You might have seen a few of her movies on screen. Maggie Q is known for kicking shins and awesome stunts in action movies like Mission Impossible III and Live Free and Die Hard.
She is also popular on the small screen for her roles in Nikita and Designated Survivor.
Behind her impressive stamina-filled and vigorous performance is a plant-filled diet. That’s right, Maggie, a vocal environmental activist, is a vegan. But she doesn’t want to be called a vegan.
According to her, it is weird to be called such because it has become a negative term, and people are judged by it. She preferred plant-based because it is more inclusive and friendlier.
She attributes her perfect physique and stamina-filled performance to her vegan diet and strict workout regimen. This article is all about Maggie Q’s diet plan and workout routine that you can adopt with your routine on your way to a successful weight loss.
Before we jump into these topics, let us get to know who Maggie Q is. Here is her short story.
Who is Maggie Q?
Maggie Q is an American model, actress, entrepreneur, and animal rights activist. She became famous in her titular role as Nikita and the Divergent trilogy.
Her real name is Margaret Denise Quigley, but she is more popularly known as Maggie Q. As a student, Maggie originally planned to be a veterinary scientist. However, she cannot afford the school fees, which forced her to get into modeling instead.
It was during her modeling days that she met Jackie Chan who introduced her to acting. She debuted in 1998, and from then on she enjoyed a successful career, appearing in several Chinese and American movies.
Aside from her busy acting career, Maggie Q is also active in many PETA campaigns advocating and promoting animal rights. She was named PETA’s sexiest vegan in 2017.
Although she maintains a busy schedule, Maggie Q has managed to maintain a lean and powerful body, which is vital for her to perform the sophisticated stunts her role demands.
Maggie is 5 feet 7 inches and weighs 103 pounds (47 kg). According to her, she does not attribute her lean and toned body to being vegan for decades alone. She attributes this to sticking to a healthy diet and working out. In addition, she is also a very big fan of mindfulness.
Maggie Q’s Healthy Eating Habits
Maggie Q has been following a plant-based diet for more than two decades now. Her main staple includes dark green leafy vegetables, seaweed, kale, whole grains, ginger, parsley, legumes, liquid aminos, sprouted nuts, flaxseed, and fruits.
Her decision to go vegan and transition to a plant-based diet is driven by her deep-rooted convictions in environmental impact and animal cruelty. She reinforced her healthy lifestyle with probiotics, turmeric, wheatgrass, ginger, and lemon shots.
As you can see, she focuses on her digestion and her main priority is eating the right food that enhances her bodily functions. Looking at her figure and how she maintained it for the last two decades, we can say that she follows a very strict diet.
According to Maggie Q, she has done this by staying motivated because the routine helps her stay happy and focused.
Maggie’s meal plan begins with a green juice made with wheatgrass, ginger, turmeric, and lemon or a smoothie. She loves to eat doughnuts and still eats them in moderation. Aside from doughnuts she also indulges in her favorite dish kitchari. This is an ayurvedic dish that is made with rice, beans, and spices.
She loves her food hot and spicy so, the flavor is necessary. It is also important for her to have probiotics as it can help her maintain a healthy gut.
The star also takes protein shakes after her workouts. She always has wheatgrass on her diet because it keeps her skin healthy and glowing, makes her feel energized, and detoxifies her body.
Here is a recipe for Maggie Q’s protein smoothie.
- 1 banana
- 1 cup berries, peaches, or mango
- 2 scoops of brown rice or pea protein powder
- 1 tbsp almond butter
- 1 tbsp maca powder
- 5 cups of cashew milk
- Fresh mint leaves
- Ice
Breakdown of Maggie Q’s Diet
To get a better picture of what Maggie Q’s diet looks like, let us look at some of the servings in each of her meals.
First Meal: She wakes up to an Acai bowl with blackberries, aloe, coconut meat, blueberries, turmeric, goji berries, cherries, almond milk, ginger, funnel, and coconut oil.
Second Meal: For her second meal, she takes a smoothie which consists of pea protein powder, banana, almond milk, butter, peaches, cashew milk, ice, maca powder, and fresh mint leaves.
Third Meal: Her third meal is a rich wholesome plant-based food. It is Kitchari with mung beans, Basmati rice, mustard seed, vegetable stock, turmeric, cilantro cumin, coriander, and sea salt.
Foods to Eat
Maggie practices mindful eating and she makes sure that she is putting energy-rich foods into her diet. These foods are all plant-based products, and she adds a lot of greens and probiotics. Here is a list of the food that you can copy from Maggie Q’s diet:
- Vegetables, particularly dark, leafy greens
- Whole grains
- Fruits
- Legumes (lentils, beans)
- Seaweed
- Liquid aminos
- Flaxseed
- Spirulina
- Ginger
- Sprouted beans
What Not to Eat
Maggie’s Vietnamese origin was a critical hurdle when she was transitioning from an animal-based to a plant-based diet. This is because many Vietnamese heritage dishes contain meat in different forms.
But, her commitment to feeling and looking better and her animal rights advocacies pushed her to create her plant-based recipes and diet plans.
