Us Weekly’s cover story this week is surprisingly positive. They did a pretty decent interview with Kelly Osbourne and got her talking about her recent weight loss and her new (rather fabulous) look. While I haven’t always been Kelly’s biggest fan, I have to admit she comes across really well and very “real” in this piece. She talks about the struggles she always had with her weight, comparing her struggles with her weight to her drug usage, and how much work it took (and still takes) for her to maintain her current figure. It’s kind of an advertisement for The Bar Method of exercise, but whatever:

Kelly Osbourne checked into rehab for drug and alcohol addiction three times. But the singer, 25, tells the new Us Weekly (on newsstands now): “I took more hell for being fat than I did for being an absolute raging drug addict. I will never understand that.”

“Now I’ve actually read in some magazines that I’m too skinny. You can never ever ever win.”

The 5-foot-2 Osbourne, who once weighed “almost 160″ pounds, recalls walking down the street one day and “some horrible obnoxious teenager screamed out a car window to me, ‘You’re fat!’” she tells Us Weekly. “I went to my parents [Sharon and Ozzy] bawling, ‘I would rather be called ugly than be called fat!’”

She tells Us Weekly she “hated” herself because of her weight and “never wanted to do anything to fix it … For a very long time, Mrs. Field’s salted cookies were my favorite thing in the world … It’s hard to get out of a hole you’ve dug so deeply.”

Today, after years of yo-yo dieting, Osbourne has lost 42 pounds the healthy way — through regular exercise and a portion-controlled diet.

“Before Dancing With the Stars, I thought, I’m always going to be heavy. I’d better get used to it… After [the show], I started the Bar Method. I do it three times a week, not every day — I don’t have that kind of dedication. Working out sucks, it’s miserable. You sweat and you stink, but then you’re done — and you see that just taking an hour three times a week can change you so much. It becomes addictive.”

“I’m really proud to look in the mirror and not hate every single thing I see,” she tells Us Weekly. “I no longer think, Why don’t I look like this girl or that girl?”

For more — including her impressive new weight; her exact diet and workout plan; how extreme diets left her “sick and shaking”; her healthy tip on shedding five pounds in one week and how she doesn’t crave “french fries anymore” — pick up the new Us Weekly today!

[From Us Weekly & Jezebel’s tabloid round-up]

How can you all of a sudden no longer crave French fries? I don’t get that. As I was standing in McDonalds yesterday, I was reminded of how much I dislike grown women who order Happy Meals for themselves… and then don’t even finish it. I have never understood those women, and I don’t understand how you can just “lose” a craving. Yes, you can maintain cravings, you can deny yourself the mini-Snickers bar (It’s mini! You can have it! NOOO!), but do people really “lose” the craving? Anyway, congratulations to Kelly, she’s looking really great, and I applaud her for being so honest about how hard she works for it.

Us Weekly cover courtesy of CoverAwards.

Oh, now this is interesting! Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop newsletter this week is all about “the Tracy Anderson Method” of fitness. For a quick recap, Tracy Anderson is the fitness “guru” who gave Madonna her gristle, and gave Gwyneth and many others a regime of drastic calorie-cutting and three-hour daily workouts. Anderson is also a noted fraud, having defrauded investors and clients out of thousands of dollars throughout her career. The last time we heard about her, Madonna had just fired her under suspicious circumstances.

Anyway, Goopy is standing by her fraudster, probably because Gwyneth claims it was Tracy who helped her shed her “formerly sagging ass”. Oh, Goop! So obscene! Anyway, Goop just puts up her little letter to us and a video of Tracy’s workout (note: below is a different video, with Gwyneth and Tracy, and it‘s not the same as the one of the GOOP site), then calls on testimonials from people like Courtney Cox, Kristen Davis (the Sex and the City star, not the New York madam), and Donna Karan, amongst others. Full GOOP newsletter here.

