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The body for now
Gone are the size-zero and muscle-bound types. The latest body trend is all about looking fit and healthy. Plus, six men reveal which of our bits they love the most
Gemma Soames
9 COMMENTS
RECOMMEND? (15)
Helena Christensen
It all started with a lot of talk about bottoms. My friends had become obsessed by bums — the ones in the Reebok EasyTone ad, to be precise — and I could see why. Click onto YouTube and you will see, too. Striding, bouncing and dancing round their kitchens in nothing but their pants, they are perfect, peachy adverts for an alluring new combination of sexy and sporty. They are the poster bums for now. And we wanted them so badly, we went out and bought the shoes — clearly along with everyone else, because they sold out in two weeks.
Helena Christensen is wearing those trainers here, and she has the body to go with that bum. Yes, she is a supermodel; yes, she’s naturally thin; and yes, if we had her genes, we would also regularly pose naked for Steven Klein. But check her out. She is 41. Hers is a body that looks healthy, one that says fitness rather than thinness, sporty rather than starving. Ditto Daria Werbowy’s on our cover this week.
These bottoms and bodies are at the forefront of a new movement that couldn’t be further from either super-skinny size zero or Madonna-style bionic biceps. This is about a sporty physique, where you’re getting your kicks for fun and not punishing yourself at dinner or in the gym. These bodies are sensible, squeezable, and, best of all, attainable. From Jennifer Aniston as the face of Smart Water, and Gwyneth Paltrow on the red carpet, to Kelly Brook in stripy knickers and Michelle Obama in sleeveless tops, these women are a whole, real world away from the overtoned or underfed poster girls of the Noughties.
Look at them and it’s clear the dream physique has changed. Step aside, Madge; budge up, Posh — we’d like to look normal now, please. First up, you can’t be starving. As Mandy Ingber, Aniston’s yoga instructor, puts it: “It’s about being toned but not too skinny, not overly muscular or extreme. It looks like they’re all eating healthily and it’s based on an active lifestyle.”
Refreshingly, this isn’t a trend that’s about looks alone. It hinges on a healthy attitude — to both exercise and food. As Ingber puts it: “Jennifer looks as if she takes care of her body; she doesn’t look as if she deprives herself.” And, once nourished, it’s more about being generally active than frantic 5am workouts. Ask any trainer and they will tell you, you simply can’t achieve this body by pounding the same muscles over and over again. You only get to look like this by taking regular, sensible and varied exercise.
“I’m not going to lie,” says Werbowy. “I do go to the gym and try and stay as active and healthy as possible. But I’m not a fitness addict. When I hear of celebrities who get up at 5am to work out, honestly, I admire their seriousness, but… I am addicted to sailing, and I love basketball, I’ve started running and boxing, and I snowboard regularly. It helps me to unwind from all the stress.”
“I think the whole approach has changed,” says Christensen, who only started taking exercise properly three years ago. “Now I do boxing, I take tennis lessons, I cycle a lot and I’m always walking around everywhere. When I’m in one place for a while, I get into a running routine, and I do dance stuff, too. It used to be a total chore and you just wanted to get it over with, but now, and I feel it with so many people, with friends and family, everyone’s working out and feeling good.’
She’s right. Everywhere you look, women are trading in their frantic sessions on the Power Plate for more friendly routes to fitness. “One thing I’ve noticed is a lot of clients taking part in group events like 5K runs, triathlons and half marathons,” says fitness guru Matt Roberts. Over the past year, more than 100,000 more of us have become regular weekly cyclists; 600,000 people in Britain surf; 4.7m women have run the Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research; and even the women’s netball association has seen a rise in popularity — up 5,000 last year.
So, why the shift? Boredom, perhaps? Body fashions can change as quickly as trouser shapes, and both size zero and bulging muscles seem decidedly over. Why else would Marc Jacobs have chosen a few curvy Victoria’s Secret models to walk for Louis Vuitton; and why else would Lara Stone, generous Cs and all, be the hottest face of the moment? Roberts thinks it’s also a symptom of our times. “Part of it is a response to the economic environment,” he says. “In a depression, people have the need to do something to lift themselves, so they focus more on feeling good and looking good. It’s the one thing you can do to make yourself look better without spending a load of money.”
