Why Zoe Saldana hasn’t been to the gym in a year

Zoe Saldana hasn’t been to the gym in a year?and the actress is perfectly fine with that!

Yet while it may not seem fair to learn that the Latina beauty looks as lovely as ever without the daily grind of gym work, the actress indicates the break was much needed after years of training hard for action movie roles.

SEE ALSO: The Zoe Saldana diet and fitness routine

I’ve been an active person my whole life. The past year has been the only time in my life that I haven’t been to the gym,” she confessed to The Edit, while explaining to O Magazine, “You can’t forget that you only live once, you have to enjoy the pleasures of life and you also have to enjoy the work in life. That means that if you like to eat, then work out, be healthy. Keep that heart strong and healthy!” 

Zoe recently celebrated her 36th birthday, and while she’s self-admittedly laid back, she understands the importance of a healthy diet and exercise. They key for Saldana is balance, something she advocates for when discussing her fitness routine with the public.

“Sometimes I pig out on pasta, but that’s OK,” she told Women’s Health. “The next day, I just eat healthy. If I didn’t have a trainer to push me, I’d go walk for about 15 minutes.”

The dangers of overtraining

After staring in a number of high-profile films, it’s no wonder that Zoe Saldana needed a break from the strenuous workouts associated with action movies.

Celebrity movie workouts are generally 6-7 days a week, for hours at the gym, sometimes multiple times a day. Actors and actresses are also expected to adhere to strict diet management, sometimes having to wake up in the middle of the night to eat, depending on what they are training for.

If they aren’t careful, celebrities can fall victim to overtraining syndrome, a condition where the body is continually pushed beyond its limits, resulting in fatigue and a plateau from progress.

“If sufficient rest is not included in a training program then regeneration cannot occur and performance plateaus. If this imbalance between excess training and inadequate rest persists then performance will decline,” states Rice University.

“Overtraining can best be defined as the state where the athlete has been repeatedly stressed by training to the point where rest is no longer adequate to allow for recovery. The ‘overtraining syndrome’ is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months. Athletes and coaches also know it as ‘burnout’ or ‘staleness.’ This is different from the day to day variation in performance and post exercise tiredness that is common in conditioned athletes. Overtraining is marked by cumulative exhaustion that persists even after recovery periods.”

SEE ALSO: Does Zoe Saldana have the right idea when it comes to healthy sex?

It is not uncommon for professional athletes to suffer from overtraining syndrome, and every so often the media is flooded with reports that an actor or actress has become ill on set from poor diet, lack of sleep, or overexertion.

For Zoe Saldana, taking a break from too much fitness likely doesn’t mean taking a break from all fitness. The actress still makes sure to stay active, but she is allowing her body the recovery period it needs before she takes on her next action-packed role.