The Ultimate Body Plan. Gemma Atkinson
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Название: The Ultimate Body Plan
Автор: Gemma Atkinson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Кулинария
isbn: 9780008309305
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After 12 weeks I’d lost 13lbs and 5% of my body fat.
These changes will spur you on. Your body wants to get better, it wants to get healthier, so as soon as you start nourishing it and treating it well, it’ll respond, like it’s saying ‘thank you’.
Week five was a strange one for me because I actually put some weight back on, hitting around 11 stone – fine for someone of my height with broad shoulders. So don’t panic if you put on weight! People can read that I weigh 11 stone and freak out, but I was losing a lot of body fat while gaining muscle mass. So many factors affect women’s weight – everything from eating more salt, where you are in your menstrual cycle, and even the weather! (As we tend to drink more water when it’s hot.) I felt great, was leaner, my clothes fit better and I was as healthy as I’d ever been. Instead of losing weight, I was aiming to beat my personal bests every week. If I could lift one more rep on a Tuesday than I did on a Monday, I knew I was progressing. I felt amazing, while looking completely different to what was considered ‘perfect’ in the public eye, or what was considered beautiful by most people. Yes, some magazines think I should be a size 8, but I’m simply not built that way. I’m a size 10–12, but I can squat 90kg.
About midway through the 12-week programme I was asked to be a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, the biggest show on national telly. I told Becca, my agent, that I didn’t think it was the right time and I’d like her to turn it down. I was happy with my life the way it was. I loved working on the radio show, I was training hard and I had time for friends and family. For the first time in a long time, there was no press intrusion in my life. I wasn’t in the public eye as much and I was really enjoying that.
During week seven I went on holiday with some mates and didn’t put a sarong on to walk from the pool to the bar as I felt 100% comfortable in my bikini now. I also had no desire to binge just because I was on holiday – I didn’t want to throw away all my hard work. So I took a skipping rope with me, downloaded some HIIT workouts onto my phone before I left, did lots of swimming and went on big walks along the beach. I ate healthy meals and had some treats, but was surprised by how much I didn’t want to eat crap, drink loads and sit on my butt all day – not because I felt I had to keep to the plan, but because doing all this had made me feel so good.
It’s a strange process actually – realising that you feel incredible. Noticing that you’re waking up feeling energetic and determined rather than uncomfortable and tired. I find working out very therapeutic; whether you’re doing HIIT or weights, your head goes somewhere else. Some of my best ideas come to me when I’m exercising. You have space and time to yourself – often the only time of day you get that.
At the end of the 12 weeks I took my final set of progress photos and actually got quite teary. The results were shocking – in a good way. I still looked very feminine, but a lot leaner, a lot less body fat. My skin was way clearer. My hair had grown faster and thicker and so had my nails. Even my eyes looked brighter. While my weight had fluctuated on the plan, overall I had lost 13lbs and 5% of my body fat. I felt amazing and was so proud of myself. I’d put my body through so much with fad diets and gruelling gym punishments, and I’d put myself through so much mentally trying to get over men and dealing with guilt and regrets, that I’d really neglected my body. I felt this intense gratitude that I was able to nourish it and look after it and heal it, so to speak.
Strictly come laughing
I think I must be the only contestant in the history of Strictly Come Dancing to put on weight during the show. But how did I end up waltzing on the sparkliest dancefloor on TV after turning it down? It was all down to Oprah. No, really.
After I’d finished the 12-week plan, I went on Jason Vale’s Juice Retreat in Portugal. I go every year to detox, unwind and re-set. Each guest is given a book in their room when they check in and that year I was given Oprah Winfrey’s biography. I picked it up and the first page that opened had a single quote on it, from a song by Lee Ann Womack. Of all things, it was about choosing to dance if you have the chance.
Now, I’m a big believer in signs, chance and circumstance and all that, but even if I wasn’t, there was no denying that was a bit weird. I showed my mum, who’d come with me, and she simply said, ‘Get Becca on the phone’, so I rang and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ I knew Strictly was a huge opportunity and I also knew I was in a far better headspace to deal with being back on primetime telly again. I was more confident, self-assured and mature. I felt like I could handle it. Thank you, 12-week programme!
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous as hell. I’d never danced properly before in my life! Actually, I tell a lie. I went to a local dance school when I was six or seven years old for a few months before swapping it for karate. That was the sum total of my dancing experience. It also didn’t help that when my name was announced I’d get tweets saying, ‘Ha! You’re too big to dance’ or ‘Can’t wait to see you try to dance in heels’. In the back of my head I was thinking, ‘My mum used to call me a baby elephant… and I am rubbish in heels. What have I done?’ (My friends actually got me a bracelet with a baby elephant on before the live shows and I’ve not taken it off since.)
I was very lucky in the partner I had, Aljaž Škorjanec. It was never a case of learning the dance and him going, ‘Right – off you go!’ I’d tell him I didn’t feel elegant and he’d say, ‘Well, you’re an actress, aren’t you? Act that you are.’ Before each dance, he’d remind me how well I’d done in training saying, ‘You’ve got one minute thirty seconds to prove everyone who says you’re too big to dance or too muscly to be in a ballgown wrong!’ We must have done, because we got to the final! During week 4 though, I tripped up the stairs as we were walking off and I think you can hear me say, ‘Oh shit!’ on the telly. I was like, ‘I can’t even walk up the frigging stairs in heels!’
Aljaž is not only an incredible dancer, but one of the funniest people I’ve ever met and I was having such a good time I let my diet slide, putting on nearly a stone. Everyone was like, ‘You’re dancing every day – how can you put weight on?’ But the dancing was nothing compared to the intensity of the training I was used to and I was still getting up at 4.30am every day for the radio show, so I simply didn’t prioritise food. I could have, had I really tried, but I wanted some time off, so if Aljaž and I fancied jacket potatoes with cheese, we’d have them! Whereas normally I’d think I can’t really eat like I was every single day, because I was having such a laugh – and because I knew what I needed to do coming out the other end of it – it didn’t bother me.
When I went back to the gym when the show was finished, I had my measurements taken. My body fat had increased, but my muscle mass had stayed the same. Evil Steve, my trainer said, ‘It’s fine, you just need to get back on track with your diet and carry on with your training,’ and two and a half weeks later, my body was back to how it had been. Once you start training and keep at it, your body responds amazingly quickly to changes in environment. I knew mentally and physically what I had to do to get back on track, so I had no fear in letting myself relax for a bit. I can’t be lean 24/7, 12 months of the year. I’ve got Christmasses, birthdays and all sorts I want to celebrate. I want to live! With this plan, I can. The muscle memory of someone who trains is incredible. Your body is so clever. All it wants to do is heal.
Taking chances
Strictly didn’t just teach me to dance, break me out of my shell again and re-ignite СКАЧАТЬ