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"Valerie Bertinelli kicks off her four-inch black Christian Louboutin high heels and admires her tootsies, freshly polished from her Good Housekeeping photo shoot.  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the only pedicure I&amp;#039;ve had since May,&amp;quot; says the 50-year-old actress, who ran her first marathon last April. &amp;quot;No one tells you that you&amp;#039;re going to lose your toenails,&amp;quot; she adds, laughing. &amp;quot;They got all black and blue and ugly first, and then they just fell off. I lost three, and now one is growing in weird.&amp;quot; Some women might end such a revelation with two words: &amp;quot;Ewwww, gross.&amp;quot; But here&amp;#039;s what Bertinelli says, a smile on her face: &amp;quot;Oh, well.&amp;quot; Marathons? A new job? A wedding? Bring it on, Bertinelli says. All of it. Over the past year, she has risen to some potentially stressful challenges in her personal and professional life. In 2010, the former teen TV star made a triumphant return to work, starring with Betty White, Jane Leeves, and Wendie Malick in TV Land&amp;#039;s smash sitcom Hot in Cleveland. As the show took off, she also decided to make things official by marrying Tom Vitale, her &amp;quot;spousal equivalent&amp;quot; for the past six years, in a surprise ceremony that took place on New Year&amp;#039;s Day. And she&amp;#039;s even been moonlighting, working on a clothing and home-decor line set to debut this spring.  Once something of a fretter, Bertinelli is now better able to roll with the punches \u2014 and pedicure challenges \u2014 of a joyously successful life. Several blessings are boosting her spirits, including the self-esteem surge she&amp;#039;s gotten from maintaining her target weight (&amp;quot;between 128 and 132 pounds&amp;quot;).  Pulling her Weight  As the most recognized face and figure of Jenny Craig, Bertinelli has surprised even herself by keeping the pounds off. It takes diligence. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m excellent at losing weight, but I&amp;#039;ve never been excellent at maintenance,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I have some better days than others in terms of being hypervigilant, but with maintenance you don&amp;#039;t know if you&amp;#039;ve been good at it until you&amp;#039;re done.&amp;quot; Then she drops the bomb: &amp;quot;And you&amp;#039;re not done until you&amp;#039;re dead.&amp;quot; She laughs, her eyes sparkling. &amp;quot;When I say it like that, it sounds exhausting. But I don&amp;#039;t live that way every day. As long as I wake up in the morning and get my workout in [usually, running on her treadmill], I&amp;#039;m one step closer to having a good day. If I sleep in and don&amp;#039;t run, I&amp;#039;ll feel a little bit off because I didn&amp;#039;t do what I was supposed to do. But I&amp;#039;m not going to beat myself up because of it. I&amp;#039;ll just get right back on track.&amp;quot; Bertinelli is careful about her food choices, too. She bypasses the snack tables at the studio and the tub of Red Vines licorice sticks beckoning in costar Betty White&amp;#039;s dressing room. White says she is never aware of Bertinelli&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;watching her diet or saying, &amp;#039;Oh dear, I&amp;#039;m this or that.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Perhaps that&amp;#039;s because in Bertinelli&amp;#039;s dressing room there&amp;#039;s a small refrigerator stocked with low-calorie Jenny Craig foods, including her favorite clam chowder and lemon cake. And she&amp;#039;s often seen on set with a cup of mint green tea with honey in hand.  If she really can&amp;#039;t get past hunger pangs, Bertinelli does have a surprising snack that she finds incredibly satisfying.  &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re not going to believe me, because it sounds too healthy,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I have chopped-up celery and radishes, and I mix them with one of those 80-calorie individual servings of nonfat cream cheese and put a little cayenne pepper or Cajun seasoning on it. That is my own Valerie concoction, and that&amp;#039;s a great snack for only a hundred calories.