Kayla Itsines Shares a Different Kind of Before-and-After Photo: "My First Birth Recovery Photo!"

By Alessia Santoro

Updated on 5/14/2019 at 11:15 AM

Fitness trainer Kayla Itsines is constantly sharing before-and-after client progress photos on Instagram, but a week after welcoming her first child, a daughter named Arna, the 27-year-old shared a different kind of side by side: a pregnancy photo from right before she gave birth and a postpartum photo taken one week after giving birth. And while Kayla is known for her sleek muscles and agile body thanks to her own fitness programs, the new mom is celebrating what her body looks like right now, as it's given her the incredible gift of a child.

"MY FIRST POST BIRTH RECOVERY PHOTO!!!" she captioned her photo. "If I am honest, it is with great trepidation that I share with you this very personal image. Every woman's journey through life, but especially pregnancy, birth, and healing post-birth, is unique. While each journey has a common thread that connects us as women, our personal experiences, our relationship with ourselves and our bodies, will always be our own."

Although she's a trainer whose job it is to guide people of various levels of physical fitness, she's hoping that her own honest before-and-after photo will help to show that your body, no matter what it looks like, can do incredible things and should be appreciated.

"For me, regardless of how my body healed post-birth, I felt it was really important for me personally to embrace, appreciate, and celebrate my body the same way that I tell all the women in this community to celebrate their body. For me right now, I celebrate my body for all it has been through and the absolute joy it has brought into my life with Arna," she wrote. "As a personal trainer, all I can hope for you ladies is that you feel encouraged to do the same regardless of whether you have just given birth or not, celebrate your body and the gift that it is. No matter what journey you have been on with your body, the ways in which it heals, supports, strengthens, and adapts to take us through life is truly incredible."