Shailene Woodley, known for her roles in The Fault in Our Stars and the Divergent series, approaches her health and fitness with a unique, holistic perspective. Her lifestyle emphasizes natural, organic foods, environmental consciousness, and physical activity rooted in her body's needs. This article explores the various facets of Woodley's diet and workout routines, offering insights into her choices and the principles that guide her healthy lifestyle.
A Passion for Food and Sustainability
Woodley's interest in food goes beyond mere sustenance; it's a deep-seated passion connected to the earth and its processes. She expresses fascination with "planting a seed and watching it grow and learning about what I can do to help ensure that it has a long life as a plant, and then harvesting the food and cooking it and seeing how I feel after I’ve eaten it." This "whole circle thing" has led her to consider culinary school and creating an interactive garden facility to educate others about the entire food process.
Her commitment to sustainability is evident in her purchasing habits. Inspired by the book Farm Sanctuary and her study of indigenous cultures, Woodley focuses on how her actions affect both her health and the planet. She avoids processed and junk foods, opting instead for clean, organic options. Woodley frequents farmers' markets and locally sourced co-ops, even seeking out local farmers on the side of the road. She minimizes waste by buying in bulk and avoiding packaged goods.
Embracing Fermented Foods
Fermentation plays a significant role in Woodley's diet. She enjoys the "semi-rotten flavor" of fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha. She makes her own sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha when she is in a stable environment long enough to do it. She incorporates fermented foods into her diet to boost her probiotic intake, consuming them with almost every meal.
Dietary Habits: Natural, Organic, and Intuitive
Shailene Woodley is all about natural, organic foods. She avoids processed and junk foods at all cost. Woodley doesn't subscribe to strict diets, preferring to listen to her body and eat what it craves. She emphasizes the importance of consuming whole, unprocessed foods and staying attuned to her body's signals.
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A typical meal for Woodley might include potatoes or sweet potatoes, a protein, and a vegetable, with sauces varying depending on her cravings. When she has time, she enjoys cooking homemade roasts, casseroles, or meat stews with homemade bone broth. She favors cooking with healthy fats like butter over vegetable oils. She will bring her own food in the morning and at night. She goes to work, then she comes home and learns her lines, and then she’ll make dinner and use whatever she makes for dinner as leftovers the next day. It’s an easy, quick thing to do every day, and then you can switch up the sauces depending on what you’re feeling like.
Some of her other dietary habits and preferences include:
- Bulletproof Coffee: Her morning ritual involves blending coffee with coconut oil and butter, sometimes adding cinnamon or cayenne.
- Adventurous Eating: Woodley is open to trying new foods, such as the Catalan dish cooked with pigs' feet that she enjoyed in Spain.
- Smart Indulgences: When craving junk food, she opts for healthier alternatives like plantain chips instead of potato chips and stocks up on cookies and candy without artificial ingredients from Trader Joe's.
- Home Remedies: She uses thyme tea for respiratory issues.
Staying Active: A Love for Nature and Movement
Shailene Woodley integrates physical activity into her lifestyle by choosing activities she enjoys, particularly those connected to nature. She resists the Hollywood lifestyle and resists the idea of dieting, instead focusing on conscious consumerism.
She loves to hike, bike, run, jog, walk, and swim . . . pretty much anything that has to do with nature. She winds down with "15 to 45 minutes of yoga" at night and enjoys outdoor activities and taking 5Rhythms dance classes as well. She walks to get her sources of food and water. She will walk into the mountains to get spring water, which is great for her because not only is she drinking fresh water, but she continuously working her legs by walking so much.
Divergent Training: A Glimpse into Intense Preparation
For her role in the Divergent series, Woodley underwent intense training to perform her own stunts. This involved a combination of cardio, martial arts, and strength training.
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Her training regimen included:
- Cardio: 20 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning at their hotel gym, including light jogging and stretching.
- Martial Arts: Striking, hitting punching bags, low kicks, and fight choreography.
- Strength Training: Squats (including squats while standing back-to-back and linking arms, squat kicks and low kicks), pushups (including several variations of pushups), pullups (assisted with a "hold it as long as she could, then let herself down slowly" strategy), lunges, chin-ups, dips and plyometrics. Crunches also became a team activity, as Perry would have them link legs or face a partner in a sit-up chain.
The actors did the strength-training portions of their workouts together to mimic the fact that they were a class of new recruits in the movie.
Adrift Diet: An Extreme Example of Method Acting
For her role in Adrift, Woodley drastically altered her bodyweight to portray a sailor lost at sea. In an interview with the Sunday Times, the Big Little Lies alum explained, ‘For the last two weeks I had a can of salmon, some steamed broccoli and two egg yolks every day-350 calories. It was fcking miserable.’ To handle this extremely drastic calorie deficiency, she took to the bottle, ‘I can't sleep when I'm hungry, so I would have a glass of wine to basically pass the fck out.’ She consumed a mere 350 calories a day for the last two weeks of filming, consisting of a can of salmon, steamed broccoli, and two egg yolks. She has also said that she would have a glass of wine to basically pass the f*ck out.
This extreme diet is not recommended for healthy weight loss and was undertaken under close medical supervision. It serves as an example of the dedication and sacrifices some actors make for their roles.
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