Katie Austin on Redefining Strength and Protecting Her Peace

After navigating a brutal first trimester, entrepreneur and fitness and lifestyle influencer Katie Austin is opening up about the raw realities of pregnancy—from dealing with an identity shift to facing bouts of anxiety. Here, she talks to The Bump about how she’s redefining strength, rejecting traditional “bounce-back” culture and embracing intentional productivity ahead of the fourth trimester, all while committing to grace, presence and protecting her peace.

The Bump: You’ve built a career on movement—so how did you physically and mentally navigate those early weeks in the first trimester when your body was like, "Nope, not doing this.”

Katie Austin: It was really, really terrible. It was rough because I’m so used to pushing my body to the limits. I grew up an athlete, I was a college athlete and I feel like my idea of a good workout was my idea of a good workout—it wasn’t really flexible. And so I realized how hard on myself I was being. I’d really just try to tell myself 5 to 10 minutes a day—that’s better than nothing… I was also just trying to move for my mental health and to feel like myself again. And so that was the one thing that kind of brought me back down to earth, even if it was just stretching. Most days it was just walking or stretching. It wasn’t anything too crazy because I couldn’t push myself that far.

And around 10 to 12 weeks, I really started to understand, “Wait, stop being so angry at yourself because you can’t work out. It’s okay!” You have to redefine what a good workout looks like and redefine what strength is. Once I did that I just embraced that I was growing a child.

TB: Do you feel specific pressure to look a certain way while pregnant because of your career and how have you silenced that internal or external noise?

KA: I think I definitely felt a lot of pressure to look a certain way in the first trimester. All that’s kind of gone out the door. But I think the first trimester was mentally really hard for me because no one knew I was pregnant.

I was doing a shoot for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit at 9 weeks pregnant, and I was so sick. I was gaining weight. I didn’t tell anybody. And so I think it was more a pressure that I had to uphold in my head because nobody knew that I was pregnant.

But at the same time, as a fitness trainer, I feel like in a certain way I have this standard to uphold in my brain that I want to make sure that I’m showing the best for my audience and for my business and my brand, and I’m showing up my best self. It’s really not even about looks—it’s really just about being my best self, and I didn’t feel that way in my first trimester.

TB: What about postpartum—how are you planning to face the potential for bounce back culture? It’s prevalent in both fitness and modeling—and you live in both of those worlds.

KA: I don’t know maybe if I’m just on a different algorithm, but I feel like I see a different bounce-back culture these days. Trust me, I do remember in the ’90s and early 2000s, and even now I’m sure there are people trying to look a certain way, four to six weeks after giving birth. My mom actually filmed her TV show with me four weeks after she gave birth with me, which is literally insane.

And so, in the back of my mind, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, am I going to be okay a month-and-a-half postpartum?” But at the end of the day, there are so many authentic people that I follow and that show up in my feed that are seven months postpartum and just getting into their workout routine. And I know that that’s okay because I’m creating a human life. I think I’ve really rewired my brain in the last two months to think, "This is a major thing happening to your body for the first time ever.”

I also think there’s a way that “bounce-back” can be used for good, if that makes sense. But it’s more about becoming and feeling like your best self again. For me, I knew how mental ly and physically unwell I was in the first trimester, and if I could just feel a little bit like myself again, I knew how it would help my mental health more than anything else. And I know my hormones fluctuated like crazy in the first trimester, so I can see them being wild again postpartum. So I definitely think I’ll want to be moving my body and doing things just for the good part of the “bounce back”—just to feel like myself again. I think that’s really important.

TB: On top of the physical symptoms and how it affected your mental health, you’ve also talked about having anxiety during pregnancy. What wellness practices have you adopted now to help you stay grounded on a day-to-day basis?

KA: I think at first you kind of wake up in the middle of the night like, “Oh my gosh, I’m actually having a child.” And so there’s anxiety about not knowing what to do and having so much to do before baby comes. But I think surrounding myself with really good people—a lot of my friends have given birth and they’re also moms—that’s been really important.

Having people that you know you trust and can ask questions to and share with… I’m really lucky that I have a group of friends—four of us are pregnant right now at the same time! We have a group chat, of course, where we’re like, “Is this normal? Is anyone feeling this way too?” We just go back and forth on our experiences and I think that really helps too.

TB: Pivoting a bit, we know you had morning sickness and aversions. Any cravings that surprised you?

KA: It’s not necessarily cravings, but if it enters my mind, I have to have it. I have to have that one thing—and that’s it. I cook everything at home, but it was really hard [in the first trimester] because I didn’t want to smell anything. I didn’t want to cook anything or chop anything because everything would gross me out. I kept joking to my husband how expensive the first trimester is because I’d order out all the time. But now it’s really fun because I can actually cook exactly what I want.

