In terms of the fitness routine, I tend to do quite a bit more cardio because I just want to get my blood pumping and moving really well before I do a show.
Do you have a sweet tooth?
Oh my God, yeah. Do I have a sweet tooth? This morning I had a cinnamon roll, a huge cinnamon roll with my coffee. I love sweets.
What’s your weakness?
I would say pastries. Pastries are a huge weakness for me. I have a hard time turning down just a fluffy, flaky croissant or a cinnamon roll or anything like that.
So when you eat a cinnamon roll or a pastry every other day, what are you doing to offset that?
I don’t really like the idea of offsetting. I feel like that can get kind of tricky if it’s a tit-for-tat kind of thing. I never like anything that feels punitive when it comes to health or wellness or fitness. So if I eat something “bad,” I don’t feel like I’m going to go for a run to try to offset it or to balance it out. Because I trust myself, that my exercise and nutrition is good enough 90 percent of the time to withstand having a strawberry shortcake and a pizza one night—I’m just saying that because that’s what we had for dinner last night, we made pizzas with our friends here, and we had strawberry shortcake for dessert.
But every other night of the week, I’m eating chicken breasts with kale and brown rice. That’s my go-to. I eat that most nights of the week because a.) I think it’s delicious and I enjoy it and b.) it’s good for me, it just makes me feel good.
I saw that you’re about to turn 30 in December. I was wondering, what have you observed in your own body in these last few years of your twenties, that’s changed? And how have you adapted to those?
Interesting question. I have noticed that my body’s a lot stiffer than it used to be. Maybe five years ago, I could just take off running and not think twice about it, but now I need to roll out my ankles and my knees before I take off running, and I need to stretch before I do certain lifts. And I would say in my mobility in particular, in my joints, it requires more effort than it used to. And I’m certainly carrying weight in places where I didn’t use to when I was younger. So yeah, I would say I’m having to focus a lot more on my mobility exercises, specifically around my joints than maybe I had to previously.
I would say another difference between my body at 30 versus my body at maybe 21—I can no longer really tolerate making myself feel bad just for the short-term pleasure of something tasting good. I used to really not care so much, I would just eat myself sick just because I enjoyed the experience or the high that I would get from a certain kind of sweet treat or something. But now, I think twice before I eat something, not because I’m afraid of how I’m going to look if I eat it, but because of how I’m going to feel. I just want to wake up feeling good. And I know I might not do that if every night of the week I’m treating myself.
