Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts: How to Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day [Hardcover]

Kathy Kaehler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 28, 2004

A-list personal trainer Kathy Kaehler reveals the body-sculpting secrets of the stars in a breakthrough fitness regimen guaranteed to deliver your best body yet.

Ever wonder how Hollywood’s hottest names manage to achieve their knock-out bodies? It’s not money, and it’s not just great genes—it’s having access to truly stellar fitness expertise. Top personal trainer Kathy Kaehler has trained dozens of today’s most glamorous, shapely celebrities, including Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Cindy Crawford, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Now, for the first time, she reveals her workout secrets—the same body-sculpting and fat-busting strategies she uses to prepare Hollywood’s leading ladies for photo shoots, action movies, red carpet moments, and more.

Kathy knows that to keep her clients happy, she needs to provide a workout with enough variety to help them stick with it day after day—and most importantly, one that gets maximum results. Celebrity Workouts presents seven action-packed routines that draw on cutting-edge fitness practices and target different parts of the body, each based on Kathy’s work with a different client, and geared toward giving you the physique of your favorite stars. You’ll find:

The Early Morning Start-up Workout with Michelle Pfeiffer: a simple, energizing workout, perfect for new exercisers or for those looking to jump-start their day.

The Supermodel Lower–Body Conditioner with Claudia Schiffer: sculpts from head to toe using Pilates and other hot fitness techniques.

Rachel’s Super-Sexy Upper Body–Workout with Jennifer Aniston: delivers great shoulders and arms, perfect for tank tops and strapless dresses.

The Pretty Woman Leg Workout with Julia Roberts: focuses on thighs and calves for sexy, slender legs.

The Charlie’s Angels Boot Camp Workout with Drew Barrymore: a full-body workout using kick-boxing moves that emphasizes strength and stamina.

The Amazing Abs Workout with Cindy Crawford: builds core strength and an amazing waistline—even after pregnancy.

Plus: The Hidden Hills Workout, inspired by Kathy’s weekly class at Hollywood’s most exclusive country club.

Inside you’ll also find slimming, delicious recipes from chefs that cater to the Hollywood elite—including Wolfgang Puck, Jamie Oliver, and personal chefs who specialize in keeping their high-profile clients fit and trim—along with realistic nutrition advice to help jumpstart your metabolism and melt away extra pounds. With entertaining behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and in-the-gym photographs of her biggest clients, Kathy Kaehler’s Celebrity Workouts is the ultimate guide to having fun while getting fit—and achieving superstar results.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Today show fitness expert and Self magazine columnist Kaehler is responsible for the amazing physical fitness of Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and Michelle Pfeiffer, and in this book, she aims to bring readers on board the fitness train as well. Kaehler’s advice is positive and down-to-earth, telling her readers, "you can’t fight genetics" and attain a standard of beauty that is the norm in Hollywood, but that they can achieve a level of fitness that will improve their looks and life. The book breaks down into seven distinct workouts based on routines Kaehler created for celebrities. Each exercise is appealingly illustrated with a photograph of the super-fit Kaehler performing the move. Healthy recipes from Hollywood chefs and on-set caterers are sprinkled throughout the book as well. The routines are a good mix of trendy exercise ball and yoga moves, along with the old-fashioned basics like jumping jacks and jump rope. She reveals just enough about her clients, remarking that Claudia Schiffer’s "upper-body strength was non-existent" and that Pfeiffer hated their 4:30 am workouts, to keep the book an interesting read. Julia Roberts comes off the best, as a genuinely kind, unassuming person, in the author’s view. This book will receive lots of publicity from the Today show and other media outlets, so expect high demand during the New Year resolution rush. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Hollywood’s hottest bodies have high praise for Kathy Kaehler!

“Exercising with Kathy has changed my life in a great, subtle and consistent way. I must admit, I don’t love exercise, but I do love how I feel afterward. Accomplishment, clarity, energy, strength, joy. These are all things I give myself through working out, and I can feel it in everything I do.” —Julia Roberts

“Kathy’s workouts really give you results. The abdominal exercises are great—they get right to that spot that you want to tighten. Working out with Kathy was something I always looked forward to.” —Cindy Crawford

“After spending years training with Kathy, I now have the tools to exercise safely and effectively on my own, and fit a workout into my hectic schedule. She has shown me how to stay in shape without having to spend all of those hours in the gym that are a waste of time and frankly boring as hell!” —Michelle Pfeiffer

“Working out with Kathy was an inspiration to me, and I hope an inspiration to all women. Her workout regimens are enjoyable and easy-to-follow, and her advice is honest. By simply taking time out to listen to our bodies, we can achieve realistic results on the inside as well as the outside.” —Claudia Schiffer

