Actress Olivia Wilde Talks Post Baby Body in SHAPE

There is so much negative publicity surrounding people fat shaming and mommy shaming. Olivia Wilde’s recent interview with SHAPE magazine explains why she’s not letting these pressures get under her skin. She opens up very candidly about her post-baby-body and how she’s not in a hurry to ‘bounce back.’

So many moms feel immense pressure to regain their pre-pregnancy bodies after giving birth, and Wilde is not taking it any more. She explains, “For a couple of weeks after you pop that sucker out, you are the walking wounded … After giving birth, I joined the ranks of millions of new mothers when I moaned, ‘Why do I still look pregnant? Is there another one stuck in there?’”

She goes on to say that “I’m softer than I’ve ever been…The photos of me in this magazine have been generously constructed to show my best angles and I assure you, good lighting has been warmly embraced. The truth is, I’m a mother, and I look like one.”

While she has come to terms with her post-pregnancy body, she explains that she loved being pregnant because she could be unapologetically curvy and sexy. She was able to stay curvy and sexy by maintaining a healthy lifestyle through pilates and SoulCycle, which she explains she had to quit at 8 1/2 months pregnant because she couldn’t fit in between the bikes anymore.

She emphasizes that with or without baby, it’s challenging to get out of the house to exercise. She says, “I believe in a world where mothers are not expected to shed any physical evidence of their child-bearing experience. In that same world I believe there is space for exercise to be as much a gift to your brain as it is to your body. I don’t want to waste my time striving for some subjective definition of perfection. I’d rather rebuild my strength while dancing my ass of…literally.”

You can read more of the interview at Shape.com