Pamela Anderson
5th Annual Kering Caring For Women, New York, USA – 10 Sep 2026
For a woman who spent the ’90s in the most famous red swimsuit on television, Pamela Anderson’s life today looks almost radically simple. No makeup on the red carpet, a garden on Vancouver Island, and a morning ritual that requires no gym, no trainer and no equipment. She has described it in a single sentence. Researchers have spent decades explaining why it works.
What is Pamela Anderson’s morning habit?
She walks. Every day. “I walk every morning; I have to get fresh air, no matter the weather,” Anderson told NewBeauty in February 2026, as reported by Woman & Home. For her, it is as much about the mind as the body: nature, she said, “has reset me time and again, even in my hardest of times.”
The rest of her routine follows the same logic. Speaking to People in July 2026, she explained that her garden doubles as her workout: “It’s a good workout!” she said, adding, “I think it’s better than going to the gym, doing garden work,” according to The List.
Is daily movement really better than the gym?
Not better in every way, but far more powerful than most people assume. Scientists have a name for all the activity we do outside of formal exercise, from walking to gardening to carrying groceries: NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
In a landmark study published in Science in 1999, Mayo Clinic endocrinologist James Levine and his team overfed 16 volunteers by 1,000 extra calories a day for eight weeks. Some gained almost 16 pounds, others barely 2. The difference came largely from NEAT: some participants spontaneously moved more, burning up to 692 extra calories a day. “Those people who had the greatest increase in NEAT gained the least fat, and those who had the least change gained the most,” Levine said, as reported by ScienceDaily.
Why the “fresh air” part matters too
Anderson’s insistence on walking outside, not on a treadmill, also has research behind it. In a 2015 study published in PNAS, Stanford researchers led by Gregory Bratman compared people who took a 90-minute walk in a natural area with others who walked along a busy road. Only the nature walkers showed reduced activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a brain region linked to rumination, the repetitive negative thinking associated with depression, according to KurzweilAI.
“This finding is exciting because it demonstrates the impact of nature experience on an aspect of emotion regulation,” Bratman said. It is a scientific way of describing what Anderson calls being “reset.”
How to borrow her routine
- Make it non-negotiable, not intense. Anderson’s rule is consistency, “no matter the weather,” not distance or speed.
- Go outside when you can. A park, a tree-lined street or a waterfront counts more than a treadmill for your mood.
- Count the chores. Gardening, raking leaves or walking to the store all add to your NEAT.
- Want a number? Cardiologists point to a specific daily distance after 50, the one Jane Fonda, 88, swears by. On busy days, Helen Mirren’s 12-minute routine is another free option.
The bottom line
Pamela Anderson’s secret is not a product, a diet or a personal trainer. It is a daily walk outside, in any weather, and a garden she treats as her gym. Science suggests both may be doing more for her body and mind than any membership could, and the price of entry is a pair of shoes.
