Sports Illustrated Model Chrissy Teigen's Morning Routine

Every day the same breakfast! But at least she's got John Legend to make her eggs--and red-velvet Ben & Jerry's in the freezer

By Matt McCuePhotography by Wikimedia Commons user David Shankbone

March 12, 2013

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Welcome to My Morning Routine, where we take a look at how people kick-start the day. And by "people" we mean celebrities.

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It's hard not to envy supermodel Chrissy Teigen. She is featured in the 2013 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, has a new show, "Chrissy Teigen's Hungry," airing on the Cooking Channel, and is engaged to musician John Legend. A passionate cook, she frequently makes the cover recipes from Bon Appétit. (On one memorable occasion, she whipped up the ambitious Spiced Chocolate Torte Wrapped in Chocolate Ribbons for John for his birthday.) Here she dishes on how she starts her day.

We don't drink coffee. It makes me nauseous and doesn't wake me up. I can't think of a time we've drank coffee together in seven years.

If I don't have a job that day, I take a quick 5-to-10-minute shower. It's really difficult for me to summon up the energy to get into the shower. I don't know what it is, but I hate [getting in the] water. Still, nothing makes you feel better than taking a shower.

I love salt and I like to drink at night, so when I wake up I tend to be a little puffier than other people. My beauty tricks revolve around eyes. For the early morning shoots, I pop eye pads in the freezer the night before and when I take them out in the morning they are already cold and active and are great under my eyes. I keep my eye pads right next to my red velvet Ben & Jerry's in the freezer.

For the Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoots, I really have to buckle down. On this past shoot I ate really healthy leading up to the shoot--a lot of salads and sashimi--and then on the shoot I tried to avoid the dinners. They are group dinners and there are a lot of men on the set and men can eat whatever they want. But the last night of shooting was a free-for-all. I think I ordered four different entrees.

When we landed at our location airport this year, there was a Cinnabon in the airport. I never crave Cinnabon, but for some reason I did then. I approached the counter and saw that they were doing this Cinnabon where they chop it up into tiny bite-sized pieces, put it in a bag, pour icing and candied pecans into the bag and then they shake it up and dump it in a cup. It was the craziest most wonderful thing I had ever seen in my life. I made a mental note that when I returned to the airport I was going to get it. And I did. And it was delicious. My body had never been so overwhelmed by sugar.

Sundays are the relaxing day of the weekend for us. I go to Whole Foods in the morning, which is the worst time to go, and then we like to cook. If we are at home in L.A. we have a bigger kitchen and have people over, but if it's here in New York we keep to ourselves. John is my sous chef, and he's great at it.