Jennifer Lawrence might once have joked that she’s “obese” by Hollywood standards, but the 30-year-old boasts the kind of healthy, toned, enviable figure most of us would spend countless hours and dollars to achieve.
Thankfully, the Oscar-winner‘s approach to diet and exercise is relatively realistic, and refreshingly inconsistent. Because when you’re travelling the world and working long hours on movie sets, who has time for meal prep and three-hour gym sessions?
In fact, Lawrence is famously anti-exercise and anti-diet, but she’s admitted to dabbling in both when a role requires it.
“I hate saying, ‘I like exercising’,” Lawrence told Glamour in 2012. “I want to punch people who say that in the face. But it’s nice being in shape for a movie, because they basically do it all for you. It’s like, ‘Here’s your trainer. This is what you can eat’. I don’t diet. I do exercise! But I don’t diet. You can’t work when you’re hungry, you know?’
Of food, she also memorably said: “There’s that Kate Moss quote that’s like ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ and I can name a lot of things that taste better than skinny feels: bread, potatoes… a Philly cheesesteak and fries.”
Here, we look at Lawrence’s diet and exercise regimen, from jogging, to ballet, to banana chips.
EXERCISE AND FITNESS
Lawrence’s workout plan is built around the movie roles she has coming up. Much like Margot Robbie, if a role demands stunt work or a particular look, Lawrence will increase her time at the gym.
Still, the Silver Linings Playbook star consistently relies on exercise as a way of balancing out her less-than-strict diet.
“I don’t like when people say, ‘I only do this or eat this,'” she told Vogue U.S. “Because I eat. I’m not very strict with my diet: If I want a piece of pizza, I eat a piece of pizza. But I do work out more than normal because I have a certain way that I want to look, and a way that I want to fit into my clothes.
“I get photographed when I’m not asking for it, so there’s added pressure to look and feel your best. For me, it’s easier to put that extra effort into the gym instead of putting the extra effort into: ‘Oh no, I can’t eat that.'”
When filming the X-Men films, Lawrence partnered up with trainer Dalton Wong, and credits him for overhauling her approach to diet and exercise.
She even contributed the foreword to his book, writing: “[Dalton Wong] changed my body for that movie but gave me the skills to change my life. I could never live on a ‘diet.’ Dalton taught me how to eat, move, and live a delicious but healthy life. I will always thank him for that.”
In his book, Wong said Lawrence’s workout plan was based around morning runs to get the body moving, and short, regular bursts of high intensity interval training, using body weight to avoid the “no equipment” excuse.
For the Hunger Games franchise, Lawrence trained with chiropractic sports medicine doctor Dr. Joe Horrigan, who told Teen Vogue Lawrence did, “sprints, stationary bike rides, archery lessons, and rock and tree climbing”.
For days when she had little spare time but a need to get her heart rate up, Lawrence turned to skipping, Dr Horrigan said.
More recently, for her 2018 movie Red Sparrow, Lawrence played an ex-ballerina-turned-spy and had multiple nude scenes and plenty of stunt work and dancing scenes.
As such, Lawrence upped the ante by working with a ballet coach for three months.
“I worked with Jen six days a week, three hours a day for three months, as well as doing cross training in the form of Pilates, or toning and weight-training, or gyrotonics,” professional dance coach Kurt Froman told Body and Soul.
DIET AND NUTRITION
Lawrence has been open about her aversion to restrictive diets and her love of red wine and pizza.
“I don’t really diet or anything,” she’s said in the past. “I’m miserable when I’m dieting and I like the way I look. I’m really sick of all these actresses looking like birds… I’d rather look a little chubby on camera and look like a person in real life, than look great on screen and look like a scarecrow in real life.”
Still, for Red Sparrow, Lawrence was required to shed some weight in order to look like a notoriously regimented Russian ballerina.
“I’ve always wondered what it would take to get me to really diet, to be really hungry, because I’ve never done it for a movie,” she told Vanity Fair.
“For Hunger Games, they told me to lose weight, and then I discovered [US fast food chain] Jack in the Box. Red Sparrow was the first time that I was really hungry and disciplined.”
As part of that diet, which meant swapping fast food cravings for lean meats like chicken breast and snacking on banana chips, Lawrence said she had a “meltdown” of sorts.
“I can’t work on a diet. I’m hungry. I’m standing on my feet. I need more energy,” she told Vanity Fair.
Still, Wong said Lawrence likes to keep healthy snacks on hand while on set.
“In Jennifer’s trailer, we would always have some full-fat Greek yogurt, some dark chocolate, some hummus and vegetables,” Wong said.
In short, Lawrence’s approach to her health is not unlike her approach to life in general: fuss-free, honest, realistic, but capable of serious hard work when required.
