Gwyneth Paltrow has revealed she has “never been happier” than when she allowed herself to relax her diet and drink wine and eat pasta and dairy while on vacation in Italy this summer.

The Goop founder spoke candidly about maintaining her diet and her approach to food while she is travelling during a Q&A on The goop podcast.

In response to one fan, who asked how Paltrow keeps up with her healthy lifestyle while on vacation, the Iron Man star said: “Well, first of all, let me just start off by saying that I went to Italy for a week this summer, and my diet just went totally out the window.

“I had wine and pasta and dairy and everything that I’m not supposed to have, and it was great. And I’ve never been happier. So that’s that.”

Paltrow then revealed that she typically finds it easy to eat in a “pretty clean way” while travelling, as she pointed out that “in most places, you can get some clean vegetables and a clean piece of fish, or a green juice even now”.

According to the actress, the difficult part can be trying to eat clean in a hotel room, with Paltrow explaining “what’s hard is trying to make a specific smoothie in a hotel room,” before adding: “I just kind of give up on that.”

“I just follow the tenets of the diet I’m trying to follow, or the lifestyle I’m trying to follow at the moment, and not be too hard on myself about rules - and not to forget to really enjoy yourself,” she continued.

This is not the first time that the 48-year-old has opened up about easing her typical dietary restrictions, as she previously revealed during an appearance on the Smartless podcast in May that she went “totally off the rails” during quarantine by drinking every night and making pasta.

“I drank alcohol during quarantine,” she said. “I was drinking seven nights a week and making pasta and eating bread. I went totally off the rails.

“I mean, who drinks multiple drinks seven nights a week? Like that’s not healthy.”

While Paltrow will occasionally relax her typically healthy diet, she revealed during the Q&A that she is currently strictly following a Paleo diet in an attempt to target some of her long-haul Covid symptoms such as inflammation.

Explaining that she used to eat a lot of “lentils and garbanzo beans and rice and quinoa,” the actress said that the foods are all “off the menu for the time being” as she is “still dealing with a little bit of long-haul Covid stuff, and some inflammation, and I’m really interested in bringing those inflammation levels down”.

Paltrow also noted that she loves fish and eats birds as well, as long as they are not raised in a factory, and that she occasionally eats grass-fed beef, after avoiding it for 20 years, because she was advised to to treat anaemia.

However, while she follows a mostly vegetable-focused diet herself, the Oscar-winner admitted that she does not know what the phrase plant-based “means”.

In response to a question about whether she is plant-based, Paltrow said: “Can we discuss the phrase plant-based? I don’t understand what that means because, does that mean you don’t eat meat? Or you’re just orienting more around plants?”

“Someone please tell me what that means,” she added.

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