Actress Elsa Pataky is thrilled to be back in her homeland of Spain, enjoying a magical vacation with husband Chris Hemsworth and their family. Pataky, 46, shared a reel of herself wearing a lime-green bathing suit as she and Hemsworth jumped into the ocean from a yacht. "España 🇪🇸 …., you always make me feel happy!" she captioned the post. How does she stay so fit? Read on to see 5 ways Pataky stays in shape and the photos that prove they work.

Pataky started intermittent fasting after Hemsworth encouraged her to give it a try. "I was always like 'Hmmmm, I don't know!' and it's really hard, but then I started reading about it," she says. "Although, I was like 'I don't want to lose weight' – because it's a great way to lose weight, if you need to lose weight – but it won't you won't lose weight if your body doesn't need to. And I learnt that, doing it. But I read that it was amazing for anti-ageing, so I was like 'I'm in! I'm in!'. So he started it, and then I followed. But a lot of times, he starts something and I follow the exact opposite."

Pataky embraces the incredible benefits of working out with weights. "Weight training with yoga really works with my body," she says. "I work out with weights and the more and more I learn that I'm not scared of doing weights. I'm using more weight and more weight and more weight, and less repetitions to create that muscle. But stretching is such an important thing for the muscle – and in women it's what makes you get the shape, the beautiful shape. And I'm little! I'm 160cm – so yeah, being muscly doesn't go so good with that. But, yoga made a BIG difference to my body."

Pataky loves being active, especially when she gets to work out with Hemsworth. "I can't be without training for more than two weeks – I just get really nervous and my energy starts to go down," she says. "When you start working out and your body's changing and you're achieving your goals, that's such a great thing. So, I think that's the motivation [to exercise] – feeling better and just being happy with you and knowing that you're healthy. If you know you're taking care of your body and you're doing it for a reason, you can put aside the, 'I can't do it.'"

Pataky enjoys a plant-based Mediterranean diet. "For 80 per cent of the time, you choose healthy foods," she says. "But for special occasions – Christmas, holidays, parties – enjoy yourself. That's the other 20 per cent. In general, I try to make my 'cheat day' a weekend day, but if I am feeling really low mid-week because of something that's happened, I will give in to what my body asks for, whatever craving it is. Normally that is all I need, but I sometimes have a period where I'm feeling low for a few days, and that's when I take the pressure off myself."df44d9eab23ea271ddde7545ae2c09ec

Pataky is happy with the self-assurance that comes with age and experience. "It's the confidence that you have," she says. "From thirty-something onwards it's like 'I know what I want, I know what I don't want, and what is good for me'. And I feel confident about life. But then you start having wrinkles and it's like 'This is not fair!' But this is life…I would never go back to my twenties, I like this age. Like everybody says, your forties are like the new twenties and I feel like this is true."