A few weeks ago, I read this item in the news about some famous model who had recently had a baby. The article focused on how she got her gorgeous bode back. Her solution: some great cabbage soup recipe and two hours of exercise at the gym every day, five days a week.

Sometimes I just wonder if stories like this are published just for comic relief. Does anyone really ask a model how she stays in shape because they are waiting on the edge of their seat to follow in her footsteps? Maybe. Cabbage soup might be tasty on a cold day in November when one needs a good way to get rid of several cabbages or a bad cold, but as a regular diet? Maybe. I wonder how she has time to make a giant pot of cabbage soup for the week for herself and then three meals and seven snacks that her children (if she has ones old enough to eat real food) will eat. Maybe.

But the part of the story that I find most unreasonable is the two hours a day at the gym. That would be a great plan for all of us, however completely impractical. This in-shape chick must have trained her newborn to sleep through the night for one thing. Her maid or butler must take care of the laundry every day. And she must be on some powerful energy supplement to have the stamina to spend two hours sweating, squating, lifting and jogging in the gym.

I used to pity slightly or greatly overweight moms pushing their kids in carts around the grocery store or pushing their stroller down the sidewalk. That was before I had my own children. For a great number of us who do a lot of our own household chores, get up with our own children in the night and scarf down whatever is quickest at hand, that's the workout that fits best into our schedules. And as for cabbage soup, two hours of exercise a day is what it might take to get three meals of that through your system with the least amounts of odors and discomfort.