14 DAY TRIAL // For years in a row, and especially after her appearance in the 1995 hit “Species,” it was believed Natasha Henstridge’s slim figure was all down to genetics and perhaps some working out as well. However, the now-heavier star is saying that she too succumbed once to the pressure of looking thin, and went on extreme diets and took pills to maintain her enviable figure, as People magazine can confirm.
Natasha is now proud of her fuller figure, even if it can be considered too heavy by Hollywood standards, the star says in her most recent interview, because she knows that, at least, she’s leading a healthy life. The kind of substances she put in her body to stay thin when she was younger, as well as the severe diets she subjected herself to have caused permanent damage to her organism and she would not make the same mistakes again if she were given a second chance.
“My body’s definitely gone through a change since coming off all the crazy yo-yo stuff. [My] metabolism’s changing a little, that’s for sure! There’s always pressure in this business to stay thin to the degree that I’ve done some things that probably weren’t the smartest things in the world. I’ve probably taken some pills that are taken off the market these days, that were like, ‘Oh, but it just gives me an extra boost when I’m working out,’ and it seems innocent enough and it’s over the counter.” Natasha says of the extreme lengths she went to in order to abide by Hollywood’s standards of female beauty.
Now that she stopped all this and is finally trying to stay toned the healthy way, meaning with plenty of working out and just making sure her diet is balanced, the 34-year-old actress can finally say she has found happiness. She may very well be considered “too plump” by some industry watchers, the actress says, but she’s ok with that because she knows she’s healthy. She’s also working hard to shed the extra pounds and stay in shape, doing sports such as hiking, mountain biking and boot camp sessions – but the damage she did to her body will never go away.
“Those things have a huge effect on your metabolism and all of a sudden, when you decide to go clean and healthy, things are changing in your body because you’ve done a little bit of damage. I’ve been to Chinese herbalists who’ve given me things. When you’re doing some things that are damaging you, you don’t really realize it at the time. You think it’s innocent and healthy – Chinese herbs. That sounds healthy and then you realize, what the hell is in the stuff? And people glamorize the whole thing because you’re thinner and you’ve been doing this [bad] stuff to your body.” the actress says of how she got sucked into Hollywood’s obsession with weight and, above all, quick ways of keeping weight off.