From The Straits Times    |

Need a little fitness inspo to nudge you in the right direction? We caught Felicia Chin, Jade Seah and Jaime Teo at the Gillette ProShield Challenge last week, where they gamely took on the military-inspired obstacle course, scaling a warped wall and swinging from bar to bar, just to name a few. The obstacle course proved no challenge to the super fit celebs, and of course, we had to find out their tips and tricks to staying toned. So read on to find out more.

 

There are no shortcuts

Jade sums it all up: “Get to the gym, man!”

The celeb squadmates agree that it definitely takes hard work and effort to get a slim tummy. Felicia said that she recently did a lot more burpees as well as rope work to train for the Spartan Race. “When I went home, my core muscles were really very sore, then I realised that all these exercises are really very good for your core muscles and the line naturally appears as well.”

“So if you want to have an interesting workout, you can try having an alternative kind of exercise regime, if not, you have to go down to the basics like burpees and situps.”

Jade, who candidly said her “tummy is also not very happening, lah”, shared that she finds it very difficult to achieve a six pack. “For a flat tummy, you need to do enough cardio to get rid of the fat, and you need to do some sort of ab workout once a week just to make sure there are muscles to keep everything kind of firm and in there.”

“You need to do a mix: Burpees work your abs but only in a certain way. I do planks, burpees, crunches, reverse crunches, bicycle crunches.”

If you really want to just make your body look more toned, Jade recommends the Clarins Body Shaper. “It does tone a bit and tighten the skin, but it only tightens the skin. If you really want to get toned, I really think there’s nothing else except to work out.”

 

 

It’s all about the lifestyle

“You can’t say, ‘let me cut out this, or let me do more crunches or abs training’. Because a better body requires a whole mindset shift, not just doing one thing for one or two months,” Jaime said.  

“It really is an effort that you have to sustain throughout your life, so do something that you enjoy. For example, if you like dancing, do that and you will get your slim body. But there are so many benefits to being healthy other than a six-pack. It must be a sustainable lifestyle.”  

 

 

Find fun ways to exercise

Felicia likes to have fun rather than going for a regimental kind of lifestyle: “I’ll recommend that you try have fun with your workouts. If you can commit to regular exercise and a clean diet, you’ll have a trim and fit tummy.”

She says training for the Spartan Race also made up for conventional exercise with ropes, bars and burpees. “It helps that I played softball in the past, so sometimes I’ll go jogging with my boyfriend. It helps that some of my friends love exercise a lot, so at least once a week we’ll go jogging. The rest of the time is more flexible, whatever that comes to mind. I want to pick up horseriding actually, it’s the next thing that I want to try.”

Believe it or not, she admits that she likes to be a couch potato, so she tries to find fun ways to exercise. “Get a gym mate or download motivational apps on your phone – there’s a good app called Keep with step-by-step instructions on simple exercises that you can do at home with just a gym mat.”

Jade also doesn’t have a set routine. “Now it’s netball season, so I’m playing three times a week, and then in between I try to keep my endurance up with HIIT workouts and at least one long run a week. I get bored easily, so switching things up keeps exercise fresh for me.”  

 

Anything is better than nothing

Jaime tries to do something every day, and her motto is “anything is better than nothing”.

“At minimum, I’ll do a 12-minute workout (on her Instagram), while on other days I do a lot of squash and dancing. I initially started because Body Rock Official has these 12-minute workouts which I really enjoy, so after having done it for a year or two, you kind of know the basic movements that you need to do. And maybe because I’ve been doing this for a while now, sometimes 12 minutes is not enough and I’ll double my workout time.”

 

 

Everything in moderation

“I think it’s important to know yourself,” Felicia says. “I try not to put restrictions on certain food items, but I supplement that with other healthier practices like say, 30 burpees at home. Getting your heart-rate up will naturally make you want to be healthier.”

Jade also doesn’t subscribe to dieting: “To me, life is to be enjoyed, so I enjoy working out, but I don’t enjoy dieting. I’m a very picky eater, so I only eat what I like. I don’t eat vegetables, but I also don’t eat fast food and I don’t drink sweet drinks.”

“Other than that, I eat whatever I want. And remember to balance input versus output, so if you work out a lot, you can eat a lot more, but if you don’t work out then you can’t eat much.”

Likewise, Jaime thinks that we can eat anything in moderation, but emphasises that everybody’s idea of balance is different. “I think knowledge is very important. You need to know, for example, how many calories is in a bowl of muesli; it’s a lot more than you think it is. Know what you’re eating and eat in moderation.”

“But I don’t believe in telling yourself not to eat something, because then later when you go back to it, you’ll binge. I was in a very bad phase where I did all kinds of dieting in the past, it’s an ingrained habit to calorie-count or to know what I’m eating. [But] I think it’s a relatively good habit to be conscious of what you’re eating, so if you had a very full breakfast, then maybe eat slightly smaller meals for lunch and dinner.”  

 

READ MORE: A Her World writer survived a 24-hour fitness bootcamp. Here are the pictures to prove it and Make healthy eating less torturous with these easy tricks