The Skinny Confidential: A Babe's Sexy, Sassy Health and Lifestyle Guide (10 page)

Make your arms form a goal post.

The Perky McPerkinson:
Grasp your weights and lie on the floor, on a bench or ball with your arms straight out from your sides, in a T position. Knuckles, wrists and arms should be in line with the shoulders. Lift the weights, bringing the knuckles together. Then bring them back to the T position, feeling a slight stretch and repeat. Complete three sets of twenty.

Later, saggiers!

Lie on a ball with weights in your hands, arms out from your sides.

Lift the weights, bringing your knuckles together.

AND LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, LET’S DISCUSS LOVE HANDLES.

Love handles are a slight bulge or puffiness that hangs out of the jeans. I mean, having small love handles is perfectly normal, but looking like your jeans are ten sizes too small because there’s flab hanging off the sides is just unnecessary. Love handles can be fixed easily by diet, exercise and stress management.

A few years ago, I was not loving my love handles. So here’s how I got rid of those nasty little shits:

Fiery Forearm Planks (both sides!):
Easy, peasy. On the floor, in a push-up position, lower the right forearm to a 90° angle and rest your weight on it. Make sure your shoulders are out of the ears and the neck is long. You want one straight line from the crown of your head to your heels. This is a plank. Simply plank on your right forearm for one minute and then on your left forearm for one minute. Do a total of three on each forearm. This exercise tightens up the abs and obliques immediately.

Side Plank on each side for 1 minute.

The Twister:
This exercise is super easy. Just sit on your tail (yes, your tailbone) with your knees bent. Legs are squeezed together tightly, and the abs are pulled in. Grab your weights and make sure your toes are off the ground and the legs are at 90 degrees. Start switching side to side. Go right to left. Do fifteen on each side, three sets. For some isometric movement, add a hold on each side for ten seconds at the end of each set.

Start on your tailbone with knees bent.

Move from side to side to work your love handles.

The Love Handle Blaster:
Lie down with your hands behind your head. Extend your legs stick straight. Scissor the legs, keeping the legs as straight as possible. Bring your opposite hand to the opposite foot, keeping the other hand behind your head. You can also relax the shoulders and press your hands into the ground while scissoring the legs. After completing twenty switches (ten on each side), hold the left hand to the right foot and pulse up twenty times toward the pinky toe. Then switch to the other side for twenty pulses. Do three sets.

Lie down flat on the floor and touch your left hand to your right foot.

Then touch your right hand to your left foot.

Practicing strength lifting properly really helps people learn to deal with stressful situations better. Putting your body under stress with weights for a minute and then letting your body recover for a minute from that heavy, slow resistance can also help with stress in general.

And don’t forget about hormones (because honestly? Most people do!). The stress hormone cortisol is known to cause belly fat. When the body produces too much cortisol, it can increase the appetite. Pretty much, high cortisol levels = more hunger pangs. Many researchers believe that people who gain weight from stress are more likely to have belly fat.

Using weights speeds up the metabolism and helps the body recover from stressful situations. Weight lifting obviously releases endorphins into the brain. So when the happy sensation releases into the body, it relieves stress (buh-bye, cortisol!) and changes a bad mood into a happy, sexy mood.

IT’S A WIN, WIN.

I love doing strength training exercises at the beach with a couple of my girlfriends. We usually aim for two to three days a week for forty-five minutes per session. Each of us brings weights and a resistance band.

Naturally, I’m always multitasking: We gossip, sweat and enjoy the beach’s fresh air.

So.

Flab, schmab. Now there’s no excuse!

7
WTF’S IN MY
MAKEUP BAG?

Makeup is my thing. I’ve researched everything under the sun. But what’s not my thing? Painting my face like a full-blown clown. I’m not into globs of eye shadow, dark lip liner and/or thick liquid eyeliner. Keep it fresh and simple, and let your natural beauty shine.

OK, so let’s be clear: The cake face is out (I mean, was it ever in?).

Caking your face in makeup is just nasty. Guys don’t like it; girls don’t like it; no one likes it.

My goal with makeup is to use it to enhance my features without making me look like a completely different person.

Let’s start from the beginning:

Primer:
Not putting on primer before your makeup is like da Vinci not using canvas primer before painting the Mona Lisa.

Face makeup simply won’t live up to its full potential without primer.

SO. USE YOUR PRIMER, BABES.

After you’ve cleansed your face, prepare it with a light-weight primer. Rub it all over your face. Quick, easy, simple.

Moisturizer + foundation: After your canvas is primed and ready, grab your moisturizer.