We’re constantly bombarded with the images of new celebrity mothers who, though they porked out and really put on pounds during their pregnancy, seem to have lost every ounce of baby weight within their first postpartum month. Then, when asked their weight loss secrets, they demur “Oh, I’m just so busy with the baby”. Well, I have one thing to say to that:
SHENNANIGANS!
You can’t gain 70 pounds, have a baby and then drop the remaining 50 pounds in a month without doing something pretty special.
A few are honest about their battles with baby weight and I find that terribly refreshing. Jennifer Garner has been honest and told people that she just wasn’t motivated to lose at first
“Then I got on the treadmill, stopped stuffing my face and lost the weight. I cut out croissants, bagels and muffins.”
Translation: she started seriously exercising and cut out starchy carbohydrates.
Milla Jovovich has also been honest. In fact, she’s been so refreshingly honest that I have to quote her blog here:
“i’m totally serious about the balancing out at 191 thing though. my doctor is very proud of me and to tell you the truth, i’m proud too! it’s just that food tastes so darn good when you don’t deaden your taste buds with tobacco! i feel like i discovered some ancient secret of life and happiness or something! but it’s all good, as soon as i am back to my normal super hero standard, i’m gonna go to kfc and get a box of 10 biscuits, stop at my local market where they make the most unbelievable fried chicken (cause kfc chicken is just bad karma), grab half a chicken and eat it all!!!! this is seriously what i fantasize about these days! lol! but it works! as long as i know that at some point i can do that, i stay on my boneless, skinless, grilled chicken and veggies torture regimen.”
After gaining seventy pounds during her pregnancy, she was honest about her diet to lose the weight (no fat and no carbohydrates). We all know it is torture. Thank you, Milla, for stating that fact and being so real. To be honest, I’m quite sick and tired of those starlets that say all the weight melted off with breastfeeding (although I do realize it comes off a little faster that way) or they were just “so busy” that the weight melted off. (My day is a rapid relay of diaper changes and feedings with little time in between and it hasn’t helped me lose any weight!) Or what about the ones like Elizabeth Hurley that disappear into a wealthy friend’s estate and don’t come out until they’re absolutely fabulous and picture perfect? Yes, Elizabeth Hurley took up her good friend, Sir Elton, on his offer to have her and the baby stay at his estate for as long as she liked after the birth. While there, she had a full staff waiting on her hand and foot, well out of view of the paparazzi, and went on a brown rice diet.
Don’t new mothers have enough to stress out about?
If you ask me, the celebrity mothers who have the nerve to lie about how easy the weight loss was need to be called out for it.
If you’re like me and trying to lose baby fat, don’t believe the hype. If we could afford to have somebody else clean our house, do our laundry, run our errands, cook for our family, and take care of those late night feedings so that we could get a full night’s sleep and be assured of a healthy meal that is ready when we are, the weight would probably come off a whole lot easier.
Since we don’t have all that, let’s hold this mantra close:
Nine months on and nine months off.