Week one of Bikini Boot Camp

When Chaunce Drury realized she had regained 20 of the 40 pounds she’d struggled so hard to lose almost two years ago, the 30-year-old film industry worker vowed to get serious about getting back on track.

“I woke up one day and realized: I’m not very healthy. I took my dog for a walk one day and going up a hill - not even a big hill - I had to go slow and thought, ‘Wow! I’m out of shape!’”

Not for long. Drury has volunteered to go public with every red-faced gasp, every sore under-used muscle and unwanted jiggle as she begins a six-week shapeup that will put her back into a bikini in time for beach season.

“I know once I start, it’ll happen. I’m very determined to do this,” she says.

This determination has made Drury the standard-bearer for The Province’s Bikini Boot Camp, a six-week series involving The Specialty Gourmet, Innovative Fitness, Eveline Charles Salon & Spa and Swimco beachwear.

Drury has been at Bikini Boot Camp for a week now and today, we’ll provide you with details of what she’s been doing with the trainers at Innovative Fitness, what meals she’s been eating, delivered to her each day by Specialty Gourmet, and what the specialists at Eveline Charles have advised her to do for glowing, healthy skin.

At the end of six weeks, Drury will undergo a complete beauty makeover at Eveline Charles and pick out the perfect beach outfit from Swimco before having her picture taken for our final instalment of Bikini Boot Camp, scheduled for June 13.

We invite our readers to join with her for their own version of the boot camp. The bottom-line requirements are commitment and perseverance; the goal is to feel - and look - the best you can. [Editor’s note: Anyone just starting an exercise program is strongly advised to get their doctor’s approval first.]

We’ll have full menu details and complete workout programs, plus a personal daily diary Drury is keeping during the program at our website, www.theprovince.com. Click on Online Extras. The material will be updated every week.

Setting goals

Drury devised her own workout and diet plan two years ago when she realized her weight had shot up past her comfort zone. She did her research before beginning, read all she could about how to get in shape, worked out regularly at the gym, watched her diet and ended up losing 40 pounds over five months.

Now, the weight is creeping back up and Drury says that’s because she made the mistake of thinking she was finished when she reached her target weight. Her life became more hectic, her eating schedule more erratic, and exercise? Who has time?

“I’ve learned you can’t just say, ‘Well, I’ve reached my goal.’ You have to make it a lifelong habit,” she says.
And habits are best formed when they’re laid on a foundation of reachable goals. With the Bikini Boot Camp, Drury says she wants to:
- Feel healthier and fitter.
- Lose 10 or more pounds in time for beach season.
- Begin to challenge herself more, to take on goals such as running a 5k fun run.

The workouts

When I saw Drury at her first workout, I thought she was going to explode, both from the excitement of going public with her efforts to get in shape and because of the intensity of the workout trainer Colin Macdonald had set up for her.

Earlier in the session, Drury was given an initial assessment in which Macdonald checked her posture, overall cardio conditioning and core strength. A heart-rate monitor showed she burned 500 calories - of which 45 per cent were fat calories - during that first workout, according to Innovative Fitness head Aaron Keay.

Although the boot camp is only 42 days long, the fitness specialists will draw up a three-month program for Drury. That’s because most people need 90 days to break bad habits and establish good ones, says Keay.

At her second session three days later, Drury underwent a fitness evaluation that consisted of body-fat measurement, cardio, co-ordination and speed testing, muscular- strength testing, muscular-endurance testing and a flexibility test.

The food

Chaunce Drury is a foodie. She’s been cooking since she was five, started throwing dinner parties at 16, loves to cook and prefers shopping at Granville Island Public Market for tonight’s dinner to shopping on Robson St. for shoes . . . to wear to tonight’s dinner!

She also works in a highly stressful industry in which 12-hour days during the height of filming are not uncommon. Forget about sitting down to three good meals and a healthy snack a day. Munch on whatever is available - cookies, chips, more cookies, maybe some more of those chips. What’s a girl to do?

Enter the Specialty Gourmet, which offers full or partial daily menus for Zone, Atkins and Heart Healthy diets. Every day, Drury wakes up to find someone else has done the cooking for her as she opens the cooler left at her front door filled with Zone diet breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. No grabbing whatever junk food is available, no guessing how much is enough, no overfilling the plate.

Nutritionist Maria Thomas of Urban Nutrition says the Zone diet is better than Atkins for weight loss for someone involved in an intense workout program like Drury. The Zone tends to be low in calories when properly followed, and this allows the person to lose the weight, she says.

The diet includes a variety of fruits and vegetables, and also emphasizes some fat and protein to promote satiety, and thus help control appetite, says Thomas.

She suggests anyone following the diet also take a multivitamin and a calcium supplement, “to help ensure nutritional needs are being met.”

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