From Dancing With The Stars, to singing and acting, Julianne Hough is unstoppable. Throughout
her successful career, her healthy diet has not only helped her look and feel her best,
she’s also served as a major fitness inspiration — and now
you can get in on her secret to healthy living and eating.
In 2016, Julianne Hough landed the cover of Shape magazine and revealed that one of the major keys
to keeping her physique is clean eating. She explained,
"I try to stick with foods that don't come in boxes." I don't want a whole paragraph of
ingredients in my body. […] For a boost of energy, I mix in quinoa or rice sometimes."
Hough highlighted that clean doesn't have to mean bland. She explained that she tends to over-snack
when she's bored with meals. Luckily, she's found easy recipes to keep her meals interesting.
"Last night we made baked salmon with rosemary and lemon and broccoli, onions,
and cherry tomatoes. It took only 20 minutes and was really delicious!"
Hough is big on green juices, telling Elle in 2016,
"[Brooks Laich] and I just bought a juicer, so we try to juice as much as we can. In the morning,
I'll have a green juice. Whatever's in my fridge, I'll just throw whatever's in."
She added that she'll often toss in a green apple or carrots to sweeten her
spinach and kale-heavy drink and that she loves to add ginger and lemon, too.
And after downing a smoothie, she's often ready for a workout!
Following her super green start to the day, Hough tucks into a, quote, "healthy wrap
with a salad-type concoction within the wrap" for lunch, then follows it up with chicken or
fish and vegetables for dinner. The professional dancer admitted to being a snacker, telling Elle,
"I'll come home [after exercising] and I usually have some sort of eggs. I like to steam my eggs,
then have tomato and avocado." Hough says she loves avocados.
"That's a very good healthy fat, so sometimes I'll just scoop it right out of the shell and eat it."
The occasional dessert is also on the menu, but there's one thing that'll keep
her from reaching for the sweets. She admitted, "I'd rather have a glass of wine than dessert."
Teaming up with People in 2017, Hough shared a detailed food log with her fans,
listing everything she regularly has for lunch and dinner, despite admitting,
"I try to cut myself some slack if I'm being consistent with my nutrition and activity."
Taking in a total 1,526 calories on an average day,
a typical lunch for the Dancing with the Stars pro usually includes one boneless,
skinless chicken breast, over mixed green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, hearts of palm,
almonds, edamame, banana peppers, and olive oil and squeezed lemon.
Meanwhile, dinner is often a 6 ounce salmon baked with sliced lemon and rosemary, olive oil and two
cups sautéed spinach sprinkled with pink salt. She also makes sure to pair her meals with plenty
of hydration, drinking four to six glasses of water a day, as well as a cup of English
breakfast tea with skim milk and Stevia in the Raw at breakfast and a LaCroix seltzer at dinner.
Chatting with Us Weekly at a Fitbit cycling event in 2017, Hough was asked what she likes to eat to
get energized before a workout or performance, and the answer might just surprise you. Believe it or
not, it involves carbs! She stated,
"It's all about moderation, but I realized that carbs are often talked about in a negative context
[...] But I think, for me, I have to have some sort of carb, whether it's rice or pasta or bread
or whatever it is, and not big amounts, but I do need carbs because it makes my brain click on."
Nutritious salads are a go-to for Hough. But it’s her super simple cucumber salad
that she's dubbed "the best snack ever." She shared the quick recipe with fans on
her now-defunct lifestyle site and encouraged them to try the dish as a dinner or easy snack.
All it requires is chopping up and mixing Persian cucumbers with cherry tomatoes,
kalamata olives, a red onion, chickpeas, lemon, and a bit of parsley. Delicious and nutritious!
Hough told Shape in 2016, "E! News recently posted a
picture of me coming out of the gym, and there were all these comments about the photo, like,
'We could have abs like this, but we love pizza too much.' I started laughing because pizza is my
favorite food! […] You can cheat every once in a while, and that's OK."
She explained that people can maintain an in-shape physique and enjoy foods like pizza in moderation,
so long as they exercise often and regularly eat healthy foods.
Hough elaborated on her habit of having one day of indulgence per week to Elle, saying,
"I do love my Italian food, and pasta, and pizza."
While Hough enjoys her carbs and a weekly cheat day when she's at home,
she follows a stricter diet while working on the road.
