Not only does weight lifting improve your muscle tone, it can give you a curvaceous look by slimming your waist and sculpting your body from your shoulders to your ankles. Muscle tone is an important part of a fit and attractive appearance. Incorporate weight lifting into your weekly fitness plan and you'll love the results. Why women should lift weights: Better muscle tone from head to toe Slimmer neckline and shoulders Firmer underarms Slim, trim, firm core Tighter butt with lift and shape Lean, shapely legs
Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture addresses the conflicted meanings associated with the figure of the action heroine as she has evolved in various media forms since the late 1980s. Jeffrey A. Brown discusses this immensely popular character type, the action heroine, as an example of, and challenge to, existing theories about gender as a performance identity. Her assumption of heroic masculine traits combined with her sexualized physical depiction demonstrates the ambiguous nature of traditional gender expectations and indicates a growing awareness of more aggressive and violent roles for women. The excessive sexual fetishization of action heroines is a central theme throughout. The topic is analyzed as an insight into the transgressive image of the dominatrix, as a reflection of the shift in popular feminism from second-wave politics to third-wave and postfeminist pleasures, and as a form of patriarchal backlash that facilitates a masculine fantasy of controlling strong female characters. Brown interprets the action heroine as a representation of changing gender dynamics that balances the sexual objectification of women with progressive models of female strength. While the primary focus of this study is the action heroine as represented in Hollywood film and television, the book also includes the action heroine's emergence in contemporary popular literature, comic books, cartoons, and video games.
This is not your run-of-the-mill fitness book. Developed by world-renowned gluteal expert Bret Contreras, Strong Curves offers an extensive fitness and nutrition guide for women seeking to improve their physique, function, strength, and mobility. Contreras spent the last eighteen years researching and field-testing the best methods for building better butts and shapelier bodies. In Strong Curves, he offers the programs that have proven effective time and time again with his clients, allowing you to develop lean muscle, rounded glutes, and greater confidence. Each page is packed with information decoding the female anatomy, providing a better understanding as to why most fitness programs fail to help women reach their goals. With a comprehensive nutritional guide and over 200 strength exercises, this book gets women off the treadmill and furnishes their drive to achieve strength, power, and sexy curves from head to toe. Although the glutes are the largest and most powerful muscle group in the human body, they often go dormant due to lifestyle choices, leading to a flat, saggy bum. Strong Curves is the cure.
From Shape magazine, the most trusted source of fitness, exercise, and weight-loss information for women, comes a simple 6-week diet and workout plan that will transform your body and your life. Tone and Shape Your Best Bikini Body—in Just 6 Weeks! Prepare to look better, feel healthier, and regain your body confidence—and keep it for life! This plan is the culmination of years of hands-on fitness and nutritional research by the editors of Shape magazine—the very plan they use to keep themselves lean and healthy all year round. It is, quite simply, one of the best weight-loss plans ever built. Get instant, life-altering benefits . . . and lose 10, 20, 30 pounds or more! • Drop pounds and shed inches fast—from your belly first! The Bikini Body Diet 7-Day Slimdown will jump-start your plan and show you visible results in the very first week • Learn the diet and fitness secrets of Shape cover girls, including Beyonce, Britney Spears, Pink, Alison Sweeney, Jillian Michaels, and many other super-successful women who need to stay fit for a living. Plus: Discover their favorite exercises, workouts, and playlists! • Tap the nutritional power of the BEACH foods, the core of the Bikini Body Diet eating plan—super-delicious superfoods that will fuel your body and burn away the pounds • Jump into some of the most fun and effective workouts you’ve ever experienced. Forget about spending hours at the gym on the treadmill to nowhere and engage your entire body like never before to tone and sculpt even your toughest problem areas. • Indulge in dozens of decadent, bikini-ready recipes, from shakes and smoothies to pizza and chocolate! • Explore the insider beauty and fashion tips that will help you choose the right bikini for your body type, learn swimsuit grooming secrets of celebrity stylists, and discover dozens of other secrets that will make any day in a bikini your best day ever!
The essential diet and fitness guide to lean, sexy abs—including a results-driven 4-week program to lose weight, strengthen your core, and tone your entire body Call it a spare tire, muffin top, or paunch. Men and women consistently cite their belly as their biggest problem area—and it is often the toughest final pounds to lose. Not anymore! Whether readers’ eating habits have been affected by stress, their bodies have changed with age, or they’re constantly doing crunches without results, it’s time to blast belly fat the right way. Using the comprehensive, week-by-week eating and exercise plan, readers can lose up to 20 pounds in 4 weeks—and keep it off, forever. The Women’s Health Big Book of Abs special features include: A delicious, easy-to-follow diet that includes satisfying carbs! A special section on the best pre- and post-pregnancy workouts Hundreds of tips on how to reveal a lean, flat belly and bikini-worthy body! Including a step-by-step, 4-week eating and exercise plan, easy-to-prepare recipes, and hundreds of exercises, The Women’s Health Big Book of Abs is the ultimate guide to a leaner, fitter, sexier body—starting with your core.
