Lori Harvey’s ab-baring black gown look at the 2022 Met Gala sparked discussion about her toned figure, the secret to which received positive and negative reactions after the model shared her weight loss routine.
Harvey, who has been dating actor Michael B. Jordan since late 2020, opened up on Friday about gaining 15 pounds at the beginning of their relationship. She chose to begin a consistent regimen of Pilates and limited her daily calorie intake to counteract her weight gain.
“Everybody’s been asking like what it is I specifically did to get my body to this point. So when Mike and I got together, I gained like 15 pounds of relationship weight and it was horrible, none of my clothes fit, it was just not OK,” Harvey said in a TikTok video filmed on the way home from a Pilates class.
“So I’ve been consistently doing Pilates for like the last year. I’ve done it for a few years, but I’ve been really consistent the last year,” she said. “And when I was trying to drop weight, I was working out like five, six times a week, and I would even do, for the first month and a half, I would even do two-a-days.”
The founder of skin care product line SKN added that she was consuming a “calorie deficit” as part of her routine rather than a strict diet. She ate around “1,200 calories in a day, max,” primarily by eating meats, vegetables and foods with “minimal carbs.”
“I had this sprint interval circuit that I would do, so I would do Pilates in the morning and then I would sometimes directly go to the gym and hop on the treadmill for 30 minutes,” Harvey said, adding: “I also like to do a hike or I would run the stairs, just some type of cardio.”
@loriharvey Here’s the tea! 🍵 #pilates #fitness #workoutroutine #bodygoal #fyp ♬ original sound – loriharvey
“That’s how you drop. Pilates alone is not gonna make you lose weight, it’s just gonna give you long, lean muscles,” she concluded.
Seemingly in anticipation of a mixed response, Harvey commented after posting the video: “Before y’all start your sh** this is what worked for me and MY body..everyone is different so tailor your needs to meet your goals.”
Still, several comments under the TikTok video expressed concern about the 1,200 calorie limit specifically, and the model trended on Twitter after the video went viral. Many commenters critiqued the approach for promoting rigid and fatphobic beauty standards.
“Fun, but important, facts: ‘Relationship weight’ isn’t a real thing — but correlating comfort & love to weight gain as if it’s a problem is fatphobic AF,” wrote author and journalist for theGrio Ernest Owens. “Eating 1200 calories a day after gaining 15 pounds says a lot about Lori Harvey and the society’s fear of fat. All sad.”
“I have a degree in nutrition Sciences. 1200 – 1400 calories is the amount recommended for children aged 2 to 3. you’re starving yourselves,” wrote another Twitter user.
However, many contended that Harvey was simply publicizing the regimen that many fans asked her about and defended her choices about how to organize her own workout and eating routines.
“Lori Harvey has the RIGHT to have a body she feels comfortable in,” a Twitter user wrote. “Y’all be so weird policing celebrities bodies.”
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