After over 45 years living the gritty, glamorous rock-and-roll lifestyle, you might expect Aerosmith to have lines of something other than celery sticks on the table. But for the 60-something rockers, diet and exercise have always been a priority.
“For God’s sake, I still want to be able to fit into those pants I wore on the last tour,” said 66-year-old frontman Steven Tyler. “I just live by the motto that nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.”
Though Tyler has occasionally been criticized for his light eating habits and irregular meal schedule, he said he maintains a near-daily dinner diet of wild salmon and broccoli. The rocker has also been known to use a diet delivery service.
His particular service offers breakfast options like pecan pancakes with maple syrup and Canadian bacon, and lunch options like grilled chicken Caesar salad with risotto. For dinner, Tyler might enjoy a free-range chicken breast with steamed asparagus and stuffed cabbage, with additional snack choices like stuffed artichokes or strawberry swirl cheesecake. Not too shabby.
With constant cardio onstage, he places a little less emphasis on exercise in his free time. However, he “religiously” does 250 sit-ups every night before bed, and is often seen enjoying outdoor activities on the beach.
“I have to watch what I eat because I have this ongoing nightmare that I’m going to put on weight and end up looking like some of the other rock stars of a certain age who bounce around the stage,” said Tyler. “You look at them and think, ‘Oh my God, what happened to you? How did you let yourself get like that?’ I always call Joe Perry, my bandmate, and say, ‘Do you still weigh 145 pounds?’”
Their buddy system must be working, because 65-year-old Perry is also in amazing shape. The guitarist has shown off his cooking skills on several occasions and spoken extensively about his healthy lifestyle.
“The first thing that I became hip to was diet, and that’s the most important thing,” Perry told Men’s Fitness. “You go to a doctor and they prescribe medications to take care of the symptoms, as opposed to asking what you eat. But nutrition is such an important part to the whole thing.”
He has also discussed what an “underground thing” organic food was back in the 60s, and how he started avoiding food with preservatives just when people were discovering what they were. “I can’t say that I stuck to it as much as I could have in those days, but I started getting hip to it and getting hip to finding stuff in health food stores,” explained Perry.
“Usually it took the form of a granola bar or those kinds of things. Then when I got sober in the early 80’s, Joey [Kramer, Aerosmith’s drummer] started jogging and I picked it up.” He added that Kramer is “steadfast” about going to the gym, and they often exchange diet secrets if they learn something new.
Perry is currently on a “Paleo-type diet” and always makes an effort to buy locally-grown food. One of his tricks is whipping up his morning cup of coffee with concentrated coconut oil and butter in the blender, which he says “takes care of you for the rest of the day.”
An hour before every show, he makes sure to eat some kind of protein, usually grilled salmon or “a really lean steak” and some vegetables. Perry is also committed to exercising daily, even when they are on tour.
“When I’m on the road I have the bike and a couple set of weights and dumbbells. You can really do a pretty solid workout just doing your pushups, your situps, and certain body-weight moves,” he said. However, he makes sure to keep a consistent routine off tour as well, to avoid crashing after big performances.
“Being on the road, I’ve discovered certain things that help: try and get a relationship with the kitchen in the hotel; once in a while, if there’s a health food store down the street, go down and buy some groceries and give it to them at the hotel or tell them what you want,” said Perry. “You develop certain ways to make up for being on the road, but when I’m home and I can do things the way I want, it’s still about keeping it up.”