Tracy Anderson Method
Many of you may already know of my passion for the Tracy Anderson Method and my investment in it. She has kicked my formerly sagging ass into shape and I will be forever grateful. This week, Tracy shares with us a little arm series that I did everyday preparing for Iron Man and that I take on the road. She just made it home-made style for me, lo fi. But it’s good. Especially for the batwing problem. Also, some of her dedicated clients talk about why they love her as much as I do. She has some brand new DVD’s that I have been doing in my hotel room on location and which I highly recommend.
Love, Gwyneth

[From GOOP]

Interesting, isn’t it? It’s like Gwyneth thinks that just because Tracy’s workout might work (and honestly, how could drastically cutting calories and working out for three hours a day NOT WORK?), we should totally gloss over the fraud, the lies, and the bullsh-t. Whatever.

In other Goopy news, Page Six had an interesting little item about Gwyneth’s diva act while she’s filming in Nashville:

Gwyneth Paltrow has moved into the Icon, a luxury building in Nashville, while filming “Love Don’t Let Me Down.” But her rep denied claims of diva behavior. A source had told us that the production laid out more than $100,000 for renovations to a penthouse for Paltrow, hubby Chris Martin and their kids, Apple and Moses, and that Gwynnie brought along two bodyguards, two nannies, a chef and a personal trainer.

But Paltrow’s rep emphatically denied any renovations were done and, “She is not traveling with a personal chef or trainer. Her children are with her for half of the four-week shoot and she has a nanny and one security person with them while she is working.”

[From Page Six]

Eh. I’ll believe part of Goopy’s denial and part of the original story. I bet Gwyneth is a monster diva when she travels, just because she seems like a snotty diva in general. But I doubt she made the hotel do thousands of dollars of renovations and stuff like that.

I’ve got several pieces of Gerard Butler news (Hurray!). First up: a great denial. Over the weekend, Gerard Butler and Lindsay Lohan were at the same hotel opening in Morocco, and they might have hooked up. This was according to the British papers, who reported Lindsay Lohan saying something along the lines of “He’s hot, he’s mine! I’ve got no ring on my finger so I’m going to have lots of fun. This is the most romantic place in the world.” The next day, Lohan denied that crap on Twitter and to Gossip Cop. Meanwhile, Gerard was strangely quiet. For about a minute. And then his rep told Gossip Cop: “It is completely untrue and we are taking action against these claims.” Ha! Gerard will bang anything that moves, but he draws the line at a Lohan. He’ll sue over that sh-t.

Next up: Gerard has been confirmed for a role in Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus. Gerry will play Tullus Aufidius! If you’d like a refresher on Coriolanus, Wikipedia seems to have a decent synopsis. Sigh… Ralph and Gerard in the same movie? How will I choose between them? So, so hot.

Get ready Gerard Butler fans: The Scottish hunk is going back to the ancient world in Ralph Fiennes‘s movie version of Shakespeare’s most violent play, “Coriolanus.”

However, 300 buffs, eager to catch a glimpse of Gerard’s six-pack, might not see as much of the Ugly Truth actor as they’d like, since this is a contemporary adaptation of the violent political drama.

Gerard, 39, will play Tullus Aufidius, commander of the Volscian army from Shakespeare’s play, while Ralph, 46, will take the title role.

The hot Scot joins a cast that includes William Hurt and Vanessa Redgrave in Ralph’s directorial debut.

[From OK! Magazine]

My final piece of Butler news comes from Radar. They did an interview with the guy who allegedly (or not so allegedly, I think the guy is the real deal) trained Gerard for 300. And yes, I’m only bringing this up because I want to think about, write about and swoon over Gerard’s abs. According to this trainer, Gerry worked really hard on his physique for 300 - but he didn’t want to look like a bodybuilder:

If you’ve seen the movie 300, you know that Gerard Butler sports some of Hollywood’s most enviable abs through most of the film!

RadarOnline.com spoke to the trainer who gave the actor his infamous washboard stomach and he revealed tips on how you can get your body in shape just in time for the holidays!

“When Gerard came to me, the producers wanted him to look like a real Spartan warrior, not a bodybuilder,” celebrity trainer and nutrition expert Brian Abercrombie told RadarOnline.com. “I put him on a system I’ve developed called PASE. It’s based on power, agility, strength and endurance.

You’re working with multi-joint, big movements. The result make a person look more like an athlete and less like a bodybuilder.”

