Kristina: “My body will never be the same, but it was worth it for my baby”
Strictly’s Kristina Rihanoff on motherhood and her post-baby figure
As she poses in a high-cut fitted A swimsuit for our exclusive photo shoot, Kristina Rihanoff looks incredible considering she gave birth to her daughter just 10 months ago.
But the former Strictly dancer is keen to express that despite being super fit before falling pregnant, getting back into shape afterwards was still hard for her.
“I’m always so confused when people say: ‘I’ve lost my baby weight in two weeks.’ It wasn’t like that for me. You see people with flat stomachs so soon afterwards and wonder how they did it,” she says. “I don’t want other mums to look at me and think, ‘Wow, it must be so easy for her’ because it isn’t easy. It’s a big change in your body.”
Kristina – who’s in a relationship with former rugby player Ben Cohen, 38 – admits that her body has changed since she became a mum. She says: “My hips have got bigger and I don’t think they’re ever going back to how they were! I’ve permanently gained a dress size and I think I’ll always have a pouch on my tummy. But for 39 and someone who had a baby less than a year ago, I don’t think I look too bad!”
Kristina – now a size 10 – admits that she gained weight during her pregnancy after giving in to her cravings for ice cream.
She says: “As a dancer, you watch what you eat, but when I got pregnant I didn’t hold back! I’ve never been into ice cream, but I ate it pretty much every day. And I stopped exercising too, apart from doing my dance teaching. I just thought, ‘I’ve exercised and watched my diet all my life and this is my time to do whatever I want.’ I’m quite little though, so when I was pregnant I felt enormous.”
LITTLE EXERCISES
Once baby Mila was born, Kristina – who retired from Strictly in 2015 – admits she was shocked at the changes in her body.
She reveals: “I had lots of mushy skin around my tummy and thought, ‘Is it going to always look like this?!’ But it does slowly go down. I remember wearing high-waisted knickers so I could tuck it all in! I don’t think it ever disappears completely, you’re always going to have a little belly, but that’s just natural. I was lucky I didn’t get stretch marks, but I used a lot of Bio-oil!”
After giving birth, the dancer admits she struggled with losing her fitness, but eased back into it slowly.
She says: “From dancing all my life and being fit, it was hard to suddenly feel tired all the time. I used to do 20 squats without breaking a sweat, then suddenly I’d get out of breath doing three sit-ups! I eased back
in slowly, though. About six weeks after having Mila, I put on some dance music and did a little bit of salsa in my kitchen to see if I could still do it. And I’d take her out for walks when she was napping. I’d use the pram like a ballet bar and do squats, lunges and crunches in the park. Passers-by would stare but I’d think, ‘My baby is asleep, this is my only time to do it!’”
These days Kristina works out three to four times a week doing a combination of hot yoga classes and HIIT training (which involves intense bursts of exercise followed by short recovery periods).
And she reveals it helps having Ben – who has twin daughters Isabelle and Harriette, eight, from his previous marriage – as a partner, because he enjoys working out regularly. The couple met when Ben appeared as a contestant on Strictly in 2013, and got together six months later.
She admits: “We enjoy exercising together, but these days it tends to happen at different times because one of us needs to look after the baby. It’s great he’s into fitness, though –it’s so helpful for motivation!”
positive attitude
These days Kristina will have either fruit with yoghurt for breakfast or wholemeal toast with avocado and smoked salmon, lunch is usually a chicken or prawn salad with quinoa and seeds, then dinner is typically chicken or fish with oven-roasted vegetables. She says: “I grew up in the Russian seaport Vladivostok, so I lived on a diet of seafood. In general I like a lot of healthy food, but I also have a terrible sweet tooth! You have to enjoy life and treat yourself to the odd glass of wine or slice of cake. Since I’ve had a baby, wine goes down very well in the evening!” And while her body isn’t the same as before she started her family, Kristina says that being a mother has changed her attitude to everything in life. She says: “Having a baby really puts things into perspective because you question what is important. You just think, ‘So what if I have a little belly,’ it was so worth it to become a mum. I want to show my daughter that we shouldn’t scrutinise our bodies. We have to be kinder to ourselves and we have to be real – it’s OK to not snap back into shape. Mila is just amazing and motherhood makes you feel totally different in life and yourself.”
‘Ben is into fitness and motivates me!’