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" There are many ways to feel like a Heffalump. Here&amp;#039;s my preferred method: interview Gwyneth Paltrow and her trainer/close friend Tracy Anderson. Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong. These are genuinely nice women. Gwyneth&amp;#039;s wit is razor-sharp, and she&amp;#039;s surprisingly earthy. (&amp;quot;Oh, good, sweaty vagina,&amp;quot; she murmurs, as she finds herself sticking to a leather chair on an Indian-summer day in the Hamptons.) Tracy may be tight and toned just three months after giving birth, but she&amp;#039;s sporting well-earned dark circles under her eyes as she nurses her daughter, Penelope. &amp;quot;Your boobs are still giant,&amp;quot; says Gwyneth, admiringly. For all their warmth and straight talk, there&amp;#039;s no getting around it: I&amp;#039;m feeling fat. Fat fat fat fat faaaaaaat. Paltrow and Anderson have been pals and business partners in Tracy&amp;#039;s exercise studios for seven years. I&amp;#039;m listening to them discuss Tracy&amp;#039;s first training DVD, Metamorphosis. But what I&amp;#039;m really thinking is: Where do these people store their internal organs? I mean, don&amp;#039;t you ever wonder that about the impossibly sleek? Several days later, I will get a copy of Tracy&amp;#039;s program. After about 10 minutes, I will want to hang myself with the body-measuring tape that comes with the DVD. It&amp;#039;s not my job to maintain a perfect body. I mean, I&amp;#039;ve never trained celebs like Madonna or Jennifer Lopez. I certainly won&amp;#039;t be appearing almost naked onscreen with Mark Ruffalo this year. (Gwyneth will play the girlfriend of a recovering sex addict in Thanks For Sharing.) But I do want to know: Would their methods and diets work on a mere mortal like me, who thinks getting camera-ready means throwing on a holiday sweater and posing by the tree? And what if my New Year&amp;#039;s resolution isn&amp;#039;t to be hide-your-kidneys thin, but just skinny-jeans-ready? Can they really help me kick-start 2013 energized and slimmed down, without having to endure juice fasts and military drills? The answer is a resounding yes. To begin with, Gwyneth is not a self-starver. &amp;quot;I eat everything,&amp;quot; she announces. And she&amp;#039;s got the real-food cookbook to prove it, full of family recipes like chicken and dumplings. Similarly, Tracy is no fan of combat-style boot camp. Yes, you have to be committed to working out. But it&amp;#039;s a lifestyle--one that includes chocolate in addition to sweaty dance sessions. After all, the two friends are moms first. Gwyneth&amp;#039;s daughter, Apple, is now 8, and her son, Moses, is 6; Tracy&amp;#039;s son, Sam, is 14, and Penelope was born in May. They&amp;#039;ve learned there&amp;#039;s a place for Coke and potato chips in a happy childhood. And as we talk, I&amp;#039;m remembering something Lea Michele--Rachel on Glee, a show Gwyneth guest-starred on--told me: &amp;quot;Before I met her, I was so intimidated because of her image, this person she&amp;#039;s portrayed to be. But she is just so funny and awesome, and not afraid to try anything. She gave me courage to do certain dance moves. I had to cartwheel and had never done it, and she was like, &amp;#039;C&amp;#039;mon, what&amp;#039;s wrong with you? Just do it!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; We could all use a bit of &amp;quot;just do it&amp;quot; in our lives. And that&amp;#039;s what these two pals inspire, as they joke, laugh, and meditate on the challenges of the year ahead and on what turning 40 means when you&amp;#039;ve vowed to truly take care of yourself. Even a sluggard like me got motivated. REDBOOK: When you met, what were your first impressions of each other? Gwyneth, did you think, What&amp;#039;s this little Tasmanian devil going to do for me? GWYNETH PALTROW: Yes! TRACY ANDERSON: Gwyneth had extra weight she couldn&amp;#039;t drop from her pregnancy with Moses, and she needed to get in shape for her first action film, Iron Man. GP: With my daughter it had been easier, but this time, no matter what I did, I felt stuck. I couldn&amp;#039;t shift the weight. But I met Tracy and she was this force from the second I met her. She pulled my pants off. I&amp;#039;ll never forget it. She was like, &amp;quot;Oh, my God, wow, I just am so surprised, because you look so good in clothes. I wasn&amp;#039;t expecting this.&amp;quot; RB: Um, Tracy, you said that?  TA: I thought she&amp;#039;d have a supermodel body, because she was so tiny on top. But her butt was long and lifeless, and she held on to weight in her outer thighs. GP: Tracy&amp;#039;s very honest. I was like, &amp;quot;I know. I&amp;#039;ve been doing yoga for seven years, I&amp;#039;m trying Pilates, but this is just my shape; I can&amp;#039;t change it.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh, no, I&amp;#039;ll get that right off you.&amp;quot; I started working with her and lost 11 inches! That&amp;#039;s actually standard for her. I couldn&amp;#039;t believe it. RB: Did her workouts come easily to you? GP: No. I remember bouncing on the trampoline for 20 minutes and thinking I was going to faint. She assured me that once I got my cardio levels up, which took a while, the weight would start coming off. And it did--quickly. RB: Was it that honesty that made you trust her?  GP: Yeah. We&amp;#039;re from different worlds, but we&amp;#039;re cut from the same cloth. And we&amp;#039;ve been through so much drama together, starting a business. We just kept getting closer.  RB: So it&amp;#039;s more than just working out? TA: Oh, yeah. We have a sisterhood. We can text all day. She&amp;#039;s been so there for me. She had no time when my daughter was born, but she flew over to snuggle with her. And she&amp;#039;s seen me through a few bad men--big time! She has--where do I begin?