Abercrombie, who also trained Brad Pitt for the film Legends of the Fall and Kalifornia, has recently turned his expertise into several articles, the first of which is titled, “You’re fat and This is Why.” He says that when it comes to motivation, it’s the celebrities who have a hard time getting out of bed and into the gym.

“Celebrities are generally harder, with the spectacular exception of Gerard,” Abercrombie said. “He knew he had to get his body in shape. It was imperative for the role. But I generally find that celebrities want immediate results. They have 30 minutes to look this way…and they want to look this way now. They tend to not want to work as hard and still expect the same results.”

So when it comes to getting your own body in shape, Abercrombie says there are a few tricks you can do even if you don’t have a trainer.

“The first thing is just to start,” he said. “Don’t try to do too much at first. I find that my clients tend to come back if they start out slow, and just learn the correct form, learn the routines. The intensity level will gradually build. If you can learn to think like an athlete, you’re one step ahead of the game and you’ll become an athlete.”

[From Radar]

This is funny to me, because when Gerard talks about what he does to get in shape, he always whines about his diet. This is a man who loves his chocolate, his deep-friend everything, his carbs and his sugars. I don’t think Gerard minds working out – but it’s probably really hard for him to stick with any kind of diet. Poor Gerry! I want to feed him. I want to feed him everything.

Gerard Butler is shown in stills from Law Abiding Citizen, via WENN.com

Since Padma Lakshmi announced her “miracle” pregnancy in early October, she’s been flashing her proud baby bump all over the place. These pictures are from Padma’s red carpet appearance at Keep A Child Alive’s 6th Annual Black Ball in New York last week. I love the dress, but I absolutely hate Padma’s hair. Still, she looks gorgeous and boob-tastic.

Padma still hasn’t said a word about the baby daddy, though. At one point, CB was thinking that Padma and Jeremy Piven might have something going on, based on the fact that they were eating together and put pictures of each other up on their Twitter. I kind of think Padma and Jeremy are just friends considering they’re not really each other’s type. Jeremy likes them really young, and Padma likes them really old. I think the best guess for baby-daddy is her former (or current?) boyfriend Ted Forstmann, who is like 70 years old. Anyway, Padma was telling OK! Magazine about her pregnancy, and she lamented having to leave behind parts of her workout:

Many celebrity moms-to-be already have a plan in place to shed the weight gained during pregnancy before they’ve even gotten the result on the pregnancy test. But for pregnant Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, she’s not only not worrying that far ahead, she’s expecting that the birth of her first child will change her figure forever.

Rather than fret about getting back to pre-baby weight, Padma says she’s more concerned about having a healthy, beautiful baby.

“I don’t expect my body to be exactly how it was before pregnancy,” she explained at Thursday night’s 6th Annual Keep a Child Alive Black Ball at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC.

“If it doesn’t, it’s okay. It’s a really small price to pay for me. I really want to be a mother. I’m really happy! I don’t care if I go up a size!”

Because of the pregnancy, Padma admits she’s “working out less. I’m on the treadmill or lame dumbbells! I can’t box! I can’t jump rope!”

One thing that is helping keep her in shape is the fact that she’s not yet begun craving any high-calorie snacks. “It’s so boring… I’m not having any cravings,” she reveals. “I’m eating really well. I always ate well. I’m eating everything. The only thing I’m not eating is sushi or any raw food.”

So what’s the one thing she’s looking most forward to about being a mom? Answers Padma, “Just to see my baby’s face!”

[From OK! Magazine]

Considering her age (39) and her own admission of struggles with endometriosis, I’d think that Padma is probably being very, very careful with her pregnancy. Her doctors are probably telling her not to take any kind of risk on anything. I hope she just takes it easy and gives in to every food craving she has. Maybe she could force Tom Colicchio to make her food every day. He’d probably be happy to.

Padma is seen on the red carpet for Keep A Child Alive’s 6th Annual Black Ball at Hammerstein Ballroom on October 15, 2009 in New York City. Photo credit: Getty/PicApp.

