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In a word, no. "The last thing my kids cared about was their mom getting fat. You have to remember, they had a mother who was now spending every waking moment with them, which they loved," says Alley, who cut back on work after her sitcom Veronica's Closet ended in 2000.
And despite the fact that she is endorsing a weight loss plan, "I'm not emphasizing 'Thin is good.' I'm trying to teach my kids that you can't judge yourself on what other people think and that getting into a size 2 Chanel skirt isn't the be-all-end-all of life," she says. "I want them to know that having a skinny body does not necessarily equate to happiness."
Her message, it seems, has been getting through. Lillie, who likes horseback riding and ice skating, "doesn't think the girls who are ridiculously thin look good," says Alley. True, too, surfs and plays basketball and favors veggie crudités or cheese and prosciutto as a snack. "My kids have always had a diet that was 90 percent better than mine," says Alley, who raised them as vegetarians until age 4. "They have a good viewpoint of it."
Lately, so does Alley. "If there's a pie she's dying to break the diet for, she'll have a few bites, but she doesn't go so off the wagon," says Kelly Preston, who, along with husband John Travolta, is among the actress's good friends. "She stays on course."
So confident has Alley become about her ability to eat in moderation that she has even started allowing previously forbidden foods in her home. "For the first time in over a year, I just bought this French goat's milk butter," she says. "I would bathe in it and lick myself all over if I could. But now I can count the calories and have some. I've gotten to know what makes me feel good, and that takes precedence over some compulsion to stuff something into my body."
