole-heartedly into the Paleo or Neanderthin diet (which focuses on whole foods). Look instead to plans that allow you to have extra goodies as reward meals.

3.) Research, research, research. What works great for your Aunt Bertha might leave you packing on the pounds! Don’t get swayed by bazillions of testimonials or the “selling of the dream” when you explore what might work best for you…instead, take your time, look around, ASK QUESTIONS! and get both the good points and bad points of whatever diet you’re considering. Once you’re armed with all of the facts, THEN you are an educated consumer who can make the best possible decision for your own personal case.

And that’s the best way to go.

 

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For More Information on Barbra Ling and her Fab Fit Mom program go check out here site at FatFitMom.com