The Gristle has quit her Gristle-Maker. Page Six and Radar are reporting that Madonna has fired her trainer Tracy Anderson. Here’s the background: Tracy Anderson is a self-proclaimed “trainer to the stars” whose celebrity clients include Gwyneth Paltrow and Molly Sims. Her biggest and most devoted client is Madonna. We can thank Tracy for Madge’s gristle, her burly, veiny arms and her lack of any softness on any part of her body. Something about Tracy’s workout regime “works” – if you want to live on 800 calories a day, while working out two to four hours a day, every day, and be made out of gristle. Something about Tracy doesn’t “work” though – she’s a noted crookwho has been sued six times, jailed once (that we know of), stolen property from her business partners, and defrauded previous clients.

All of that didn’t stopped Madonna from bringing Tracy in as part of her inner circle – Tracy was even been on tour with Madge, helping her maintain her gristle on the road. Tracy got to meet other people in Madge’s inner circle, like Philippe van den Bossche, who ran Madge’s sketchy “charity” foundation Raising Malawi. Under van den Bossche’s leadership, $3.7 million raised for the charity is still unaccounted for, so it makes sense that van den Bossche and Tracy would hit it off. Birds of a feather, et cetera. Just a couple of weeks ago, Page Six announced that Philippe was leaving Raising Malawi to live with Anderson. That turned out to be the final nail in the coffin for Madge:

The troubles keep mounting for Tracy Anderson. The celebrity trainer, who has worked with Gwyneth Paltrow and Molly Simms, has been dropped by Madonna, her most notable client, a source close to the singer tells Page Six.

Madonna herself confirmed she was no longer training with Anderson during an interview on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show last week. Asked by Seacrest whether she had “dropped” Anderson, Madonna simply laughed.

According to our source, “Madonna had grown tired of the baggage that Tracy always seemed to be carrying with her. Tracy had grown to be more of a distraction than anything else.”

Also an issue were photos of Madonna that circulated in July that showed her arms to be grotesquely over-muscular. When Anderson was asked about the pictures on the CBS “Early Show,” she laughed and called Madonna her “most devoted client.”

Things between the Material Girl and Anderson might also have gotten personal. We reported last month that Philippe van den Bossche, the former head of Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity, had quit his post in Los Angeles to move to New York to date Anderson. Van den Bossche was quoted as saying that Madonna was “happy” about his relationship with the trainer. But Madge was said to be disappointed when Anderson wouldn’t travel with her on the final leg of her recent European tour until the very end so she could be with Van den Bossche.

Anderson has been in the news before — in December 2006, she was briefly hauled off to jail for failing to pay a $271.32 bill to a chimney sweep. Reached for comment, Anderson’s publicist says, “This is not true. After working together for three years, Tracy and Madonna mutually parted ways because Tracy wanted to look after her son.”

[From Page Six]

So did Tracy jump or was she pushed? I wouldn’t put it past either Tracy or Madonna to end the relationship in some kind of bitchy, horrible way. Tracy could have ended the relationship because a con artist always has a sixth sense about when someone’s on to them, and when they should get the hell out. Meanwhile, Madge is a pretty smart businesswoman, and maybe she finally came to terms with the fact that Tracy’s involvement in her life was bad for business. It could totally be Page Six’s reason too – that Madge was pissed that Tracy wasn’t at Madge’s beck and call anymore. No one is allowed to have a life beyond the Madge Vadge.

Madonna and Tracy are shown out in London on 3/27/08. Credit: BARM/Fame Pictures

For most of the year, we’ve been treated to reports here and there about how Russell Crowe is totally chubbing out – and not in the good way. I think the reports started when Sienna Miller abruptly pulled out of/was fired from Nottingham, which was filming earlier this year. Sienna left a trail of bitchy criticisms in her wake – namely that Russell was too fat and old, and that it would gross and ridiculous for someone as young, thin and gorgeous as Sienna to play his love interest. In case you think I’m giving Sienna a hard time for no reason – the initial reports came out in January, and by April, Sienna was still saying the same crap about how she was too young and gorgeous.

Here’s the thing – the pictures of Russell from the beginning of the year do show a pretty chubby guy, but Russell seemed to lose some weight and he was back to looking pretty hot in the still released from Nottingham. But some people weren’t placated – namely, an Australian gossip columnist who saw recent pictures of Russell pigging out and smoking. The columnist called the piece “Smokes and fatty foods the fitness regime for Rusty.” Oh, noes! So Russell responded with a challenge… a 12-mile bike ride/duel. Russell is quoted as asking the columnist, “Are you ready to die?” Damn.

An Australian newspaper mocked Russell Crowe for smoking and shoveling down a fatty meal during a recent bike ride, so the notoriously salty actor set out to prove he is still in gladiator shape – by challenging the paper’s gossip columnist to a duel by bicycle.

Crowe, who has been photographed looking slimmer in recent months, was apparently none too pleased by a column published in Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday entitled “Smokes and fatty foods the fitness regime for Rusty.” The paper mocked Crowe after he was photographed pausing during a recent bike ride with his personal trainer to puff on a cigarette and chow down on three tacos and a soft drink.

In a story published Friday, the paper said Crowe’s spokesman called up gossip columnist Annette Sharp the next day and said, “Get on your bike. Russell wants you to go riding with him. Are you ready to die?”

Sharp accepted the challenge and the pair met a dawn for a 12-mile (20-kilometer) ride through the city. Video of the race shows Sharp struggling to keep up while Crowe zooms along unfazed. At one point, Sharp fell off her bike.

Still, Crowe gave Sharp some credit, telling her she was a better biker than Australian director Baz Luhrmann. “You’re twice the man Baz is,” he said.

Crowe’s manager Grant Vandenberg had no comment. “I think everything’s been said in the paper,” he said.

[From the Huffington Post]

Well, that ended well. It’s always nice to hear that a gossip columnist fell off her bike. If it had been me, I would have passed out as soon as I saw Russell. I don’t really care how chubby the guy is, he still does it for me. It’s also nice to see Russell maturing – if the gossip columnist had said this ten years ago, I think Russell would have probably bashed her head in with a beer bottle. Well done, Russell!

Update: Here’s a link to the article and video of Russell and the gossip columnist’s biking challenge.

Mom of three and talk show hostess Kelly Ripa, 38, looks super fit and about half her age. She’s currently in Miami with her family shooting “Live! With Regis and Kelly.” That’s most people’s dream job – where you get to take off for a week to somewhere warm and sunny, drink fruity cocktails and swim in the pool, and go to work for an hour or two in the morning.

Kelly Ripa along with her husband, Mark Consuelos, and three children Michael, Lola and Joaquin make the most of a day off by the pool. Ripa appears to have it all, a fantastic figure, a happy family and a dream job. Kelly is currently in Miami to film her TV show with Regis Philbin. Kelly spent the day sunbathing and playing with her family in the pool and drinking cocktails. Kelly showed off her trim figure in a blue bikini and re-encated her dolphin encouter from the previous day with her two sons who pretended to be dolphins as she mimicked the commands she learned. Kelly and Mark also shared a few tender moments in between playing with the kids.

[From Mavrix Photo]

Kelly really does look amazing. She’s been on the cover of tons of fitness magazines – her abs are insane. And her belly button – an outie, which she’s constantly talking about – is also constantly changing on the cover of all those magazines. Not surprisingly, she has an intense workout routine. Two years ago she quit smoking, and used exercise to help deal with her cravings. After getting a few complements she was hooked.

In the past year, Kelly Ripa stuck to a serious exercise program. She’s also learning to cook, but the thing she’s most proud of — besides getting in her best shape ever — is snuffing out her hidden unhealthy habit: smoking. What was her trick? She started exercising five times a week. “It wasn’t easy. In fact, I almost gave up in the beginning. But after a couple of weeks someone told me how great my arms looked! I’m so vain, that’s all it took. I was hooked,” she explains…

… Kelly Ripa’s Workout: She uses a resistance tube with handles, a medicine ball, a pair of 3- to 5-pound dumbbells, a stability ball, and a jump rope. The first exercise of her workout is described below; you can see the rest here.

Squat and rotation row – works butt, legs, back, and biceps. Anchor a handled resistance tube to a sturdy object close to the ground and grasp one handle with left hand, arm straight, and rotate arm clockwise until palm faces out.

Lower into a deep squat, feet shoulder-width apart, knees aligned over toes, right hand resting on hip. Rise up and rotate arm inward until palm faces up, as you pull handle toward ribs. Return to starting position and repeat Do 2 sets of 12 to 15 reps on each side.

