Fit to Be Happy with Exercise

It's a slate-gray day in London. Rain is falling—driving, miserable rain. You'd be hard-pressed to get a smile out of anyone in this town on a day like this. Anyone, that is, except actress Kate Hudson, who splits her time between Los Angeles and London— where she owns a home with British fiancé (and Muse front man) Matthew Bellamy. She barrels through the WH photo-shoot studio like a sunshine supernova, all smiles and hellos, a towel coiled incongruously around her head. (She just washed her hair, she explains.)

Kate's seemingly boundless enthusiasm is about as real as it gets. Though she admits to usually needing a daily jolt of joe ("I love coffee," she confesses), Kate's energy and peppy disposition seem hardwired into her DNA (Mom is original golden girl Goldie Hawn; longtime stepdad is actor Kurt Russell).

But Kate, 35, credits this happy outlook to something else: working out—pretty much every day. "Everybody loves results," she says of the rock-hard abs (she's got 'em) and firm tush (yep, incredibly so) that come from dedicated sweat sessions. "But I think that for me, the most motivating factor is what starts happening to your brain: how we become more clear, how we actually find ourselves having way more energy, how our memory starts to become sharper. The more active you are, the more present you are, the more eloquently you start to speak because your brain is just firing differently."

But how does Kate find time, regularly, to fit in a workout? After all, this jet-setting actress is currently filming Rock the Kasbah, a comedy costarring Bill Murray. There's also the Zach Braff–directed Wish I Was There, and Good People, out now, in which she appears with James Franco. Plus, Kate's added designer to her résumé: She created a collection of LBD's for Ann Taylor and cofounded a line of stylish (and affordable) athletic wear called Fabletics. Not to mention, she's a mom of two (Bing, Kate's son with Bellamy, is 3; and Ryder—her son with her ex, singer Chris Robinson—is 10).

The answer, it turns out, is that Kate exercises just about anywhere and everywhere she can. When she's at home, she fits in Pilates, which she is "passionate" about. "It's all core-based, and it engages everything from your saddlebag area to your triceps. You're going into your abs in a deep way that doesn't normally happen with crunches," she says. Which might explain why whenever she stops doing Pilates for awhile (because of her crazy busy schedule—and because sometimes she gets "bored" with it), she "always goes back." Says Kate: "Pilates has always been my foundation."

But she finds plenty of other creative ways to stay active too. "I love exercising with my kids!" she says. "Bing's like 36 pounds, so if I walk around with him in my baby carrier for a couple of hours, that's a workout. Ryder and I have done kickboxing together. I'll sprint with him on my back, then I'll do squats. He's 10 now, so he's starting to get a little too heavy. I'll probably get another year out of him, then Bing's next. I'll also take Bing from the shoulder and under the tushie and benchpress him. You're not literally working out, but after about five times lifting them up, you're exhausted—and they're loving it."

Other tools in her get-fit, get-happy arsenal: exercise DVD's for when she's traveling. Her faves include Brazil Butt Lift ("It's a lot of lunges," says Kate, "but it's a tough workout") and Insanity, which pegs itself as "the hardest workout ever put on DVD." ("I love it," says Kate.) When she's not working out or spending time with her family, she's discovering other ways to stay upbeat and healthy. A few more of her strategies:

Just eat already.

Kate could never survive regular juice cleanses that are so of-the-moment. "It's just not for me," she says. "I like food too much." Instead, when Kate needs to "cleanse," she'll do an elimination diet, getting rid of sugar and gluten and red meat for a month in order to go back to "how we should be eating." And that means "rice, beans, lentils, beautiful salads, low-mercury fish, some nuts, blueberries and raspberries, and all sorts of vegetable dishes," says Kate of her go-tos. (She gets recipes from friend Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbooks—and loves to join in when Paltrow is creating: "That's my favorite thing— going in her kitchen and eating everything!")

