Porchia Torres, a product manager, gets real about her body…
“Turning 40 was the first time I’ve ever felt sexy. I am a mother of two boys and, by the time the first was seven months old, I was already pregnant with my second. So I didn’t get a chance to lose the whopping 30kg I’d gained. Food became my comfort before, between and after my pregnancies.
“Still, my husband has never had a problem with my weight. Even at my heaviest, he found me attractive, but I would make up all sorts of excuses to avoid sex, anything from feigning fatigue to putting on my passion-killer pyjamas. When you’re a busy mother of two young children, you focus on nurturing and caring and use your body to feed. I saw myself more as a mother than a lover.
“Before we had kids, we regularly booked romantic weekends away and often spent lazy mornings in bed enjoying each other. Sex was something we both looked forward to, and even though I still had issues with my body, back then I felt confident when having sex.
READ MORE: “The Lingerie Shoot Was A Turning Point – I Saw This Voluptuous, Sexy Woman”
“While pregnant, unlike a lot of women, I didn’t go off sex. I loved my growing belly and the way my body felt against my husband, but as the trimesters added up, so did the kilos. Then things changed during the baby years, and I admit sex became a chore. Even when I was in the mood, I felt uncomfortable about my body and struggled to be in the moment.
“My New Year’s resolution was to ‘get back to me’ by the time I turned 40. The first thing I did was ban the scale because it just distorted the way I saw my body. I signed on with a personal trainer to help me shake off the unsexy rolls that had accumulated over the past nine years and my husband bought me salsa classes. Salsa is not only about feeling sexy and confident, it’s also about controlling your body movements and expressing yourself as a woman.
READ MORE: 4 Women Share The Moment That Became Their Weight-Loss Wake-Up Call
“The difference has been remarkable and I love the way I look and feel again. I enjoy sex a lot more and, of course, have it more often. And because I feel more confident with my body since I’ve lost weight, I want to show it off. I also feel the psychological benefits of having a healthy body – it goes far beyond the immediate and the obvious. It has raised my game in everything I do. I have more energy, even after a long working day, and look forward to being intimate with my husband. I realise I’d missed desiring and being close to him.”
