Peloton instructor Selena Samuela, who is seven months postpartum, has an important message about bounce-back culture.
“So people DM me all the time and they ask me how I got rid of the mom pouch, and it kind of of makes me sad,” Samuela began an Instagram post on Aug. 3.
With the waistband on her workout pants rolled down, the strength and running coach turns to the side.
“The pouch is still there,” Samuela said in the video, squeezing her belly. “This is the area that held my baby in, and it might be there forever. I don’t know. I also don’t really care because my goal is to feel … super strong in my running efforts. It’s to feel super strong in my lifts.”
In her caption, Samuela reminded her followers that every person's postpartum journey looks different. She also urged other women to not compare themselves to her.
“We are not clones of each other, we are not all built the same way, not any of us will have the same experience while pregnant or postpartum, there are infinite variables that will assure that,” she wrote. “I for instance, workout for a living AND I exercise outside of work.
“The amount of hours I spend exercising are unsustainable for anyone who is working, or dealing with injury or maybe someone who just flat out doesn’t froth over hard core exercise,” she continued.
Samuela noted that she feels a responsibility to her "fellow mamas to be transparent."
“I know I don’t have to do it, but I want to,” she concluded. “Because I want you to know that I see you.”
Samuela and her husband, Matt Virtue, welcomed their first child, a son named named Torin, in Dec. 2022. The following month, she opened up on Instagram about body image.
“I went into this pregnancy with some expectations that were unrealistic, and what was being showcased to me through different media was often not very helpful,” Samuela revealed, at the time.
“I went into this pregnancy with some expectations that were unrealistic..."
Selena Samuela Said
Now Samuela is committed to keeping it real with her fans, as she did in her Aug. 3 post.
"I think we have held ourselves to impossible standards for too long without viewing reality in (social) media. I woke up today hating my body and the way my clothes fit … but I grew 2 humans, and I needed to hear this," one person wrote.
Added another, "Thank you for showing up so authentically. This mom bod was built (9 months x 2 kiddos) No more shame."