Of the elimination diet, Kate says: "It's hard to stay focused, but the good thing is, you can drink. You can have a good tequila straight up and certain vodkas that aren't wheat-based. So basically this healthy diet is made possible only by an end-of-the-night dirty martini!"

That Hair!

We couldn't possibly leave a Kate Hudson interview without asking this pressing question: Exactly how does she get those perfectly tousled beach waves?

"My hair's natural… with help," says Kate. "Depending on the weather, it can be the worst frizz ever. I like to use a leavein conditioner to take the frizz out. So I'll do a Rene Furterer leave-in conditioner, and then I'll use argan oil or Moroccanoil."

Pay attention to your life, not your phone.

You won't find Kate on Twitter: "I totally get Tweeting. It's just a personal thing. I actually feel like I might be really bad at it. I'd be really flaky. I'd go on it for a week, then I wouldn't go on there for a month. But there's part of me that's fighting my own desire. I feel like once I get into that, it's over," she says, then admits: "I'm thinking of doing Instagram. I feel like that's more fun."

But social networking in general "can create a lack of intimacy in our society," says Kate. "I understand it, and I do see the fun in it too. But when we look each other in the eyes, we choose to put our phones down and actually make a choice that we're going to connect without any distraction. The other day, the kids were in the house and all running around, and I was doing e-mail. Kurt looked at me and said, 'You kids never had that growing up. Our faces were never in our phones.' It really resonated with me."

Hang out with people you admire.

"I like very authentic people—Zooey Deschanel, for example," says Kate. "We went to high school together, and she hasn't changed. She would always come in all her beautiful vintage 1950s dresses. I love women who are like, 'I don't care what anybody thinks, this is what I like, this is what I am.'"

Another girl crush: Amy Adams. "She's charming. I absolutely adore her," says Kate. And when it comes to the guys in Hollywood, Kate gets right to the point: "Jeremy Renner. He's just genuine; there's no bullshit with him," she says. As for James Franco, her Good People costar: "I've never seen anybody as busy as James, but it's inspiring. Just watching his schedule unfold on certain days made me exhausted! But there are a lot of things he's doing that made me [feel] motivated to want to do those things," she says. "I love that he doesn't give a f--k and doesn't feel like he has to play by any rule book. He just does what he enjoys. I guess that goes back to being authentic. James is one of those friends that if you start talking about something, [he'll say] don't talk about it, just do it! It's nice to have people like that in your life."

Wear clothes you love.

If there is one fashion mantra Kate lives by, it's this: "I can't be uncomfortable. I think there are a lot of women who can wear structured things and beautiful high necks, but if something is hitting me in a weird place, I just can't do it," she says. Which may be why she gravitates toward camo leggings, layered tees, and tops with cutouts—all stylishly comfortable and all of which, not surprisingly, are well represented in her Fabletics line. "I love designing, and this is the kind of stuff that I wear every day as a mom," she says. "I'm passionate about being active, but it's hard. And I think it's something that women need to inspire each other to do. But if you have something that you feel good in, it's the first step to get you into the gym."

WIN IT!

Score Workout Gear from Fabletics

Three readers will win a bundle of cute goodies from Kate Hudson's active apparel line, Fabletics—including a gift card for one free Fabletics outfit (a $49.95 value), as well as a Fabletics True Gym Bag, No-Show socks, stainless steel sipper water bottle, and No- Tangle Hair Ties—all worth $150! Enter to win at WomensHealthMag.com/ FableticsSweeps. *See Details.

On Kate's Workout Playlist

New Politics

The Naked and Famous

Ice Cube Jay Z

Katy Perry

"Dark Horse"

Iggy Azalea

"Fancy"

Jason Derulo

"Talk Dirty"

("Ryder loves that song!")

WH Online Go behind the scenes with Kate at her cover shoot, exclusively at WomensHealthMag.com/KateHudson.

