The average woman gains 25-35 pounds during her pregnancy (assuming she falls within healthy weight guidelines for her height and bone structure.) Underweight women are usually advised to gain as many as 40lbs, while overweight women can gain as little as 11lbs. I never fail to be amazed by stories of celebrity moms (actresses or models) who gain a ton of baby weight (upwards of 50-60lbs) only to lose it all again right after baby.
Milla Jovovich (who you can see in the latest installment of Resident Evil) gained almost 70lbs during pregnancy (weighing 200lbs at 5ft 8in tall…) and lost most of the weight over a 12 month period of time.
Milla Jovovich Post-Baby Weight Loss
I know what most of you are thinking – models are genetically gifted and gaining then losing this much weight is no big deal. Truthfully – its probably years of constant, restrictive dieting that leads to such crazy weight gains during pregnancy. Many women, celebrities or no, find pregnancy the one time of their lives that they do not have to focus on dieting or losing weight. As such, a lot of us go a little too far indulging in sweets and other foods we would normally deny ourselves.
Keep in mind that while some pregnancy weight gain is necessary – gaining too much can cause complications with your health and delivery. Plus, the more you gain, the longer it takes (and the harder you have to work) to lose. The average woman will lose half of all pregnancy weight wit in the first 6 weeks. The remaining weight typically takes around 9 months to lose as most women cannot do very restrictive diets (or ridiculously intense or time consuming workouts) while breastfeeding and caring for a new baby.
For Milla, the first 40 pounds came off pretty naturally at 10 pounds per month for four months.
The remaining 30 pounds were lost primarily by dieting. Initially all Milla did was cut out unhealthy foods – but this resulted in a fairly slow rate of weight loss (3.75lbs per month, or a little less than 1lb per week) that occurred over the next eight months. Why does this happen? Frequently people assume that only eating unhealthy foods can make them fat. The idea is, if one cuts out all junk food the extra weight will magically melt away. Unfortunately this is not the case. Eating whole foods, even organic foods, will not result in weight loss unless you eat fewer calories in total than you burn through activity. This is why many people can go for months without losing weight while eating a completely “clean” diet.
Milla also trains fairly hard for her gun toting, fist swing, martial arts action roles. Like a lot of women, Milla doesn’t like to train in the gym – rather she prefers to do something fun. For Milla, that is martial arts training. Jovovich has been known to train as far ahead for some roles as one year in order to completely master fight choreography – sometimes training 6 days per week, 6-8 hrs per day.
However, its important to note that Milla didn’t just jump back in to all day training while 30lbs overweight. Instead Jovovich eased back into training while working with trainer – Harley Pasternak, who had the actress/model working out 5 days per week (workouts were divided into upper body, lower body, abs, and cardio sessions), and eating five small meals per day.
Milla did not spend hours doing cardio. Most women love to do cardio because its easy and the machines tell you exactly how many calories you supposedly burned (hint – that 1,000 calories estimate is probably wrong.) Cardio is not the key to serious weight loss, especially for really busy women over the age of 20.
Instead, focus on doing weight training – specifically fast paced intervals with free weights. Weights will help you increase your metabolism by building muscle and by giving you a post workout “peak” for up to 18 hrs (sure, its not a huge peak but it can be as much as 75 calories or so, which will add up.) Working out using weights may be intimidating if you have not used them before, and you may worry about bulking up (you probably won’t) – but they really are the best way to get back in shape and burn fat as quickly as possible.
If you are looking for information to help get you started, check out this post on Alessandra Ambrosio’s workout, Fit Yummy Mummy or Visual Impact for Women!
