Ian Somerhalder on his workout routine and his daily tea ceremony – British GQ

Ian Somerhalder is an incredibly passionate man. An actor, a producer, an entrepreneur, a passionate advocate for better education and agricultural practice, you wouldnt expect that talking to a man with one of the most famous smoulders in the world would get so deep.

Somerhalder has the kind of new-age, radically sincere, buzzword-hitting system of health beliefs that he knows get peoples backs up. You start talking about food and finances, people get really angry. 'I cant afford a five dollar potato!'" Hes aware of how detached from reality it can sound, but once upon a time he had nothing too. In Louisiana in the Seventies and Eighties, all we had was family and food," he said, pointing out that his mother was one of the many Americans working three jobs just to make a living. "Im a poor kid from the bayous. The only reason I know any of this is my mom, a farm girl, studied Eastern philosophy."

It would be easy to make Somerhalders passion and ability to talk on an Olympian scale sound like a man who is out of touch. But over the chats we had I was left beguiled by a man who is as passionate about nutrition as he is for his new show V Wars, adapted from Jonathan Maberry's series of books, and his second foray into the world of the nosferatu, after his star turn in Vampire Diaries. He was worried it might seem like treading over old ground, but, he said, My wife is the one that drove it home: Jonathan Maberry is a great script writer and bestselling writer. This is a great way to take the skill set I learned from Vampire Diaries to new viewers and tell a modernised, socially relevant side of the vampire genre."

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He touched briefly on what V Wars had required of his fitness regime: "Youll never know how many men Ive had, whether theyre white collar or work hard on job sites, that say, Look, if I want to see an ordinary guy, Ill go to the fucking hardware store. I can look in the mirror,'" he recalled. "'Give me someone to fight for, someone whos inspiring, someone who is doing something that is bigger than human.'" The same desire for an extraordinary lead character also impacted his training. It's hard, however, to get Somerhalder to focus on one thing for too long: soon he's talking about sugar or his future business endeavours or another amazingly talented person he thinks I need to know about.

He talks, eloquently, at length about education reform, bulletproof coffee and his wifes jewellery range. Youd be inclined to think he was an asshole and he knows thats how he can come off if he wasnt so damn compassionate. At one point he talked about a movie hes executive producing about regenerative farming and seemed to choke up as he described how the end always makes him cry. When I spoke to one of the other executive producers of V Wars, he told me Somerhalder "would pay for coffee trucks to come up there. He'd lay carpet on the ground. There was a North Pole set where the wind machine broke, and who was fixing it? Ian."

How does he have the energy to be so unrelentingly positive? Thats what we wanted to find out.

"I get up early morning and slam some breakfast. I dont eat a typical breakfast. I dont eat pancakes and if I do I eat them at night. I always hear men and women talk about cheat days. Oh, I cheated and did this, cheated and did that. I cant subscribe to that. Dont cheat, only treat. If you treat yourself, own it. Cheating is a vibration youre creating in your head.

"So Im up before the sun, eating breakfast. First thing I do is pound a quarter of a teaspoon of pink salt, warm water and half a lemon, that goes right into my adrenals. I wouldnt recommend this if you have a heart problem. And then I pound the tea. Ill take tea or organic coffee, do a tablespoon of coconut oil in my coffee and then I whip it in a Vitamix. Youre whipping fat molecules lipids with your caffeine molecules and that allows you to burn it a lot slower.

"My diet is vegetables, soups, broths and dense, dense fats and proteins. Everything is about carbohydrates in the morning. Sure, thats fine after youve trained, but I dont understand where we decided to wake up and douse our systems with sugary carbohydrates. Our stomachs balance is so important.

"Then off to work, making sure all the notes I made for the script are in my head. When I show up as an actor, I get to hair and make-up, keep focused and the whole time Im constantly picking at fruit, nuts, natural things not processed stuff.

"And then usually about an hour and a half after that Im on set. Im in rehearsal, finding that space to create a happy, healthy work environment and rise to the occasion. I love what I do. Its the most fun. Not every scene works the way you want to. I make sure I get on FaceTime and see the baby in between setups and make sure Im taking my multis and keeping a level of antioxidants and green tea and healthy, healthy foods. At the end of the day, we are nothing but biochemical reactors. We are cars with legs and feet. The fuel you put in is the output you get out. We fill our bodies with [bad] things for convenience and it doesnt work."

"When I show up as a director, thats a whole other level. Youve done rehearsals as an actor but now youre going through the blocking with your DP, your first AD, your actors. Youre delegating and youre putting out a level of energy to excite and entice everyone to come along on that journey that day, to encourage them in a really healthy and positive manner to execute that one thing, to get through that day in the most positive and healthy and constructive and efficient way, its an art form. Sometimes when youre exhausted you want to curl up in a ball and fall asleep, maybe the baby kept you up all night. You put on, not a front, but you create a positive energy from yourself and thats how I get through my days. Its an amazing thing and Im so grateful to do what I do.

"Food is medicine, medicine is food: two thousand per cent. Youve got to check out your blood type, find out your vitamin and mineral levels and when you start eating whole foods you feel better, act better, look better. Happy people builds a happy society.

"I eat mostly gluten-free pasta and stuff. I alternate, but when I eat too much wheat my brain slows down. You get to a place where eating fresh, good vegetables that are healthy and make you feel better, you get into a state where you feel really, really, really good. That is really important."

"My wife this is so cool she bought me some amazing organic black English tea which Im having. Biohacking is just so fun, man.

