What's the secret to staying fit, gorgeous and fabulous at 50?
For Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, it's all about a holistic approach to food. The Emmy-nominated Bravo star exclusively revealed her workout routine during E! News' Daily Pop on Aug. 30.
"Honestly, the secret is just living in the gym," the Top Chef Family Style guest star on Peacock noted. "I spend a lot of time working out. I work out at least five or six days a week for one or two hours a day. I have to, because I'm working with food. I have two TV shows that both require me to eat a ton of food."
Lakshmi, also the host of Taste the Nation, explained that she sticks to a "mostly plant-based" diet when she's not traveling. "But it's hard," she added. "It just takes a lot of hard work but I'd rather eat more food that I enjoy and just put more time in in the gym than starve myself because that's not healthy and I'm not capable of that anyways."
Lakshmi even penned children's book Tomatoes For Neela inspired by cooking with her family.
"It's definitely based on a story that I used to tell about a mother who tests recipes with her daughter," she revealed about the "very autobiographical" book. "I wanted to talk about how everyone in the family, different generations, has something to contribute to kids' food education and just education in general."
Lakshmi concluded, "Also, I wanted to do a book where the characters had brown skin. There weren't too many of the books when I was growing up. It's nice to see different kinds of people as character for every family, not just families of color."
Watch the full interview above! Tomatoes for Neela is available wherever books are sold starting tomorrow, Aug. 31.
(E!, Bravo and Peacock are all part of the NBCUniversal family.)