Abbey Clancy is looking in fantastic shape in Strictly Come Dancing at the moment. Abbey is most famous for being a lingerie and catwalk model, TV presenter and wife of a Peter Crouch who has played soccer for England.
Abbey got into modelling after appearing in Living TV’s Britain’s Next Top Model in 2006. She did not win the show but she got her first modelling contract as a result.
She has featured in many magazines, including Arena, and Sports Illustrated’s 2010 swimsuit edition. In Autumn 2013 she joined the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing celebrity team and is dancing with Aljaž Skorjanec.
Hectic lifestyle
In September 2013 Abbey told OMG! that she no longer goes to the gym, her slim body is entirely down to a very hectic lifestyle which means that she burns a lot of calories every day.
“It’s just down to working hard and having a heavy child. That’s good for the upper body strength.”
Strictly weight gain
Abbey has always been in amazing shape, even shortly after having a baby (see below). However, earlier in 2013 she did come under fire for aiming to be a size zero, although she has always defended herself and said that she is healthy and fit.
But more recently, following her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing, she spoke of weight gain on ITV’s Lorraine and explained that the intensive dance workouts has resulted in weight gain. Her weight gain is due to both the dancing workouts and her new diet. To workout as hard as a dance you need to eat more calories and take in plenty of protein and healthy carbs.
“She eats like a horse by the way. I was watching her eating her lunch and I was like ‘can you really eat all that?’’ She said ‘I can’t put on weight.’” – Julian McDonald speaking about Abbey Clancy.
Without extra food, and nutritious food, over-training will occur and there is an increased risk of injury and slower fitness improvements. However, she is still in amazing shape, in fact, the dance workouts mean that she is now fitter and stronger than she has been in years. Her waist is still slim and she has a some well defined abs too. With a little extra work she would have a six pack, although it is unlikely she wishes for that.
“I haven’t worked that much since I’ve had the baby two and a half years ago so I just felt like I needed something for me – a new lease of life, if you like – and I’m just loving it,” Abbey Clancy talking to Lorraine in ITV.
All the dancing seems to be piling on some new healthy muscle tissue. This is great news and proof that women can be fit, strong and still look amazing – too many women fear the effect of exercise and fail to realise that muscle is what gives the body shape.
Post baby weight loss
In Spring 2011 she gave birth to her first child and got back into shape in just seven weeks by following a strict diet and fitness plan. During this time she lost all of the weight she gained during pregnancy. This was the first time that her diet and fitness was really scrutinized. So let”s take a look back.
Workouts twice a day!
The key to Abbey’s fantastic figure, and her rapid weight loss after giving birth, is largely down to her frequent exercise sessions. She worked out twice a day to maximise fat burning. Here is her workout plan:
- Day 1 – Morning: 45 minutes of cardio exericse on a cross trainer, rower, treadmill or jogging.
- Day 1 – Afternoon: 30 minutes light – medium weight training covering all the major muscle groups. Full body weight training should be done lightly.
- Day 2 – Morning: 30 minutes cardio with 20 minutes steady, then in the last 10 minutes, five 30 second sprints followed by 90 seconds at recovery pace (slow). This is interval training and helps burn more calories and improve fitness.
- Day 2 – Afternoon: Bodyweight circuit training. Workouts involve performing push ups, crunches, the plank, leg raises, lunges, mountain climbers. Each exercise is performed a set number of times, usually 10 or 20 times, and then once all are completed, the circuit is repeated.
This two-day workout is repeated every two days. A day rest can be had once per week (exercise 6 days of the week).
Abbey’s Diet
It has been said that Abbey Clancy has a rather strange diet. The Sun newspaper reported that she was eating Rice Krispies to help lose weight. For all those “low carbers” this seems like a pretty crazy way to try to lose weight! The likely truth is that she was restricting calories and the Rice Krispies were providing an easy way to measure calories and get some much needed energy for the two daily workouts.
This is probably not a healthy way to lose weight though as the cereals are not providing a wide range of nutrients. When doing a lot of exercise carbs are vital though, otherwise you risk muscle wastage occurring when the body has to breakdown muscle tissue to obtain vital sugars. Oats are better as they are also easy to measure and have the added advantage of being a low GI cereal (digested more slowly) and help you to feel full for longer.
In 2010 Digital Spy reported that she was also on a “Curry Diet”, and this apparently helped her to lose five pounds while filming The Parent Trip in India.
All that we can be sure of is that she does not overeat and must have a pretty healthy metabolism to be able to consume lots of food, included breakfast cereals and curry, and still stay slim.