Bikini Model Prep School is a training academy created for those aspiring to beocme bikini models in the fitness and bodybuilding industry. IAs part of the 10 part course, you will learn how to completely transform your body and avoid the dreaded skinny fat syndrome that is often the result of fad and extreme diets.
Over the last four decades, the fashion modeling industry has become a lightning rod for debates about Western beauty ideals, the sexual objectification of women, and consumer desire. Yet, fashion models still captivate, embodying all that is cool, glam, hip, and desirable. They are a fixture in tabloids, magazines, fashion blogs, and television. Why exactly are models so appealing? And how do these women succeed in so soundly holding our attention? In This Year’s Model, Elizabeth Wissinger weaves together in-depth interviews and research at model castings, photo shoots, and runway shows to offer a glimpse into the life of the model throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Once an ad hoc occupation, the “model life” now involves a great deal of physical and virtual management of the body, or what Wissinger terms “glamour labor.” Wissinger argues that glamour labor—the specialized modeling work of self-styling, crafting a ‘look,’ and building an image—has been amplified by the rise of digital media, as new technologies make tinkering with the body’s form and image easy. Models can now present self-fashioning, self-surveillance, and self-branding as essential behaviors for anyone who is truly in the know and ‘in fashion.’ Countless regular people make it their mission to achieve this ideal, not realizing that technology is key to creating the unattainable standard of beauty the model upholds—and as Wissinger argues, this has been the case for decades, before Photoshop even existed. Both a vividly illustrated historical survey and an incisive critique of fashion media, This Year’s Model demonstrates the lasting cultural influence of this unique form of embodied labor.
“Evocative.” — The Cut One of the most outspoken voices gracing the cover of magazines today encourages women to be their most confident selves, recognize their personal beauty, and reach for their highest dreams in this wise, warm, and inspiring memoir. Voluptuous beauty Ashley Graham has been modeling professionally since the age of thirteen. Discovered at a shopping mall in Nebraska, her stunning face and sexy curves have graced the covers of top magazines, including Cosmopolitan and British Vogue, and she was the first size 14 model to appear on the front of the wildly popular Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. The face of brands such as H&M Studio, she is also a judge for the latest season of America’s Next Top Model. And that’s only the beginning for this extraordinary talent. Ashley is leading a new generation of women breaking ground and demolishing stereotypes, transforming our ideals about body image and what is fashionable and beautiful. A woman who proves that when it comes to beauty, size is just a number, she is the voice for the body positivity movement today and a role model for all women—no matter their individual body type, shape, or weight. In this collection of insightful, provocative essays illustrated with a dozen photos, Ashley shares her perspective on how ideas around body image are evolving—and how we still have work to do; the fun—and stress—of a career in the fashion world; her life before modeling; and her path to accepting her size without limiting her dreams—defying rigid industry standards and naysayers who told her it couldn’t be done. As she talks about her successes and setbacks, Ashley offers support for every woman coming to terms with who she is, bolster her self-confidence, and motivates her to be her strongest, healthiest, and most beautiful self.
BUILD A SEXY BACKSIDE Rock skinny jeans. Sizzle in a fitted skirt. Work that bikini bottom. The targeted programs in this book will have your booty toned and perky in no time. Plus, your new sculpted, stacked rear end will be more than just nice to look at—its strong glutes and hamstrings will help: • accelerate fat loss • improve posture • decrease back, hip & knee pain • tighten and flatten abs Packed with easy-to-follow exercises and step-by-step pictures, as well as nutritional recommendations and tips for beginners, Ultimate Booty Workouts will make it a snap to build muscle, confidence and a killer hourglass figure.
Let's face it—women simply do not shed pounds or build muscle as easily as men do. Drawing on fascinating recent research that has shed new light on the gender differences in food metabolism and the effect of exercise, the editors of Women's Health, the healthy lifestyle magazine for today's active woman on the go, have devised a weight-loss plan that works especially well for women who would like to lose 5-25 pounds. Key features of the Women's Health Perfect Body Plan include: • Glucomannan, a soluble fiber that helps dieters feel full faster—and therefore eat less throughout the day • Meal plans that contain at least 40 grams of fiber per day • An adjustment for the impact of female hormones on weight loss (women need a higher protein diet than men to increase lean body tissue and decrease body fat) • Dieting techniques that revolve around psychological needs and personal goals and lifestyle • Two diet plans to choose from—one higher in fats and lower in carbs; the other higher in carbs and lower in fats (simple food tests help women choose the type they need) In addition to the customized eating plan—complete with 75 easy-to-prepare recipes—there is a vigorous customized fitness program consisting of 50 exercises that brings results in just three weeks.
