Lea Michele, the actress known for her roles in "Glee" and "Funny Girl," has been in the public eye for years, and with that comes scrutiny about her appearance, including her weight. While weight is a sensitive topic, it's important to approach it with respect and understanding, focusing on health and well-being rather than just appearance. This article will explore Lea Michele's approach to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including her diet, exercise routine, and how she manages her polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Lea Michele's Diet and Lifestyle
Michele emphasizes a holistic approach to health, focusing on nourishing her body with wholesome foods and prioritizing self-care. She is a pescatarian and maintains a clean diet, avoiding junk food and processed foods. “Every single thing that I put into my body is to nourish and fuel my body,” she told Us magazine. “I’ve always felt that food is fuel so what you’re eating is going to help your body."
Hydration and Green Juices
Lea prioritizes hydration, starting her day with a big glass of lemon water to flush her system. She also enjoys green juices, particularly celery juice, which she says is incredibly good for the liver and a great cleanse first thing in the morning.
Plant-Based Diet and PCOS Management
Michele manages her PCOS through diet, focusing on plant-based foods. "Through diet, I have been able to manage it," she told Health Magazine. She grew up in a "carb-heavy" household but is grateful that her mother "kept a clean home," instilling in her a healthy relationship with food. "I wasn’t raised eating candy or processed food. I’m very grateful that my parents raised me to have a healthy relationship with food," she said.
Eating plant-based foods that are nutrient-rich, fresh, and unprocessed, along with healthy fats, is an ideal diet strategy for managing PCOS. Controlling weight helps control irregular periods, excess hair growth, and acne, common symptoms of PCOS.
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Exercise and Mental Well-being
Lea Michele's approach to fitness isn’t just physical; she also prioritizes her mental well-being. She incorporates activities that she enjoys and that help her manage stress and anxiety.
Yoga
Lea has been practicing yoga since she was 19 years old and considers it her favorite form of working out. She loves it not only for her body but also because it helps her mind. "It centers and grounds me, and connects me to myself at my core," she wrote in a July 2021 blog for Story + Rain. She does a quick yoga flow, even just for five minutes, as soon as she wakes up.
Outdoor Exercise
Lea also enjoys outdoor exercise, particularly hiking. Hiking provides a great cardiovascular workout and allows her to connect with nature.
Mental Health and Self-Care
Lea battles mental health issues, including anxiety, and prioritizes self-care. She regularly goes to the spa and takes lots of baths, sharing photos on her Instagram Stories. She acknowledges that her mental health journey is part of her overall wellness. "I suffer from a lot of anxiety and again, I never want to use what I’m going through as an excuse for anything, but it is part of my journey," she told Interview.
Lea Michele and PCOS
In a new interview with Health magazine, Lea Michele opened up about her polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis, a common condition created by an imbalance of reproductive hormones in women. Michele says she battled “brutal” side effects, such as severe acne and weight fluctuations, as early as her teen years, but she didn’t receive an official diagnosis until she was nearly 30 years old.
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Understanding PCOS
PCOS is a condition that’s created by an imbalance of reproductive hormones in women, according to the Office on Women’s Health. That imbalance causes problems with the ovaries, which make eggs, and can cause a woman’s eggs to not develop as they should or to not be released during ovulation like they should. Women with PCOS may also have a hard time conceiving.
Your hormones-estrogen and testosterone-are completely lopsided and irregular. Periods can come every two weeks, every three to six months, or once a year. Periods can also become heavier, last longer, and come with painful cramping.
Diagnosis and Treatment
Typically, women will be diagnosed with a pelvic exam (where your doctor will feel for cysts, masses, or other abnormalities that are common with PCOS), a blood test to measure your hormone levels, and/or an ultrasound to look at your ovaries.
Treatment can include behavioral modifications, like losing weight and exercising more, birth control pills or progestin to regulate your menstrual cycle, or ovulation-stimulating drugs and hormonal therapy. It’s also not uncommon to go on a plant-based diet when you’re dealing with PCOS.
Michele said she now focuses on eating plant-based foods, and she’s found it’s really helped. “Now, I feel like I am at the healthiest place in my entire life,” she said. “It’s not that I’m the thinnest, because I’m not the thinnest I’ve been. But when I was the thinnest, I was not being the healthiest. I’m definitely the most mentally, physically, and spiritually sound that I’ve ever been.”
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Michele's Experience with PCOS
Michele said she didn't learn she had PCOS until she decided to "detox my body of all medications." "Growing up, I had terrible skin," Michele said. "I went on Accutane three times. I was put on every medication you could imagine to help my skin." She said "birth control was a savior" for helping to manage her skin in her teens.
Fast forward about a decade and Michele, who has always taken a keen interest in wellness, decided to "detox" from her medications. "That's when everything happened - the return to bad skin, and this time, weight gain," she said. "I didn't know what was going on."
Thankfully, Michele said she had a great doctor who quickly diagnosed the disorder and helped her understand what it was and how to manage it. "The minute she looked at me, she was like, 'Oh, you have PCOS.' It explained everything," Michele said.
While Michele's approach is working for her, she said she knows she is "fortunate." "There are way more extreme versions of PCOS that women have a lot of difficulty with - mine is not as intense," she said. "Which is why I haven't really talked about it, because there are women who have it so much more intense."
The Pressure of Body Image
The discussion around Lea Michele's weight loss journey also touches on the broader issue of body image and the pressures women face in the entertainment industry and society at large. The focus on appearance can lead to unhealthy behaviors and a distorted perception of oneself.
Personal Experiences with Weight and Body Image
At the risk of sounding terribly cliche: we talk about our own fears. When I notice that Lea Michele has lost weight (see yesterday's post), I start to think: Oh god, here goes another one. Do I have to lose weight again now too? I've seen myself on camera and in photographs recently. About 6 years ago, I decided that I was too fat. That feeling of "too fat" was so strong that I would have given anything to change myself. I thought I looked fabulous. And so did everyone else. But honestly, I didn't feel fabulous. I felt rather frail. I wrote down my calorie intake every day in my notebook at work. (I even included coffee.) My digestive system was a bit messed up. I tried to self medicate to fix it. I started to worry about gaining weight. I knew it was inevitable. How long could I maintain 1,200 calories a day? I knew my days as a skinny person were numbered. That dread of gaining weight defined my life for some time. And then, at some point, I just gave in. It was terrifying. I still wrote down calories and panicked when they went over 2,000. I gained back the 20 pounds, and maybe then some. Life went on. Before the photo shoot for my book in August (for which I had to model 27 garments, yikes), I went on a brief crash diet again. It felt good, knowing that I could do something about my weight. But it also felt horrible because I knew I could never do enough.
Another woman may see my post and think I'm slamming naturally thin women. While it's wonderful that we can have so many frank discussions about body image, too often we use language that makes us feel better, but simultaneously alienates another group. The best body image moments I've had in my life are when I've realized that we're all different, and it's all good. I think I was doing yoga. Anyway, this post has probably gotten awfully hippie dippy. But I thought it was time to get back to our own experiences as a starting point for talking about weight, rather than feeling defensive.
Shifting the Focus to Health and Well-being
It's important to shift the focus from achieving an ideal body weight to prioritizing overall health and well-being. This includes eating a balanced diet, engaging in regular physical activity, managing stress, and practicing self-care. It also means recognizing that everyone's body is different and that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to health.