It is also about changing attitudes to ageing. Aniston, Paltrow and Christensen look better than they ever have. And to pull that off after your taut and teeny twenties, you can’t just be thin, you have to be fit — thank God. As Paltrow says of her Tracy Anderson approach: “This regime got me into the shape of my life and I return to it, so I can be a 37-year-old mother of two and do ridiculous things like wear shorts.”
So there you have it. Straight from Gwyneth. This is about fitness that works for you. You want to wear shorts? Go for it. Get down the gym, get to the park, or get on your bike and go for it. As Roberts says: “We’re finally on the right track. People have a good attitude to fitness. It’s an interesting time for physicality.” Interesting, and hot. Now, excuse me while I go take a turn in my toning trainers.
The best bits: what a man loves most
THE LEGS
Patrick Grant, director of Norton & Sons
Girls, especially our marvellous English ones, have much that is wonderful to rejoice in — nimble wit, a sharp tongue, an endearing unruliness of hair, that glorious ruddy, orange-pippin complexion. But the best bit by far is a graceful and athletic pair of legs. Raised for centuries on a routine of hockey sticks, wilful ponies and traipsing after spaniels across heathery moors, our girls have developed serious sporting pins. Not stout, like a ham hanging in a butcher’s, nor thin and fragile, but taut, lithe and agile. A leg that Stubbs might do justice to.
What boy of my era can deny watching Top of the Pops for a sneaky peak at Pan’s People? Half a dozen long-limbed lovelies in little more than their undies, jumping about that stage like crimped neon crickets.
Legs are one of nature’s marvels, perfectly engineered machines, all cantilevers and antagonistic pairs, a simple support of almost architectural elegance. It’s no surprise that the miniskirt was a British innovation; there could be no finer way to show off one of this nation’s greatest treasures.
THE FACE
Wayne Hemingway, design guru
You can see by a girl’s face the things she enjoys. On a dancefloor, the reaction’s in the face — it’s the main access to her brain. I don’t care about boobs or legs, and I didn’t even when I was young. I’m married to a lovely lass: her legs are all right, but they won’t get her into a magazine. All intelligent men are face men, really. Faces aren’t about mainstream beauty — some women who would not be classed as natural beauties can get your attention. A face that could be seen as ugly can also be unconventionally beautiful. Look at Meryl Streep — how exciting is that face?
I want a face that’s happy, not a face for misery. I also like a face that has character and depth. It’s the eyes that most captivate me. There’s a depth that no other part of the face has. It’s your route into the real person. I also like make-up, especially girls who use it as an art form. Lady Gaga is not the prettiest girl around, but she uses make-up as a tool to show there’s a lot going on behind the eyes. I met my wife on a dancefloor in Burnley in 1979. Her face was covered in new-romantic make-up. She looked like she knew what was going on and I could tell she had a lovely, complicated presence.
THE STOMACH
Jonathan Yeo, painter
I spend a lot of time looking at women naked and what always interests me is the stomach. There’s something so sexy and natural about a bit of a bump. Not folds of flab rolling in on themselves, but a nice curve to the stomach has something animalistic about it. If you put your arms around a woman from behind, you want to be able to feel something, feel her shape.
Biologically, bumps are attractive, too. Pregnant women always complain that people want to touch their bump, but the firm ripeness is magnetic. And while women often say they feel unattractive and fat when pregnant, no man would agree. The rest of the body doesn’t change much — in some cases, not at all — and on a primitive level, we like our potential mates to look capable of reproduction. The post-pregnancy potbelly is not unattractive, either.
When I flick through fashion magazines, I find all those flat tummies disconcerting. It doesn’t look natural — you don’t see historical paintings of thin people. I can see why designers show clothes on two-dimensional girls — bumps push their perfect lines out of shape — but naked, it’s not an attractive look. From an artist’s point of view, it is much more interesting and satisfying to have curves to paint. Curves create shadows and reflections; they cause the light to change. They make paintings feel more solid and real.
THE BRAINS
James Brown, writer
“You’re joking, right?” asks my girlfriend. “You’d say ‘tits’ if I wasn’t here.” You may think she has a point, but bear with me.
Being asked to decide which bit of a woman’s body you prefer is like being asked which band you like best. If I replied, “I love music, all sorts”, you’d get the gist of how I feel about women. But if I had to choose, I would always come back to the brain. The reality is, you can be knocked senseless by the way a woman looks: by her eyes, her breasts, her hair, her legs, her lips, her profile. There are undoubtedly physical attributes that can stop you in your tracks, but without a sense of what she’s actually like, you’ll never get beyond mere voyeurism.