Maggie Q’s diet emphasizes the non-consumption of animal-based products. Therefore, if you want to strictly follow a plant-based diet, you should avoid the following foods:
- Meat
- Fish
- Dairy products
- Processed foods
- Eggs
- Animal Byproducts
- Chemical additives
- Artificial ingredients
- Junk Food
Maggie Q’s Supplements
Despite subsisting on a purely plant-based diet, Maggie has struggled with gut health. After consulting with a professional doctor, she found a solution in probiotics.
She conducted thorough research on nutrition and wellness and partnered with a company to develop her line of wellness supplements called ActivatedYou. She uses these supplements to fill in the gap in her nutrition.
- Probiotics: These help her in hastening the digestive process and metabolism. Probiotics are live microorganisms with plenty of health benefits and maintain a healthy gut and immune system.
- Vegan Omegas: The most common source of Omega-3 are fishes but since Maggie Q is a vegan, she gets her Omega-3 and Omega-6 from vegan sources. These plant-based omegas help her in bone health and anti-aging.
- Bone Supplements: Most calcium sources are from dairy products. For a vegan like Maggie, she needs supplements from plant sources to keep her bones strong and healthy.
- Multivitamins: She needs to meet the required vitamins and minerals from supplements to help her body with stamina and performance.
All these supplements that Maggie uses are plant-based products.
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Creating New Recipes
As mentioned earlier, Maggie Q has Vietnamese heritage and because of this, she finds it challenging to transition to veganism at first. Most of their classic dishes have meat.
Maggie says she finds it hard yet interesting to create new recipes to fit into her plant-based diet plan. She worked with her mother to create vegan-friendly Vietnamese dishes which she and her family enjoy.
In a plant-based diet plan, you will find that it requires low protein, medium fats, and high carbs. Maggie likes to eat brown rice, and unprocessed grain containing lots of fiber, and digests slowly.
She also includes fresh juices made by blending apples, celery, kale, cucumber, parsley, ginger, and Swiss chard in her diet.
Maggie Q’s Workout
Aside from keeping up with a healthy diet, the secret to living a healthy lifestyle is exercising. Maggie loves to exercise daily and she switches up her workout routine regularly to experiment with different variations. Here are some of the details of Maggie’s exercise routine.
Here sample workout routine:
- Day 1: Yoga
- Day 2: Spin class
- Day 3: Yoga
- Day 4: Swimming
- Day 5: Yoga
- Day 6: Spin, swim, or run
- Day 7: Boxing, MMA, a sport like a game of tennis or a soccer
- Yoga
Maggie is enthusiastic about practicing yoga, which has laid down the foundation of health awareness in her. She practices some form of Hatha Yoga to increase circulation and oxygenation and influence her life experiences. Yoga is the finest workout for building strength, preventing injuries, and improving respiration.
This workout makes her more flexible than any of her other activities. It allows her to perform stunts with ease.
Some of her favorite yoga poses include:
- Shin cradle: strengthens the calves, hamstring, and hip muscles.
- Crow pose: it requires full-body integration that strengthens the arms, wrist, upper back, and abdominal muscles.
- Forearm Stand: it flushes the brain with blood and oxygen by taking the pressure from the feet.
- Swimming
Maggie has had a close connection to the water since she was born in Hawaii. She included swimming in her workout routine because it strengthens her body.
It also helps her increase physical endurance, cardiovascular fitness, and muscle tone. According to her she even experienced swimming with a whale shark.
- Boxing
She also added boxing to her workout. Boxing is not only the best aerobic exercise it can also tone your muscles and strengthen your upper body. Aside from this, it also strengthens the arm.
You can also try boxing if you want variation. Walking on the treadmill for an hour can be boring. It is something worth trying.
- Pilates
For those who are on a weight loss journey, you can add Pilates to your routine. Maggie loves this form of exercise as it helps with flexibility, spine stabilization, and posture. It is a low-impact activity that she enjoys which is why she included it in her fitness program.
It may seem easy, but Pilates is not simple. It is difficult, like Yoga and you have to put a lot of effort into the routines.
In 1999, Jackie Chan picked Maggie Q for an active role in the movie, Gen-X Cops. From then on, Maggie has been doing all the stunts in her movies. She has practiced Yoga for more than two decades to stretch her entire body and flush her organs.
The spin class helps her develop lean muscle mass, while swimming, running, and jogging keep her fit and reduce the risk of injury in her action scenes.
Maggie Q’s Recommendations on Healthy Living
What keeps Maggie on edge? Check out some of her words of wisdom.
Learn to zen out wherever you are
According to Maggie, when you are in a stressful situation, you should create a ‘world within a world.’
Here is what she does: “I just pick a focal point, block it all out, and breathe. Find those moments that you can give yourself – you might not see them at first because you are too charged.”
Keep your furry friends in the company
Maggie says she loves hiking in the mountains with her dogs. For her, it is the time that they bond together. She loves being in nature to feel balanced, and her dogs always make it happen.
Build a community you can be real with
For her final advice, she says that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But the comments she values the most are the ones that came from the people who know her and her heart. Those comments are what she held dear.
Conclusion
Achieving Maggie’s health awareness and physical well-being is not an easy feat. It did not take overnight but many years of struggles and hard work. She stayed in great shape through the decades with the help of a fantastic diet and workout routine.
Like her, you too can achieve a healthy and fit body. You can follow her diet and workout routine or take inspiration from it. Whatever you do, you need to work hard for it. Take her daily routine as an inspiration and motivation to get the healthy body you need.
