Being the beautifully balanced Bips

Bips has strong views, knows her plus points and is quite clear where she wants to be. In the time we spent on an outdoor shoot in Bangkok, I couldn’t help but notice Bipasha Basu’s change in attitude. Having known her from her modelling days in 1997, where she was laidback about fitness, it’s great to see she actually had a personal trainer accompany her on an outdoor of 25 days! This sudden change happened as late as 2004, and I strongly suspect her super-fit boyfriend must have something to do with it. She has no vices like drinking or smoking.

Obsessed with the Suryanamaskar (she does a 108 of these a day!), the exotic face and voluptuous body of the '90s has given way to a more sculpted face and a fit body to die for. A trim exterior is backed by a strong core (thanks to some disciplined yoga with Bharat Thakur’s team). She spends two hours, six days a week in the gym.

For someone who used to dread dance sequences, she’s become the Bidi Jalailay girl, who also happens to be the only non-sporting person to endorse Reebok!

She trains in the morning. Her routine is Day 1 — upper body,

Day 2 — abdomen workout, Day 3 — legs and lower body, Day 4 — gluteus maximus, Day 5 — upper body, Day 6 — abdomen and gluteus maximus, accompanied by 108 Suryanamaskars daily with 50 minutes of cardio, and a 10-minute warm-up, which includes stretching, and holding dance postures with emphasis on breathing. Weekly four times, the 50 minutes of cardio is split up into 20 minutes on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the elliptical machine and 20 minutes on the rowing machine, twice a week. She also does a spinning class a week. She believes in weak-point training, works especially hard on her triceps and does the Bhujangasana really well.

A victim of an injured left knee, she does physio for it. Being flat-footed, she grips paper with her feet to overcome the problem. Post a trip to Rio, she started working on the gluteus maximus, as a 'good butt' is a sign of a great body! She is a strong believer in circuit training, which keeps the heart rate up. To break monotony, she adopts a new routine every four months. She uses yoga to strengthen her lower back, core muscles and redevelop her left knee muscles.

Equipped with little knowledge three-and-a-half years ago (which included running with bad shoes), she caught on by reading and with help from her trainer Paul. She doesn't train when very tired and averages six-and-a-half hours of sleep.

Bipasha's diet starts with tea, almonds soaked overnight and warm water. At 9 am, she has six egg whites, mushroom and toast with porridge, skimmed milk and fruits. At 11 am, one apple. Lunch sharp at 1 pm consisting of green vegetables, dal, grilled chicken or fish, green salad, two soya chapattis and strictly no rice except her birthday, which is quite an achievement for a Bengali!

She has tea at 5 pm with digestive biscuits. Dinner is at 9 pm with dal, salad, three vegetables cooked in olive oil, grilled fish or chicken with a miniscule portion of dessert.

Sounds exotic? Well, that she is, dark and Indian in essence, and now very fit!

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