Ariana Grande’s diet and workout routine, at least as the singer and her trainer Harley Pasternak have described it over the years, is strikingly short on Hollywood nonsense. There is no heroic 4am ice bath, no machine apparently borrowed from NASA and no breakfast requiring a chemistry degree. The recurring themes are walking, dancing, plant-based food and a handful of simple exercises that can be done almost anywhere.
There is an important bit of context. Grande and Pasternak made these comments across interviews and appearances spanning several years. They therefore offer a picture of her reported fitness habits at those points in time, rather than a verified account of her current routine in 2026.
Still, beneath the celebrity packaging sits a useful idea: consistency tends to be rather less glamorous than Instagram would have us believe.
Ariana Grande’s 12,000-step target put movement first
Perhaps the most revealing part of Grande’s approach was not a workout at all.
Pasternak gave her a daily target of 12,000 steps, with the method of accumulating them apparently left refreshingly flexible.
At a Reebok event, he said: “I give [Grande] a step goal every day, whether she be dancing to get that step goal or watching her favourite movies while walking down the treadmill really slowly,” adding: “12,000 steps a day and she hits it. I can’t imagine her being still.”
Twelve thousand steps was estimated in the source material at around six miles, or roughly 90 minutes of moderate walking, although stride length, pace and terrain obviously change the arithmetic.
More interesting is the philosophy. Rather than relying on one heroic gym session and spending the remainder of the day welded to a chair, Grande described preferring regular movement.
“I feel better when I’m moving around a lot. I can do a really hard workout and sit around all day, but still not feel as good as if I was dancing or getting my steps backstage in the arena. I love the steps rule.”
A step target is a behavioural tool rather than a magic number. Twelve thousand is not a compulsory threshold for everybody. But building movement into an already busy day is considerably more practical than waiting for the mythical two-hour window in which life politely leaves you alone.
Her two-move workout was designed for hotel rooms
International touring does not make for orderly gym attendance. Airports rarely improve one’s training programme, apart from the occasional involuntary sprint towards Gate 47.
Pasternak’s solution was deliberately uncomplicated: resistance work requiring little or no equipment and minimal space.
He told Women’s Health:
**“The key to working with the kind of people like Ariana is making the most of what we have, time-wise and equipment-wise and space-wise, without ever injuring her.
If I hurt [Grande’s] knee, she cancels a show. She cancels two weeks of performing.”**
That last point matters. For a touring performer, training is supposed to support the job rather than produce an impressive injury story.
Pasternak advocated one resistance exercise a day, with the source reporting five sets of 30 repetitions or as many repetitions as could be completed in the available time.
Two favourites were lunges — including walking, reverse and skater variations — and glute bridges, performed by lying on the back with the feet planted and driving the hips upwards.
Neither move will persuade anyone to manufacture a £900 titanium fitness machine. Both, however, can train major lower-body muscle groups with remarkably little fuss.
Dancing supplied the less obvious cardio
Grande also possessed one advantage unavailable to most gym members: part of her job involved spending considerable periods dancing on stage.
Tour rehearsals and live performances naturally add physical workload, particularly alongside choreography involving repeated squatting, hip movement and constant changes of position.
Then there are the shoes.
Grande told Shape: “Nothing burns more calories than dancing in five-inch heels… try it!”
One suspects most physiotherapists would prefer the public to admire that particular feat from a safe distance.
The broader point is more transferable. Physical activity need not arrive labelled as a workout. Dancing, walking between engagements and moving backstage all contributed to the activity Grande said made her feel better.
For anybody whose relationship with the gym has become an extended hostage negotiation, that is useful perspective.
Ariana Grande’s vegan diet centred on plant foods
Grande announced in 2013 that she had moved from eating relatively little meat to following a fully vegan diet.
Her stated motivation was strongly ethical, although she also expressed broader beliefs about the health effects of plant-based eating.
She told The Mirror: “I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding, but I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-around happier person.”
The longevity and mood claims there are Grande’s stated beliefs, rather than promises that can sensibly be applied to every individual diet.
Pasternak later described her eating pattern as essentially ‘macrobiotic Japanese’, with foods including lotus, adzuki beans and daikon.
Other foods reported as favourites included blueberries, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, carrots, broccoli, bananas, dragon fruit, edamame and açai bowls.
That gives the diet considerably more substance than simply removing animal products. A vegan label alone says surprisingly little about nutritional quality; a packet of biscuits can have excellent vegan credentials and still remain a packet of biscuits.
Grande’s reported pattern was instead weighted towards whole grains, vegetables, beans, fruit and other minimally processed plant foods.
Hiking offered fitness without another gym session
Long before daily step counts became one of her trainer’s better-known rules, Grande had also spoken about hiking.
In 2013, she told Shape: “I jog up to the Hollywood sign every weekend. It’s fun and what a view!”
The route cited in reports, from Canyon Drive towards the Hollywood sign, was described as roughly a four-mile round trip taking around two to three hours.
The source also cited Livestrong estimates suggesting that an hour of hiking could burn approximately 430–440 calories for a 160lb (73kg) person and around 550 calories for somebody weighing 200lb (90kg). Those figures should be treated as estimates: energy expenditure changes with body size, gradient, pace, terrain and plenty besides.
Calorie arithmetic aside, hiking combines prolonged movement with terrain and, in this particular case, a considerably better view than the back wall of a treadmill bay.
The useful part of Ariana Grande’s fitness routine
Celebrity routines become silly rather quickly if treated as instruction manuals. Grande’s work involves rehearsals, performances, travel and professional coaching — hardly the average Tuesday.
Nor should anybody assume that interviews given years ago describe precisely how she now eats or trains.
Yet the principles behind her reported routine are strikingly ordinary: move frequently, keep strength work practical, choose activities you actually enjoy and make food quality matter more than fashionable complication.
Pasternak’s programme appears to have been built around the demands of Grande’s job rather than around producing an entertaining fitness headline. That may be its most sensible feature.
The celebrity part is difficult to replicate. Fortunately, walking, lunges and glute bridges remain stubbornly available to the rest of us.
