“Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby,” one lawmaker told Gillibrand. Gillibrand: Peers called me 'porky'

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand reveals in her new book that a number of her male colleagues on Capitol Hill made remarks about her weight, the New York Post and People magazine reported Wednesday.

“Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky!” Gillibrand writes in her new book, “Off the Sidelines,” the paper reported, citing an interview published with the senator in People magazine, which also had excerpts of her book.


“You know, Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you’re fat,” said another congressman, according to the Post.

Of that interaction, the paper reports Gillibrand wrote, “His intentions were sweet, even if he was being an idiot.”

( QUIZ: Do you know Kirsten Gillibrand?)

The New York Democrat, who was featured in Vogue in 2010 and spoke about losing baby weight after the birth of her second child in 2008, said, according to the Post, a labor leader told her, “You need to be beautiful again” to win her special election in 2010.

However, the remarks continued after Gillibrand lost weight, the paper said.

“Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby,” one lawmaker told Gillibrand, squeezing her waist.

Talking to People, however, Gillibrand said the men didn’t know better.

“It was all statements that were being made by men who were well into their 60s, 70s or 80s,” she said, in an excerpt published Wednesday of her People interview. “They had no clue that those are inappropriate things to say to a pregnant woman or a woman who just had a baby or to women in general.”

Back in 2010, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised some eyebrows during a fundraiser in New York when he said Gillibrand has been referred to by some in the Senate as “the hottest member.”

Gillibrand told POLITICO at a Women Rule event in March that the electorate has not moved beyond gender and addressed the lack of women in elected office.

“It is an old boys’ club without a doubt, we only have 20 women,” Gillibrand said. “But it is what it is, I wouldn’t say it’s sexist, I would say it is reality. It is a very male-dominated industry.”

The issue of People with Gillibrand’s interview and an excerpt of her book will be available on newsstands Friday.