- Hi, my name is Nina Dobrev
and this is everything that I eat in one day.
Well, one day kind of.
Every day is different.
And it depends if it's a pandemic day or a regular day day,
if it's that time of the month day.
My diet varies a lot.
The first thing I do when I wake up hands down,
no questions asked is snuggle with my dog.
I usually set an alarm, but I almost always wake up
before my alarm goes off because my puppy Maverick.
Her little paw goes around my shoulder
and she's like a human.
It's weird.
I think that when she was a puppy
she saw people coming over to my house
and I'd greet them by hugging them.
So she learned that that was how you greet someone.
So she's my natural coffee.
But she's not enough, let's be real.
Mama needs some coffee, some real strong, strong coffee.
So the next thing I do is get up.
No, then I pee.
Then I go to the kitchen.
I make the strongest coffee.
Sometimes I even have two coffees.
Like, I'll finish the coffee and it's not enough.
I do a shot of espresso
and then I do a regular coffee and I mix them together.
I use almond milk
and then I'll do a packet or two of Stevia.
And that's kind of my morning routine.
After I have my coffee, breakfast varies.
If it's just me, I'm low maintenance
and I just got to get it done.
So I'll do a protein shake and I make my shakes at home.
Unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
I grab a banana from the freezer.
I freeze my bananas
so that they make the mixture a lot more, like thicker.
It's a little bit thicker.
I don't like my shakes really watered down and gross.
I also add avocado,
which helps with the thickness again.
Almond butter, not peanut butter.
I'm not allergic, but just don't.
It just doesn't work.
They give me inflammation.
Then I'll put spinach and arugula in there.
I put collagen.
HUM Nutrition makes this vitamin,
it's like a beauty vitamin.
You throw that in the shake too.
I think that's it.
Then I click on the machine and it does its magic.
And voila.
If I'm having a relaxing morning
or if it's a Saturday or Sunday,
I will typically go all out.
I'll have eggs, whether they're scrambled
or I do sunny side up.
I do like my eggs runny.
If I can't dip it, I don't want it.
Gotta dip it.
I toast gluten-free bread.
I found out later in life
after not feeling well for so many years,
that was just my normal.
Like, I just ate food and didn't feel great
and found out that my body doesn't do well with gluten.
I don't do well with dairy products.
After the eggs and the toast,
I'll also do some steamed spinach
or I like to have apple sausages.
When you go to the store they have these apple sausages
and I like to cut them up into little pieces,
put them on the pan.
I leave them on for way too long.
If they're not burnt, I don't want them.
I'll dip them into maple syrup.
I'll have with my eggs and put that on the gluten-free toast
with the egg and the sausage and a little bit of arugula
if I have it.
I'm a big arugula girl.
Don't know why.
Just like the, it's so like light and fresh and green
and just put it in my mouth.
And that's my morning breakfast, if I'm feeling fancy.
I lied.
I also like pancakes.
Simple Mills makes pancake mix which is gluten-free.
I'll mix that with blueberries, banana,
sometimes some chocolate.
And then when they come out,
they're all gooey and delicious.
And then I put more maple syrup on it.
After breakfast on most mornings,
I'll try to get a workout in if I can.
I'll go to Pilates or I'll go for a run.
I'll take Maverick on a walk.
And then I get to work,
whether work that day is reading the script
or making an audition or answering emails
or doing a Zoom meeting in the pandemic, as it's been.
When lunchtime rolls around,
because I stack my days
and have things going on every half an hour,
it's kind of the last thing I remember.
So I don't usually cook my lunches myself.
We'll do Postmates, GrubHub or one of those apps.
A lot of the time
I'll order from a place called Fresh Corn Grill.
I get the Fresh Corn Grill salad, but with no corn,
which is weird, 'cause it's the Fresh Corn Grill salad
but I take out the corn.
In the afternoons, and actually just throughout the day,
I snack a lot.
There was a period of time that I was working with a trainer
who told me you have to eat every two hours
so that your metabolism keeps working.
And so that's kind of how I live my life,
whether it's almonds
or there's these little MadeGood products.
And they have these little baggies with granola in them
that are also gluten-free safe.
I just have to have something in my belly.
If I'm hungry or thinking about food,
I can't focus on my work.
And I really like to work at a high level constantly.
I'm a bit of a workaholic.
It's a problem, but it's also effective.
Now that the pandemic is slowly coming to an end
and things are slowly opening,
I've gone out to dinner maybe two or three times,
which was a weird experience.
So a lot of the time I cook at home.
And in the pandemic, I exclusively cooked at home.
I have a couple of go-tos,
but I love, love, love, trying new recipes.
I'll crack open a cookbook.
And one of my favorites is Chrissy Teigen's cookbook.
I'll just close my eyes and flip the pages
and then just stop at one page and whatever it says,
I'll go out and grab the ingredients
and try to make whatever it is
and destroy my kitchen in the process.
I used to eat a lot of fish.
But in researching a lot about what goes on in the ocean,
making a documentary of my own,
watching another documentary
that recently affected me significantly,
at the rate that we're eating fish
'cause there's so many humans on the earth,
it's not sustainable.
And the fishing industry itself is not sustainable at all.
So as of recently, I've stopped eating fish altogether.
And I'm thinking about becoming a vegan.
I'm not a vegan.
Maybe we should do another one of these diaries
in a little while and see where I'm at.
And then as for snacks,
like nighttime snacks or desserts or treats,
I'm not a big sweets person.
I can't eat a lot of them because most desserts have gluten
and especially dairy in them.
Every now and then if it's that time of the month,
I will at that point crave sweets.
It's only one week out of the month
where I actually want a sweet thing.
My go-to are Smart treats.
They look like Swedish fish
and they kinda taste like Swedish fish,
but they're, to me, guilt-free
because they don't have really high sugars in them.
And they're just really delicious.
And they're my guilty pleasure.
And then of course, when I'm trying to unwind and relax,
I will invite some friends over
and we'll have some of my wine.
I started a wine company
with my best friend, Julianne Hough.
It's called Fresh Vine Wine.
If anything, I guess that's my guilty pleasure,
sweet craving at the end of the night.
And that's basically everything I eat in one day.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'm really stoked that you guys watched this,
if you've made it this far.
Thanks so much.
(upbeat music)