You might be familiar with Carrie Underwood, the famous female vocalist, songwriter, and occasional actress. She’s been married to Mike Fisher for 14 years, and has two children with him, Isaiah and Aaron. Carrie has spent most of her life being active and healthy, and she credits her longevity to family and friends who constantly encourage her to stay fit.
In 2019, as with many other years, Carrie found herself struggling with weight loss. After years of maintaining a relatively healthy diet and plenty of exercise, Carrie found herself not quite content with her weight. At the same time, she was frustrated by the lack of female role models in popular culture, particularly when it came to diet and fitness. Carrie decided to make a change, and she started the new year with a bang by using the hashtag #IAmMoreThanThis on social media.
“I’m more than this,” Carrie tweeted. “I’m a person, a mother, a wife, an influencer, an activist, and a vocalist. I’m a damn good cook, a pool girl, and a gardener. This year, I’m focused on changing the perception of what it means to be ‘big’ in America. I want to help females see that there is more than one way to be successful and powerful, and I want to be the role model to help show them that.”
In a recent interview with Elle, Carrie opened up about her struggle with weight and the changes she’s made to improve her life. She talked about how she got here, where she eats, and how she stays creative.
Carrie Underwood’s Weight-Loss Journey
You’d have to go back almost 20 years to the year 2000 to find the last time Carrie Underwood weighed more than she does today. In fact, at the time, Carrie was one of the very, very few celebrities who actually admitted to being overweight. Back in those days, the singer and actress wouldn’t even dream of being photographed in a bikini, which is probably why you’ll seldom see her in bikini photos from that period. In fact, if you do a little bit of Googling, you’ll find tons of barely-there-bikini photos where Carrie Underwood was the star. The difference now is that Carrie admits to being overweight, which is a far cry from the ideal of the day. Nowadays, she’s happy to show off her incredible figure, and she does so with pride.
Over the past 19 years, Carrie has evolved from a fat girl to a prominent figure in the world of fitness. The singer and coach has been through numerous weight-loss transformations, and she’s used whatever working knowledge she gained along the way to help others achieve their goals. That, combined with her celebrity, has given Carrie the platform to help others in their quest for health and fitness. She’s held several famous workout events, and she even wrote a book, The Carrie Underwood Diet, to help people navigate their way to healthy eating and active lifestyles. The diet plan promotes eating real food and avoiding manufactured foods, and it encourages people to move their bodies and to have fun while doing it.
To find out how Carrie Underwood got here, and how she stays fit and inspired, let’s take a trip back in time.
Carrie’s Early Life
Carrie Underwood was born on January 4, 1976, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She grew up with her family in a small town named Niquel, which is located just north of the state capital. Carrie started singing at an early age, and she absolutely shone in choirs and church-related events. For most of her childhood, Carrie was a cheerful, happy child who loved to laugh and had an incredible amount of friends. However, at the same time, she was a bit of a tomboy, and she definitely preferred playing outside with her brothers and friends to spending time with her parents. When Carrie was in 6th grade, she decided that she wanted to be a teacher one day, and she started teaching elementary school.
For the first few years of her career, Carrie had to settle for opening lines and speaking parts in TV shows and movies. She never really got a chance to show off her talent, as most of the roles were quite small. The first true breakout role for Carrie was in the 2001 film Cinderella Man, where she played a supporting role as a dancer opposite Richard Gere. The following year, Carrie played a leading role in the biographical film about baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, where she once again worked with Richard Gere. In 2003, GMA filmed an episode of their TV show where they had a musical number with Carrie and her brothers, and it was subsequently aired during the show’s anniversary season.
The Mainstreaming Of Fitness
The 2000s were a turning point for Carrie Underwood. As previously stated, she had mostly small parts in TV shows and movies, and she was still considered a relative unknown. That all changed in the decade that followed when Carrie shifted her focus to fitness and became a prominent name in the world of sports and teaching others to be fit. She started the decade with a bang, literally, when she participated in the Ms. Oklahoma Beauty Pageant, where she won the title of Most Beautiful Person. She wore a bikini and worked out regularly with the help of her personal trainer at the time, Tim Grover. The next year, the Ms. Oklahoma pageant doubled in size and added a parallel competition for runners, resulting in a fitness-themed pageant akin to the Mr. America and Mr. Universe competitions held every year in the summer. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the pageant, Carrie performed a concert at the Jones County Fair, and the entire thing was filmed for a concert special that was subsequently broadcast on TV. This was the first time that Carrie released a concert film, and it set the stage for what was to come. Over the next decade, Carrie would go on to film several more concert specials for television, with the most recent one airing in April of this year.
In 2012, Carrie published a cookbook, Southern Living Healthy Recipes, and she started a cooking show, Carrie’s House of Recipes, which is still running today. The following year, Carrie released a lifestyle video where she promoted her cookbook, and the clip went viral on social media.
The viral success of the video led to offers to appear on TV talk shows and to give guest spots on other programs. In late 2018, Carrie was named as the host of an all-new fitness TV show, The Carrie Underwood Workout. The show will premiere in early March, and it will feature celebrity guests, as well as workouts with Carrie and her trainer, who have collaborated on several exercise videos. The show will highlight the importance of food and exercise in shaping lives, as Carrie’s mother, Georgia, put it: “This is about health and wellness, not just beauty.”
Along with the fitness-themed projects, Carrie started an online store called carrieunderwood.com, which sells workout clothes and accessories, as well as diet products. The fashion line makes up about 10% of the site, and the other 90% is reserved for athletic gear, mostly from activewear brands. The site also hosts a blog where Carrie shares her insights on health, fitness, beauty, and fashion.
In addition to all of the fitness-related work, Carrie has also kept a relatively low profile when it comes to diet and nutrition. She has never really spoken about her history of binge eating or her struggles with food and weight. For the most part, she has focused on staying fit and helping others do the same. She has credited her success to hard work, and she continues to preach the importance of “healthy eating, regular exercise, and family values”.
How Has Carrie’s Workout And Diet Transformed Her Life?
Today, Carrie Underwood is a completely different person than the one you might recognize from the pages of Teen Vogue or the screen of a Hollywood blockbuster. The singer has put in the effort to lose the excess pounds of yesteryear, and it’s transformed her life. She’s kept all of her clothes from back in the day, and she wears them with pride.
The singer has had major changes to her body, which have been covered extensively by the media. The majority of the weight she lost is in the form of abdominal fat, which is why she’s proud to show off her “bean bag” – that’s the technical term for the stomach area, otherwise known as the bump at the top of the torso. She still has a little bit of hair on her upper lip, which she always hated, and she wears contacts, sunglasses, and a bandana around her head, typically seen in country music videos from the ‘70s and ‘80s.