- Katie Lee Biegel opened up about her struggle with postpartum recovery on Instagram.
- The Food Network star revealed power walks, Pilates, and food journaling have been key in feeling strong and healthy again.
- The Kitchen co-host encourages other moms to be patient on their journey.
Katie Lee Biegel has spent the last year filming her Food Network show from her home kitchen, launching her newest cookbook, and raising her new baby girl, Iris. Though 2021 is starting out strong for the celebrity chef, she recently posted a photo to her Instagram encouraging all new moms to be gentler with themselves during their postpartum recovery. Lee admits the journey has been anything but linear for her, especially after struggling with IVF prior to Iris’s birth.
The Kitchen co-host posed in a black bikini, sunglasses, and a baseball hat to chat with her followers about ignoring the scale and focusing on feeling healthy. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to ‘get my body back’ after having a baby. I recently hit my pre-baby weight, but it really isn’t about the number on the scale,” Biegel wrote in the caption.
“We spend nine months growing, expanding, and having so many changes. Then there’s childbirth, which for me, was the easier part. What I was not at all prepared for was the postpartum recovery. I was in quite a bit of pain for a solid six weeks, and it took me a much longer time to heal physically than I ever expected,” she wrote.
She explained that her plans to get back into her usual routine were (understandably) derailed after giving birth. “I couldn’t exercise for a few months (not that I really had the time or energy for it, anyway). I didn’t really care about eating my usual healthy foods. I would just grab something.”
But in time, Biegel found her rhythm and discovered ways to incorporate movement, nourishing meals, and self-care into her everyday life again. “As Iris got a little older and we got into more of a groove (when she finally started napping!!), I started to get back to myself. Exercise, my big salads, and blow drying my hair,” she included in the caption.
She says power walking, postnatal workouts, Pilates, and keeping a food journal have helped her push through the recovery process. “Now, I power walk every day with Iris in her stroller, I do postnatal and Pilates workouts on Obe Fitness, and I use my WW app. I finally feel like my body is back—not only because of the number on the scale, but I feel like I am back to feeling strong and healthy.”
Biegel closed her post with words of encouragement to other moms. “It takes time mommas. It’s been 10 months for me. I’m still not 100% where I was (my pants are two sizes bigger and they very well might stay that way, which is fine), and I want to continue to work on my overall wellness, but I’m headed in the right direction.”
Arielle Weg is the associate editor at Prevention and loves to share her favorite wellness and nutrition obsessions. She previously managed content at The Vitamin Shoppe, and her work has also appeared in Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Cooking Light, MyRecipes, and more. You can usually find her taking an online workout class or making a mess in the kitchen, creating something delicious she found in her cookbook collection or saved on Instagram.
