Lucy Liu gets a kick out of Pilates

Lucy Liu combines workouts and TV viewing to stay in shape.

The 44-year-old actress who plays Dr. Watson on the CBS crime drama Elementary tells the March issue of Fitness magazine (out Tuesday), "I'm smarter, stronger and more confident than I was in my twenties."

And the magazine cover model, who shows off her legs in photos accompanying the story, credits Pilates for keeping her in shape. "Ten years of Pilates has really changed my body for the better," she says. The exercise routine "introduced me to muscles I never even knew I had."

But she also notes that she has a support group of friends to keep her motivated. She tells Fitness: "A group of five of us, friends and friends of friends, got an e-mail chain going and we all set goals: an ideal weight, inches we wanted to lose, eating habits we wanted to adopt. We'd e-mail saying, 'I ran today.' Or 'I ate this,' and we'd share recipes. Then we'd celebrate by going to a show or taking a group Pilates class when each of us reached our goals. We also celebrated mini milestones along the way to keep our motivation up."

And when her busy schedule makes it difficult to get in a workout, she has options. "I don't always, but I can do Pilates at home with a ball and I have a treadmill. I run while watching Downton Abbey, and I'll increase the speed a little at a time, decrease it, and then raise it again. Each time I'll say, 'Just another 0.2 miles.' I've found running is the fastest way to lose weight."

Any Downton Abbey fans out there doing the same thing?