&amp;quot; It sounds like the &amp;quot;lite&amp;quot; version of the jalape\u00F1o poppers that were once the favorite comfort food contributing to the 5&amp;#039;4&amp;quot; Bertinelli&amp;#039;s all-time high weight of 172. &amp;quot;You know what?&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It really is, without the deep-fry. You get the crunch, you get the spice, and you also get the creamy. That&amp;#039;s what I love. Don&amp;#039;t knock it till you&amp;#039;ve tried it.&amp;quot; This high priestess of portion control also consults her scale regularly. &amp;quot;I meet my Jenny Craig consultant at my house once a month, and we check my weight and maintenance \u2014 I still have the food delivered,&amp;quot; explains Bertinelli. She also weighs herself at least once a week. Or more often, &amp;quot;if I need the information, like, How am I doing? This week has been a stressful one. So I need to weigh myself every day to see how I&amp;#039;m dealing with it.&amp;quot; Fortunately, Bertinelli has not had to deal with that vexing condition known as &amp;quot;happy weight&amp;quot; \u2014 extra pounds that creep on when you&amp;#039;re having such a good time, you wind up overeating. When Bertinelli and Vitale visit Italy (she made her first two trips last year), they don&amp;#039;t deny their taste buds. &amp;quot;But we walk so much that we don&amp;#039;t gain weight,&amp;quot; she says. While living la dolce vita on vacation, Bertinelli enjoyed spaghetti alle vongole and thin-crust pizza without guilt, not just because she was exercising, but also because she has developed a new way of thinking about how she eats. &amp;quot;Once a food becomes off-limits, then it takes on this whole other personality,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot; &amp;#039;Forbidden&amp;#039; is more tempting. And it becomes something evil, but food is food. It&amp;#039;s there to nourish your body.&amp;quot; So when she wants a little serving of something outrageously rich, she has it. Love, Italian-style  Some not-too-tasty fare played a supporting role in how Vitale&amp;#039;s marriage proposal unfolded. The way Bertinelli tells the story, it sounds like a sitcom episode: The first scene opens with our two lovebirds cashing in their frequent-flier mileage points to take a maiden voyage to Italy. Vitale goes to great lengths to create romantic moments for his beloved. They stay in a beautiful room in Florence with a dazzling view of the Arno River. Sweet.  Scene two: Complications arise. The restaurant they wanted to try can&amp;#039;t accommodate them. They eat in the hotel. In Italy, how bad could that be?  Bad enough. &amp;quot;We had just promised each other, &amp;#039;If it&amp;#039;s not perfect, let&amp;#039;s not even finish the meal,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Bertinelli recalls. The food was ho-hum, and she chose to be unhappy, saying her &amp;quot;selfish, awful self&amp;quot; took to bed with a stack of unread Time magazines, hoping to catch up on world news.  Vitale was in bed beside her. She wasn&amp;#039;t exactly receptive to his attempts to cheer her up. &amp;quot;I was like, &amp;#039;Can you just leave me alone? Because I really want to finish this article,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says, smiling at the memory. &amp;quot;And he got this funny-looking grin and then put this beautiful box on my chest. I looked at it and said, &amp;#039;Tiffany&amp;#039;s? You spent too much money!&amp;#039; &amp;quot;  Then Vitale popped the question. &amp;quot;He said this cute little speech and got all teary-eyed. And I got teary-eyed back and said, &amp;#039;Of course I&amp;#039;ll marry you, silly.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; The long-term lovebirds knew they&amp;#039;d keep the ceremony more intimate than her 1981 wedding to rocker Eddie Van Halen, which she recalls as an extravagant affair: &amp;quot;Ridiculously huge, like 450 people, with a big reception afterward.&amp;quot; They married in Malibu, CA, on January 1, a &amp;quot;gloriously sunny, blue-skies&amp;quot; day. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s our favorite day of the year besides Super Bowl Sunday,&amp;quot; she says. A nervous Bertinelli ran three miles on the treadmill four hours before the ceremony to calm down (and also so she could enjoy the steak-and-lobster dinner afterward), but was still going crazy over the details: &amp;quot;I finished the seating chart an hour before the guests arrived,&amp;quot; she recalls.  