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Ballet can be hard on your joints, and when you're on a movie set doing take after take, it can become really repetitive.
Even if you're having a snack, enjoying it in a beautiful teacup or on a lovely plate makes it feel like more of an event.
Ballet Beautiful has made my pregnancy a joy. I've avoided back pain and swelling by keeping my core strong and body moving.
If you don't have the time or money to get to the gym, work out at home. It saves tons of time and makes life more efficient.
There's no feeling like performing. It's magical, it's so rewarding, and it just feeds this special little part of your soul.
My style is a little '70s and classic old Hollywood. I incorporate a lot of vintage, bohemian blouses paired with a good wedge.
Working out should be empowering! It should make you look and feel strong, elegant, healthy - the best possible version of you.
My approach in general is to take really great care of my skin, but I try not to overdo it and not use too many crazy products.
It definitely wasn't cool in junior high, when everyone else is trying out for cheerleading, to have a life consumed by ballet.
I'm very sensitive to salt. I always see and feel a big difference in my body when I eat it, so I try to consume salt in moderation.
Ballet targets smaller muscles that you don't often use - instead of working your quads, it works the inside and the back of your leg.
For a ballerina, the center of balance is everything - creating a strong center of balance begins with building strong abdominal muscles.
I had the opportunity to train with Natalie Portman for 'Black Swan,' and the program we created was intense and involved a lot of travel.
I think being in the right mindset is a huge challenge for women, who often take an all-or-nothing approach to working out or eating well.
Could you physically lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks? Maybe. But there's no way you could do that in a healthy way or that you could maintain it.
It's not realistic to say never eat sugar, but I try to limit my sugar as much as I can to buckwheat honey and dark chocolate, which I love.
I like to think that when you take care of yourself, when you do nice things for yourself, it has a nice ripple effect on the rest of the world.
When you're not experiencing your food, that's when it's harder to pay attention to when you're full, and that's what being satisfied really means.
To look and feel your best, it's essential to work out, eat well, and make sure that you are also drinking plenty of water and getting enough sleep.
Ballet opens up the chest and the arms and elongates the body, so you carry yourself straighter. That's so important for a model. But also every woman.
My body needs a lot of protein because I exercise so much. I eat dairy, meat, and gluten, but I stay away from white flour, sugar, and processed foods.
My company, Ballet Beautiful, is built around celebrating the strength and femininity of the female body - for me, pregnancy has just been an extension of that.
By continuing to work out and dance while pregnant, I feel a double reward from maintaining my normal routine but all the while knowing that baby is sharing in my day.
A simple ballet wrap sweater heats the back muscles but is easy to put on or take off without disturbing a dancer's makeup or hair before a performance or during a workout.
The muscles that are used in Ballet Beautiful are similar to those used in classic ballet. They're also muscles that don't get used very often, which is why it burns so much.
A few times a week, I'll put on La Roche-Posay's Active C Facial Moisturizer. That's probably my favorite cream. It clears up my skin a bit and provides more of an anti-wrinkle element.
Have something that you enjoy, that satisfies you. For me, that is dark chocolate, red wine, and cheese. But make room in your life for vegetables and whole grains to nourish your body.
The changes that your body goes through during pregnancy are so radical, I've really tried to embrace and celebrate my new body, and hopefully I can encourage other women to do the same.
Because I dieted so much in the past, I just can't diet again. It's something I don't want to do and I don't even know if I am capable of. I think it's a much healthier and happier way to live.
The image of a pregnant woman embracing her figure and really putting it out there can be scary to some people, but I don't let that stand in my way, and I don't think other women should either.
In yoga, you hold the positions, whereas in dance, you're constantly moving, extending, reaching through the legs and arms, which helps build long, lean muscles as opposed to shorter, tighter ones.
Sometimes people feel really trapped by the body that they have. Women are told, 'You have this body shape; you're a pear or string bean, and you can't change the way you look.' That's just not true.
A lot of fitness is about contractions - you're doing squats, or you're on a bike and your knees are bending but never stretching all the way, so your muscles get strengthened but look short and thick.
I've been so fortunate to have had such a healthy, easy pregnancy and have been incredibly active the entire way through. My favorite part is feeling the baby move - but the entire process is such a miracle.
With ballet, you're really focused on the inner thigh and butt and just lifting and lengthening everything, including your arms. You're not using weights, but holding up the weight of your own arms is a challenge.
Designing and creating dance clothes has taken my love for dancewear to a whole other level, melding the creative process with my daily fashion and allowing me to bring my most dreamed-about ballet styles to life.
I find that the thing that makes every body look the best is great toning, and really, really targeting the muscles, and low cardio, where you're sculpting and getting your heart rate up but not beating yourself up.
A lot of fitness has that very masculine energy and drive, and that never worked for me. I want to be challenged. I don't want to be told that I'm terrible and that I suck and that I'm not good enough - that's not motivating.
Generally speaking, I love a workout that includes stretching and toning exercises for legs and core on the mat paired with ballet-inspired cardio and Barre exercises to get the heart rate up and take the results to the next level.
One of the things I found as a dancer is that you're trying to perfect your body but also protect it and keep it injury-free. When you work against your own weight, you're still building lean muscle and bone density, but you're in a safer zone.
Ballet Beautiful is about finding balance and making fitness a part of your life in a happy, healthy, rewarding way where you get to feel pretty and look beautiful. It's not about beating yourself up in the gym and locking yourself in a dark room with blasting music.
One of the big things, especially if you're eating out frequently, is either splitting an entree with someone or ordering a protein-heavy appetizer for an entree, like a salmon or steak tartar. If I'm dying for a burger, I'll get the burger but have it with salad instead of fries and a glass of red wine instead of a beer.
I've learned that there are many people out there who want to feel powerful and strong on their own terms, who want to tune out the noise and the punishing nature of grueling workouts. With 'Ballet Beautiful,' we have peeled back the mystery of ballet and allowed people to do these workouts anywhere and in their own time.
I launched Ballet Beautiful not long after finishing at Columbia and met Natalie Portman shortly after. We began training and preparing her for her role in 'Black Swan.' From there, I continued to build and expand the method itself along with the business, always looking for ways to share the workout with others around the world.