Priyanka Chopra: ‘A Woman is Not Just a Sidekick To a Guy Anymore’

Priyanka Chopra says staying fit is simple — just eat right and stay active.

“You don’t have to kill yourself at the gym, you don’t have to starve yourself. You just have to eat healthy, eat right. Life is just really fast-paced. To be able to find ways of being healthy within that is a smart way to do it, ” Chopra, 34, says in the November issue of Women’s Health.

“I generally inherently stay fit … I want to be curvaceous but not super-skinny but at the same time I want to be lean. So I try and eat healthy whenever I can.”

Of course, the star of Quantico does have her favorite guilty pleasures, but Chopra genuinely enjoys eating healthy. “I love having my pizzas and burgers and buffalo wings on the side for sure,” she says, “but I like staying fit as well.” And Chopra shares her unique point of view on the mind-body connection.

“People always say you should listen to your body. But I don’t listen to my body. My body listens to me,” she says. “I can’t afford to be sick or low on energy. It’s mind over matter.”

“Identify the weaknesses, shut them in a box, find your strengths, and run with them,” she says.

And that mindset is clearly helping Chopra, who plays a villain in the upcoming film adaptation of Baywatch, make it in Hollywood. The former Bollywood star believes it helps that the roles for women are getting better.

“It’s a great time to be a female actor in global entertainment right now because there are parts that are being written for women which are so progressive,” she says. “A woman is not just a sidekick to a guy anymore.”

Chopra is proud to call herself a feminist, regardless of the stigma.

“Feminism’s got a bad name right now,” she says. “The reputation of feminists has become a bit tainted because people think feminists are man-hating and they berate men, but that’s not really what feminism stands for.”

“Feminism stands for women saying give us the ability to make our own decisions without being judged the same way men have for so many years … we want the freedom to be able do and be as we like.”

This article originally appeared on People.com