Bertinelli, in a long blue David Meister dress, walked down the aisle solo after doing a playful little twirl around a tent pole.  As she took her place across from Tom, the DJ played Etta James&amp;#039;s At Last. &amp;quot;I stopped shaking when he put the ring on my finger,&amp;quot; she recalls of her I-do&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;There was something about the way he did it that just solidified us. I felt blessed by God that day.&amp;quot; But the run-up to the wedding versus her first, Bertinelli says, &amp;quot;was almost scarier this time. I don&amp;#039;t think I can be as hurtful as I used to be in my 20s, but I don&amp;#039;t ever want to hurt Tom.&amp;quot; The stakes are higher, she says, because at 50 she realizes that a for-real, mature relationship should be as protective as it is passionate. &amp;quot;I failed at my previous marriage \u2014 I did terrible things, as Ed did,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;Tom and I both have been through a lot of pain, and we&amp;#039;re never going to do that or have that done to us again. I need to be beyond that as a human being and as a partner.&amp;quot;  Here&amp;#039;s a little reality check, though: Bertinelli says she and Vitale executed what she calls a &amp;quot;living arrangement-nup&amp;quot; before their marriage, which means that, should they separate, she is not going to touch anything that was set aside for his children and he won&amp;#039;t lay claim to anything she has put in Wolfie&amp;#039;s name. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s cold,&amp;quot; she says with a shrug about the legal agreement, &amp;quot;but it&amp;#039;s facts, and it really has nothing to do with us.&amp;quot;  Indeed, there is only one contract between them that really matters: monogamy.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve talked about it: &amp;#039;If you ever think you&amp;#039;re going to start looking outside [the marriage], we need to talk,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Because either it&amp;#039;s going to be over right then or we&amp;#039;re going to work on it so [no one will] feel the need to look elsewhere.&amp;quot; That hardly seems likely. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s my buddy,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I love him. I adore him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And [now that we&amp;#039;re married], it&amp;#039;s just easier to say, &amp;#039;This is my husband.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Long before she and Vitale even thought of marriage, Bertinelli realized that the reason the relationship worked was that they had forged a bond based on personal integrity and empathy. Accepting each other for who they are and loving each other unconditionally is the key to their relationship, one that is symbolized by the delicate key-pendant necklaces \u2014 gifts from Vitale \u2014 that Bertinelli wears every day.  &amp;quot;These are the keys to his heart, and he has the keys to mine,&amp;quot; Bertinelli adds. &amp;quot;Tom has unlocked some things inside me that I usually like to keep buried. Things you don&amp;#039;t like about yourself that you&amp;#039;re sure someone else won&amp;#039;t like, either \u2014 but once they&amp;#039;re out and in the open, they&amp;#039;re not as scary. He unlocks a lot of the stuff that I don&amp;#039;t have to hold on to anymore.&amp;quot; The Happiness Formula Clearly, her connection with Vitale is one of the reasons why Bertinelli has a big-league glow about her lately. But she&amp;#039;s also adopted a simple strategy for savoring every single day: &amp;quot;Happiness is a choice,&amp;quot; she says \u2014 one that she makes every morning, no matter how much is on her plate: &amp;quot;You can choose to be happy. There&amp;#039;s going to be stress in life, but it&amp;#039;s your choice whether you let it affect you or not.&amp;quot;  She&amp;#039;s a firm believer in counting her blessings, and prayer plays a vital role: &amp;quot;For me, it&amp;#039;s different every day. I thank God for this life that has been given to me. It mainly comes down to gratitude and patience and kindness,&amp;quot; she says.  One area she struggles with: being more forgiving. