It’s a tough job being named the hottest girl on campus, but someone’s gotta do it. Here at the University of Delaware, senior Laurel Jones from Wilmington, DE, takes the weight off thousands of gorgeous undergraduate shoulders–and she does so effortlessly. Two years after entering a competition on collegehumor.com and leaving with the first prize check for $5,000 dollars, the beauty has been sought out by prestigious organizations such as College Mansion and Maxim magazine. Although her blooming modeling career came with paychecks and vacations, she utilized her new found fame to raise more than $2,000 for breast cancer research–a cause that remains close to her heart.
UD: After winning the collegehumor.com contest in 2009, how did your career take off?
LJ: I started getting offers to get paid to shoot with photographers because they thought I could help make their portfolio look good. My reaction was ME? You want to pay me? I never thought that happened unless you were the stereotypical model type and had an agency behind you. It all became very exiting, and I learned so much.
UD: Did you always see yourself in this industry?
LJ: I always thought models were tall, and exotic looking with bad eating habits. I never thought I could model because I was closed off by stereotypes of how tall or skinny I should be, and I realized there are so many other types of modeling for so many body types and it’s all beautiful.
UD: What are some of the perks that come along with your career?
LJ: College Mansion has opened so many doors for me and I have met so many great people. In May they took the top 52 girls in the nation from their website to AC to meet Bruno Mars and take part in his concert. This coming May they are taking us to Atlantis Bahamas. They also helped me get involved with BMG, which is Bar Marketing Group. With that, I get to go to philly sports games, such as the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and my all time favorite the Eagles, and get paid to promote Anheuser Bush products.
UD: So many girls on campus envy your body! What’s your diet and exercise plan like?
LJ: As far as what I eat and how I exercise, my major, Health Behavior Science, helps a lot with the technical stuff. I study this stuff, so it’s hard for me to not implement it into my daily routine. I eat pretty healthy for the most part, but i’m not a stickler by any means. What works for me is to stock my apartment with healthy stuff like boneless, skinless chicken, fish, fruit, vegetables, hummus and pita chips to snack on, etc. Because for me, eating is out of convenience, and what is in my apartment right in front of me is what is convenient to me. Also, you have to keep eating a lot of these healthy meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism up. Hot sauce is my hidden secret. I replace ketchup with hot sauce on burgers, or chicken because hot sauce actually speeds up your metabolism and has no calories. When I go out to eat, though, I indulge… there are not rules. I’m half italian, and my italian mother has had me in the kitchen since age 5 cooking with her, so my weakness is definitely pasta, pasta pasta with the cream sauces, and the cheese.
I’ve created a cardio routine that actually builds muscle in my legs and makes them a little larger and more shapely, while trimming my stomach and arms. I usually do around 35- 40 min of cardio because the first 15-20 min of cardio your body is only burning your glycogen stores in your body, and so if you want to see a difference or a change in your body you must do cardio past that time frame. Running depletes muscle tissue, so i fast walk on a treadmill, making sure my arms are free moving because that gives a better workout. Every 2 min i turn the incline up 1 level until i’m literally power walking up a steep level 15 by the end of my workout. This does 3 things, it keeps your body guessing because you are constantly changing your pace and your heart rate which prevents the body from plateauing with little or no more weight loss. Second, when challenging your legs in a workout by using your muscles to go uphill, you are acting burning double the calories, and third, the cardio is trimming fat on my body but uphill exercise builds my legs and my butt up that I can’t afford to get any smaller. Also, I try to do some weight training in my arms, deltoids and triceps. Those muscles on a women’s arm look sexy when they are defined, in my opinion, and weight lifting burns calories for hours after a workout as well. I go to the gym every other day because i’m going to school and working 2 jobs at the moment so everyday is just unrealistic for me, sometimes every other day gets tough.
UD: What’s your favorite part about your body?
LJ: I don’t know if I have a favorite part of my body, but I do have favorite features. It’s my humungous dark eyelashes, that have a mind of their own and flirtatiously batt even when they aren’t supposed to, and my smile. After four years of braces it better be a good one!
UD: How has this experience been for you?
LJ: It’s all pretty flattering, but school and my dream career will always come first, even though i do believe that while your young you should experience all the exiting stuff i have while you still can.
UD: Where do you see yourself in ten years?
LJ: I see myself happy and content wherever I am and whoever i’m with. I have always wanted to work with kids but it was a struggle to figure out exactly what I wanted to do, and after switching majors a few too many times at UD I finally realized that I would hate going to work unless I knew i was making an active, hands on, impact in a child’s life. With that said, my dream profession would be to make diet plans for children who are hospitalized for cancer and diabetes, because that is an integral part of their recovery.
UD: What advice would you give to college girls across the globe?
LJ: Don’t worry about looking like everyone else, accentuate the good qualities you have, and rock it because that makes a woman sexy. Find what you want, don’t stop going after it, never let anyone else validate your existence, and always keep an open mind complimented by a positive attitude because this is the only life your given so you have no choice but to make the absolute best of your time and the person you are capable of being.