Jessica Alba Used to Push Herself to ‘Muscle Failure’ in Workouts: ‘I’ve Learned to Mix It Up’

Jessica Alba is being nicer to her body during the craziness of 2020.

The actress and founder of the Honest Company, 39, took her workouts down a notch this year, after pushing herself for years.

“I always thought, ‘I need to sweat out my weight in water, I need to have muscle failure, I need to feel like I just ran a marathon’ — that’s how hard I needed to work out,” Alba told Women’s Health for their January/February cover.

But once gyms closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alba decided to give herself a bit of a break. Instead of frequent, intense workouts, the beauty mogul will exercise two to four times a week, and sometimes just go for a walk.

“I’ve learned to mix it up and not feel like a failure if I’m not, you know, killing myself,” she said.

One of the ways she’s mixed it up is by incorporating low-impact reformer Pilates into her routine.

“I feel every muscle in my core,” she said. “I never even knew I had those things.”

Alba also changed up her eating habits, after realizing this summer that she enjoyed vegan foods. Now, “Four days a week, I try to eat plant-based, and I don’t drink alcohol,” she said.

But she’s not strict about it: “Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, all bets are off. That feels like moderation to me.”

All of 2020 has been a reset for the typically-busy Alba. Along with changing her workout and diet habits, she’s no longer “grinding, grinding, grinding” through her multiple jobs, and she’s enjoying the extra time with her family, husband Cash Warren and their three kids, daughters Honor Marie, 12, and Haven Garner, 9, and son Hayes Alba, 2.

“The pandemic has forced me to be comfortable with things not being completely buttoned up, with allowing myself to not always have the answer, for mistakes to kind of stay as is,” she said. “It’s also reinforced that real joy comes from the moments when, you know, we’re playing a game with the kids at dinner, or when Hayes wants to show us his latest trick on the scooter, or from our family walks. That’s the stuff that truly matters.”

Source: Read Full Article