Lea Michele did a brief interview with People Magazine about one of her favorite topics, diet and exercise. If there’s one thing I like about Lea, it’s the fact that she has high self esteem and she’ll tell you about it. She’s not faux humble or trying to act like she’s not hot sh*t. Lea was asked by People for her motivation for working out and instead of saying she loves it or it’s fun she said she does it so she can eat whatever she wants, which I guess is what works for her. She thinks of her favorite restaurant and getting a nice meal afterwards.
On what she tells herself to stay motivated to workout
“Knowing that I can eat whatever I want afterward always makes me feel good!” she tells PEOPLE at the AeriREAL pop-up shop in New York on Thursday. “I need a goal at the end of anything that I do.”When pushing through a workout, Michele reminds herself that “at the end, there’s this great place that I’m going to get the most delicious salad or sushi!”
In addition to post-workout meal motivation, she also relies on her pals: “I work out with friends often and I hate bailing on my friends,” she says. “If I make a plan, I don’t like to cancel it, so I always work out with a buddy and it helps me to be accountable,” adding, “You just feel so good after you work out.”
She complements her fitness routine with a healthy diet.
“I just did vegan for the past four weeks,” she shares. “And I did an amazing cleanse, the Beaming cleanse. That’s my new favorite.”
Did anyone else catch that little plug at the end for a specific brand of cleanses? Here’s another celebrity who is touting cleanses, probably as some kind of endorsement deal. That’s a shame because we don’t need to “cleanse” our bodies to lose weight. As for what she said about working out – Shape points out that working out to “earn” food can be a symptom of exercise bulimia. I don’t know if that’s something Lea should be concerned about or if she just was trying to come up with an answer on the fly, but again she doesn’t seem to have a problem with being candid with the press. I like what she said about how it makes you feel good, and personally I work out because I enjoy it. It’s intrinsically motivating, to use a fancy word, and I consider it like a treat for myself. Plus I do workouts which are fun for me. I don’t get it when people say they hate working out. If you don’t like what you’re doing as exercise, try to find something you enjoy. There are so many options you can do from home too.
Photos credit: WENN and Instagram/Lea Michele
Someone with that singing voice…focused on diet and exercise…sigh…thanks Hollywood. 🙄
While she’s obviously well trained, personally, I don’t care for her singing voice.
In fact, songs from those Glee Christmas albums have been ruining the holiday music channels and playlists! There is something about the pitch and way they sing that makes my ears hurt.
I was ready to agree with her until I read the food that motivates her is salad. Girl…what? I run marathons for the nachos and popcorn, not the lettuce. Nothing against salads, they are great, but how sad is that as a ‘reward’ food?!
You took words out of my mouth. Poor girl needs to learn how to live a little.
Ha, Nicole, I laughed at the salad thing too. Although honestly if you eat anything you want after working out, it’s not going to help you lose weight if that’s your goal.
At my new gym, the trainers are always saying that food as a motivator is terrible, to think instead about the overall gains in health and fitness you are making instead.
What does she ‘allow’ herself to eat if she doesn’t work out!?!?
Yeah, food is not the best motivator..but everything in moderation right?
Completely agree. I’d side-eye her more if she said she works out to eat pizza and cookies afterwards. No way you will make progress with weight loss or even maintaining a healthy weight if you are consistently sabotaging it with poor food choices.
Doesn’t mean you can’t have a couple slices or a chocochip cookie now and then though.
Yeah. I saw that part and thought: What a waste! Sometimes I let a treat or two that I’m craving be a reward or incentive for extra exercise/physical activity and for not indulging in other old unhealthy dietary habits too, but it’s never a salad! It’s usually something like Cajun fries from Popeye’s chicken, or a brownie, Chinese food, etc.
Her reward food is a salad? I admire her drive but COME ON.
Yay so she works out so she can earn her… salad!!! This sounds disturbed. You don’t have to “earn” food with exercise. Especially a damn salad.
Eh…both sushi and salads can be highly-caloric. I LOVE both of those things (and I DO consider sushi a “treat”) so I’m not gonna get on her for her choices.
I’m more concerned with her “bed series” photos. *eyeroll*
There’s actually a SERIES of these cheesy ass pics of her in bed? Damn yo. And who the hell is taking them?
Me either – I don’t get the idea that salad is some sort of torture device sent to make women unhappy. It maybe is if it’s just leaf and cucumber but something like Chicken Caesar salad is really indulgent and delicious.
I am a recent Sushi convert. My girls weekend in NY, we had fancy pants sushi, and now I am obsessed.
New Years eve we are doing omakase in Toronto and none of my friends like sushi and I can share my excitement with them. It’s definitely a treat, because it will take two hours and I do not make Glee money.
Sushi aside, the NY butt pics with a album label, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh lord girl. Guess you’re never too old or confident for the sexy insta. I’m going to add Lea just for the unintentional hilarity.
I do like her confidence though, and I like that she’s honest about her food choices. Very, very, very few ladies can eat delicious carbs and cheese and butter and have a six pack. I would say none, but there will be some unicorn out there going, ‘ I eat doritos and cheesits every meal, and only run after my kids for exercise, and my body looks like Kate Hudsons teehee’.
ITA. For me, if I had a REALLY hard work-out the last thing I want to do is negate all that effort by binging on shit food. In that sense, working out definitely motivates me to eat more healthily.
Also, I’m super-jealous of your NYE sushi date, Detritus.
My post-swim treat is a scone & a latte; I most assuredly do not think of salad or sushi as I’m staring at that black line for an hour.
I really liked the part about making plans with friends. One, it’s awesome to be a friend who doesn’t bail all the time. (One of my best friends is THE WORST bailer – she’s just terrible at actually assessing whether she can do a thing before committing to it.) Two, working out with friends IS more fun. I wish this was the part of the interview that was getting hyped instead of her ridiculous efforts to “earn” a salad.
Food and slimmer thighs are what motivates me. I love to bake so I must burn everything off lol
I don’t really love working out. I love the results though and once I’m moving I never regret going but it really doesn’t matter what the activity it’s always a bit of a struggle but a necessary one. Even if it’s an activity I ‘enjoy’ doing. I think it goes back to my hatred of gym class as a kid (always got a C if not worse)
Yeah, I haven’t found anything I enjoy either!
I used to think I could work out and eat whatever I wanted. But I wasn’t losing weight. I just recently started counting calories and now I’m finally losing weight. I realized working out doesn’t burn as many calories as you think it does.
I have learned the same lesson, especially as aging kicks in. I’m closer to 50 than 40 now. A lot closer. My whole life I have been active and eaten like a truck driver but over the past year or two my appetite seems to have naturally diminished, so I haven’t run into the same issues with weight gain during perimenopause that some people seem to face.
Yeah….I find that it really is 80% diet and 20% workout if I want to see results. It’s a shame, because I would work out like Tracey Anderson on crack if it meant I could live on corner pieces of Costco cake.
Salad after a serious workout is not the best option unless it has some serious protein in and/or with. But she has a nice figure, so obv. she knows what she’s doing.
Good for her.