More than two decades ago, she was the star of – and, face it, the embodiment of – the gym romance Perfect. In real life, Jamie Lee Curtis likes to remind people she’s anything but. That’s her, gray hair, laugh lines and all, on the May/June cover of AARP The Magazine.

And her famous figure? “Denial,” she says, caused it to go a bit soft in recent years. “I was denying that I no longer metabolized the same way.” While her size didn’t worry her, her health did: “My blood pressure and cholesterol were crazy high.”

So at 161 lbs., the 5′ 7″ Jamie Lee Curtis cut out favorites like Wheat Thins and granola. Now 18 lbs. lighter, Curtis says she likes herself more today than ever.

“When I look around and see how unnatural people look, I think I have finally found I what beauty is,” she says. [source: People]