TB: Talk to me about prioritizing girls’ nights once baby arrives. You’ve mentioned this before. Why is it so important to maintain that identity outside of being “Mom,” and how are you planning for that transition?

KA: I’m saying to myself that I’ll have a moms’ night once a month—but I’m a first-time mom, so I don’t really know how it’s going to go… I do know that my mom was very social and had a real big-time career where she had to be very “on” even right after she gave birth to me. And so I feel like it’s possible. Obviously, I’m just going to see how I feel, but my girls’ nights are everything to me and my best friends are everything to me. I feel like something that we don’t talk about enough is how much girls’ nights are great for your mental health. That to me is therapy…

I think community and connection is a huge form of mental health and I don’t want to feel isolated. I feel like a lot of the times when women are struggling postpartum, it’s partially about how isolated and alone they feel…

It’s also an identity thing too for me because, before I got pregnant, I’d have girls’ nights once a week. And when I say girls’ nights, we just love to go out. We love to go out to dinner! I’m a very social being and I feel like it’s a huge part of my identity… And so I had to kind of go through this identity crisis and identity change that was like, "Hey, it’s not going anywhere. You’re just in another phase of your life right now, but you’re going to fill up your cup elsewhere—and you can still fill up that cup every once in a while.”

TB: Speaking of community, you’ve also built an incredible community online. But you’ve also mentioned being cautious about privacy. Have you and Lane set any boundaries for how much of your family life and how much of baby you’ll be sharing on social media? What’s definitely off limits for you?

KA: That’s a really good question. I feel like ever since I started sharing some stuff that felt really private about my pregnancy, there’s always the people that want to come for me. And so I can see it now if I start sharing a little bit too much about how I’m parenting, or even if I say one day “Oh, I’m so, so, so tired,” some people will be like “Just wait until you have three kids and you have no childcare!” And that just makes me feel a little bit guilty…

I feel like protecting my peace is going to be really important to me and my family. It’s going to be something that I’m just going to navigate when it comes. I definitely want to be cautious to make sure we keep a level of privacy. But I also want to make sure I’m sharing my journey, sharing how I feel, sharing the real moments—because when I’m following other moms and I see just the highlights of it, that also isn’t real. I want to make sure I’m sharing those moments because I do think it helps people realize the real authentic side of everything. So a level of privacy for sure, but—at the same time—just staying real.

TB: You talked earlier about how you had to get comfortable with the fact that your body wasn’t working the way you wanted it to in early pregnancy. But as an entrepreneur, your value is often tied to productivity and execution. So how has the physical “bed rot” as you’ve called it from the first trimester forced you to redefine what a successful day as an entrepreneur looks like?

KA: I think for me, I realized a lot about myself. I realized how hard I was on myself and how much I’d work. I go back through my camera roll now, and I’m like, “How did I do all that in a day?!” I’d have a photoshoot, a brand deal, I’d do a workout and I’d film it all for the app—and then I’d do a recipe and go to an influencer event at night and come home and edit my videos. And I’m like, “Was I okay?!” I just ran on this different type of fuel. But now I feel like everything is more intentional.

I’m becoming more intentional about my time and being more productive. A lot of my mom friends say that—it’s the weirdest thing—when you have your baby, you become more productive because you only have a certain amount of hours. So all your productiveness is intentional. It’s not like stupid productivity… Now we’re leaving it at a really high level and we’re doing the things that actually matter.

TB: So let’s pivot to talk about registering for baby. Tell me what are you most excited about on your registry?

KA: I’ll be honest with you—I want to just say, first and foremost, if a registry is overwhelming to you—same! I feel like everyone’s like, “Oh, have you started your registry? What are you doing for your registry?” And, for me, it’s like, “Well, how the heck do you know where to start? What do you mean what do I want for postpartum? We’re not even there yet!” So it’s been this hard thing to navigate because I feel like no one really talks about how you’re “supposed” to know exactly what you want. There are a million stroller options. There are a million crib options. There are a million toy options!

TB: Last but not least, tell me what a successful fourth trimester will look like for you. What’s in your postpartum plan for those early days with baby?

KA: I think just fully being present and unplugging… I want to just be so fully present—not even thinking about the five-week mark, the seven-week marker, a year postpartum… For the first few weeks, I’ll just take every hour by hour and every minute by minute. So that’s really important to me.

I also know when it comes to breastfeeding—a lot of my friends have had really easy breastfeeding journeys, and some of my friends have had really, really tough ones. And so I want to make sure I take everything as it comes and just give myself a lot of grace.

Katie is giving the bump audience a discount code on her app + a free workout

• Membership Cost: $14.99/month or $99.99/year
• Discount: 50% off membership (both monthly and annually) with code BUMP50 at checkout. Valid through June 4, 2026