Lawmen: Bass Reeves star David Oyelowo takes us through a tour of his home gym and stocked fridge. The Emmy-nominated actor shares the key elements to keep his diet healthy, reveals how he preps for upcoming roles, and shows the workouts he uses to stay fit.
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00:00 Hey David, it's Men's Health. We're here to see your gym and fridge.
00:05 Hi, I'm David Ayalawo and you're here to see my gym and fridge.
00:09 M13
00:15 Okay guys, welcome to my kitchen and this is my fridge.
00:37 What staples do you always have in there?
00:39 A staple in the fridge. You will never see my fridge without eggs in it.
00:42 You'll never see my fridge without blueberries in it.
00:45 You'll never see my fridge without oat milk.
00:47 My wife loves lemon in her tea. Ginger will always be in here.
00:53 Always have lettuce, cucumbers, celery, carrots.
00:58 That will always be in my fridge. Always see nuts in my cupboard.
01:02 What do we never see in your fridge?
01:05 We try to keep it healthy in my house, but difficult with four kids.
01:09 So we do ban quite a bit of sugars. Oh my gosh, someone has hidden whipped topping.
01:17 I didn't know that was in there.
01:19 This is residue from Christmas. My daughter has a very, very sweet tooth.
01:25 But you won't see cakes. You won't see cookies.
01:30 We tend to sort of try to keep those away because they don't last an hour in this house.
01:35 How has your diet changed over time?
01:37 My diet changed quite a bit a few years ago.
01:40 My dad had colon cancer and he was told to stop eating meat.
01:44 And in solidarity with him, we all stopped eating meat.
01:47 And I actually felt so much better after I cut out meat.
01:50 So I don't eat red meat. I don't eat chicken. I don't eat anything like that.
01:52 I'm a pescatarian, so I eat fish. So no meat for me.
01:56 What do you normally eat in a day?
01:58 So breakfast for me is important, but it's light actually for me.
02:01 I'll always have a smoothie, so I'll tend to put a banana in there, apple, blueberries, peanut butter.
02:09 We'll go in there. Oat milk. I don't know if I'm lactose intolerant.
02:12 It just sits heavy on my stomach, gets a bit phlegmy in the throat.
02:15 So I go for oat milk. And this tends to be my smoothie.
02:22 So for lunch, this is a poke bowl with tuna, shrimp, rice and salad.
02:29 Fresh tuna patty on hummus. They tend to be quite light.
02:33 This is a green salad with scallops. I love, love, love scallops.
02:37 I'm a pescatarian, so I'll always have a nice bit of seafood in there.
02:42 And that's very pretty.
02:43 In the evening, I tend to have a meal with my family, but a lighter meal.
02:47 Because if you eat too late, it sits and you don't want that.
02:51 What do you eat when you're getting ready for a new project?
02:53 It's long days. It tends to be physically quite demanding.
02:56 I'll have a decent breakfast. I'll have oatmeal, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, avocado, things like that.
03:02 I will cut down on carbs, so things like bread, pasta.
03:06 A mistake is to eat those at lunchtime on a set, because then you're sleepy for the second half of the day.
03:13 Staying trim, staying lean, staying strong, staying fit and healthy is, I think, the way to a long career as an actor.
03:20 What did you eat growing up?
03:22 I grew up in a Nigerian household, so I don't know that you can say Nigerian food is healthy.
03:28 We would eat jollof rice. We would have a lot of chicken.
03:31 But we would also have something called fufu, which is a globule of starch that you would have with very heavy soup.
03:39 Lots of globules, lots of heavy soups, very spicy, very delicious.
03:44 But I've kind of cut that stuff out of my diet right now.
03:47 Otherwise, I would be a good 50 pounds heavier than I am right now.
03:51 What's your favorite snack at the crafty table?
03:53 I love Snickers bars. If I didn't deem Snickers bars behind the camera food, I would live on those.
04:01 But what I actually eat are mixed nuts, granola bars, none of which are as lovely as a Snickers bar.
04:08 How do you keep a healthy diet with such a hectic work schedule?
04:11 Gosh, a healthy diet with a hectic schedule.
04:14 Well, eggs tend to be incredibly easy, easy to make on the fly.
04:21 I love scrambled eggs. I love making omelets.
04:23 You know, sometimes I'll have rice and just put some eggs in there and have a bit of a fried rice, egg fried rice situation.
04:31 I will always have hummus because you just get crackers.
04:34 It doesn't sit heavy on the stomach, so I'll always have that.
04:38 I love, love, love, love, love grapes because they're a great snack. They're healthy and you can take them anywhere.
04:46 So I'll always have grapes.
04:48 What's your snack strategy?
04:49 Keep naughty snacks out of the fridge, out of the cupboard because snacks tend to be something you crave.
04:56 It'll just hijack you. Your need for a snack will just creep on you like a thief in the night.
05:01 I don't do anything by half.
05:03 If there are five Snicker bars in the cupboard, five Snicker bars have to be devoured.
05:08 If there are two, three, four of these, I will probably plow through them.
05:14 What do you grab from the fridge when you're hungry at 2 a.m.?
05:17 Ice cream is 2 a.m. food. Let's be honest.
05:20 You're creeping down here at 2 a.m. You're not in this section. You're in this section.
05:26 And yeah, I'm not looking down there just so that there's ice cream.
05:30 I avoid doing that. That way, madness and big glutamous, maximus rise.
05:38 Do you drink any protein shakes?
05:40 I do drink protein shakes. This is the one I tend to go to, vanilla.
05:45 I tend to use that mostly when I'm looking to bulk up.
05:49 So, you know, that plus lifting heavier in the gym is the way I tend to do it.
05:55 OK, guys, it's that time of the day. We're going to head down to my gym.
