Strong and confident! Witney Carson opened up about her body image issues, revealing that she’s had a hard time since giving birth to her first child two months ago.
The Dancing With the Stars pro, 27, shared a series of photos of herself via social media on Friday, March 19, revealing that she went back and forth about posting them.
“Progress not perfection. Being a dancer growing up & even throughout adulthood (especially throughout adulthood) I’ve always been self conscious about my weight and how I looked,” she shared. “I’ve struggled with this & that’s why I was hesitant to post these photos — I didn’t feel I looked a certain way, ‘good enough’ & that was a sad thought to me. I’m learning to celebrate my body the way it is now and celebrate the small successes to a HEALTHY body, spirit, and mind.”
Carson has been open with her followers about her motherhood journey and everything that came with it. Last month, she told Instagram followers how her rush to get back into her pre-baby fitness routine to lose her pregnancy weight resulted in an injury.
“Started working out this last week,” she captioned a snap of her standing in front of a mirror wearing workout gear on February 27. “I pushed my body sooooo hard because I wanted to be back to my pre baby body so bad .., I ended up really hurting my back & now it hurts to even pick up Leo.”
Carson added: “Was a huge lesson for me to be patient & to not be so hard on myself. My body has gone through so much & I can’t expect to get where I was overnight. Just a reminder for anyone on this journey too!”
The Utah native received several responses to the post from moms sharing similar experiences.
“I FEEL THIS! I just had a baby via c section 2 months ago. This past week I’ve been pushing myself, but it’s not helping. It’s hard to be patient, but I know I’ll only fully heal if I give myself time and trust that it will all be okay. Just know you’re not alone! Thanks for sharing and reminding moms like me that I’M not alone either. It can be hard seeing people who just ‘bounce’ back. But glad to see how real you’ve been with this whole process. Cause as GREAT and amazing as it is having a baby, it’s so rough on us moms sometimes! Sending love to you and your cute family.”
Carson also spoke candidly about issues like mom guilt, which she said “hit me harder than I thought” it would. The professional dancer told her followers, “If anything goes wrong I tend to blame myself which I know is irrational & not true.. I’m working on it!!”
The DWTS pro and husband Carson McAllister welcomed their little one on January 3. She shared her birth story with Us Weekly last month, calling it “traumatic.”
Carson recalled, “I pushed for two and a half hours. I was fully dilated and the baby just did not want to come out. He just was, like, stuck underneath my pelvis for so long. His heart rate started going really high. So we had to do an emergency C-section and obviously we did whatever was right for the baby.”
