Hilary Duff's fitness regimen

Teen idol, popular actress and singer, and smart businesswoman Hilary Duff was a healthy teenager, slim but not skinny. But some magazines did not like her healthy look and called her fat in articles with crazy titles like: Hilary Duff Puffs Up! Then at age 17 when Hilary suddenly lost a lot of weight, it lead to speculation that the actress/singer had an eating disorder. In 2007 Hilary posed in a bikini for Shape Magazine to prove that she did not suffer from a negative body image.



The reaction to Hilary's bikini photos in Shape (above left) was not what she expected. People said that Duff was just trying to sex-up her image. But Hilary responded, "You don't need to do that to further your career. Shape is for women and is about your body and how to be healthy. I had lost a bunch of weight and put some on. We were talking about how there was a time I felt pressure to be super skinny and had such a strict diet."

That time was 2005-06 when Hilary told Cosmopolitan Magazine, "You can see that I'm healthy. I did lose weight but I don't know how much, because I never got on the scale before. When you get older, you lose your baby fat." Hilary also revealed that she lost weight by swimming and eating right. "My best friend of nine years was on tour with me, and we swam 30 laps every day. We always made sure we stayed at hotels with pools, and on the days that I didn't feel like doing it, she'd be like let's go. And we didn't eat pasta or rice or bread during the tour either."

Hilary Duff is short, only 5'2", and has fluctuated between a body size zero and two. Duff was size two, dropped to zero, and is now back as two. The bikini photo of Duff on the right is from January 2009.

Hilary Duff and current boyfriend Mike Comrie out jogging on the beach

Hilary Duff is a trained gymnast and says, "I took gymnastics for a long time. I have a trampoline, and I can do anything on it! On the ground, I do back handsprings. I never work out at a gym." Hilary did those back handsprings on the TV talk show, Late Night With Conan O'brien, back in 2004. She was talking about her abilities as a gymnast and to prove her point, took off her shoes and did the back handsprings to the audience's delight. Duff also did her own stunts in Lizzie McGuire and in her movies.

And while Hilary modified her diet to lose weight, she is saddened by the body image issues in the world of fashion. Duff says, "Some models have actually died from it (the pressure to be thin). It hasn't affected me—I eat!"



And Hilary Duff like all women, loves chocolate. As a kid she adored jelly belly candy and M&Ms; and still loves chocolate cakes and soufflé. Now of course Duff has cut out some of the junk from her diet because as she says, "I'm older now and I can't eat what I did when I was 12."

Hilary Duff did not drink, smoke, or do drugs in her teen years. And she still does not smoke, and has not been in rehab for drug use either. But Hilary has been spotted drinking when she turned 19.



Apart from gymnastics and swimming, Duff says she is obsessed with pilates. "My sister [introduced] me to Pilates, and I just got obsessed with it. I do it three or four times a week when I'm not traveling." Hilary Duff's fitness regimen also includes a little Yoga and of course dancing:

When you dance, you feel sexy. To feel good in your body—that's such a good thing. I still work on that, and maybe it's something you work on your whole life, but I definitely feel more confident since I started dancing.