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KATIE AUSTIN is preparing for a brand-new chapter: motherhood. The fitness personality and KA Daily founder, who is expecting her first child with her husband, Lane Armstrong, says pregnancy has already begun reshaping how she thinks about strength, success, and the body she’s built her career around.
The couple had been thinking about starting a family for a while, though the timing still caught them off guard. “We had just been in Mexico, enjoying some margaritas,” she tells Women's Health. On New Year's Day, Austin woke up and rolled over to her husband and said, "Happy New Year. I'm pregnant." At that point, she hadn't even taken a pregnancy test or missed her period yet. “But I just knew it. My entire body felt different overnight. It was this overwhelming intuition in my body that I knew I was pregnant when I woke up that day.”
When they finally took a pregnancy test together, the confirmation still didn't fully sink in. "It was such an out-of-body experience," she says. “And we didn't tell anyone for two, three weeks,” says Austin, 30. “So it felt like this weird thing that wasn't real.” (Austin and Armstrong already know the baby's sex, but for now they’re keeping that detail private.)
Alex Jay
Planning for Parenthood
Starting a family was never an impulsive decision for the couple, who had talked about it long before they got married. But they intentionally gave themselves time after their wedding. “Lane wanted kids pretty immediately after our wedding and I knew I needed at least a year after we got married to kind of just get my life in order,” Austin says. “We were not in a rush.”
They approached the process thoughtfully, prioritizing both their relationship and their health. “We got fertility and genetic testing. I did all the things to really make sure that we were both healthy,” she says. And while their preparation brought peace of mind, it also made the idea of pregnancy feel bigger. “It was something that I thought about on a daily, even weekly basis, since the day we got married,” she says. “And I felt like it was almost becoming a little bit overwhelming.”
Then, actually getting pregnant brought on a sense of calm for Austin. “There was this weird sense of relief when I did get pregnant because I thought, 'okay, amazing. This is something that we thought about for so long.'”
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The Beauty—and Disorientation—of a Changing BodyAustin has spent her entire career helping people understand and honor their bodies through movement. But pregnancy, she says, has given her a different perspective—one that feels both empowering and unfamiliar at times. “I definitely have more respect for my body because I know what it's capable of and more respect for biologically what it can do,” she says.
Still, she's the first to admit that the experience has been complicated. In the fitness world, bodies, muscle definition and strength, and performance, get scrutinized. Pregnancy, in contrast, asks women to embrace a body that’s changing in ways they can’t control or predict.
In the early weeks, she found herself navigating a flood of opinions from others about what pregnancy would or should look like—"something she wasn't fully prepared for," she says. "People are like, 'Oh, you're not going to start showing until 14 weeks,' or, 'Oh, you're not going to start showing until 17!' Everyone has a different opinion on your body—and everyone has a different opinion on pregnancy,” she says. “And just listening to yourself and your own body awareness is so important because every single person's different.”
Pregnancy changes have also come more quickly and intensely than expected, she admits. “It is a crazy feeling going through something like pregnancy, knowing that your body can change so fast,” Austin says.
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How Katie Austin Is Rewriting The Influencer Playbook Day to day, she accepts that she may oscillate between moments of empowerment—and moments of discomfort. “I think those two things can be true at the exact same time,” Austin says. “I've felt both of them throughout the entire thing.”
The discomfort was also in part due to the challenging first trimester she experienced. “The first trimester knocked me out like I never, ever thought it could,” Austin says. “Oh my gosh, I was so sick for about two months.” The exhaustion and nausea were so intense that they challenged her sense of identity. “Some days I just felt like a different person,” she says. “I still wake up sometimes and I'm like, 'who is this person? Who is this body?'”
But the empowering side takes over when she learns about the baby’s development. “When I look at my app and see what the baby's growing that week—hearing and taste buds and fingers—knowing what is going on inside my body and what I am growing is the most empowering thing I've ever heard,” she says.
Alex Jay
Embracing UncertaintyFor someone who thrives on structure and discipline, pregnancy has also required Austin to loosen her grip.
“I am such a control freak,” she says. “Not only as a fitness professional but also in my everyday life." But one of the biggest, most surprising changes has been how her motivation has lessened: “The things that I cared about, like getting a [social media] post up in time, checking my stats—all that stuff fully went out the window."
That shift has also forced Austin to rethink what strength actually means to her in this season. Until this point, the word meant working harder, or "pushing your body to the limits,” she explains. But pregnancy has forced a gentler definition. “Strength has to take on a softer meaning and also a quieter meaning,” she says. These days, strength sometimes simply means "showing up and just trying my best.”
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The Parenting Playbook She Grew Up WithThrough it all, Austin's biggest source of support has been the people around her—namely her husband. “He has taken care of me like I'm the child for the last three months,” she says with a laugh. “My husband's my saving grace through all this.”
And as Austin prepares to become a parent herself, she frequently thinks about the example set by her own mom and dad—fitness icon Denise Austin and sports agent and former pro tennis player Jeff Austin—who are both successful entrepreneurs that modeled an intense work ethic but never let work eclipse family, she says. “My parents definitely shaped a lot of my work ethic,” she says. “But I'll never forget things like my mom quitting her TV show when my sister entered high school and I entered middle school because she felt like sports were becoming way too important for us," she recalls. Or, how her mom or dad was always home with home-cooked food on the table, regardless of how much work travel their jobs required.
Watching those sacrifices up close has shaped how Austin thinks about the kind of mother she hopes to be. “I'm consciously thinking about things that I'm going to sacrifice and I'm going to be giving up to make sure I'm the best mom that I can be,” she says.
Austin surprised both of her parents with the news weeks after she found out she was pregnant, presenting them with a belated Christmas gift with a tiny "first grandchild" onesie inside. "They freaked out. My dad and my mom didn't think I was planning to get pregnant for another two years,” she says, laughing. “So they were extremely shocked.”
And her mom is already preparing for her newest role. The fam has already picked out the special nickname Denise plans to go by as a grandma: Dede.
Looking AheadNow, as Austin prepares to step into motherhood herself, she imagines meeting her baby for the first time, and what she would say to them, and emotion takes over. “First off, thank you for making me a mom,” she says through tears. “I'm so happy and thankful that you came into my life.”
More than anything, she hopes her child understands and feels just how much love they are surrounded by every day, starting in their home, with their parents. “They have parents that are just so in love,” Austin says. “And I think that's really, really special.”
And when she thinks about the life that brought her here—the career, the relationship, the years of preparation—she feels certain about one thing: “I feel like they're born at the perfect, amazing time in my life,” she says. “And I'm just really excited to be their mom.”
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Jacqueline Andriakos, CPT, is the executive health and fitness director at Women’s Health, where she oversees all health and fitness content across WomensHealthMag.com and the print magazine. She has more than a decade of experience covering the wellness space and has edited ASME-nominated health features, spearheaded brand packages such as Fitness Awards, and represented the brand on the TODAY show, podcasts, and more. Before Women's Health, Jacqueline was the deputy health features editor at Self.com, and previously worked as the senior editor at Health magazine. As a writer-reporter, she has contributed to print and online publications including TIME, Real Simple, and People, among others. A dancer throughout her youth, Jacqueline went on to study journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and stoked her passion for health and fitness during her college years, ultimately inspiring her to make women’s health content the focus of her media career. She is constantly researching the latest health and wellness trends, trying a buzzy new workout class, hiking and snowboarding, or browsing athleisure. Her friends would describe her as the confidant to turn to for fitness and wellness advice, not to mention answers to any weird body questions. Jacqueline is also a former group exercise instructor and is a certified personal trainer via the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM).