Anne Hathaway, the acclaimed actress known for her versatile roles in films like "The Devil Wears Prada," "The Princess Diaries," "Interstellar," "The Dark Knight Rises," and "Les Misérables," has captivated audiences with her on- and off-screen presence. Her ability to embody diverse characters often requires significant physical transformations, making her diet and workout routines a topic of considerable interest. This article delves into the details of Anne Hathaway's approach to fitness and nutrition, exploring her methods for achieving specific physiques for roles and maintaining a balanced, healthy lifestyle.
Anne Hathaway: A Background
Anne Jacqueline Hathaway was born in New York City to Gerald, a labor attorney, and Kate, a former actress. Inspired by her mother's performance as Fantine in the national tour of "Les Misérables," Anne developed a passion for acting at a young age. She gained recognition after High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall and subsequently landed a role in the Fox TV series, "Get Real." Her career has since flourished, marked by numerous awards and a reputation as one of the most successful actors worldwide.
Anne Hathaway's Fitness Philosophy
Anne Hathaway's approach to fitness prioritizes mental health and overall well-being. Consistent workouts become infinitely easier once we simply give ourselves permission to adjust day by day. Her trainer, Don Saladino, emphasizes supporting her success on a mental and emotional level, leaving berating tactics at the door. The goal is for a client to leave after 45 minutes feeling better. She focuses on nourishing her body with good, whole foods. She’s not about dieting to the extreme.
Adjusting Fitness Goals Daily
Every morning, during a 15-minute foam rolling warm-up, Don would assess Anne’s sleep, mood, and nutrition status. How would it feel to hone in on ‘the right temperature’ for every single workout? If Anne had an early call time, for example, Don might adjust the intensity of the workout. Making that call is a day-to-day decision based on everything going on in a client’s day - How much sleep did they get? What do they have in front of them on set?
Avoiding Calorie Deficits
“I never promote a caloric deficit for a Hollywood client. The goal is to feel good. Most of Don’s sessions with Anne focused on strength training of varying intensity. Don worked with Anne to create “hypertrophic” workout routines: low to intermediate repetitions with progressive overload. Think you can’t strength train without a trainer and a gym? Don tipped us off to a tool he has Anne travel with called a Kayezen Vector set.
Read also: A holistic approach to weight loss: Anne Marie Tiernon's story
Living Life
One of my clients, a supermodel, was bemoaning her bad habits lately to me. She felt she was ‘cheating’ by having a glass or two of wine each night. I asked if any of her key health metrics had changed. They hadn’t. I asked if her agency was unhappy and she noted she was working more than ever. I told her that it didn’t seem to be a problem. If you’re getting away with something you consider to be a cheat - don’t worry! The theme that Don brings us back to again and again in our interviews is one of self-honor - something so many of us self-disciplined individuals can lose sight of in our pursuit of a goal. Don’t forget to live a little.
Making Incremental Changes
Take stock of your current goals. Make a list of the key habits you’d like to stop, begin, or be more consistent with. Assign each of those goals to one designated month for the coming year. If you select just one change a month for a full year, those twelve changes would add up to a monumental shift in your life - no matter how small each change seems on it’s own.
Anne Hathaway's Diet
Anne Hathaway's diet is all about balance when it comes to food. She focuses on nourishing her body with good, whole foods, rather than adhering to extreme dieting practices. When prepping for a movie, she recruits a PT and switches up her routine almost entirely.
General Dietary Principles
Her personal trainer, Jackie Keller, once revealed that the award-winning actress lost weight with an almost vegan and anti-inflammatory diet. Her coach once revealed that when she was filming for The Dark Knight Rises, half of the actress's plate was filled with vegetables, whereas the other half had protein and carbohydrates. The Devil Wears Prada actress ensured to eat soups and salad every day and consumed around 1500 to 1800 calories every day.
