Tim McGraw: 'I Feel Better Than Ever'

By Alicia Dennis

02/02/2013 at 10:30 AM EST

With his three daughters hustled off to school, Tim McGraw spends an afternoon tucked inside his Nashville home juggling multiple business calls and doing what the country singer does best: teasing his wife, Faith Hill.

"I have tried working out a couple of times with her and afterward, I can't move,” says McGraw, who sometimes joins Hill at their home gym to burn calories.

When asked about her routine, McGraw jokes, "It's like, leg warmers and Olivia Newton-John's 'Physical.'"

A high-pitched giggle from Hill interrupts McGraw, forcing him to set the record straight: "Faith says it is nothing like that." McGraw then pauses before going on, "But yeah, it's me with my headband on and leg warmers..."

For McGraw, there was a time when embarrassing Hill was no laughing matter.

The country superstar, 45, admits he was drinking and partying to an extent he felt was out of control.

"I wasn't a beer drinker. I was more a whiskey drinker. And I wouldn't just have a drink. If I was going to drink, I'd have some drinks," says McGraw.

"People were worried about me. It was to the point where I felt it was negatively affecting my relationships and getting in the way of things I wanted to accomplish in life. So I quit."