"I was a lot more critical of my body when it was probably pretty awesome," she admits. "It's like, why did I not ever wear jean shorts? That's so crazy. I was so skinny! I didn't have any cellulite . . . what was I thinking?!"
"I was more willing to wear short skirts after I had my kids. I never wore them before. Ever. I was so self-conscious," Alba says. "But I remember I was 28 or 29, at an MTV award thing, and my girlfriend Kelly was like, 'You should wear a short skirt, because you are not going to be this age forever.' Now I'm a lot more confident in my skin -- because who cares? At the end of the day, it's so much time spent on something that really doesn't matter that much."
Alba and husband Cash Warren, who wed in May 2008, are parents to daughters Honor, 5, and Haven, 2. After welcoming her second child, the Sin City actress said she wore a corset to help her lose the baby weight.
Would she use that method again? "Of course. Who wouldn't!" she tells Health. "Your muscles are completely stretched. It gets the muscle memory going quicker. It's just to get your body back. Because everything is everywhere!"
In her book, The Honest Life: Living Naturally and True to You, Alba talks about doing "Honest Workouts" to stay in shape. "I like dancing. There's a choreographer I used on a couple of movies, JJ Dancer [aka Jennifer Johnson]; her dance moves are so fun, so it doesn't feel like you're working out," she tells the magazine. "And I like interval training on a treadmill, with sprinting and then uphill walking, then sprint, then uphill walk, then sprint. This morning I did sprint intervals with a high-incline walk. Otherwise I get bored -- I can't just do the same thing over and over."
Though she tries to do daily workouts, Alba says she focuses on healthy eating rather than dieting.
"To me, it's knowing that if you eat unprocessed fresh food -- it doesn't all have to be organic, but try to have the least amount of GMOs [genetically modified organisms] and pesticides -- you have energy, aren't starving and don't have to count calories," she explains. "When I'm 'dieting,' I'm not eating as many snacks -- because I love snacks. [Laughs] Popchips, Pirate's Booty -- or I could eat a pound of fruit. So I cut down on snacking when I'm trying to be healthy."