ET speaks exclusively with the trainer about her COVID-19 diagnosis.
Jillian Michaels joined the growing list of stars who revealed they tested positive for COVID-19. The 46-year-old trainer had been taking all the safety precautions to avoid getting the coronavirus -- that is until she had a friend over. Now, in an exclusive interview with ET, Michaels is sharing the part of her COVID-19 battle that "shook" her emotionally.
Michaels reveals to ET's Nischelle Turner that she contracted the virus from her best friend, who had initially tested negative.
"My best friend, she's also my hair and makeup artist, she was on a job five days before she saw me, and they had everybody on set tested negative," Michaels shares via Zoom. "She comes to my house, I'm feeling overwhelmingly comfortable. Two days after that, my very close friend calls me and says, 'You're not gonna believe this, but I just tested positive.'"
"To make it a very long story short, I was asymptomatic for six days, but I had the virus and would have been very contagious had my friend not told me," Michaels explains. "This is where you start to get a little bit crazy in your mind because I'm thinking to myself, I would have gone to the gym if it was open. I would have gone to the supermarket. And yes, I'm wearing a mask, but you start to think how many times do I pull it down to catch a breath and touch something? It's like, if you are at all concerned you just have to be careful because you can't trust when you think you're looking at somebody that's not coughing or not sneezing that’s when they're apparently, I've been told, the most contagious."
The first day that she started to develop symptoms she had a slight headache and had a tickle in her chest. "The second day I had a slight fever, body aches, headache," she shares. "Third day, slight fever, body aches, headache. Fourth day, symptoms were practically gone, and by the fifth day I felt fine."
While Michael has recovered and her symptoms were mild, she wants people to "be diligent" and to understand that the virus can be spread by people who don't know they have it.
"It seems easy to catch. It's very easy to get a false negative. People are contagious with no symptoms. So you can't take anything for granted," she expresses. "And the part that scared me is I’ve been seeing my mom. Had my friend not called me two days later and said 'Hey, I'm positive. You need to quarantine immediately,' I would've seen my mom and I don’t want my mom getting COVID at all."
"That’s the part that just shook me emotionally, was how I had thought, 'Oh well, obviously I'll recognize it. I'll obviously have a symptom,' or 'I'll obviously feel something,' and you don’t,'" she notes, before sharing that her advice is to "wear your mask, wash your hands, don't touch your face."
In the meantime, while many people aren't able to go to the gym, The Biggest Loser alum has the perfect workout for everyone with The Jillian Michaels Fitness App. Definitely a pro exercise kind of gal, Michaels gives followers "a really easy workout."
"I can make this so simple for you. I just want you to move. I don't care if it's 10 minutes a day. Start somewhere, start anywhere," she encourages, adding that one must optimize their health, especially in the current climate.
"Would I love four 30-minute workouts in your living room? Of course I would," she says of people using her app. "Yes! But I'll take what I can get right now and I cannot stress enough, if there is one thing that I really am urging it is focus on your health. If you are at all afraid of this, use that fear to motivate you to get your body in shape and be as healthy as possible."
"There are literally hundreds of workouts on there and a variety of different meal plans and recipes created by chefs and registered dietitians," Michaels shares. "But what I can say is this: I have three seven-minute daily workouts on the app. Download it for free, use the free workouts. Show up for seven minutes. I will take it. If there's a place to start, start there…Do it twice, make it 14, and then it will cost you nothing…I don't care what you choose to do as long as you do something. That's what I care about."
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