8 Minutes to Afterburn

We asked exercise physiologist Michele Olson to design a plan that would offer the biggest metabolic boost in the shortest time. Oh, and it had to feel good, too. Enter METabata

Mary Lee Yelverton is quickly realizing that working out in an exercise-science lab is nothing like working out at a gym. For one thing, there's no music. The metallic tick of a metronome keeping her on track -- tick, squat down, tick, rise up -- is the only sound she can make out above the whoosh of her own breathing. Instead of windows and a watercooler, anatomy posters line the walls, and Yelverton is being monitored by a grad student crunching data at a nearby computer. Finally, there's the hazmat-like mask over her nose and mouth, connected via yards of white tubing to an apparatus that looks like a crash cart you'd see in a hospital. It would have drawn more than a few stares at boot camp, but at the Auburn Montgomery Human Performance Lab in Montgomery, AL, the Breaking Bad-with-hand-weights look is as normal as Lulu leggings at yoga.

"It's a metabolic cart, and it measures your intake of oxygen and output of carbon dioxide to determine how many calories you're actually burning," explained Michele Olson, PhD, an exercise physiologist and lead researcher at the lab, when Yelverton, 46, arrived that morning. Yelverton knew that Dr. Olson often conducts unique fitness experiments in her lab -- like pitting exercises against each other to see which one is truly tops for sculpting a strong core -- so she knew the routine could be groundbreaking. Still, she wasn't quite sure what to expect. When she agreed to be one of Olson's first guinea pigs, all the researcher had told her about the new routine was that it would be enticingly short, intense enough to spark a powerful metabolism burst, and yet enjoyable enough to want to do again. What could go wrong?

Inside the lab, things had started off normally enough. Olson had her fill out a questionnaire about her mood (tense, after a crazy morning getting her two teenage girls off to school). Then, while monitoring Yelverton's resting metabolic rate, the fit, 53-year-old researcher chatted about afterburn as casually as if it were the weather. "It's this supercool state that causes your body to continue burning calories at a higher rate for minutes to hours after your workout," Olson said. "But you really have to push to reach it."

Thanks to Olson, Yelverton is in the best shape of her life. (The back pain she struggled with in her 30s disappeared soon after she joined Olson's classes at a local gym.) But this routine feels different, and not just because of the strange mask. After just 6 minutes, Yelverton is pretty sure all the calories from her breakfast have been torched.

"You're almost there," Olson coaches. "Focus on your form."

Yelverton nods, widening her stance for a lunge. Two minutes from now, you'll be done for the day, she tells herself. You can do this.

As fitness fads go, tough, brief workouts can be a tricky sell. Yet CrossFit has built its brand on quick but killer workouts of the day, and any trainer or gym worth your cash teaches a version of high-intensity interval training (HIIT). By now, the shorter the workout, the more buzz it generates. The Scientific 7-Minute Workout took off last year after its appearance in the American College of Sports Medicine's Health & Fitness Journal caught the attention of the New York Times, while the Tabata Protocol (a 4-minute HIIT regimen named after Japanese professor Izumi Tabata, PhD, who helped develop it in the late '90s) is now an international phenomenon.

The problem is that Tabata and many of its ilk are far from a walk in the park. While a single Tabata session -- alternating between 20 seconds of max effort and 10 seconds of rest for 8 cycles -- can double your metabolic rate, it can be so unpleasant that it hardly seems worth the work. When Olson compared HIIT with continuous cardio, she found that HIIT lifted moods better than continuous cardio only up to a point. "If a workout is too extreme, it can actually create anxiety, leaving you feeling worse than before," she says. "When participants performed a bout of intense exercise to exhaustion, their mood states dipped."

Olson's idea of creating a routine with a killer burn but not the kill-me-now feeling began to form when she taught Tabata; many moderately fit students, she noticed, weren't getting through the 4 minutes. After the Scientific 7-Minute Workout landed, her vision for METabata -- a hybrid routine that combines metabolic resistance training and Tabata-style cardio bursts into a single workout -- started to gel. "The Scientific 7-Minute Workout is a great metabolic resistance training routine, but it didn't include enough cardio bursts to really fan the flames of metabolism," she says. "Plus, it was based on applied science. It was never actually tested in a lab."

