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" Jillian Michaels&amp;#039;s words have impact. Literally. Because sometimes she gets so into what she&amp;#039;s saying, she pounds the table for emphasis with (bang) every (bang) word (bang). Not that I wouldn&amp;#039;t have listened anyway: Turns out the personal trainer turned media mogul doesn&amp;#039;t have to be standing over you in a gym and yelling to command your attention. Nope, she&amp;#039;s plenty compelling over lunch in Malibu on a Monday afternoon. (Her order: shrimp cocktail, ahi tuna sliders, and iced tea, which comes with a side of warnings from her about the glycemic index of sweeteners.) Dressed in plaid Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, and a white T-shirt that shows off her sculpted arms, Jillian contorts her face dramatically and curses a blue streak while making her points. In other words, she&amp;#039;s a hoot. Especially when she&amp;#039;s as excited \u2014 and frustrated \u2014 as she is right now about where her life is headed next. She&amp;#039;s thrilled by some major changes: After 11 seasons on the NBC hit The Biggest Loser and one season of her own show, Losing It With Jillian, TV&amp;#039;s toughest trainer is moving to daytime, soon to become the fifth host of The Doctors and a special correspondent for Dr. Phil. And she&amp;#039;s working on her most personal passion project, adopting a baby from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She just wishes motherhood would hurry up and happen. Between tossing bits of bread to a seagull hobbling around the table with a broken wing (&amp;quot;People get so mad at me for feeding them. I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;#039;I can&amp;#039;t help it!&amp;#039;&amp;quot;), Jillian gets frank about her struggle to adopt, the relationship she tries to keep private, and how anyone can face down their biggest fears. REDBOOK: You talk a lot about your mom being your biggest role model. What did you go to her for when you were younger, and what do you rely on her for now? JILLIAN MICHAELS: I looked to my mom as an example. And this is what I try to tell so many women: that my mom had a career, and she went to the gym. She took care of herself. I think that when moms just give themselves up, the kids know. They feel guilty, they resent their mother for making them feel guilty, and then they grow up and do the same thing. Whereas my mother showed me that it&amp;#039;s okay to focus on yourself. As an adult, I go to my mom when things are as sh---y as they can possibly be, and she helps me have perspective. So if I&amp;#039;m like, Mother of God, I&amp;#039;ve been working on this adoption for almost two years, she gets the call. RB: Two years is a long time. JM: I&amp;#039;ve watched friends congratulate me on [starting] the process, get pregnant themselves, have a baby, and then their baby&amp;#039;s crawling. People are lapping me. My best friend just told me she&amp;#039;s pregnant, and of course I&amp;#039;m ecstatic, but I&amp;#039;m also like, Uhhh! [gestures stabbing herself]. Like, I want my kid to be playing with your kids! It&amp;#039;s just a nightmare. RB: Did you ever consider doing it naturally? I know you&amp;#039;ve had some health issues\u2026 JM: Turns out I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). But at a young age, I didn&amp;#039;t know if I wanted kids, so I didn&amp;#039;t really care. Then I got older, and I watched friends go through IVF, with years of hormones and devastation and disappointment, and I remem-ber thinking, God wants something different for me. If I choose to pursue this path, I&amp;#039;ll adopt. And when I was finally ready to go for it, I thought, This is going to be so easy. I am such an a--hole. I had nooo idea. I mean, you&amp;#039;re just waiting\u2026. If it&amp;#039;s not done by this November, I&amp;#039;m going to take my shot with foster care. RB: On Losing It With Jillian, you moved in with families to help them deal with their conflicts and get healthier. Did that make you want a family? JM: That was what pushed it over the edge. There were these two little girls, Lily and Chloe, and I just fell in love with them. I was doing their makeup, we were making brownies, and I was like, I do not want to get to the end of my life and miss this. If I sacrifice power, if