The Fat Girl's Guide to Living

This week’s guest post is from an unusual source for FGG: a personal trainer who helps celebrities (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Audrey Tautou, and Colin Firth) get into camera-ready shape. Cornel Chin, author of Celebrity Body on a Budget, talks about what it’s really like to train like a celebrity and shares some more practical body toning moves for the rest of us.

[We probably don't need to tell you this, but you should check with your health care provider to ensure these moves are safe for you to perform]

Training to become super-fit like a celebrity isn’t on every woman’s to-do list. While some women want to lose weight, others simply want their clothes to fit a little better or to be able to catch the bus without panting and sweating. But even if you’re not interested in having an “Oscar-ready” body, you may still secretly be wondering what holy grail of exercise celebrities seem to have found that the rest of us haven’t. In truth, celebrities live in the limelight and are constantly under scrutiny, and the dangling carrots of fame and fortune play an important role – where choosing between shedding some extra weight vs. a $10 million movie deal provides powerful motivation.

But don’t be fooled into believing that even the most fit celebrities are doing exercises different from what you may be doing at home or at your gym. Trust me on this: there’s nothing new in fitness–no magic machine that shakes you like a smoothie blender or stretchy cable apparatus that pulls you like a medieval torture device. The biggest difference is that famous people are probably exercising more often and under professional guidance. Many celebrities pay very generously for the right advice and service. They hire personal chefs to serve up their favorite foods, nutritionists to advise their chef what to prepare, and a trainer to do all the fitness thinking for them. All they have to do is show up and perform (no pun intended).

My book, Celebrity Body on a Budget, is designed to encourage people to try working out like a celebrity without having to spend top dollar on nutritionists, trainers and personal chefs. Even if you have no desire to whip yourself into a frenzy worthy of Hollywood, you might find a few new moves to shake up your regular exercise routine–or kick one off if you’re currently sedentary.

Here are a few simple moves that can be easily incorporated into your daily life. I’ve chosen exercises that don’t require a lot of getting down on the floor and back up again, which can be challenging if you’re substantially overweight, but that will yield visible results over time if you’re doing them at least every other day.

UPPER BODY MOVE: ANYWHERE DIPS

The triceps (rear upper arms), also affectionately known as ‘bingo swingers’ or ‘bat wings,’ is a troublesome area for many women.

The Dip exercise is perhaps one of the best moves, which can be performed against any safe, fixed bench, desk or chair. Think kitchen counter top, work desk/station, park bench, or waiting room bench–most places have a fixed surface. Simply face away from the surface, place your hands hip width apart and keep your knees slightly bent. Then, bend at your elbows to lower your body to no lower than a right angle. To extend up again to the start position, just extend the arms again avoiding locking out the elbows. Try 10 repetitions and work up to 20 reps. Progress up to a couple of sets of 15 reps, then 18, then 20 etc.

MID-SECTION MOVE – THE T.V. PULL-IN

This little discreet number is perhaps one of the simplest exercises, yet it offers a big payout in terms of benefit. This can literally be done anytime and anywhere-sitting, standing, kneeling or even lying down. It works the main core muscle (Transversus Abdominis), which is the main muscle responsible for keeping you upright and maintaining a flat stomach.

All that is required is a little practice, as it’s a bit tricky if you’re new to it. As you take a deep breath in, draw in the area of your stomach situated between your navel and your upper groin. Pull in this area as if drawing in toward your lower back. Hold for 10 seconds, as you breathe out slowly for the same amount of time. Repeat three more times. As you improve, try holding for longer intervals. Try this several times a day, while standing waiting for the kettle to boil or waiting for a bus or train.

LOWER BODY MOVE – DOUBLE STEPS

A great habit many people adopt is taking the stairs instead of an elevator or escalator. To further boost that benefit, try taking two steps at a time instead of one. By doing so, the quadriceps (front thighs) and gluteal muscle (buttocks) are engaged and are worked 50% more than if taking one step at a time. If the steps are not too steep, you may wish to attempt taking three steps at a time. As a safety measure, just ensure the knees are not bending more than a right angle or 90 degrees to avoid undue stress to the knee area.

