Alyssa Milano Workout and Diet

Alyssa Milano (born December 19, 1972) is looks simply fantastic for a 38 year old soon to be mom. While probably most famous for her childhood/teen role as “Samantha” on “Who’s the Boss” – Alyssa Milano has gone on to be very sexy adult actress (eight years on the TV show “Charmed” and guest appearances on “Melrose Place”) known for having a great body. The question is – how does she do it?

First of all, Alyssa is not a tall woman – she’s about 5ft 2in tall and weighs probably somewhere between 105-110lbs. You can see a healthy definition in Alyssa’s arms that shows she lifts weights in addition to keeping her bodyfat low with diet and exercise. All in all, Alyssa has a light muscle mass (lean, not bulky) and a low but not super low bodyfat level. (As a side note, taller women always think short women naturally look tiny. This is not so! The shorter you are, the more you show even a little extra weight. Sad but true.)

Alyssa Milano’s Diet and Workout Plan

In interviews, Alyssa is quoted as being a fan of jogging (runs reportedly 3mi per day) and spin classes. On top of that, Alyssa trains with celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson, and lifts weights three times per week for 30min per day. Like a lot of Hollywood celebrities, Alyssa follows the Zone Diet, which is basically a moderate carb/moderate fat diet plan (40% of daily calories from carbs, 30% from protein, and 30% from fat.) Every meal should be 500 calories or fewer and a snack should be 100 calories or less (think an apple or low fat cheese stick.)

A typical day for Alyssa would look like this:

(Note – yes, Alyssa Milano is a vegetarian. I have a separate post up on vegetarian diets for weight loss. Below I am giving a sample Zone type diet. If you wanted to you can swap out chicken and salmon for vegetarian protein powder, tofu, Greek yogurt, or beans of your choice. Vegetarian diets are trickier to lose weight on while eating sufficient protein as most plant-based protein sources come bundled with a high proportion of carbs – making their calorie count higher.)

Breakfast:

• Egg white omlette with vegetables
• 1/2cup cooked oatmeal (not instant) topped with 1/2 cup sliced strawberries

Lunch:

• Grilled chicken breast on top of a green salad with chopped tomatos and olive oil dressing
• Apple

Dinner:

• Broiled salmon with a side of sauteed zucchini
• Blueberries

How to Get a Body Like Alyssa Milano

The Diet

The most important part of Alyssa’s look is her low but not too low body fat levels. If you are not lean enough, you will not show any muscle tone but rather will look a little bulky due to excess fat. This is why at first you will need to really prioritize diet. Watching what you eat and making sure you consume fewer calories than you burn is honestly more efficient than exercise.

Cutting 200 calories from your diet per day is as simple as skipping your grande latte. To burn the same amount of calories through exercise takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on how hard you workout (hint : you never burn as many calories as you think. The safest bet is to assume 30min = 100 calories, otherwise you could just be assuming you are burning more than you are and then wonder why you never lose weight…)

Losing weight through diet is all about eating fewer calories not about eating magic foods. There are a couple ways to do this -

Some people do this by eliminating foods high in calories. Examples include junk foods, processed foods, breads, pasta, chips, sugar, juice, and so on. Keep in mind not all foods high in calories are unhealthy (think avocados, nuts, and healthy oils) – but all will make you fat if you eat more calories than you burn. An example of eating this way would be a skinless grilled chicken breast (no oil added) on top of a large leafy green salad (very little to no salad dressing) with a side of steamed broccoli. The idea is everything is so low in calories you don’t really need to worry about over eating. This method works okay for some, while other people will always end up eating too much….

Other people choose to measure portion sizes or weigh foods. This allows you to add in higher calorie foods like roasted potatoes, oils, and nuts as long as you keep a food log and stay under your daily calorie limit. I find a food scale is the easiest way to do this. Simply weigh your food in grams, use an online calculator like fitday.com to determine calories, and then stay under your daily calorie limit. This method has a couple advantages in that 1) You always know exactly how much you have eaten 2) There are no forbidden foods – just stay under your limit. The main downside – tedious.

Lots of people are having luck with intermittent fasting. Essentially you pick 2 days per week to fast until dinner (about 18hr long fast.) Dinner is then a normal dinner size, not a monster size. On the remaining days per week you eat normally (but not overeating.) Intermittent fasting was first developed by Brad Pilon (Eat Stop Eat – read my post on this here) but  has quickly gained a large online following among fitness bloggers and writers (IF is strongly recommended in Visual Impact for Women, click here to read my review…) The advantages of fasting is primarily the simplicity – you just don’t eat for a short period of time. You don’t need to buy expensive health food or prepare lots of little meals. You also get to eat normally most days per week. Its just low hassle, cheap, and effective without feeling lots of deprivation.

Cardio

These days cardio is not trendy like it used to be. A lot of women found that relying on cardio alone was just not effective for fat loss. Does this mean cardio is a waste of time? No! Cardio can be a really useful tool (but remember – a secondary tool compared to diet) in burning body fat and increasing your metabolism when used correctly.

Click here to read a post I put together on how you can use cardio weight circuits and interval based cardio to lose more fat in a lot less time.

Thanks for stopping by! On your way out be sure to check out Visual Impact for Women for more specific information on how to get that lean Hollywood look.