Rob Lowe Revealed How He's Still Keeping His Six-Pack Abs at Age 56

From Men's Health

Actor Rob Lowe has kept busy during quarantine. In June, the 56-year-old actor released his new podcast, Literally!, where he chats with his famous friends, including Chris Pratt, Conan O'Brien, Magic Johnson and more. He's also embraced the opportunity to get outdoors more frequently.

"I love being outside. Whether it's surfing, hiking, walking, or golfing, I'm usually doing one of those things," he says. "Today is a lifting day, and then I'm going to go to the driving range and will walk 9 holes. That's the idea of heaven for me. I'm really, really, really physically active. I go berserk if I don't get to channel that physical energy. I get depressed, I get lethargic, I get unmotivated. I have to force myself to have proper rest days."

Lowe is especially serious when it comes to tracking his workouts when he's in the gym, and actually keeps a workout diary, he admits. "I write down every workout that I ever do."

The Parks and Recreation actor wasn't always so fanatical about his fitness routine, however. "The first time I ever had a trainer and the first time I went to a proper gym was for Youngblood, and I hated it," he laughs. "I had to put on weight—15 pounds. I was a little stick figure. It was all amino acids and protein shakes with raw eggs. And I'd lift weights every single day."

After filming concluded, however, he started to look forward to his sweat sessions. "The irony was that I hated it, but then I came to love it," he says. "I sometimes work with trainers. I can keep myself at 80 percent of my potential on my own, and if I do need to go that extra distance, then I work with trainers to get to that point."

When Lowe is on set and shooting, he said, he works out on his lunch breaks. "For example, when I was shooting The West Wing, every single lunch break I was in the Warner Brothers gym. I would eat prior to our official lunch break so I could hit the gym, power through an intense 35-minute workout which gave me time to cool down and shower and get back to the set," he says.

Lowe learned how to get his workouts done in under an hour, and it's something that's stuck his current training. "Even to this day when have all the time in the world, it's 35-55 minutes for me and I'm good," he says. "I'm not in a there for an hour or an hour and a half." Quarantine, though, has slightly changed up the way that he trains.

"Prior to quarantine I went to a really great stretching class once a week," he says. While those days are gone—for now, at least—he's managed to keep up his mobility work in his home gym.

"I've been trying to do all the stretching and mobility work. Today I will go into the gym for a 40-minute session and do some warmups with planking and hinges. Then I'll get into some kettle bell swings, deadlifts, squats with raises, pushups, pulldowns, rows, and some lunges," he says. "I may do some leaps out in the yard and finish up with a little bit of abs. I don't break my days up into body parts—I do the whole body."

For Lowe, a rest day is usually an active rest day. "A rest day for me is getting on the Peloton to do a low impact 45 minutes or something. It's probably not the healthiest thing in the world that I can't sit still, but if that's my cross to bear, I'll take it."

To recover, he's also a fan of chiropractic adjustments and massage, but Lowe insists that the most important part to staying in shape is his diet. "I swear 75 percent of everything, if not more, is diet. And that only gets to be more true the older I get," he says. "I could train like The Rock and still not get where I want to be if I'm not eating properly."

For Lowe, that means eating the Atkins Diet, a high-protein, low-carb, moderate sugar eating plan that he's done since his mid-30s.

"People talk about keto, and I've done it—it's that great. But I feel like eating Atkins is a more manageable form of keto," he says. "If I'm eating right, I'm not just wasting my time in the gym. I've never had a diet/weight issue. Being on Atkins more about training, maintaining and having the kind of energy I want to have to be as active as I am and to live the kind of life I want to live."

Combined with his sobriety, it's a big part of what's helped him maintain his healthy lifestyle."One of the great benefits of being sober 30 years is that I'm not carrying all those carbs. No one liked going to a Dodger game and having a couple of beers at the game more than me, but alcohol (consumption) is something I think everybody should take a look at," he says, "because that is some sneaky ass carbs and calories right there."

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