Annie Thorisdottir is sharing a motivational message with her followers – in her workout gear. In a new social media post the CrossFit athlete shows off her impressive physique in a two-piece exercise set during a workout clip. “I don’t know who needs to hear this…but everything works out,” she writes over the Instagram video. How does she approach diet, fitness, and self-care? Here is everything you need to know about her lifestyle habits.
After her training sessions Annie relies on a certain “fruit based” smoothie “with protein mixed into it, and spinach, ginger,” exclaiming “it’s so tasty, like it’s so good!” to Women’s Health. Fruit is the “base” with “2 cubes of frozen pineapple-blueberry mixed fruit” and “100g of fresh ginger’” and a “handful of spinach.” She also adds 3g of whey protein, one scoop of glutamine and creatine. She calls it a “nutritional explosion” and “sometimes it almost tastes like a pina colada,” she says. She adds it is a “quick and easy way to get a good amount of calories after training.”
Annie has a history in fitness. “Before CrossFit I was a gymnast and I was looking for something challenging, so I signed up to random competitions all over Iceland and one of those competitions was a CrossFit competition,” she told Women’s Health. “I didn’t really know what it was but I was quite competitive and I succeeded and actually ended up winning the whole competition! It opened the door for me to believe that I could participate in anything that I want to participate in.” She still practices. “I train two to three times a day. Physically my training varies, maybe it will be gymnastics; I’ll be working on gymnastics conditioning, that’s the first session, so gymnastic techniques or gymnastics strength,” she says.
Her “second session will be Olympic weight lifting and strength training and squats, then the last session would be more control work,” she continues. “I have one day a week for a physio day or a lower volume day where I will train once and then I have one day a week for active recovery.”
“I will dedicate one day a week to active recovery so I go for an easy swim or an easy warm up and dynamic stretching to help my body recover,” Annie says. “Stretching keeps the muscles flexible, strong, and healthy, and we need that flexibility to maintain a range of motion in the joints,” says Harvard Health. “Without it, the muscles shorten and become tight. Then, when you call on the muscles for activity, they are weak and unable to extend all the way. That puts you at risk for joint pain, strains, and muscle damage.”
Annie eats a big meal in the morning. “On a typical training day I would eat four fried eggs, three pieces of bacon and then a little oatmeal and that would be my breakfast. Then I would train and after that first session, I would have a smoothie with banana, protein powder, and some almonds. This is high calorie so I have it before another session,” she tells Women’s Health. For lunch, “I tend to have a chicken salad, and then I will train again before having a snack like a banana or a protein bar, and then I’ll make dinner. Dinner can be pretty much anything, meat, salad, I actually do have fajitas probably three times a week!” She focuses on eating whole food. “For me, it’s all about remembering to eat enough high-quality food! I’ve tried Paleo; I’ve tried a lot of diets and I think what they all taught me was what’s going inside my body effects my training – most importantly where I get carbohydrates. I stopped eating bread and pasta and just saw how it affected me, I stopped eating dairy and saw how that affected me. I then added things back into my diet to see if I felt any different. I would say I kind of eat paleo but I add some extra carbohydrates and I eat dairy as well. Paleo didn’t really work for me because I don’t think I was getting enough carbs, so I wasn’t recovering well enough, I lost a lot of weight. I also don’t count my macros, no.”
Annie has a unique self-care method. “I do contrast bathing [treating muscles by immersion in cold and hot water to reduce swelling and inflammation] every other day. We have a hot tap and a cold tap at the gym, so if I’m pushing myself really hard on something I might even do it in between training sessions, just to get the body and the nervous system ready for the next session,” she tells Women’s Health.
Annie also understands the importance of rest. “It’s sleep that really matters for recovery, that’s when the body is really focused on healing itself,” she says. What are the health benefits of sleep? According to the Sleep Foundation, getting enough z’s is a mood booster, promotes heart health, regulates blood sugar, improves mental function, restores your immune system, helps relieve stress, and aids in weight loss.
