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Interview: Chantelle Houghton

Last year was full of ups and downs for Celebrity Big Brother star Chantelle Houghton. She was catapulted back onto our screens in Ultimate Big Brother, where the nation looked on as she painfully realised she was still in love with her ex-husband and fellow contestant, Preston. Unfortunately, after a series of dates and conversations it was clear these feeling were unrequited.

The curvy blonde was then asked to front a fitness DVD after dropping two dress sizes in two weeks following a stint at bootcamp, which is why we are talking to her today.

Finally, the Essex girl ended 2010 on a high by finding love with Crimewatch TV presenter Rav wilding.

In the flesh Chantelle is everything you would expect from watching her on TV - bubbly, down to earth and very un-celeb-like. Dressed in skinny jeans and a smock top she looks casual and relaxed in her own skin and as thin as you might antisipate. She certainly doesn't sport the lollypop look of so many young female celebs.

Before losing two dress sizes Chantelle was a healthy size12 – so hardly fat. When I put this to her she says: “No, I wasn’t overweight as such, but you could tell that I wasn’t in shape at all.”

Now she says she is a “10, but I can fit into an 8, so I feel really great."

Chantelle started ‘piling on the pounds’ simply by eating without exercising. Asked if she watches what she eats now she says: “Yeah, I do. It’s nice to be able to eat what I want because I’m exercising. You can have treats, it comes hand in hand.”

Describing her daily diet she says: “In the morning I eat porridge or fruit. For lunch, because I’m vegetarian, I’d have corn or a toasty and salad. At night I’d have steamed vegetables, lentils and stuff like that.”

Chantelle seems keen to distance herself from this brand of celebrity fitness DVDs with astonishing weight loss and shocking before and after photos. Recently, she allegedly criticised Kerry Katona for her fitness DVD, branding it 'dangerous' for the drastic weight loss she considers it promotes. 

So what makes Chantelle’s fitness DVD better than the competition?

“It’s not like a lot of other fitness DVD’s with drastic weight loss. They’re like yoyo diets where you lose an extreme amount of weight, like 4 stone in such a short time.

“I understand why people are attracted to that, but what you’ll find is that the person then, in the next 6 months, has actually put that weight back on. So the difference with my one is that I went from being slightly overweight to being like this. And now I'm still like this."

Chantelle’s DVD is a mixture of cardio and  toning exercises using filled water bottles instead of weights. Living-up to her girl-next-door image, she says: “You don’t need things like huge £70 a month gym memberships.

“It’s just to show people that it is actually really easy to lose weight, it’s so easy. At the end of the day, if you just exercise and eat healthy then you're going to lose weight. No doubt about it."

Chantelle exercises a minimum of three times a week and uses shopping as her motivation, “To be able to go shopping and buy something I really love, that’s my motivation,” she says.

In 2007 Chantelle divorced ex-husband Preston after 10 months of marriage and turned to surgery to re-claim her self-esteem. However, in the Big Brother house last year she admitted this didn’t help, saying: “I went and got my boobs done, face fillers and my lips done and I should have seen a therapist.”

Now, she says she wishes she never had plastic surgery at all. “I wish I never had them [breast implants] done, I really do, but I’m stuck with them until I actually decide to do something about them.

“I’ve still got no regrets but, I don’t know, I just don’t want them. I don’t know if it is a regret, but I wish that they weren’t there.”

She adds: “I don’t want Botox and all that. I’m quite happy with what I look like.

“I think when you’re feeling overweight, it’s almost easy to be like ‘oh I’ll have some Botox, I’ll do my hair’ but you’re actually just covering up the problem.”

She is also finally over Preston, too, saying, “That is all dead and buried now.”

When asked about new flame Rav Wilding she will only coyly say:  "He's really lovely. You know, it's early days. We're just spending time together, so just right now I'm really happy."

We're really happy things seem to be looking up for the girl who found fame as the only non-celebrity in Celebrity Big Brother. 

Chantelle’s Bootcamp Workout is out now and costs £19.99.

By Heidi Vella

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