Jennifer Aniston Says She's 'No Longer Afraid' of the Bread Basket: 'All Done in Moderation'

Jennifer Aniston has famously followed a low-carb diet for years, but lately, the star has been mixing it up.

These days, Aniston, 52, is adding carbohydrates back into her meals.

"[I] started to give myself a break, allowing yourself to have pasta, a sandwich," she tells PEOPLE in this week's issue of her diet these days. "Everyone's very afraid of the bread basket, and I'm no longer afraid. As long as it's all done in moderation."

And the Friends star found that adding carbs back into her diet made a difference.

"There's something my body appreciates about [having carbs], like, 'Oh, thank you! Why are you depriving me of things I love?' " she says.

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Aniston's mornings, though, are more focused on beverages.

"I kind of naturally do intermittent fasting, just because I'm not a breakfast person," she says. "I just like a cup of coffee and my collagen."

Lately, the Morning Show star says, she's been switching up her diet and workout routines.

"I was hitting a stage in my life where I wanted to up the health game," she explains.

But an injury last fall slightly derailed her plans.

"Back in October my back went out; I'd done a really hard workout, and then one day I tried to get up and couldn't. I literally fell to the floor and ended up having to go get an MRI. Sure enough, I had a 9-mm bulging disc, which is really intense," she says. "So my whole workout had to change."

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Aniston started with Pilates to "rehab" her back, and is now doing it three to four times a week.

"It really works your body out in a very gentle way," she says.

Vital Jennifer Aniston

And the injury taught Aniston to take it easy on her body instead of trying to make her workouts overly complicated.

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"When I threw my back out, I was like, 'Maybe it was that lunge twist squat move.' We can't just do one simple move. We try to add four moves to one," she says.

There is one intensive workout, though, that Aniston dreams of getting back to.

"I haven't been able to run, which is my love," she says. "I'm going to slowly start incorporating that into my workouts again."