Kate Upton started a subscription fitness service with her trainer, Ben Bruno, last December about a month after she had her first baby. It’s called Strong 4 Me and it’s a 12 week diet and exercise program that encourages women to focus on feeling strong and good about themselves instead of getting down to a certain weight or size. As I mentioned when I first covered that, I am a numbers person and see nothing wrong with wanting to be a certain weight. To me it’s a goalpost, but I understand how that can be frustrating and body-shaming and how it’s more important to work on being the best version of you. Kate is covering Health Magazine this month, where she’s promoting her business and talking about how harmful image retouching can be. You can see the photos on their website, she insisted that they weren’t retouched. She looks lovely. So many magazine covers end up making their subjects look like weird CGI versions of themselves.
On her fitness subscription service
It came together when I met Ben Bruno. I was in a great mental place and was ready to just focus on being strong—without caring about the dress size I was “supposed” to fit into. Ben really taught me about strength training. He wrote workouts for me that I could use when I was on the road. They were 30-minute workouts that you can do anywhere. At the same time, I was using Urban Remedy to have premade, healthy meals sent to wherever I was. I wanted to give other women access to these things I had. So Urban Remedy became our nutrition partner for Strong4Me, and Ben helped with the workouts.When I had my daughter, [the workouts] really came in handy. I breastfed, so I couldn’t really go anywhere. It was impossible to get to the gym, but I could do the workouts at home—it was great.
On being made to feel bad for her body shape
I was a really confident kid. I grew up in Florida—we were always in bikinis, and it was nothing weird. So I never realized that I had a different body type, or that people would have an opinion on my body. When I first started modeling, it was a different time. Some people thought I was too curvy. Now people forget that happened, which actually makes me happy because I think it shows how much the industry has changed. In a lot of ways, I think the industry really built me up and tore me down—and then I built myself back up.On retouched photos
When you think about it, we have retouching everywhere now—and we don’t even know it. People are staging Instagram shots and retouching those pictures. That’s the new norm. And then we believe that’s how people actually look, and think we should look that way too. So, for me, doing an unretouched shoot is a step toward embracing real life. The goal should be to be the best you can be—not try to look like someone else.
At least Kate isn’t at Jameela Jamil levels of retouch-shaming, she’s just talking about the effect those images can have on us and I appreciate that. I don’t filter or retouch the images I post of myself but that’s just because I think those look weird. I do try to get the angles and lighting just right. Plus she’s right that people end up looking the same. How many times have we seen celebrity women on magazines looking like another celebrity and not themselves?
As for Kate’s workout program, you’re paying for accountability and a step-by-step program. I used to do Les Mills on demand, which has a wide variety of spin, dance, pilates and kickboxing. There are so many free workouts on YouTube that I couldn’t justify paying for it. Some people like to do something different every time (which is still possible on Youtube), and prefer the convenience of having high quality workouts on demand. Plus you may hold yourself more accountable when you’re paying for it. (For cardio workouts on YouTube I like PopSugar Fitness, JessicaSmithTV, and BeFit. For spinning I do classes from Global Cycling Network and Studio Sweat.) I don’t mind doing the same workout every time and I’ll decide what to do based on how I feel that day. That doesn’t work for everyone though.
I hate the misuse of the word curvy to describe women’s body type / shape.
She is curvy though! I don’t think it is a bad way to describe her
She’s not curvy, she has big boobs. There is a difference. Simply having big boobs does make a woman curvy. Curvy is misused all of the time to describe women who either aren’t super skinny, have big boobs, or aren’t a size 0.
Yep, ITA @Patty. She’s top heavy and that is all. She needs to sit down and look pretty to stop her from idiotic statements
haha easy to say when you look like that!
Came here to say the same thing, I feel accurate in saying that I am totally against retouching. I do try to find good angles, but I hate the idea of blurring/enhancing/using filters to change looks. Because, in my opinion, everyone is a loved child of God and you are beautiful. You don’t need to look like someone else to be worthy.
However, when you’re a legit model, you kind of don’t have a right to say anything about us non-models retouching!
Thought the same thing!
I find this whole story incredibly rich… she got famous from the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue which retouches with such a heavy hand that one woman’s head could easily be on another woman’s body and we’d never know. She is part of an industry that benefits when ‘normal’ people feel bad about themselves and constantly try to reinvent with clothes, cosmetics, plastic surgery, etc to emulate images like hers. Poor thing, I think she’s confused.
Right? I don’t disagree with her sentiment, but it irritates me when a conventionally attractive woman whose fortune was built on being hot tells everyone else how to feel about their looks and bodies. Stay in your lane, Kate.
I like her message of concentrating on building strength as opposed to numbers on the scale. Thats what I did and lost over 40 lbs. i never calorie counted either. I just ate home prepared meals (unless I went out to eat for social reasons) and concentrated on getting stronger as opposed to thinner. But everyone is different so ignoring numbers may not work for everyone. To each her own is what I say:)
Never forget something about Kate Upton…a few years ago she heavily criticized Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who knelt during the national anthem. From her high horse she proclaimed that it was inappropriate to do because it was disrespectful to the military. I don’t believe she ever backtracked on those comments (correct me if I’m wrong). She’s an idiot, and probably a complicit idiot.
I hate retouching. I would like to see it go away.
Ugh she’s not curvy at all! She has giant boobs and a pretty straight body, that’s all.