After turning 59 years old in late May, Brooke Shields knows she can’t approach fitness the same way she did in her younger years.
When stopping by the TODAY show to promote her new hair care line, Commence, the actor opened up about how she takes care of her body now, especially in the wake of a recent health scare involving a seizure.
“It’s harder to stay in shape. It’s much easier to get out of shape quickly,” she tells TODAY.com. “That’s been a bit of a shock to my system. The big thing for me is I’m now finding things that I actually really enjoy doing rather than just beating myself up in the gym so that I can fit into something, because it’s so demoralizing to me and it’s so frustrating.”
In recent years, she’s relied on her time in Broadway shows to help her stay fit because “it gets you in shape for you. ... I come out of a Broadway show rock solid and fit and haven’t even realized I’ve done it.”
Now, though, “I have to work out,” she explains.
Brooke Shields’ workout routine at age 59
Shields reveals that her current go-to fitness routine involves "really difficult Pilates," specifically the Nofar Method.
"I never liked Pilates before," she says, but now she's happy to leave a Nofar class "dripping wet," adding that she appreciates that there's "no impact" and "it's so specific."
"That, combined with drinking less, and then doing a cardio of some kind, like a SoulCycle class or a rower with music — do 10 minutes. Even just that, I’ll start to see (results)," Shields says.
The she adds that, for the first time, she recently noticed that she's gaining weight in her stomach, and her new approach toward fitness has helped her reduce belly fat.
"It used to all just be in my butt, and now, that's lower, and it’s shifted around. It’s moved to the other neighborhoods," she laughs.
Update on health scare and seizure
Shields is also handling her health differently after having a seizure in September 2023, which she attributed to having very low levels of sodium in her blood because she was drinking so much water to prep for her one-woman show.
"(The seizure) made me a little afraid of water, which is terrible," she recalls. "I was drinking copious amounts of water out of nerves and fear, like a gallon."
"And I depleted my whole system from the sodium it needed," she continues. "I didn’t know that. You're taught salt is bad, water is good. I just — I overdid it. I’m not saying I’m drinking less water, but I’m pacing myself now with how I drink. I don't overload."
She detailed what she remembered about the seizure in a November 2023 interview with Glamour.
"I was waiting for an Uber. I get down to the bottom of the steps, and I start evidently looking weird, and (the people I was with) were like, ‘Are you OK?’”
"Then I walk into the restaurant L’Artusi, and I go to the sommelier who had just taken an hour to watch my run-through,” she said. “I go in, two women come up to me; I don’t know them. Everything starts to go black. Then my hands drop to my side and I go headfirst into the wall.”
“The next thing I remember, I’m being loaded into an ambulance. I have oxygen on.”
She said doctors at the hospital told her the cause was low sodium: “I had had too much water. I flooded my system, and I drowned myself. And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or your body, you can have a seizure.”
Reflecting on closing out her 50s
Turning 60 in less than a year may be scary to some, but Shields tells TODAY.com that she has so much she's grateful for about the past decade of her life.
"This is the first time I harnessed really, truly my own power and didn’t wait for someone else to tell me how I'm supposed to feel or think or be. That had become very comfortable for me," she says.
"I never thought I’d start my own company and, let alone, it grow and become a brand," Shields continues. "So it really did occur to me: I’ve worked for everybody else for so long. Why not really invest in what this is while maintaining that connection with the community? ... Women deserve to not feel shut out."
