Alessandra Ambrosio Ate 1,200 Calories a Day to Lose Weight

You have to go through hell to be an Angel.

Alessandra Ambrosio caused quite the stir when she walked in the 2008 Victoria’s Secret fashion show — mere months after welcoming her first child, Anja. “I only had three months to lose all the weight,” the Brazilian model, 34, told The Edit. “And I was on this 1,200-calorie-a-day meal-delivery service that I hated. I couldn’t do that again.”

Ambrosio, who also shares Noah with fiancé Jamie Mazur, even admitted that she never bothered to exercise before she had to strap on her wings. “In my family, no one ever worked out. It wasn’t until I did my first Victoria’s Secret show that I started exercising,” she said. “Now that it’s a healthy, normal part of my daily routine, my kids will grow up seeing it in the same way, and I love that.”

In fact, Ambrosio thinks that motherhood has made her physique even finer.

“Your body will never go back to exactly what it was before pregnancy, whatever people tell you. It can’t,” she said. “But I think I have a better body now than before I had kids. It’s partly because I work out, whereas before I didn’t, but also to do with the shape – it just looks more formed now, and I feel better about it than I did.”

She also takes her strut down the Victoria’s Secret runway a lot less seriously these days. While the mood may be tense, the afterparty is all about fun.

“It’s so stressful before the Victoria’s Secret show. There’s so much pressure on us all — not just in terms of shape — and the energy gets sucked out of you. So my favorite thing to do afterwards is dance all night long,” Ambrosio revealed. “We’ll have a pizza party and drink, but I don’t even care that much about the food. It’s about being young, normal and carefree again.”