Victoria Beckham, a multifaceted personality renowned as a singer, fashion designer, entrepreneur, and mother of four, has long been a subject of fascination, particularly regarding her diet and exercise regime. From her early days as Posh Spice in the 1990s girl group, Spice Girls, to her current ventures in fashion and beauty, Victoria has maintained a consistently trim physique, sparking curiosity about her lifestyle choices. This article delves into the details of Victoria Beckham's diet and exercise routine, exploring the specific components, expert opinions, and her evolving perspective on health, wellness, and body image.
Who Is Victoria Beckham?
Victoria Caroline Adams, famously known as Victoria Beckham, rose to prominence as a member of the Spice Girls, earning the nickname "Posh Spice" for her sophisticated persona. The Spice Girls became the best-selling girl group of all time, selling over 100 million records worldwide. After the group's split in 2001, Victoria launched her solo career and ventured into fashion design, establishing herself as a global style icon. She starred in several documentaries, including Victoria's Secrets (2000), Being Victoria Beckham (2002), The Real Beckhams (2003), Victoria Beckham - A Mile In Their Shoes (2004), and Victoria Beckham: Coming to America (2007). Her marriage to football star David Beckham further amplified her fame.
Victoria's entrepreneurial spirit led her to create Victoria Beckham Beauty, a makeup brand, and a fashion e-commerce platform offering high-fashion apparel, accessories, and glasses.
Victoria Beckham Profile
- Profession: Singer, fashion designer, television personality, entrepreneur
- Birthdate: 17th April, 1974
- Birthplace: Essex, England
- Spouse: David Beckham
- Children: Brooklyn Beckham, Romeo Beckham, Cruz Beckham, and Harper Beckham
Victoria Beckham’s Strict Diet
David Beckham once revealed that Victoria has been eating the same thing every day since he met her, rarely deviating from her extreme diet. The only exception he recalls was during her pregnancy with their fourth child, Harper. Victoria Beckham maintains a disciplined approach to her diet, prioritizing foods that serve a purpose, such as building muscle, improving skin and hair health, and providing energy and antioxidants. She avoids indulging in cravings and focuses on maintaining a healthy physique and body weight.
Components of Victoria Beckham’s Diet:
A Shot of ACV: Victoria starts her day with 2-3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (ACV). Some studies suggest that ACV may aid in weight loss by improving gut microbiota and promoting fat-burning activity. However, experts caution against consuming undiluted ACV daily, as it may cause nausea, stomach burning, and depletion of the gut's protective lining.
Read also: How Harper became a baseball icon
Warm Water with Lemon: Following ACV, she consumes a glass of warm water with lemon. While this is considered a healthy practice to flush out toxins, experts warn against excessive consumption of acidic drinks on an empty stomach, as it may lead to gut inflammation and tooth erosion.
Green Smoothie: Victoria enjoys a green smoothie or juice for breakfast, similar to Kate Middleton. Her smoothies typically include apples, kiwi, lemon, spinach, broccoli, chia seeds, and coconut water. Green vegetables like spinach have an alkalizing effect on the gut and provide flavonoids, while apple and coconut water add sweetness, electrolytes, and essential vitamins.
Mashed Avocado on Ezekiel Toast: Avocados are a significant part of her diet, consuming 3-4 avocados daily to feel satiated on her low-carbohydrate diet. Avocados are rich in omega fatty acids, dietary fiber, and healthy unsaturated fats. However, health experts advise against consuming more than one or two avocados daily due to their high-fat content. Victoria spreads mashed avocados on Ezekiel toast, which is made with gluten-free whole grains and sprouted legumes, providing complex carbohydrates, plant-based protein, and dietary fiber.
Grilled Fish and Steamed Vegetables: For lunch or dinner, Victoria often consumes grilled fish (such as salmon or sea bass) with steamed vegetables like leeks, tenderstem broccoli, and other seasonal vegetables. This combination provides protein, omega fatty acids, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. However, experts note that the lack of variety in her meals may deprive her of essential nutrients like vitamin K, calcium, potassium, iron, and zinc. Additionally, the low carbohydrate content may not be suitable for everyone and could cause nausea, fatigue, or indigestion.
A Glass of Wine on Occasion: Victoria occasionally indulges in alcohol and believes in enjoying life without obsessing over calories. She avoids refined sugar, refined carbohydrates, unhealthy fats, and heavily processed foods.
Read also: Healing, Hope, and Humor in Weight Loss
Critics have noted the lack of variety in Victoria's diet. Her youngest daughter, Harper, once humorously remarked on her mother's limited cooking skills.
Victoria Beckham’s Exercise Routine
Victoria Beckham's physique is not only a result of her diet but also her strict exercise regime. She often shares videos of her workouts with her husband, David Beckham, highlighting their shared commitment to fitness.
