Overcome

As we approach the end of the year, and start planning the year ahead of us, we should always reflect on our accomplishments. But, most importantly, we MUST reflect on our failures too. Is not only about find the infamous “safe place” and shield yourself there, it is about find the weaknesses and understand that you need to work harder to overcome those weaknesses.  Use this time of the year to reflect, and to create your own SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. I used this approach many times in business, and last year I also used in my fitness program. By using this type of analysis you are not only visualizing what’s going right, but you can clearly see what’s currently wrong and envision the opportunity to improve. This year I’ve seen people overcoming adversities, and having their best body transformation in years. But I also saw many people falling behind their own goals, and giving up to their dreams. I saw people that were hard co...

After competing in the Kuclo Classic last May 20th, I decided to continue the preparation and compete at the NPC Oklahoma Championship. Things were going pretty well and by the end of the first week post Kuclo Classic, I was confident that it would be an easy transition. Off course, everything changed on Sunday, May 28 th when I woke up with a sore throat. I thought to myself: maybe I just snored a lot last night, it will get better . Woke up on Monday and it was getting worse, and some symptoms of sinus infection started to kick in. By Tuesday I was pretty much done, had to go to the hospital to get some medication, because I wanted to get better to drive to Tulsa on Friday. It was the worse peek week that I ever had, couldn’t really train properly, and even my appetite was bad. However, I never, ever thought of quitting. I just wanted to get better and do the show. By Friday I was better, woke up with 188lbs and felt confident that by the time that I arrived in Tulsa I would be l...

Last weekend I had a chance to step on stage again, this is my third year competing after winning my personal battle against obesity . Even after 3 years of going through this process of getting ready to compete, I’m still learning how my body behaves for every competition, and this one was no different, it was unique, tough and enjoyable.  When I say enjoyable is because ultimately you have to have fun, if you spend all your prep just complaining about the food, about the amount of cardio and the strict regime, maybe you need to reevaluate if this is really for you. This time I incorporated many changes to my regular routine, including more HIIT workouts. Read Destination Transformation Challenge Workout Series – HIIT for more information about it. Bottom line is: you MUST have fun! You may (matter of fact you will) suffer to get there, but you need to digest this and understand that it’s all part of the process. This is no different than studying for a hard exam, you wi...

I still remember in 2003 when I moved to US and a friend in Brazil told me: man, now you will get really fat, because everything there is big, and you will only eat burgers . I heard, but I didn’t really process the information since deep inside of me I knew that I will only eat what I wanted, nobody could really force me to eat. However, he was right, I jumped from 220 lbs to 280 lbs from 2003 to 2010. If this was muscle gain I would be happy, but it was pure fat….36% body fat in 2011. Although he was right, I was also right, because even on my deepest days of “fat boy” eating fast food and thinking about my past shape as soccer player in Brazil, I was like: why am I’m damaging myself?! In between thoughts I asked for more French fries…it was a black hole! But the fact that I never tried to find someone or something to blame (other than me) also helped me to be more determined to change, because I knew I was the one in control. If I could damage myself so much in 7 years, what c...

Today we are starting another Destination Challenge , and again I will hit the same key tip: your mind is going to play the biggest role in this game of change. You usually don’t get really physically tired, because your mind will give up first, and your body will just obey what your mind tells him to do. The book “ How Bad Do You Want ”, brings a lot of scientifically examples that your mind is in control of your physical performance. Even athletes that are in a better physical shape, can be defeated for the ones that are in a much better mental state to support the pressure. Here one important paragraph from this book : “The British neuroscientist Vincent Walsh has even suggested that sports competition is the single most challenging thing the human brain ever does—more challenging even than “purely” mental tasks like solving differential equations and also more challenging to the brain than it is to the body.” If you want to get a bit inspiration this week, watch 4 minute...

This is a question that I receive a lot: hey Yuri, did you do any surgery to remove loose skin? I didn’t, but I can tell you that it was (matter of fact, it still is) an ongoing process. Let’s take a look from the beginning of the transformation (2011) to the first show (Adela Garcia 2014): You may say: hey Yuri, that looks pretty good, the skin snapped back! Not completely, take a closer look in 2014 and 2015: See? Main problem is around the belly button, not to mention that the belly button itself will never (unless I do a surgery) look rounded as it used to. After more than a decade of obesity and accumulation of fat on that area, it is very, very hard to have your skin back to normal. It is improving, and you can see that in 2016: But beyond my own experience in this struggle, what the doctors say? Well, here it is a very good explanation from a Doctor: “Your skin's ability to contract and bounce back after losing weight depends on various factors suc...

Since January 2016 I've been working with Destination Dallas Texas Gym on their Destination Transformation Challenge program . The great thing about this program is that we are not trying to sell you anything, is not about pushing supplements to you and promising miracle results, is not about telling you that "this shake" will change your life, or anything even close to that. Is about telling you that YOU have all the tools to change, is about educating you on how to change and most importantly, how to incorporate these changes after the challenge is over. There are many benefits of having a group of people working together to achieve a common goal, read this article where I talk about this with more details. Watch the video below with some testimonies and also with some background info about this challenge: Cool right? Yes, I just wish I had something like that when I decided to change. The good news for you is: we are starting Transformation Challenge 5 this mon...