Alison Sweeney: My perfect Saturday

Mother of two, host of The Biggest Loser, and the soap opera Days of Our Lives’ most notorious villain, actress Alison Sweeney is one busy woman. You can add author to her resume. Her new book, The Mommy Diet, is a step-by-step guide to eating healthy both during and after pregnancy.

In between her many gigs, Sweeney sat down to share her perfect Saturday in L.A. with her family with Chatelaine.com.

My schedule is so hectic—there are always crazy things that I’m scheduled to do—so it’s such a joy to be with my kids and have a really casual fun day.

I would wake up on my own or by my kids. That’s such a great way to start the day as opposed to being woken up by my alarm at 5.15 a.m.! I would love to start every Saturday by making oatmeal pancakes with my kids with the recipe that’s in my book, The Mommy Diet. It’s an awesome healthy treat that’s fun to make and I don’t get to do it that often. My son and my daughter help me set the table. Then my husband Dave gets up and joins us and we eat together and hang out and just have a really casual morning.

Then I would make it to Bob Harper’s spin class—to work off those calories from my delicious pancakes!

After that, I’d go home, get clean, and just hang out with my kids and do whatever. Our schedule would be to do whatever we want to do—no plan. We’d go to the beach, or go swimming if it’s nice. We always like to do something active, even if it’s just going to walk the dogs in the park, just something family-oriented and casual and fun that we can do together.

[To] I love to read and it’s something that’s a big part of me, but I feel like that comes back to work too because every time I get in that mode I think ‘Oh, I should option the rights to this book,’ or ‘that would be a great reality show.’ I can’t stop. That’s just how my brain thinks. It doesn’t turn off. But I will say—I know this is the stupidest answer—but sitting and playing games on my iPad or iPhone is so entertaining to me because it’s so mindless. I love playing Scrabble with friends and I have like 15 games going and I never have the time to really do it, so just sitting there with nothing to do and play these games would be awesome.

After spending the whole day together as a family, I’d love to go on a date with my husband Dave and have a fun dinner, just the two of us. Dave and I can make even staying home romantic and fun, but for us having a simple night out is such a fun thing to do.

We both love good gourmet restaurants. There are a bunch of little places in and around L.A. that we love to go to. We go to Katsuya this sushi place all the time, which I absolutely love. I’d get the yellowtail tuna sashimi with really thinly sliced jalapenos on it. It’s so good. It’s my favourite. I don’t even have to look at the menu. I always know that’s what I’m going to get.

We just saw the previews for that comedy with Ed Helms called Cedar Rapids so we might go see that after dinner. We love comedies. We love The Hangover; too, so going to see a funny movie is actually great. I love all kinds of movies—I saw The King’s Speech and it’s one of my favourites—but for us, a really good comedy is few and far between. So often I’m disappointed by comedies. I really want to laugh!

After dinner and a movie, the kids would be in bed, and Dave and I would have a chance to unwind and maybe have a drink. We built our house together, Dave and I, so we love turning out the lights together at the end of the night and really appreciate all the rooms. We’re so appreciative of our life and our home and our kids. We high-five each other all the time about what we’ve accomplished together.

When I was a kid, my parents used to wind down the night with a tour of the backyard. They’d walk around together and talk about their day. Dave and I kind of do the same: we turn out the lights and unwind and have a drink and just sort of recap the day and appreciate things that are important to us.

Come Saturday night, we have several shows on Tivo that we need to catch up on: The Amazing Race, Survivor, Top Chef, I Shouldn’t Be Alive, Dirty Jobs. This season of Survivor is so good.

I know it sounds pretty simple, but that’s it. That would be my perfect Saturday.