Gwyneth gets real

And now she wants to keep the health-and-happiness conversation interesting...

Gwyneth Paltrow wants you to eat a Tim Tam. Only if you want to, that is, and not a whole pack every day. But life according to Gwyneth is simple: if you want the biscuit, eat the biscuit.

“My food philosophy is [that] nothing should be ruled out,” she says. “I don’t believe in saying, ‘You’re not allowed that.’ If my kids want a Shirley Temple with the radioactive cherry in it, go for it, you know?”

You might be trying to reconcile her bickie wisdom (rational) with her body (beyond), but the actress insists she’s no slave to her shape. “My routine is the same every weekday,” she says. “I drop my kids at school” – that’s Apple, 11, and Moses, 9, with Coldplay’s Chris Martin–“I do an hour of dance cardio, then I go to work.”

For the past seven years “work” (the part that doesn’t include movies) has been Goop, the weekly lifestyle publication she started to “answer my own questions. The idea was to feature experts who are forward thinking. What are the next big ideas?”

If you’ve never clicked around the site, Goop is an orgy of those opinions - a place where the hottest bags and gluten-free pie crust lives bedsides essays about narcissistic parents and the odd recipe for chocolate dessert. Made with "sex dust."

This is where most would pause for an eye roll. Instead, we’ll let Gwyneth drop an inconvenient truth. “Anytime I do anything for a while, there’s always a ‘she’s insane’. But then people catch on. So I almost can’t go to an acupuncturist now without them thanking me for introducing the world to cupping.” (FYI, cupping: a therapist heats a glass cup and places it on the skin to get the blood moving. “It feels amazing in a hurts-so-good kind of way,” Gwyneth reckons.)

Related: 11 healthy-eating tips celebrities swear by

The woman’s got a point. Cupping. Macrobiotics. Conscious uncoupling. She may not have birthed or coined these trends, but she’s helped bring them to the masses. If you think about it, she may be one of the world’s most famous guinea pigs, testing diets, health cures and self-help advice so you don’t have to. She’s earned a fistful of biscuits, right? Gwyneth shakes her head. “French fries.”

On the menu
It’s not a devotion to fast food that got the Goop creator looking so good, though. A typical day in the life of Gwyneth starts with coffee (“Me with no coffee is not a good look”). “Then I’ll have a smoothie after I work out.

For lunch I usually have a big salad with grilled chicken and then for dinner I’ll have whatever I want. Most nights I eat with the kids, like, a stir-fry of chicken and broccoli or pasta or roast chicken and potatoes.”

But for Goop, Gwyneth’s “always investigating.” “I try to do one or two detoxes a year,” she says. From soup cleanses to Ayurvedic detoxes, she’s experimented with them all. Her last was spurred by a realisation: “Wait, have I had alcohol every day since before Thanksgiving? Um, yeah, I have.”

Speaking of food, maybe you heard? She doesn’t let her kids eat spaghetti. Or utter the word ‘sugar’. And they’re allotted only 2.5 hours of joy every week. OK, we’re exaggerating. “Honestly, the things that people have gotten wrong about me in 20-whatever years!” she says.

“I’ve been misquoted a lot around food. The reason I wrote my last cookbook [It’s All Good] with no overt allergens in it was because of my son’s eczema. He should eat gluten-free, based on his allergy tests. I don’t know how that got construed to I don’t feed my kids carbs.”

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Yes, it’s true that she wants her kids to eat well, which makes her different from exactly no other mum in the world. She stocks a pretty standard kitchen. “I try to have whole foods, organic when possible. And a lot of vegetables– my daughter is vegetarian, so a lot of our meals are plant-based.”

Now about that body
Hands up if you agree with this one – “I feel way more comfortable in a bathing suit now than I did 20 years ago.” Exactly. Much of the credit for the 42-year-old’s awesome shape can be given to trainer Tracy Anderson, the US’ version of Michelle Bridges.

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Gwyneth started working out with Anderson after the birth of her second child in 2006 and became such a believer in The Method that the two became business partners. The gist: it’s a full-body, strength-work and dance-based cardio program that changes every week. And it’s hazard.

To get Gwyneth’s take on love and friendship, her lowdown on spirituality and her osteopath’s tips to feel less sluggish, grab a copy of our August issue, on sale now!