health&fitnessfactorfiction.com

Pg 192, Celebrity Body Secrets

This is another plug for the book “The A-List Workout”, and this time focuses on the best body features of various celebrities, and the exercises they use to maintain them.

From Hilary Swank’s arms, J-Lo’s butt, Jessica Simpson’s back, and Lucy Liu’s stomach, this article promises you can replicate their spunkiness. Each section includes a “make-me-over” tip, and a “session secret”, which might be anything from a dietary approach, to doing multi joint exercises to maximise results.

My biggest complaint about this article is the detailed exercise instructions, and no pictures. The staggered squat makes no sense, and needs at least three pictures to explain it. The lat extension involves a resistance band closed in a door, which to me is begging for someone to be subjected to the hugest rubber band flicking of their life, and the diamond pushup is an exercise I would only give to clients who had wrists made of steel. It also needs a note about keeping your abs strong, as this exercise requires heaps of upper body and abdominal strength, and can go horribly wrong if someone isn’t supervising your technique.

These exercises might be great, but unless you’re going to perform them properly, they’ll end up doing more damage than good. Disappointing **

Pg 168, Hot Body Shortcuts - we tell you exactly what to eat to lose weight

Four pages of advice on portion size, which is both user friendly and sensible. Most people’s idea of what constitutes an appropriate serving is worlds away from reality - in this article, 1/3 of a meat pie is a serving, and how many pie eaters do you know who stop at 1/3? 1/2 a slice of pizza is a serving, and again, who stops at that - not me, that’s for sure.

Since diet is such an integral part of losing weight and being healthy, this is a terrific article, and one which can be useful to help you work out how much every day and sometimes foods you should be eating. ****

Pg 172 - Is junk food hijacking your life?

I’m a big fan of AJ Rochester’s writing, even though I can’t stand her on The Biggest Loser - but I think that’s more the fault of the show. Basically this article asks you to identify whether you turn to food when times are tough, rather than forming habits which are going to make you healthy and happier in the long term. She gives some good advice for emotional eaters, and hands up anyone who hasn’t turned to chocolate in times of stress?
The thing I like most about AJ’s writing is it’s all based on her own personal struggles, so you know what you’re reading is the real deal. ***

I don’t normally review Madison, but who could resist the huge headline “A better body in 4 weeks - it’s easy and it works”? Does it live up to it’s promise, and make it worth parting with your $7.95? Let’s take a look.

Pg 219: Introducing the Best Body Challenge - Part 1

10 huge pages of fitness, encompassing cardio, strength training, flexibility and nutrition - and it’s great! Sensible information, user friendly pictures (usually the one thing missing from otherwise excellent articles), and ways to overload the intensity. This is the kind of thing you could really use if you can’t afford a personal trainer, or you’re not interested in joining a gym.

There’s nothing here for me to criticise, so instead I’m going to pick out my favorite elements:

Balanced approach to resistance training - every muscle gets a workout.

Suggests rest days, stretching, and ways of working exercise into your life to make it all easier to achieve.

In the flexibility section, it stresses doing what you can without forcing things. Perfect!

The nutritional plan stresses eating a healthy breakfast, trying to detox your system in a smart way (and you probably know how I feel about detoxes by now), and has some excellent choices for snacks.

I’ll be really interested to see the subsequent month’s workouts, but this is the best article I’ve seen so far. And consequently, ***** - go out and buy it now!

Every one of the three glossies I’ve checked out for February has concentrated on diet, but InStyle has devoted four hefty pages to it.

Page 166 - Cool Change

All Saint’s actress Allison Cratchley has a gorgeous red Smeg fridge, and she’s letting dietician Geraldine Georgeou check out what’s inside. While the idea of letting anyone look in my fridge gives me palpitations, Allison is either extremely well organised, or someone styled her fridge for the photos … I’m tipping the latter.

At first glance she’s doing awesomely - organic meat, heaps of berries, and veggies, so the fact the dietician had five suggestions for improvement was interesting. They’re great suggestions too.

Over the page, there’s a run down on sections of the fridge, and what’s best stored where. There are lots of suggestions for things to keep in the freezer in order to have easy to prepare meals at the ready, some suggestions are fantastic (my favorite involves bacon)

This is a truly excellent article, and one I will implement several things from. ****

Detoxes are obviously ultra chic at the moment, since Cleo’s also pitching one on their cover - but thank God, it’s a celebrity detox, because who wants to read about boring ordinary people?

