This Mom Went Viral for Her “Is That Real?” Butt

From Cosmopolitan

“If I was going to have a fake ass, it would be much bigger.”

That’s how Lauren Regno, a 26-year-old fitness influencer with 111,000 Instagram followers, responds when strangers-including a woman who recently approached her at Target-question her butt’s authenticity.

Regno first went viral in March 2018, when former Vine star and Instagram influencer Ross Smith featured her butt in a video that raked in 11 million views. In it, a grandmother visiting a fitness expo asks the question that’s probably on a lot of people’s minds after they see Regno for the first time: “Where can I get a butt like that?”

Regno’s butt-building philosophy is simple: If you’re not lifting heavy, you’re not going to grow. “You have to get into the mindset that you can lift more weight than you think you can,” she says.

It took years for the Modesto, California, resident to realize that, though. In high school, she basically stuck to walking on the treadmill, and it wasn’t until after she gave birth to her daughter in 2013 that she thought about lifting.

“I’d wake up at 5 a.m. with the baby and be so busy that I’d forget to eat,” she says. “I got so tiny that my butt completely went away.”

So Regno gravitated toward the weight room, where her first attempts produced a little definition: For a year, she’d go to the gym three days a week and do three to four sets of up to 15 reps on the leg press, hamstring curl, and leg-extension machines. “I thought my butt was huge, but it was five times smaller than it is now,” she says, attributing this to the fact that back then, she just went through the motions without increasing her weights.

Then, two years ago, a coach offered to train her for a bikini competition and Regno learned about progressive overload, a method of weight lifting that calls for constantly increasing the number of pounds you use. “Getting stronger shows me my glute muscles are growing,” she says of how the method affects aesthetics.

Now, Regno works her lower body only twice a week. “My workouts-they’re hard!” she says. “If I’m able to do three days a week, I’m not training hard enough.”

She adds that it’s her effort-not unconventional exercises-that delivers results. “People want to do crazy new moves, but you don’t need them,” she says. “I stick to the basics.”

The lower-body routine takes about an hour and fifteen minutes-half as long as her former gym sessions. “You don’t necessarily see more gains from more time,” she says. “I lift, get it done, and leave to recover and rest.”

It helps that she dedicates less time to the treadmill: “I lift heavy enough to get out of breath, so lifting is my main cardio,” Regno says, although she still tacks on about three 20-minute uphill-walking treadmill sessions a week for health purposes. All in all, she’s in the gym five days a week, dedicating one session to her shoulders and chest, one to arms, and one to her back in addition to her two leg days.

Training for the bikini competition called for a super restrictive, low-sugar food plan, but now, Regno’s done with that ish. “When you step onstage, you have to have like, no body fat on you,” she says. “Now my approach is about balance.”

On a typical leg workout day, Regno eats two eggs and two egg whites with avocado for breakfast, and then, on her way to the gym, she’ll pack a PopTart or a bag of dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Kix, or Captain Crunch. After her workout, she’ll make protein pancakes from Kodiak Cakes mix, water, and protein powder, which she microwaves and tops with berries and sugar-free syrup.

Lunch is lean ground beef with green beans, broccoli, or a frozen veggie medley served with white rice, and later in the day, she’ll snack on an apple with peanut butter. Dinner tends to be similar to lunch, but sometimes Regno will eat some low-fat Greek yogurt and lean ground beef or make another batch of protein pancakes if she’s feeling something sweet-“I have a sweet tooth,” she says. She doesn’t drink alcohol, but only as a matter of personal preference.

“I didn’t realize how much people could make off Instagram,” says Regno, who once studied nursing. Now she makes up to $1,000 per sponsored post from various supplement companies and fitness apparel brands.

“I’m the biggest I’ve ever been,” she says, referring to her butt, body weight, and perhaps, her personal brand. “I feel like I’ve never looked better.”

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