Kelly Ripa’s 20-minute cardio Rx: Alternate jumping rope with 30 seconds of jumping jacks. Start with 20 jump rope revolutions and increase by 20 after each round of jacks until you reach 100. Then reduce by 20 until you’re back down to 20. Repeat twice.

[From ifitandhealthy.com]

That’s pretty hardcore. Kelly told Fitness magazine that she only started exercising at age 37. They talk like she did this total body transformation, and while she does look exceptional, I never remember her looking anything less than phenomenal. But it is inspirational to know you can start exercising at any age and turn it into a habit you can really love.

The only area where I’d argue Kelly is lacking is her diet. It seems incredibly restrictive to me.

“Now my family tries to eat smaller amounts more often. I’m big on grazing,” says Kelly. She is not big, however, on breakfast. Instead, she always begins her day with coffee at home and then a cup of Starbucks regular coffee with half and half during the show.

Her first meal of the day is at 10 a.m.— usually a salad and a small turkey sandwich or a BLT (with turkey bacon) on whole-wheat bread. Her afternoon snack is a handful of almonds and a pear. For dinner she eats salads and fresh veggies with smaller servings of fish or steak.

[From ifitandhealthy.com]

It doesn’t sound like her meals are so small that they’re worrisome, but I think most of us would need more food than that in order to function and not be insanely cranky. She’s really only eating two meals and a snack, so you’d think at least one more meal would be a good idea, especially with all that exercise.

But you can’t argue that she isn’t looking phenomenal – these pictures prove it.

Here’s Kelly in Miami yesterday. Images thanks to Mavrix.

In January we wrote that Gwyneth “The Goop” Paltrow was launching a New York City gym with her scammer trainer Tracy Anderson. Anderson has cheated both clients, businesses, and former lovers out of tens of thousands of dollars in the past. She also trains Madonna, and it makes absolutely no sense why either of these famous women is willing to be associated with her. And Gwyneth is actually in the process of starting a business with this woman!

Unfortunately (though certainly not surprisingly) for everyone, their gym is utterly ridiculous, and proves just how out of touch Gwyneth is with the real world. As if her Goop website didn’t already do that. Their employees are having to cold call people in an attempt to get them to sign up. Why? Because it’s a whopping (and insane) $4,500 just to join the place, and then hundreds of dollars a month for the membership fee!

GWYNETH Paltrow is struggling to sign up members for her new gym.

The Iron Man star has teamed up with her personal trainer Tracy Anderson to run the fitness centre in New York’s TriBeCa district.

However, they are so desperate for customers, staff have been cold-calling people inviting them in for a visit.

One person who was contacted said: “It’s ridiculous. Membership is like $4,500 to join and then hundreds of dollars a month. Who can afford that right now?”

The gym is supposed to open later this year.

[From OK!]

I’m sure Gwyneth will be as shocked that people don’t like her gym – and don’t like the unnecessarily inflated costs associated with it – as she was by people not liking her website. Clearly Tracy Anderson doesn’t know anything about running a business – all she knows is how to take people’s money. I’m surprised she’d even want to team up with Gwyneth for a gym. In the past, all Tracy’s done is collect people’s fees and run. But Paltrow is supposedly one of her closest friends. How’s it going to work when she inevitably scams her famous friend too?

My Name is Earl star Jamie Pressly, 31, looks super fit and toned on the cover of the upcoming issue of Shape Magazine. Pressly is surely Photoshopped to perfection, but it’s clear she also works hard for those tight abs. She told Shape that she ascribes to the “no pain, no gain” workout motto and that she met her goal of regaining her pre-baby shape in time for her 30th birthday. She has son Dezi James Calvo, 21 months, with her estranged boyfriend, DJ Eric Cubiche. Pressly said she’s “going through a rough patch” in her relationship with Cubiche, but that their son is “the greatest thing that’s happened to either one of us.”

There’s some arguing in the comments on The Huffington Post about whether Pressly has had implants and/or a tummy tuck. Several people say her boobs are natural on camera. They look normal to me and not super round, but it’s hard to tell in a magazine photo spread. Either way, you can’t just get plastic surgery and end up looking like that.