--empowered me mentally and spiritually. She&amp;#039;s a good woman like that. RB: And you empowered Gwyneth, who was bouncing back from postpartum depression and more? TA: [To Gwyneth] You were feeling a little beaten up when we first started training together. The media was hard on you, plus you had these 25 pounds that wouldn&amp;#039;t budge. RB: Did Tracy get you to change your diet, too?  GP: No. It was exercise. And let&amp;#039;s face it: It&amp;#039;s hard. TA: She really puts in the work. She&amp;#039;s put it in for seven years. GP: You know why? Because I never thought I could change my shape, or that I would be much more comfortable in a bikini now, at 40, than when I was 26. RB: So, Gwyneth, are you saying that turning 40 didn&amp;#039;t have the fear for you that it has for so many women?  GP: Oh, no, it did. But not about my body! RB: How did you mark the occasion? GP: The morning of my 40th birthday, my children and husband woke me up with hugs and gifts, and I proceeded to have the best week of my life. I feel really happy being 40, now that I&amp;#039;m on the other side of it. There was definitely some uncomfortable anticipation. But I&amp;#039;m amazed at what I&amp;#039;ve been able to accomplish, that I&amp;#039;ve maintained my important relationships and have such incredible women friends, that I have two funny, beautiful children who give me a real life. In a way, I feel like no one should make big life decisions until 40. It&amp;#039;s when it all starts to settle and become clear. RB: What do you mean by that? GP: I&amp;#039;ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I have the good fortune of knowing what they are. I can recognize my limitations, forgive myself, and celebrate the fact that I have made it to this important birthday with the information I need to keep making corrections. RB: And how does Tracy&amp;#039;s method figure into this? GP: Because it did such wonders for my life, my confidence, my sex life, everything. TA: Like getting Gwyneth singing and dancing on Glee! She wasn&amp;#039;t a dancer when we first met. RB: Back up--how does your method help with sex? TA: I don&amp;#039;t know how many of my butts you&amp;#039;ve seen [laughs]. When you feel your best, you&amp;#039;re more confident in bed. It&amp;#039;s not lights-out, under-the-covers sex. It&amp;#039;s more like, &amp;quot;Take a look at this!&amp;quot; RB: And just what&amp;#039;s involved in looking like you do? GP: I work out for an hour and a half to two hours a day. RB: What do you tell your kids about food and exercise, because you didn&amp;#039;t always love your body?  GP: They see me exercising. And my husband works out, so my son will imitate him and do his little press-ups on the bars. Apple loves to dance and do gymnastics. But with food, I&amp;#039;m a lot more relaxed than people think. I have friends who shelter their kids so much, they&amp;#039;ll turn 16 and go crazy. In my house, the food is healthy. But we have ice cream, and once a week, on the way to school, we stop at the corner shop in London and I let them pick out whatever they want. They get a bag of crisps [British for chips] or candy and a soda. It&amp;#039;s called the Coke of the Week. I don&amp;#039;t want them growing up in a hippie vacuum. RB: Tell me your thoughts on detoxing. TA: Juice fasting destroys your metabolic rate. I see a lot of women who are like, &amp;quot;Oh, I lost seven pounds and then I gained 10.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s not what detoxification is about. RB: How do you define it, then? TA: It&amp;#039;s a motivating word to start a healthier lifestyle. GP: I like to do a cleanse once a year. But it&amp;#039;s not just juices. [See &amp;quot;Gwyneth&amp;#039;s Cleanse,&amp;quot; left.] And I don&amp;#039;t do it for weight loss. RB: Can you tell me three small ways women can get on the road to better health? GP: First: no to soda. It&amp;#039;s bloating and full of sugar--or if it&amp;#039;s diet soda, it&amp;#039;s full of chemicals. TA: Drink water. Not coconut water--water. GP: Second, anything that can live on a shelf for years and you can open out of a bag and eat: no. TA: Third, we have to exercise. As we age, there is simply no way around it if you want to fight not just weight gain but also disease and depression. It&amp;#039;s about function, not just looking good. RB: So what would your last meal be?  GP: Oysters and cocktail sauce, and then a baked, stuffed lobster and french fries. TA: I would have biscuits dipped in chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes--and the most ridiculous chocolate dessert. I would have as much chocolate as I could. GP: I would have a baguette and a cheese course for my dessert, and red wine. I drank like crazy [when the kids were babies]. How else could I get through my day? RB: So no one here is an ascetic? GP: God, no! Tracy had one customer who was joyless. She asked her, &amp;quot;What do you have for pleasure?&amp;quot; And she&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;I love chocolate, but I haven&amp;#039;t had any in 15 years.&amp;quot; TA: Fifteen years! There was nothing going on behind her eyes. Food and flavor are social things. And so is moving, by the way. RB: Adjectives that you would each use to describe the other. Okay, go!  GP: I&amp;#039;d say dedicated--to every client, her infant, her son, her business, everything. TA: She&amp;#039;s so intelligent, sometimes it shocks me, and she&amp;#039;s literally the nicest woman in the world. GP: Love you, T! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/health-fitness/interviews/a14657/gwyneth-paltrow-tracy-anderson-weight-loss-tips/>