Brazil has produced some of the world’s sexiest women – from Camila Alves to Gisele Bundchen. So, if your goal involves looking great, there is plenty to learn from this sizzling starlet.
Here’s how to get Camila Alves’s bikini body…
Kicking off: She’s something of a superwoman – mum to three gorgeous kids, married to a Oscar-winning actor, and she runs her own successful handbag business – but Camila is also keen her A-list brood don’t lose touch with their roots. “My kids love it: the music, the colours, the food,” she says of her native Brazil. “There’s always a pot of beans on the stove and we pray before we eat. I try to keep Portuguese in there as much as I can and we’re very excited about the World Cup. I’m really trying to go back for it.”
On the ball: She’s in great shape, and the 31-year-old admits she takes her food seriously to make sure she doesn’t gain weight. “At the end of the day, it’s not about how much you’re exercising if you don’t have the right diet,” she says, although she does give herself a break once a week. “I say, six days of really healthy eating and then have one day where you can cheat and eat whatever you want.” Her average day’s intake consists of lots of lean proteins, some complex carbs and lots of fruit and vegetables. “In the morning, I’ll do three egg whites with some fruit, or I’ll mix and match. It’s everything lean… in the daytime, I’ll have a salad, and then I’ll add carbs into that. Maybe I’ll throw brown rice into it.”
Although complications have meant it hasn’t been so easy the third time round, after each baby she worked hard to shed the pregnancy pounds. “I did exercise really hard. I had a trainer that I worked with six days a week and sometimes do it even twice a day,” she says. But Camila also accepts that her body has changed with time, adding: “I am definitely way curvier. I had the typical model body, but after babies it changed. I look more like a woman. It’s evolution… The mistake that women make these days is trying to chase their youth. In my 20s I wanted to be hot; now I want to be healthy.”
Scores for: Sharing the real secret to looking good after having children. “In Brazil, you leave the hospital wrapped,” she confessed. “They wrap you. It’s something my mother told me to do. It’s uncomfortable, but it does help to get your waist and your belly, everything back into shape… I usually do a thick gauze, and you wrap. You have to have somebody to help you wrap around. You can lay down so that it’s flat, and you can wrap it really good, or you get a medical one. It has to be something that gets your whole waist.”
Words: Sarah James/Feats Press
Images: Instagram