The colour of a girl’s hair will never override what comes out of her mouth, her humour, her point of view, her anecdotes. You can spend ages fancying someone from afar, but if they aren’t going to make you laugh or think differently, you might as well go back to looking at pics of Raquel Welch online.
THE HAIR
Adam Thirlwell, novelist
My favourite parts of the body are those that aren’t quite body parts. The crease at the top of the thigh, freckles across the cheeks, or the miraculous areola around the nipple, some sketchily pale, others darkly grand. I’m captivated by everything. But of all these body parts that aren’t quite body parts, I’m most in love with hair.
In my intellectual youth, I watched Dali and Buñuel’s surrealist film Un Chien Andalou, where some ants on a man’s palm dissolve to a shot of armpit hair on a sunbathing woman, which itself dissolves into a sea urchin. At that point in my youth, I finally got the allure of the close-up. But although this shot demonstrates one reason why hair is so alluring — because it’s also kind of strange — I think the real reason I love hair is something else. Hair is nature and nurture; hair is mess and style.
Every girl’s body is a different pattern of hair, and all its varieties are fascinating. For instance, a blonde crop that makes a girl look boyish; a mass of red curls that are somehow blonde as they curve in on themselves; a tight bob sadly flattened as it emerges from a shower… the endless varieties are endlessly delightful.
THE CURVES
Antonio Berardi, fashion designer
Curves are what separate women from men. I like the curve of the bust, the curve of the hip, the curve behind the knee, the curve from the shoulder to the neck. These, to me, are extremely sensual. When I was a child, I used to watch my mum apply perfume — I noticed them then, and once you do, they become ever so much more apparent in every woman you know. Each woman’s curves are unique. Every one treats her body in her own way — there are certain parts that she caresses, that mean something to her. It’s amazing to witness this, as a man looking on.
The 1950s body shape, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe: these are who I think of when I envisage a woman. When I sit and sketch, it’s always an hourglass silhouette. If you look at men’s magazines, the women have accentuated curves. If you show a man a selection of cars, he’ll always pick the sporty red one. The curvy woman is the sporty red car of the female world. This may sound gratuitous, but actually it’s totally primal.
Eat yourself fit
“Diet accounts for about 80% of how you look,” says Cameron Shayne, founder of Budokon (a mix of yoga, martial arts and meditation) and one of two specialists trusted by Jennifer Aniston. Mandy Ingber, Jen’s yoga instructor, who often travels with the actress on location, agrees: “If you want to change your body, you have to change your diet.”
The basics are simple:
— Avoid processed foods and refined sugars. Instead of eating bread, try quinoa or more whole grains.
— Eat plenty of leafy greens, veggies, fruit, lean meat, salmon and healthy fats such as avocado, coconut and olive oils.
— Be moderate. You can still have your favourite foods, just make sure that 75% of your diet is in the healthy category. “I don’t like extreme diets because people feel deprived and then swing back the other way,” says Ingber. “We all have foods we crave, but try eating them in a different way — instead of a whole piece of bread, just eat the crust or half a piece. A little bit of this or that is not going to hurt. Jennifer is very moderate; she won’t cut out anything entirely, but if she’s eating a Mexican meal, for example, she will have three tortilla chips and then she’s done.” Shayne agrees: “People can have bad habits as long as they are in moderation. Even a bit of alcohol is fine.” So it’s not all bad news then.
— Drink 35ml of water per 1kg of body weight (for example, if you weigh 52kg, you should drink 1.8 litres per day).
How to get a fit body
“If you want a great body, you have to be willing to move it,” says Cameron Shayne, Jennifer Aniston’s martial arts trainer. “I’m a proponent of cross-training — running, rock climbing — as long as you’re taking care of yourself.” You don’t even need dumbbells these days. “Artificial weight is unnecessary; remember a gymnast works with their own body,” he says.
But yoga is key. “Jennifer looks as though she has an active body and it has balance; yoga has been a part of that,” says Mandy Ingber, who teaches Yogalosophy, her own dynamic yoga. “The reason yoga creates that is because you use only your own body’s weight, so it’s a natural movement working every muscle group. Yogalosophy is a hybrid of yoga and toning exercises, so we might do a chariot pose but add squats to give an active element and work different muscles.”
