LORRAINE KELLY
How Scots star got in shape and kept the weight off with dance routines
BEFORE she met Maxine Jones, exercise classes were not Lorraine Kelly’s thing.
Moonwalks and marathons she could just about tolerate. But stepping up and down on a bench bored her silly.
Then a friend dragged her to a dance aerobics class. They were on holiday and it felt like every kind of wrong.
But she went along and, to her amazement, loved every minute.
Back in the UK, she was looking for something similar.
She found it in a church hall near her London flat.
At first, the arrival of a TV star in her leggings was the talk of the changing room.
“Everyone was very excited and wanted selfies,” Lorraine’s teacher, known as Max, recalled. “Now she’s just one of the girls.”
For 57-yearold Lorraine, Max’s workouts were a masterclass in losing her inhibitions, taking her straight out of her comfort zone.
These moves are not for the fainthearted. The sassy jog and booty swirl are straight out of the Beyonce playbook. “Of course I’m Scottish and it took me a while to get used to it,” Lorraine explained. Max still refers to her as “Wooden Hips”.
After three years of swirling their booties together three times a week, the pair have just released their second DVD.
Called Brand New You, it aims to recreate the atmosphere of Max’s pumped classes for those of us who live in the wrong postcode but still want to look smoking hot.
“So many people were telling us that they wanted to come to the classes with us because they looked like so much fun.” Lorraine said. “We wanted to make a DVD that was exactly like going to a class.”
“Everyone,” Max added, “can be one of the gang.”
The DVD is in two parts. The first section is an in-depth tutorial on the moves, which are all called things like the funky march and shimmy dip.
Max thrusts and struts her way through each one, starting slowly with the feet, speeding up, then adding the arms until she becomes a sweat-streaked Lycra dervish.
If it’s something particularly energetic, she warns viewers to clear the room of “furniture, carpets, children and pets”. Once they have got the hang of the teapot (which is more Nicki Minaj and less Bounce and Rhyme session in the library), they are ready to progress to the main workout.
This is broken into four sections: cardio, upper body, lower body and abs.
It is filmed live with 120 woman aged 20-70 from Max’s classes throwing their best shapes for the cameras. And Lorraine is correct – it looks like the most fun you can have without a round of cocktails.
It’s this combination of a girls’ night out and visible results that keeps Lorraine, and Max’s many other devotees, coming to class.
Lorraine goes three times a week, following Max round the different London venues where she teaches.
If she’s home in Dundee or away travelling, she does the routines in her bedroom. “It’s the next best thing to going to a class.”
Working out to the Max for three years, Lorraine has lost around two stones. (She can’t give an exact figure, because she doesn’t have scales or weigh herself.) Once a size 14, she’s now a 10.
More importantly, she has kept the weight off. She has a waist,