At 41 years old and after giving birth to three kids, Kourtney Kardashian’s body is in the best shape of its life. However, she’s made no secret of the fact that it took a lot of work for her to get to this point. In a new article for her website, Poosh, Kourtney revealed that she “gained exactly 40 pounds with all three of [her] pregnancies,” but explained that she went about losing the weight in very different ways each time. Her biggest recommendation for weight loss after pregnancy is breastfeeding, which she said really helped her after she welcomed Mason Disick in Dec. 2009.
At the time of Mason’s birth, Kourtney admittedly wasn’t into “intense workouts,” so her routine mostly consisted of “two to three mile runs” around the neighborhood, along with at-home workouts. However, she breastfed for 16 months, which she revealed was a big help in keeping the weight off. “[Breastfeeding] forces you to eat super clean for your baby, drink much less alcohol and caffeine, and hydrate with a ton of water,” she explained. “It’s amazing for the baby’s immunity and strength, and it burns around 700 calories each feeding.”
Kourtney’s second child, Penelope Disick, was born in July 2012, and the reality star said she had more trouble getting the weight off that time around. After two years of “mellow workouts and yoga,” Kourtney finally started working with a trainer and doing high intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts, which included jump lunges, squats and running up stairs. One shockingly hard workout she recommends? Jump rope! “I know it may not sound like much, but have you ever tried it?” she wrote. “Try jump roping for just five minutes. It’s intense.” Now, Kourt is able to do it for 20 minutes straight, she revealed.
It was just a few months into this intense training that Kourtney found out she was pregnant with her third child, Reign Disick, who she gave birth to in Dec. 2014. She jumped right back into the HIIT workouts as soon as it was safe after Reign’s birth. “It felt so good,” Kourtney admitted. “Especially since I was going through my breakup with Scott [Disick], I found that these workouts helped crush my anxiety.”
However, at the end of the day, Kourtney urged her readers to do what’s best for them as individuals. “The most important thing is to listen to your body and to do what you’re doing for you,” she concluded. “Not for society’s standards of getting your body back, because they are unrealistic.”