Kelly Ripa will not only grace the cover of Fitness Magazine this January to show off her super toned mommy bod, she also is showing her support for HEART for Women, a bill before Congress that requests funding for and education about gender-related aspects of cardiovascular health. It's not all serious though, she also fully admits that vanity enabled her to keep working out.

Here are highlights:

On being vain: “A month or two after I started working out, I wore a sleeveless turtleneck to work. Regis was like, ‘Pipa, your arm muscles look incredible!’ it was the first time anybody had ever said anything to me about my muscles. And because I am a vain person, that’s all I needed to hear to stay with it.”

On starting her fitness regime: “I figured, I work in an industry where there’s a stylist and a makeup artist—they’ll make me look fine but I began feeling tired-just playing in the park with my kids wore me down…So I started walking on a treadmill. Then I started jogging on a treadmill. Then I began jogging outside. Now I’m running outside, three to five miles, and taking toning classes.

On her best confidence-boosting trick: “I buy jeans that are tight in the rear end. I’m not kidding. I treat my cheeks like breasts in a push-up bra. I just reach down in there, lift them up and push them together. And they’ll stay put if the jeans are tight enough in the seat.”

On regrets: “I used to smoke, so lung cancer is the thing that keeps me awake at night. I worry, Did I quit in enough time? Did I do it for too long? It’s one of those things where I think, Boy, what a foolish thing I did. I’m not from the generation where you can go, ‘Oh, I didn’t know it was bad for me.’ No. Everybody knew it was bad.”

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