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m really bad at that. I can forgive people if they&amp;#039;ve done something to me, but if [someone hurts] somebody I love, I have a hard time forgiving and finding the good in that person. I can&amp;#039;t help feeling if I forgive this person, they&amp;#039;ll feel like they can do whatever they want! I&amp;#039;ve got to learn [how to handle that] one day.&amp;quot; Her sense of humor is also a big part of her get-happy tool kit. When a ridiculous situation crops up, she says, &amp;quot;you just have to laugh.&amp;quot; A big, loud guffaw \u2014 and she&amp;#039;s got one \u2014 helps her see the funny side of life&amp;#039;s stressful moments. For instance, she&amp;#039;s the first to admit that her A.M. routine is equal parts angst and enjoyable irony: &amp;quot;Yup, I have to wake up 40 minutes early just to get on the treadmill so I can run two and a half miles, so I can then sit in the car for an hour and a half to get to work!&amp;quot; Choosing to laugh at herself is a great release, one that lifts her spirits and the mood of those around her.  Having a five-days-a-week gig playing Melanie Moretti, Hot in Cleveland&amp;#039;s recently divorced hopeless romantic, helps Bertinelli&amp;#039;s happiness level along, too: &amp;quot;My head and my heart need to work. This is a really fun way to spend my day...and I&amp;#039;m not sitting at home eating!&amp;quot;  Now that Vitale has returned to a full-time job in finance, the couple cherish their evenings and weekends together. &amp;quot;I think I have a little romance novel in me,&amp;quot; Bertinelli says, adding that sometimes it&amp;#039;s the simplest activities that keep them connected. &amp;quot;Other people may not really think it&amp;#039;s romantic, but I like roaming around the kitchen and cooking dinner with him. And then when it&amp;#039;s sunset, we stop everything and we sit and watch. We make our own fairy tales.&amp;quot;  It helps that unless it&amp;#039;s the summer or a weekend, Bertinelli and Vitale share an empty nest. &amp;quot;I like it when they&amp;#039;re here,&amp;quot; she says of their collective tribe, &amp;quot;but Tom and I also like being able to walk around naked, and you can&amp;#039;t do that when the kids are in the house.&amp;quot; Talk about being comfortable with your body.  Wolfie has his own place now, but Bertinelli stays in close contact with her son: &amp;quot;Wolfie and I play games, and he&amp;#039;s turning me on to [new] music.&amp;quot; She is active in her book club and gets together with her girlfriends for meals and birthday celebrations.  Busy in Cleveland Bertinelli would love to have more time for doing needlepoint and reading \u2014 she has Nora Ephron&amp;#039;s latest, I Remember Nothing, in her dressing room on top of two coffee-table books about Italy. But there isn&amp;#039;t much time for reading or planning trips abroad with her current intense work schedule. At 10 A.M. every Monday when Hot in Cleveland is in production, the cast assembles for what&amp;#039;s known as a &amp;quot;table read.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s the first time they say their lines from the script of an episode. By Friday night, they&amp;#039;ll be performing it in front of a live audience; it takes three hours to actually film an episode.  On one recent Monday morning, Bertinelli is the first to arrive, looking casual but chic in J Brand jeans and a gray cashmere sweater from J. Crew. She removes her reading glasses from a leopard-print case and uncaps her yellow highlighting marker. When it comes to comedy, Bertinelli studies her lines seriously, but is the first to laugh at every joke. And she laughs the loudest and the longest.  After a brief break, the cast gathers on set to rehearse their movements during each scene. Then it&amp;#039;s lunchtime: The caterers have brought turkey sandwiches on whole wheat with cranberry sauce, no mayo. Bertinelli takes a half from the bottom of the pile. &amp;quot;I hope no one minds,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;That one just looked better.&amp;quot; She savors her lunch, taking twice the amount of time to eat that her costars do, and then stops at the snack table and opens a canister of melt-away mint balls. But she takes just one. