A Fat Loss Workout and Celebrity Review by Callie Durbrow

Okay I’m going to say something that’s probably a little bit un-American….I didn’t like Avatar. That’s right, the biggest blockbuster movie of the year was a bit of a bore for me. The themes were heavy but predictable and I just can’t take blue people very seriously. I guess that’s just my logical Capricorn side. Or maybe I’m just weird….

The one thing that was super impressive to me was the rockin’ body of the Avatar Chick. Yeah I know it was a computer generated blue person but you know you were looking at her toned abs and tight muscular legs too. Plus, actress Zoe Saldana got into some serious shape for that movie.

Despite not liking the movie, I obviously appreciate a really regimented, successful workout and fat burning diet plan. Zoe Saldana was super focused on nutrition to help tone and tighten her body as well. She doesn’t subscribe to crash diets like a lot of celebrities, but instead focuses on all natural, balanced nutrition with an occasional cheat day of pasta or ice cream.

Remember, a cheat day is important to keep yourself in check during the week. If you completely deprive yourself, sooner or later you’ll just destroy your diet plan because you’re so sick of eating healthy.

If you’re looking to develop the toned, tight physique like Avatar’s Zoe Saldana, here’s an awesome fat burning workout that you can do in just 30 minutes:

How to Get an Lose Fat Fast and Get the Avatar Body

Work for 40 seconds and rest for 20 seconds between exercises. Then rest for 1 minute between sets. Perform 4-5 sets depending on your fitness level.

1. Jump Squats
2. Walking Lunges
3. Push Ups
4. Medicine Ball Seated Twist
5. Jump Rope

The timed sets make these workouts much easier to follow, instead of trying to remember how many repetitions to do. Plus, you get much more work done and you can push your body a little harder each workout.

Enjoy this and let me know how it works for you with a comment below!

In the spirit of the 2010 Winter Olympics, today’s celebrity workout review is the one and only, Lindsey Vonn. Lindsey is USA’s winter version of Michael Phelps. She’s a candidate for 5 Olympic Golds in downhill, super combined, super-G, giant slalom, and slalom. Vonn had several injuries and set backs but has been a media firestorm with her tremendous strength and power. Lindsey now skis on men’s skis because she’s too powerful for the women’s skis and the mens are wider, which allow her to go faster. How cool is that?

In many of my posts I talk about the lean, athletic look that most women are striving for. Lindsey Vonn is another perfect example of how this look is developed. Obviously she is an extreme case because her life is based around training…but, you get the point…

Lindsey’s workout and training plan is very intense but I wanted to touch on a few points that are important to those of us not striving for Olympic Gold.

1. Lindsey’s strength workouts include a focus on core strength but she’s not doing tons and tons of sit ups. She’s completing exercises using medicine balls, physio balls, and tons of powerful throws to activate her entire core. These are athletic based movements but they certainly help you torch calories and are much more fun than lying on the ground doing hundreds of bicycle crunches.

2. Lindsey performs a lot of ground based strength movements to develop power and explosiveness. Movements like multi-directional lunges, squats and jumps will train the lower body extremely well and will boost your metabolism much better than traditional machines and leg presses.

3. Agility and movement training are important for Lindsey’s workouts as well. Again, most of us are not flying down the hill at 90mph but we sure need to be able to move well. Exercises like the agility ladder, mountain climbers, multi-directional lunges or stair climbs are all great movements that will crank up your heart rate and are also kind of fun.

4. Lindsey bikes 2-3 hours at a time for optimal endurance. For us normal folk who are looking for a metabolic boost and a calorie torching workout, interval training is the best way to achieve this. Bike or run hard for 1 minute, recover for 1 minute and repeat for 8-10 circuits.

5. Lindsey’s nutrition plan was pretty simple- avoiding large amounts of sugar, eating a complex carbohydrate breakfast to fuel up for the day, drinking plenty of water, fueling up with protein after a workout, and even indulging once or twice per week.

Lindsey Vonn’s workouts are grueling and intense but the focus of this post is to show you that you need to move your body as a whole, perform large movements, create fun environments for your training, and work hard.

