How Katherine Heigl spends her 5 to 9 — from raising teens to maintaining her 100-day Peloton streak

Katherine Heigl thinks a strongly worded letter should be sent to whoever’s responsible for moms experiencing perimenopause while parenting teens.

The Emmy-award winning actor, best known for her roles in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “27 Dresses,” and “Firefly Lane,” has three children with her husband Josh Kelley: two daughters, Naleigh, 15, and Adalaide, 13, as well as a son, Joshua, 8.

Heigl, 46, told Business Insider that everyone’s hormones changing at once is “really difficult,” but she prioritizes her and her kids’ physical and mental health as best she can, even if it sometimes means making the same “kid-friendly” dinners on repeat.

Speaking to BI to promote the dog food brand she founded, Badlands Ranch, in the latest installment of our “5-9” series, Heigl shared how she spends her days in her rural Utah home. She also detailed how she’s relearning her body during perimenopause and how she’s changed her relationship with exercise for the better.

Coffee and chilling with her dogs

On an average day, what time do you get up, and what’s your morning routine?

Typically, I’m up around 8 a.m. or 8:30 a.m., and the first thing I do is let my little dog sleep in bed with me. Then we all come down, the dogs go out, then they get their breakfast, I make a cup of coffee, and then we just sit in our little sitting room off the kitchen.

I either journal, read, or sometimes scroll, but typically, I give myself an hour to just sit, have a cup of coffee, and chill with the dogs before I get going — whether working or working out.

Coming down to see your dogs in the morning is the best because they’re so excited.

You can leave the room for two minutes and come back, and they’re equally as excited.

So right. So what do you have for breakfast most days?

I just cannot make myself eat until about noon. So it’s just a cup or two of coffee, and that’s it until lunch.

I love food — I’m a total foodie — but I have no patience to make it for myself. So I typically will just throw a smoothie together really quickly, and that will be that until dinner.

I used to really love to cook, and I used to cook a lot, but now, I live in the mountains of Utah. We can’t even get a pizza delivered. When you’re forced to cook every day, come up with meals, and figure it out every day, I’m so over it now.

I have not been a great mom in that way lately. I’ve been like, “Hey, guys, let’s just have ramen.” So I’m giving myself a break, but I’ll get back to it, I’m sure.

I’m sure your kids aren’t complaining. Are they fussy eaters?

My oldest daughter, Naleigh, she’ll eat anything. She and I have very similar tastes — we both really like spicy food, we love Indian food. My other two are fussy, yes.

I had a work trip to Vegas recently and decided to take the whole family. We had some beautiful dinners and lunches, and I was shocked: My son ordered a white truffle pizza.

I didn’t think he’d like it, but he looked at me and said, “Really good food makes me feel like I’m floating.”

So I’m hoping he’ll be a bit more adventurous. I get really sick of making the same kid-friendly dishes all the time.

Working out for mental health

You mentioned you sometimes exercise in the morning. What does movement look like for you? Dog walking?

Actually, no. I live on 20 acres of land, so they are very happy roaming and running around the yard. I used to do quite a bit more hiking: Where I live is on a paved road, 7,000 feet up, so it’s all uphill.

I got us a Peloton a few years ago. I didn’t realise they have everything from strength training to yoga to meditation to stretching classes. So I do no less than three days a week. Right now, I’m really proud of myself because I’m on a 100-week streak.

That’s amazing.

It’s probably the first time in my life I’ve ever made that kind of commitment to exercise. About three years ago, I changed my perspective — instead of it being about beating my body into submission because I wasn’t happy with my body, I made it about my mental health and feeling better.

Once I shifted to thinking about how exercise can help me go about the rest of my day in a better, more energized way, it became way less of a chore. Exercise used to be something I hated and had to talk myself into, but now I look forward to it because it does make me feel better. I just feel healthier inside my head.

It’s such a refreshing shift to make, but it’s also hard to do, especially for women, because for so long, we’ve been told to exercise to shrink ourselves.

Yes, and it’s something I really try to teach my daughters now. It’s not about changing the way you look, it’s about changing the way you feel. And if you can approach it from that place, it’s less of a challenge to get yourself to do it and to have that self-discipline. I do have to make them, though.

Well, they’re teenagers aren’t they? So, that’s tricky.

Yeah. Send help, please.

Perimenopause and holistic health

So you have eight dogs?

Yes, we were down to five, but then we adopted three new puppies. I think my husband wants me to stop, but I say to my family: “Listen, I do a lot for you guys and the dogs bring me so much joy, happiness, and comfort, so your help with these dogs is really about helping and supporting me so I can do the same for you.”

I’m going to use that argument.

It really works. Who can argue with that? You don’t want me to have comfort or peace or joy? You can’t say that. That’s horrible.

Genius.

Caring for our dogs and all dogs is so important to me. That’s why I wanted to work with the team creating Badlands Ranch dog food. It aligns with my passion for holistic health — we’re all learning more and more how important our digestive health is, and if we keep that healthy, how much of the rest of our system functions better and healthier. It’s the same for dogs.

What other lifestyle essentials do you have to keep yourself healthy and happy?

I have had to learn to really make my mental health a priority and recognize the triggers when stress gets too much. Every year I get older, I’ve learned how to better manage and not necessarily predict, but notice those triggers before it goes too far.

Meditation has become really important. I do not do it nearly enough, but I try to do it at least three days a week. That has helped me a lot just with clarity, purpose, and perspective.

With three kids and obviously a house full of pets, of course, there’s stress, and things are going to come up. But to be able to take a step back, give yourself even just an hour a day to approach everything calmly, has made a huge difference to my health, my mentality, and even just ensuring I get a better night’s sleep, which then ensures that my body and mind and everything functions better the next day.

I know you’ve spoken about perimenopause before.

Yeah. Whoever designed it so that women would be going through perimenopause while raising teenagers should be sent a strongly worded letter.

It’s really difficult. Their hormones are all over the place, they’re trying to adapt and get used to their new bodies and their new ways of thinking, and I am too. So the only thing I can do is look at them and go, “Well, at least we’re in it together.”

I just started researching something called Eight Sleep — it goes over your mattress to keep the bed cool at night. The number of nights that I wake up so hot and drenched in sweat. The good news is that I live in Utah, and nine months out of the year, it’s freezing, so I can just step outside and cool off.

Perimenopause is like having to relearn your whole system and body again. I feel like it happens almost every 10 years. In my 20s, my hormones were crazy and tumultuous, and I was trying to figure myself out. And then I had 10 years in my 30s where I had a good handle on it all, and then it all started shifting and changing again at about 40. Great.

Just endless changes, that’s exhausting.

Get used to it.

How do you wind down to give yourself the best chance of a good sleep?

There are nights where we’ll watch a show — my husband and I have gotten really into “Succession,” but I prefer to read for an hour before actually putting my head on the pillow.

If I scroll for too long at night or in bed, it really messes with my circadian rhythm. It just makes sleep really restless, and I think the blue light and onslaught of sensory overload is a thing. So we all put our phones down a good hour before bed.

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