Women all over Hollywood are certainly putting motherhood on the map these days! Pretty much every single time I open up one of my celebrity smut magazines, I am greeted with a photo of some starlet sporting either a perfectly round baby bump or a toddler on her hip. I have to give these ladies the credit they deserve for making motherhood the “in” thing right now. I sometimes think that a baby is kind of considered the perfect accessory to complete any outfit in La-La land. In fact, it seems as though you’re almost not part of the cool crowd in the celeb world if you are over 21 years old and haven’t been knocked up yet.

Yep, babies are pretty fashionable in Hollywood right now, but there is something that is even more popular than procreating to these celebrities. Having kids is definitely up there on the trend-o-meter, but dropping the baby weight in record time has become somewhat of a spectator sport. The window of what is considered an acceptable amount of time allowed for a woman to drop her post-partum pounds is getting smaller and smaller with every issue of OK, US Weekly, Star, etc. I think that before we know it, we’ll be reading about how some top-paid movie star brought her personal trainer with her into the delivery room along with a portable treadmill and Wii Fit Plus because she plans on leaving the hospital in her pre-baby size 24 jeans.

I have to admit that I actually feel kind of bad for these women. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have just given birth and be totally exhausted and not feeling up to red-carpet status quite yet and just wanting to go home and enjoy your new little bundle and recover a bit only to find that there are a million paparazzi waiting for you as you exit the hospital who are scrutinizing every square inch of your body instead of trying to get a nice photo of the baby. I can guarantee that no photographer would’ve wanted to get within an inch of my hobbling ass as I was leaving the hospital! To this day, I’m still not sure why I wasn’t brought out to the car in a wheelchair, because I thought that is how every new mother left the hospital, but that really doesn’t pertain to this story so I’ll let that one go for now. All I know is that I left that day in the same maternity track suit that I entered the delivery room wearing and I had on fuzzy pink bedroom slippers because my feet wouldn’t fit into any of my shoes. Not exactly a Kodak moment, that’s for sure. And I continued to wear that track suit for a good two or three months after bringing junior home. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it’s a good thing that I’m not famous. I think I probably would’ve been labeled the biggest fatty in Hollywood if I weren’t just a normal mama.

My first subject today is Grey’s Anatomy star, Ellen Pompeo. Ellen has always been pin-thin, and I honestly think she is just one of those people who is blessed with a tiny frame and really doesn’t have to work at keeping the weight off. I actually think that she probably weighed less while pregnant than most women do when they’re not pregnant. The picture below was taken just two weeks after she had her baby. TWO WEEKS!

I can’t say that I’m surprised that she looked that good just two weeks post-partum. What did bug me, however, was the recent story about how she lost the baby weight in OK Magazine. The article said that Ellen “has a high metabolism” (lucky bitch) and “really wasn’t doing anything” to lose the extra pounds, and that she “has a bagel if she wants a bagel.” Yeah, I have a bagel if I want a bagel too, but unlike Miss Ellen, that bagel leaves a permanent stamp on me disguised as two extra pounds on the scale and a noticeably rounder belly. (And let’s not kid ourselves, I usually find it hard to have just one bagel).

As I continued to read this story, I think that anyone around me would’ve noticed my eyeballs growing as big as saucers when Miss Ellen’s big diet secret was revealed. This is a good one kids, so pay attention. There are all kinds of hip diets in Hollywood right now such as The Zone, Atkins, South Beach, what have you, but this one absolutely tops them all. In fact, I think that it could be the answer to everyone’s prayers as far as diets go. Whoever figured out this particular diet is going to be a self-made millionaire for sure. Ok, I’m sure the suspense is killing you, so here it is:

“Ellen is just LETTING THE WEIGHT FALL OFF HER.”

WOW! What a revelation! Why didn’t I think of that? I feel like a complete and total moron now because I spent countless hours out with my stroller walking the hills of my neighborhood in Highlands Ranch, Colorado and even more countless hours whipping up healthy meals in my kitchen in an effort to shed those pesky pounds, when I could’ve just been sitting on the sofa watching TV and LETTING THE WEIGHT FALL OFF. Seriously, I just wish that someone would go ahead and invent a time machine so that I could go back about four years and grab myself off the sidewalk, stroller and all, and plop my fat ass down on the couch and tell myself about this genius of a weight loss plan.

