admin Honestly, touring is the most routine that I have. My team and I, we’ve been so excited to be on a bus because we at least know we’re going to be on a bus, sleep on a bus, wake up, perform,—it’s like a normal workday.
So now that we have that, we’re trying to eat as healthy as possible. So again, lean meat and high protein, vegetables, a little bit of rice, or some carbs, and that’s about it. If I snack, it’s going to be a fruit, maybe a protein bar. I’ll cheat every once in a while—don’t tell my trainer—and that’s it. It’s not fun.
What do you cheat with?
What do I cheat with? I’ll cheat with anything. Give me fried chicken. I love fried chicken. French fries, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers. I am really good at convincing myself that hamburgers are actually healthy. I think about it as (protein) and there’s vegetables. (Laughs) That sounds like a salad in an efficient form to me, honestly.
And then I’ve cut out drinking completely for this tour. Usually on tour, I’ll just completely cut it out.
How did you get to that decision?
I usually don’t drink on the road on tour because it immediately dries out my throat. I can lose my voice very quickly. I also know that when I drink, I get just massive zits. I don’t want to deal with breakouts.
But then also, again, I really like drinking. I love my tequila, whiskey, wines, everything. But I’m trying to really remove as much alcohol from my life as possible, because I think I’m starting to find that it’s the day after—it’s the guilt from it and the physical sluggishness. I’m like, maybe I’m starting to be done with it. I’ll still go out and have a good time, and I’ll still have a drink every once in a while. But I think I’m starting to get to the point where I’m like, okay, we can have a drink. We don’t need to really get drunk or whatever.
Every time I have a big spiral or a panic attack, it’s because my body is exhausted or it’s because I’m overwhelmed. So knowing that: How do I set myself up so I have the least possibility of getting sick? And so, if not drinking is going to ensure that I don’t wake up with a sore neck and a headache the next day, I’m just going to cut it out. That’s kind of where I’ve been.
One of the things you’ve really centered in your career is mental health. You’ve made it an advocacy—you even have an app. In my experience, that’s such a taboo topic especially in a lot of Asian cultures. Was there a moment in your life where you felt like, oh, I need to take a more proactive stance on this? That you think led to you making it an advocacy and later founding the app?
I think there were many moments that kind of led to this. For example, one of my first panic attacks happened on an airplane. I was so busy, I was so stressed out. I was actually flying to New York for a fashion week thing. I had never had one before, and it was terrifying. I thought I was dying, and it led me down this spiral of ‘I’m going to have a heart attack and die on this plane.’ That was one. I realized, it’s not just me, it happens to a lot of people.