Pressly shares a home workout plan in Shape with her trainer. She said she also goes to the gym and that it’s good for her to get out, even though she didn’t want to leave her son at first.

I used to think you had to go to the gym to work out, but I’ve been doing more at home with a stationary bike, a weighted exercise ball (this link is to Amazon, but I got mine in the US at a Marshalls-type store for about $12) and a bar called a gymstick that’s a little better than standard resistance bands in that it’s harder to use. It saves a lot of time to work out at home and it’s ideal for moms. It’s doubtful I push myself half as hard as Pressly and I can only dream of looking like that some day.

Super fit people can serve as inspiration for the rest of us, and it’s only natural to question if they took any shortcuts along the way. It sure doesn’t look like Pressly did.

Thanks to kroqjock on Celebutopia for these
scans.

Gwyneth Palrow is taking her commitment to promoting obsessive physical fitness to a dangerous new level. While she used to be happy just shoving her GOOP in our faces, now she’s planning on helping her equally obsessive trainer Tracy Anderson – who also trains Madonna – open a gym in New York City.

Gwyneth Paltrow helped her trainer Tracy Anderson find a studio space on Greenwich Street so that you too can have a body like hers—and Madonna’s. (Anderson has lived and traveled with the buff pop star for the last two years, keeping her in shape.) “Gwyneth came to see every space, engaged in detailed discussion after each one,” says their broker, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Anita Grossberg. Anderson’s workout combines dance aerobics and Pilates. “When you walk into the studio it looks like a circus—bands and cubes and props are hanging from the ceiling,” Anderson said from South America, where she’s on the road with Madonna. “When I started training Gwyneth, she couldn’t dance at all, and now you should see her.”

[From New York Magazine]

Tracy Anderson also has a studio in Los Angeles – which customers say is poorly maintained with filthy bathrooms. Anderson is not only a crazy trainer, but a terrible, scamming “businesswoman” too. She shafted hundreds of customers out of money for their pre-paid training fees in Fischers, Indiana.

“I was a client of Tracy Anderson Studios in Fishers also. Her program does work, but don’t believe everything that you hear about Tracy and her business. It is true that she did leave her clients in Fishers overnight…just took the machines and our money and left. She claims to have been a student at the Julliard School of Dance, but come to find out she was there for only 3 months and then left.”

[From Gabsmash]

Anderson also claimed she’d create personalized pilates regimens for different body types, which her customers paid for. It turns out the regimens were actually the same for everyone. In addition to the Julliard claims, Tracy also said she was in Cats and was Power Ranger, which was false. Ton of her jilted former clients have posted on Gabsmash’s forums complaining about her, and they all have a similar story to tell. I can only imagine what kind of trouble the woman plans to get into in New York.

In April Us Weekly did an article about Anderson, which included her diet recommendations. Many of the meal plans had a total of less than 800 calories a day, which is definitely dangerous. In addition, Anderson also recommended working out for two hours a day, six days a week. Yet Gwyneth is still a devotee. In her latest GOOP email, she says she used to have a “Shar-Pei-like stomach” until she met Tracy, who apparently changed her life.

Tracy Anderson is a scammer promoting an utterly insane, unhealthy, extreme, and unbalanced lifestyle. The thought of this woman launching another gym is terrifying. I can just see women fainting en masse. Who can safely survive on a lunch of two hardboiled eggs, ½ a cup of baby carrots and ½ a cup of cherry tomatoes? All we can do is hope this is just a pipe dream on Gwyneth and Tracy’s part – though something tells me it isn’t.

Update: Thanks to editor David Zivian at Indianapolis Monthly for commenting with a link to this excellent profile of Tracy Anderson and her questionable business practices. She has a habit of not paying her bills or rent and regularly left businesses in the lurch owing money. Anderson has been sued six times in Indiana. What’s more is that she left her husband for a married guy she also owed tens of thousands to and then scammed that guy into investing even more money into her business, only to leave him once she hit it big.

Here are Gwyneth and Madonna on their way back from workouts with Tracy Anderson this past spring. Images thanks to Fame and Bauer-Griffin.