Carrie Underwood Reveals Major Change to Her Fitness Goals

Carrie Underwood recently opened up about her fitness goals and revealed some major changes she’s made to them. In a new interview with PEOPLE, the country music superstar shared “I feel like earlier in my career I was working out more to be a certain size or fit into a certain aesthetic that I thought I wanted to be,” noting how she’s come a long way since winning American Idol at 22. “And now I feel like I work out more to be strong and to have energy and longevity.”

The mother of two went on to say, “It really is playing the long game, right? I’ve worked out a whole lot and been frustrated because it wasn’t the results that I wanted. I feel like now at this point in my life, you really do learn that it is a lifestyle, it’s balance. It is overall taking care of yourself.” Underwood added, “When I’m at home, I feel like I’m mom-ing it. I’m doing the laundry, packing the lunches, I’m always cleaning. So when I’m on the road and I live on a bus or in a hotel room, I’m not having to do all that stuff so it frees up a little time. My schedule is still very regimented and there’s all this stuff that I do, but my mornings are a little bit more flexible.”

Underwood also shared how staying fit is crucial to her stage performances, mostly for endurance purposes. “It’s surprisingly physical being on stage – there’s a lot of cardio. I’m running around in heels and I honestly write songs that I don’t give myself time to breathe,” she joked, then sharing how she gets in her workouts while on the road. 

“You have to work around a lot,’ the hitmaker said. “We have an app called fit52 that I’m glad to have in my pocket on my phone. So somebody can kind of tell me what to do with minimal equipment because it depends on what hotel we’re in, or what we have to work with. We just make it happen when it can happen and how it can happen.”

Finally, Underwood shared her main focuses: “Just taking care of myself – moving more, eating healthy, staying hydrated – these things are all base level stuff.” She added, “If I start feeling weird or tired it’s like, what boxes am I not checking? Am I eating fried food? Am I not drinking enough water? Whatever it is, I usually can pinpoint what I’ve been lacking and try to correct that and get myself back up to speed and be able to be my best.”