Page 150, Cleo body makeover - “The celeb detox Gwyeth, Kate and Kylie swear by”

The lesser headline on this article is “want clearer skin, more energy, plus a leaner, sexier bod? Coming right up!” In my mind, that makes it sound super easy … but after reading just about every celebrity detox in existence, what I’ve discovered is the more celebrities love something, usually the harder it is for mere mortals to complete it.

This is Dr Nish Joshi’s detox, and if it’s so easy, I’d like to know why it has a giant book devoted to it - one I’ve flicked through more than ten times, thinking “I should buy this, and do this detox”, yet always putting it back on the shelf because I knew there was no way I could give up:

wheat, gluten, yeast, fruit (except bananas, which I despise with passion), no red meat, no dairy (I could actually do that), no chocolate or sugar (what!), no coffee (even decaffeinated, and that’s just insane), or tea. Sorry, if I have to do all that to look good, it’s just not worth it.

It also promises you’re going to feel like crap for the first 48 hours, and may experience headaches, stomach pains, nausea, fatigue, even mild palpitations, but apparently, the worse you feel, the more your body was in need of a detox. Ironically, one of my friends used to say the same thing about heroin.

I think it’s necessary to really think about how sane it is to go through a hard core cleansing plan, when 99.9% of people will just go back to their old ways. I’m probably (definitely) cynical, but unless you are a celeb, who has someone to shop and cook for them, and make sure they’re not cheating on their detox, this is an almost unsustainable regime. If you’ve done a detox and managed to maintain the lifestyle, please leave me a comment, because I’d love to hear about your experience.

Sadly, Dr Joshi doesn’t ignite my passion the way a celeb workout does. And maybe I’d be better off if he did. Now excuse me, I’m going to have a cup of coffee and chargrill a giant steak … My rating - for usefulness * - for degree of difficulty *****

Page 78 - Have you got a food hangover?

Dietician Susie Burrell lists four types of food binges and how to avoid the terrible feeling of overdoing certain types of food. They range from potato chips to ice cream and chocolate. Great advice. ***

Page 82 - What’s in your drink?

Half page article listing five popular drinks, listing their kJ’s and sugar content, and giving a healthier/lower calorie option. Some of the kJ listings are quite terrifying, and if you’re having a grande Starbucks frappuccino every day and can’t lose weight, you might suddenly discover why. Since this is listed as one of the better options, just choosing a latte might be a little bit smarter … and not that hard to work out. Disturbing, but fairly obvious ***

This is the first review of a glossy monthly mag in a while, and the first for 2007. This month, Cosmo’s Health, Food, Fitness and Wellbeing section is devoted to one topic - detoxing! Let’s examine, shall we?

Page 135 - New Year “Cosmo Tests” Special

Seven different “disciplines” which allegedly help your body in various ways are tested out by members of the Cosmo team. They range from the pleasant (Ionic foot spa to wash away toxins) to the not-for-everybody (colonic irrigation).

There are some fairly outrageous claims made - again, I’m pointing to you, Ionic foot spa, but also the LBD diet, which is supposed to work in 24 hours. Even Cosmo is careful to point out experts don’t recommend such drastic short term fixes, but it apparently got a thumbs up from nutritionists (no names are mentioned), so they pressed ahead with the test. They rate it 3/5, but the big thing to remember is it only works short term, and the moment you put anything substantial in your mouth, kiss goodbye to that flat belly.

As a total aside, I was talking to one of my (male) clients a couple of days ago about bodies, and what’s considered sexy. He’s a very urbane and spunky guy, and rates a curvy belly on a woman as a massive turn on. So maybe the idea of a totally flat stomach isn’t as gorgeous as we’re led to think?

Back to the article … my top rated pick would be the herbal liver fix to re-energise - mainly because your liver is the organ responsible for fat burning. If you’re looking to lose some weight, sorting out any liver issues is a great way to go. Not only will you feel far healthier, but you’ll look better too. If you’re interested in finding out more about having a healthy liver, Dr Sandra Cabot’s book, The Liver Cleansing Diet is an excellent (and easy to use) resource. Some of the testimonials are pretty amazing.

Second: the inner core workout to resurrect your abs. As long as the exercises are appropriate for your body and done with good technique, you can’t go wrong with strengthening your core.

Third: acupuncture for helping cure sugar cravings. If you read the book I mentioned above, you might not need to get jabbed to cure your sugar cravings, but acupuncture works really well for some people when they’ve exhausted other avenues of help. Other ways to beat sugar cravings are to increase your intake of fibre when you eat sugar (easily translated as fruit) which will satisfy your hunger for longer. Eating more regularly, and choosing more complex sugars rather than quick releasing ones will also help.

This article was okay, but for my money had more of a novelty factor than really useful information. You might find something here that works well for you though. My rating is ***