Meditation, music, and the Mediterranean diet: How Rita Wilson stays healthy after being hospitalized with the coronavirus
- Actress and singer-songwriter Rita Wilson is committed to a healthy, active lifestyle, especially because she survived breast cancer.
- Quarantine life made keeping up a routine challenging, leading to some weight gain, but says "you just have to accept it."
- Songwriting and meditating helped have helped her cope with quarantine life.
Pre-pandemic, singer-songwriter Rita Wilson meditated daily, ate a healthy diet, and lived an active lifestyle. As a breast-cancer survivor, taking care of herself has been a priority for years.
But while she's leaned into some of those habits during the pandemic, maintaining a routine hasn't been easy.
"It was hard to stay focused," Wilson, 63, who was hospitalized with the coronavirus in March, told Insider. Like many Americans, she said she's put on some pounds.
Wilson talked to Insider about her healthy lifestyle, how to have compassion for yourself if your body has changed over the past few months, and what's helped her get through life in quarantine.
'Just be gentle with yourself right now'
Wilson eats a Mediterranean-style diet, including plenty of Greek yogurt and, her favorite, blueberries. She limits red meat to a couple times a month and alcohol to three to five drinks a week.
"I eat a pretty clean diet, and it may be boring to some people, but it's working for me," she told Insider.
She also loves swimming, hiking, and walking, though those habits have been more difficult to maintain during the pandemic.
"I definitely put on some weight during quarantine, and then I would see pictures of people who are like, 'Look at my new quarantine body! I've lost 10 pounds and I'm in the best shape I've ever been!' And I was like, 'Why didn't I do that?'" Wilson said.
But the change hasn't derailed her healthy body image.
"I think you just have to accept it. You just have to say, 'This is what it is right now, and I'll get back into my routine eventually, or even tomorrow,' and just give yourself a break," said Wilson, who's also embracing her curly hair and not concerned she hasn't had her nails done in months.
"Just be gentle with yourself right now."
The pandemic has fostered Wilson's creativity and artistic connections
Compared to her bout with the coronavirus, which reportedly left her so nauseous she had to crawl from the bedroom to the bathroom, Wilson's experience with quarantine life has been bearable — and even yielded some creative treasures.
First, the Instagram post of her rapping "Hip Hop Hooray" went viral. The recording was a cognitive test of sorts, she said, since she'd learned the lyrics years ago for the movie "Boy Genius" but the coronavirus left her foggy.
"When I started feeling even better, I was writing songs with a lot of my songwriter buddies, and they were also eager to create," Wilson said. "So I was fortunately able to stay creative and write music during most of quarantine."
The song, "Where's My Country Song?" — a nod to the women who may not feel represented in music that often idealizes or objectifies them — was recorded during the pandemic.
"There are women out there that are living lives that maybe we don't pay attention to that much, or that don't get the sort of attention that they really deserve," including nurses, essential workers, and single moms who've been particularly burdened during the pandemic, she said. "I wanted to write something for them."
Meditation and gratitude have remained important to her too. "I think just waking up every day with a sense of gratitude — I do that every morning anyway, but it became more profound," Wilson said.
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