Specific Food Choices
Anne consumed nutritious food items, including avocados, sesame seeds, red and orange veggies, and almonds to maintain a healthy body. She also loads up on colorful veggies like spinach, carrots, and yams, plus some anti-inflammatory foods like turmeric and ginger. Plus, she filled her plate with antioxidant-rich foods like ginger, turmeric, yams, and dark leafy greens to give variety to her diet and lose weight healthily. Even research supports the consumption of antioxidant-rich foods for a plethora of health benefits - they help boost gut health, prevent oxidative damage, boost kidney and liver functions, and keep cardiovascular diseases at bay. Addedly, an anti-inflammatory diet protects the body from various health concerns like heart diseases, neurocognitive decline, inflammation, and so on. Further, Anne also upped her protein intake and introduced seitan and tempeh to her diet to build and strengthen muscles. A high-protein diet not only helps strengthen muscles but also aids in weight loss. Anne also added miso soup, brown rice salad, and vegetarian egg rolls to her meal plans when preparing for the movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
Read also: Discover the story of chef Anne Burrell.
Meal Structure
Breakfast: During role prep, Anne starts her day with miso soup and a side of fresh veggies or light carbs like brown rice. It’s simple but packs a punch when it comes to nutrients! These meals help her feel energized and ready to tackle the day without feeling too full. Mornings are all about fueling up with nourishing foods that aren’t too heavy.
Lunch: Anne likes to keep lunch balanced. Anne Hathaway’s diet focuses on plant-based proteins like tempeh and seitan to help build muscle, plus slow-release carbs like brown rice or sweet potatoes for energy.
Dinner: For dinner, Anne keeps it light but satisfying. A typical meal might be a salad loaded with dark leafy greens, nuts, and seeds, or a warm bowl of veggie soup. Sometimes, she’ll go for vegetarian egg rolls. The key here is keeping it plant-based and full of anti-inflammatory foods that help her feel nourished and support her recovery after workouts.
Snacks: Anne’s snacks are simple but tasty! She loves low-calorie options like low-fat peanut butter rolled with dried fruit on wholegrain bread or a handful of nuts. While snacking is not harmless, choosing your snacks carefully is important. When on a weight loss diet, one should try to eat low-calorie snacks like dried fruits, fruits, yogurt, fox nuts, etc - avoid eating junk food like chips, french fries, pretzels, bakery products, cookies, candy, etc. for snacks.
Hydration: And hydration is key Anne drinks plenty of water throughout the day to stay energized and keep her body functioning at its best. She’s all about that balanced hydration game!
Read also: Weight Loss Tips: An Expert's Perspective
The "Les Misérables" Diet
Anne lost about 25 pounds for her portrayal of Fantine, a tuberculosis-stricken girl in the musical movie Les Misérables. For the role of Fantine, she resorted to a detox diet, which she later claimed was extreme and took a toll on her well-being. She followed a restrictive diet and consumed nothing but two pieces of oatmeal paste a day to lose tons of weight. Later on, she admitted that the diet was extreme and she ended up with pimples after following the diet. She confessed that the detox diet was a break from reality and wasn’t a comfortable feeling, but she had to do it to play the role powerfully. Needless to say, her unwavering determination and resilience made the movie role seem so real that it’s still deeply far etched in everyone’s heart. However, it affected her mental health, and in an interview, she revealed that the physical transformation she had to go through along with changes in her personal life didn’t allow her to enjoy the success.
Body Positivity
In 2016, Anne shared a post on her social media account, saying that there is no shame in gaining weight during pregnancy (or ever) - that bodies change and grow, and that there should be no disgrace if it takes a long time to lose weight. A proponent of body positivity, Anne is truly the epitome of a powerful woman! But now she is past the phase and consumes a balanced diet to maintain her shape, without thinking a lot about weight fluctuations.
Anne Hathaway's Workout Routine
When it comes to working out, Anne is all about variety and intensity, especially when she’s preparing for a role. Anne is all about building lean muscle, especially to prepare for her various roles. Anne once revealed in an interview that she followed a rigorous workout regimen, including stunt training and dancing for the role of Catwoman.
General Workout Components
Strength Training: Her strength training routine includes bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, push-ups, and planks moves that help her develop functional strength and improve her overall stability. To keep her workouts exciting and her muscles guessing, Anne also incorporates dumbbells, resistance bands, and even an air bike into her training. For instance, while preparing for her role in WeCrashed, she worked with trainer Don Saladino on “hypertrophic” workouts, which focus on increasing muscle growth with moderate to heavy weights.