She wrote on her since-deleted blog, "Being on tour requires every last drop
of energy I've got. It's important to keep my body properly fueled with efficient foods."
She explained that, despite enjoying eating sweets, they mess with her metabolism too much,
so she chooses to maintain a balanced diet. Breaking down her regimen,
she said she often starts off with green juice and "hard-boiled eggs for protein."
Her pre-show snack includes a green apple with a scoop of almond butter or protein bar,
and once she's done performing, it's all about a hearty dinner.
She told her readers, "I'm usually ravenous after a performance.
These meals call for something a little heartier than my daily regimen, such as chicken stir fry or
grilled chicken with quinoa, sweet potatoes or a green salad or a cozy and delicious bowl of soup."
We don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of staying hydrated.
According to the Mayo Clinic, doing so helps you regulate your body temperature, protect
your joints and sensitive tissue, and ensure that you're able to get rid of bodily wastes.
Julianne clearly got this memo, as you'll seldom find her without her means of
hydration at arm's length. She explained to Delish,
"I have this water bottle that goes everywhere with me. Every night, before bed, I put ice in
it and fill it to the top—it holds 40 ounces of water—and I drink it throughout the night."
Hough added that she doesn't drink all of it—that would likely interrupt her
sleep for bathroom breaks—but she definitely needs her water nearby.
Are there foods that make you nostalgic for childhood? Perhaps you loved eating cereal
and drinking the sweetened milk afterwards, or maybe your mom made the best chicken soup when
you were sick. For Julianne, there's one dish that takes her back to being a kid every time.
She revealed in an interview with Delish, "I had peanut butter and banana sandwiches
as a kid, and in England, we'd put chips in our sandwiches, so one day,
we just combined them, and it was so good." Hough revisited that meal back in 2017,
when she was on tour with her brother. The pair made peanut butter and banana
sandwiches once again, this time with added honey and salt and vinegar potato chips.
In addition to being a fan of making green juice at home, Hough is also a fan of smoothies.
Hough's go-to snack smoothie, prepared especially for her by her trainer,
sounds totally delicious. According to People, between breakfast and lunch, Hough indulges in
an apple pie smoothie. In it, you'll find one red apple, a small frozen banana, five raw almonds,
almond milk, six ounces of fat-free Greek yogurt, and a dash of cinnamon. Blend it all together and
voilà, you have a tasty smoothie that can keep even the most active people satiated.
Hough likes to start every day by drinking a glass of lemon water, stating,
"it gives me stability, it gives me certainty every morning that I have
a ritual that makes me feel like I am cleansing my body from the inside out."
Given that Hough works out pretty much every day, she has to have something beforehand to
power her up. To that end, Hough again busts out the blender and the green stuff, but this
time it's customized to be light but satisfying. Hough's pre-workout drink consists of lukewarm
water, lemon, celery juice, a green superfood drink, apple cider vinegar,
and an adrenal supplement, as Women's Health described. That way, when Hough is pushing
it in the gym or sweating on the dance floor, she's not going to wind up hungry or dehydrated.
What does Julianne Hough reach for when she's finished with her workout? She makes an effort to
consume healthy fats, as opposed to just fruits, vegetables, flavoring agents, and supplements.
After Hough has finished sweating for the day, she makes a shake with "avocado, almond butter,
almond milk, spinach, protein powder, blueberries, and a banana," as noted by Good Housekeeping.
One thing that Hough used to really enjoy is a glass of wine—so much so that she'd take
that over dessert. However, like any other human being, Hough's alcohol preferences
have changed over the years. She told Good Housekeeping,
"I used to be a really big wine drinker just because I loved it.
I loved the experience... but it really makes me not feel good."
So now you're more likely to find Hough with hard alcohol, specifically gin or tequila.
She enjoys having it along with seltzer water and maybe some fruit, or she'll drink it straight.
After launching her own lifestyle website in 2015,
Julianne Hough used her personal blog, which has since been transformed into kinrgy.com,
as a place to share details about all aspects of her personal life, including her diet. The
dancer regularly shared recipes with fans to show that eating healthy doesn't have to be boring.
She often wrote about delicious, seemingly "guilty" snacks she makes healthy,
such as grilled cheese sandwiches, peanut butter cookies high in protein, gluten-free,
and completely organic, and even deep dish Chicago-style pizza, which is surprisingly made by
using cauliflower instead of flour for the crust. Check out one of our newest videos right here!
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