Daily workouts aren’t essential: exercise three to five times a week, incorporating toning as well as cardiovascular exercises (walking, running, a cross-training machine) and you will see changes in three weeks. Aniston does the latter two. “Do 30 minutes of cardio — run for 15-20 minutes and warm up and cool down for 5-10 minutes — and then some yoga or toning exercises for 30-45 minutes,” recommends Ingber, so your workout is about an hour and 15 minutes. “It just takes a bit of commitment,” she says encouragingly. “When you see a change, you’ll want to keep doing it.”
The shoes that work
Reebok EasyTone Curve
Designed by a former Nasa engineer, they tone your legs and bum as you walk, yet look like normal trainers; £80
Nike Air Fly Bold Sister+
A woman’s training shoe featuring a special sole to boost workout performance and flexibilty; £60
FitFlop Electra
hese Electras increase leg, calf and gluteal muscle activity to tone and tighten; £50; fitflop.com
MBT Fora
Work on your posture and gait with MBTs that are 20% lighter than previous models; £159; mbt.com
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article7144305.ece
Gone are the size-zero and muscle-bound types. The latest body trend is all about looking fit and healthy. Plus, six men reveal which of our bits they love the most
Gemma Soames
9 COMMENTS
RECOMMEND? (15)
Helena Christensen
It all started with a lot of talk about bottoms. My friends had become obsessed by bums — the ones in the Reebok EasyTone ad, to be precise — and I could see why. Click onto YouTube and you will see, too. Striding, bouncing and dancing round their kitchens in nothing but their pants, they are perfect, peachy adverts for an alluring new combination of sexy and sporty. They are the poster bums for now. And we wanted them so badly, we went out and bought the shoes — clearly along with everyone else, because they sold out in two weeks.
Helena Christensen is wearing those trainers here, and she has the body to go with that bum. Yes, she is a supermodel; yes, she’s naturally thin; and yes, if we had her genes, we would also regularly pose naked for Steven Klein. But check her out. She is 41. Hers is a body that looks healthy, one that says fitness rather than thinness, sporty rather than starving. Ditto Daria Werbowy’s on our cover this week.
These bottoms and bodies are at the forefront of a new movement that couldn’t be further from either super-skinny size zero or Madonna-style bionic biceps. This is about a sporty physique, where you’re getting your kicks for fun and not punishing yourself at dinner or in the gym. These bodies are sensible, squeezable, and, best of all, attainable. From Jennifer Aniston as the face of Smart Water, and Gwyneth Paltrow on the red carpet, to Kelly Brook in stripy knickers and Michelle Obama in sleeveless tops, these women are a whole, real world away from the overtoned or underfed poster girls of the Noughties.
Look at them and it’s clear the dream physique has changed. Step aside, Madge; budge up, Posh — we’d like to look normal now, please. First up, you can’t be starving. As Mandy Ingber, Aniston’s yoga instructor, puts it: “It’s about being toned but not too skinny, not overly muscular or extreme. It looks like they’re all eating healthily and it’s based on an active lifestyle.”
Refreshingly, this isn’t a trend that’s about looks alone. It hinges on a healthy attitude — to both exercise and food. As Ingber puts it: “Jennifer looks as if she takes care of her body; she doesn’t look as if she deprives herself.” And, once nourished, it’s more about being generally active than frantic 5am workouts. Ask any trainer and they will tell you, you simply can’t achieve this body by pounding the same muscles over and over again. You only get to look like this by taking regular, sensible and varied exercise.
“I’m not going to lie,” says Werbowy. “I do go to the gym and try and stay as active and healthy as possible. But I’m not a fitness addict. When I hear of celebrities who get up at 5am to work out, honestly, I admire their seriousness, but… I am addicted to sailing, and I love basketball, I’ve started running and boxing, and I snowboard regularly. It helps me to unwind from all the stress.”
“I think the whole approach has changed,” says Christensen, who only started taking exercise properly three years ago. “Now I do boxing, I take tennis lessons, I cycle a lot and I’m always walking around everywhere. When I’m in one place for a while, I get into a running routine, and I do dance stuff, too. It used to be a total chore and you just wanted to get it over with, but now, and I feel it with so many people, with friends and family, everyone’s working out and feeling good.’
