Holly Madison: “Breastfeeding Was A Great Experience”

New mom Holly Madison is helping women reach their weight loss goals with the Holly Madison Diet. The former Girls Next Door star, 33, has teamed up with eDiets to create a custom diet plan and app for women who want to take control, eat well and stay healthy.

Holly opens up to Celebrity Baby Scoop about her former “unhealthy” eating habits, her 8-month-old “easy” daughter Rainbow, the benefits of breastfeeding and joys of motherhood, and how she’ll feel if Rainbow wants plastic surgery one day.

CBS: Tell us about teaming up with eDiets and creating the Holly Madison Diet. What inspired you to create the diet?

HM: “When I became pregnant, I really got into nutrition and healthy eating for the sake of the baby. I used to be so unhealthy — always running around eating fast food. When I was in the process of losing the baby weight, eDiets proposed working together to come up with a custom diet plan and app.

Revamping my diet was a huge lifestyle change for me, and I’m so interested in nutrition now. I thought it sounded like a really fun idea — and it is fun!”

CBS: Tell us all about the diet. Is it a food delivery program? Or online/mobile diet tips? What kind of support is provided for users?

HM: “When you login to hollymadisondiet.com, you enter your personal statistics, your goals and your preferences. A custom diet is then formulated for you to complete with shopping lists and diet logs so you can keep track of how you are doing. [There are also] recipes and support. It gives you new meal ideas all the time.”

CBS: How did you lose your weight after welcoming your daughter Rainbow? What kind of exercise did you do?

HM: “You know, I only recently started working out and Rainbow is now 8 months old. It was just the last thing I wanted to find time for while I was learning to be a mom and trying to keep up with everything else.

Diet became the biggest factor in my weight loss. Because I was breastfeeding, I had extra incentive to put healthy things in my body and I started to learn to cook because I was staying home with the baby. I used to eat all my meals out.”

CBS: Are you still breastfeeding Rainbow? Do you recommend breastfeeding to women? What are some of your favorite benefits of breastfeeding?

HM: “Breastfeeding was a great experience for me, but I’ve been told by moms I know that I am lucky my baby took to it so easily. Don’t beat yourself up if your baby just doesn’t want to do it and you go the bottle route.

But if you do choose to breastfeed, it’s nice because it burns quite a bit if calories and it kept me more mindful of what I ate because I knew what I took into my body was ending up in my baby’s food supply. ”

CBS: Now that you are a mom, do you have any regrets or different opinions about plastic surgery? How will you advise Rainbow if she wants to have plastic surgery? Would you be heartbroken if she got any plastic surgery?

HM: “I certainly wouldn’t let Rainbow get plastic surgery until she is an adult and it’s out of my hands. I hope she doesn’t feel the need to. I don’t regret the two procedures I had, but I am glad I knew when to stop. I hate the frozen face duck lip look you see on women these days.”

CBS: How do you plan to teach Rainbow about loving/accepting her body and promoting positive body-image? Are you concerned she will compare herself to you and try to live up to your beauty?

HM: “I bet Rainbow will be semi embarrassed of me and want to be totally different. Isn’t that how it works with teenagers [laughs]?”

CBS: How is Rainbow doing? What kind of baby is she? Tell us about the joys of motherhood.

HM: “Rainbow is an amazing, easy baby. I got really lucky! I love her so much and she has inspired me to slow down and enjoy life in the moment. It’s hard to keep up with everything when you are a mom,      but you also realize it’s OK to let some of the stuff you used to think was so important go.”