"For breakfast, I eat a lot of things youd eat later in the day. I alternate between handfuls of nuts and fats and vegetables for breakfast. Maybe broth for people who eat meat too. Bone broths and vegetable broths are really good for the stomach. Your gut biome, your health, starts with the health of your gut. Giving it things like broths and high doses of amino acids builds your stomach lining. I eat nuts and fish and vegetables and broth and stuff in the morning and that allows me to continue. Sugar cripples your energy production; your mitochondrial production is just crushed.

"You can eat clean and healthy on a budget. You can make it even less expensive. It just takes time and you need to be willing to change what makes you feel comfort. That comfort food, on a daily basis, can steer you down a path where youre not getting the optimal output out of your body. If youre constantly replenishing your amino acid, your electrolytes, vitamin C? You feel fantastic.

"If you have stressors at home, if your body is stressed, youre burning through vitamin C. If youre a smoker especially so. Youre burning through 30 to 50 milligrams every hour if youre a chill person; if youre stressed and smoking, youre probably burning through 100 an hour. After a ten-hour day, youre burning through 1,000. You start to go into deficit if you dont constantly absorb these things. You dont want to be in deficit and a lot of people are in deficit of vitamins and minerals. Genetics plays a part in that, but when you get deep, deep, deep down, these diseases and issues were having is because were not in touch with our bodies and were not feeding it what we could get."

"I definitely have a gym regimen, usually in the morning. I do a couple of days a week, low-intensity fast cardio. I sometimes train by stretching and doing high-intensity multiple workouts at the same time. Who has the time to sit in the gym for an hour? I do multiple sets at the same time at the gym, always push and pull, up and down; if youre curling weights at the front youre doing pull downs at the back. Squats and burpees are not your friend, but I have a trainer an Olympic trainer. who was my trainer on Vampire Diaries for eight years whose ability to understand how the body works and hack it is mind-bending. Because I live in Malibu, and he lives in Georgia, he sends videos of my workouts, and when Im travelling or at my own gym I can use them and crush it. I have an iPod, I watch my workouts, I do my supersets.

"My baby gets up at 8.30am every morning. Im usually up by 5.30am, 6am at the latest, getting my work done, and my workout, and getting the food I so need. Theres a website called Alo, its like the new Lululemon, Im obsessed with this, they have a great programme. They have 40 or 50 teachers and they do classes. Its like $20 a month I get it on my iPad and these trainers will work you to the bone but in literally 15 minutes. Ill do the workout that my trainer gave me, then in the afternoon or evening, or in the morning when Im travelling, I have this portable instructor.

"Theres a guy on Alo called Josh Kramer theyre all ridiculously handsome and pretty and super well trained but when in doubt I just go to Josh. Between my trainer and Alo Moves, I can move my body for 20 to 30 minutes every day. Even if its spread out. Youve got to do it, reconnect with your body. Youre a walking, talking, connected being. Once you connect to yourself more, youre more connected to the ground you walk on, the projects you work on."

"We have a bedroom that looks out over the ocean. We have a full tea ceremony setup in there, where we sit every morning when V Wars isnt taking up the lion share we get the baby up together, we change her diaper and then we go into the bedroom with the animals and she runs around. We have our tea ceremony, open our doors and windows and we show her crystals and books and plants and talk about all the things were seeing, birds and planes and oceans. Even sitting for that half hour in the morning with my wife and baby and our animals, just watching our little girl bring gifts to the dog and cat, laying down with them and curling up and rolling around, checking them out, opening up their ears and checking their paws. Its just magic, man.

"And then the day starts and things get a little chaotic. But those moments, when I think about fatherhood and choices and time, I think that these are some of the most special. I remember my mom before school, we would sit down in the morning, she had her coffee, I had my breakfast, wed talk about the day, what I was excited for and dreading homework, a girl I liked, football practice and the coach being a dick and then at night, wed sit and have conversations with the family round the table. Human beings are social animals, our lives are based around food. Thats when we commune and communicate. Even with a teeny baby, shes just over two now, but those are the things I take pride in. I know a lot of parents dont feel the need to budget the time. I highly, highly recommend getting down on the floor with your kid, having your tea, letting them run around, talking to them, asking them questions, showing them gems and plants, letting them explore that. Starting the day as a family? You have a far more calm sense of what your day is going to bring."

"I cherish them, man. Our weekends are about family time, exercising, walks on the beach, hikes in the mountain. I refuse to suck up my weekends staring at a screen. Breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together. Were out on the trail, singing and dancing. Those are our weekends.

"I dont get to see my friends right now, with the workload and with the baby, we have an amazing circle of people, but right now its about reconstituting my energy to my wife and my kid. Youre going to hear this word a lot: constitution. In Asian medicine and Eastern philosophy you hear it a lot, you look fine but your constitution is off, your energy field. Its hard for us to peer outside of the treacherous opium dens of life, because it aint easy. People find comfort in foods and things that arent good for them. Sure, in moderation. Hell, yeah, man. If you sit with a friend, its precious time. Its all the excess were creating in our bodies. Those weekends, man? I need them for reconstituting. For family, hikes, gym time. And meals with friends and family. Quiet moments.

"When you have those moments and youre burning your candle, crushing your week, when you hit that slump, dont fill yourself with caffeinated sweet drinks, thats the other thing we need to talk about: sugar. Sugar is the devil. Were burning through our nutrients, our cortisol is out of whack. If you can just find happiness and balance, with vegetables and nuts and healthy starches, youre golden. Youll never feel better in your life."

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Ian Somerhalder on his workout routine and his daily tea ceremony - British GQ

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero