Balance: Healthy Hollywood LivingSalma Hayek: ‘I’m not a skinny girl’
Take a look at Salma Hayek and a lot of adjectives come to mind: Sexy, sultry, svelte. Chubby definitely isn't one of them. And yet, the movie star herself seems to think that, thanks to her love of gastronomy, she's closing in on chubby. (Salma, trust us, you're not!)
"I'm not a skinny girl. I push it. I'm at the limit of chubbiness at all times, but I'm happy at all times," the actress says in the October issue of More magazine. "Everybody has a weakness. Mine is food. If you love food and you love red wine and they put you in France, you're in a good place and you're in a bad place at the same time."
To keep herself on the right side of her fitness goals, she weighs herself every day. "I have to have an alarm number. When you get to that number, you have to start putting it in reverse," the 46-year-old shares. "I don't have stamina in exercise … but I have it in life."
One thing that helps Hayek, who's mom to 5-year-old daughter Valentina, simply want to stay in shape is her husband of three and a half years, François-Henri Pinault, the French billionaire and CEO of luxury brands holding company PPR. "I think if I was not in love, I would probably let myself go faster. Love gives me the vanity to continue. I'm not necessarily vain, but when I gained 50-something pounds in the pregnancy, it did something to me," the "Savages" star confesses. "Since then, at least I make an effort."
The Mexican-born former soap star also admits that the career insecurities she suffered in her 30s vanished once she fell in love … and into motherhood in her 40s. "I could have done anything. I could have played anyone, but I never got the chance. And I was very frustrated for a long time," explains Hayek, whose first major American film role was opposite Antonio Banderas in 1995's "Desperado." "But then I became so happy about other things in my life that it didn't matter anymore. A good career — it's a great thing to have. But I see a lot of people with great careers who are not happy people."
Not rushing into motherhood, says Hayek, and waiting until she was 41 to have her daughter was "the best thing that ever happened" to her, for a variety of reasons. "I think I'm a better person now, I understand things better now, so I can be a better guide. I've done a lot of things with my life that I'm satisfied with. So I don't have the sensation that a child is limiting me," explains the actress. "If I sometimes have to stop everything and just be a mother, I'm like, 'Ooh, that's cool. I love it.' It's different for everyone, but in my case, it was better to do it now. Not mention I found the right guy now, too."
Previous relationships (famous ex-boyfriends include Edward Norton and Josh Lucas) made her believe marriage didn't work, and was an institution filled with miserable people, she reveals. But her marriage to Pinault (whom she says gives her strength and courage and doesn't mind the fact she's a strong woman), changed all that. And apparently, the two keep the spark alive by taking advantage of a very modern trend — sexting. "Of course, I can show you a text that would surprise you," she says in the interview. "I can show you a thousand things. But I'm not going to."
The October issue of More magazine is on newsstands now.
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