Ellen DeGeneres is 66 and in the best shape of her life, judging by a recent social media post. DeGeneres shared a video of herself wearing black pants and a black shirt, spotting wife Portia de Rossi as she did pull-ups, then taking over and showing her how it’s done. “Gotta stay in shape on tour,” she captioned the post. “I love it.. Ellen’s there holding on to Portia and giving all types of support…. but soon as it’s Ellen’s turn, Portia slowly disappears after Ellen shows amazing arm strength lol,” a fan commented. DeGeneres has been working in the public eye for decades—here’s how she stays balanced and positive.
DeGeneres follows a strict vegan diet. “Let me tell you, I loved eating meat,” she told Oprah Winfrey. “I loved lamb, I loved chicken, I loved my cheeseburgers… Well I felt better about myself, and I felt healthier living in a cruelty-free way. I haven’t been sick since, I am not as tired, and I’ve lost weight. And I am lucky: I have a chef, so it’s easy for me. For a lot of people, it’s harder.”
DeGeneres is open about depression and anxiety. “What’s not easy is for me to turn it on when I feel sad inside,” she said. “That’s the depression. That’s where I’m in myself. I’m not good when I’m going through a bout of depression or anxiety or whatever. But, yeah, I can do this. But, like I said, I also have other emotions.”
DeGeneres says she is a very sensitive person. “I think I am too sensitive sometimes, especially in this business,” she told Oprah Winfrey. “…I am saddened by how people treat one another and how we are so shut off from one another and how we judge one another, when the truth is, we are all one connected thing. We are all from the same exact molecules.”
DeGeneres has always had a glass-half-full mentality. “I didn’t worry even when I didn’t have any [money],” she told PEOPLE. “I was living on a can of soup every single day. And I would eat it out of the can because I didn’t have a kitchen. I would live paycheck to paycheck, but I never worried. I was living. I think that’s part of my mentality about money. My parents always worried about it, and we never had any. You put that energy out there, and it’s like, ‘Well then, we’re going to give you what you’re asking for.'”
DeGeneres maintains a sunny disposition as much as possible. “At 30, everything was fine. I would have said, ‘Hold on, because it’s not always going to be like this,'” she told PEOPLE. “At 40, I would have said, ‘It’s going to get better.’ Now that I’m wise enough to know that life changes in an instant, I would say, ‘Everything is always going to be okay.’ Because it is. No matter what comes. Right now everything is fantastic. That doesn’t mean things don’t change.”