Chantelle Houghton – Chantelle’s Boot Camp Workout

Chantelle Houghton appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 pretending to be a celebrity when she actually wasn’t. She managed to fool the other celebrities who presumably (a) hadn’t heard of many the other ‘celebs’ either and (b) didn’t give much of a fuck in any case.

Following a task where they had to rank each other in terms of famousness – Chantelle romped in 9th out-famousing both Preston and Maggot.

Maggot can still presumably get on a bus without fear of being mobbed. And poor Preston is now best known for his brief marriage to Chantelle. It’s true what they say about fame. She’s a fickle wossname and no mistake.

Chantelle went on to win Celebrity Big Brother despite not actually being one. This allowed her to embark on exciting new projects like glamour modelling and supporting the animal charity PETA.

As a vegetarian, I feel I should approve of this advert but I just can't bring myself to do so.

 

This, however, I heartily endorse. Animals should be removed from circuses. And replaced with washed-up Reality TV stars.

In 2010, now a legitimate celebrity – because that’s how these things work apparently – Chantelle entered the Big Brother house again for Ultimate Big Brother.

Riding high on the crest of public recognition once again, she released this workout video.
The DVD front cover shows how Chantelle shed the flab via the age old method of holding her belly in and cracking a smile.

Not to mention changing into a pink push-up bra and matching knickers and dying her hair blonde. Weirdly none of these techniques are demonstrated on the DVD although there was a voucher for La Senza which expired in June 2011. If only I hadn’t been nineteen months too late, I could have done the workout in a La Senza bra and immersed myself in the full Chantelle experience.

The full Chantelle Experience

Chantelle is aided in her workout by Ben Poole from the No.1 Boot Camp. (That’s their name by the way, I haven’t carried out an independent study of Boot Camps and ranked them accordingly.) No.1 Boot Camp carry out residential fitness courses which Chantelle completed before releasing the DVD. She describes the Workout as “Boot Camp, but without the mud!”

Boot Camp with the mud.

In her introduction Chantelle says “Honestly, I’m just a normal girl who has to exercise and eat healthily to stay in shape.” Which is reassuring for anyone who thought she might be a cyborg.

She tells that the motivation for deciding to get into shape was that someone asked her if she was pregnant “when obviously I wasn’t”. Since she really doesn’t look as though she’s carrying any extra weight, I think it may have been something other than her belly size that triggered the question . Maybe she was eating gherkins and ice cream at 3 o’clock in the morning while flicking through a Baby Bjorn catalogue.

Chantelle with her daughter and a genuine celebrity.

She wasn't pregnant with this baby at the time of the workout. That all happened later.

 Trainer Ben’s hardly a one-man charisma party but he gets the job done. This workout is relentlessly dull and repetitive which may well be the definition of a boot camp workout. The warm-up is literally ten minutes of jogging on the spot.

Chantelle’s input is minimal and in a slight variation on the norm, our celebrity is the go-to person for the easier workout version while Ben demonstrates the harder versions. At the beginning of the Upper Body workout Chantelle tells us that is will get rid of our bingo wings. She then says it again at the end. She has clearly been instructed not to speak at all apart from her carefully scripted sentence at either end of the workout.

 Would I do this workout again?
The workouts are dull. The trainer is dull. Chantelle is dull. I honestly think I may be the only person in the world who has watched this DVD from beginning to end. I bet even Chantelle’s mum hasn’t bothered. I can’t think of a single reason to subject myself to it again.

Worst Bit
We’re back to plinky-plonky music which in this case reminded me of playing the PS One game “Mary Kate and Ashley’s Magical Mystery Mall”.

Pixellated Olsen Twins showing more natural screen presence than Chantelle

Best Bit.
There wasn’t one. Even buying the DVD was an exercise in disappointment. I shelled out £3 in HMV for this workout. Three whole pounds! You can almost buy a cup of coffee for that. I then discovered that Poundland practically had a whole shelf of the damn things,

Supporting both HMV and Chantelle’s media career at one stroke could be considered an act of benevolence, of course, but I’m not sure either one is worth saving.

Mr Motivator - All New BLT Workout

And once again, I shamefully left you hanging on for the next exciting instalment of C-List Celebrity Workouts.

