Brooke Burke’s Keys to Getting in Shape and Staying There Are Not What You’d Expect

When it comes to looking good and feeling amazing, actress, model and TV personality, Brooke Burke definitely knows what’s up. Recently she shared some of her top tips for getting in shape and staying there, crushing your fitness goals and keeping the weight off in the kitchen with Fitness magazine, and the tips are pure gold.

As far as fitness goes, Burke’s workouts can’t consume the bulk of her day. Between a demanding career, several children and a marriage, she needs to make her workouts work for her.

“I try to get to a Pilates Plus class, which is an intense, fast-paced workout that’s done on a special reformer machine, at least three times a week. I also go to the gym a couple of times. I do 15 minutes on the treadmill, walk­ing at a 3.5-mile-per-hour speed and a 15-grade incline, and then I do the 45-minute head-to-toe workout I designed with trainer Gregory Joujon-Roche for one of my new DVDs. I don’t think you need more than an hour to do cardio and full-body toning. I don’t have three hours a day to devote to my body, but I do have an hour five days a week,” Burke said.

Of course she knows it’s not all about hitting the gym. What happens in the kitchen is just as crucial to getting and staying in shape, if not more so. But Burke doesn’t recommend a miracle ingredient or a quick-fix shake. Instead, her biggest tip is about diligence.

“I don’t ever skip meals. If you let yourself get too hungry, you’ll start craving sugary, fatty foods, and you’ll make bad choices,” Burke said.

Dropping pounds or maintaining a healthy weight for women, though, is often a more complicated puzzle than just getting those two pieces to fall into place. If there’s one other category that can seriously impact the rest, Burke thinks it’s shut-eye.

“I think that sleep deprivation is a really bad thing for a woman, not only for her skin and eyes but also for her mood, memory, metabolism, energy, and sex drive,” she said. She also mentioned that she and her husband have gone so far as to go on “sleepcations” where they check into a hotel room just to sleep away from the kids for a night.

Burke’s tips really put balancing a healthy lifestyle with a busy schedule into perspective. While five days a week at the gym and a consistent eight hours of sleep nightly might not be something you can guarantee yourself right away, Burke believes that prioritizing fitness in whatever way you can manage is the first building block of a foundation to a much bigger commitment down the road. Needless to say, we’re inspired!

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