If you’ve briefly forgotten the definition of the all-too-often used ‘fitspiration’, allow us to redirect your attention to Halle Berry.
Like Jennifer Lopez recently did for her character in Hustlers, the actress is currently undertaking intense physical training for her role as a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter in the upcoming film Bruised.
And just like Lopez, she is looking fitter than ever, especially if one of the 54-year-old’s viral Instagram photos showcasing her newly ripped abs is anything to go by.
In fact, one look at Berry’s impressive Instagram feed and it’s clear that the Oscar-winner could give any fitness blogger a run for their money.
To understand exactly how Berry maintains her fitness, we’ve rounded up everything Berry has ever said about her daily diet and exercise routine, from her go-to workouts to her favourite wellness rituals.
Halle Berry’s Exact Diet & Exercise Routine
EXERCISE: Core Work Through Full-Body Exercises (And Planks)
As far as core work goes, Berry favours full-body, compound exercises like squats to challenge the abdominals, over traditional moves like crunches and situps.
“My average workout these days doesn’t involve a single situp or crunch,” Berry wrote in Women’s Health in May 2020.
The only exception to this rule? If she’s training for a very specific physique for a film role. Berry also revealed that there is one conventional core exercise that she is a big fan of.
“One abs move I do incorporate into my workouts pretty often is planks. I never did planks back in the day, but they’ve made a huge difference for my core strength and definition,” she wrote.
“Sometimes, I’ll just hold a plank for as long as I can. My abs start to ache first, but pretty soon my entire body feels like it’s on fire.”
Berry also listed an example of a full-body workout she did in recent times that really challenged her core (and entire body), comprised of only two moves done with varying reps and weights:
- 40 lunges with biceps curls, wearing ankle weights and wrist weights, and holding my foam dumbbells
- 20 squats to overhead presses, wearing a booty band and holding my foam dumbbells
- 38 lunges with biceps curls
- 19 squats to overhead presses
- 36 lunges with biceps curls
- 18 squats to overhead presses
- Continue to work your way down.
EXERCISE: Varied Workouts
When it comes to training, Berry’s workouts are extremely varied. Just one peek at any of her #FitnessFriday posts on Instagram (where she’s often pictured with her trainer Peter Lee Thomas) and it’s evident that the actress is a fan of mixing things up, especially in preparation for her role as an MMA fighter.
As part of her training for the role, Berry reportedly exercises for four hours a day, with workouts on her Instagram page spanning across high-intensity MMA-style cardio workouts, strength training, plyometric training, running and, her long-time favourite, boxing.
EXERCISE: Boxing
Although she appears to have upped the intensity and variety of her workouts for her character in Bruised, Berry has been a fan of boxing for the past 10 years.
“Boxing is still considered one of the best full-body workouts,” Berry wrote in an Instagram post in August 2018.
“You’ll sculpt every muscle and burn major calories and fat. It dramatically decreases stress levels, develops hand-eye coordination, and builds confidence and discipline. But most importantly… you’ll never stop learning.
“I’ve been boxing for the past 10 years and regularly for the past three and I love that I always learn a new way to challenge myself and work new muscles.”
EXERCISE: Yoga
Berry also enjoys incorporating yoga into her workout routine. While she does it as part of a practice unto itself, she also does yoga before her usual high-intensity workouts as a warm-up.
Berry even shared one of her yoga warm-ups with her followers in an Instagram Story in September 2019, which she described in the post leading up to it as one that will “give your workout that extra sum sum”.
In an earlier post in March 2018, Berry revealed to her followers that yoga is also one of her preferred ways to stretch and avoid injuries.
EXERCISE: Stretching
Along with yoga, stretching is a core part of Berry’s overall training regimen, with the actress taking to Instagram in March 2018 to tell her followers exactly why she values it.
“After I work out, it’s important for me to stretch and lengthen,” she wrote.
“Fitness is not just about running, lifting and punching. For me, being athletic and super fit is also about being still, stretching and breathing.
“Including stretching in my fitness program helps my muscles stay long, limber, improves my mobility and range of motion, and most importantly, helps me avoid injuries.”
DIET: Intermittent Fasting And Keto
One of a number of celebrities who do intermittent fasting, Berry has found great success with the time-restricted style of eating. She also combines it with the popular high-fat, moderate-protein keto diet, which she does to manage her type two diabetes.