06:01 Let's see where you put that work in.
06:11 OK, guys, welcome to my gym. Let's get a workout in. Always start with stretching.
06:16 How often do you work out?
06:18 I work out every weekday, five days a week. I'm up at 5 a.m. I'm in this gym by 5.30 a.m.
06:27 And I'm in here until 7 before the school run.
06:30 Does working out help your acting?
06:32 Working out for me, it clears my mind, keeps my body strong.
06:37 And I think it gives you longevity, you know, staying strong, staying fit, staying lean.
06:44 Keeps you younger for longer. So it's a win-win-win.
06:47 How has your workout routine changed over time?
06:50 Over time, I've sort of, I focus less on bulk and more on being lean and supple and generally flexible.
06:59 Because as you get older, those are the things that kind of start to creep away.
07:03 So, yeah, less bulk, more lean.
07:05 How do you stay fit on location?
07:07 Anywhere I go, I will find a gym.
07:10 One of the first things I will do is if I'm staying in a hotel or if I'm staying in an Airbnb or whatever it is,
07:18 I will either build a gym in the property or make sure the hotel has a gym.
07:23 Because I just can't at this point in my life, in my career, from a mindset standpoint, I can't be without.
07:31 What keeps you motivated to stay fit?
07:33 Well, I've been married for 25 years now and having my wife give me that look, you know the look,
07:39 that's a good motivation for keeping on working out.
07:42 But, you know, you're in front of the camera all the time, so you don't want to be watching yourself on the big screen going,
07:47 "Oh, dear, that's not so good."
07:49 I did a film called Selma where I had to play Dr. King and I had to put on 40 pounds.
07:53 And one of the most challenging things about doing that role, I had to eat so many things that I wouldn't normally eat.
08:01 And I just felt so sluggish of mind, of body.
08:05 And, yeah, it was one of the most challenging roles of my career.
08:08 So that really taught me that staying fit, being in the gym, is actually really helpful mentally as well.
08:16 Did you work out when you were young?
08:18 Being bullied was actually something that motivated me to get as strong as I could.
08:24 And then it became a lifestyle from when I was a teenager, really.
08:28 And then I found out that girls like muscles, which kept it going.
08:35 What do you consider an intense workout?
08:38 If I'm in a period of time where I'm doing two-a-days, where, you know, you're working out in the morning,
08:43 and then at some point in the afternoon you'll work out again,
08:48 that tends to be because I'm wanting to bulk up for something and be stronger than maybe I even need to be.
08:57 Do you work out with a trainer?
08:59 Yes, but my trainer, Darrell, who I tend to work with whenever we're working on a project,
09:06 there's nothing like having someone who's motivating you to push past your comfort zone.
09:13 And my workouts with him tend to be hell.
09:16 What's your favorite exercise of all time?
09:18 My favorite exercise of all time may well be the bench press, only because, you know, it gets these going.
09:27 It also just presents such a challenge.
09:30 By the time you have that bar coming down on you, you've just, you've got nothing but the strength you've accrued to get that bar off you, which is, which is cool.
09:42 What does a week of training look like?
09:44 Monday to Friday, I'm up at 5 a.m. I'm in the gym here at 5.30.
09:49 It starts with 20 to 30 minutes of cardio, and then I'll do about four or five different exercises with weights, a combination of weights and stretching.
10:01 Do you ever switch up your workout routine?
10:03 Yes, switching up the exercises is incredibly important.
10:06 I get bored very quickly, and I'll concentrate on different muscle groupings from day to day.
10:11 What's your least favorite part of working out?
10:13 Communal gyms. I hate that sound, that "rrrgh, rrgh, rrgh." I cannot, I cannot deal with that.
10:21 Thankfully, I'm fortunate enough to have my own gym.
10:24 What are your current fitness goals?
10:26 To still be working out when I'm deep into my 80s and 90s.
10:30 I want to be able to play with my grandkids ferociously, not just in that grandfatherly way.
10:36 What music do you listen to when you work out?
10:39 I tend to listen to Afrobeats. I love old school hip-hop. Anything that gets the blood pumping.
10:47 Steve Aoki has a pretty good workout playlist that I tend to listen to.
10:55 Do you have any scars?
10:57 Oh yeah, I have scars. Yeah, I have a pretty major scar on my ankle. That's from a couple of surgeries from playing tennis and soccer.
11:11 I actually got a hernia from my ab workouts.
11:17 So I had a, I guess your intestine can go through the ab muscles. Pushed through so they had to cut me there.
11:27 Push my intestines back in because I'm working out too much.
11:31 Ouch. Hopefully you can keep those intestines in during rapid fire questions.
11:35 Okay, give me your rapid fire questions. Let's go.
11:39 Let's see what you can do on the heavy bag.
11:43 Workout time, 7am or 7pm?
11:45 7am. 5am really.
11:47 Squat or deadlift?
11:49 Squat.
11:50 Favorite song on your workout playlist?
11:52 Power by Collinggate West.
11:53 Crossfit, yay or nay?
11:55 Nay to crossfit.
11:56 Pull-ups or chin-ups?
11:57 Pull-ups.
11:58 Dumbbells or kettlebells?
12:00 Dumbbells.
12:01 Run on the treadmill or in the great outdoors?
12:04 Prefer the great outdoors. Most likely going to be a treadmill.
12:07 Cardio or weights?
12:08 I prefer weights, but I need that cardio.
12:11 Big legs or big arms?
12:13 Big arms.
12:15 Biggest compliment, jacked, ripped, swole or cut?
12:18 Jacked.
12:19 If you could workout with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be?
12:22 Bruce Lee.
12:25 Okay guys, great to have you, but I've got to get on with my day.
12:30 Out.
12:32 [Music]