Maggie Q: An Actress’s Workout Routine & Diet Plan

Last Updated: June 5, 2022

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Renowned for her kickass role in films like Nikita and the Divergent trilogy, Maggie Q is an American model, actress, entrepreneur, and advocate for animal rights. Maggie Q originally wanted to become a veterinary scientist, but the lack of school fees forced her to get into modeling.

During her time on the runway, she caught the eye of Jackie Chan, who introduced her to acting. Since her debut on the screen in 1998, Maggie Q has had a successful career, making appearances in several Chinese and American movies. 

Maggie Q also participates in various PETA campaigns promoting vegetarianism and advocating for animal rights. In 2017, she was named PETA’S Sexiest Vegan. Despite being one of the busiest women in the film industry, Maggie Q has maintained a lean yet powerful body that allows her to perform sophisticated stunts.

She attributes her perfect physique and stamina-filled performance to her vegan diet and highly curated workout regimen. But before we jump straight into her workout routine and diet, let’s try to understand a brief history about Maggie Q.

Who is Maggie Q?

Margaret Denise Quigley (Maggie Q) is an American model, actress, entrepreneur, and advocate for animal rights. Although she boasts Vietnamese and Irish background, she was born on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu on May 22, 1979. 

Her parents met during the war in Vietnam and later settled in Hawaii, where she was born. Maggie Q became an athlete at a younger age and even won a partial college scholarship to pursue veterinary studies.

Maggie started modeling in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan to raise the remaining tuition fees. During one of his runway moments in Hong Kong, she caught the eye of Jackie Chan, who introduced her to acting. 

In 1998, she was featured in House of Dragon’s drama film, marking her debut in the film industry. This opened up a lot of acting opportunities. She has featured in various action films, including Mission Impossible III, Live Free or Die Hard, Fantasy Island, and Priest

Maggie Q played Tori Wu in dystopian science fiction Divergent (2014) and retained the same role in Insurgent and Allegiant. She starred in the CW action-thriller series Nikita (2010 2013) and played the role of Designated Survivor (2016-2019). 

Besides her exemplary acting career, Maggie Q is also an advocate for vegetarianism and the fight for animal rights. She is an ambassador for Animals Asia Foundation. She is 5 feet 7 inches and weighs 103 pounds (47kg).

Maggie has been in various relationships, but she is yet to be married. One thing that has amazed many people is how Maggie Q manages to maintain her lean and petite outlook amidst her busy schedule. You’ll also be shocked to learn that Maggie does her stunts! 

Although she has been a vegan for decades, Maggie claims that this is not the only reason she has a toned yet lean body. She attributes her physique to sticking to a healthy diet and working out.

She is also very big on mindfulness, check out this amazing video on the topic from Maggie Q:

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Maggie Q’s Workout Routine

Unlike most actors and actresses who use doubles to do stunts, Maggie Q is fit enough to pull off some daredevil stunts in her action movies. However, her routine doesn’t involve resistance training with weights. 

Instead, Maggie Q prefers to do activities that help her stay active throughout the week. This means that she doesn’t overwork her muscles to need rest days. Instead of lifting weights, Maggie Q engages in various activities that ensure she stays active.  

Here is a breakdown of Maggie Q weekly workout routine:

  • Day 1: Yoga and 10k steps
  • Day 2: Spin class
  • Day 3: Yoga and 10k steps
  • Day 4: Swimming
  • Day 5: Yoga and 10k steps
  • Day 6: Spin, swim, or run
  • Day 7: Boxing, MMA, hike, or sports such as tennis, basketball, and soccer

Yoga

For the past two decades, yoga has been the most crucial element of Maggie’s workout routine. She enjoys doing yoga since it challenges her physical ability without pushing the body too far. This helps improve respiration, prevents injuries, and increases body strength.

Since Maggie Q does her movie stunts, yoga helps put her body and mind in tandem and improves flexibility. Some of her signature yoga poses include shin cradle, forearm stand, and crow pose. If you want to replicate Maggie’s yoga routine into your life, you’ll benefit from increased strength, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, and endurance. 

Spin 

Spinning classes are also part and parcel of Maggie’s fitness routine. Even though they are considered low-impact exercises spinning classes are notoriously tricky. However, their impact can’t be ignored. 

Spinning helps build lots of strength in the lower body and legs and improves cardiovascular health. Maggie prefers spinning classes since they don’t put too much pressure on the joints. More importantly, they help burn calories. 

