Derek Hough Shares Time-Saving Cooking Hack: ‘I’ve Got a Lot on My Plate’ (Exclusive)

As a new dad, Derek Hough needs to maximize his time — even when cooking pasta.

The Dancing with the Stars judge and Extra host is teaming up with Barilla for a new campaign just weeks after he and wife Hayley Erbert, welcomed their first baby together, daughter Everley Capri Hough, on Dec. 29.

The brand tapped him to launch Protein+ Training Timers – micro workouts created and led by Hough to fill the time it takes to cook its Protein+ pasta.

The eight-to-10-minute routines, which are on YouTube, are inspired by Barilla’s Protein+ pasta shapes, featuring moves such as penne plié squats, rotini spiral planks and spaghetti curls. Another exercise, star jacks, are inspired by the latest shape to join the Protein+ lineup.

“No pun intended, but I got a lot on my plate,” Hough, 40, tells PEOPLE. “You’ve always got to find the moments to get your fitness in.”

He adds that the workouts don’t require any equipment, making them more accessible to anyone who wants a burst of energy.

“I often say that motion equals emotion,” he says. “The way you move directly affects the way you feel.”

Hough says his main New Year’s resolution for 2026 is “presence,” noting that “being in the moment” is important to him during this time.

“There’s been a lot of times in the past where I’ve accomplished something and I do it and I’m like, ‘I don’t even remember what we just did, the process, because I was so focused on the result instead of the actual experience of it,’” he says.

He also advises turning his “shoulds” into “musts.”

“I think we’re always like, ‘I should work out,’ ‘I should eat better,’ ‘I should do this.’ And you’re never really going to follow through with those. Instead, turn it into a must,” he says.

“For me, it’s a really good exercise to follow through with things that are going to serve me,” he adds. “And then in that way as well, if I have the energy and the vitality and then I’m able to serve and be there for others and do better at my job and do better at everything around me and be a better dad.”

Hough says his first weeks of fatherhood have felt “amazing.”

“I think this year is going to be just jam-packed full of so many different opportunities and so many different projects that I’m working on and tours and shows,” he says. “And now I get to have this amplified and shared experience with a new family. So I’m very excited.”

Hough and Erbert, 31, shared the news of their daughter’s birth in a join post on Instagram

In the post, the couple shared a first look at Everley with a black-and-white photo of their hands cupped around their newborn’s feet.

“December 29, 2025 Everley Capri Hough 🤍,” they wrote in the caption. “Every step of our lives has led us to you. Our hearts have been cracked wide open and our world is forever changed.”