Sarah Michelle Gellar’s healthy diet has room for Canadian poutine

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MyFitnessPal launched a new tool called Meal Planner, a seriously cool tool where you can pick your menu for the week and the required ingredients are delivered to your door — all through in-app integrations. 

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To launch Meal Planner, the brand is partnering with Sarah Michelle Gellar, known for her roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer, but now, also known for her love of a farmers’ market.

To kick off this partnership, I connected with Gellar to learn about her diet and fitness routines. Her routines have evolved as she went from her single days in her early 20s to marrying her now husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., and finally becoming a mother of two.

Nowadays, Gellar is prioritizing muscle-building and protein. She also loves planning her family’s meals for the week, starting on Sunday. “Sunday, everyone knows I don’t make plans. In the morning, I go to the farmers’ market, and then I go to the grocery store and I buy everything for the week, and I try to start to plan it out,” Gellar shared.

The Meal Planner tool is another way to set your food for the week, and you can customize your meal options according to dietary preferences.

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Learn more about Gellar’s diet and exercise preferences in our Q&A.

Q&A with Sarah Michelle Gellar

Q: Why did a partnership with MyFitnessPal feel right for you?

A: Fitness and health to me go hand in hand. It’s very important to me as an actor, but also to me as a mom for my family, because I want to be as healthy as I can and live as long as I can. I’m also a busy working mom who has to feed a family, and when [MyFitnessPal] came to me with the idea of meal planning, which is one of my favourite things, [I thought it would be a perfect fit].

It was so simpatico. Every Sunday, everyone knows I don’t make plans. In the morning, I go to the farmers’ market, and then I go to the grocery store, and I buy everything for the week, and I try to start to plan it out. You know, which days I’m going to get home later, which days I need to have something prepared? And so when they said, “We’re going to take that all off your plate. We have this meal planning app.” I was like, “Finally! Someone made it simple. Plus, Meal Planner accommodates everyone’s dietary needs – whether you have one child who likes meat, I have one child who likes fish.”

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Q: Looking at your 20s, 30s and 40s, are there differences in your fitness and nutrition routines? If so, how?

A: I don’t know if workouts got better or if I care more, but I enjoy them so much more now. Your body needs different things at different times in your life. In my 20s, I was feeding one person and probably not making the healthiest choices, because at 20, your body can sort of take different amounts of things that it can when you’re older.

Your body needs different things at different times in your life. It can also depend on what your workout goals are. Right now, I’ve been trying to build a little more muscle. I think as you get older, you realize that, you know, you start to lose muscle, so that’s important.

Q: Are you a “girl dinner” girl? If so, what’s your go-to girl dinner?

A: Oh yeah, of course, I’m having one tonight.

After clarifying what I meant by “girl dinner” (grabbing random snacks versus prepping a proper meal), Gellar responded:

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Oh, no. I want meals. I mean, I love a snack. I love a good charcuterie board — but that’s a snack. 

Q: How do you balance fitness with a busy schedule, especially when travelling?

A: Like anything, you just have to make it a priority. Sometimes that means getting up 30 minutes earlier, sometimes that means missing a nap or whatever those things are — I just build it into my schedule.

Q: What’s a Prinze family favourite dinner?

A: My husband is the better chef. I’m the cook. He’s a chef. My husband makes these beef lettuce cups. We get all the vegetables from our garden, like carrots, zucchini and onions, and then he chops them up with his special sauce and we wrap them in lettuce. 

I asked what’s in the special sauce, but Gellar protected her husband’s secret. She did mention that maybe he’ll include it in his next cookbook (check out his current cookbook, Back to the Kitchen).

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Q: What are your family’s favourite pantry snacks?

A: Right now, you would not be able to understand them, because both of my kids are obsessed with the Japanese market, and their favourite things are these fish cakes. We try to keep them as healthy as we can. My son loves seaweed. My daughter is into probiotics right now. 

We like to keep Greek yogurt and hummus and stuff like that around, so that when the kids get home from school, they’re more likely to reach for that as a snack than, as we call it, gas station food. Although my son just figured out that he can walk to the gas station after school — he doesn’t realize that his card is tied to my phone. So I’ll just get like a $3.79 charge at Chevron.

Q: What are your favourite at-home fitness products?

A: I always travel with my resistance bands. Bands are one of those things that, even if you only have a few minutes, you can always do. You can cook your dinner, put on bands and do squats. We also have a little gym at home.

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Q: What’s your favourite Canadian meal/food?

A: You guys do the best French fries around with the gravy. Poutine.

Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to add about your partnership with MyFitnessPal or anything around diet or fitness? 

A: What’s beautiful about MyFitnessPal is that they’re bringing it directly to you in a way that can fit so seamlessly into your lifestyle and make your day easier. Because that’s the whole idea, whether it’s just simply the recipes and the meal planning, or if you take it further and order all the ingredients. Sometimes, poor food choices could just come from a time crunch. When you have something like this that can put the recipe out there, tell you what you need and order it for you. 

That’s why I was so happy to partner with them. We can make this as easy as possible for you to be as healthy as possible.

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