Award show season is right around the corner, starting up again with the People’s Choice Awards in January and this also means Celebrity weight loss season has kicked in. Red carpets are rolled out as paparazzi line up to snap photos of their favorite stars as they show off their expensive threads, arm candy, and post baby bods which are of course free of stomach fat.

Yes, you read right! There’s a new trend in town and Oscar De La Renta, Zac Posen, and Max Azria can’t stitch this one! Many celebrities take to the velvet pathway to strut their stuff after pushing out a kid–or two! Celebrity mums could bear the title ‘Supernatural’ when it comes to shredding off that after baby weight and losing their stomach fat but just like anyone else, it takes a lot of hard work and determination.

But can anyone do it? This is a rising question among this generation when ‘ordinary’ mums are forced to watch their favorite stars fit as ever while they are still lugging around an extra twenty pounds a year later. Although it’s hard to imagine Mariah Carey as just anyone, the pop diva made recent headlines when she dropped seventy pounds after giving birth to a set of beautiful twins, Moroccan and Monroe, just six months before.

So how did she “Shake It Off” and land on the cover of Canadian magazine, Us Weekly? The 41-year-old singer jumped on the Jenny Craig bandwagon and got down to business with a personal nutritionist and workout plan to keep a 1,500-calorie-a-day menu and thrice-weekly-workouts, reports Us Weekly. Now, as the new spokeswoman of the Jenny Diet Plan, she reels in a whole new consumer demographic of mothers looking to shift those newly acquired love handles. “I feel incredible,” she proudly shared.

Pregnancy is a time when women often feel it’s their time to let loose and “eating for two” becomes eating for five. “Let me tell you something,” Kate Hudson explained to Marie Clarie in June. “It’s an emotional roller coaster, having to lose weight, I gained so much — I was 185 lbs. at the end.” During Kate Hudson’s first pregnancy with son Ryder she indulged herself and eventually it came down to her own mum having to pry out the spoon full of Häagen-Dazs ice cream from her mouth.

Just four months later, and sixty pounds lighter, Kate was already filming The Skeleton Key. How could that much weight be loss in just so little time? She is calling it The Kate Hudson Diet Plan. This diet plan consists of reducing calories to 1500, plenty of lean proteins, reducing carbohydrate intake and daily 3-4 hour work-out routines. But honestly, how many ‘ordinary’ women have the time or the strength to exercise to that extreme once their little bundle of joy comes along?

A survey by the Royal College of Midwives found that almost two-thirds of new mothers said they felt a degree of coercion to slim to their original size as soon as possible. Who could blame them when they watch Victoria Beckham ease down the runway with a flawless body just one month after a C-section? Victoria Beckham, a woman who even when she’s eight months pregnant, resembles the weight of an average sized woman.

This former Spice Girl’s petit frame can be intimidating when other ‘ordinary’ women are waddling their way around and can’t seem to figure out when their belly ends. After giving birth to daughter Harper Seven the countdown shortly began and in record time she was runway ready. Why the rush to slim down? She had a major appearance at Fashion Week in early September. The weight loss plan Beckham followed included high-powered cardio workouts and the limited eating of the Five Hand diet which allowed for five handfuls of high-protein food throughout the day. In other words, she practically starved herself and then continued to exhaust herself with vigorous workouts to drop the weight. This drives more and more women to crash diet almost as soon as they’ve given birth which potentially puts their health at risk.

The daily pressure of the media and upcoming film or social events gives motivation for these star mums that normal women don’t need to worry about. The fact that these women are getting paid millions to look the way they do motivates them to slim down fast. Staying home for a year to take care of their little one isn’t an option; they’re on the fast lane of life where losing weight fast is the only option.

The truth is these women can afford to hire nutritionists and full-time nannies while they workout with their trainers. The new diet fads that are popping up every time a new celeb-mum loses a significant amount of weight in record time are not only unrealistic but are unhealthy. Their bodies’ upkeep is as much of a job to them as it is for any other woman to go to the office. So as ‘Supernatural’ as celebrity mums may seem to the public they go through outrageous measures to get back in shape and just in time to strut their new bodies down that velvet pathway.