Her name is Tatyana Ali, but everybody knows her as “Ashley” from the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Now, here is something that will make some of you all feel old: the bubbly, young girl who acted alongside Will Smith turns 36 years old on January 24th. She has aged gracefully into a beautiful woman, but she admits that maintaining her slim body size has not been easy and that it came with struggle.
Tatyana explains, “Like all women, I’ve had to figure out what my body now responds to as far as exercise and eating go. It’s changed. I just want to be healthy and fit in to the clothes that I have.” At five feet and four inches tall, Tatyana confesses that she is a size 4.
Even with such a small stature, Tatyana was recently labeled as the “curvy girl” in a magazine that she was featured in. Although the notion that Tatyana is even slightly overweight is preposterous, her point about how the body reacts differently to food and exercise as it ages is valid. We all know that changes, such as slowing of the metabolism, happen over time. Well, there is a common theme among healthy people: nutrition and exercise.
She awakes at six every morning and attends a spinning/boot camp class. For those that have never been to a spinning class, an instructor guides participants through pedaling on a stationary bike for a certain amount of time or distance and it’s pretty intense. Expect to sweat a lot!
For Tatyana, there is a 30-minute strength training segment at the end of the spinning session. There are countless ways to exercise, but however you do it, her advice is to keep doing it. “Be consistent! Just like everything else in life, consistency counts. Sometimes we want instant results and get frustrated because they’re not coming soon enough or we hit a plateau. If you keep exercising and keep eating right though, results will eventually come.”
After expending large amounts of energy through exercising, the body craves food. Tatyana’s routine diet consists of: poultry, beets, artichokes, yogurt, manchego cheese, broccoli, fish, tuna, black tea, citrus toffees and wild rice. When she is not in spinning class, her workouts usually consist of: leg presses, leg curls, back extensions, wall sits and dead lifting.
These routines may be worth trying because she looks fantastic!
Tatyana Ali: “I Just Want To Be Healthy” was originally published on blackdoctor.org