Key Components of Victoria Beckham’s Workout Routine:
HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training): In her early career, Victoria engaged in HIIT workouts, which involve short, explosive movements followed by brief recovery periods. HIIT is known to improve cardiac health, oxygen uptake, metabolic health, and energy systems.
Heavy-weight Training: Victoria incorporated strength training with weights into her routine later in her career. She includes heavyweights in exercises like squats, Russian twists, lunges, shoulder presses, and kettlebell swings, using dumbbells, weighted plates, barbells, and kettlebells. Weight training helps build lean muscle, boost metabolic health, increase bone density, and manage weight.
Body-weight Training: In addition to weight training, Victoria performs functional bodyweight exercises such as seated tricep dips, squats, lunges, push-ups, and crunches.
Read also: How Beckham Stays in Shape
Barre: Victoria focuses on strengthening and toning her lower body through barre workouts, which target muscle groups in the calves, knees, glutes, thighs, and abs. Barre workouts can improve flexibility, strength, and posture.
Yoga: To balance her strength training and cardio, Victoria practices yoga to stretch and provide a therapeutic effect on her muscles and joints.
Running: Victoria enjoys running on the treadmill or outdoors, which helps energize and boost her morning workouts. She told The Guardian's Weekend magazine that her exercise routine begins between 5.30 am and 6 am with a 7km run on the treadmill, which is a "mix of uphill fast walking, jogging, running. That's the only time I watch TV - boxsets, documentaries - so I look forward to that. "
High-intensity Cycling: Victoria also engages in high-intensity cycling at the gym to strengthen her thigh muscles and calves while maintaining good posture.
Victoria Beckham’s Journey with Health, Wellness, and Weight
After the birth of her first child, Brooklyn, Victoria faced harsh criticism from the media regarding her postpartum body. She admitted that these experiences deeply affected her, contributing to her strict fitness regime. However, she has since become more accepting of her appearance and unapologetic about her choices. She acknowledges that she found a balance between a disciplined lifestyle and having fun.
Victoria is pleased that "thinness is becoming old-fashioned" and that people are increasingly focused on overall health and fitness. She has discovered a nutritious diet and exercise routine that works best for her and has maintained it for the past two decades.
In a recent podcast, Victoria Beckham discussed her self-titled Netflix docuseries and her past struggles with an eating disorder. She has spoken with her daughter, Harper, about her experiences and emphasized the importance of a healthy relationship with food. Victoria recalled feeling miserable and isolated during her eating disorder, losing her sense of reality. She credits David Beckham for helping her shift her focus from cardio to weight training and for supporting her journey toward a healthier lifestyle.
Victoria has stated that she finds her regimented lifestyle "empowering" and that it benefits her mental health. Her personal trainer, Bobby Rich, told Vogue that “Victoria treats training like brushing her teeth - it’s something she wants and has to do and it sets her up for the day. It’s just part of her lifestyle."
Beckham told Grazia that her perspective on body image has shifted in recent years. "I never want to look like I’m complaining, but there were times in the past that I haven’t felt confident enough to sit on a beach and watch my children play. I remember after I had Brooklyn, my first outing was on the front page of the newspaper, with arrows pointing to where I needed to lose weight. Those things can affect how you feel and conduct yourself in public," she said. "Now, if paparazzi want to take a picture and say something - too bad, it doesn’t bother me in the same way."
She adopted strength training in recent years Like many women, Beckham was once hesitant to start lifting weights for fear that she'd bulk up. In an interview with Vogue UK, Rich said Beckham grew to appreciate the value of strength training over time. “The difference in Victoria’s muscle now (versus five years ago) is that it’s not necessarily bigger, but the quality of muscle and the health she has from having stronger joints, tendons and ligaments is marked. It’s taken a long time and a shift in her mindset from thinking about short term to long term, but now it’s just part of her day and she loves it,” he said.
Instead of focusing on the "number of sessions or hours she spent in the gym per week," Beckham now looks at the effort she puts in during each gym session."Depending on what block of training we’re carrying out, the sessions vary anywhere between 35 to 90 minutes. An important point I wanted her to understand - and that most people struggle with - is that a 35-minute session can at times be more beneficial than a 90-minute session. But we got over that hurdle pretty quickly!" he said.
Per Rich, Beckham switches up her training regimen based on how busy her schedule is."We have identified what we call 'key moments' throughout the year and have used them to create peaks and troughs," he told Women's Health UK. "Examples of this can be increasing activity during summer or busy travel months for her."
Beckham has always had a trim physique, but she told Grazia she tries not to obsess over the number she sees on the scale."It’s not about being a certain size. It’s about knowing who you are and being happy with who you are. I have found my own balance between wanting to have fun and being disciplined about eating healthily and working out," she said. "When you’re younger you fight against that balance, but through being older I’ve reached a place where I know what that balance looks like. I just know what works for me."
She initially inured herself at the gym then made matters worse when she didn’t follow doctors’ orders to take it easy. Beckham told Grazia she then started wearing an orthopedic boot and using a mobility bike her husband bought for her.