Enjoy the Olympics!

So even though I was totally “Team Aniston” back in the day, I still love Brad Pitt. That whole Benjamin Button movie freaked me out a little bit but come on, Brad is awesome and the dude can create a specimen out of his body like no one else.

Brad Pitt’s workout routine is nothing that most of you will relate to, or anything that I would necessarily promote as an efficient fat loss program. Obviously it works and I’ll tell you why (more on this later).

Here is the workout scheme that Brad used for both Troy and Fight Club:

Monday: Chest
Tuesday: Back
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Shoulders/Abs
Friday: Biceps/Triceps
Saturday: Cardio
Sunday: Rest

Brad used a traditional body building split of attacking one muscle group each day. For each day he would have 5 or 6 exercises and perform 3-4 sets of anywhere from 6-20 repetitions.
Here’s why this workout works: you are overloading each muscle group and with the higher number of repetitions you are putting the muscle under tension for a longer period of time, thus breaking down the muscle and allowing it to grow back bigger, also known as hypertrophy.
Here’s why this wouldn’t work for most of you, who are looking to lose fat, tone your entire body and drop inches.
This is not an efficient way to train. Don’t get me wrong, it works, but look at how long it takes! Most people do not have time to devote an entire workout to one muscle group. In order to create an efficient and effective program for fat loss and strength, you should be performing full body movements that will elevate your heart rate and boost your metabolism so you are torching calories when you are not working out.

This is done through movements such as squats, lunges, mountain climbers, push ups, chin ups, kettlebell movements and medicine ball work. I know that all of my clients are very familiar with this concept, so if you are NOT doing this kind of training…start now!

Brad’s nutrition plan looks something like this: high protein meals, small meals spread out through the day, eliminated alcohol, junk food and cigarettes.

That’s pretty basic but the results speak for themselves. If you are overloading on sugars and processed foods, you will not have any chance at a sculpted looking mid section. You must give your body the proper fuel to energize your workouts, help with recovery and promote a lean and toned figure.

Stick to your small meals, protein to keep you full, fruits and veggies, lots of water, get rid of the junk food and snack foods and cut out the booze. It’s harder than it sounds but trust me, the results will be well worth it.

Now, for the ultimate question…Brad Pitt in Troy…

Or, Brad Pitt in Fight Club…

I personally think the Troy physique is better, he’s a little more built and plus the ciggs don’t do much for me…

Keep working hard!!

Hey everyone, Happy Holidays! It’s Christmas Eve (day) and I’m about to get after a quick workout before I finish up some shopping (yikes!) and get ready for the family to arrive. It’s great to stay in the city of Boston for the holidays, it’s such a cool city, especially this time of year.

I know most people are dreading the holiday season because there are so many treats and big dinners to derail your fitness and fat loss progress. Here’s the thing though….it’s all about sacrifice. Figure out what is important to you, and if you are really committed to staying lean and tight, then you can easily skip the extra pie after the meal. Portion out your meals and enjoy ONE dessert. Don’t stress out, just enjoy yourself and you will have no worries.

If you are sticking to your training program then the holidays will be a little bit of a burden, but it won’t be a big ordeal like for someone who is not regimented with their workouts and nutrition.

Anyway….we all know Halle Berry, right? She is a pretty great actress and obviously has to kick some serious butt in the gym in order to fit into outfits like this….

That’s not likely what most of us are gunning for, but we all want to look great in our clothes and just feel our best. In keeping with my latest theme of celebrity workout critiques, I wanted to take a look at Halle’s workout plan and give you all some insight. Again, it’s pretty great to be able to have a ton of time to train and get in shape, but as you will see here, celebrity training sessions are not all about long hours in the gym.

