How Kristen Bell spends her 5 to 9 — from exercise snacking to microwave dinners

Kristen Bell knows how hard it can be to fit exercise into a busy schedule.

During our Zoom call, we realize we're both missing our regular workouts to do this interview — it's Monday evening in the UK for me and morning in LA for her. But we agree that we'll both do a few dumbbell curls while cooking later. An exercise snack, if you will.

"I don't want to get to it, but I will," Bell, 44, tells me.

It's a cliché that celebrities are "just like us!" but starring in huge projects like "Frozen" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" or "The Good Place" and "Nobody Wants This" won't help you persuade your kids to eat their vegetables.

In the latest installment of Business Insider's "5 to 9" series, where celebrities share how they spend the hours they're not working, the Golden Globe-nominated actor gives a glimpse into her life with her husband, the actor Dax Shepard, and their two daughters, aged 10 and 11.

What time do you start your day?

The whole family wakes up at 7 a.m. I have been a longtime committed supporter of not waking up before 7 a.m. I remember when our babies were born and other parents said, "Ours wake up at 5.30 a.m." and I thought, "No, I'll find the receipt, I'm not interested in that."

I'm not a morning person, and unfortunately, full disclosure, I'm also not a night person.

I'm pretty much a non-functioning corpse before I've had any caffeine, so I must chug something caffeinated to be able to speak. My primary objective when I wake up is to get to coffee, matcha, or even Diet Coke as quickly as possible.

What do you have for breakfast?

It depends, but I love it when our family eats eggs, for the protein and fats. We're also big fans of oatmeal but I try to slip in some protein powder. The girls do eat cereal, which is not my favorite, but I'm not here to be too strict and cereal is very fun. Sometimes I make high-protein pancakes.

Your daughters are lucky.

Tell them, they hate it.

Are they picky eaters or just average kids?

Aren't those things the same?

They're picky, but we talk a lot about health, nutrition, and how food affects our bodies and minds. I don't tell them they can't have a doughnut, but I tell them to notice how they feel 30 minutes later.

I'm a big fan of tough love with my kids and sometimes I have to say: "We are not always eating for pleasure. Sometimes we're eating because we know that's what our body needs."

They absolutely love Plezi drinks which are lower in sugar than other drinks [Bell is an investor and brand partner of Plezi Nutrition]. Obviously, water is the number one thing we should be giving our kids.

But the reality for any parent is that they are going to ask for something sweet and you can either fight with them all night or you can give them a Plezi and it feels like a treat.

Exercise snacking and heavy lifting

How do you keep fit?

My husband started working out a lot during COVID-19, and because I'm so competitive, I follow whatever he's doing.

For a long time, I did workouts that were tailored to women like Pilates. I enjoy those things but I really hit my stride and probably have the best body I've ever had at 44 — not just in terms of shape but also strength, endurance, and capacity — when I started heavy lifting.

My husband has been biking a lot recently to build quad strength. For the last two weeks, he cycled up to the observatory, which is a huge hill, every day.

I didn't think I could handle that, so I started with the hill in our neighborhood, which is still formidable. For the last five days, I've been on my daughter's trail bike doing 15-minute uphill bike rides.

Uphill cycling is really tough.

It's so tough. I'm very active but I never commit to just one workout because I like to challenge myself. There will be six weeks where I hike every day and the minute it feels a little bit comfortable, I'll switch.

I don't have hours to keep fit. I desperately try to fit in, say, that 15-minute cycle, but if it'll mess up my day I'll get to it later.

I keep a set of 10 or 15-pound weights underneath furniture so when I'm cooking dinner, if I haven't worked out that day, I'll do a set of bicep curls or shoulder presses while something simmers on the stove. Sometimes my workouts are sliced into my day in one-and-a-half-minute segments.

That's a thing — it's called exercise snacking.

Oh yeah, that's it. I hear people talking about their 90-minute workouts. When am I going to get that time? Never. So I rely on exercise snacking.

I try to habit-stack, too. I let the dogs out to pee at 9 p.m. every night, and then I do 24 squats. I've done that every night for six months, and it's great because I don't have to make time.

Reading and chatting before bed

Who cooks dinner?

My husband cooks a couple of times a year, and he is very good, but he usually doesn't have time. Everybody eats differently in my household, and I'd love to evict them all. I hate it, but I'll deal with it. The girls are picky. My husband is gluten-free and incredibly high-protein, so his meals are different.

I am not Martha Stewart. I pop things in the microwave and just try to make it work because, ultimately, as long as there are a couple of colors on the plate and at least one vegetable for the girls (usually frozen peas), that's my only commitment.

I was vegetarian for 30 years and vegan for a few, and then three years ago, I started eating meat again. It finally didn't feel weird to me. I felt like I needed and wanted it. Now I try to eat high-protein like my husband to support the lifting.

At family dinners, it's a mishmash but we eat together. The community of eating is far more important to me than the presentation.

What is bedtime like in your household?

We all go upstairs around 7:30 p.m. I usually sleep in the bedroom with my daughters as they don't like to sleep alone. My husband gets the master bedroom all to himself, which is lovely for him.

It's important to explain to kids why they have to do something. If they don't want to go to bed, we explain why sleep is important.

The four of us will lie in the kids' room and talk for about 45 minutes. My kids' brains are very open at night, they tell us all about their day. We usually read a book, and we're currently reading "Mandy" by Julie Andrews, which they really like. Sometimes my husband does voices with their stuffed animals.

I find it's a connective period and our way to plug back in, let them know everything is safe, the day is gone, it's just our family, and everyone can fall asleep peacefully. But it's long. It's 45 minutes to an hour, and then everyone falls asleep around 9 p.m.

Sometimes, I sneak out of the girls' room to watch a show with my husband in the master bedroom, then sneak back in.

We have three bedrooms, but our kids are very lucky and very privileged, so I was like, "Guess what? You're going to share a room, and you're going to have to deal with it, so figure it out."

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