I sacrifice wealth to be a mother, so be it [slams the table]. I could open up a little gym, and I would be blissfully happy. RB: How did you decide to leave The Biggest Loser? JM: I&amp;#039;ve wanted to be in daytime television for a long time, because that&amp;#039;s where you can convey a message. On prime time, it&amp;#039;s like Jersey Shore and The Desperate Housewives of Some Dumb-ass County. It&amp;#039;s just train-wreck television. And it rates. [On The Biggest Loser] I would have long conversations with contestants about unearthing stuff from their past, and none of it would air. They grunt, they cry, I&amp;#039;m like, &amp;quot;You can do it,&amp;quot; they say, &amp;quot;I believe in myself,&amp;quot; and the scene&amp;#039;s over. [Looks at the limping seagull] I&amp;#039;m going to need to save that guy before we go. RB: The mom in you comes out already. JM: I&amp;#039;d throw myself in front of a train for a kid or, like, a pigeon. RB: Will you be parenting on your own? Or do you have somebody in your life? JM: I&amp;#039;m adopting as a single parent. I am seeing someone, [but] I keep their life private, because the email has been hacked, the Facebook has been hacked\u2026.  RB: You said in your book, Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life, &amp;quot;relationships were not my strong point.&amp;quot; Do you feel like they&amp;#039;re stronger now? JM: I&amp;#039;m making huge progress. In the past, if something made me feel vulnerable, I would shut down. Now I&amp;#039;m really good at saying, &amp;quot;Okay, I&amp;#039;m feeling insecure.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m dating someone who&amp;#039;s a twin, so it&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Your relationship with your twin really intimidates me because you guys share everything.&amp;quot; If you can&amp;#039;t be vulnerable, how can you work on something? How can it improve?  RB: You also talk about how what you do is so not about fitness. What do you mean by that? JM: Fitness is a tool I utilize to build confidence. If somebody thinks, I&amp;#039;m weak, I&amp;#039;m fat, I&amp;#039;m lazy, that&amp;#039;s their reality. I can have them run a mile or do 20 push-ups, and then they&amp;#039;re like, &amp;quot;Oh, my God, if I&amp;#039;m capable of this, what else can I do?&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s so funny because I can relate to them. I&amp;#039;ll tell them, &amp;quot;I hate working out too.&amp;quot; RB: Seriously? JM: I mean it. I was in Bob&amp;#039;s [that&amp;#039;s Bob Harper, Jillian&amp;#039;s fellow trainer from The Biggest Loser] spin class on Saturday and I was like this [stares intensely up at an imaginary clock]. And Bob&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Jillian, dammit! Get your eyes off the clock!&amp;quot; Oh, I was miserable! RB: So funny! Even you need a trainer to kick your butt. How does someone know they&amp;#039;re ready for change? JM: You feel it [laughs]. You wake up in the morning and you&amp;#039;re miserable. Or you&amp;#039;re numb. If you feel nothing, obviously you&amp;#039;re shutting down the parts of you that are unhappy. We&amp;#039;ve evolved to have emotions for a reason. They guide us.  RB: I had a job where I knew it was time to go because I was putting on my pants one morning\u2026 JM: And you started to cry? RB: I started to cry! JM: There you go. RB: What would you tell other women about how to face their fears if they feel like they do want that change? JM: They have to trust. I can&amp;#039;t tell you how many people tried to talk me out of leaving [The Biggest Loser]. Everyone. People are really fear-based, and many have this monkey-bar approach to life, like you can&amp;#039;t leave one spot until you&amp;#039;re holding on to the next monkey bar. But by going straight to the next thing, you never get time to reflect or to create space for what&amp;#039;s right. We all have to work for happiness. And you cannot listen to [the advice of] other people. That is the worst mistake you can make. You&amp;#039;ve got to listen \u2014 and I hate to say this, because it sounds sort of hocus-pocus \u2014 to the universe, to life, to God, whatever you want to call it. Because it&amp;#039;s going to speak to you. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a12625/jillian-michaels/>