Halle Berry’s workout program is based around a concept called 5-Factor Fitness. With her training days, they are mapped out into 5 minute blocks of time and look something like this:

Step 1- Cardio to warm up the body get blood flowing to the muscles
Step 2- Upper body strength movements such as push ups, curls, and shoulder work
Step 3- Lower body strength movements- step ups, squats, ball work
Step 4- Core training
Step 5- Fat burning interval cardio work

I think this is a cool way to train and it keeps you mentally focused because you know that you can do anything for 5 minutes! Once you finish one area, you move to the next. It’s an interesting way to structure the workouts and I didn’t get a lot of detail as to how much is going on during each of the blocks but based on the results, I’m sure she is cranking out the reps!

Halle Berry’s nutrition plan is also based around 5-factors. She has 5 meals per day, small portions of balanced foods. She is also given a cheat day each week. As I mentioned last week, Jennifer Garner implements a similar program into her nutrition lifestyle. So okay, Jennifer Garner does it, Halle Berry does it, and Callie Durbrow recommends it!  Obviously you’ll listen now….

Overall this is a good structure and I do like how it’s laid out very simply. The key to remember here is that the workouts are not taking hours and hours. It’s anywhere from 25-40 minutes per day. Anyone can schedule that into their lifestyle.

Okay I just thought that picture was cool….

Happy Holidays, Enjoy yourself, your family and friends, and stay healthy!

Jennifer Garner, she just flat out kicks ass. Guys love her, girls want to be her. She is the classic girl next door with a bad ass streak…

It’s pretty obvious that Jennifer Garner works out. With sculpted legs and trim thighs, a set of 6 pack abs and strong shoulders, Jennifer definitely hits the weights. A lot of women are afraid of strength training because they are totally freaked out about “bulking up.” I don’t know about you but I think I would rather have the Jennifer Garner body as opposed to a slightly pudgy, soft body with no definition because I slave away on the elliptical trainer all day. Okay, I digress…

According to Jennifer Garner’s trainer; her nutrition plan looks like this:

1. Lots of protein from eggs, fish and chicken
2. A snack between every meal to keep energy levels high
3. Fruits and veggies
4. Dinner with protein and veggies, no starch
5. Plenty of water

The thing that I did find out was that even Jennifer Garner gets a cheat day. Because I know most of you don’t like listening to ME….you can’t argue with that! Give yourself a day to relax and enjoy food. If you are rocking it all week, you will have no issue or set back.

So, onto Jennifer Garner’s workout… Jennifer trains 5-6 days per week with one complete rest and recovery day. This is important for your mental state as well as physical well being. If you are training every single day, you are not giving your body time to repair the muscle tissue that you are breaking down. Give yourself time to rest and enjoy your progress.

Jennifer’s strength training workouts consist of full body movements such as step ups, pull downs, presses on the ball, and lunge variations. This is an awesome way to burn fat because you are using a large amount of muscles at one time, you are pushing your body instead of using isolated movements and machines, and you will burn more calories which leads to a metabolic boost that will TORCH body fat over the long term.

There are two days per week of the circuit style strength training in Jennifer’s routine. It’s important to get 2-3 days of this type of training in order to develop lean muscle tissue and keep your metabolism going strong.

Two days are filled with mat pilates which is a great way to strengthen your core and improve mobility and flexibility. As I have mentioned many times, if you cannot move, you will not have great workouts. Be sure to perform your own mobility and flexibility training such as yoga, foam rolling, and active stretching.

Jennifer also has a 1 day of cardio training for about 40 minutes. Well, you know how I feel about cardio. I just hate the word. The workout didn’t specify too much about the cardio except that she switches between elliptical, treadmill and the bike depending on the day. This is good because your body needs variety. If I had to guess, I’m going to say that she’s not doing this workout on Level 1 of the elliptical. Performing intervals is the key to any cardio conditioning plan. You need to ramp up your heart rate and really crank it for 1-2 minutes, then drop down for an active recovery. I would guess with a kick ass body like that, she is not just along for the ride.

Jennifer has a very well-balanced workout plan and a solid nutrition plan complete with a cheat day for some sweets or a glass of wine.  Training 5-6 days per week is perfect and be sure to include 2-3 days of strength movements that incorporate your entire body. Lunges, squats, chin ups, push ups and lunges are the best for this. I’ll be back with more celebrity workout reviews. Enjoy!