The Latest in Celebrity Fashion, Beauty and Fitness

Gwyneth Paltrow was on the Oprah Winfrey show, and she dished about how she got into the best shape of her life after having two children, and all about her diet and fitness routine.

Gwyneth told Oprah after she had her second child with husband Chris Martin, she had trouble losing the baby weight, “I could not get off these 20 extra pounds,” she says. “I don’t know if something changed. I don’t know if it was being older and being in my 30s instead of my 20s. … I [was] 34 when I had him, and I just couldn’t get it off. It was kind of demoralizing.”

Gwyneth began working out 6 days a week for 2 hours with trainer Tracy Anderson. “She’s the exercise genius of all time,” Gwyneth says. “She developed this system of kind of doing dance aerobics so that you’re not doing anything repetitive.” The actress later introduced her trainer to Madonna, who also helped her get into amazing shape.

One important secret to Gwyneth’s weight loss is turning up the heat, her trainer comes to Gwyneths home gym and helps her lose inches by cranking up the heat to 80 degrees. “She likes it hot in the room so you sweat, because she says if the room is hot, you’re also burning calories to maintain homeostasis,” Gwyneth says. “She’s always coming up with new ways to kick up the calorie burning.”

Using cardio dance routines and resistance training, Tracy has helped Gwyneth transform her bodies. “She makes everything small,” Gwyneth says. “She wants women to be long and lean and defined.”

The routine starts with Tracy’s band system. “I developed the band system for Madonna, specifically, which we use to warm up the arms,” Tracy says. “It just offers me a new way of getting to the muscle and the angles that I need to get a little bit deeper.”

Then, Gwyneth moves on to arm exercises that require little to no resistance. “Only 3-pound weights,” Tracy says. “No woman should lift more than 3 pounds.”

When she’s away Gwyneth uses her trainers DVD’s, “I do those DVDs whenever I travel. She completely changed my body.”

Watch Gywneth’s Workout Routine With Her Trainer

As for her diet, Gwyneth says she pretty much eats what she wants because she works out so hard. “I don’t eat four-legged animals, but I eat birds, I eat cheese, I eat dessert,” she says. “I eat everything.”

Gwyneth says dieting has never worked well for her. “I’ll immediately gain like 5 pounds even just by thinking about cutting out dessert. It’s a nightmare,” she says. “I decided, for me, the healthiest thing was to eat what I want and just exercise. Some women can watch what they eat, but I just can’t do that.”