Zoë Saldana: ‘It Hurts to Be In Heels’ Post-Baby – But I’m Giving Myself a Break

Zoë Saldana has been incredibly open about her journey to get fit after having her twins, posting gym selfies and encouraging other moms via her social media feeds. And now she’s getting even more real about the changes your body experiences post-baby — one of which is particularly horrifying to an actress who spends a significant chunk of time walking the red carpet.

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“It hurts to be in heels still!” she said at the launch of Go90 in Beverly Hills. “I thought, ‘I’m going to live forever, wear heels every day, Louboutins! Here we go!’ But it’s not just the weight you acquire — it’s also your nerves, your muscles. Everything hurts and feels uncomfortable. You have to give yourself time.” (She said all this while perching in 4-in. Jimmy Choos at the event — and that was a few hours after wearing Altuzarra pumps to a Barneys New York event for the designer’s handbag launch, above. So she might be superhuman.)

It’s not just the rush to get back in heels that actresses face, however: She also knows there’s a ton of pressure for her peers to immediately snap back into postbaby shape. “Throughout the years that I’ve been in this business, women that hide in a cave and they don’t come out until they’re a size zero,” she says. “And that is a very misleading message to send out to women, especially when women here in L.A. are the skinniest women out there. And that should concern us. We’re too busy thinking about our appearances and not really thinking about our mental health first as well.”

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She admits she’s not immune to it all (“I’ve got a booty! I’ve got some thighs I got to burn off all the time!”), but took a cue from her supportive family, husband and social media network. “I feel bad for those women that get super desperate and want to bounce back three months after having a baby,” she says, saying her routine was more relaxed. “Breastfeed. Stay home. Sleep. Your kid is only three months old! Like what are you going to the gym for? Catch up on f—ing reruns of some sort!’”

“I definitely took a break,” she adds. “And I trusted that my body was going to bounce back when it was ready. I never wanted to push myself. I’m the most beautiful woman to my husband, so he tells me (or I will kill him), so I didn’t really have this anxiety to bounce back.”

Ultimately, she hopes that sharing her journey will help other women the same way she was helped. “All these women were just reaching out, and I was accepting their support, and I wanted to share that,” she explains. “Especially now with the web, there’s so many beautiful things that we can say. I always find myself asking, like, ‘What is it that I do want to say? Now that I have the microphone … what do I want to say? Do I just want to like [fakes a selfie]?’ There has to be a little more depth, and people really responded to that.”

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Is her approach to post-baby weight loss refreshing to you?

— Alex Apatoff, reporting by Reagan Alexander
Follow @nicefunalex