Cornel Chin is a fitness expert to the stars with over 20 years of experience as a fitness professional. He integrates his diverse background to create an all-encompassing approach to fitness. Cornel is credited for getting Leonardo DiCaprio into shape in double-quick time for the film The Beach, and, as a leading fitness expert, he is a frequent guest on numerous television and radio shows throughout the United Kingdom. Cornel has also been featured in, and regularly contributes to, a host of leading international publications.

Dara Chadwick’s book, “You’d Be So Pretty If…”

This week’s guest post comes from Dara Chadwick, a journalist who writes about health, wellness and psychology. We asked her to write about her journey to self acceptance after landing a sweet gig with a national women’s fitness magazine.

When it comes to family television viewing, there aren’t always a whole lot of great choices, but one show my family’s been enjoying together is ABC’s “The Middle,” a half-hour sitcom that features a “middle-aged, middle-class” mom in middle America. My kids think it’s a riot and I’ve found myself giggling at the over-the-top adventures of the show’s characters — especially the mom, who’s just trying to hold her head above water on most days.

I’ve had lots of days like that. And they really used to bother me. But happiness, I’ve discovered, is in those “middle” places.

See, I’m a former member of the “I have to be perfect” club: brilliant career, model children, blissfully happy marriage and spotless house. Oh, and a fabulous body, too.

Are you done laughing yet?

I can tell you that I have achieved all that “perfection” exactly zero times in my life. But that didn’t stop me from trying — or from beating myself up about it. The focus of most of my efforts was usually my body; after all, eating and exercise were totally under my control, right?

There was a time in my life when my quest to improve myself was serious business. I’d restrict calories, I’d exercise for hours and otherwise find ways to punish myself for not being “perfect.” My body may have been smaller, but I was never quite satisfied with where I was. In my mind, there was always room for improvement.

Secretly, though, I longed for a day when I wouldn’t have to care anymore.

While meeting the demands of two young kids, a husband, a job and a house, that day arrived. I didn’t care anymore. With no time to exercise, no energy to make a healthy meal for myself amid diapers and baby food and bottles, and no shortage of guilt at the idea of putting myself first, I let go of my chase of perfection.

And I do mean I let go. But that didn’t make me happy, either.

It wasn’t the extra flesh I was carrying or the bigger jeans I was wearing. It was knowing that I just wasn’t taking care of myself. Not exercising and not caring at all about what I ate didn’t deliver the freedom I once thought it would.

My life was out of balance. I’d gone from one extreme to the other.

In 2007, I signed on to write the Weight-Loss Diary column for Shape magazine. I worked with a life coach, a trainer and a dietitian to meet my goal of getting myself back to the weight I was on my wedding day. Each month, I was photographed and had to write about my “successes and failures.”

By the end of the year, I made my goal weight. But a funny thing happened along the way.

I’d started out with near obsession: I never, ever thought I wouldn’t be able to lose the weight. But as my kids — who were then 11 and nine — watched me hit the gym for a couple of hours each day, drink protein shakes and carefully monitor every calorie I consumed, I realized that I’d see-sawed back to the other extreme. And that wasn’t good.

That wasn’t the mom I wanted to be.

But here’s what was good: By the project’s end, I’d reconnected with my body. I remembered how good regular exercise made me feel. I realized how much better I felt when I ate healthy foods. I had a great dietitian who taught me all about moderation and helped me learn to bring balance to my food choices — knowledge I still use every day, two years later.

When my year with Shape was over, I made a conscious decision: No more extremes. These days, I eat what I feel like eating, when I feel like eating it. I don’t belong to a gym anymore; instead, I mix up my routine with walking, running, dance classes, yoga, biking — whatever I feel like doing. But I do something. It’s not about getting smaller, or changing a single thing: It’s about me, living my life in the healthiest body I can have — and showing my kids that you don’t have to be “perfect” to be happy.

After all this time, I feel like I’ve finally found my “middle” place — that balance between healthy self-care and accepting the body I have. I’m not striving for elusive perfection, but I’m not neglecting my body’s health either. Landing squarely in the middle, I’ve reached that body image milestone I’ve longed for my whole life: Contentment.

Dara writes about raising body-confident kids and making peace with our own body image demons at You’d Be So Pretty If (one of our “We Read” picks), and you can purchase her book here.