Over a month since welcoming her first child with fiancé Aljur Abrenica, the new mom is opening up about experiencing being shamed for her postpartum weight gain.
Speaking up through a lengthy instagram post, she wrote: "I recently experienced some body-shaming on my last post at the gym and I didn't really get my feelings hurt but I had this thought, people know I just gave birth, right? Still, comments kept coming in about how fat I was. And guess what yes, I am fat. I am overweight."
Before becoming a mom, she tried to stay slim to the point of feeling depressed
The 24-year-old actress then recalled how, before becoming a mom, she "had a body that was hungry, a body (she) treated so badly." No matter how she tried to stay fit, it didn't feel good enough.
"I got used to being depressed only because I was starving. No matter how thin and tired I was I still was not happy because I let society tell me my body was not perfect," she revealed. "So even after carrying a baby for 9 months and giving birth to a new life I still fall under 'fat' or 'curvy' or whatever label people want to give me then so be it. I'm happy to be there."
Continuing, she wrote: "No label or opinion is going to stop me from being proud of myself that first, I am now a mother and (secondly), that finally I can choose to be happy no matter how imperfect people or culture says I am. Something that I could never do before."
"I feel so womanly."
More than being happy in her own skin, being a mom has shifted her priorities in life. No longer is striving for the perfect body her goal, it's nurturing and caring for her family that matters most.
"First and foremost a baby that needs his constant supply of milk and a body that needs to recover heal and be nourished, with food and exercise. And oh, a man that actually enjoys this curvy body. I seem to like it too, I feel so womanly and cushiony," she wrote with pride. "Kulang pa nga eh feeling ko mas masaya baby ko kung mas malaki pa ako."
In closing, she urged her followers to truly love themselves and to rise above the negativity.
"There is no sin in being confident no matter what size, shape, color even race you are," she wrote. "Don't let people shame you."
READ: Kylie Padilla on ‘new mom’ exhaustion and postpartum forgetfulness
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