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Sean Kanan shares his fitness and nutrition tips

What is your general approach to nutrition? “I make a conscious effort to try and eat healthy. Period. I haven’t always — and I’ve cut out a lot of stuff. I’ve cut out processed foods.”

Describe what you typically eat in a day. “It’s kind of a mix. If I need to skinny it up for something, I’ll do intermittent fasting but I do find it painful and hard, because I do like to have breakfast. I will skip breakfast so I can get a good 16-hour fast in. When I have the chance and I’m eating more, I incorporate healthy things into my diet. I drink a lot of matcha, the Japanese green tea. It has a lot of antioxidants like catechins, which are good for you. I’m a big fan of turmeric. I also love Miracle Noodle, which are these noodles that have no calories, no carbs, no nothing. They are made out of mushrooms, but they don’t taste like mushrooms. You use them for stir-fry and for pasta, and it allows me to have pasta — and it’s guilt-free! It’s really filling. It’s got a lot of fiber and it fills me up. I don’t do keto [low-carb eating]; keto didn’t work for me…. I just try and make the best choices I can make.”

How do you eat healthy when you travel, which is often? “Eating healthy on the road is really difficult. Generally speaking, when I land, I’ll go to a market and make sure I’ve got some healthy stuff in the [hotel] room. Preparation and having options is the best way to prevent yourself from eating crap.”

How do you eat healthy when you’re at the studio? “I always make my own lunch. That allows me to eat healthy at work. I’ll bring some quinoa, some kind of protein, hard-boiled eggs, a little fruit, which is great on those long days, so I make sure I have something in the dressing room to nibble on. I need to eat throughout the day to keep my blood sugar up.”

What about working out? “I’m working out with a trainer four days a week. I had a very serious, and still do, rotator cuff injury, so now it’s a combination of getting and staying in shape, and rehabbing my shoulder. It’s difficult to balance an injury and be at the gym, but I made the decision when I turned 55 to take better care of myself. We just work certain areas. It’s not about powerlifting. It’s all about working on small, concentrated areas.”

What do you do when you’re not able to work out? “I’ve gotten back into stretching. As we get older, you get less limber and it impinges on everything you do, so I’ve made a concerted effort to increase my flexibility by stretching. I think it’s essential.”

How do you stay motivated when you don’t feel like working out? “When I was recording the audio book for Way of the Cobra, I was hearing out loud my own words about discipline, which is something everyone struggles with. There is a difference between discipline and self-discipline. Discipline is when you have an external force exerted on you. Self-discipline is what you impose on yourself. You can get fantastic results with a personal trainer, or it pushes you getting up at 5:30 in the morning and going to the gym yourself. If you can instill self-discipline within yourself, it’s a wonderful thing, but do whatever works best for you. When I don’t want to work out, I bribe myself. I make deals with myself. I will listen to a motivational speech on YouTube and that gets me fired up to go…. Sometimes it’s as simple as flipping on a scene from Rocky where he’s pushing himself. Whatever it is to trick my mind into getting hyped up to go and do it, do it!”

Sean’s Top Three Tips:

* “When it comes to cheating, if I want to have a piece of something that’s naughty, I’ll have a little of it  — so I won’t wind up eating something horrendous two days later.”

* “As I mentioned, I love to prepare my own meals because I can prepare the portions. I know exactly what’s going in it, and the ritual of preparing the meal helps me stay focused on my diet because you’re putting time into the process of eating healthy, and it somehow seems to help me stay more committed.”

* “Walking is the best exercise that we almost never think about. When I’m working, I have to stay relatively close to the studio so I can walk to the studio lot. When I walk back and forth to the studio, I know I’m going to get maybe four miles of cardio in. Even if I’m exhausted and I’ve got lines to learn for the next day when I’m leaving, it always makes me feel better.”

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