HOW WHITNEY PORT CHANGED HER EATING HABITS AFTER WEIGHT CONCERNS
Originally appeared on E! Online
These days, Whitney Port is living her life with arms wide open.
"I've learned as I'm approaching 40, that I have to schedule in the time for myself to take breaks and to do things for myself that I normally wouldn't do," the 39-year-old told E! News in an exclusive interview, explaining her motivation for turning up at the Bustle B. Happy event June 29.
And while work and time with husband Tim Rosenman and 6-year-old Sonny certainly take precedent, "I do structure my week with time for myself," The Hills alum noted of penciling gym sessions and fun activities like tennis lessons onto her calendar.
Because she knows no one else can feel life's joy for her.
Last year, wrapped up in the stress of work and a fertility journey that saw her and Rosenman endure disappointment after disappointment as they attempted to expand their family, Port stopped taking care of herself.
"I was just going through a lot of infertility stuff," she explained at Bustle's event, that saw the site partner with the All-New 2025 Toyota Camry to host a day centered around creating happiness. "I think I was so focused on the future and just stressed about what was happening within my body and what would happen, and so I just wasn't focusing on feeding myself appropriately and getting the rest that my body needed."
For awhile, it was easy to ignore the concerned comments from fans until "it just hit me one day, honestly," Port continued. "My husband said something to me about my weight and just being tired all the time. And then my Instagram followers were starting this whole conversation about how I looked at the same time. And I was like, 'Whoa, I guess this is really something that's real that I like need to look at.'"
Stepping on a scale and seeing that all-too-low number, "I think sometimes you don't really realize when you're starting to spin a little bit," Port explained. "And it takes the people around you that love you and support you to help bring light to that."
And so the Love, Whit designer realized it was time to write a new story.
"I made some real actionable steps," she revealed to E!, noting that the first was to take "a little breather" from her fertility journey. "I also started working with a nutritionist who wrote a book all about intuitive eating. And that has been so helpful to me, just eating what makes me feel good, or what I'm craving."
Before, the busy mom shared, she was so overwhelmed with the "decision fatigue" that comes from the seemingly endless series of choices both at work and home, that she just wouldn't eat.
"So many moms are making so many decisions on a daily basis when it comes to feeding themselves, I don't want to make a decision, or I don't know what I feel like or I'll just eat later at dinner with everybody," Port explained. "And we just push it aside. And that decision fatigue and the stress that comes with that, what I've learned is that it's worse for you than the thing that you're actually craving is."
For example, said the Los Angeles native, sometimes she just wants a hot dog real bad.
She shared the hankering at a recent nutritionist appointment, "But I'm like, 'Hot dogs are filled with who knows what,'" Port detailed. "And she's like, 'Eat a hot dog for breakfast, lunch and dinner if that's what you feel like. The feeling of filling yourself up and putting something in your body is so much better for you than thinking, 'Is this good? Is this bad?'"
Plus, noted Port, "She's like, 'More often than not, if you eat three hotdogs today, you're probably going to wake up tomorrow and not want hot dogs. You'll probably want avocado toast or something. So it's all about really leaning into that and taking the pressure off of those decisions and not looking at food as good and bad."
It's a practice she's passing onto her recent kindergarten grad as well.
"That's really been helpful with Sonny, too, giving him what he wants when he wants it," said Port. "And then he's very in tune with how certain things make him feel. So last night, I was like, 'What do you want for dinner? And he's like, 'A salad with chicken.'"
The whole process has been "simpler than I thought it was going to be," admitted the With Whit podcast host. "I thought it was going to be this intense diet of counting calories and am I getting enough protein. And it wasn't like that. And that has been so, so helpful for me."
Also key has been reminding herself to fuel up every few hours.
"I'm not a foodie," explained Port. "Like, I eat to live I don't live to eat. So I have to do a little bit more work in order to nourish myself."
And that generally translates to indulging in snacks every few hours. "I know that I'm not a huge meal type of person and that's okay. How I eat doesn't have to look like how everybody else eats. If I want to snack on things every hour or every two hours, that can be fine too."
Mostly, she said, she's been focused on "really tuning into when I'm feeling tired or depleted—that it may not just be because I'm tired, it may be because I haven't gotten enough nutrients or I haven't drank enough water. So really just training myself to be thinking about how my body's feeling."
And Port is far from the only star to get candid about her health. Plenty of other celebrities have released their inhibitions and opened up about their body journeys. Let the sun illuminate the words that they could find.
—Reporting by Amanda Champagne-Meadows.