Platinum Spas interviews Love Island star Amy Hart

Platinum Spas caught up with Series 5 Love Islander Amy Hart to discuss her well-being routines; from fitness and wedding goals to diet plans, as well as her average screen time, and how she switches off with just a month to go until she gets married.

Starting with well-being and fitness, what are your current go-to fitness routines?
"So, I'm obviously getting married in September, I'm currently shredding for the wedding, but I just had that awful viral cough that was going around, so I haven't been able to go to the gym for 6 weeks, but I actually went back today for my first PT session back. I did a bit of legs, and I'm working with a PT, I'm also trying to get out walking every day with my little boy in the pram, and then I've got this app called Sweat with Kayla – I've had it for years. And then there's this lady that I follow on Instagram, she's an American mum of four boys – I'm a bit obsessed – and she looks amazing. She gets up every morning at 5:00 AM before her kids get up and does a workout. I'm not that committed. So, what I do is I do the workouts on the app while Stanley's having his breakfast and I put on the Wiggles – they've got some absolute bangers – and I do the workouts to the Wiggles."

Do you have any fitness goals? Is there anything that you're really trying to achieve?
"Just to feel confident on my wedding day. My dress fits right now, so I haven't got any sort of pressure to slim into it; we'll just have it taken in and taken in. I did have a set weight that I wanted to get to, but I don't think that's going to happen now. So I just want to tone up my arms, tone up my legs. So that's just a lot of weights, a lot of walking, and eating really healthily."

Oh yeah, that's always the hard bit, the diet...
"I'm doing the Love Island podcast at the moment, so I'm out three or four nights a week and after Aftersun. Then I've obviously got other work to do, and I've got a little baby who's 15 months now, and my boyfriend is a CEO, a founder of a company – he works more than full time – so we're both trying to work out how best to manage our time. And on top of all that, I love cooking, but I'm not good at quick meals. I pour an hour- and- a- half into cooking a meal every night, plus planning out all the meals, plus doing my online shop, plus prepping everything, and then I'm a messy person as well, so Sam then spends an hour clearing up afterwards. So, actually, there's a local chef, and we basically went to him and we asked him would you do meal preps? And he said yes! Sam wants to put on weight, and I want to lose weight, so we gave him our likes, dislikes, exact calories, and exact macros, and he delivers all our food twice a week."

What were the things that you would cook when you did do the hour-and-a-half session of cooking? What were your go-tos?
"Oh, I love curries. I've got a Thermomix and I love doing stuff on there. I'm part of the Thermix revolution. But I do just love anything. I love curries. I love pasta dishes. I love cooking chicken dishes. I think a lot of it is that I do get a little bit sidetracked. That might be why it takes so long to cook stuff, but also filming it as well, always got to film – everything is content. But for Stanley; obviously, Stanley's not having meal prep. So the other day, I spent five hours filling up the freezer for him. I did 6 or 7 different recipes, but in that time I watched 5 YouTube videos and 2 episodes of EastEnders."

With such a kind of hectic lifestyle, how do you prioritise your well-being and do you have any self-care activities that you favour?
"For me, I love telly and I love watching telly. So, when I'm not at the podcast, at 9:00 o'clock I will get into bed and watch Love Island. After that, I might do a bit of admin and a bit of editing. I also love EastEnders, so that's obviously that four hours a week that I can just chill and watch. I actually got quite behind on it because I bought a walking pad and I said "I'm only going to watch EastEnders when I'm walking", and then I ended up getting 40 episodes behind on EastEnders because I just didn't want to walk. So I watched 40 episodes in six days, that was great self-care. And podcasts as well. I drive to and from work, and lots of people go to me, "I can't believe you have to drive", and it's 3 hours a day I drive, but I love it. That for me is my self-care time. I have Jeremy Vines' Radio 2 show on, or the Before the Many podcast on, or the new This Is Us podcast, I just love those. So I put those on and it's just my me time.

"Do you have any activities you like to do, anything like yoga or Pilates or any sort of Zen things to bring you down?
No, I'm not great at yoga. I've tried yoga and Pilates and it's not for me. I wish it was. I see all my friends at Yoga Girls and they look absolutely amazing, but it's just too slow for me and I find it a bit cringe, all the names of the positions. I think I don't need to know it's called the praying mantis, just tell me how to stand. So no, I don't really do much Zen, but I love a nap. That's what my my other big self-care thing is, I love a nap. Yeah, if I ever do a yoga class, I'm always wondering why am I here? Why do I do this? And then at the end, when I'm asleep on the mat, I remember why I do it. Because it completely shuts my brain off, and I can just fall asleep on the mat."