I’ve become inexcusably slipshod. And this is since getting Clare Balding as a celebrity twitter follower as well. What MUST she think of me?

Ah well, I won’t bore you with the humdrum aspects of my life which have hampered my ability to upload this week’s reviews. It’s not like I’m the only hard-working parent with super-villains to vanquish and fiendish plots to undermine. The city is safe again, at least. And it’s nice those orphans can sleep soundly at night. Of course, it’s a shame that they are orphans now but – meh – you can’t have everything.

This week’s reviewee is 1990’s GMTV fitness instructor – Mr Motivator.
He and Mad Lizzie (from TV-am) are the only two TV fitness instructors I can think of who became celebrities in their own right. And by ‘celebrities’ I mean people of whom an exertaphobe such as myself was vaguely aware.



Mr Motivator - or Derrick Evans as he is known to his friends and the inland Revenue – looks fab. Some might say he overdoes it a bit with his bandana AND glasses AND moustache AND mad clothes. And they’d be right of course. Overdoing it is Mr M’s USP.

The whole DVD is filmed in Jamaica. The workouts are performed against a backdrop of tropical greenery, cliffs and sandy white beaches. I am so OVER fake celebrity houses now. All workout DVDs should like this.


Or this.


This would also be acceptable.


One of the locations is an ecotourism resort owned by Mr M himself. It’s called H’Evans Scent. Do you see what he did there?

Mr Motivator is joined by a whole bunch of impossibly gorgeous young Jamaican people. And a couple of very fit – but quite mumsy – looking ladies from the UK.

The workout sections consist of: Fun Calypso Workout; Upper Body Conditioning; Bikini Body Workout, Pyramid Workout and Bums Legs and Tums.

There’s a Party Workout at the end. Although, it looks like a pretty rubbish party to be honest. I’d like to hang out with Mr Motivator. He seems like a cool guy. But if his parties consist of jogging on the spot and arm-stretching rather than booze, snacks and impromptu balloon games, I think I’ll probably give it a miss.
Most of the sections are great – I particularly enjoyed the Upper body conditioning workout. But you all know how excited I get when there’s an opportunity to use my dumbbells.

I didn’t like the Pyramid workouts where Mr M dresses as an army sergeant major and orders his coquettishly-dressed squadron to perform a bunch of jumpy-up-and-down exercise. This is partly because I prefer lovely Mr Motivator to bossy Mr Motivator. But mostly because jumping up and down a lot is logistically awkward.

Best Bit
I love Mr Motivator. Normally I complain about people talking too much rubbish in workout DVDs. I could listen to Mr M talking rubbish all day though. He is, to be fair a professional at it.


“They started out with me looking rough but I’ve rebuilt them.”

“Smile! Jesus loves you!” (You know hardly anyone says that on Fitness DVDs.)

MrM: Every lady here say ‘Yes’!
Ladies: Yes!
MrM: I love it when women say ‘yes’

This really is the perfect mix of holiday brochure and pantomime.

Worst Bit
I originally assumed it was a re-release of one of Mr Motivator’s original videos from the 90s. However further research (Wikipedia) has revealed this is a new recording made in 2007.

In which case the production values are truly terrible. All the time I was excusing the shoddy quality because I thought it had been copied straight from VHS to DVD and that they’d tried to make up for how shit it was by introducing a “select your own workout” feature (that doesn’t really work).


If this was recorded in the current century on a camera designed for the purpose then the fact that this woman’s face looks like it’s been blurred out for security purposes for the Upper Body conditioning workout is a little bit disappointing.

Weirdest Bit
Between workouts there are baffling “comedy” segments with The Mad Professor and his assistant. The credits reveal that both the characters share Mr Motivator’s surname (not Motivator , the other one) which, at least explains what they are doing on the DVD.



Difficulty
Mostly OK. Apart from the Pyramid Jumping which I didn’t attempt. And the dancing. I REALLY can’t dance.

Would I do this DVD again?
Well no. I’m not going to do any of these workouts again probably. I should get rid of this section. Maybe replace it with “Would I recommend this to a friend?” or “Would I sooner do this again than wank off a pig?”