“I normally eat two meals a day,” Berry said in an Instagram story in August 2018, going on to say that she would “normally skip breakfast” and “sort of fast”.
Her trainer Thomas elaborated further on her diet in an April 2019 interview with Hollywood Life, explaining that the actress has her first meal of the day right after her workout, which is “basically her breakfast and lunch combined”.
Thomas went on to describe a number of Berry’s typical post-workout meals. “A lot of the time she will have a steak with a big green salad and not butter lettuce, it has to be dark greens like spinach and kale,” he said.
“Or she will have shredded chicken over a dark green leafy salad. Or she might have two or three eggs, not egg whites, she eats the whole egg because the yolk is very important.”
In addition to avocado, which the actress apparently loves (she shared this keto avocado ice cream to her Instagram in November 2018), Thomas said the actress snacks on “organic veggies, like celery and cucumber slices” and she eats a lot of “blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries” as they are all keto-friendly.
Besides apparently consuming bone broth throughout the day or as a drink before bed, Thomas listed Berry’s preferred dinners as “lamb chop” or a “nice ketogenic stew” comprised of cauliflower, broccoli and a lean grass-fed protein.
“Another dinner she often has is ‘ketogenic chill’, which is made from a lot of veggies and ground grass-fed beef,” Thomas added.
“Her chef will leave out the beans because beans have a lot of carbohydrates, they have fibre, but they have a lot of carbs and in order to regulate her insulin because of her diabetes, Halle does keep her diet very low carbohydrate. It’s an amazing way to stay in great shape because she totally stops craving those things.”
DIET: Bulletproof Coffee, Amino Acid Supplements And Green Juices
In the same Instagram Story on her diet in August 2018, Berry told her followers that in place of breakfast in her fasting-keto diet, she has “a green drink or I do my bullet coffee”.
“Bullet coffee”, or the more commonly used “bulletproof coffee”, involves adding MCT oil and grass-fed, unsalted butter to black coffee, and is a considered a somewhat controversial practice in the health industry.
Bulletproof coffees and green juices aren’t the only staples Berry consumes as part of her eating plan, with Thomas revealing that the actress takes a supplement “called Master Amino Pattern by a company called Purium” in an interview with Hollywood Life.
He went on to explain that “it is the actual amino acids that build muscle” and because they apparently bypass the body’s usual process of converting food into amino acids “It’s the quickest way for your body to get these nutrients because nothing has to be digested.”
DIET: Natural, Sulfate-Free, Low-Sugar Wine
Although it may seem like it, Berry’s diet is not all work and no treats. The Academy-award winner loves her wine—she just makes sure it’s low-sugar and keto-friendly.
“I knew somebody was going to call me out on this eventually, because on my IG, I’m always holding some glass of wine in some beautiful place,” Berry said in an Instagram story in November 2018 in response to a follower question about how she drinks wine on a keto diet.
Berry apparently said that her doctor said wine was good for her heart, but that she couldn’t have just any ol’ wine on her diet.
“What’s also key to my wine drinking is I drink sulfate-free, natural, low-sugar wines,” Berry explained.
“This way I get to have my wine and alcohol and stay in ketosis.”
DIET: Starting Her Day With Water
Like fellow actress Gabrielle Union, Berry makes a point of staying hydrated, placing an extra emphasis on drinking water right at the beginning of the day.
“She starts her day with a big glass of water, about 8-12 oz [approx. 236 to 355 ml], usually with a little lemon squeezed into it for flavour. And then directly after that, she will take her amino acids,” Thomas told Hollywood Life.
WELLNESS: Time Out For Self-Care
Self-care appears to be as much a part of Berry’s health regimen as any of her workouts, with the actress regularly taking to Instagram to share posts with the hashtag #SelfCareSunday.
On April 22, 2019, Berry may have hinted that baths are one of her self-care rituals of choice, after sharing a photo of herself enjoying a bubble bath with the caption:
“It’s been a really long day, but still making time for #SelfCareSunday with my bubble bath 🛁 💋.”
WELLNESS: Meditation
Another one of Berry’s go-to rituals? Meditation. In April 2018, Berry posted a photo of herself meditating as part of her #FitnessFriday Instagram series.
In it, she revealed that she took up the mindful practice after a life-changing experience meeting a yogi master in India.
“The experience not only profoundly changed me, but it inspired me to never go a day without some sort of meditation,” she wrote in the caption.
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