With gorgeous actress Kate Beckinsale claiming that she has “fat ass” days – when she feels so insecure that she won’t leave her house – is there any hope for us lesser mortals? If, like Kate, you have your own hang-ups about your bum, read our seven celebrity tips to help you tone up and get the perfect behind

1. USE A POWER PLATE LIKE MADONNA

Madonna is continually re-inventing her image, but one thing that has stayed constant over the years is her toned figure. She’s a fan of horse-riding, which is great for toning your bum and burning calories. Her energetic dance routines also help to keep her in shape, along with her regular Pilates and Ashtanga yoga sessions. According to reports, Madonna has now become a fan of the new celeb fitness must have – a power plate – joining the likes of Sadie Frost and Jemima French. The plate is a cross between scales and a gym bike. It helps to tone muscles and reduce cellulite, with users standing on a vibrating platform to wobble the pounds and inches away. The only downside is that it costs a whopping £2,600. But, if Madonna’s leotard-clad figure in her video Hung Up is anything to go by, then it appears to have had the desired effect.

2. HIT THE DANCE FLOOR LIKE BEYONCE

Hitting the dance floor for an hour can burn up to 500 calories, so it’s no wonder that Beyoncé has a rather pert behind. Her bum began to rival J Lo’s after her bum-shaking dance routine for the Crazy in Love video two years ago. And judging by pictures of her recent performance at the World Music Awards, her dance moves are certainly helping her behind defy gravity.

3. TAKE UP HORSE-RIDING LIKE JORDAN

The great thing about horse-riding is that you don’t feel like you’re doing exercise – that is until you get off and can hardly walk! Jordan is one celeb whose figure has reaped the rewards of plenty of horse-riding – and don’t we know it. She’s not shy when it comes to flashing her pert bum in revealing outfits. Horse-riding is great for toning the bum and you can burn between 300-400 calories an hour – even more if you help mucking out the stables.

4. CUT OUT ALCOHOL LIKE J-LO

Jennifer Lopez is naturally curvy so she has to work hard at keeping weight off her bottom and thighs. She regularly exercises, doing kick-boxing, jogging and other high-impact aerobics, which reduce fat and give her lower half a slimmer, sleeker look. She’s also teetotal, which helps to reduce the signs of cellulite. Alcohol is full of toxins that contribute to cellulite. So if you want a cellulite-free bum, you could start by cutting out your favorite tipple.

5. GO FOR A SPIN LIKE RACHEL HUNTER

If you make your living out of modeling lingerie like Rachel Hunter, you really need to keep your bum in shape. The model mum keeps her behind in tip-top condition with a combination of spinning and Pilates. She says: “When I have something like a photo call for Ultimo to do, I really do have to watch what I eat. I make sure I exercise regularly; I’ll usually do spinning about
three or four times a week and I do Pilates.”
Spinning, the gym-based cycling, is a great way to tone the legs and bottom. Spinners cycle for 30 minutes to an hour on a special program to build up stamina and tone up bottom and leg muscles. And an hour on the bike can burn off a whopping 300 calories.

6. DO A RUNNER LIKE NELL McANDREW

It doesn’t cost a thing and if you end up with a curvy figure like model Nell McAndrew then running is definitely worth a try. Nell is a keen runner, having taken part in a couple of marathons. She doesn’t believe in dieting and thinks that healthy eating, the odd naughty treat and plenty of exercise is all that’s needed to keep you in shape. But beware – don’t overdo the running. We might think that Nell’s got a perfect behind but she thinks otherwise. When I asked her what her least favorite body part was, she responded by saying: “My bum – I want a bigger one! It’s gone a bit flat since I’ve done two marathons.”

7. THE ANTI-AGEING DIET

Eating a diet rich in fruit and veg – especially aubergines, spinach, cabbages, celery, onions, leeks, cherries, grapes, melon, prunes and apples – not only helps you lose weight but also fights wrinkles. These anti-ageing properties are put down to the mix of vitamins, minerals and super-nutrient antioxidants, which protect against sun and pollution damage – great news for a slimmer, more youthful you!

