The latest issue of People magazine has a five-page spread of Jillian Michaels and her new family, looking cozy and content.
It is not your most typical of families. Michaels, the drill sergeant fitness instructor from "The Biggest Loser," is pictured with her partner of three years, Heidi Rhoades, along with the daughter Michaels adopted in Haiti in April and the infant son Rhoades delivered two weeks later.
As Michaels described it, she was meant for this roll-with-the-punches life. "I felt the calling to adopt," she tells People, explaining that a diagnosis of endometriosis in her teens meant she always knew she was unlikely to have biological children. "You just know in the deepest part of your being that you are meant to find this little soul and guide them through life."
If that doesn't sound like the Michaels you knew back when she was barking contestants into shape, many things about her have changed, she says. And more than one new mother will feel vindicated by her admission to People that she hadn't been to the gym for two weeks, and she'd started drinking coffee again after two years of abstaining from caffeine.
Then -- and here's the best part -- she goes on to apologize for not getting it before she had kids. "I have to figure out how to take care of myself right now," she says. "Telling moms 'You need to put yourself first'? It's impossible to put yourself first when you're a Mom...Parenting is not for sissies. You have to sacrifice and grow up."
There is one thing missing from this interview, though, and that is any mention of another interview -- one she gave to Women's Health magazine a little over two years ago, before she left "The Biggest Loser" and began the adoption process. Back then there was no mention of endometriosis or life callings. Instead she said that her living was earned by looking good and that she therefore planned to adopt rather than give birth because "I can't handle doing that to my body."
Her words caused an uproar. My own response was a column wondering why she had to phrase things in a way that reinforced the view that pregnancy changes were ruinous. Wouldn't the more productive message, I wondered, be that yes, losing the weight takes time, but so what?
Michaels owes mothers an apology, I thought back then.
Sounds like we've gotten one.
For more photos of Jillian Michaels and her family, click over to x17online.com.