“I was working out with Kathy right after Friends started its run. She taught me that basic exercises like walking, stretching, and using my own body weight for resistance will get me into the best physical condition. When I am able to exercise, I always feel good about myself and am much more likely to stick to a healthy lifestyle.” —Jennifer Aniston

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Crown Archetype (December 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767916174
• ISBN-13: 978-0767916172
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,169,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real workouts for everyday people., January 11, 2005

By 

S. Rickman (Lawrence, Kansas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts: How to Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day (Hardcover)

In her book she says that the sub-title of this book "How to Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day" sounds a little gimmicky. You aren't going to look like Jennifer Aniston tomorrow, but you are going to be healthier and fitter as you follow this program. She focuses on getting healthy and feeling comfortable with the body shape you have. A fun mix of walking, light weight training, yoga, stretching and a handful of fun exercises that make you feel like a kid on the playground. The exercises have easy to follow illustrations, and written directions. It includes a group of exercises to help you ease back into a fitness program, recipes and fun celebrity photos and quotes that are reminiscent of reading "People" in the grocery store check-out. A good bonus: there isn't really any equipment that you need to buy that you probably don't already have.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Effective, fun workouts, February 19, 2005

By 

J. Carsen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts: How to Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day (Hardcover)

This is a great resource. Kathy Kaehler sets out five different workouts for Monday-Friday, plus a 5-minute "amazing abs" workout to be done on three non-consecutive days each week. (There's also a "start-up" workout to get you up to speed if you're a new or lapsed exerciser.)

The workouts are fun and work each part of your body in different ways--there's a lot of core work and exercises using the body's own resistance. She mixes up the routines so you don't get bored and so your body doesn't get too accustomed to any one thing.

While the photos may make it look like the workouts are a piece of cake, they're not. They're challenging and effective, and she explains how you can adapt them as you get stronger.

The celebrity gossip is almost an aside--Kaehler is clearly a pro who knows her stuff, and her reasonable take on diets is refreshing (she notes that client Jennifer Aniston is a Zone devotee, for example, but mentions that she herself doesn't advocate such restrictive diets). Her tone is friendly, professional, and encouraging throughout. Hearing first-hand about her battles with food and post-pregnancy pounds puts you at ease and makes you feel she understands that most of her readers aren't part of the Hollywood world.

As one other reviewer mentioned, a lot of the equipment she uses is stuff you may already have around the house (a jump rope, two sets of relatively light weights, a deck of cards, etc.), making the workouts cost-effective and travel-friendly.

My one beef with the book, if you could even call it that, is that I think Kaehler tends to underestimate how long it takes to perform the workouts. The "5-minute" abs workout generally takes me quite a bit longer, although maybe I'm just unusually slow.

All in all, highly recommended.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'd give this more than 5 stars if I could, April 3, 2005

By 

DNP "waterlily525" (Framingham, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kathy Kaehler's Celebrity Workouts: How to Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day (Hardcover)

I really enjoy Kathy Kaehler's approach. The jazzy title aside, she has a very friendly and encouraging way of telling us to be real about genetics and what we can and can't change. For instance, she turns it to herself, saying that she will never have the slim hips of Claudia Schiffer or the long, long legs of Julia Roberts. BUT, as she also says, we can all improve what we DO have. We can, with consistent good nutrition and a fitness program, become our OWN best selves.

Why the jazzy title, then? Well, for one thing, like it or not, celebrities sell...they grab our attention. But there's also a more "noble" reason. As Kathy says, while it's counterproductive to try to look just like any of these Hollywood women, we can use some of them as examples of people who make a commitment to health and fitness and fit this into very busy lives.

Also, there are stories of improvement that can be inspiring. Claudia Schiffer who went from being barely able to do one push-up to doing three sets of fifteen. Jennifer Anniston, whom Kathy says she considers "a perfect example of how you can change your body with regular exercise and a healthy diet." But she makes the note that "she wouldn't have been successful if she had altered her habits for a few weeks or months, then stopped." All through the book, you get the message that these are real women, just like us, with the exception that they're famous...and if they can improve, so can we.

I just checked this out of my library two days ago, so I haven't actually done any of the exercises yet...I'm planning to follow the plan this week. But based on my experience with Kathy's "Workout Class" video, I have no doubt that they'll be both challenging and effective!

I do plan to buy this book because I really appreciate the combination of Kathy's sensible, realistic way of looking at things, her friendly and encouraging way of expressing herself and her obvious skill as a trainer.