She famously followed a strict paleo diet for decades, but Gwyneth Paltrow has now broadened her palette and looks better than ever for it. The 52-year-old has taken to social media to share a new photo of herself in a black swimsuit, showing off her enviable physique from a recent holiday to Italy, with fans praising the ‘beautiful’ star for ‘aging naturally’ after admitting to giving up her extreme diet.
Posing in the swimsuit, covering her head and face with a large, brimmed hat and sunglasses, she simply captioned her carousel Instagram post ‘Summer Selects’ with her followers adorning the comments section with praise for the svelte star.
Back in April, the Shakespeare in Love star said she had given up the paleo diet and had returned to foods she had previously restricted herself from, including sourdough bread, pasta and cheese, after becoming ‘a little bit sick of it.’
Gwyneth started to follow a macrobiotic lifestyle after her father Bruce Paltrow was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999. The film director and producer went on to die from the illness in October 2002. The paleo diet – also known as ‘The Caveman Diet’ – is based on the idea of only eating foods that were available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors such as lean meats, fish and seafood, fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds. While research has found benefits to the diet, there is no clear scientific evidence that it can prevent or treat medical conditions.
Speaking on her Goop podcast back in April, Gwyneth said, ‘I really deepened my connection with food and the whole philosophy around macrobiotics, which is essentially just how they eat in the mountains of Japan, so very local, very seasonal. Lots of fish, vegetables, rice, no dairy, no sugar, etc. I felt so good, I wanted to share that with my dad, my friends and family.’
She also said she was the reason her husband – Glee co-creator Brad Falchuk – started on the diet too, but that she had started to reintroduce some foods into her diet. However, she did say she still believes the diet is ‘a good template,’ adding, ‘Eating foods that are as whole and fresh as possible. I don't think there is any doctor or nutritionist that would refute that, it's a good starting point.’
And Gwyneth and Brad are seemingly still partially following the diet as just days after posting her swimsuit selfie, the actress – who shares daughter Apple, 21, and son Moses, 19, with ex-husband Chris Martin – shared a video of herself making a paleo lobster benedict, to the delight of fans who enjoy her regular foraging and cooking videos. One commented, ‘I love the special breakfasts you make. My favorite meal of the day,’ while another added, ‘This looks incredible. I’d buy the cookbook.’
However, other fans questioned the change in her diet after she opened up on giving up paleo just three months ago. 'Wait, I thought we ditched paleo and went back to regular eating,' one follower commented, with another answering, ‘She goes through phases... just like all of us.’
Gwyneth faced criticism for her diet back in 2023 after discussing in an interview what she would typically eat in a day. Speaking to her doctor Will Cole on his The Art of Being Well podcast, she shared, ‘I eat dinner early in the evening, I do a nice intermittent fast. I usually eat something [at] about 12, in the morning I’ll have some things that won’t spike my blood sugar, I have coffee. I really like soup for lunch, I have bone broth for lunch a lot of the days. I try to do one hour of movement, so I’ll either take a walk or I’ll do Pilates or I’ll do my Tracy Anderson, then I dry brush and I get in the sauna. I do my infrared sauna for 30 minutes, and then for dinner I try to eat according to paleo, so lots of vegetables. It’s really important for me to support my detox.’
After a clip from the podcast went viral on TikTok, viewers flocked to the comments to hit out at Gwyneth’s lifestyle. One asked, ‘Is starving wellness?’ as another questioned, ‘So coffee and bone broth are meals now?’ A third commented, ‘This literally sounds like a colonoscopy prep.’
Days later, she took to Instagram to respond to the backlash, starting, ‘I was doing a podcast with my doctor, so this is a person I have been working with for over two years now to deal with some chronic stuff. I have Long Covid and the way it manifests is very high levels of inflammation over time, so I’ve been working with Dr Cole to really focus on foods that aren’t inflammatory so lots of cooked vegetables, all kinds of protein and healthy carbs to really lower inflammation and it’s been working really well.
‘This is based on my medical results and extensive testing that I’ve done. This was a transparent look at a conversation between me and my doctor, it’s not meant to be advice for anybody else, it’s really just what has worked for me, and it’s been very powerful and very positive, that’s not to say I eat this way all day every day. And by the way I eat far more than bone broth and vegetables. I eat full meals, and I also have a lot of days of eating whatever I want, eating French fries and whatever, but my baseline really has been to try and be healthy and eat foods that will calm the system down. I hope that helps.’
Fans defended Gwyneth online after she opened up, with one writing, ‘Why do people get so angry with those who choose to live a healthy lifestyle? She’s in amazing shape because she doesn’t put garbage in her body.’ Another said, ‘Good on her. She's done the research and she's obviously trying to optimise her health as best she can. She's not forcing anyone else to do it.’