Health and Fitness Secrets of an Aussie Stage Star

Performer Melody Beck is a health and fitness guru, eating raw almonds, almond milk, oats, fresh berries, mango, kale, lean chicken breast and salad.

All that rehearsing and busy schedules and they still manage to look fantastic. What about the drive and energy to perform up to six nights a week? Performer Melody Beck shares her secrets for staying healthy, fit and disciplined even while she’s busy.

She’s only twenty-one, but Melody Beck is fresh from starring as Grace Farrell in a sell-out run of Annie at the Riverside Theatre. At an age when most people are just starting out, Melody has credits that any stage star would envy, including lead roles in The Producers, Oklahoma, Little Shop of Horrors, and Grease among her fifteen stage credits.

With such an intensely busy lifestyle, she has had to learn to take care of her body, because keeping fit and healthy is what’s going to keep her following her dreams of becoming a Broadway star. She took a short break to sit down with Bondi Beauty and share her real-world advice for reaching your goals and following your dreams.

Melody admits to wanting to subsist on a diet of coffee, takeaway dinners and the occasional glass of Scotch, but understands that it’s not sustainable and that a balanced diet is essential. Staples in her diet are raw almonds, oats, fresh berries, almond milk, mango, kale, lean chicken breast and salad. She credits these foods with helping her stay focused and feeling healthy from the inside out, especially when she’s in the middle of a show run.

As for staying fit, her exercise regime consists of a diverse range of activities including dancing, jogging, yoga, rock climbing, and trampolining. When time is short, a good session of circuit training is the way to go. During a show, time management is essential. Melody tries to plan her time so that she can fit at least twenty minutes of exercise in every day. Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial, but it can sometimes feel like luxury during busy periods due to late nights and early mornings. Sleep is definitely important to maintaining good health.

On the subject of following her dreams, Melody says she’s just maintained the passion she’s always had for theatre. She always works her hardest to ensure she gets the most out of every opportunity and experiences as much possible. Occasionally, it is difficult to stay disciplined, but when you’re doing what you love, it tends to come more easily. She has a flexible, ever-expanding list of goals to help her.

The hardest thing about sticking to goals is when you have to make difficult choices; choosing between a good night’s sleep, working and rehearsing when you can only have two out of three is hard. The only way to solve it is to step back and re-evaluate everything that really needs doing in each vein of her life. Balancing work goals, social a life, leisure activities, performances and exercise goals is a true balancing act.

Like everyone, it’s difficult when things change in Melody’s life – rehearsal periods are never set and can be anything from two to weeks to three months. Shows can run anywhere from three days to several years. The commitment needed is intense, from the first audition to the last curtain call on closing night.

Melody won the 2014 International Cabaret Competition earlier this year and kicked off her self-devised show, titled ‘Unseen: The Voice of Hollywood – A Tribute to Marni Nixon’, last week. The show will tour major cabaret festivals in Australia before Melody heads for New York on tour later this month.

Follow her on www.facebook.com/MelodyBeckActress and www.twitter.com/melodybeck17

By BB Intern Yael Brender

How do you balance work goals, social life, personal goals and leisure activities?

Yael Brender

I am a freelance writer, dreamer and booklover. I write, rewrite, bang head against keyboard. Edit, re-edit, bang head against keyboard. I write for Bondi Beauty, Eat Drink Play, Warhol's Children and ZOS Magazine. Coffee is just as important as breathing, plus it makes me type faster! We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

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