Gal Gadot stars as “Gisele Harabo” (reoccurring character from 2009′s “Fast & Furious”) in this Friday’s “Fast Five” (April 29, 2011) – the latest installment of the “Fast and the Furious” franchise (check out our earlier post on Vin Diesel’s workout and Elsa Pataky here…) Gal Gadot isn’t that well known here in the US, but this former Miss Isreal has an amazing body. If you want to know how to workout and diet to look like Gal Gadot, then keep reading!
Gal Gadot Body Type Breakdown
Gal basically has the body type of your average body – tall, not a lot of waist definition (more boyish), very little body fat or muscle. In general, while Gal is a beautiful woman and may be this thin naturally, I would not advise the average woman to try to get this thin as it is not likely to be possible via healthy (whereas there is a happy medium – Olivia Wilde is thin but not quite so shockingly…) and reasonable methods. That much said, you can still workout and diet to achieve a healthy, slim, not too bulky look by following the right approach.
How to Get a Body Like Gal Gadot
There are a few consistent mistakes that most women make when trying to get a lean Hollywood or model inspired body -
Diet Mistakes
1. Eating too little. Now of course, in order to lose weight you *have* to eat fewer calories than you burn. Usually this number is even lower than you expect (and typically depressingly so.) But the average woman always takes a “less is more” approach when it comes to dieting.
Taking your calories too low only sabotages your fat loss effort. Eating too little will result in initial weight loss – this is usually just food leaving your body via digestion and then not being replaced. At the same time, your body begins to get the impression that food is not available and you are starving. This is when you begin to feel your appetite go away – this is a sign your metabolism is slowing down.
Your body will fight to hoard fat and burn muscle if there is any sign of starvation – this is a survival strategy meant to keep you alive, NOT give you a sexy body (it won’t.) At the same time, continued deprivation leads to uncontrollable cravings and feelings of hunger – at this point many women will begin to binge eat, feel like failures, and go off dieting altogether. This is psychologically and physically harmful – frequently resulting in weight gain after a period of weeks, not weight loss.
Check out this post for a *better* approach.
2. Don’t forget to eat lean protein and whole foods. I think somewhere in the 90′s women associated eating protein with gaining weight. Truthfully, eating protein while dieting is useful in that it keeps you feel full longer, reduces swings in blood sugar (sudden strong feelings of hunger), prevents muscle loss, and reduces water retention (less bloat.) Aim to eat around .8g protein per pound bodyweight per day on average. If you choose lean protein sources like chicken/turkey breast, protein powder, and fish – you will be eating very few calories – while at the same time supporting your weight loss goals.
Here is a way to get in your morning coffee drink, and your protein (while still keeping calories low) from Holly at Fit Yummy Mummy:
3. You don’t have to eat the same number of meals or calories per day. This is old fashioned. It used to be believed that skipping breakfast or a couple meals would slow one’s metabolism. Likewise, it also used to be thought that eating lots of little meals per day would increase your metabolism. None of the above is true. Click here for my post on 3 simple ways to eat to lose weight to learn how you can avoid the trap of endlessly preparing tiny meals.
Workout Mistakes
1. You don’t lift weights AT ALL because your worry about getting bulky. Honestly, with all of the bad workout advice for women – I am not surprised. Many women find that if they follow a weight lifting program, all they do is get bigger. Obviously this is frustrating. However, weightlifting when done right – is extremely important to losing weight and looking sexy.
First – the health advantages of lifting weights. If you lift weights while you diet – you will preserve most of your muscle mass. Just dieting while doing cardio results in losing larger amounts of muscle AND fat. This leaves you looking like a smaller, flabby version of yourself after a few months. Secondly, lifting weights is crucial to preventing osteoporosis – the chronic thinning of bones especially common to women as they age. Eating too little or an unbalanced diet will make you more likely to develop this condition as early as your 40′s. There is nothing sexy about a broken hip!
Lifting weights should be part of any healthy woman’s workout when done correctly. Too many workouts for women focus on doing lots and lots of isolation exercises to firm up problems areas like your waist, arms, and thighs. This will not work. If you have flab, wobble, or jiggle anywhere on your body – this is fat, not “weak” muscles. Trust me, no matter what size your muscles are under your skin, fat, and fluids – they are firm and tight – not droopy.
There is no reason you need to do more than 6 different exercises per weightlifting workout (let alone per body part!) You can get away with doing as few as three, provided you do high quality, full body exercises. You can also do a few more exercises if you feel motivated, but know you don’t have to.
Here are good exercises to focus on:
(Odds are, all of these exercises are unfamiliar. DON”T let that intimidate you! Give these full body exercises a try!)
Push press
Squat to Push Press
Deadlift to row
Turkish Get Up
How many do you do? Two choices – you can lift for strength (this is different than lifting for muscle size, so don’t be intimidated) and do 4 sets of (number of times you do your exercise circuit) 6-8 reps per exercise OR you can lift for fat loss and do reps in the 12-15 rep range for 2-3 sets. Ideally you would do your strength training workout 3 times per week (with an off day in between) – you could lift heavy one day per week (or every two weeks) and keep the rest in the fat burning zone if you want to.
If fat fat burning circuits sound appealing to you, here’s how you would do one from Holly at Fit Yummy Mummy -
Keep your weights challenging and your speed high. Going slow and steady is not going to burn fat when you are lifting lighter.
Why avoid lifting in the usual 3-4 sets of 8-12?
This is actually a program for building muscle size. This is likely not what you want to do (unless you have a problem area like your butt that you want to build up.)
“I am used to really blasting my lower body – shouldn’t I do eight different exercises for my thighs?” No, even at lower weights and higher reps, if you overdo things you will add bulk. This is why many women quit working out at the gym – it seems like every workout makes them bigger, not smaller.
2. You REALLY overdo cardio. Cardio needs to be a integral part of you fat loss plan, however this does not mean long hours of cardio (usually done jogging or on an elliptical trainer) is the best plan. Initially doing 20-40 minutes of steady state cardio will work, especially for people who are not in great shape. This will work for your first month or so. However, over time you will notice that you are not losing weigh they way you were before (and the longer cardio sessions you are doing will start to feel much easier.) This is a sign that your body has become more fit and more efficient at working out. If you do not add difficulty, your weight loss will stagnate.
Most people make the mistake of adding additional time to their cardio sessions. This is a bad idea. You can only add so much time to your cardio workouts before you start to experience drops in your fat burning hormones (due to overexertion) and various aches and pains due to overuse. Instead what you want to do is increase intensity – this will get you back on track burning fat and spending less time in the gym. Win win.
Interval cardio is simply a cardio workout where you alternate periods of high intensity and low intensity work. (As opposed to a cardio workout where you use the same level of intensity the whole time – walking at 4.0mph on a treadmill for 45min, for example.) You can do interval cardio either on a machine at the gym or at home.
Why is this better?
You burn more calories in the same amount of time simply by adding a few periods of higher intensity work. This doesn’t need to start out at some crazy level in order to see the effects. Simply switching from walking for 20min to walk/jogging can double your calorie burn. From there all you want to do is steadily increase the intensity (and possibly duration) of your work periods.
Check out this post I put together on how exactly to do fat burning cardio intervals.
Thanks for stopping by – you might also like my post on Elsa Pataky’s workout as well! Don’t forget to check out Visual Impact for Women (review here), Fit Yummy Mummy, if you want more information on the programs mentioned in this post.
