Lately, more and more celebrities have been speaking out about self love, no matter what size or shape, because we are all different. People should be focusing on what the've been born with and embracing that. However, as the message of positivity rises there is still very little being changed. There’s no doubt about it – Hollywood is still a sample size town, with starlets becoming thinner and thinner as they try to squeeze into the smallest designer gowns possible on their way to fame. And yes, like some supermodels, some starlets are naturally quite thin and don’t have to work particularly hard to keep their physique. Others, however, are not naturally as thin as they appear to be – their sample size slimness is a result of a lot of effort, often including a low calorie diet and a ton of exercise. Looking fantastic on camera isn’t easy!
So, while pretty much every celebrity will admit to having a primarily healthy lifestyle and logging a ton of sessions with a personal trainer, there are also a lot of secrets in Hollywood. Some involve certain substances, others involve giving up pretty much every food in favour of liquid diets, and others involve consuming things that you wouldn’t necessarily find in the average person’s diet. To put it simply, many celebrities, especially the ones just starting out in Hollywood, would do pretty much anything to stay slender – which is why many of these diet secrets spread throughout the industry like wildfire, no matter how unhealthy they are.
Here are 15 Hollywood diet secrets that no one talks about.
15 They consume crazy amounts of caffeine
Many starlets are captured by the paparazzi when they’re out on a coffee run, Venti cup clutched to their chest as they duck amidst the flash photography, pulling their scarves up or shielding their face with big sunglasses. And that coffee in their hands isn’t just because they need a little extra jolt – caffeine, when consumed in larger quantities in particular, can have a bit of an appetite suppressant effect. Plus, it keeps you buzzing with energy so you’re more likely to stay moving and burn even more calories. However, it might not be the best solution – Marc David, a psychologist, asserts that drinking high amounts of caffeine creates a stress response in the body that actually causes your cortisol and insulin to rise – which sends a message to your body that it needs to store more fat. Whoops! Although, perhaps starlets are using those extra shot lattes to fuel themselves through then next hot, high intensity workout. Uh, can you bring Starbucks to spin class?
14 They live at the gym
When it’s your job to keep your physique looking flawless, you’d better believe you’ll do anything to maintain that – including hiring a personal chef to prepare just lean proteins and steamed veggies, and logging countless hours with a personal trainer. A ton of celebrities do that. However, there are a few that take things to the next level when they have a particular fitness goal. For example, when she was trying to shed her baby weight from her son Ryder, Kate Hudson spend approximately three months working out for up to three hours daily. And, though she hasn’t shared the name, Amber Kenain, general manager at a hot Hollywood gym, shared a shocking confession: “there’s one singer-actress who works out at my gym for about five hours a day, even on weekends. She spent her birthday here.” Doesn’t exactly sound like a birthday celebration! Unfortunately, there are likely many starlets who log in way too many hours trying to melt off every last excess pound in an attempt to rise to the top.
13 They do bad things
There are obviously many celebrities out there with substance problems – I mean, they have plenty of money to spend and can easily get an assistant to go procure whatever they need. However, there are also celebrities who take specific drugs solely for the purpose of staying slender. Some have admitted to using Adderall, which has a side effect of being an appetite suppressant, Clenbuterol, which is intended for respiratory problems in horses but has a fat loss effect when used by humans. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg – if there’s a particular drug that has a side effect involving weight loss, some celebrity out there has probably tried it at some point. Obviously, abusing substances in order to stay thin is neither healthy nor sustainable, but celebrities aren’t always thinking about the future – particularly when they’re rising starlets, they just want to get onto the A-List, and fit into those teeny sample size gowns for the red carpet, no matter what it takes.
12 They exist on eggs
Celebrities have tried pretty much every fad diet under the sun, from eating particular food groups, to eating particular rations of fat to carbs to protein, to cutting out carbs entirely, and more – there’s basically nothing they won’t do to keep those sleek physiques. However, sometimes they go extreme even by celebrity standards, and one particularly baffling Hollywood secret is the egg diet. It’s basically exactly what it sounds like – you eat one egg in the morning, and then one or two eggs at the end of the day. There’s no particular magic to eggs – if you eat only a few hundred calories of anything you’re bound to lose weight, and given that an egg has anywhere from 70 to 110 calories, depending on size, that’s an extremely low calorie diet. One of the most famous fans of the egg diet is Nicole Kidman, who used it to stay slim while filming Cold Mountain, but celebrity trainer David Kirsch has said that he’s had clients who followed the same diet, so it’s apparently kind of a thing.
