Kim Gravel is reveling in her Age of Possibility. As one of QVC’s Q50 Ambassadors, Kim is passionate about inspiring women to pursue their dreams. “I love being a part of it because of the sisterhood. I’m a girl’s girl,” Kim tells FIRST for Women of being a Q50 Ambassador as our cover girl (get your copy here!).
“I’ve got two teenage sons and a husband. I live with three men. I never sit on a clean toilet seat,” Kim laughs. “I’m surrounded by dudes and I love the men. But there’s something about women when they all come together at our age, in our maturity level, it’s not competitive. That spirit of sisterhood is truly sewn throughout this community.”
The former Miss Georgia, 53, has worked hard to build a thriving career as an author, TV personality, public speaker, life coach, podcast host and entrepreneur. In 2016, she partnered with QVC to launch her Belle By Kim Gravel apparel line and the following year launched the Belle Beauty cosmetic line. The former Nashville-based singer/songwriter has parlayed her love of fashion and beauty into a billion-dollar lifestyle brand that includes her Love Who You Are beauty line, which expanded into the home category this year. This month, she launched a new beauty show on QVC that quickly began drawing an enthusiastic audience tuning in to soak up Kim’s signature humor, insightful advance and amazing products.
“You’re stating the obvious when you say over 50 and fabulous,” Kim smiles. “This is the age of possibility. I’ve lived it. I started my business when I was 47. We headed into the stratosphere when I turned 50. My mom used to say this to me when I was young, ‘Girl, when you get in your fifties is when it gets good.’ So I grew up going, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to be 50!’ Mom is 78 and a model for our brands. People love her! The QVC audience loves her and the TikTok social media audience loves my mother. Isn’t that great?”
Kim Gravel words of wisdom: ‘Be your own boss’
When asked what advice she would give her younger self, Kim reflects for a moment, then responds, “Be your own boss. Even when you work for other people, work for yourself. You might be getting your paycheck from somebody else, but still work unto yourself, meaning you do the best job you can. Give it everything like you were working for yourself. So I wish I would’ve started my business at 20. I tell girls, ‘Take risks while you’re young and don’t have all the responsibility.’ That’s what I wish I would’ve done. I wish I would’ve stepped out and been my own boss.”
Kim Gravel’s weight loss secret
These days, the vivacious blonde is boss of every area of her life. Her business is thriving and she’s worked hard to become healthier, shedding 50 pounds after finding out she was pre-diabetic during a doctor’s visit. “My whole family is diabetic,” she shares. “It was a medically induced weight loss. People ask, ‘What did you do?’ I cut out all sugars and sodas. I started food journaling immediately and I was eating over 4,000 calories.”
“It was drinks. It was drive-thrus. It was life,” she continues. “It wasn’t intentional. I wasn’t sitting there going, ‘I’m just going to gorge myself.’ It just happened to be all the hidden calories piling up. Sometimes I was going through drive-thrus two times a day. When you’re doing business and you’re traveling all over the world, and then you’re shuffling kids back and forth to practices, you just drive thru it. We all do it as busy women and that really hasn’t changed for me. I’m still drive-thruing it. It’s just what I get at the drive-thru is very purposeful and different now.”
Kim also keeps her weight in check by hopping on the scales. “People say, ‘Don’t weigh yourself.’ For me, I have to weigh myself. I have to do mental check-ins because if I don’t, I’ll be back up to 4,000 calories a day. It was calories in [that caused weight gain] because I’m busy. I’m not sedentary. I’m go, go, go! And Amy, my best friend, lost 80 pounds—we did it together. So having a buddy helped.”
How portion control changed Kim’s whole outlook
Kim says she still indulges in favorite foods like chocolate but is mindful of portions. “I didn’t deprive myself. I just really was mindful about everything I put in my mouth,” she says. “Being mindful of what I put in my body made me more mindful of everything. It’s the weirdest thing how those two things correlate. When I started being conscious about what I was putting in my mouth, I started being more conscious of things that I said that came out of my mouth.
Kim continues, “It made me more intentional about how I look, how I talk to people, how I encourage people, how I look at myself, how I talk to myself. I carried a little recorder around with me this whole entire journey of weight loss because I wanted to see what I was saying. And it was so negative. I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, is this bad eating feeding the bad habits, feeding the bad self-talk?’ It just all seemed related to me.”
Faith and sisterhood: what drives Kim Gravel to inspire others
In addition to adjusting the way you talk to yourself, Kim encourages women to surround themselves with others who uplift them. “Surround yourself with people that feed your soul,” she says. “I know that God has a plan for me, and I know that He’s got a plan for other people too. you’ve got more power in you and a big call on your life more than you think you do.”
Kim urges women to step forward and pursue their dreams, and there’s no better time than the present. “In every season of life women have to be a part of the conversation in leadership, in business, in community, in our churches, in our families,” she says. “It’s time for us not to take a back seat but say yes! Say yes to the dream! There’s somebody reading this right now and they’ve got a book in them they’ve been wanting to do for 10 or 15 years. The time is now to say yes to that calling that’s in your heart. Say yes to what is inside of you because everybody has something different. Everybody has something special inside. Life is what you make it not how you take it. So if you sit back passively just allowing it to come to you, then it could sink. But if you get out there and co-create with God, it’s limitless.”
