The Trick Kristen Bell Uses To Keep A Balanced Diet

Kristen Bell is known for two things besides her prolific career as an actress: Her bubbly personality and her frank honesty. It's part of what makes her the perfect person to portray the energetic and determined characters she's known for. It also leads to some incredibly forthright interviews, like the one she did for the LA Times in June of 2018, in which she described her diet.

Bell isn't shy when it comes to her "obsession" with food, and maintaining a healthy diet, as she told the LA Times. "To me, being healthy means feelings good about the choices I'm making", Bell said when asked about keeping a balanced diet. She said that "about 85 percent" of her diet is healthy and thoughtful so she doesn't mind a little splurge on pizza or chocolate now and then. But how does she maintain that 85 percent? For Bell, it's all about the macros.

While a ton of apps can help you track macros down to the grams, Bell's approach is a little more generalized. "Like knowing, OK, I've had enough protein today, I'm going to eat carbs for dinner or vice versa." Rather than counting every gram of fat, protein, or carbs, Bell prefers to keep a general eye on the nutrition in her food, and balance her meals intuitively.

Macros aren't Bell's only secret when it comes to keeping her diet balanced, however. She also insists on knowing what ingredients are in her food. She reads the nutrition and ingredient labels for everything that goes in her shopping cart, so she is fully aware of what kind of nutrition is in her cupboard.

Bell is also a former vegan, now vegetarian. This leads her away from some temptations like hot dogs and burgers, though Bell is clear that her views on meat should not affect everyone: She avoids meat because her body doesn't like it, while other people may find that they feel sick without meat in their diet.

Her other tricks are all about how much she consumes. While she loves food, she doesn't let herself overdo it on portion sizes. Instead she makes sure that her family eats a lot of fiber, which is key to feeling full according to Ohio State University. This rule of moderation extends to alcohol too. Bell says that she likes wine but it's something she saves for date night rather than indulging every day.

Bell's focus on feeling good rather than looking skinny is a healthy viewpoint that runs counter to most diet advice. If you aren't able to adopt her full approach, we hope you at least draw some inspiration from that!