All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Being treated like one of Nina Dobrev’s best friends is how I wish I treated myself every day. Nina, who hit the acting scene as a teen mom on Degrassi and then played human-turned-vampire Elena Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries, has been a MAJOR fitness icon since before she was a hugely successful actress. Growing up, she was a competitive gymnast with an intense 4-hour, 6-day-a-week training schedule, she's been a huge advocate of hot yoga, and now she’s partnering with Reebok and Les Mills to share her latest iteration of fitness: working out as a way to practice self-care and empowerment with her best friends.
That's why the ultimate sleepover with Nina isn’t just about a night spent bonding and laughing with friends, but about spending the day in meaningful ways, including getting new piercings (Nina got two)! Before we all spent the night in the beautiful new William Vale hotel in Brooklyn, we started off the morning with Les Mills's yoga-inspired BODYFLOW class, followed by brunch and Nina's favorite 30-minute high-intensity interval training class. By the end, everyone, including me, was ready for dinner at the hotel's restaurant.
After stuffing our faces with the salmon, we sat down with Nina to chat about staying healthy with her best friends, why she eats more food now, and what she wishes everyone learned about their bodies sooner.
Teen Vogue: Why do you think it’s important for young women to want to work out and treat their body well?
Nina Dobrev: Well, when I workout I feel good. I don’t know if it’s the endorphins that get released or taking time for me. I don’t think people give enough time to themselves, me-time is almost non-existent anymore. So in that 30 minutes, 45, however long you’re in the workout class you’re focusing on you and you’re doing something for yourself and to make yourself feel better. Not only does it change your body and make you look better, it also makes you feel better. So that’s my mission: to inspire, engage, and empower women to be fit for life. To encourage girls to, you have to harness your passion. That way your confidence will shine through, through fitness. One other thing I do, especially now that I’ve been working with Reebok and Les Mills, I go to Les Mills Classes with my girlfriends.
Whenever I go with my girlfriends they push me and motivate me to do better. Having that support system in class is helpful. And also accountable — if you say you’re going to do something with your friends you’re going to do it and go. If you plan on doing something on your own, you might bail on it because you just don’t feel like it or your lazy or you’re not having a good day. But you can go to a workout class and chat with your friends before, do the class and go to coffee after words and chat about your lives and catch up. So it’s nice to have a community in that way.
TV: Do you think group fitness and encouraging girls to take care of their bodies together is a way of redefining or strengthening female friendship?
ND: I’ve found for me it has, because like I said, I have a really, really great group of girlfriends that are all interested in the same things, which is being healthy, and being active, and doing fun things and not sitting around and waiting for opportunities but making them for yourself. By surrounding myself with those people, those good people and that good energy, it makes me a better person and it makes me want to do more in my life. I feel like if everyone did that more, they’d get out more, they’d have more experiences they’d be more active and they’d feel better about themselves. And usually when people feel better about themselves, they’re better to other people and they’re more positive to other people. I think people who are innately unhappy with themselves are the ones trolling and being mean and criticizing other people. So yeah, I guess when you put it in that way if people were more active and went out more and took better care of themselves maybe they’d be better to other people too.
TV: Do you think there should be more of an emphasis on how much working out can affect someone’s mental health and just being able to breath, essentially?
ND: Yeah, 100% I wish I could go back and talk to a younger version of myself and tell her to do just that, take a few deep breaths. Because more often than not if you do that you can overcome anything. Just a few seconds of your time to let your heart rate go down if you’re in a stressful situation or if you’re upset about something you can just breath in and out a few times and allow for that time to pass you can be more objective mentally and think about what just happened. Is it really the end of the world or am I being a little bit dramatic?
It’s so, so important that, whatever the task at hand, whatever movement you’re doing is usually so tough you need to breathe through it. When you’re in a workout class, that’s your time for you, to work on yourself. Being with your own thoughts. So I do find it very therapeutic not just physically for my body but for my mental state as well. You don’t have your cell phone in class, you can’t be reached. You’re just completely off the grid and that’s so healthy and so necessary. You need to disconnect.
TV: I know that you have done yoga for a really long time. What are some of your favorite classes you’ve been getting into these days?
ND: I was thinking about this today the things I’m learning now because I’ve been doing all these workouts with Les Mills and Reebok, I wish I had learned at a younger age. Because now that I understand the body and I understand what I could do for it with a HITT workout, which is raising your heart rate and bringing it back down for 10 seconds and raising it back up again, all these things you learn in these classes, that I feel like I’ve never felt better as a person.
TV: When you look at the pressure young women and young people have to look a certain way, have you ever felt insecure about something that you’re proud of now?
ND: Yes and no. I used to be a gymnast so I competed competitively. When I did that, we would work out 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. There’s always pressure. Whether you’re someone who grew up in front of the camera, constantly walking red carpets, people dissect every part of you and you’re always going to feel a pressure. That’s unfortunately part of the industry. My way of battling that pressure is to always continue doing what I’m doing and be active and be as healthy as I possibly can. And learning as much as I can along the way. The older I get the more I realize that the more healthy you are in your choices, like I probably eat more now. I probably eat more now because I’ve earned it’s healthier to eat meals more frequently and that will sustain your metabolism. So it’s things like that, learning about biology and nutrition. So I have a higher caloric intake throughout the day, and I feel better. It’s about knowledge and education. I wish they taught that earlier so people could learn to do the right things for their bodies, and not fall into bad patterns.
TV: What are you excited about that’s coming up for you?
ND: It’s an exciting time. I’ve never been busier but I couldn’t be more excited about. Between this new partnership with Reebok, which I’m incredibly incredibly thrilled for. I’ve been having so much fun sort of training and getting ready for it and photoshoots and the pictures are going to be released now so the world will finally know. We’ve had it under wraps for quite a few months now so the secret will now be out. I don’t have to keep it close to my heart. So on top of that, Flatliners comes out in a few months. That and the documentary I’ve been working closely on about sharks to change the perception on them. It’s keeping me really busy, but in the best way possible.
Click here for more on Nina's partnership with Reebok and Les Mills.
Related: "Flatliners" Film Starring Nina Dobrev Drops Heart-Stopping Trailer