If METabata could serve as a happier Tabata -- providing a really great metabolic bang without pushing you so hard that you'd feel worn out the rest of the day -- Olson knew it would have a lot of potential. Research continues to show that HIIT offers extraordinary benefits: It's as effective as more moderate (and time-consuming) exercise when it comes to trimming fat and improving insulin resistance, all while delivering a bigger metabolic lift.

And when a routine is smart, people will keep it up. According to a 2012 study published in the journal Sports Medicine, heart disease patients who were put on a HIIT routine were more likely to stick with it than patients told to do continuous cardio. "You get short breaks during HIIT, which may give you that extra spunk to get through the next interval, creating an amped-up sense of accomplishment and making the overall workout feel more satisfying," says Olson.

Wanting her METabata workout to stay near the 7-minute mark, Olson experimented with different moves until she found a combination she liked, requiring 6 minutes 40 seconds of hard effort, with 10 seconds after each move to quickly set up for the next exercise. Then she rounded up Yelverton and 19 other women with a mean age of 42 (the oldest was 61; the youngest, 25). For 2 months, Olson ran them through the same protocol, gauging their preworkout moods and resting metabolic rates, having them do the workout, testing their metabolic rates for 30 more minutes, and then asking them about their postworkout moods.

The results, given that the whole workout lasts 480 seconds, are astounding. Her testers burned an average of 85 calories during the workout and another 65 in afterburn, for a total of 150. (To put that in perspective: You'd have to walk for half an hour to hit that number.) They also increased their metabolic rates by 85% for 30 minutes following the workout -- almost the same boost as after a Tabata routine. Most important, says Olson: "Our participants experienced a significant decrease in negative mood factors and felt a greater sense of total well-being."

The workout over, Yelverton lies down so Olson can measure her metabolic rate. Yelverton's legs are burning. Her heart is hammering against her chest. But, she says, she feels pretty good.

Inside her body, meanwhile, Olson's METabata workout has initiated a powerful chain reaction. Its intensity triggered the release of extra adrenaline, a sort of espresso shot for her heart, which allowed her muscles to demand more of the oxygen-rich blood they need to convert food energy into ATP (adenosine triphosphate), their cellular bonfire. Even though she's at rest, her body continues to use oxygen at a higher rate, and it will take her metabolism another few hours to return to baseline.

"Basically," Olson explains, "you've turned your body into an oxygen-, fat-, and carb-incinerating machine, which makes up for the fact that you exercised for only a few minutes."

A short time later, as her breathing slowly returns to normal, Yelverton feels her mood and energy lift.

"So, what did you think?" Olson asks her.

Yelverton smiles and shakes her head, wiping a bit of sweat from her forehead. "It was tough, but it's over fast," she says. "I'd definitely do it again. In fact, can you write it down for me?"

8-MINUTE CALORIE BURN AT A GLANCE

• Weight training: 30 calories
• Power yoga: 34 calories
• Walking: 37 calories
• Swimming: 50 calories
• Jogging: 59 calories
• Running: 70 calories
• Spinning: 72 calories
• METabata: 85 calories -- plus, you'll torch another 65 in afterburn

METabato's Powerful Effect on Metabolism

Your metabolism spends most of its time idling at a slow burn of roughly 1.2 calories per minute. One session of METabata spikes it by 85% and can keep it elevated for the next few hours. How's that for just 8 minutes of effort?

Your 8-Minute METabata Workout

What you'll need: A set of hand weights -- our test panelists used 8 to 10 pounds, but start low and work your way up -- and a timer. We like the Seconds Pro app ($4.99; iTunes App Store).

