Mindy Kaling only gained 27 lbs while pregnant: ‘I exercised until the morning I gave birth’

June 1, 2018

Like Mindy Kaling, I have thick Indian hair. But unlike Mindy, my hair would never do what her hair is doing on the cover of Shape. My hair would be half-curly, half-straight and flying in ten different directions. How did they get her hair so sleek and straight? Hmm. Anyway, doesn’t it feel like Mindy Kaling barely took time off after she gave birth to her daughter? She was promoting A Wrinkle In Time just a few weeks after giving birth, and then she was promoting her TV show Champions, and now she’s promoting Ocean’s Eight. She covers the June issue of Shape, and the cover interview is all about her pregnancy, the baby weight and her daughter Katherine, who she calls Kit, which is adorable (Benedict Cumberbatch calls his son Christopher “Kit” as well). Some highlights:

She’s been bonding with Kit: “She is a really happy baby. When she was born, she was kind of skinny and anxious. I think she was like, Can this woman take care of me? But during our many breastfeeding sessions, we’ve gotten to know each other, and she’s learned to trust me over time. What’s great for me is that my doctor told me that incessant chatter is good for a baby, and I’ve lived my whole life waiting to have a captive audience. So I spend the days narrating to her. I’m constantly doing voiceover for her, as I did in The Mindy Project. Honestly, I feel like her first words are going to be, ‘Just stop. Please!’”

On the pregnancy weight: “Because I like to eat, and I’m not skinny to start with, I knew that if I gained a lot of weight during my pregnancy, things could just fly off the rails in a really bad way. That was something I definitely needed to watch out for. My doctor said that women who gain just 25 to 30 pounds usually have less trouble losing it after the baby is born. So I kept my weight gain to about 27 pounds. I also worked out whenever I could while I was pregnant. I did a lot of yoga and a lot of walking, and I jogged until I couldn’t jog anymore. I exercised until the morning I gave birth.”

Exercising after birth: She says a week after giving birth, she started walking “a couple of miles a day…I don’t recommend that for everyone, obviously, but I didn’t have that difficult of a delivery. All those things were really helpful when it came to losing the weight.”

She’s bad at yoga: “I like to mix up my workouts: I’ll do a SoulCycle class, a strength training class with my trainer, and yoga once a week. For someone with my personality, which is somewhat skeptical and cynical, it’s really good for me to do yoga and take it at face value. Because I’m Indian, I feel like I should be good at yoga, but I’m terrible at it. It’s my way of trying to get back to my roots.”

[From Shape via E! News]

She also talks about how great it was to work with so many women on back-to-back projects, A Wrinkle in Time and Ocean’s Eight. She says the moms had their kids with them and everyone was helping out with everyone else and it was just a really positive experience. I’m with her on the “I’m an Indian who feels like yoga should be more important but it’s not” thing, because I feel the same way. I just can’t get into yoga, and I feel like I’m betraying my ancestors every time I climb on the treadmill. I also think it’s crazy that she was exercising so much throughout her pregnancy and so soon afterwards! But I trust her to know her own body, and she seems to be doing fine, so God bless.