- GO FOR THE BURN

Just 500mg of vitamin C daily will boost your fat burn by up to 30 per cent. A red pepper has 210mg; 200g/7oz of frozen berries, 110mg; a large orange, 100mg; a glass of grapefruit juice, 50mg; and a serving of broccoli, 50mg.

- DID YOU KNOW?

Laughing for just 15 minutes burns a whole 50 calories.

- WALK YOUR FEET OFF!

I’ve worked out how far I’d have to walk to burn off a 200g tube of Pringles Light, with 976 calories – it’s 11 miles (17.6 kilometers). So don’t give in to temptation!

- WHAT’S HOT

SKINNY LATTES – one “grand” cup gives you 33 per cent of your daily calcium requirement.
PITTA OR GRANARY BREAD – they have a low GI, keeping blood sugar down and stopping hunger pangs.
GOOD OLD WATER – tap or bottled. It is sugar and calorie-free. Aim to drink a litre a day and an extra litre for every hour that you exercise.

- WHAT’S NOT

VENTI HOT CHOCOLATE - with whipped cream.  That’s 719 calories and 27g of fat per cup.
WHITE SLICED BREAD – It has a high GI and sends blood sugars soaring. You will be hungry again in half an hour too.
FRUIT-FLAVOURED WATER – they can have as much sugar as cola; that’s 13 teaspoons per 500ml bottle.

Words by Nicki waterman. For more information on losing weight and getting active, check out: www.nickiwaterman.com

Pedometers are electronic devices that count your walking steps and from the same steps work out the distance you have traveled in the more advanced pedometer models.

The working of a pedometer largely depends on a motion sensing mechanism – which is implemented using a coiled spring set-up in the most basic models, a hairspring mechanism in the slightly more advanced set ups and a piezo-electric accelerometer mechanism in the most advanced set ups.

The main role of pedometers in personal fitness is motivation. Success breeds success, or so we are told. Noticing that you managed to walk 5000 steps yesterday, and then 6,000 today can motivate you to do some 7,000 tomorrow. That build up of figures can lead to a sense of accomplishment – which can be considered a form of success, even before the success starts to show up on the weight scales, for those who want to use walking exercises as a part of their weight loss effort. As it turns out, many people using other exercises for their weight loss would be glad to get such a way of getting motivation before their weight loss starts showing up on their weighing scale – and unfortunately, this is something that only people using walking exercise can get, thanks to pedometers. This is to say that through a pedometer, you get a way of enjoying the exercise journey, as well as the destination (weight loss) – which is consistent with the sage’s advice of enjoying the journey as well as the arrival at the destination.

The more advanced pedometer-models can convert the steps that one has walked into actual distance (in terms of kilometers and miles) and this way one can get a way of enumerating their weight loss efforts to their friends (or more usefully to their physician) in a way other people – even people who are not involved in weight loss efforts, can relate with. Saying that you walked 10,000 steps yesterday might be meaningless to someone who is not conversant with the recommended walking steps for weight loss. Saying to the same person that you managed to clock some 10 kilometers obviously sounds much more meaningful.

The even more advanced pedometer-models can even convert your walking in terms of calories (albeit approximations) you are likely to have lost through the effort. In this way, coupled with a monitored calories intake, you are in a position of working out whether your are expending the calories you are taking in your exercise regime and whether you are even going beyond expending the calories you are consuming to burn up those stored in form of fat in the body, which is what will ultimately result in weight loss from your exercise effort.

There are even pedometers that come with a memory feature – that they are able to keep a record of how much you have been walking, and perhaps even represent it graphically in the most advanced pedometer models. Now if watching your walking graph shoot up and up is not motivation, then there is really no telling what motivation is.

Most of the weight loss pills that people take – and which some swear helped them to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight – work by boosting your body’s metabolism. In a similar manner, even most of the natural aids to weight loss – things like green tea, work by stimulating your bodies metabolism.

Metabolism, as it turns out, is the rate at which the body burns up the food you consume into energy to fuel its various functions. Some people are naturally endowed with high rates of metabolism – and these are the people who will eat amazing amounts of food on a daily basis, without ever losing weight. Others are endowed with sluggish rates of metabolism such that even when they eat measured amounts of food, they still end up putting on weight.

