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Diet

How Audrey Hepburn Stayed Thin By Eating ‘A Little Bit of Everything’

Audrey Hepburn was known for being a superstar actress and a timeless beauty, but also for having an enviable figure. So, it’s no wonder why many folks — even today — are curious about Audrey Hepburn’s diet. While many modern celebs in this day and age turn to green juice, limp salads, and fad diets to stay trim, Audrey Hepburn’s approach to eating couldn’t have been more different.

According to those who knew and loved Audrey the most, she absolutely adored pasta — and did not shy away from eating her favorite carb by the plateful. Her youngest son, Luca Dotti, explained to People: “She would eat it almost every day. Her absolute favorite was spaghetti with tomato sauce. She could live on that alone.” (Psst: If you want to try making Audrey Hepburn’s spaghetti al pomodoro for yourself at home, you can find her recipe right here.)

Although Audrey devoured pasta quite often, it certainly wasn’t the only thing she enjoyed. Robert Wolders, who was Audrey’s partner from 1980 until her death in 1993, revealed more of her go-to meals in a separate People interview: “We had brown bread with jam for breakfast, lunch would be chicken or veal or pasta, often with vegetables from the garden, and for dinner we often had soup with chicken and vegetables. She had chocolate after dinner, baking chocolate. She had a finger or two of Scotch at night.”

As you can probably guess from Robert’s recollection, Audrey Hepburn’s diet really wasn’t much of a diet at all. So how did she eat all those decadent foods (pasta, chocolate, and Scotch, for starters), and still stay trim her entire life — even as she got older?

Robert credits Audrey’s ever-trim figure to a healthy metabolism, a habit of walking for miles at a time, and for not being “excessive” (even when it came to exercise). Meanwhile, Audrey’s son Luca chalks it up to his beloved mother being good at listening to her body and being “lucky with her physique.” 

Luca revealed in an interview with Yahoo! Lifestyle that Audrey also did a detox day about once per month. This detox would consist of fruits, veggies, yogurt, and tons of water. According to Luca, Audrey was most likely to do this detox to get over jet lag after a long flight.

But on an average day at home, Luca revealed in a Bon Appetit interview that Audrey had a regular knack for checking that meals on the table included a variety of different colors. These colors often came from produce such as carrots, potatoes, farmers’ market vegetables, and fruit. As we know now, research suggests that eating nutritious foods with different colors can reap many health benefits. Sounds like Audrey was ahead of her time — in more ways than one!

“People think because she was skinny that she had an eating disorder, but it’s not true,” Luca told People. “She loved Italian food and pasta. She ate a lot of grains, not a lot of meat, and a little bit of everything.”

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