Here’s What A Day In The Life Of The Fittest Woman In The World Looks Like

Katrín Davíðsdóttir is not like other 23-year-old girls. Sure, she’s hilarious on Snapchat, loves Instagram and spending time with her friends and family but that’s kind of where the similarities end. See, Katrín is officially the Fittest Woman in the World.

Katrín, from Iceland, is the reigning women’s champ of the CrossFit Games – a title she’s held for two years now (she’s the second woman to accomplish this) – and, as you’d expect for someone in pretty much the best physical condition possible, her lifestyle looks a little bit different from yours… Here’s her average day. “I wake up anywhere between, like 6:20 and 7am," Katrín says when we meet during a brief trip to the UK recently. "I really like slow mornings. I like to wake up and cook breakfast and I always start my day with a big glass of water. I have two egg whites and then add normally a pepper or another kind of vegetable to the egg scramble. With that I have oatmeal and banana and then I have coffee with half-and-half in, kind of like cream.” With that slow morning comes a bit of time before training. Katrín uses this to catch up on things. “I love sitting down to just read – any sports psychology or whatever I’m interested in at the time.”

From there, it’s time to hit training. “I’m normally at the gym by 9 o’clock and every day I start with 10 mins of deep belly breathing. It’s very meditative. It gets you set and focussed for the day.” Add those 10 minutes of belly breathing to her warm-up session (20-30 minutes a day), and Katrín’s pre-workout is longer than most people’s normal workout. “It’s about being warm and sweaty when I start working out," she explains. "That’s how I feel most ready.” Katrín warms up by herself but after that she enlists the help of others. Last year she moved to Boston in the United States to train at CrossFit New England. There she’s coached by Ben Bergeron, who is kind of a big deal – he’s trained no fewer than FIVE CrossFit Games champions. Alongside Ben or a training partner, she’ll spend her morning working on strength or skill. Next she’ll have lunch. It’s protein- and carb-heavy. “I’ll normally have tuna or salmon with rice and lots and lots of vegetables.”

After lunch it’s back to training. “My second session tends to be met cons” she says. For the uninitiated, ‘met cons’ is short for ‘metabolic conditioning workouts’. These are basically super duper high-intensity, short workouts which amp up your metabolism and help you burn fat rapidly. “After that,” she continues, “I’ll maybe do some kind of gymnastics or technique.” For you and me, there’s always that one thing at the gym that we put off doing because, well, it’s boring. For Katrín though, that’s not the case. “I like everything!” she says, and from her face I don't doubt that she genuinely means this. “Some things I like because I’m good at them – like you might give me a workout that’s like kettlebell snatching and I’ll be like, ‘Yeah okay, I'm really good at this!’ But then you might give me a workout like muscle-ups and I’ll be like, ‘Okay this is my opportunity to get better’. So I like everything for different reasons – some because I’ll be good at it and some because it will challenge me.”

Post-workout it’s snack time. Although – unlike the three packets of chocolate-chip Snack a Jacks you destroy after the gym – Katrín’s snack is yet another important part of her routine. “I’ll have coconut water and one scoop of protein. I always put carbs or fruit in it, too.” She loves it, as well. “If you mix coconut water with protein it’s a good post-workout TREAT. It’s so good!” she grins. Katrín’s done with the gym about 4pm. Then it’s time to relax. “When I’m in Iceland, because I don’t get too much time there, I spend time with my friends and family – I’ll have dinner with my grandpa, or go to my mum’s and have dinner with her and my little brother, or meet friends for coffee. But in Boston I have a lot of time and I use it to focus on recovery,” she says. “I might have body work done or go and sit in the sauna for a little bit.”

Dinner is chicken, ground beef or turkey and, again, rice, sweet potatoes and lots and lots of vegetables. “I’ve got no clue how many calories I burn in a day but I eat about 2,400.” Evenings are spent doing life admin: “Answering emails and stuff like that.” She rolls her eyes – even champions have to deal with an overfull inbox. “And them I’m in bed by 10 or 10.30.” There is no tampering with Katrín’s schedule. Not even on Christmas Day. “I train Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Regardless of the day,” she says firmly. “It’s my favourite thing to do. I wouldn’t want a day off.”

Sometimes days off do have to happen, though. “I had my wisdom teeth taken out a few weeks ago and I had to take a full week off and I really didn’t like it,” she says. “I think so much every day that I want to become better and I was very aware that every single day I wasn’t getting better.” “But then you’ve got to look at the positives and in that case you’ve got to be like, ‘Okay, this is going to make me work harder next week, this is going to make me hungry when I get back to training’,” she surmises. “You can’t always maximise everything but you have to make the best out of every situation you’re in.”

Katrín Davíðsdóttir is a Reebok athlete and was speaking at the London launch of the Reebok Nano 7, the newest iteration of the fitness brand's pinnacle functional training shoe. reebok.co.uk