Vanessa Hudgens is like the less in-your-face Hilary Duff. She was famous many years ago and she’s still working somewhat but her popularity is sustained by near constant paparazzi photos which the dude blogs run when it’s slow. She’s got cute hippie style which often veers fug but overall she’s sweet and there’s something very sunny about her. Vanessa is currently covering Women’s Health Magazine, where she’s making headlines for her 20 pound weight loss. She gained the weight for a role in 2013 and said that she lost it by going to SoulCycle twice a day. Vanessa is currently starring on the NBC comedy Powerless, where she plays an employee at Wayne Industries, which provides products for humans to protect them from superhero battles or something. I don’t know how to describe it after watching the trailer except that it looks like an absurd version of The Office with a superhero twist. It also stars Dani Pudi and has mixed reviews on Metacritic. Anyway Vanessa told Women’s Health about her workout and diet plan and it sounds like she really enjoys exercise and gets a lot out of it.
She tries to go to yoga three times a week
“I don’t consider it fitness,” she says. “It’s more like therapy for me.” She got into it after playing a runaway teen, Agnes “Apple” Bailey, in the 2013 movie Gimme Shelter—a role that required gaining 20 pounds and cutting her hair into a jagged crop. “I looked in the mirror and was like, ‘Who am I?’ It was definitely a journey back to myself, and yoga helped.”
She loves spinning classes
When Vanessa was dropping the 20 pounds she gained for Gimme Shelter, she’d hit class twice a day; now she goes when she can squeeze it in. “Put me on a bike in a room with loud music, and I’m happy,” she says. “It’s like dancing without the stress of worrying if you look good.”
“I tend to ride for the teachers. I’m such a performer,” Vanessa laughs. “I love being in front, because I’ll push myself harder and I’ll give the class energy too. So it’s a win-win.”
She eats low carb and loves avocados
“I eat a whole avocado a day,” she says. “I need high fats. If I’m not getting enough, my body holds on to calories. We’ve been trained to think that fats are bad, but they’re so good—a source of energy and sustenance that keeps you going through the day. That’s the only way I can not eat carbs.”
I’m not on board with her low-carb diet advice, that would be like torture to me and I dislike avocados, but I related a lot to her approach to fitness. I know what she’s saying about how yoga feels spiritual. I’ve only been doing yoga classes again for about a month and usually I do the Vinyasa yoga, which are the more athletic flow classes. This week I went for the first time to a relaxation yoga class where you hold poses for a minute or more. It was dark with new age music and little tea lights. The instructor read passages about spirituality and nature and it really got to me. That’s usually not my thing, but I was surprised at how moving it was. Also I love spinning so much. I do it a few times a week, I have a spin bike at home and do RPM classes from Les Mills on demand. However I can’t imagine doing that twice a day, it’s intense. Plus SoulCycle is expensive. It’s about $30 a class but of course Vanessa can afford it. Spin is one of my favorite classes because it doesn’t feel like you’re working out, it’s like your legs just go on their own.
Photos credit: WENN and Women’s Health
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