How 49-year-old J Lo maintains her fierce figure

J Lo, 49, also known as Jennifer Lopez. is not afraid to showcase her incredible figure on Instagram.

Over the weekend, the star, who recently became engaged to her partner Alex Rodriguez, 43, posed a picture of herself in a hot pink bikini.

She captioned it “Ramona”, a reference to her character in upcoming film, ‘Hustlers’, in which she plays a former strip club employee.

J Lo’s 85.7 million Instagram followers were wowed by the post, calling the star “unbelievably gorgeous” and “a goddess”.

READ MORE: J Lo poses in nothing but a Valentino cape

But how does she maintain her age-defying figure? Her Instagram posts provide an insight into her health and fitness regime.

No sugar, no carbs challenge

Earlier this year, J Lo revealed to her followers that she had been on a “No sugar, no carbs” diet lasting 10 days.

Her now-fiancé former professional baseball player Rodriguez joined her on the challenge. The pair announced the diet together on Instagram.

“We’re going to call it a 10 day challenge: no sugar, no carbs, no cookies, no chips,” the actress, singer and entrepreneur told her followers on her IGTV channel, a vertical video platform owned by Instagram.

So what exactly did J Lo’s challenge entail? It involved cutting out all added sugar and starchy carbohydrates from your diet, which includes but is not limited to bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, and ice cream.

J Lo and Alex also avoided fruits like bananas, grapes and oranges, according to US broadcaster Today who spoke to the star.

“First and second day is when you realise you’re addicted to sugar. It’s like a drug,” J Lo told the programme.

So what else does J Lo do to maintain her incredible figure?

Exercise

J Lo does a mixture of cardiovascular exercise and weights to keep her body slim and toned.

In a video posted to IGTV, she lifts heavy-looking dumbbells in a series of overhead presses. She also works her back while lying face down on an exercise bench.

READ MORE: J Lo’s engagement ring worth as much as £5 million

In another post, she also revealed she had done a cardio session – proving she keeps her exercise regime varied.

Healthy snacks

J Lo has also revealed her choice of sugar-free snacks on her Instagram, according to Women’s Health.

She said: “So it turns out, when you don’t have sugar and you don’t have carbs, you’re really hungry all the time. So we’re trying to figure out some good snacks.”

The couple opted for cucumber, red peppers, yellow peppers, tuna poke, green beans, canned tuna, and sugar-free jelly, the publication reported.

While we can’t deny J Lo looks amazing, nutritionist Jenna Hope told Yahoo UK the star’s 10 day challenge could be “dangerous”.

She told us: “This #nosugarnocarbs challenge is incredibly dangerous as it promotes an unhealthy relationship with food. Carbohydrates are essential for energy as well as the production of certain hormones including serotonin (the happy hormone).

“This challenge promotes a quick fix, weight loss strategy. The weight that is being lost from following a low carbohydrate diet for 10-days is most likely water loss not loss of fat mass. 1g of carbohydrates requires 4g of water to be stored as glycogen (the storage form of carbohydrates). Therefore once the 10-days is over it’s likely that the water weight will go back on very quickly.

“This method of deprivation can also lead to an unhealthy relationship with food and could be a potential lead for binging on carbohydrates once the 10-days is over.

“Whilst it’s important that as a population we should be reducing our overall sugar intake, movements like this are extreme, unhelpful and dangerous.”

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