Alberto E. Rodriguez, Jason Merritt//Getty Images The press is being so mean to Bryce Dallas Howard, 4 months after having her baby! But I like that she seems to be taking her time with weight loss. Is this a new trend?
—Kara's Mom, via the inbox
It sure would be nice if we stopped seeing those cloying "Body After Baby" covers on the weekly rags, wouldn't it? Celeb moms have trainers and chefs and stylists and nannies and I don't care how they lost such weight because their budgets have nothing to do with me.
However, if you're hoping that women such as Howard (and Aishwarya Rai, who recently gave birth to a girl, or Jessica Simpson) are leading a new rebellion against maternal super-insta-thinness, I have disappointing news:
The answer is no.
Most celebrity moms dread gaining weight so much you'd think they'd all leave pregnancy to the little people. But no. They're still choosing to get knocked up, and then to get immediately knocked out in the gym just days after spawning.
The rush to stay thin is still rushier than ever, and, you know, normal looking moms like Howard are still all too rare.
In fact, the newest trend in post-natal baby weight loss among the stars is...pre-natal weight loss. As in, never gaining a ton of weigh to begin with. The idea that the average celebu-mom struggles to lose 30 pounds after a pregnancy is a bill of goods, kid.
Because the typical female star these days starts out much leaner, and stays that lean for the next 9 months.
"You don't need to get fat during pregnancy anymore," says trainer Andrea Orbeck, whose fit-mom clients include Heidi Klum and other super-maternals. "It only takes 80,000 calories to grow a baby; that's 250 more calories a day; that's a half sandwich and a glass of milk more per day."
So now, Orbeck tells me, she instructs her celeb clients to gain only about 35 pounds during a pregnancy instead of the traditional 50 or even 70.
"Which means that after giving birth you may only have to deal with 10 or 12 pounds to lose, and we can do that," Orbeck says. "You can exercise within as little as 6 weeks after a C-section, and most women can walk within 2 days of giving birth."
Are you beginning to put together the picture? If you're a star, you also have a squadron of nannies, leaving you time to work out as much as you need to lose those mere 10 pounds, with a chef at your side to make sure you don't eat anything naughty.
So next time you see that "How I Lost the Baby Weight" cover on the newsstand, remember: Unlike the baby itself, the weight loss probably wasn't all that much of a miracle.