Simple solutions Mindy Kaling opened up about her weight loss journey — and revealed that dieting had little to do with her success.
“I had my son in the first year of the pandemic in September 2020. … It was this almost extended maternity leave. I wasn’t going to be on camera, the studios were shut down,” the OfficeAlum, 42, just told Entertainment Tonight, explaining her various postpartum approaches after welcoming Spencer, 18 months, and Katherine, 4, respectively.
Kaling continued: “After I had my daughter I had to shoot a movie, like, two months later, so I was very much like, ‘Just give me grilled salmon and sautéed spinach. I’m going to eat that for three months.’”
Mindy Kaling, (L-R), at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2019 & 2022. Shutterstock (2)
Because she “didn’t have those pressures” to slim down amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Never Have I Ever creator didn’t feel rushed to trim her baby weight right away when she had her son. “When the world started coming back a little bit I thought, ‘This kind of eating … is probably not the way to go,’” she recalled, noting that she wasn’t in the habit of giving “any consideration” to what she was eating during the lockdowns.
The Massachusetts native saw results after making small adjustments. “Honestly, I didn’t really do anything differently,” she confessed. “I eat what I like to eat. I have never found a restrictive diet to be effective for me. I just eat less of it. … I wish there was something more juicy or dynamic about the way that I’ve lost a little bit of weight, but that’s the way I’ve done it.”
The Mindy ProjectSince her stardom, the alum has been honest about her body. She reflected on her pregnancy and shared her thoughts in May 2021. Shape, “I feel like in conversations about fitness and exercise, if you’re going to be talking about someone who’s healthy and fit, you have to be a hard body with, like, a six-pack.”
Kaling added at the time, “But that’s not really how it works, and I have learned to embrace [my body]The past six months [since having a baby].”
The College Girls’ Sexual Lives producer raises her children as a single mom, which she noted during a May 2021 event “is not for everyone.” Kaling explained at the time that she was “only able to do it” with the help of a full-time nanny and other family members, including her father. She previously revealed that she “definitely” always saw motherhood as part of her journey, even without a partner.
“The best relationship I had in my life was the one with my mom,” she told Vogue IndiaDecember 2020. “It was so pure and so fun and uncomplicated, and I hope that I can have that with my son or daughter — if I’m lucky, with at least one of my kids — when they get older.”
