The hardest part is watching your plate, but doing the one, without the other, is pretty useless.
The following shot of, the now 68-year old, Helen Mirren gained worldwide attention a half-dozen years ago:
Folks were just so impressed that a woman her age could look so damn good—which is pretty appalling if you ask me, but whatevs—but Mirren, true to her outspoken, straight-to-the-point, no ‘BS’ nature, had this to say about that shot.
“I happened to be holding my stomach in because my husband was taking my photograph,” she said. “Three weeks every six months, I decide to work out. I’m unbelievably lazy. If I had any form of self-discipline, I would look a lot better than I do.”
And what is her “workout” exactly?
…Each day, you have to do the exercises within the 12 minutes and until you can, you can’t move up,” Mirren recently told reporters, according to her publicist.
“It is the exercise I have done off and on my whole life. It just very gently gets you fit. Two weeks of doing that and you think: ‘Yeah, I could go to the gym now.'”
The regimen, which was designed by physician Bill Orban in the late 1950s, includes 10 basic exercises for women that are intended to work all your muscle groups in a short amount of time. It includes moves like knee raises, arm circling, push-ups, sit-ups, chest raises, leg raises, and running and hopping. The workout doesn’t require any equipment, which makes it ideal for jetsetting stars like Mirren.
Hmmm…sounds an awful lot like Tabata or HIIT, if you ask me, but that’s neither here nor there. My point in sharing this is really to get to the bottom-line of why Mirren has remained in such wonderful shape, despite exercising so erratically, and remaining “unbelievably lazy”, as she puts it, about her health.
It’s because she maintains a balance in her overall diet.
“I’ve never done anything to excess,” she told People. “I’ve never drunk or eaten too much. It helps to stay balanced.”
Again, it’s about doing the little things.
Exercise means little if the diet ain’t right. Trust me on that one. But…when you combine the two, oh boy, then you’ve got gold.
Living Fit Mommy 