The Daily Diet and Exercise Routine Lady Gaga Swears By
"A Star Is Born" superstar Lady Gaga looks better than ever on the red carpet this awards season. Here are all of her tricks and tips to healthy living.
Lady Gaga has been breezing through the 2019 awards season looking more fit, fabulous and happy than ever. From her glowing skin and radiant smile to her toned and taut figure, she has never looked or seemed better. So just what are the "A Star Is Born" superstar's secrets to healthy living? Just as Gaga puts a lot of blood, sweat and tears into her professional life, she is also an overachiever when it comes to wellness.
Read more: Here's What Emily Ratajkowski Eats in a Day
Here are all of her tricks and tips for keeping her mind, body and soul in prime condition.
Extensive Ab Work
According to Gaga's trainer, Harley Pasternak, the superstar relies on a few hardcore abdominal exercises to keep her midsection toned and taut. Gaga is a fan of Bicycle Crunches and can impressively execute six sets of 20, which "train(s) her abs from every direction," the trainer told Shape. Next up are ab rotations (also called seated Russian Twists) which help with love handles.
Pasternak makes the move even harder for his star client by having her hold a five-pound medicine ball of dumbbell at chest height. He also has her do an exercise sequence that is a basic crunch, modified into reverse crunches and ends in a double crunch. One of her favorite moves comes in the form of dumbbell side bends, which also tone love handles.
Additionally, he makes sure she does a 25-minute cardio circuit five times a week, which is a mix of her ab exercises, high-intensity cardio as well as strength training.
SoulCycle
Gaga is a huge fan of the calorie-blasting SoulCycle workout. Not only has she been spotted walking in and out of the spiritual cycling classes in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, she has hosted her own rides and even has two custom-made bikes on her tour bus.
TRX and Versaclimber
Gaga keeps a lot of variety in her workouts, keeping her muscles challenged. "I work out a lot ," she recently said on Good Morning America. "I do the VersaClimber and sing while I do it. [My Super Bowl show] is full-on cardio. It's cardio while singing."
In fact, she even managed to squeeze in a TRX workout with Pasternak (decked out in Versace) right before she hit the stage of the Super Bowl in 2017!
5-Factor Diet
According to Pasternak, Gaga follows his 5-Factor World Diet, which is more of a lifestyle plan than a strict diet. The idea behind it is that an individual consumes five, five-ingredient meals per day, with each taking just five minutes to prepare.
Each meal also has to contain five food groups: protein like egg whites, lean meats and fish, complex carbohydrates such as vegetables, sweet potatoes, lentils and oatmeal, fiber, including whole grains and vegetables, healthy fats and sugar-free drinks. Additionally, those on the plan are required to do five, 25-minute workouts consisting of five-minute segments) per week.
Gaga's tour chef Bo O'Connor detailed her super healthy diet to Self, and it actually sounded quite doable. A typical lunch or dinner for the star consists of "something like quinoa with black beans, grilled shrimp, beautiful veggies," she explained. "We want it to be healthy, tasty, filling, nutritious, and full of fiber."
And like any normal person, Gaga has unhealthy cravings — like for a burger and fries — but instead of indulging she opts for a healthier version like a "turkey burger, gluten-free, lots of spices, and baked sweet potato fries." As far as snacks go, if she gets hungry in between meals she noshes on little pack of almond butter, sometimes with fiber-rich Scandinavian crackers or banana.
Bikram Yoga
Gaga has been studying Bikram yoga with NYC-based yogi Tricia Donegan since 2004, and the popular instructor believes it is not only responsible for the star's fit figure, but also her success. "Lady Gaga is something very special, because she is a woman of service. She uses her talent to make this world better, and that's because she practices yoga," she told The New York Times.
Horseback Riding
Lady Gaga didn't grow up riding horses, instead discovering a love for the magnificent animals when her record label presented the singer with a white Arabian named Arabella (who sadly passed away in early 2019) in 2015.
"I literally did not know how to ride a horse. But I just grabbed her by the mane and rode her bareback," Gaga told V Magazine. Now she owns a few horses, including a stallion named Trigger, frequently posting photos of them on social media. "With him, I have to ride with a saddle. When I ride him, it always makes me feel so powerful, because he is so powerful. There's no pressure. I just get on the horse and go."
While 30 minutes of horseback riding is only considered moderate exercise, according to a study conducted by the British Horse Society, it boasts several mental health benefits as well. It can improve your wellbeing in a variety of ways, including social interactions, changes in mood, anxiety, self esteem and other personal emotions.
Meditation
Lady Gaga uses prayer and meditation on a regular basis. She is such a firm believer in the practice that back in 2017, after the Las Vegas shootings, she hosted a live, 20-minute meditation session on Instagram.
"I thought it might be a nice time to take some quiet moments for ourselves and think about each other," she began on her Instagram Live. "There's a lot going on in the world with people all the time. I think a lot of healing can come from quieting our minds and calming down our bodies." After the relaxing session was over, she also revealed that mediation helps with her mental health.
Meditation can help people suffering from depression, anxiety and pain. Time magazine recently pointed out that researchers are constantly adding to the potential benefits of the practice, showing that mindfulness can increase happiness and emotional resilience — and make people nicer.
We applaud Lady Gaga for her dedication to healthy living, as she takes care of herself from the inside out! Thanks for the inspiration, girl!