Victoria's Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio ate 1,200 calories a day for three months after giving birth

'I couldn’t do that again,' says Ambrosio

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Being a Victoria’s Secret Angel and maintaining the physical image associated with the brand is no mean feat, as some models are now beginning to attest.

One of the most prominent and longest-serving Angels has described the lengths she went to ahead of one Victoria's Secret annual fashion show to get into the shape required for the event.

Alessandra Ambrosio appeared on the Victoria's Secret catwalk in 2008, just three months after giving birth to her first child. The Brazilian model resorted to eating calorie-restricted meals delivered to her house in a bid to reach her pre-pregnancy weight in time for the Victoria's Secret show.

“I only had three months to lose all the weight,” she 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.

“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. 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.”

Ambrosio was also forthright about the reality faced by a working model when she recalled the consequences of binge eating. “There were times [as a teenager] when I would eat a whole packet of cookies. But then I taught myself not to do that, basically by reminding myself how horrible it felt the last time. Oh, and of course I would lose my job, so that was another incentive.”

Organisers compare the models to athletes in terms of the training they undergo to prepare for the show. Victoria’s Secret creative director Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou told Vogue in 2013: “It’s like being an Olympian – they have to be in peak condition.”

Adriana Lima, an Angel since 2000, will reportedly only drink protein shakes - “no solids” - for nine days before the annual show.

After adjusting her diet, her workout also increases dramatically. She told The Telegraph: “It is really intense, it's not really the amount of time you spend working out, it's the intensity: I jump rope, I do boxing, I lift weights.”

Ambrosio’s comments come after Erin Heatherton claimed she left the line-up after five years as an Angel when the pressure to lose weight made her consider not eating.

“I was really depressed because I was working so hard and I felt like my body was resisting me,” she wrote in an essay for Motto. “And I got to a point where one night I got home from a workout and I remember staring at my food and thinking maybe I should just not eat.”