On February 2, Christie Brinkley turned 66, and she is celebrating that number. “My whole past year has been filled with so many incredible milestones,” she wrote in an Instagram post. She reprised her role as Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway, competed on Dancing With the Stars, and appeared in The Goldbergs season premiere on ABC, among other feats.
“With age comes wisdom and confidence which I find to be liberating! I also know I feel my best when I look as good as I feel,” she continued. “And I feel more like my best self now than ever.” It goes without saying that the former supermodel looks great. But as busy as her schedule is, you have to wonder how she maintains the same iconic look that gave her three consecutive Sports Illustrated swimsuit covers in her early days—and one at age 63.
It turns out that, yep, her beauty and wellness routines are pretty extensive. It’s a diligent balancing act of diet, fitness, and skincare. But after 66 years of trial, she has the whole process perfected. Let’s break it down, shall we?
She’s been a vegetarian for basically her whole life.
Brinkley became a vegetarian when she was 13 years old. “I started reading books right away because I knew that I had to replace the protein and figure out what to do,” she told The Cut. “Over the years I’ve been a vegan, I’ve been a macrobiotic, I’ve been a lacto-ovo. The one constant since the day I stopped eating meat was that I haven’t eaten any red meat or fowl.”
For years, she has sweared by the “rainbow diet,” as she calls it, which includes as many colors and nutrients as possible. “That’s my main concept for making sure my kids get all the nutrients—making sure they get the deep greens, yellows and reds and purples, all of that,” she said.
By now, she has her meals down to a science. For breakfast, it’s oatmeal topped with flaxseeds, yogurt, and berries, she told Shape. Then, she applies that concept by tossing together a colorful salad for lunch. “From leafy greens to purple to herbs, fresh cut herbs mixed into it for flavors. I vary what I toss into it,” she said. “Sometimes it might be lentils and chopped tomatoes, other days it could be garbanzo beans, some days I might have just a salad and have some lentil soup on the side.”
She might snack on an apple with some peanut butter, and for dinner, she often has some sort of pasta. “It’s more likely to get eaten by my kids,” she said. “Whatever the rest of it is, it usually starts with a pan, garlic and olive oil and then various things get tossed in there,” she said, like broccoli rabe, some sort of bean, or a variety of vegetables.
She sweats it out regularly.
For years, Brinkley has been dedicated to working out with the Total Gym. “In the way that yoga prepares a body for any eventuality that could befall you in life, the Total Gym is the same concept. It is constantly stretching and strengthening,” she explained to Shape.
She also told The Cut that she’ll also occasionally take a spin class or work with weights. “I would say running is my favorite way to sweat, but I’m not really supposed to do that anymore because of injuries,” she said. Still, she does whatever she can to stay active, especially as she gets older. “Some days the only thing I can get in is a seven-minute run on the Total Gym. Then while I’m brushing my teeth, I’m doing leg lifts,” she said. “When I’m drying my hair, I do all kinds of squats.”
“Once you’re over 50, don’t stop moving because you’ll rust,” she added. “You have to grease the joints and keep moving. As long as I do that I feel great.”
She exfoliates her skin every day.
Unsurprisingly, Brinkley’s ageless skin is the result of a solid skincare routine and yes, some non-invasive cosmetic work. According to Byrdie, the one secret she stands by is exfoliating every day.
“That’s something I’ve done for the past 40 years,” she said. “I read an article that said men always look five years younger than women who are their same age. They contributed that to them shaving every day, and the daily exfoliating with shaving their skin makes them look younger. I was like, I’m not going to let them get away with that!”
Per Today, she likes to gently exfoliate with a product from her own line: Authentic Skincare Complete Clarity Daily Facial Exfoliating Polish. If her skin is in need of hydration, she’ll use her brand’s moisturizers or the Dr. Hauschka Intensive Treatment for Menopausal Skin, a face serum rich in olive oil and honey.
…and slathers on the sunscreen.
Even though Brinkley loved a glowing tan back in the day, she has learned that it comes with consequences. “In my first beauty book, I literally had a couple pages on how to get the best tan. One of the things I recommended (and I apologized in my other beauty book) was sitting near the edge of the water for maximum water reflection on you, keeping water droplets on you because they would magnify the sun,” she told The Cut. “Now we know it’s the number-one culprit in premature aging.” One of her go-to sunscreens: Raw Elements Certified Natural Sunscreen.
She indulges in the occasional cosmetic procedure.
On multiple occasions, Brinkley has been upfront and honest about her experience with age-defying cosmetic technology. She told People that she gets occasional Clear and Brilliant laser treatments and “a little bit of filler.” She also wrote in The Daily Mail that she’s gotten Botox in her neck to relax certain protruded muscles and tighten her jawline, and she recently became an ambassador for Ultherapy, a “non-invasive procedure” that lifts and tightens the skin.
More than anything, Brinkley insists that prioritizing her health is what keeps her young. “It’s a lifestyle, it’s a foundation for your future,” she told The Cut. “Because your health is your greatest wealth. I really think that’s something everybody needs to invest in.”
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Kayla Blanton
Kayla Blanton is a freelance writer who reports on all things health and nutrition for Men’s Health, Women’s Health, and Prevention.
