Kareena kapoor Before and after

Kareena kapoor's Seceret

Time: 8 months

Regime: Hot yoga, Pilates, cardio and a wholesome, healthy diet

Mission philosophy: To get rid of her flabby arms and to look fit, not pencil-thin

Dietician Speak: The expert Kareena turned to for a trimmer look was her dietician since January 2007, Rujuta Diwekar. “Kareena’s only brief to me was that she should look thin but not anorexic,” says Diwekar, who has a PhD in industrial chemistry and a PG in sports science and nutrition. “She told me that I could put her on the strictest diet but it shouldn’t affect her skin. She didn’t want to look washed out. You can see that even after she has lost seven kilos her skin looks radiant. Since she already had a yoga instructor, Pooja from Bharat Thakur’s group, I was asked to focus on giving her a balanced diet.” Just for the record, Kareena’s hot yoga weight-loss technique is quite famous. It involves practicing yoga with windows shut and fans and airconditioners switched off. The idea is to sweat it out like a good workout session. “While preparing her diet, I do take care of her likes and dislikes. She needs six- seven wholesome meals throughout the day. The diet is changed according to her body requirements and the place she’s shooting in. For example, during the shooting of Tashan in Ladakh, I included thukpas and steamed momos in her meals. A diet has to be practical; she can’t be running around looking for brown rice in Ladakh. When she was shooting in Jaisalmer, I made sure she ate poha and upma. Since Jaisalmer is very hot and one tends to sweat a lot, so I gave her lots of electrolyte with extra potassium to balance the water loss. The brief for Kareena is simple: eat many times but have small meals. And of course keep exercising and doing hot yoga,” says Diwekar.

Daily Diet: Breakfast options include upma, poha, parantha (without oil) and milk and muesli. In the afternoon, she snacks on a brown bread sandwich. Lunch is roti, sabji and dal (without oil). An evening snack is either upma or idli. Dinner is again roti, sabji, dal or soup.

Indulgence: Every 10-12 days, Kareena binges on her favourite Chinese cuisine.

Kareena Speak: For Tashan, where I’ve to look my glamourous best and also do a lot of stunts, I needed to lose weight. I’m following a healthy diet and a regular workout regime. And I’m feeling great.

Month 3

Tighten and tone

Slim down quick

get in shape in just a week feel the diffrenece

Transform your Self this year

sculpt sexy muscles

flat-belly bonus

tone your tummy

Fitness Rules You Should Break

Unlike wine, cheese, and Clive Owen, workout strategies don't get better with age. That's because each year, fitness researchers release thousands of studies that challenge conventional thinking—or at least shed light on ways to tweak it. We've identified nine stale fitness approaches and sifted through the latest research to come up with surprising updates that will land you a scorching body ASAP.

Position your hands shoulder-width apart

You often see this in instructions for upper-body moves like bench presses and lat pulldowns. Why? Because it gives you a stable starting point. But that doesn't mean you need to stay there set after set. "Spreading your hands a few inches farther out stresses more of the inner portion of your biceps; bringing your hands in a few inches builds more of the outer part," says New York City personal trainer Steve Lischin, M.S. Switch up your position after every set for balanced strength and overall tone.

Crunches for a flat belly

Turns out Pilates abdominal moves are superior to crunches for sculpting your midsection and uncovering those abs, according to a study at Auburn University at Montgomery, in Alabama. An exercise called "The Teaser" is especially effective. It activates 39 percent more of your rectus abdominus muscle (that's your six-pack) and 266 percent more of your external obliques (your love handles). To do it: Lie face-up on a mat. Lift your legs so your thighs are perpendicular to the floor, and your knees are bent 90 degrees. Raise your hands toward the ceiling. Lift your torso and straighten your legs, so your body forms a V. Hold for one second, then slowly roll back down, keeping your legs raised. Do eight to 10 reps.

Squats=a perfect bum

To flaunt that sexy bikini bottom by your "when-will-winter-end?" beach getaway, try doing hip extensions instead of squats. The move hits 55 percent more of your hamstring muscle and 79 percent more of your glute muscle, according to a study by the American Council on Exercise. To do it: Get on your hands and knees. Keeping your knees bent, lift your right heel toward the ceiling, then lower it back down to the starting position. Do 12 reps, then repeat on the other side.

Eat lots of extra protein for less jiggle and more tone

While it's true that protein is a vital muscle food, your body can use only so much of it. "Any extra protein calories you take in will be stored as fat," says Molly Morgan, R.D., owner of Creative Nutrition Solutions in Vestal, New York. "As a general rule, remember that 20 percent of your calories should come from protein." So if you're eating an 1,800-calorie diet, try to shoot for a maximum of 360 calories, or 90 grams, of protein each day. Low-fat milk and chicken are all good sources of lean protein.


CONTINUED: Up-down-up-down. Repeat.

Instead of raising and lowering a weight (or your body weight) in one continuous motion, pause for a second about halfway up, continue the movement, then pause again about halfway down. "In a set of eight to 12 repetitions, you'll add only an extra 16 to 24 seconds to each set, but you'll exhaust your muscles," Lischin says. Translation: You'll fry more fat without sucking much more time out of your schedule.

Watch yourself in the mirror while you work out

While the occasional glance at your reflection to check form is a good idea, for exercises that involve balance, such as the one-legged squat, you'll get a bigger boost if you face away from the mirror and close one eye. Doing so activates neural pathways between your brain and your muscles that you don't otherwise use. "That forces your body to establish better balance," says Carter Hays, C.S.C.S., a speed and strength coach at D1 Sports Training and Therapy in Franklin, Tenn.

Burn the most calories with cardio

According to a recent University of Southern Maine study, 30 minutes of weight training burns as many calories as running at a blazing six-minute-per-mile pace for the same amount of time. (And it has the bonus of building more muscle tone than running.) What's more, unlike aerobic exercise, lifting weights has been shown to boost metabolism for up to 39 hours after you finish your last rep. Interval training—short, all-out sprints interspersed with periods of rest—has yielded similar benefits. For optimal results, do a total-body weight-training workout three days a week, resting at least a day between sessions, and do intervals on at least two of the off days.

Rest between sets

"Less rest increases your calorie burn and adds a cardio component to strength training," says New York City personal trainer Lindsay Dunlap, N.A.S.M. Try supersets: two exercises performed back to back. For example, you might do a set of pushups immediately followed by a set of seated cable rows, then rest a minute before repeating.

Weigh yourself daily for motivation

The scale measures water and muscle, too. It's not a great indicator of fat loss. For a better—and more, um, hands-on—progress report, place your fingers on your belly and inhale deeply so that it expands. As you exhale, contract your abdominal muscles and push your fingertips against your hard abdominal wall. Now pinch. "You're holding pure fat," says Tom Seabourne, Ph.D., co-author of Athletic Abs (Human Kinetics, 2003). Do this every day, 30 minutes before your workout, and you'll likely find that you rarely decide to skip a session.