Modern Family star Julie Bowen starts every day in what she calls a scruffy athlete look—workout clothes meant for comfort and convenience over style, so she can go for a run at a moment’s notice. Bowen, 54, shared a picture of herself wearing black leggings, sneakers, and an athletic shirt, posing with a sparkling water. “Posing like my kids do in my @zevia drip (and no I’m not getting paid for this. On god),” she captioned the post. “Legend,” commented actor Milo Manheim. Here’s what Bowen’s wellness routine looks like.
Bowen’s favorite way to exercise is to run as much as possible. “When I don’t get to run, I am a grump, but some days my schedule just doesn’t allow me to,” she told Runner’s World. “I have to be at work at 6 a.m., and if I want to see my kids later at home, there are just days when I don’t get to run. But, for the most part, I try to go every day. It usually works out to about five or six times a week or sometimes four times a week.”
Bowen loves working out with her Modern Family co-star Sofia Vergara. “We are so different,” she told Runner’s World. “She is so graceful and athletic and she is a really good dancer, and I am like, ‘Put on the shoes and go on a straight line.’ I do yoga. I go swimming. I do that stuff. But it’s a totally different time commitment and needs a whole new set of equipment. And I mean, I have seen the best things I have ever seen while I am out on runs.”
Bowen avoids ultra-processed food. “I eat really clean and have pretty simple rules: I try not to eat white food, like white rice, pasta and white bread,” she told Parade. “There aren’t really any white foods that are good for you when you think about it. Marshmallows? Powdered sugar? Nope. I also like to see the ingredients. If it’s complicated to the point that I don’t know what’s in it, I’m not interested in eating it.”
Bowen adapts her workouts as she gets older to focus on rest and recovery. “You can’t do things in your late 40s that you could do in your late 20s, like just push through a run when it hurts,” she told Parade. “Cause if you do, it’s going to hurt for like a month. I definitely have had to incorporate taking care of myself into my fitness regime, which I always thought was kind of silly. I ride a bike a lot. I mix in running, swimming, all kinds of things because just one thing and the body gets mad.”
Bowen credits running with helping her lose the baby weight after having twins in 2009. “More than losing the baby weight, it helped me to regain my sanity,” she told Runner’s World. “When you are in a house with lots of babies, no sleep, and everything is about their needs all of the time, I found that going out for a run in the morning before they got up—even it was just for half an hour—made me feel like I did something for myself. It’s wasn’t just all about babies, and it made me feel okay.”