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s all sugar,&amp;quot; she says with a giggle. She makes a confession. &amp;quot;I hate the way I look on camera,&amp;quot; Bertinelli says. &amp;quot;Standing next to those two gorgeous women [Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick], who I love so much, I always feel like a tub of lard. They are much taller and thinner than I am, but that&amp;#039;s who we are in this world. I know Jane and Wendie are uncomfortable with some things [about their appearance]; we&amp;#039;re all uncomfortable with some things about ourselves, but so what?&amp;quot; She asks again, &amp;quot;So what?&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s clearly struggled with and defeated some self-esteem demons while working on this set. Bertinelli heads into her dressing room. Hot in Cleveland may be a hit, but the actresses&amp;#039; quarters are a miss. Bertinelli has personalized her area to keep it from looking like the roadside motel room it seems to have been modeled on. She has scented candles and needlework pillows from her home on the sofa and chair, and on the desk, by a cluster of family photos, there&amp;#039;s a piece of paper stuck to a lampshade. It&amp;#039;s a note that a friend gave her. Bertinelli reads it aloud: &amp;quot;Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can really go.&amp;quot; There are plenty of ways Bertinelli wants to go far: &amp;quot;I want to do something on Broadway,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I want to see Africa. Go on a safari. Climb a mountain. Not Mount Everest \u2014 I&amp;#039;m not stupid \u2014 maybe a little 12,000-foot mountain.&amp;quot;  And, citing Cindy Crawford as an inspiration, she is working on a lifestyle brand that may include bedding, table linens, and dishes. Her first collection, to be sold at stores like T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, is a start. &amp;quot;My things won&amp;#039;t be in vogue \u2014 not just [meaning] the magazine, but in all the ways you could mean that,&amp;quot; she says with a knowing smile. &amp;quot;My aesthetic is living well, living within your means and being comfortable.&amp;quot; This down-to-earth design philosophy is very much in sync with the way she lives her life: Glamour isn&amp;#039;t the goal. &amp;quot;I do try to suss out what I&amp;#039;m doing, how I&amp;#039;m treating people. I&amp;#039;m trying to make myself a better person every day,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I want to sow good seeds and live my life as if somebody&amp;#039;s watching.&amp;quot;  She thinks for a moment and then adds, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s really not that much different from being on maintenance. It&amp;#039;s doing more of the same of the good stuff and trying to do less of the bad stuff. And choosing to be happy, no matter what.&amp;quot;  Valerie Answers Your Questions GH readers ask her about some very interesting topics: &amp;quot;How did you learn to like your body?&amp;quot; \u2014 Barbara Ellen Shutt  Valerie Bertinelli: I figured God knew what he was doing, and if I treated my body like God would want me to treat it, then I&amp;#039;d appreciate it more \u2014 the flaws, too. I&amp;#039;ve learned that from Wendie and Jane, who are gorgeous but also have insecurities. We can&amp;#039;t all be tall and thin. So appreciate what you have, and focus on the good stuff.  &amp;quot;How is life after weight loss?&amp;quot;  \u2014 Glynis Buschmann  VB: I don&amp;#039;t think there is life after weight loss, because I think maintenance is a bigger deal. Weight loss is sort of sexier because you have a goal, and you get closer and closer. Maintenance is just doing the same thing every day, and refining it. So I don&amp;#039;t feel like there is life after; there is just life during.  &amp;quot;At what age did you discover that having a baby face was a blessing and not a curse?&amp;quot;  \u2014 Joy Biggers VB: As more people ask me if I&amp;#039;ve had work done, I figure that it&amp;#039;s a compliment now. I think that&amp;#039;s where my baby face and the baby fat probably did me some good. At first I was offended [by the question]. Then I thought, Well, she said I look good. But if I had work done, I wouldn&amp;#039;t look as good. There&amp;#039;s that saying, &amp;quot;If you want to look older, get a face-lift.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/interviews/a18840/valerie-bertinelli-interview/>