How To Take Care of Yourself As An Actor
Eating healthy, eliminating sugars from your diet, and adding exercise to your routine will have a dramatic effect on your confidence and how you feel as a performer. The more confident you are, the better you perform on screen and on stage, and the more productive you are. Being healthy does not mean being skinny. Being healthy means taking care of yourself and committing to a healthy lifestyle, eating the right foods, and making sure our bodies are strong enough because we never know when that role is going to come and we need to be ready. Our bodies are our instruments and the better we take care of them, the more opportunities we will have to perform and the more years we will be able to perform. Pursuing the goal of being an actor full-time takes a tremendous commitment physically and psychologically, you have to be in the best possible shape you can be in. We often feel defeated in our pursuit of a healthy and fit body - not because of a lack of ability – but because of a lack of wholeheartedness. When you commit your full self to being in the best shape you possibly can and stop making excuses of why you’re not in the best shape, success will find you.
Important Health Tips to Remember:
Sugar
Eating foods that contain little to no sugar is the key. The higher the amount of sugar you consume, the worse you feel, the sicker you get, and the more body fat you gain. Getting rid of sugar is key to losing weight and having more energy. Sugar is the biggest reason for not being able to reach your health and weight loss goal. Fruits are great and contain tons of vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals but you have to be very careful not to over-eat them as they are a form of sugar. My rule is one or two whole pieces of fruit a day as long as you are fairly active and moving your body. And always eliminate drinking fruit juice as a choice as it has more sugar than soda.
Eat Frequent Meals
Eating a balanced breakfast, lunch, dinner and one snack is how you keep a consistent source of energy that will help you feel good and give you the discipline you need to make healthy eating choices. Too many people go about losing weight by starving themselves and skipping meals and all that does is make you more ravenous when you do eat. It also completely throws your blood sugar levels out of whack which is horrible for energy. Eating something every three to four hours keeps your metabolism working at its highest and prevents you from feeling ravenous at any one point during the day.
Alcohol
Drinking too much alcohol during the week and weekend makes it extremely hard for you to feel productive and definitely to lose body fat. This is because when you consume alcohol, you are giving your body a very high dose of sugar. Also when alcohol enters your system, your body puts the metabolizing of other nutrients on hold until it can eliminate the alcohol from your body first. That means that fat burning is put on hold until the body eliminates the alcohol.
Add Fiber
Fiber speeds up your metabolism, satisfies your hunger, regulates blood sugar, and increases your immune system. Try to incorporate anywhere from 30 to 40 grams of fiber into your daily diet. Eat more long-grain brown rice, wild rice, any and all green veggies sweet potatoes, and yams to increase your fiber and replace the normal white breads and starches.
Exercise
This is can be a very complex subject and I could write a whole book on how to exercise correctly, but the important thing is to move your body every single day. Men and women should lift weights to build muscle. If you are a female, I strongly suggest that you lift weights. The more muscle you have the less body fat you will have. A pound of muscle demands 35 to 40 calories to sustain itself compared to 2 calories for a pound of fat. I’ve always been a fit person and I’ve always felt you should be in shape. I’m used to devoting my whole life to the work and what it requires. - Estelle Parsons, at 80 years old, replaced a 68-year-old who had to leave August: Osage County on Broadway due to exhaustion.