Kareena Kapoor Khan’s approach to everything fitness deserves its own Bollywood movie. We cheered her on when she stepped out and posed for shutterbugs when she was at her pregnancy heaviest (all the while serving us flawless maternity looks), and when she didn’t let the pressure to quickly lose weight post-delivery get to her. In an industry notoriously obsessed with looking younger and slimmer, Kareena is content with her body type and size.
In a recent interview to Mid-Day, she said she enjoyed her pregnancy phase – something we could already tell by the glow on her face. She weighed 90 kilos after giving birth to Taimur (she’s married to fellow actor Saif Ali Khan), and credits getting back in shape to popular Pilates trainer, Namrata Purohit. But if you think Kareena hit the fitness studio with a vengeance, you’re mistaken. Far from spending hours sweating it out, she spent only 55 minutes training every day. “She [Namrata] always tells me, three-hour workouts are not needed. I’m not the kind who’ll train at 10 pm after a shoot. I’d rather go home, eat, and sleep. When your body is exhausted, it’s also the sleep that will help you lose weight. Maybe I won’t have six-pack abs, but as long as I have a smashing body, I don’t need to be in the gym for three hours,” she says. Hear, hear.
When it comes to her diet, Kareena relies on celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar, who’s known for recommending local, seasonal food rather than international superfoods. Kareena says, “I’d love to make this fact clear that I lost weight the right way. I’m a Kapoor with a Punjabi built. I can’t live without wholesome food and would not have been able to conceive, had I not eaten the way I did. Rujuta always had things sorted out for me, balancing the right amount of fat in my diet. I trusted her blindly, even when I was told to consume parathas with ghee.” It helps that Kareena is the type to be perfectly content eating sabji that bore us – think lauki, karela and the like.
Just like women everywhere, the Veere di Wedding actor also acknowledges that her journey would have been difficult without her girl gang backing her. Kareena’s BFFs, sister Karisma, Malaika Arora and Amrita Arora Ladak, have been her support system – throughout her pregnancy and also after. In fact, she says in the interview, when she would binge on pizzas, samosas and desserts during her pregnancy, the others would get tempted too and actually began to put on weight because of that. Kareena’s attitude towards eating what you like is a lesson for all of us. “I’m at peace after cheat meals. I’m the kind of girl who says that if you eat what you want, and you’re happy about it, there’s no guilt and no calories. You have to nurture your body, and have fun.” Preach!
