I Can Make You Hot! (7 page)

From Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion

A body in motion stays in motion. The velocity of a body remains constant unless the body is acted upon by an external force. So if you want to step up your exercise routine, try running in sand instead of on the pavement, or bike through gravel. That way your body will have to work harder in order to stay in motion.

You are a living organism; life is an organic process.
You need to be up and active, ready to enjoy the process. Be open and available and ready to do fun stuff. Participating in what you love is HOT.

You also need to become aware of what your particular body needs and how it responds to various types of exercise. If you’re feeling a bit frazzled and you need to calm down, you might want to take a yoga class. Or if you’re a bit down, you might need some Zumba to get the juices flowing. Some people do really well with weight training, but I’ve found that intensive weight training just makes me look big and muscular—not hot. Listen to your body and give it what it needs most.

Most of all I want you to try different things. When I was a competitive swimmer in my teens, I was swimming two to three hours every day, but I was also watching Jane Fonda’s workout videos and moving along with her. I wanted to look like Jane Fonda, just like everyone else. I’ve also been riding horses since I was fifteen. Now, when I’m in the Hamptons, I ride every day. I love working with the horses, even if I do tend to treat them like my own pets. I carry “sweeties” and reward them for good behavior. People are always remarking on how much the horses love me, but that’s because they don’t know I have gooey peppermint sticking to my palms.

The point is not that I want you to do what I do, it’s that I want you to be curious and adventurous. Do one thing every day that takes you out of your comfort zone. When Bravo approached me to join the cast of the
Real Housewives of New York City
, I’d never done reality TV. It was a huge leap of faith for me, and while it wasn’t always fun and games (to put it mildly), I have absolutely no regrets. While I don’t expect you to show up on reality television, I do want you to take chances. Do something new even if it’s something relatively small. Pop in an exercise video and dance along—no one is watching. Try tap dancing. Go rollerblading. Take a new route to work; try a fruit you’ve never eaten; say hi to someone you’ve never said hi to before. Don’t be afraid to look foolish. There’s nothing more foolish than sitting on your butt when you could be moving your body and having fun.

Don’t be afraid to drink water while working out. Keep the intensity, but hydrate when you can.

People who complain about things they
can
change make me crazy. Instead of complaining, get on the treadmill and work it out. Or, in the words of Dr. Phil, “If you don’t like it, change it.”

Wednesday: Diet = “DIE with a T”

I don’t believe in diets; diets are for people who want to get skinny. I want you to be happy. If you feel good about yourself, you’ll make good choices. If you starve yourself to be skinny, you’ll be undermining your sense of self-worth and you’ll be unhappy every day. Eating well—a variety of high-quality, fresh, unprocessed foods—is for people who want to be happy—and if you’re not happy you won’t be hot!

Happy is always better than skinny. We always hear people saying things like, “Oh, when I lose ten pounds I’ll meet the right guy,” but losing ten pounds isn’t going to help you meet Mr. Right; a good self-image will.

It seems to me that most women fall into one of two categories. The first is the overachiever who tries hard, exercises, wants to be her best, look her best, and have the best. The second is the underachiever who thinks she’ll never be good enough, who waits instead of acts, then blames and shames the world for not being there for her. I want you to aspire to be an overachiever who always tries to be her best. “Try” is the operative word.

Here’s how to do that:

Make good choices.

Be vain; vanity is actually about self-preservation.

Take care of yourself and your friends.

When in doubt, have fun.

When you’re sad, cry to a friend, not to a bucket of KFC.

When you’re down on yourself, ask anyone anywhere “How are
you
?”

Keep smiling.

Stay positive and move forward. This is your last try at today. Yesterday may not have been great, but, today is better—you just need to see it that way. The choice is up to you.

I’ve already said that you need to treat your body like a Ferrari, but maybe you prefer a Maserati, an Aston Martin, a Corvette, or even a Bentley. Whatever your luxury car of choice, if you treat it well, it will increase in value; if you treat it like a bargain rental car, it’s just going to wear out—and being worn out is not hot! I assume you wouldn’t fill up your luxury car with cheap, sub-optimal gas. So why would you try to fuel your body with poor-quality food? Or try to run it on empty? Eating well is 80 percent of maintaining a healthy weight. Exercise is keeping the engine moving. Don’t confuse the two. It’s not about working out more so that you can eat whatever you want. If you’re not nourishing yourself well, no matter how much you exercise, you won’t be getting the most out of what you’re doing. As a young athlete I’d always known that, but when I started modeling and listening to everyone telling me I needed to lose ten pounds, everything I’d known flew out the window. I lost my way and had to get back on the right track.