11 They stick to liquids
If you’re trying to slim down in Hollywood, sometimes, there’s just no room for solid food in your life. The sad thing is, we’re completely serious. There are countless female celebrities who have been spotted at the hottest restaurants dining with their friends or spouses – and just sipping on water or juice. One of the celebs who was spotted doing this with her husband, Marcia Cross, has admitted to the difficulties of staying slim in Hollywood, saying that “it’s like they pay me not to eat. It’s a living hell.” A particular liquid diet that several have followed, most notably popularized by Beyoncé when she was trying to slim down for Dreamgirls, is the Master Cleanse, or Lemonade Diet. (Jared Leto apparently also turned to the Master Cleanse when he needed to drop weight quickly). Not eating a single morsel of solid food for days on end? No thanks!
10 The whole IV thing
Is the concept of a liquid diet, of just sipping away your beverage concoction or fresh-pressed juice, just not quite extreme enough for you? Well, many celebrities take things to the next level with one of Hollywood’s slim secrets – the IV diet. Again, it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like, as unbelievable as that seems. Celebrities will check themselves into the hospital (the ritziest hospital in town, no doubt) to get themselves placed on an IV so that they can pump some nutrients into their bodies without having to eat at all. You know, because it could take a bit of time to buy juice, right? Or perhaps it’s just that solid food is so last season? Whatever the reason, sticking a literal needle in your arm seems to be more popular in Hollywood than suffering the shame of gaining an extra pound or two – which is a little bit horrifying, TBH.
9 Laxatives – especially trendy laxative teas
If you follow any celebrities on social media, chances are you’ve seen some artfully shot Instagram posts around some type of detoxifying, ‘skinny’ tea. Most of those types of teas on the market work because they have a mild laxative effect thanks to some ingredient such as dandelion root, which can help flush out water weight and get rid of a bit of bloat. It’s not hard to see why it would get celebrity approval – I mean, what could be trendier than sipping serenely on a cup of tea and shedding unnecessary weight? However, many studies have shown that some of the teas just don’t really do that much – and the problem is, starlets desperate to lose weight aren’t drinking the appropriate amount, instead just guzzling cup after cup in an attempt to get the diuretic effect. Perhaps their assistant needs to brew them a soothing cup of herbal tea to sip and take a step back from the crazy world of Hollywood.
8 They light up instead of eating
Now that smoking is almost universally recognized as a bad habit that is majorly detrimental to your health, more starlets are opting to smoke in secret rather than lighting up every time they’re walking in public. However, that doesn’t mean that a ton of celebrities don’t still smoke – they can’t give up their cigarettes, what if they were to put on weight? While she’s currently living in a rural setting with her country music star husband, Katherine Heigl was once a young, blonde starlet with a sweet television gig and endless opportunities – and she took just about every opportunity to light up, whether it was when she was eating lunch or just walking around doing errands. Her physique may be slightly curvier than other starlets, but she definitely worked hard to stay as slim and trim as possible, no matter what it takes – and what it might do to her health in the long term. And, obviously Heigl isn’t the only smoker (or former smoker) in Hollywood – there are tons of them.
7 They inject themselves with hormones
For a celebrity, nothing is too far when it comes to staying slim – not even injecting yourself with questionable substances. One of the hot fad diets awhile back was the HCG diet, which essentially involved injecting yourself with human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone that generally appears during pregnancy. Oh, and dieters were supposed to stick to very low calorie diets while doing the injections. As with many fad diets, any results from that crazy regime aren’t actually coming from the fad item itself – the HCG hormone, in this case. They’re coming because you’re consuming a very low calorie diet, something that is totally unsustainable, and will likely gain back any weight you’ve lost once you bump your daily calories back up to a normal level. Look, fitting into your skinniest skinny jeans is a good feeling, but is it worth literally injecting questionable, not FDA approved substances into your body?
6 They eat baby food
If a liquids-only diet just isn’t satisfying enough for you, celebrities have an alternative that has a bit more texture – although only slightly. We’re talking about the baby food diet. Some of Hollywood’s biggest A-List celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Gwyneth Paltrow have been linked to the diet, in which you eat just like a baby would – pureed veggies galore! And many of the celebrities were introduced to the diet by one of Hollywood’s hottest trainers, Tracey Anderson. Anderson has commented on the diet before, saying that “I wanted something where you can eliminate toxicity and break bad habits but still have your digestive system going. That’s when the baby food cleanse was born. You get to eat all day, these little puree things, and the chocolate pudding I did is pretty killer.” Um, okay, but… couldn’t you just nosh on fresh fruit and veggies for a few days? Maybe incorporate a green smoothie?
