Alessandra Ambrosio Gets Real About Emotional Eating, Motherhood and Learning to Like Fitness

Model gets candid about her personal and professional life

By Lily Harrison Apr 07, 2016 1:00 PMTags
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Alessandra Ambrosio is no secret to strutting her stuff down the runway wearing next to nothing, but it's taken a lot for the Brazilian beauty to become comfortable with many aspects of her line of work.

The mother of two opened up to Net-a-Porter's The Edit about learning to love fitness, emotional eating and all things motherhood.

"Your body will never go back to exactly what it was before pregnancy, whatever people tell you. It can't. But I think I have a better body now than before I had kids. It's partly because I work out…Not that it was easy getting back into shape post-pregnancy; after having Anja I only had three months to lose all the weight [before doing the 2008 Victoria's Secret runway show] and I was on this 1200-calorie-a-day meal-delivery service that I hated. I couldn't do that again," she shared.

Alessandra also mused on how she's come a long way from her early modelling days with regards to fitness.

"It wasn't until I did my first Victoria's Secret show that I started exercising. For [my fiancé]…going to the gym was his friend, whereas it had always been an enemy for me. Now it's a healthy, normal part of my daily routine."

And when it comes to her relationship with food, Alessandra admits she was once trapped in an emotional-eating cycle as a teenager.

"It started when I first began making my own money at 15. I would go to the supermarket and fill my bag with cookies, ice cream and yoghurt: everything sweet you can imagine. And there were times in my life when I would eat a whole packet of cookies. But then I taught myself not to do that—basically by reminding myself how horrible it felt the last time. Oh, and of course I would lose my job, so that was another incentive."

Watch: Alessandra Ambrosio Gets Nervous Before Hitting Runway