Swimming

Having been brought up in Hawaii, Maggie has always loved spending time in the water. One activity that has helped her stay in tip-top shape is swimming. Swimming gives you all the conventional benefits of cardio work, including allowing her to build muscular endurance, lose fat, and build strength. 

The other benefit of swimming is that it helps exercise every inch of your body. Maggie also loves swimming as it brings her close to aquatic animals. She boasts of having the opportunity to swim alongside a whale shark. 

Boxing

Maggie also incorporates boxing into her workout routine. Besides being an excellent cardiovascular workout exercise, boxing helps tone upper body muscles. Rather than spending more than 45 minutes on a treadmill, Maggie prefers to box at least once every week. Boxing helps Maggie develop stamina and gain confidence that comes in handy when doing stunts. 

Pilates

Pilates is another exercise that Maggie usually includes in her weekly workout routine. Pilates target the core by forcing you to hold specific positions for an extended period. They help you cut weight, improve posture, flexibility and stabilize the spine. 

Now that we understand the work that goes into maintaining the lean physique, let’s turn our attention to the Maggie Q diet. 

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A Breakdown of Maggie Q’s Diet Plan

Maggie Q has been on a vegan diet for the past two decades. She went cold turkey vegan ever since she met a PETA activist when attending a concert and had a discourse about animal welfare issues.

 After learning how meat consumption impacts the food market and other industries, she decided to stick to a plant-based diet. Her smooth skin, toned body, and overall glow show that her diet works. 

As a testament to Maggie Q’s commitment to healthy eating, she has been on the vegan diet for more than 20 years. Additionally, Maggie claims that she prefers to fast if she goes somewhere where they don’t offer wholesome plant-based foods. 

However, she argues that eating plant-based food doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re healthy. Things such as fries and Oreos are rich in veggies, but they can negatively impact your health. Let’s look at some of the servings you’ll find in Maggie Q’s diet: 

1st Meal: Maggie Q wakes up to an acai bowl with blackberries, aloe, coconut meat, turmeric, blueberries, goji berries, cherries, almond milk, ginger, coconut oil, and funnel.

2nd Meal: She then takes a smoothie with pea protein powder, banana, almond milk butter, peaches, fresh mint leaves, cashew milk, ice, and maca powder. 

3rd Meal: Her third meal is rich in wholesome plant-based foods. These include Kitchari with mug beans, basmati rice, mustard seed, vegetable stock, sea salt, turmeric, ginger, cumin, cilantro, and coriander. 

MOST FAVORITE FOOD TO EAT

Maggie’s daily diet boasts a lot of grains to provide the much-needed energy. Conversely, she savors adequate amounts of greens and probiotics. If you want to attain a runway body like that of Maggie Q, try to incorporate these plant-based items onto your plate:

  • Fruit
  • Vegetables, primarily leafy greens 
  • Seaweed
  • Whole Grains
  • Fruits
  • Spirulina
  • Legumes (beans, lentils)
  • Flaxseed
  • Ginger 
  • Turmeric
  • Sprouted Nuts

FOOD YOU SHOULD AVOID

Maggie’s Vietnamese heritage was a significant hurdle to leaving animal-based products for plant-based products. This is because many of the classic Vietnamese dishes contain meat in one form or another. However, her commitment to looking and feeling better and the advocacy for animal rights pushed her to create new plant-based diet plans and recipes. 

The Maggie Q diet emphasizes the non-consumption of animal-based products. Hence some of the foods you should avoid: 

  • Meat
  • Fish
  • Processed Foods
  • Dairy Products
  • Eggs
  • Animal byproducts
  • Artificial Ingredients
  • Chemical Additives 
  • Junk Food

Does Maggie Use Any Supplements?

Despite shifting to a vegan diet, Maggie struggled with gut problems. Luckily, she consulted a professional doctor who recommended the use of probiotics. Her extensive research on wellness and nutrition catapulted her to create a line of wellness supplements dubbed ActivatedYou. She leverages these supplements for additional nutrition:

  • Probiotics: These help to fight gut inflammation and helps the body function efficiently through enhanced digestion and metabolism
  • Vegan omegas: Being rich sources of nutrients, Vegan omegas slow aging, retain bone density, and are suitable for vegans
  • Bone Support: The Bone-Rich supplement from her line contains vitamins C and D, Magnesium, and calcium for healthy and strong bones.

Conclusion

Achieving a Maggie Q physique is not an easy feat. It has taken her several years of determination and resilience. If you want to become like Maggie Q, this is not something to be done overnight. You’ll need to be relentless and disciplined when replicating the Maggie Q workout regimen and diet to your lifestyle.

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