Melissa Alcantara is celebrating getting older – in her workout gear. In a new social media post the fitness trainer who helped Kim Kardashian get into her best shape ever via bodybuilding shows off her amazing body in a two-piece exercise set. “I’m going to be 40 soon and I’m feeling freer in so many ways…I know more of what I want. I’m less and less afraid to think about me first. I speak up more. Your best life doesn’t always need a plan, It just requires the courage to say ‘that chapter is closed. Let’s start a new one.’ What’s your next chapter going to be?” she captioned the Instagram post. How does she approach diet, fitness, and self-care? Here is everything you need to know about her lifestyle habits.
She Struggled with Her Weight and Had Unhealthy Habits
In an interview with Joe Wicks Melissa reveals she was an “unfit, super broke” waitress living in Brooklyn, who gained 70 pounds while pregnant. “My entire life I’d been yo-yo dieting,” she said. “I always had low self-esteem. I was big, then small, then chunky. I would starve myself. I didn’t do it the right way.”
She Drinks Coffee and Meditates
Melissa starts her day at 4am with a cup of coffee and a meditation from her favorite book, Living a Life of Awareness: Daily Meditation on the Toltec Path, which helps her “start the day off right.” “When you meditate, you may clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to your stress,” says the Mayo Clinic. Benefits include:
- Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
- Building skills to manage your stress
- Increasing self-awareness
- Focusing on the present
- Reducing negative emotions
- Increasing imagination and creativity
- Increasing patience and tolerance
- Lowering resting heart rate
- Lowering resting blood pressure
- Improving sleep quality
She's Recently Debunked
Melissa recently debulked her body. “No matter what I do I will always have an athletic build, it’s just the way I am naturally (genetics),” she wrote in a post, revealing what she did over two years to slim down to 140-pound figure. “Lift 3-4 times a week, not 6 like I used to,” she revealed. The second thing Melissa did to bulk down? “Not lift as heavy,” she writes, “mostly with upper body exercises,” she says. She also put more of a “focus on lower body exercises,” she writes. “I’m way more muscular upper body.”
She Chose Herself
Melissa took charge of her life, starting with waking up at 5am every day to exercise. “It morphed from me just wanting to have abs to me saying ‘yes’ to myself, choosing myself, and putting love into myself every single day,” she told Women’s Health. “And that was a whole new ball game for me.’”
She Changed Lifestyle Habits
As for her diet, Mel changed it up. “Eat intuitively, lots of rice and chicken and some drinks here and there,” she says. “More resting and sleeping and less stress,” also helped Mel achieve her body goals, she writes. “Basically, I’m just living life doing other things than lifting weights and being in the gym,” she concludes.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock
Shutterstock
