Savannah Guthrie Struggles with Body Acceptance: ‘I’ve Never Once Felt Good About How I Looked’
Savannah Guthrie says that body acceptance is “a lifelong struggle” that she continues to work through.
The Today co-anchor is calm and confident on the morning news show, but internally, Guthrie, 47, said she has only ever doubted her body.
“I’ve never once felt good about how I looked on the outside,” she told Health for its May cover. “I think all of us women spend so much time not feeling like we measure up. And what a waste of energy. I’m not there yet, but that’s my goal.”
Guthrie said she wants to change her mindset for her almost-5-year-old daughter Vale.
“A lot of us have that mental dialogue where we look in the mirror and we’re like, ‘Ugh.’ And that’s just not healthy. I really think about it with my daughter, because I just don’t want to pass that on to her,” she said. “It holds us back from joy. We should be happy and proud of our bodies, and proud to be 47 years old and still kickin’! That’s great!”
But Guthrie jokes that her current insecurities are not because she’s pining for her youth.
“I never looked good in a bikini. So I’m not even sad or mourning some past glory,” she said. “It never existed!”
Guthrie said, though, that she’s not into “berating myself into having some perfect figure,” and she isn’t obsessive about going to the gym.
“I’m not one of those people who loves to exercise,” she said. “… Jenna Bush Hager is my neighbor and good friend, and our kids are practically the same age. So a lot of times we’ll do a playdate, and she and I will take cardio-dance classes together, and that’s fun ’cause then it feels like you had fun with your friend and you exercised. That’s a good combo platter. Especially if we can follow it up with cocktails.”
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Cocktails are one of her favorite ways to celebrate the weekend. Guthrie said that she goes “hog wild” once Friday comes around.
“I feel like you have to let yourself have fun. And to me, food is fun. And I like pizza on Friday night,” she said.
During the week though, Guthrie — who tried the keto diet for a few weeks in the fall — stays “on the straight and narrow.”
“I basically avoid carbs, and I try to eat a lot of greens. I’m really good during the week,” she said. “I try to eat dinner around 6:30 p.m. or so, and I try not to eat breakfast until after the show at 9 a.m. So I’m trying my own little version of intermittent fasting, but I’m probably not doing it long enough, and I do have coffee with cream in the morning, so I’m probably not really doing it right.”
