Mindy Kaling has revealed the workout routine – including the strength training exercises – that has helped her sustainably maintain her significant weight loss.
‘I do about five exercises, and I don’t make it fun,’ she told Parade. ‘I do it with a trainer. I do my squats, my Romanian deadlifts and my lunges. Then I have a routine of arm exercises – upright rows, regular biceps curls, the Arnold press and lots of push-ups.’ She also revealed that she can hold a two-minute plank.
In recent years, her approach to weight loss has shifted away from aesthetics and towards long-term health, with reducing her risk of chronic disease now her main motivation.
‘When I was younger, I would want to lose weight because of vanity reasons. Now I want to lose weight or have lost weight because I want to stave off things like diabetes,’ the actress and screenwriter told Bustle.
‘I had it on both sides of my family, and trying to avoid those kinds of things will, I think, help longevity for me, and that’s my goal.’ She added that she wanted to ‘live at least 20 more years’ for her children.
When she’s not lifting weights, Kaling enjoys walking. ‘I go for a three- to five-mile walk every morning. If I have a stressful conversation with someone and we can do it while we’re walking, there’s something about the mechanics of my body and my blood flow that makes it better,’ she continued. ‘A lot of the time, my walks are just at home on a treadmill, but vitamin D from walking outside is also huge.’
Strength training is a relatively recent addition to her fitness routine, having previously focused more on cardio. ‘I just tell myself I have to do basically 20 miles a week of either hiking or running. And so that’s been incredibly helpful to me,’ she told People in 2023.
While stressing the importance of staying active, she acknowledged that maintaining her routine is ‘really a big commitment’, particularly while raising children. ‘It’s hard with two kids that I wake up really early and I fit it in – and I basically live in workout clothes so I can get it in, get an extra mile in,’ she said.
Mindy Kaling’s 7 go-to strength exercises
1. Squat
- Stand with feet hip-width apart, holding the dumbbells on your shoulders.
- Brace your core and lower into a squat until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor.
- Drive through your heels to stand, squeezing your glutes at the top.
2. Romanian deadlift
- Stand with feet hip-width apart, holding the dumbbells in front of you, keeping them close to your thighs.
- Squeeze your shoulder blades together to keep your back straight, and create a slight bend at the knee. Suck your belly button into your spine to engage your core.
- Inhale, and hinge at the hips by focusing on sending your hips and bum back. Keep your bodyweight evenly distributed throughout your feet. Lower yourself until you feel a solid stretch in your hamstrings while maintaining a flat back and neutral spine. Keep the dumbbells close into your legs the entire time.
- Squeeze your glutes to drive back to the starting position. Lockout your hips, but don’t lean back. Exhale.
3. Forward lunge
- Start standing with feet hip-width apart, holding dumbbells in your hands by your sides.
- Take a big step forward with your right foot and bend at the knee until both knees form 90-degree angles while bringing hands together in front of your body.
- Press through your right heel to push back to starting position.
4. Upright row
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding the dumbbells with straight arms in front of your legs. Your palms should face your body.
- Engage your abs. Keep your chest up and eyes forward.
- Lift the dumbbells up to mid-chest height or just below your chin. Keep your dumbbells close to your body by raising your elbows up and out to the sides.
- Pause at the top, then lower with control to the starting position.
- Start with a dumbbell in each hand with straight arms, palms facing forward. Keeping a slight bend in your knees, engage your glutes and core.
- Bend your arms, lifting the weights to chest height in a slow, controlled movement.
- Keep your shoulders relaxed and down, and your head, neck and spine neutral.
- Lower your weights back down to your thighs by straightening your arms.
6. Arnold press
- Stand with your feet hip-width apart, holding a pair of dumbbells at shoulder height. Your elbows should be bent and your palms should face your body.
- In one motion, open your elbows to the sides, rotate your forearms so palms face forward, and press the dumbbells overhead until arms are straight and biceps are by your ears.
- Pause briefly at the top, then reverse the movement to return to start.
- Get into plank position, with your hands under but slightly outside of your shoulders. Lower your body until your chest nearly touches the floor.
- As you lower yourself, tuck your elbows, pulling them close to your body so that your upper arms form a 45-degree angle when your torso is in the bottom position of the move.
- Pause, then push back to the starting position as quickly as possible. Keep your core braced the entire time.
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