Ok, so Miss Ellen’s story pretty much had fire coming out of my ears, but I couldn’t resist the urge to read on and see what the other celeb moms were dishing about. That brings us to Jessica Alba. Honestly folks, is there really anyone much more gorgeous than this girl? I mean, she is stunning. Absolutely stunning. And I’ve always really liked her, and I still do. She just seems like such a sweet girl and she kind of lives out of the spotlight and I think that she is probably a really good mother to her daughter.

I have to give Miss Jessica a big round of applause because I’ve read before (not exactly sure where) that she admitted that she felt absolutely huge and never felt less sexy than when she was pregnant. There’s nothing that I appreciate more than a little bit of honesty in the celeb world, so I just have to give her credit for that one. To my delight and surprise, in this particular issue of OK, she was open and honest again, and said, “I’ll take the stretch marks, sagging boobs, and cellulite you can’t get rid of…if you are happy and positive and hold your head high, then all that other stuff is irrelevant.”

I truly think that Miss Jessica was trying to do the right thing and was trying to identify with other new mothers and to let them know that she experiences the same body issues as they do. There’s just one problem with her statement.

You can go ahead and pick your jaw up off the floor now. I won’t elaborate too much here. All I am going to say is that if this is what stretch marks, sagging boobs, and cellulite you can’t get rid of look like, then I need to go ahead and end this post right away so that I can get in my car and high-tail it to the plastic surgeon’s office so that he can hook me up with the Jessica Alba special.

Whenever one of my newly pregnant friends has been worried about losing the baby weight and has asked me how I did it, I’m always honest and I always tell everyone the same thing. First of all, I really had to work at it. I made a commitment to getting back into my pre-baby wardrobe and I got up early in the morning, put my little guy in the stroller, and went out and walked for about an hour and a half, six days a week. I also really paid attention to my food choices. I did lose every last pound of baby weight, but it took me a good nine months to do it. It took me nine months to put it on, and nine months to take it off. And I still struggle with my weight because I have my whole life. I’ve never been one of those people who can eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce, and I’m still hanging onto a few extra holiday pounds that I just can’t seem to get rid of. Once a struggler, always a struggler. And the same rings true for people who are just naturally thin. I tell my pregnant friends who were tiny to begin with, that they will go back to being tiny again and not to pressure themselves into losing the weight within a certain time frame. It will happen when it happens.

Have you ever noticed on Nutri-System and Jenny Craig TV ads how there is this disclaimer in really tiny print at the bottom of the screen that says, “Results not Typical?” I think that there needs to be some kind of similar disclaimer at the bottom of these magazine articles too. I think that it should say something like this:

“Results not typical. These women were stick-thin before they got pregnant and have never had issues with their weight. They also have round-the-clock nannies and personal trainers and home gyms and personal chefs, not to mention personal stylists who know how to dress them two-weeks post-partum for the optimum slimming illusion. They can also afford top of the line anti-cellulite treatments and plastic surgery and anything else that they need to get back into red-carpet shape. Please note that this article is not intended to establish any sort of norm or expectation for women who are not privy to these sort of luxuries.”

Don’t you think that if there were a disclaimer like that at the bottom of each of these articles that there would be a lot less unnecessary tears and unnecessary extreme dieting and exercise regimes on the part of new mothers? I sure do. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Four years after having a child, I know that Hollywood women do not set the standard for what really happens after having a baby. Four weeks after having a child, however, I didn’t understand that. And that is when I really would’ve benefitted from hearing the truth.

The Mommyologist’s Last Word: “I’m over these last few holiday pounds. I give up. I think I’ll just give the Ellen Pompeo plan a shot”.

One more quick note: I do know that the Jessica Alba pic was probably airbrushed, but seriously, no amount of airbrushing could ever make me look that hot. You have to have at least a little bit of a bod for them to work with for it to be believeable!