Ashley says her stretch marks make her feel like a Hero

Ashley Graham Says “When I look at my new stretch marks and the changes that my body went through, it reminds me that, as women, we’re all superheroes,” the 32-year-old supermodel — who in January gave birth to son Isaac, her first child with husband Justin Ervin — told Elle for the magazine’s first-ever digital issue.

“I’m always reminded that our bodies were built to do this. It’s such a beautiful thing to be able to give birth, but I didn’t realize it until afterward. Before I was even pregnant, that was always my hope for women in general, that they could learn to continue to love their bodies through the changes and the ups and downs,” Graham continued.

when I got pregnant, I had to reimagine my relationship with my body with this creature inside me taking over. I was gaining weight so rapidly. Then, to get stretch marks on my stomach, that to me was like, ‘Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this happened.’ At first it felt devastating, and then when I met Isaac, I said, ‘No, this is exactly what every woman has talked about for ages. This is not just a battle wound. This is something that has changed my life forever, and I’m going to celebrate my new body.'”

“All these Zooms can be a lot — it’s overwhelming to have so much screen time,” she told Bell, 40. “So why not break it up by switching your makeup? It’s just fun. I mean, what else am I going to be doing? I’m breastfeeding, I’m changing diapers, and I’m doing a new look for each Zoom.”

“I let the fashion industry take over my body for too many years,” she explained. “The moment I stepped free and said, ‘Enough is enough — I’m going to do what I want,’ is when I started seeing changes, not only in my personal life but in my professional life. But it really takes hard work.”

The Pretty Big Deal podcast host previously told PEOPLE that her first pregnancy taught her that control "just gets thrown out the window" when expecting.

"And I learned that the hard way when I tried to control everything when I was pregnant with Isaac and I told myself that I was going to bounce right back, because I was breastfeeding and everybody told me, 'Oh, if you breastfeed you're going to lose all the weight,' " she said. "And I had a few honest women tell me, 'You will never feel the same.' So they were just blunt with me and sure enough, I haven't felt the same.

"And then boom. I was like, 'Well, I just got pregnant again so maybe I'll never feel the same and I don't even know what I felt like before I was pregnant with Isaac anyways,' " Graham added.

Graham later shared the moment she and Ervin, 32, found out they're expecting twins, posting a video last month from the ultrasound