Sarah Chalke's Stay-Slim Secrets

Her Favorite Moves, Motivation Tricks, and Guilty iPod Pleasures

FITNESS: What's your favorite workout routine today?
Sarah Chalke: I love Xflowsion, a combination of martial arts, yoga, and power dance. There's so much variety that an hour and 15 minutes just flies by and you never get bored. It incorporates a lot of yoga, which improves your flexibility and your strength, and then you get to do boxing. That's my favorite part, because it's such a great release. I feel so much stronger now, and I definitely have lots of energy.

FITNESS: Any other get-fit tricks?
Sarah Chalke: I like to hike with my chocolate Labrador, Lola. If I can't squeeze in a workout any other way, I'll hop on the treadmill at home. Actually, if I need to study lines or get ready for an audition, I find it easier to learn on the treadmill. There's something about movement that helps get everything going.

FITNESS: How do you stay motivated?
Sarah Chalke: I have to mix it up. I can't go to the gym or I get too bored. So I'll hike and do yoga. I also listen to my iPod. My fiance has great taste in music, so he makes mixes for me. Listening to cool new songs keeps me going.

FITNESS: Fess up: What's the goofiest song on your iPod?
Sarah Chalke: "Baby Got Back." That's because for the parents' night show at my twelfth-grade graduation, my friends and I all wore spandex tights with G-strings on top, stuffed our butts with I can't even remember what, and lip-synched and danced to that song. I think all of our parents were very proud. Now whenever I listen to it while I'm exercising, it makes me smile.

FITNESS: Your workouts are clearly paying off -- you've worn some pretty skimpy outfits on Scrubs. Did you ever say, "I'm not wearing that"?
Sarah Chalke: I've sported bras in pretty much every color of the rainbow. The wardrobe department buys them one size bigger and then adds a little help with a chicken cutlet [aka padding]. In one fantasy sequence they put me in a sort of naughty-nurse outfit. In another I wore a burlesque dance outfit. It was a black corset with a bustle in the back, fishnets, high heels, a feather boa, and lots of fans. The crew dared me to walk down the street in that outfit to get a coffee at Starbucks, and I did it because I can't turn down a dare. But this is Los Angeles, so nobody cared.

FITNESS: On which of these shows would you be a real contender: The Amazing Race, Survivor, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars?
Sarah Chalke: The Amazing Race. I absolutely love to travel. My two sisters and I were brought up with the notion that a trip is not really a vacation unless there's a chance you might come down with something like dysentery.

FITNESS: Which show would you get booted off in the first round?
Sarah Chalke: American Idol, definitely. In fifth grade, our choir teacher asked my sister and me to just mouth the words because we were so off-key.

FITNESS: After playing a doctor on TV for eight years, would you be able to perform the Heimlich maneuver in an emergency?
Sarah Chalke: I really hope I'm never in that position! It's crazy, but I haven't even taken a first-aid course. I have, however, been Heimliched myself -- twice. Once was in Thailand, where I choked on a lemongrass shoot. My fiance did the Heimlich on me. The other time was on a set in Canada. I was eating a mixed-green salad and a piece of red cabbage got stuck in my throat. One of the camera grips did this really hard motion on my rib cage without pushing up, which is what you need to do. I remember thinking, "Oh my God, this is not how I thought I was going to go down, choking on a piece of organic cabbage in the middle of nowhere!" Then the head of craft services, who doubled as the first-aid person, ran over screaming and said, "Stop, you're going to crack her ribs!" On her second try, just like in a cartoon, this spitball goes flying out.