GETTING RIPPED
Tired of feeling tired, Ada Nicodemou is overhauling her health—and life
30Tired of being tired, Home and Away’s Ada Nicodemou overhauls her life with an eight-week fitness plan.
Looking at Ada Nicodemou, it’s hard to imagine her going back for seconds at the table—let alone thirds. And yet, “I’m one of those people who’s always starving,” the Home and Away star tells WHO. “Sometimes I can have two to three breakfasts!”
Streamlining her eating is just one draw card of an eight-week health-and-fitness challenge the actress, 40, is embarking on. “I like having a goal to work towards,” says Nicodemou, single mum to Johnas, 5. “Over the past year, I just haven’t been focusing as much on myself and my health. I wake up tired all the time. I just don’t feel like I’m living life to my full potential. I have never dieted—i’m not dieting now—but I’m definitely going to watch what I’m eating: no alcohol, no sugar and train much more. Before Johnas, this is what I used to do.”
Reclaiming her former vitality via trainer Lia Jones’s plan (see box) is Nicodemou’s priority. “I’ve let myself go a little bit—more with wellness than weight,” she says. “I can’t actually remember the last time I woke up and felt as if I’d had a good night’s sleep … You know what we are like as women—just go, go, go. It’s important for me to spend the next eight weeks thinking, ‘OK, Ada, let’s reassess everything.’”
Beginning with her cravings for the sweet stuff. “I want to look at my diet and see if cutting out sugar makes a difference to my energy levels,” says Nicodemou, adding that afternoon-tea breaks on-set start off “really well” with carrots and hummus, “but then I see the lollies at the other end of the table!” The other no-no during the eight weeks will be alcohol. “I don’t drink every night but I love wine, I love champagne,” she notes. “I feel like I haven’t stopped drinking champagne since my birthday last year in Italy, and it all starts to add up.”
For Nicodemou, preparing for the challenge is proving to be a crash course in nutrition—including the finer points of carb-curbing. “Not so many bananas, more blueberries and strawberries,” she declares. “I used to eat a fair bit of sushi, thinking it was healthy, but that rice is full of sugar. I’m really going to limit dairy as well—just for the eight weeks, I couldn’t do it all the time.”
Food is a big part of her life: “I’m a Greek girl and we love our food,” she says with a laugh. “Haloumi, lamb—oh, how we love our food!” Although a healthy eater, Nicodemou’s Achilles heel is snacking. “Watching TV, I will sit and eat anything in the house—little nibbles, chocolate, cheese and dates. Don’t get me started on fresh dates! After dinner, it all goes out the window.”
Fine-tuning her diet via this challenge is about optimising her health and not losing weight, says Nicodemou. A petite 1.55m and a size 6–8, the actress weighs a healthy 50kg for her height. “I don’t really like the fact that I do know how much I weigh,” says Nicodemou, who only started to get on the scales two years ago. “After pregnancy, you never go back to what you were,” she reflects. “I will try to concentrate more on body fat and sculpting [through the challenge]. If I could drop 2kg, great, but that’s not my main focus.”
That remains “being the best I can be for 41”—the age she’ll be post-challenge— and being the best mum for Johnas, who started school this year. Having more energy for her little boy, and more energy for life, is the star’s ultimate goal, as she sets out on this health journey (and gets used to a single brekkie, perhaps). “As mothers, we worry about everyone else and not so much about our own wellness,” she points out. “This challenge is more about taking a bit of time out to re-evaluate, look at myself and my health and maybe inspire a few people out there to make that their focus.”
“I don’t feel like I’m living life to my full potential”