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Curvy Kim Kardashian has replaced petite Posh as having the body most women desire.
So says Hollywood personal trainer Gunnar Peterson, who has helped the voluptuous star since she was 19. He says girls now want Kim’s bootylicious body far more than Victoria Beckham’s boyish frame. A raft of A-listers and athletes work out at Gunnar’s Beverly Hills gym. Clients have included Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis.
He has worked with the entire Kardashian family too and, after helping many women get into shape, is ideally placed to know what look is on trend. In an exclusive interview with The Sun on Sunday, he says there is no doubt Kim — famous for her ample rear — has popularised today’s must-have shape.
Gunnar, 51, says: “Before, women wanted to lose weight and get a Victoria Beckham body, but that’s past now. “Instead of striving to get that narrow little 16-year-old boy’s backside, big stars come to my studio and say, ‘I want those Kim Kardashian curves and sexy butt’. “Where’s Victoria Beckham in the celebrity ranking compared to Kim?
“Kim’s body is the one people want to emulate. She is on the cover of so many magazines because of her body-beautiful. “Kim said, ‘I have a big butt and I’m going to own it’. She took the figure that may not have been the one people aspired to and turned it around. A lot of that comes not just from her curvy shape but from her confidence.
“If you have a big butt and don’t opt for baggy skirts or a sweater round your waist to hide it but rock skintight clothes instead, people go, ‘Oh my God!’ Then that becomes the thing. “Look at Kim’s power. She’s taken her shape and made it the IT body type. Now I get asked, ‘Do you have any exercises to help me build my butt?’ Before, all I got was, ‘How do I make it smaller?’ “Now it’s all, ‘Get me the Kim Kardashian boobs. Kim’s body is so sexy — I want it’. I didn’t give Kim this body confidence — it came from her family.
“The Kardashians are so closeknit and they have each other’s backs. They show up for each other all the time and don’t mind poking fun when one of them falls short on something. I wish more people had the Kardashian support system.” Last June 33-year-old Kim — who is due to marry rapper Kanye West, 36, this summer — gave birth to their daughter North. Gunnar reveals that she kept training throughout her pregnancy and straight after becoming a mum. And not once in 14 years has she kept him waiting for a workout. Gunnar says: “In all the years I’ve trained her, she’s never been a second late. It’s a family trait — Kris, Khloe, Rob and Kendall are always on time. It’s uncanny to me.
“They live a long way from my gym and, with LA traffic being so bad, it’s a real skill to get anywhere on time — it shows a lot of respect. If anybody could say ‘Sorry, I’m late’, it could be Kim — she has a million things she could easily blame it on. But never once has she been late, pre or post-baby.” He says another reason Kim looks so fabulous is lots of sleep. Gunnar adds: “She makes sure she has eight hours’ sleep a night. Kim knows I won’t train her if she doesn’t get her sleep. “It’s one of the key ingredients to losing weight and being fit. It’s a cardinal rule and she sticks to it. In Power Sleep, the book by Dr James Maas, he gives an analogy about bricks in a backpack. Each brick is an hour, if you only get seven hours you wake up with a brick in there that you carry all day.”
Spilling more of Kim’s fitness secrets, Gunnar says: “Watch your complex carbs at night, drink plenty of water, make sure you eat breakfast and eat post-workout. It’s not like, ‘I’ll work out and when I leave here I’ll do what I want’. She’s not that kind of a person. “She is a 24-hour fitness girl but she has a life, she’s not obsessed. “Never once has Kim said, ‘I can’t take any more, please let’s have a rest’. She just does it. “I get stars who say that and I say, ‘OK, should we just go and get doughnuts and a coffee? I’m tired too’.
“They say, ‘That’s not what I meant’. So I say, ‘Well, it’s called a workout — so this is the part where you work and then it’s out’. “People say Kim is famous for doing nothing and I say, ‘That girl is ON all the time’. “She’s had a No1 reality show for six years and all these ad campaigns. “Reality TV is her talent, she is famous for being Kim. Many celebrities have a lot less time on screen than she does.
“She found a way to transition from being a No1 celebrity to a mum and right back without missing a beat or shortchanging her baby or shirking her duties as a mother. “She was breast-feeding and lost her baby weight, but she fitted in her fitness around her kid, as opposed to the others that fit in their fitness before anything else.”
Gunnar’s gruelling training sessions with the star are not for the faint-hearted. But he says: “Kim never says, ‘This is hard’. She just drops her head and ploughs through. She knows I’m on her team. Failure is not an option. Opting out is not an option. I’m standing right there with you, I am on your team. “I like the Kardashians. They are good, solid people — hardworking and blessed.”