5 They wear insane contraptions
Pretty much everyone would agree that Jessica Alba’s body is absolutely incredible – particularly consider she’s a mom. However, she isn’t one of the celebrities who claimed that the baby weight just melted off thanks to breast-feeding and running around after her newborn. No, Alba was frank about what it took to get back to her pre-baby body – and it sounds excruciating. Apparently, for about three months after giving birth to both of her children, she wore a double corset – all day and all night. Just take a moment to imagine that: no matter what you’re doing, whether you’re all dolled up for a night out or just relaxing on the couch watching Netflix, you have this insane double corset compressing your insides. Ouch! As Alba herself says – “it was brutal; it’s not for everyone.” Uh… yeah. Come on, trying to handle a newborn is challenging enough already without having to wear a Victorian-era compression garment 24/7.
4 They drink straight vinegar
Megan Fox has always been, well, a fox – though she still looks incredible after having children, when she was a young starlet projecting her sex kitten image, absolutely everyone wanted to find out her diet secrets and how she kept her slim physique. And, she’s got one tip that she shared back then – although it’s kind of tough to swallow, literally. Apparently, the starlet does a shot of apple cider vinegar in order to help cleanse her system; Heidi Klum has also allegedly tried the sour secret. Now, while apple cider vinegar has a ton of great health benefits, drinking straight vinegar is pretty darn rough on your system, and many experts advise against it. So, while you can definitely incorporate apple cider vinegar into a lovely homemade vinaigrette for a fresh green salad, doing shots of it likely won’t do much at all to help slim you down, and might end up causing you harm since all that acid isn’t exactly gentle on your insides.
3 They brush their teeth after dining
Okay, celebrities brush their teeth all the time to keep those pearly white, red-carpet ready grins, but they also turn to their toothbrush for another purpose – stopping their snacking. Now, this is a tip that countless women’s magazines have recommended over the years, but it seems that celebrities also have tried it out. Apparently, the whole ‘brush your teeth to avoid snacking’ was started by a nutritionist who gave the diet secret to a young celebrity client that she had. The minty fresh flavour is allegedly supposed to signal to your brain that you’re full, while the mint also discourages you from snacking on anything for awhile afterwards, lest you get that dreaded toothpaste-y flavour in your chosen treat. As far as diet secrets go, it’s relatively harmless, but that doesn’t mean people won’t think you’re a weirdo if you run to the bathroom to brush your teeth after every single morsel you eat.
2 They hang out without clothes (gives them #thinspo)
Marisa Miller has the type of body most women would absolutely love to have – slim and trim, yet athletic and toned. She’s equally comfortable rocking her feminine side on the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Stage and her athletic side in Sports Illustrated spreads, and it turns out the blonde bombshell has a diet secret – eating naked. As Miller advised in an interview with Women’s Health way back in 2012, “when you’re trying to lose weight, spend more time wearing less. I don’t think I could eat a plate of nachos naked – could you?” On a certain level, it makes sense – you’ll be likely to indulge if you can literally see your problem areas staring back at you. On the other hand, it seems a little like torture. A woman should be able to eat a plate of nachos if she wants them without having to stare down at her thighs while doing it.
1 They eliminate basically everything
There are a few celebrities out there, such as Jennifer Lawrence, who are outspoken about loving pizza and French fries and junk food like that. However, for the most part, celebrities talk about their healthy diets and how good it makes them feel both inside and out – and that’s because they’ve cut out basically everything. There are celebs who eliminate dairy (despite not having any problems with lactose), celebs who eliminate red meat, celebs who eliminate meat entirely, the ones who nix gluten, the ones who nix nightshades and only eat very specific veggies… the list goes on and on. Everyone knows that eating a ton of junk food all the time is obviously bad for you, but the ruthlessness with which some celebrities eliminate entire, fairly healthy food groups, is a little bit much. We get it – Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen look incredible, but how fun is life if you can’t enjoy a crisp bruschetta with your girlfriends on a night out?
Sources: nydailynews.com, cheatsheet.com, stylecaster.com, elle.com