So, what is an absolute must for you to do on a day-to-day when it comes to mental or physical well-being?
"I like to write lists, just so I know where I am, I know where I stand, because, where my anxiety comes from is, it's weird. I'm an organised person, but I'm also a very unorganised person. We always say if I spent more time completing the previous list than writing a new list, I wouldn't have to write so many lists. So for me, my anxiety comes from being unprepared, and if I think, "Oh no, I've got so much to do", and I'm not in a position to be doing it. So for me, writing to-do lists which are broken down as "This is stuff that needs to get done today, and this is stuff that if I get it done, it's a bonus, but if not, it can go on tomorrow's list". You do have to remember to put it on tomorrow's list because if not, then three days later, you think, "I didn't do that, help, I ruined it!" So yeah, for me, the big thing is writing lists. And because I'm nosey about other people's lives, one of my favourite things to do is watch YouTube vlogs of people's lives, and Sam says, "What you watching", and I say "I'm watching someone pack for their holiday". And he asks, "Oh, is it a holiday that we're going on?", and I say "No". Honestly, I just like to see what they've packed. Also, scrolling through my phone. And I know people call it doom scrolling. No, no, it's joy scrolling. Absolute joy scrolling. I remember, when I did panto a couple of years ago, when I finished the panto, me and my mum went to Spain for six days for me to not do any work, and to get away, and just to chill. And, obviously, the weather in Spain wasn't great in January, so one day I just sat on the sofa and watched TikTok for 5 hours. And I was like, "Do you know what? That was amazing". I really enjoyed that because I don't get much time to do it now."

Do you know what your average screen time is?
"Oh, it's about 11 hours I think. But it's the work. It's for work. Yeah, and also, for me, with screen time, I'm like a child. But it's so funny though. I don't let Stanley have an iPad at the dinner table or anything. The only time I'll let him have an iPad is if, for example, we've just been on holiday, and in our bedroom, there wasn't a TV."

What are your standard breakfast, lunch and dinner meals?
"Ok, so breakfast. I'm not a massive breakfast person if I'm honest. If I'm on holiday and there's a breakfast buffet, then of course I will, but I'm not a massive breakfast person. I've basically unwittingly been doing intermittent fasting for my whole life because I'm just not a breakfast person. But what am I going to have breakfast? I like boiled eggs. If I'm in Vegas, I have steak and eggs because, you know, it's very socially acceptable there. It's not as such at home, you know, you can't randomly get out a 6-pound steak and cook that for breakfast. For lunch at the moment I'm trying to go for a bigger lunch. At the moment we're having things like paella, today I had salmon pesto and asparagus pasta. What did I have the other day? Vegetable and prosciutto pasta. And then, for my dinner, I'm trying to have a lighter dinner. So some of the stuff that I've had this week include prawn stir fry, I've had salmon with home-made piccalilli. What have I got tonight for dinner? I think I'm gonna have salmon with piccalilli again because that was so good."

Finally, are there any snacks or naughty treats that you can't live without?
"I love fast food and this is the thing people say to me "You should just eat what you want", and I say "If I eat what I want, I'm not going to make old bones", I would have three meals a day, lunch, dinner, 2nd dinner, on delivery, every day. It'd be McDonald's, KFC, Wing-stop, every day. I love chicken wings, but then do I actually like chicken wings, or do I just love blue cheese dip? I have a lot of things like that. When I used to drink tomato juice at work when I was cabin crew, I started to wonder "Do I actually like tomato juice? Or do I just really like Worcester sauce?". Because I used to put that much Worcester in the glass and then fill it up. But I love McDonald's, McDonald's is my downfall. I hate it when people say, "How can you eat that? It tastes disgusting". No, it doesn't. It's not good for you, I'll admit that. It's not good for you. But you cannot say it tastes disgusting. It doesn't. It's amazing. My favourite thing ever is a ten-thirty-one burger, you get there at 10:30 on the dot when it switches from breakfast to the main menu, and the burgers are all cooked completely fresh, and you can still taste the salt and pepper on them. The best. The best."

See the full interview here:https://www.platinum-spas.com/latest-news/amy-hart-love-island-wellbeing-interview/