You need not resort to pills – most of which leave a trail of obnoxious sidle effects in their wake – to speed up your metabolism. There are some things that can help you in speeding up your metabolism naturally.

Changing your eating habits is one such thing that can help in speeding up your metabolism naturally. This means eating smaller meals regularly through out the day – rather than eating the three huge meals that we have been socialized to do. Eating smaller regular meals gives your body a steady supply of calories- and once the body (which is intelligent in itself) comes to realize that there is a plenty supply of the calories, it reacts by increasing the rate of metabolism to burn them up before the next input. Moreover, this habit of eating smaller quantities of food throughout the day keeps the body’s digestion mechanism perpetually working – and this too boosts your metabolism – metabolism being the rate at which the body converts the food put into it into energy for its various functions, and digestion being one of the most energy-intensive bodily functions.

Good stress management is yet another step you can take towards speeding up your metabolism naturally. Bodily stress, as it turns out, is one of factors that have shown a consistently high correlation with metabolism shut down. This has to do with the body’s biochemistry and body-mind link. The exact mechanism which this comes to be can be understood by the fact that the natural role of stress was to initiate a fight or flee response in a danger through the release of stress hormones like adrenaline (at a time when man faced lots of predators in the wild). In these kinds of situations where one needs to fight or flee, the body tends to shut down all the other non-essential functions (all of which consume calories) and keep the essential functions to the bare minimum, with the aim of focusing the body’s energies to fighting – or fleeing – from the imminent threat. Unfortunately, in today’s world, there are people who due to the stress of modern living (most of which does not result from real threats), are perpetually in this fight or flee mode, and these are the people in whom metabolism is likely to shut down. Obviously, the best solution to their problem is to address the stressors in their lives, rather than popping a metabolism boosting pill which does not address the root cause underlying their metabolism shut-down.

Most genuine weight loss programs revolve around the use of diet and exercise. A person seeking to lose weight is, for instance, advised to reduce their calorie intake or to reduce their intake of carbohydrates (as in a low-carb diet) so that their bodies are forced to make use of the excessive fats stored, resulting in weight loss. People seeking to lose weight are also advised to adopt a consistent and regular exercise regime – with an aim to burn the extra calories and thereby lose weight.

To be fair to it, a weight loss program centered on diet and exercise is usually successful, and is in any case the only reliable way to lose weight. Unfortunately, such a weight loss program centered on diet and exercise tends to result in some ‘side-benefits’ such as the muscle build up which is likely to result from regular rigorous exercise – and which to some people is more of a (undesirable) side effect than a benefit. In this regard, men pursuing weight loss program who happen to build up their muscles in the process generally tend to view the muscle build up as a huge benefit since muscles are associated with masculinity, while the women who happen to experience muscle build up as a result of their weight loss efforts view the muscle build up as more of an undesirable side effect – perhaps feeling that being too muscular undermines their feminine image.

It is of course possible to lose weight without building muscle – as it all depends on the type of exercise regime you use in your weight loss program. If you really want to lose weight without building muscle, you have to ensure that you make this clear to your physical instructor right from the beginning. This way, you physical instructor would be able to devise for you a weight loss program through which you can lose weight without building muscles. The mistake which many people make in their weight loss attempts is to get into an exercise regime that is known to build up muscles expecting to be exception, which of course is unlikely. If you want to lose weight, but don’t like the muscular look, the time to ensure that you get it is right from the beginning – by telling your physical instructor that you want an exercise regime that won’t lead to muscle build up.

Of course, you need to know that attempting to lose weight without building up muscle is counter-intuitive, and carried out that way, your weight loss is likely to be slower and might not be successful at all in some cases. This is because the muscles are said to be the ‘weight-fighter’s best ally’ because they are one of the sites where the most calories are burnt (even when you are not doing much). Therefore by opting to lose weight without building muscle, you effectively choose to do away with one of best aids you would have had in the venture, namely well built muscles.