How to do it: Warm up with 2 minutes of easy walking or marching in place, then do the METabata circuit, quickly moving from one move to the next. (It should take you about 10 seconds to set up for each exercise.) "Ideally, you should be able to get in 30 to 32 reps during each 6o-second resistance move and 18 to 20 reps for the 20-second cardio bursts," says exercise physiologist Michele Olson, PhD. "But form comes before speed. To get the calorie burn and benefit of this workout, you need to perform a complete range of motion for each exercise." If you have a few extra minutes, end with some easy stretching. Your muscles will be warm, so it's the perfect time to work on flexibility.

1. Squat with Overhead Pass

Targets: legs, butt, and shoulders

Stand with feet slightly more than hip-width apart, holding 1 weight in right hand directly in front of right shoulder, elbow bent. Lower into a squat, keeping knees behind toes and chest lifted, right elbow hovering a few inches above right knee (a). Straighten legs and extend arms overhead, passing dumbbell to left hand (b), and immediately lower into another squat, lowering weight and bringing left elbow a few inches above left knee (c). Continue alternating sides for 60 seconds.

2. Tabata Burst: Squat Jack

Targets: legs, butt, and shoulders

Stand with feet together and arms extended overhead, holding 1 weight horizontally with both hands (a). Jump feet out and lower into a squat, bending elbows and lowering weight to chest height (b). Straighten legs and jump feet back together, extending arms and weight overhead. Continue for 20 seconds.

3. Push-Up

Targets: arms, shoulders, and core

Start in push-up position, feet hip-width apart and hands slightly outside of shoulders (a). (Modify by keeping knees on floor.) Bend elbows, lowering body until chest nearly touches floor (b). Pause, then straighten arms to push body back to starting position. Continue for 60 seconds.

4. Tabata Burst: Row Jump

Targets: thighs, butt, and upper back

Stand with feet together, holding 1 weight vertically at chest height, both hands grasping top end and elbows bent out to sides (a). Jump feet out and lower into a squat, straightening arms and lowering weight toward floor (b). Straighten legs and jump feet back together, raising weight to chest height, elbows bent out to sides. Continue for 20 seconds.

5. Back Row with Leg Tap

Targets: butt, back, and shoulders

Stand with left leg 1 to 2 feet in front of right leg, left knee slightly bent and right heel lifted. Lean forward slightly, keeping spine long, holding a weight in each hand beside left knee, with arms straight (a). Keeping core engaged, tap ball of right foot next to left foot, bending elbows straight back and pinching shoulder blades together while pulling weights up alongside torso (b). Tap right foot back and lower arms, returning to starting position. Continue for 30 seconds. Immediately repeat on opposite side for another 30 seconds, tapping left foot next to right foot.

6. Tabata Burst: Squat Jack

Repeat move 2 (p. 101) for 20 seconds.

7. Chop Lunge

Targets: thighs, butt, shoulders, and core

Stand with right foot about 3 feet in front of left foot, holding 1 weight with both hands beside right inner thigh (a). Lower into a lunge, keeping right knee over ankle and left knee pointing straight down, while sweeping weight up and across body, ending with arms extended and weight over right shoulder (b). Straighten legs and lower weight to starting position. Continue for 30 seconds. Immediately repeat on opposite side for another 30 seconds.

8. Tabata Burst: Row Jump

Repeat move 4 (opposite) for 20 seconds.

9. Pilates Double-Leg Stretch

Targets: core

Lie on back, hugging knees to chest, hands resting lightly on shins. Curl head, neck, and shoulders off floor (a). Keeping core engaged, straighten and lift legs about 45 degrees from floor while extending arms overhead next to ears (b). Pause, then pull knees back to chest while sweeping arms out to sides to return hands to shins. Continue for 6o seconds.

10. Tabata Burst: Squat Jack

Repeat move 2 (p. 101) for 20 seconds.

That's it! You just burned some serious calories.

The 20-second Tabata-style bursts in this workout incinerate belly fat. They can also lower triglycerides and improve blood sugar, reducing your risks of diabetes and heart disease.

Bone loss accelerates rapidly as you near and reach menopause, but the light hopping in this workout places vertical stress on your skeleton, which can improve bone density.

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