FORTY & FABULOUS
Jessica Simpson’s more confident that ever
Clad in a cow-print bikini and cowboy hat, you’d be forgiven if you thought Jessica Simpson’s recent Instagram shot was a flashback. Looking as youthful as ever, the mum of three showed off her toned body in swimwear from her new collection. “YEE-HAW to my final days in my 30’s,” she captioned the snap.
Simpson, who turns 40 on July 10, has been through many body battles during her time in the spotlight. But it was after the birth of her third child, Birdie Mae, in March 2019, that the star decided to make her health a top priority.
“I didn’t expect to gain as much weight with my third,” she told WHO’s sister publication People last September.
“I thought I’d learned my lesson, but apparently, that’s just the way God made me: very hungry and pregnant.”
But her dedication and commitment to her health is what saw Simpson shed a whopping 45kg over the course of the last year. “I am working really hard right now,” she also shared. “It’s not easy at all, but I am determined to feel good.”
Instead of opting for crazed workouts and deprivation diets, the
star took simple steps to kick off her weightloss journey – steps being the operative word.
“I have been doing a lot of walking
– getting my steps in not only burns calories but it also helps me clear my head and get focused,” Simpson said of the 14,000 steps she’d aim for a day.
With the guidance of her long-time personal trainer Harley Pasternak, Simpson aimed to form healthy habits that would help her well beyond the six-month weight-loss goal she had set for herself.
“It had to be more than just getting back from her baby weight, but how do I keep whatever I am doing now forever,” Pasternak told E! News of the weight-loss plan he and her doctor set out for Simpson. “That’s why we are not a big fan of doing any extreme diet or radical forms of exercise.”
The star’s 14,000 steps a day were a “big part” of losing the 45kg she gained during her pregnancy. “She could do it by going for walks with her family, walking on the treadmill watching TV, just moving her body in a non-intense way,” explained Pasternak.
Simpson also implemented changes to her diet, making sure to eat three meals a day that were high in lean protein, along with two snacks such as parmesan green beans and a handful of almonds. But Pasternak was adamant not to deprive her of a treat or two.
“If she has a birthday party one night and a date night another night, she’s going to indulge both of those nights, but that’s it,” Pasternak told People. “It’s about balancing in a way that doesn’t make it painful or
too much of a departure from your life before that.”
When Simpson had fully recovered from the birth of Birdie Mae, Pasternak also introduced circuit workouts to her routine to help build her endurance and keep her weight-loss tracking. “We had her doing three to four days a week of resistance exercise, a circuit of a few different body parts per day,” he explained. “We’d pick different body parts each of the three or four workouts a week.”
Looking healthier and stronger physically is just one step Simpson has taken to lead a better life going into her 40s. The singer turned actress turned fashion designer has also done a lot of work on her inner self to help overcome years of substance abuse and body image issues, which she opened up about in her 2019 memoir, Open Book.
“In doing this book, I mean, it was so therapeutic for me,” she said during an interview last year. “I was sober. I’ve been sober for two and a half years. That was just with alcohol. And I’ve felt so much clarity and such a passion to share it with others.”
In her memoir, Simpson documented her difficult time dealing with body image – including her years of resorting to diet pills after her record label told her to lose weight.
“I’ve been bullied through my life for being every size that there is – I’ve been a size 2 to a size 14,” Simpson wrote in her book.
“Body image was a hard thing, especially being so young and trying to fit in to pop culture. Everything was about dancing around and showing your stomach. For me, I thought I was signed to a record label for my voice. I grew up as a minister’s daughter. I would be on stage and have to cover up. And all of a sudden, they were wanting half my clothes off, and I was insecure with that.” Simpson also struggled with alcohol abuse, admitting she was “killing myself with all the drinking and pills”. She reached her breaking point in November 2017. “Before that, I was pouring drinks at seven in the morning,” Simpson confessed. “I just wasn’t clear, and I wasn’t present. That just isn’t who I am as a person, and I didn’t like what I saw. It’s not the way that I was raised.”
Now healthy, happy and sober, Simpson is revelling in her new-found confidence. “Now, I feel like I [am] better than I’ve ever been and stronger than I’ve ever been,” she added in her memoir. “And I celebrate myself and I believe in myself again.”
“I have been doing a lot of walking”