She’s right. Everywhere you look, women are trading in their frantic sessions on the Power Plate for more friendly routes to fitness. “One thing I’ve noticed is a lot of clients taking part in group events like 5K runs, triathlons and half marathons,” says fitness guru Matt Roberts. Over the past year, more than 100,000 more of us have become regular weekly cyclists; 600,000 people in Britain surf; 4.7m women have run the Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research; and even the women’s netball association has seen a rise in popularity — up 5,000 last year.
So, why the shift? Boredom, perhaps? Body fashions can change as quickly as trouser shapes, and both size zero and bulging muscles seem decidedly over. Why else would Marc Jacobs have chosen a few curvy Victoria’s Secret models to walk for Louis Vuitton; and why else would Lara Stone, generous Cs and all, be the hottest face of the moment? Roberts thinks it’s also a symptom of our times. “Part of it is a response to the economic environment,” he says. “In a depression, people have the need to do something to lift themselves, so they focus more on feeling good and looking good. It’s the one thing you can do to make yourself look better without spending a load of money.”
It is also about changing attitudes to ageing. Aniston, Paltrow and Christensen look better than they ever have. And to pull that off after your taut and teeny twenties, you can’t just be thin, you have to be fit — thank God. As Paltrow says of her Tracy Anderson approach: “This regime got me into the shape of my life and I return to it, so I can be a 37-year-old mother of two and do ridiculous things like wear shorts.”
So there you have it. Straight from Gwyneth. This is about fitness that works for you. You want to wear shorts? Go for it. Get down the gym, get to the park, or get on your bike and go for it. As Roberts says: “We’re finally on the right track. People have a good attitude to fitness. It’s an interesting time for physicality.” Interesting, and hot. Now, excuse me while I go take a turn in my toning trainers.
The best bits: what a man loves most
THE LEGS
Patrick Grant, director of Norton & Sons
Girls, especially our marvellous English ones, have much that is wonderful to rejoice in — nimble wit, a sharp tongue, an endearing unruliness of hair, that glorious ruddy, orange-pippin complexion. But the best bit by far is a graceful and athletic pair of legs. Raised for centuries on a routine of hockey sticks, wilful ponies and traipsing after spaniels across heathery moors, our girls have developed serious sporting pins. Not stout, like a ham hanging in a butcher’s, nor thin and fragile, but taut, lithe and agile. A leg that Stubbs might do justice to.
What boy of my era can deny watching Top of the Pops for a sneaky peak at Pan’s People? Half a dozen long-limbed lovelies in little more than their undies, jumping about that stage like crimped neon crickets.
Legs are one of nature’s marvels, perfectly engineered machines, all cantilevers and antagonistic pairs, a simple support of almost architectural elegance. It’s no surprise that the miniskirt was a British innovation; there could be no finer way to show off one of this nation’s greatest treasures.
THE FACE
Wayne Hemingway, design guru
You can see by a girl’s face the things she enjoys. On a dancefloor, the reaction’s in the face — it’s the main access to her brain. I don’t care about boobs or legs, and I didn’t even when I was young. I’m married to a lovely lass: her legs are all right, but they won’t get her into a magazine. All intelligent men are face men, really. Faces aren’t about mainstream beauty — some women who would not be classed as natural beauties can get your attention. A face that could be seen as ugly can also be unconventionally beautiful. Look at Meryl Streep — how exciting is that face?
I want a face that’s happy, not a face for misery. I also like a face that has character and depth. It’s the eyes that most captivate me. There’s a depth that no other part of the face has. It’s your route into the real person. I also like make-up, especially girls who use it as an art form. Lady Gaga is not the prettiest girl around, but she uses make-up as a tool to show there’s a lot going on behind the eyes. I met my wife on a dancefloor in Burnley in 1979. Her face was covered in new-romantic make-up. She looked like she knew what was going on and I could tell she had a lovely, complicated presence.
THE STOMACH
Jonathan Yeo, painter
I spend a lot of time looking at women naked and what always interests me is the stomach. There’s something so sexy and natural about a bit of a bump. Not folds of flab rolling in on themselves, but a nice curve to the stomach has something animalistic about it. If you put your arms around a woman from behind, you want to be able to feel something, feel her shape.
Biologically, bumps are attractive, too. Pregnant women always complain that people want to touch their bump, but the firm ripeness is magnetic. And while women often say they feel unattractive and fat when pregnant, no man would agree. The rest of the body doesn’t change much — in some cases, not at all — and on a primitive level, we like our potential mates to look capable of reproduction. The post-pregnancy potbelly is not unattractive, either.
