Carrie Underwood Calls Fitness Her 'Therapy'

Carrie Underwood might be pregnant, but she isn't using that as an excuse to slack off on her exercise routine. The 35-year-old, who works with celebrity trainer Erin Oprea, says her fitness is important for her, both emotionally and physically.

"I feel like it's my therapy everyday," Underwood shares with PopCulture.com and other media. "I don't go get massages, I don't go get facials. That would be great. I might get a massage twice a year – some Mother's Day present or something, which I literally have a gift card for that, that's like two years old that I have not used for Mother's Day.

"But, that's my thing," she adds. "I don't need vacations even. I'm like, 'Honey, you can give me like an hour, I'm good. You don't have to take me out. It's fine.' That's kind of my therapy. I feel like a lot of what I do is physically demanding."

Soon after Underwood has her second child, the singer will launch her Cry Pretty Tour 360, where her physical stamina will be as important as ever.

"It is demanding being on stage, and especially some of the songs that I write and sing are really hard, and I need that," Underwood explains. "I need to be at my peak. I need to be able to sing and walk across the stage without being winded. And I'm doing it in heels, which makes it five times as hard, so I feel like that's just something that makes me a better person, a better performer. It just makes me feel better about myself. It makes me feel better. I need that in my life."

The Oklahoma native announced her pregnancy last month, which she says was a spur-of-the-moment decision when she could no longer hide her protruding stomach.

"Obviously, you kind of want to reach a point in your pregnancy where you're sure that everything is going well before you let other people in on it. Stuff like that was important. You don't want to jump the gun and then have to take it back.

"I was just trying to keep it until I couldn't keep it no more, and then one day I woke up looking like this," she continues, pointing to her belly, "and I was like, 'I guess today's the day. I can't hide this any more." Going to the grocery store and it's 90-something degrees outside and I'm in giant hoodies. It was just time to put it out there."

Underwood has her own line of fitness apparel, CALIA by Carrie Underwood, which is available for purchase here. Her Cry Pretty album will be released on Sept. 14. Album pre-order and upcoming concert dates can both be found by visiting her website.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Kevin Mazur