Pilates and Yoga: Anne is a huge fan of Pilates and yoga, and it’s a big part of her wellness routine. She’s said that yoga helps keep her flexible and toned. The actress posed for a mirror selfie on a Pilates reformer, which provides a great total-body workout. She also took up yoga when prepping for her role as Rebekah in the series WeCrashed. If you're not a fan of a traditional Pilates class and the thought of going to the gym fills you with dread, this unique Pilates-inspired workout designed by Anne Hathaway's personal trainer could be the one for you. There are so many benefits to combining strength training and Pilates, whether in a weighted Pilates workout or gym setting - but you don't have to stick to traditional practices to reap the rewards.
Eastwood Fit App: Hathaway trains with Eastwood five times per week via video call, often rising at 5am to squeeze a session in before work. Each Eastwood workout is different, but the average hour-long class contains a blend of ballet, dance, Pilates, yoga and resistance training, all performed at an intensity sure to set the heart racing. This, Eastwood says, “stimulates the body in many different ways” to develop balance, body awareness, core stability and muscular endurance. She also reckons it will lead to “a more profound understanding of how you move in the world,” which is particularly appealing to me as a notoriously clumsy person.
Sample Exercises Inspired by Monique Eastwood
- Squat with upper body rotation: Standing on your yoga mat with your feet shoulder-width apart, come down into a squat. Rising from the squat, take a step back into a curtsy lunge. At the bottom of the lunge, engage your core, and rotate to the same side as your front leg, adding a 'twist' to the movement. Come up towards a standing position and as you do, kick forward with your back leg from the curtsy lunge in a controlled way. Repeat the exercise 5 times on both sides.
- Side lunge: Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart on your yoga mat, bring one leg out into a side lunge. At the same time, bring your arms up together bent by your forehead. With an engaged core and controlled movement, come up from the lunge. Bring your arms down to your sides, bring your feet together into a narrow stance (with feet less than shoulder-width apart). Put your weight onto the balls of your feet and squat down, while lifting your arms out to the sides. Come up from the squat and in one flowing movement, bring a foot back into a back lunge, and bring your arms over your head into a tricep extension. From here, lift your back leg up from behind you, forward into a 'high-knee' position. Try and stay balanced on the one leg for a moment, before bringing it down. Repeat 5 times on both sides of the body, making 10 repetitions in total.
- Plié: Stand on your mat with your feet wider than hip-width apart and toes pointed outwards to about 45-degrees. Bend your knees and float your arms straight out to the side. Make sure your knees are aligned over your feet, keep your upper body lifted with your spine straight. Ensure your tailbone is tucked under your pelvis. Come down to a comfortable position. Rising up onto the balls of your feet, bringing your arms out in front of your chest. Bring your legs together. Repeat the movement, extending your leg out into the wide plié again.
- Plank combination: Coming down onto your yoga mat, come into the plank position resting on your hands. Be sure to engage your core. Lift your right knee across to your left elbow. Rotate your body to one side, transitioning into a side plank. Extend the bent right knee out, with your leg straight, pointing away from your body. Hold the position for a moment, then rotate back into your side plank before coming back into a standard plank. Bend both your knees and come back onto your heels. Lift your knees off the floor. Return to the plank. Repeat the exercise 5 times on each side.
Additional Tips from Ramona Braganza
Work out in the morning: If you do find you have some extra time in the AM and you aren’t the kind that struggles to form a proper sentence before 11am, then getting moving first thing can give you a solid confidence boost to go about your day, thanks to the endorphins (happy hormones) that come from exercise. Plus, it means your workout is out of the way, and you can focus on the other tasks on your to-do list.
Use music: Music can be seriously motivational.
Make warm-ups fun: Warm up by doing sun salutations or a dance warm-up.
Go hard for a quick confidence fix: On the day of the Oscars, we pushed for a big pump for Anne since it helped her mental state. Confidence comes from within and when you feel your muscles contract, or even if you’re just a little sore, then you’re more aware of your posture, too.
Always rest: Rest days are so important.
Switch up your surroundings: Going for walks are always included in my clients’ programmes, since it’s important to have a nice break from indoor training.
Incorporate all kinds of training: A combo of cardio and strength training is typically better.