TLC star Chilli (real name Rozonda Thomas) is one of those unicorns who seems to be aging in reverse—at 52, she is in the best shape of her life. The star works incredibly hard to stay fit and take care of herself, and building muscle is at the top of her fitness agenda. Chilli shared a selfie picture of herself wearing black leggings and a gray shirt, posing in the gym against a background of weights and other equipment. “Happy Valentines Day, Ladies & Gentlemen. Let’s get it in🏋🏽♀️💪🏽🦵🏽 I’m looking tall in this pic 😜 What are your goals? 8 lbs of more muscle for me!” she captioned the post. Here’s how the star stays fit and beautiful.
Chilli works out for the sake of her health and longevity. “I don’t work out to look a certain way,” she told YouBeauty. “For the most part I just want to be healthy and keep my bones moving, because when you stop, everything stops, and then it doesn’t work so well because you’re not staying active. I just want to stay active because I want to be as healthy as I can be… Stress is poison, I’m not the type to workout to relieve stress; that’s not a big stress reliever for me, but I work out because I need to.”
Chilli says her body is a temple and she treats it as such. “Your older self will tell what the younger self did,” she told Essence. “The earlier you start, the better. I do acupuncture. I do a lot of different things to make sure inflammation is not in my body. Most people have inflammation, they don’t even know it because they don’t feel it at the time. A good chiropractor is also essential because your hips and stuff are not balanced. You don’t know it until you lay on that table and you see one leg is longer.”
Chilli says she and her TLC group members were fit back in the day because of all the dancing and rehearsing. “Well, we dance like boys,” she told YouBeauty. “We don’t dance like girls and we go real hard. So our working out really was rehearsal, because we dance so much and our dances, they look easy but they are not really easy. We sweat (laughs), which is a form of working out. That’s how we stayed in shape.”
Chilli swears by regular cryotherapy sessions to look and feel amazing. “I also do red light therapy. That’s also good for inflammation,” she told Essence. “It’s an LED light and it doesn’t burn your skin, but it helps with arthritis. Even if your skin has acne and stuff like that, you can find red light therapy. I suggest doing the whole body. That’s what I do on a consistent basis. I don’t ever feel like I have any injuries.”
Chilli swears by coconut oil for beauty and health. “Unrefined, cold-pressed coconut oil is good for everything,” she told YouBeauty. “You can eat it, cook with it, and put it on your skin. I don’t really get pimples, but once in a while I’ll get something. Once I have washed my face and exfoliated at night, I use products from Derm Exclusive — they have very good exfoliating glycolic pads, you want to exfoliate, you always want that dead layer to get out of there. Afterwards, you should then apply coconut oil on your face and go to sleep.”