Katherine Heigl Opens Up About Her 50-Pound Pregnancy Weight Gain—and How She Lost It

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The actress also shared her secrets to dropping the pounds after giving birth.

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Katherine Heigl is getting real about pregnancy weight. The actress, who welcomed son Joshua Bishop Kelley Jr. back in January, says that losing the pounds hasn’t been as easy as she thought.

“I had hoped to only gain 25 to 30 pounds like my mother during her pregnancies but found that just wasn’t possible for me,” she wrote in a blog post this week. “Despite starting my gestation out on a pregnancy-friendly meal plan and hiking my butt off five days a week, my weight kept creeping up.”

According to the Grey’s Anatomy alum, her 50-pound weight gain left her with “moments of sheer panic.”

Hey I totally forgot to mention there's a new post up on the blog (link in bio) that covers my postpartum weight loss journey. It's actually pretty relevant for anyone looking to shed some pounds post pregnancy or not. Check it out for the before and after pics and my best weight loss advice. Hint, it has nothing to do with calories or cardio! #thoseheavenlydays

A post shared by Katherine Heigl (@katherineheigl) on Aug 7, 2017 at 3:07pm PDT

“At a certain point, probably around 4 months, I gave up the struggle and tried instead to respect my body’s needs and trust my instincts.”

Just 10 days after welcoming her son, Heigl says she was “miraculously” down 30 pounds, but the rest of the weight didn’t come off as easily. “We’ve all heard about the gals who tone up and get right back into their skinny jeans weeks after their baby’s birth but this was not me, nor was I trying for it to be,” she wrote.

“I have only lost 10 pounds since that first initial drop but that’s OK because I decided from the start that I was going to lovingly but patiently reclaim my pre-baby body, and forgive the glorious imperfections that would forever grace my new post-baby body.”

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A post shared by Katherine Heigl (@katherineheigl) on Jul 1, 2017 at 2:40pm PDT

But how exactly did Heigl drop those 10 pounds? “My best weight loss advice is to start every morning by saying out loud a positive mantra of your choice about your body. Mine is, ‘I am easily, with good health, inspiration, grace, and gratitude, losing weight faster than I can even imagine with harm to none,’” she wrote.

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“Then I say my gratefuls. Thanking my body for its perfect health, strength, limberness, vibrancy, youthfulness, and beauty. Whether I always believe these things about myself and my body or not, I say them. By saying them out loud with love and gratitude, I have found that I not only start to believe them, but my body exhibits what I say and believe.”