When I flick through fashion magazines, I find all those flat tummies disconcerting. It doesn’t look natural — you don’t see historical paintings of thin people. I can see why designers show clothes on two-dimensional girls — bumps push their perfect lines out of shape — but naked, it’s not an attractive look. From an artist’s point of view, it is much more interesting and satisfying to have curves to paint. Curves create shadows and reflections; they cause the light to change. They make paintings feel more solid and real.
THE BRAINS
James Brown, writer
“You’re joking, right?” asks my girlfriend. “You’d say ‘tits’ if I wasn’t here.” You may think she has a point, but bear with me.
Being asked to decide which bit of a woman’s body you prefer is like being asked which band you like best. If I replied, “I love music, all sorts”, you’d get the gist of how I feel about women. But if I had to choose, I would always come back to the brain. The reality is, you can be knocked senseless by the way a woman looks: by her eyes, her breasts, her hair, her legs, her lips, her profile. There are undoubtedly physical attributes that can stop you in your tracks, but without a sense of what she’s actually like, you’ll never get beyond mere voyeurism.
The colour of a girl’s hair will never override what comes out of her mouth, her humour, her point of view, her anecdotes. You can spend ages fancying someone from afar, but if they aren’t going to make you laugh or think differently, you might as well go back to looking at pics of Raquel Welch online.
THE HAIR
Adam Thirlwell, novelist
My favourite parts of the body are those that aren’t quite body parts. The crease at the top of the thigh, freckles across the cheeks, or the miraculous areola around the nipple, some sketchily pale, others darkly grand. I’m captivated by everything. But of all these body parts that aren’t quite body parts, I’m most in love with hair.
In my intellectual youth, I watched Dali and Buñuel’s surrealist film Un Chien Andalou, where some ants on a man’s palm dissolve to a shot of armpit hair on a sunbathing woman, which itself dissolves into a sea urchin. At that point in my youth, I finally got the allure of the close-up. But although this shot demonstrates one reason why hair is so alluring — because it’s also kind of strange — I think the real reason I love hair is something else. Hair is nature and nurture; hair is mess and style.
Every girl’s body is a different pattern of hair, and all its varieties are fascinating. For instance, a blonde crop that makes a girl look boyish; a mass of red curls that are somehow blonde as they curve in on themselves; a tight bob sadly flattened as it emerges from a shower… the endless varieties are endlessly delightful.
THE CURVES
Antonio Berardi, fashion designer
Curves are what separate women from men. I like the curve of the bust, the curve of the hip, the curve behind the knee, the curve from the shoulder to the neck. These, to me, are extremely sensual. When I was a child, I used to watch my mum apply perfume — I noticed them then, and once you do, they become ever so much more apparent in every woman you know. Each woman’s curves are unique. Every one treats her body in her own way — there are certain parts that she caresses, that mean something to her. It’s amazing to witness this, as a man looking on.
The 1950s body shape, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe: these are who I think of when I envisage a woman. When I sit and sketch, it’s always an hourglass silhouette. If you look at men’s magazines, the women have accentuated curves. If you show a man a selection of cars, he’ll always pick the sporty red one. The curvy woman is the sporty red car of the female world. This may sound gratuitous, but actually it’s totally primal.
Eat yourself fit
“Diet accounts for about 80% of how you look,” says Cameron Shayne, founder of Budokon (a mix of yoga, martial arts and meditation) and one of two specialists trusted by Jennifer Aniston. Mandy Ingber, Jen’s yoga instructor, who often travels with the actress on location, agrees: “If you want to change your body, you have to change your diet.”
The basics are simple:
— Avoid processed foods and refined sugars. Instead of eating bread, try quinoa or more whole grains.
— Eat plenty of leafy greens, veggies, fruit, lean meat, salmon and healthy fats such as avocado, coconut and olive oils.
— Be moderate. You can still have your favourite foods, just make sure that 75% of your diet is in the healthy category. “I don’t like extreme diets because people feel deprived and then swing back the other way,” says Ingber. “We all have foods we crave, but try eating them in a different way — instead of a whole piece of bread, just eat the crust or half a piece. A little bit of this or that is not going to hurt. Jennifer is very moderate; she won’t cut out anything entirely, but if she’s eating a Mexican meal, for example, she will have three tortilla chips and then she’s done.” Shayne agrees: “People can have bad habits as long as they are in moderation. Even a bit of alcohol is fine.” So it’s not all bad news then.
