Iowa born actress, Danai Gurira is on the cover of Shape Magazine’s latest issues and her body is making us jealous!
Gurira who grew up in Zimbabwe despite being born in the US speaks to the magazine about starting an organization focused on bringing awareness and support to issues affecting women and girls all over the world.
She says, “I consider everything I do that involves any degree of advocacy or service to be self-care. Stepping out of myself to help others is also a way of taking care of my soul, quite honestly. I don’t feel good about who I am if I’m not connected to a larger issue.”
On how she keeps fit, she says: “For the last three years, I’ve worked out with my trainer, A.J. Fisher, three or four times a week. I started working with her when I got the role of Okoye. I was about to go into pre-production, and I felt like I needed to amp up my fitness and endurance. I call her the MacGyver of trainers because she can create an elaborate course in your living room with just a coffee table and a couple of resistance bands. She mixes things up—it’s never the same workout, so your body can’t get used to it. She uses methods I was already connected to, like the Alexander technique, yoga, and Pilates, and incorporates them into a very rigorous workout that enables me to strengthen and become more holistically stronger. For me, the coolest thing is when you feel the work pay off. You exercise a lot, and you’re doing your job, shooting long hours. And then you go to work one day, and you have to do something physical…and your body just knows how to do it. That happened for me in The Walking Dead and Black Panther. I thought, Oh, my God, I did that, and it was not difficult. And I knew that my body was getting smarter as I was devoting hours to its upkeep. It delivered at the moments when I needed it to.”
According to her, combining these routines with eating “clean” helped her get in shape. So, if you are interested in keeping fit like Danai Gurira, you might want to consider adopting the finer points of her lifestyle.
Read more from Shape Magazine here