Kelsea Ballerini is turning up the heat on a snowy day – in her swimsuit. In a recent social media post the country singer enjoys a snow day in Nashville, stripping down into her bathing suit and playing in the snow. “don’t say it don’t say it don’t s- I THINK I LIKE THIS LITTLE LIFE,” she captioned the Instagram snaps. “Yeah, baby!” commented her pal, Chelsea Handler. “My impulsive thought is to scream the snow day song,” added her boyfriend, Outer Banks star Chase Stokes. How does the singer approach health and wellness? Celebwell rounded up her top lifestyle habits.
“I have been in therapy in and out my whole life,” Ballerini told Reese Witherspoon in a revent interview about mental health. “It’s interesting, though, because when I was younger it was stuff that I was always made to do. It was all kind of forced upon me. So, I always had this stigma around it like, ‘this feels taboo. This feels like something other people want me to do.’ It wasn’t until the last few years that it was my decision that I was like, ‘I can be a healthier person.’
Maintaining a routine is key for Kelsea. “To be honest, routine always sounded boring, but now it’s something that helps me feel like I’m in control of my life. I’m baby stepping my way into it,” she told Shape. “Little things, like when you get out of bed, make the bed. Get outside for 30 minutes a day. Sit on the porch. Take the dog for a walk. I’m building that into my life, and it’s not boring at all. It’s really helping me feel that ownership of my life that I need,” she explained.
Kelsea works out with Nashville based trainer Erin Oprea. Their workouts consist of simple but effective strength training exercises. “We’re on Zoom three days a week and do a lot of strength training intervals, where you alternate two exercises until you’ve burned that muscle group, then move on. We cram it all into 45 minutes and call it a day,” she told Shape.
The secret to exercise is finding workouts you like, according to Kelsea. “There are so many different kinds of moving,” she told Nashville Edit. “Going to the gym or running on the treadmill, which I personally hate and tried for years, isn’t the only way to exercise. I love any kind of cycle class because the music is super loud, the lights are dark, and I can shut my eyes and feel like I am at home with my headphones on. I also love Pilates for building long, lean muscle,” she said. “Working out, something I used to dread, is now something that I look forward to because it boosts my stamina onstage and makes me feel much more clear-headed and, in my body, too.”
“I used to think ‘me time’ was so narcissistic, but now I realize it’s necessary,” Kelsea told Shape. “I am a hot-bath fanatic. I have all my essential oils, and I do that pretty much every night. I can show up in a more present way when I’m taking time for myself too.” How can baths do your body and mind good? They have been linked to better sleep and even found helpful to minimize anxiety and depression. One recent study even found that they may even boast cardiovascular benefits.
Kelsea took a “season of rest” from her workout routine in 2022. “As someone that’s really struggled with body image my whole life, I really have to be checked in to, ‘Am I doing this for the right reasons?’ And I felt like by the end of that tour, I was starting to detach from the correct reasons for working out,” she told Women’s Health. During her low-key season Kelsea focused on doing “a lot of things to kind of reconnect with my inner child.” This included really long, slow walks,” and aimed for 10,000 steps per day. “Just to get fresh air and get sunshine and move my body, but not move my body in a way that I’m feeling like I’m needing [to see] some results.”
“I’ve always been an 80/20 person as far as food and drinking. I try to do what’s good for me 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent of the time, I just enjoy my life,” she told Shape. “I run through the McDonald’s drive-through once a month, and it’s fine. Sometimes I’ll have a little too much wine, and that’s OK too. I’ve spent so much of my life feeling guilty for things that I eat or having an unhealthy relationship with food or the gym or whatever. So I just try to be nice to myself and do what’s good for me. And when I don’t, I start again the next day.”