— Drink 35ml of water per 1kg of body weight (for example, if you weigh 52kg, you should drink 1.8 litres per day).
How to get a fit body
“If you want a great body, you have to be willing to move it,” says Cameron Shayne, Jennifer Aniston’s martial arts trainer. “I’m a proponent of cross-training — running, rock climbing — as long as you’re taking care of yourself.” You don’t even need dumbbells these days. “Artificial weight is unnecessary; remember a gymnast works with their own body,” he says.
But yoga is key. “Jennifer looks as though she has an active body and it has balance; yoga has been a part of that,” says Mandy Ingber, who teaches Yogalosophy, her own dynamic yoga. “The reason yoga creates that is because you use only your own body’s weight, so it’s a natural movement working every muscle group. Yogalosophy is a hybrid of yoga and toning exercises, so we might do a chariot pose but add squats to give an active element and work different muscles.”
Daily workouts aren’t essential: exercise three to five times a week, incorporating toning as well as cardiovascular exercises (walking, running, a cross-training machine) and you will see changes in three weeks. Aniston does the latter two. “Do 30 minutes of cardio — run for 15-20 minutes and warm up and cool down for 5-10 minutes — and then some yoga or toning exercises for 30-45 minutes,” recommends Ingber, so your workout is about an hour and 15 minutes. “It just takes a bit of commitment,” she says encouragingly. “When you see a change, you’ll want to keep doing it.”
The shoes that work
Reebok EasyTone Curve
Designed by a former Nasa engineer, they tone your legs and bum as you walk, yet look like normal trainers; £80
Nike Air Fly Bold Sister+
A woman’s training shoe featuring a special sole to boost workout performance and flexibilty; £60
FitFlop Electra
hese Electras increase leg, calf and gluteal muscle activity to tone and tighten; £50; fitflop.com
MBT Fora
Work on your posture and gait with MBTs that are 20% lighter than previous models; £159; mbt.com
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article7144305.ece
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Most men like curves. Noone I know is really to stick thin women. But what really matters to me is personality. Are you sweet? Are you kind? Are you funny? Do you love children? Do you love God? Those are things that I look at. My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world to me and 90% of that is that she is an amazing mom, kind, loving, funny(ish) and devoted to God. Looks fade. Tummies, boobs, butts all get saggy. Heart is what counts.
Just throwing that out there.
God bless,
Ed0 -
Tummies, boobs, butts all get saggy. Heart is what counts.
So true!! I can honestly attest to the fact that guys love curves. I've never been with a guy that has responded with "Oh, good!" when I mention I need to start eating better or working out. I usually hear, "Babe, you're beautiful!" And it's not because I have them whipped.
My boyfriend is very supportive of my decision to lose weight and never said a thing when I started gaining weight once we were together. I gained 30 lbs and he never said I looked thicker or said anything negative. This is probably why I didn't notice it 'til I stepped on the scale.
Most of my guy friends like a girl with meat on her. Most guys don't want to be stabbed when they just go to hold their girl! :happy: And I'm very grateful for that 'cause I've definitely got some cushion!
Oh, and here's another thing... my boyfriend doesn't think Jessica Biel is hot. I think she has one of the hottest athletic bodies around. I want to look just like her! So I was a little like "WWWWHHHAAAT?" when he said that, haha!0 -
I'm glad that stick thin is out because I have always felt that curvy women are REAL women. Not the stick thin models you see in magazines. In the past, it has completely brainwashed women to think THAT is the ideal body type. Not true. Curves are always sexy!0
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This makes me happy. No matter how slim I get I am always gonna have boobs and a butt! I wouldn't trade them for being a waif though!0
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bump0
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woohoo!!! I was never a stick thin girl, and I never will be. I love my curves, and although they have shrank, they're not gone. When I lost weight, my "girls" went down around and up a cup size. And I've always had a butt. I'm in the best shape of my life, even skinner now than I was in high school (as a cheerleader) so...Hooray for curves and not crazy skinny!0
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Yeah my girls have gotten smaller, but seem quite a bit bigger compared to how the rest of my body looks lately. Sort of a win-win situation!0
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