I know Danai Gurira primarily as Michonne on Walking Dead and Okoye in Black Panther. She’s also an accomplished stage actress and playwright, having won a Tony for her play Eclipsed. It’s nice to get to know her and I’m happy to see her on the cover of Women’s Health, where she’s of course discussing her workouts and her diet. (You can see the cover here. She’s so gorgeous.) Danai sounds like she does a little of everything to keep active. She has a taskmaster of a trainer who does a lot of inner and outer thigh and butt work with Danai and it shows. She also runs with her dog, does yoga and swims regularly. Oh and she has a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the dramatic arts in Zimbabwe. (Her parents are Zimbabwean academics. She was born in Iowa and moved with them to Zimbabwe at six. She calls herself a “Zimerican.”)

Here’s part of her profile with Women’s Health, with more at the source.

She works out up to four times weekly with her trainer
A typical workout for Danai includes lots of circuit training and Pilates-inspired moves, in which she alternates high-intensity intervals and active rest. Fisher has Denai wear a heart monitor and use resistance bands, which the actress travels with so she can do her workouts no matter where she is in the world. Every workout also includes glute work. “Sometimes it’s so intense I can’t remember what we did.”

“If I haven’t worked out, if I haven’t exercised and connected with my body in some way, it chips away at my feeling of well-being.”

She doesn’t focus on the pain when she’s sore
“It’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m in so much pain from that,’” she explains. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I feel the strength in my core, I feel the strength in my back.’”

“As women, we’re not always encouraged to find the fullest extent of our physical power,” she says. “There’s something so exciting about tapping into that part of ourselves.”

She limits dairy and meat and loves spinach
“I used to have spinach when I was a kid, and my mom wouldn’t let me leave the table until I’d eaten it,” says the actress, who was born in Iowa and grew up in Zimbabwe (her parents were academics).

“Somehow that worked its way into me feeling like I have to eat spinach. And now I love spinach—I mean, I love spinach. I want it in my smoothies, I want it on the side, I want it with my meals,” she says with a smile as she digs into a plate of the leafy greens.

[From Women’s Health]

I’m like that about working out, if I skip a day and it’s not the weekend I get squirrely. It’s not about punishing myself or making sure I burn calories, I think it flips a switch in my brain and that I’m addicted to it. Plus it does help you feel more capable overall, like you can get sh-t done. Danai described that well. I can’t get on board with the spinach thing though. I will make kale smoothies and I regularly eat all kinds of lettuce but spinach seems to get wilted quickly so I avoid it. Maybe I just haven’t been buying it fresh enough.

One thing I realized is Danai keeps her personal life on lockdown. I tried to figure out who she’s dating and all I could find were unsubstantiated rumors that she was with Norman Reedus a few years ago. I don’t think that happened.

Photos credit: Ben Watts for Women’s Health. Received via promotional email from Hearst publicists