Lea Michele did a brief interview with People Magazine about one of her favorite topics, diet and exercise. If there’s one thing I like about Lea, it’s the fact that she has high self esteem and she’ll tell you about it. She’s not faux humble or trying to act like she’s not hot sh*t. Lea was asked by People for her motivation for working out and instead of saying she loves it or it’s fun she said she does it so she can eat whatever she wants, which I guess is what works for her. She thinks of her favorite restaurant and getting a nice meal afterwards.

On what she tells herself to stay motivated to workout
“Knowing that I can eat whatever I want afterward always makes me feel good!” she tells PEOPLE at the AeriREAL pop-up shop in New York on Thursday. “I need a goal at the end of anything that I do.”

When pushing through a workout, Michele reminds herself that “at the end, there’s this great place that I’m going to get the most delicious salad or sushi!”

In addition to post-workout meal motivation, she also relies on her pals: “I work out with friends often and I hate bailing on my friends,” she says. “If I make a plan, I don’t like to cancel it, so I always work out with a buddy and it helps me to be accountable,” adding, “You just feel so good after you work out.”

She complements her fitness routine with a healthy diet.

“I just did vegan for the past four weeks,” she shares. “And I did an amazing cleanse, the Beaming cleanse. That’s my new favorite.”

[From People]

Did anyone else catch that little plug at the end for a specific brand of cleanses? Here’s another celebrity who is touting cleanses, probably as some kind of endorsement deal. That’s a shame because we don’t need to “cleanse” our bodies to lose weight. As for what she said about working out – Shape points out that working out to “earn” food can be a symptom of exercise bulimia. I don’t know if that’s something Lea should be concerned about or if she just was trying to come up with an answer on the fly, but again she doesn’t seem to have a problem with being candid with the press. I like what she said about how it makes you feel good, and personally I work out because I enjoy it. It’s intrinsically motivating, to use a fancy word, and I consider it like a treat for myself. Plus I do workouts which are fun for me. I don’t get it when people say they hate working out. If you don’t like what you’re doing as exercise, try to find something you enjoy. There are so many options you can do from home too.

New workout obsession! @bodybysimone ?? with this babe @caraasantana ??

A photo posted by Lea Michele (@leamichele) on Nov 19, 2016 at 7:20am PST

NYC// Bed series 2

A photo posted by Lea Michele (@leamichele) on Nov 5, 2016 at 8:55am PDT

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A photo posted by Lea Michele (@leamichele) on Oct 23, 2016 at 3:38pm PDT

Photos credit: WENN and Instagram/Lea Michele