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If you’re looking for a sustainable and realistic approach to weight loss, Jessica Simpson has found a way.
Like many celebrities, Simpson’s weight has been a much talked about subject throughout her career — so much so that she’s spoken extensively about all the unfair scrutiny she’s faced. But her health journey over the past five years has sparked a very different conversation about health and wellness.
Ever since Simpson showed off a 100-pound weight loss in 2019, the fashion designer has maintained her healthy lifestyle, all while spreading body positivity. Wondering how she does it? Here are some of her go-to diet and workout tips.
As a mother of three, Simpson knows a thing or two about the impact pregnancy can have on a woman’s body.
“I’ve lost 100 pounds three times. I definitely gain a lot of weight in my pregnancies. I celebrate pregnancy, but this last pregnancy was really hard for me,” the 43-year-old said during a 2022 appearance on “The Real.”
After welcoming her youngest child, the star embarked on a wellness journey that produced some impressive results: a 100-pound weight loss just six months after she gave birth.
In her memoir “Open Book,” Simpson revealed that she used to take diet pills to lose weight early on in her career after feeling pressured to shed some pounds. These days, she’s all about forming sustainable habits, as her personal trainer Harley Pasternak told E! News.
“It had to be more than just getting back from her baby weight, but how do I keep whatever I am doing now forever. That’s why we are not a big fan of doing any extreme diet or radical forms of exercise,” he said about her post-baby weight loss in 2020.
Simpson is living proof that you don’t have to live at the gym to be fit. After giving birth to her youngest child, the fashion designer took time to recover before she began walking 6,000 steps a day, Pasternak told E! News in 2020.
Over time, the star worked her way up to 14,00 steps each day by sneaking in walks on the treadmill as she talked on the phone or watched TV.
“I have been doing a lot of walking — getting my steps in not only burns calories but it also helps me clear my head and get focused,” she told People in 2019.
In addition to walking, Simpson also incorporated full-body workouts every other day once she was ready to take things up a notch.
“We slowly ramped those up; we started really easy and slowly increased them. We started with doing a full-body workout, one set of each exercise, not really doing too much intensity per body part and gradually increasing the volume and intensity. Focusing on a few muscle groups per day. Different muscles each day of the week,” Pasternak told E! News.
A solid workout routine has to be supported with a healthy diet, so Pasternak worked with Simpson to build a manageable meal plan.
“It’s three meals and two snacks a day, and each meal has protein, fiber and fat, and snacks are protein and fiber or protein and fat,” he told People. “She’ll have foods that are very (flavorful) that are healthier versions of things like a tortilla soup or Tex-Mex. And if she has a birthday party one night and a date night another night, she’s going to indulge both of those nights, but that’s it. It’s about balancing in a way that doesn’t make it painful or too much of a departure from your life before that.”
It can be tempting to jump on the scale every day to see if you’re any closer to your goal weight, but Simpson sat down with TODAY’s Hoda Kotb in 2021 and told her she doesn’t own a scale because she “threw it out.”
“I have no idea how much I weigh. Like, I just want to feel good and be able to zip my pants up. If I don’t, I have another size. I have every size,” she said.
Simpson’s personal trainer Harley Pasternak also told People he doesn’t rely on scales to determine how well a client is progressing on their weight loss journey.
“I never work with scales,” he said in 2019. “My work with (Simpson) is more about the habits she’s created and kept up.”
Losing a significant amount of weight can feel daunting, and Simpson has said that she prefers to focus on small milestones instead of focusing so much on the end goal.
“I believe in setting small goals for yourself because in my life and how I’ve done it, there’s easy ways to throw in the towel and just feel like it’s impossible,” she said during an interview on “The Real” in 2022. “So, the small goals for me are what helped me achieve the main goal.”
It’s no secret that sleep is essential to overall health. But shuteye is also a smart way to maintain a healthy weight. While talking with E! News, Pasternak said Simpson limits screen time before bed in order to get good rest. “So many people undervalue the importance of sleep in (weight loss) and weight management.”
Kids tend to absorb their parents’ point of view on body image. Simpson is fully aware of that and told Access Hollywood that she’s very careful when she talks to her children about diet and exercise.
“I try to not complain about myself in front of them. I try to not diet. I try to not do any of that stuff. They just see me living a healthy lifestyle. That’s why I quit drinking. I was like, ‘Ok they’re going to pick up on everything I do, so I’ve got to be a good role model. If I can be that for the world, I gotta be it for my kids,” she said.
Simpson has spoken extensively about her decision to get sober for personal reasons. In a 2023 interview with Bustle, the star also noted that her sober lifestyle helped her lose weight.
While addressing rumors that she must be taking the drug Ozempic to lose weight, Simpson offered the following comment: “It’s willpower. I’m like, do people want me to be drinking again? Because that’s when I was heavier. Or they want me to be having another baby? My body can’t do it,” she said.
Chrissy Callahan covers a range of topics for TODAY.com, including fashion, beauty, pop culture and food. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, watching bad reality TV and consuming copious amounts of cookie dough.
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